I was in love
with Denise,
(She sat behind me in the third grade and
moved away in the first few weeks of the fourth),
but it was Tasha,
(who sat next to me and was the
best friend of Denise),
that I would fantasize about.
I would wait in some bush
for her to pass by and then
leap out
wearing a black ski mask and
armed with a rag drenched in chloroform.
The part of the fantasy that would
constantly change was
the way I would drag her back to my trailer.
Sometimes
I would have a Tasha-size duffle bag and
other times
I just dragged her by her feet
or grabbed her by her arm pits.
I often thought it would be smart
to bring my little red wagon.
except that I didn’t have one
In my fantasy it was always late morning
because that’s when my mom wasn’t home.
Once I had Tasha naked in my room
I would tie her hands with a rope secured
to the ceiling after
stripping all her clothes off
I would pinch and poke and rub Tasha’s body
everywhere.
She would be blindfolded but
I would leave my ski-mask on
just to be safe,
in case Tasha’s blindfold fell off,
you know?
it’s hard to find chloroform when you’re
only eight.
Anyway,
she would squirm and writhe and
wiggle
but soon she would change a little
and she would start to moan
she would gasp
and eventually
she would beg for more.
And then more Chloroform
and I would drag her back
so that when she woke up
she would maybe think it was
just some dream SHE had.
When I dreamed of Denise,
We just rode bikes and stuff.
I was in love with her.
What if
Your life is just a work of art
A masterpiece painted
By some big brain
With double-folding sentience?
Do you ever consider
The beauty of the detail(s)?
What if that weird coincidence
That happened today
Really wasn't a coincidence at all?
What if there are no coincidences?
What if when we go to sleep
Our brainwaves change
Because our minds go elsewhere
And it's best we just forget
When we wake?
What if reincarnation is real
And just at a universal scale?
What if life didn't originate on Earth?
What if there's something huge about
Deoxyribonucleic Acid
That we don't yet understand?
What if everything is a computer simulation
And everything above the first dimension
Is just a folded-up illusion?
What if we're not the only ones out there?
What if one time
At some random point
Along your vision's axis
You stared right at a planet
That harbored life?
Or even a star system?
What if religion and science collapsed in
On each other?
And what does this whole Eye business
Really mean?
What if the multiverse
Is more connected
Than we ever imagined?
What if God is a number? (a chuckle)
What if God is all the numbers
And combinations of them
And transmutations
And possible functions
And every algorithm
Every discordance and solution?
What if fate and free will
Don't really hate each other,
And it's just a game they play?
What if, just as we imagine characters,
Scenes and fiction
And paint them with words, sounds, and pigments
Our lives and interactions
Are painted by some society of higher beings,
In some fractalesque twist?
What if perception and emotional value
Are just the icing on the cake
And they are what makes life more
Than numbers and figures?
What if art
Is more than human?
What if the magical spells we once dreamed of
Have become our reality-
Songs, pictures, symbols flashed on the TV...
What if it really is like good guys vs. bad guys
And it's all just whispered above your head
Just within earshot?
What if it's not so black and white
And our only true villain
Is the stupidity of the mob?
What if it's somewhere between
Like it usually is?
What if we were always happy
Or always sad?
Would there really be a difference?
What if you could escape the circular nature
Of everything?
What would you see, looking down?
What if every system is circular
Because they're all gears
In some big surreal machine?
What if you're dreaming?
Wake up!
Nope, still here.
What if you're not dreaming at all
And it's really just that strange?
What if everything that could happen
Did happen,
And you are only allowed to see one of each?
What if the laws of physics
Are only so set in stone
In this universe
But there are others that vary?
What if the speed of light
Is the universal speed of time?
What if I'm actually dead
And this is just a virtual world
And I'm living through a computer?
What if reality is a very complicated computation?
What if I woke up as someone else tomorrow morning?
Would I even realize it?
What if one of my poems caused two people to meet
and fall in love? that'd be cool
What if one of my poems accidentally somehow set off
A chain of events that killed someone? that's weird and sad
What if gravity were as strong as magnetism
Or the other forces?
We'd surely have no planes
And getting up in the morning would suck even more
What if for once you were grateful and happy to wake up in the morning?
Ooh, got you with a tinge of guilt din't I?
What if the whole thing was a joke and no one likes getting up after a nice rest?
What if looks didn't affect judgment so much?
What if this is your very last breath?
If so, look out-
What if my imagination didn't have a bottom?
What if the act of believing in something
Made it true?
What if my red was your blue?
What if you could see tenfold more colors then most humans
Because you had an extra type of cone in your gene code?
What if the very fundamentals of science you were taught in school
Were mass-spread so no one could know how strange the universe really is?
What if the moon landing was fake?
What if conspiracies don't really affect you that much in the end?
What if there was an underlying pattern of questions and statements
Following a free-flowing logical train here?
What if it just crashed?
What if when the light went off on your webcam
That didn't mean it was inactive?
What if you had something to hide?
What if they're out to get you?
What if they're everywhere?
What if it's way over your head
And it's time to get out of the house?
What if Uncle Ben never got shot?
What if Tony Stark is just a friggen' badass genius dude wonder?
What if some levity never hurt anyone, but what if it did?
What if some guy was telling a joke, not paying attention
And he fell and broke his left arm?
I bet it's happened on numerous occasions.
And statistically, probably more if you change it to 'right'!
What if you didn't help that old lady cross the street?
What if the old lady never crossed the street
And she just sat there forever like a lost puppy
Doesn't it just make you want to cry?
What if you were sitting on that thing you're looking for the whole time?
What if your life is a TV show
It's all staged, Truman!
What if I'm not real
And a secret artificial intelligence project
Wrote this to test how convincing it is?
I promise I'm not but you have no way of knowing!
What if some of you start to suspect me of being a robot?
What if in some ironic twist of fate that made someone crazy obsessive about it
And writing it led to my very death?
What if I'm just here for the ride
And I don't have time to worry about things like that?
My eyes are getting heavy...
As much as they tell me
I need to focus.
I need to concentrate...
And leave the la-la-land dreamscape
Of my head,
I'm proud to even
I m a g i n e.
Before I sat in the dark,
Swaying sleepily on my own,
I became rooted in the madness,
Day dreamed into stone,
He wrote it in the holes
Perforated through my heart
And that was just the beginning,
I knew we couldn't part.
We always were together,
I never strayed too far,
And it wasn't long before my dear love,
He grasped for the stars,
As the galaxies fell
Before his eyes, I begged.
My world please stay with me,
"We'll flow like water instead."
It all went up in smoke,
On the blessed first of May,
He left me then, my security
He simply could not stay.
In truth,
I guess I always knew,
The words just weren't right,
You can’t contain a star.
You can’t hold onto sunlight.
I live inside a little boy's head
My birth day was the day he figured out he had an imagination
Last night he had a nightmare
His dream only lasted a few minutes
But I lived inside that course of time for 10 months.
He dreamed of suicide and manic depression.
Upon awakening doused in sweat and tears
His mother told him it was only a dream.
He thought up the shape of my arms
Because he loved how his daddy's looked.
He curled my hair like the girl down the street.
At age 3 he learned his ABC's and
He dreamt me to be a writer
And he couldn't spell any of the words
That he pretended me to write.
I sleep more often now
Because he forgets to remember his dreams.
The little boy is getting older
And so am I.
My life unfolds in his dreams
And my entire reality was built inside this little boy's head...
I hope he sleeps well tonight
Because it's been raining a lot
And the weatherman said that it would be sunny.
Someday when we're older
I will meet the little boy who invented me
But for now I only live inside a little boy's head
Being forgotten as he falls in love.
Hand in hand we walk the beach,
as the sun sets on the sea.
Who would have dreamed,
those years ago that this is where we'd be.
I knew your face and knew you smile,
'fore I ever heard your voice.
But once we knew without a doubt,
then you could make your choice.
From passing friends we quickly grew,
to become each others air.
Without whom we would suffocate,
without which we would despair.
And then one day I heard your voice,
calling down the phone.
Telling me you'd made your choice,
that we were free to be alone.
My heart leapt and inside I wept,
not from sadness but from joy.
For now we could at last be one,
The girl could meet the boy.
Everything we talked about,
finally came true.
Its like we'd been this way before,
like we already knew.
Now hand in hand we walk the beach,
as the sun sets on the sea.
In all my years there's never been,
a place I'd rather be.
http://twitter.com/athomashawkins
I have wearied of grand romances
Of deep sighs and swooning trances
Of doting gentlemen’s advances
And all manner of courtship play
I am tired of love confessions
And of dizzied, dazed professions
And of unrestrained obsessions
I grow sicker day by day
I once dreamed of adoration
Went quite mad for veneration
Laughing, flirting with temptation
The queen in Camelot
The lonely, lovely Guinevere
Ever shedding bitter tears
But when King Arthur wasn’t near
Dreaming of Sir Lancelot
These days I want no noble knight
Despite my seeming helpless plight
I wish to set myself aright
And tread upon the ground
Yet here I am, placed on high
Too close to the dazzling sky
As the earth keeps passing by
As all keeps spinning round
I’ve let myself grow much too proud
Drew up arrogance from the crowd
Heard the cheering, bright and loud
The queen in Camelot
And though I had my faithful Sir
Still my heart was all astir
With flying fancies, all a blur
For Guinevere and Lancelot
These fantasies have grown too old
I’d rather let my bed grow cold
For I have wearied of being told
“You are mine to keep”
Men have tired me to the core
Left me sad and sick and sore
And have turned into such a chore
And I’d much rather sleep
What blasphemy for a maiden fair
To toss such doting to the air
To turn away without much care
Though queen in Camelot
But I have withered, I have tired
Felt as if my brain’s been mired
And find not Arthur much desired
Nor dashing Lancelot
Is it so bad to want respite
From endless longing, day and night?
This constant charm becomes too trite
With ever staler tone
I only wish to rest a while
Recover from incessant guile
Forget the weight of lovers’ trial
And simply be alone
Inspired partly by The Mists of Avalon, The Garden of Proserpine, and The Lady of Shalott.
.
slumbered in cold shadows by the lake
murders the darker side of pain
Is truth of center gained in aging years
My blood, food for my gun's allegiance
Earth becomes immersed in dance
She dances 'round the scholars like bees to flowers
pleading her case as bare ardor dons the bawler
My body be a temple seized
her eyes massage the scene with such finesse
Earth's veil opens to a heart attacked
in the last dissolving reflection of the moon
it's as if her soul had a dress to dance in
skinned faceless with a name of no mention
under the caress of the silken swell
Mary ambled to a moonlit pane
where their bloodied foreheads thrilled a bell
my hallowed atonement in small galleries of blood
My friend with moods of thunder burns a rose
plastered on swords with aggression
whilst inside the bosom of the angels
through the climax of murder's foreplay
bedight in lace and leather dress
Am I the one who seeds her dreams
Loaning warmth and passage through your doors
This mind will shelf its angst and start a bleed
How certain could I be in moods so dark
Dying in a bucket of tears and unlicked sores
like the silken blouse that clings to your wet body in the rain
amongst the shaded shroud of the evergreen
Reluctantly, my face performs a smile
In the days of kings and tyrannicide
propped upon tips of brittle grass
Our cling to peace breaks hearts in height of war
I have dreamed the death that half-dead men did dread
Transcending the ease of a loathsome self-indulgence
my bruised cage confines a wretch
to wallow a maelstrom of receding dawns
Her smile decorates her Angel stare
not knowing, yet, that triumphs would be scarce
within the taxing haunt of my cured tears
to kiss away their powdered faces
and whither thee unto a dreary trend
by monsters married to their lunacy
that crowds the minds of these jesters, three!
Undaunted charity heeds the frail assembly
lull the rest of tender essence
posh beauties of blissful foreplay!
a scent of J. M. Farina lingering with hint of peach
that knew too well the vacuum in no remorse
private parts were raped with moonshine
Surmise thy purposed scorn, thus now imbued
bounding just above a fervid foe that worsens
echoing through planks of thirsty fir and pine
Mind the silent menace taking drink alone
These knees will beg your softest kiss today
My anxious mind is vexed to wayward fate
In the glowing pulse of candle's light
breathing and inhaling love on each other's scent
in your bruised and broken birthday suit
receiving her fifty-fist first kiss
blueprints my fondness unassisted
crippling vigor for this wearer
to reign in on a howl of a Lycan
Dew twinkling on Plum and Poplar
frost-bombing my numbing tongue
her chest heaves a rousing patina
wherein my prowess evades an ego
while yielding a martyr's nerve
haloed in league of thorn and a devil's tide
in the name of God and his flawless house
through a prayer to that sting of ocean air
mid the spray of salt and squeak of kittiwake
Pebbles pinball down the gauntlet of jagged chert
whilst the battle of balance and cowardice compete
Wet winged on a perched bluff in a waning gibbous
climaxing in a ray's parade of our star's retreat
This regime, built from boats of souls
balled up in poisoned chambers
With some sleep and sharpened moxie
though ageless eyes mind wonderment and pleas
where breezes sip upon that tendered flesh
this love regards an angel, now a muse
Take heed the throng of rebel fiends, bewinged!
Though, Ishtar goads the Angel league with wrath
I seeded many womb and belly, panged
When war with man exacts the Earth, bestowed!
the taxing onus to collapse the pawn
wasted in the cease of a lifeless morrow
fickle in the guise of juvenile stares
quit the unfed belly of my greed!
at your flawless sterling step
Never give me crushed farewell
I am no worthy an insolent mess than the skin I'm not fit to live in!
birthed from the touched tongue of the poor
releasing rage to your earthen stage
as she burned in my brain inside electric veins
watching you slip, calmly, in and out of bullied wakes
And dawn became the night and surely to a dawn again
Will press my ear to winds and eyes bedewed
In where seditious tongues of others tax
Belligerent in their counter sass
And what to deeds are our futures breached
Dost by the hand of a heathen's bidding
Your speech succeeds your lies that stumble on
Where plenty swads of berries fill a fawn
As friend to none, but to her heart received!
Ten toes claw the vitreous strand and jetsam near a firth
wherein a caddish guise feigns the propensity of a dotard
fraught with wayward bouts of coprophagy and garroted rape
kissed the servile rainbow of tumbling polished sea glass
to come hither, breaking free of my nightmare's architect
Fortnight, in the throe and rue of my brutal dolor
Mine eyes drown in a copious gore of crimsoned cruors
My disheveled locks lay and lean upon a batholith leeward
Wherein does the weregild serve me mindful menace?
pirated from the lifeless heels of an august costermonger!
he unburdened his broken skull in a humbled bow
recorded in the defunct masks of brats and bitches
citizens plagued betwixt states of Cholera and hate contend to play hero
whilst insects graze inside my anus
for the weak, there's the wicked that never fairs remorse!
renting the roost of my own lethargic atrophy
that tallied the roster of all this lawlessness?
with eyes cresting to see the whites
soaked in waxy gore and semen
that only the songs from a meadow knows
through the bubbling rumble of the meadow
where shadows fall and doze
but the swell of fell tongues feign
but to marry unwise to marry a fool?
which doth not cage purity
Find me viewing up to a thunder's roar
and equip the mauler to bash the beggar!
Flies line my waist, a belt alive
at midnight I'll be silhouetted as I'm hung
My soul, bewinged, will part the clouds
My soul is the blood that bleeds the leech.
Those words of yours that warm within like wine
Can pirate wild hearts that bound and sail
Poetic justice wakens those it must!
in the lament of wayworn heroes to appease
offending mice and mind in Choleric dismay
Who walks the wicked walk, down today, unchanged; unchained?
Who resides, forthright, with delight by the wayside?
a kelpie bedight in magic rescues the daydream
For the willed and driven dilettantes
-Mark Lach
.
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I did spend some time,
cleaved upon a cliff's face
in surreal purity of dire matters,
with risk to my warping wit;
the death that half-dead men could dread!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I have relished perversions
instead of moral doctrines,
in search of secret passions,
rousing the waning tide of apathy.
I can't wish the stain away;
the death that half-dead men would dread!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I have produced a slave,
that pressed me for an early grave,
in a moonlit field of buried treasures
with the stench of burning carrion;
the death that half-dead men did dread!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I have tortured many a drunken soul
in candid sport of low fell guises,
with little show of fairness due,
with my world prettied with rose-toned glasses;
the death that half-dead men will dread!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I have minded, mended, and befriended,
artists, bastards, and rare heroes
who drown their sorrows in sottish torpor,
coming to terms with their stormy days;
the death that half-dead men should dread!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I will chance a dance on a cobbled road
whilst searching smells with an upturned nose.
I will relive, relate and ruin goals, 'cause,
I have wanted nothing more than that;
the death that half-dead men has dreaded!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
I will oppose a poll
that questions my need to grieve,
amidst the lightnings in my brain
and the pulsing of silenced thunder;
the death that half-dead men find dreadful!
I have dreamed the death
that half-dead men did dread.
A myriad of beams and grins,
adorned many euphoric daydreams en masse,
playing, pretending, and in parting,
left forsaken and alone to die;
the death that half-dead men found dreadful!
-Mark Lach
xoxox
She dreamed of the day and the promise of 'Always'.
Infecting her mind with beauty and love.
Opening her heart to a fate worse then death.
To fall in love; how scary.
What if it didn't work out?
What if she lost it all?
Then she saw him smile,
And felt how wrong she was.
Forget the what if's.
I love him, the crazy bastard.
Every girl like me dreamed to have a prince charming,
Who will treat me as his princess.
I want my prince charming to be -
Handsome,
With really cute smile;
And when I'm walking with him in the mall
Other girls couldn't stop staring at us,
Wishing they have a prince like mine.
I want someone who sings well,
He'll write songs for me
And keeps on serenading me,
Making my me blush all the time.
I'm quite a tall girl,
So he must be at least 4 inches taller than me.
So that even though I'm on my stilettos,
He would still stand tall.
But as I grew older,
I realized that my childish imagination of my prince charming has changed;
Just a decent-looking guy is enough,
I no longer care if he sings well;
I'm no longer too particular of his physical appearance
'Coz I realized
That what's inside his heart is what matters most.
Now, what I want is a sweet guy,
Who will turn ordinary days to special ones,
Keep on surprising me
Making me always happy.
I want to have someone who -
Will genuinely love me;
Is trustworthy;
Will get my family's approval and respect them;
Is a God-loving one;
Will truly care for me;
Is dependable;
Will be true to me;
Will accept me for who I am really;
Will always be there for me.
Whoever he will be,
I will love him for eternity.
