Listen to the machines meditate.
Touch their buttons and turn them on.

Plug into the charged thoughts
of your radio
statically in between stations,
or the electric fan
buzzing its soothing breeze,
humming vibrantly against your brain
like a relaxing massage from an absent soul.

Movements of the world outside masked
in a mechanical bubble of unnatural dreams.

Break the past alive
with positive thoughts trapped
in a maze of stale laundry.
You can’t bake your mind free.
Drown in your sugary sorrow
and eat the impulsive results.

Smoke your frozen
blue eyes away
Place all your
days in a daze

Take a shot
Take a hit
Take some E

When you fail
Don’t blame me

Hide from yourself
Hide from your kids
Hide from all three

Take a hit
Can’t forget
Can’t break free

I try to avoid the invasion of screams that bounce
towards me from wall to wall like loud angry
ghosts jumping on trampolines with rusty springs.

A stolen fan hums by the door of my childhood room to
create an addictive mechanical barrier of sound that is
haunted with the impatient voices of a static future.  

Quietly trapped in a dismal pile of broken wood where
brief escapes provide a hit of beautifully brutal knowledge.
Only to repeatedly return to this stagnant town.

Attempt to remain lost in the glow of this virtual reality.
Machines keep me connected at a distance so now I can
embrace the meaningless solitary moments with friends.

In this time of repair these lives have forever misfired as I
wait for that silence from hell that comes after the sun
evaporates the rivers dry.  It's almost time to leave.

Foul machines with fiery tails
blaze over land laid to rest.
Together they to flow like thick
blood through the clogged arteries of
tar lined cracks in crumbling rock.
Beating to the rhythm of the urban
environments manufactured soul.

Breath in to taste stale bursts of dead air burning.
Squeal to a stop that grinds out sharp shards of
metallic dust which slowly rise up towards the
clouds within the acidic green ooze that
evaporates from down in the depths of
mechanical guts.

Compulsive addicts on a distracted journey
drive these impatient beasts to flinch at
each other while they hunt.
Thirsty to ignite another
drink of life’s ancient remains.

Consume these fresh lands filled with life to
leave a heartless trail of twisted wreckage
laced with the rotting bodies of
anything caught in the wake.

Today the sun fires out from further away
with a strained burn traveling
through a moist sky
Arriving with enough energy to
play with the trees

Light rides along the ripples of a lazy river as
Koi float between the reflections of the
branches above to 

cruise with the clouds.

Late afternoon shadows grow silent as a
savage chill slowly devours the remains of the
dry summers stubborn heat.

Organic designs rust over in a brilliant decline.
The scent of a rising storm rushes into
a deep breath on a harsh breeze that

rustles the rain toasted leaves of autumn.

Rise up for my violent rejection
and silently return
for your beautifully brutal revenge.

I fall to taste the sharp pavement
unaware,
jumping up,
ready for more,
with rocks in a crooked spine.

Air pressure punches the inside of my ears
with a mechanical squeal,
brain flinches to bloodshot eyes.

Choke on this sluggish moment,
and drown in stale air caught
packed in a dense environment.

gasp

Air pumps come on-line.
A flood of oxygen rushes
into a deep breath.
Mind opens to wide eye accuracy.

Seven rows back a man wheezes.
His sad heartbeats struggle to pass.
He wont last long after we land.

Almost non-audible
anti-gravity magnets
confidently hum in rotation.
An effortless glide away from dock.

New tech has pollution in the past,
still the planet suffocates on its remains.
Floating machines filter toxic air

below

White flashes of air push us out to space.
Engines gurgle to life and guzzle
the deep frozen black atmosphere.

Stars stream together in flight.
Look back at the planet’s glow.

Lights flicker to fade through
the waves of a hungry acidic nebula.
Graveyard of the suns.

My shoulder tattoo from the old planet
glows through my sleeve.
Reflections ride across layers of glass.

She peeks at me through her curls
while I clean my weapon.
That wheezing man will be the first
to go.

© Henry Chambers

Late evening shadows grow silent
while alive in a breeze that stirs the skirts
of those leaving illuminated shops.

Crows fly from bells of the old church
escaping the soul of a wicked husband
and vanish into darkness of dense groves.

I search for you, constantly distracted
by my madness of needing to know more
about the reasoning for your harsh weather.

Not ready in this moment to say goodbye
memories coldly pass through warm bodies
as night takes over the shadows of that thing.

© Henry C.

Moments ago it was cool breezy fall day
when the sky filled with birds escaping.
How did they know in advance?

As I scratch this itch that won’t go away,
patches of hairy skin peel off to fall
between my fingers and plummet to the ground.
I imagine this should be more painful.

Digging fingernails in deep to the bone.
Illogically overwhelmed by this itch
which remains my hard focus.

My bone now exposed to the environment.
In shock I touch my head to feel
strong warm confident skull.

Single tear of blood from my head.
Single tear of blood from my eye.
Why isn't there more?
I must be melting from the top down.

Made it to the edge of the thermal radiation zone
by the time the tires of my car started slowly
melting into the bubbling pavement.

I crouch low like that will help as if somehow
it’s possible to get underneath the toxic layer.
This fluctuating world is heat warped.
Hopefully my eyeballs don’t evaporate.

The sun hides behind acidic thundering clouds of earth above.
Now almost as dark as night with a full moon.
A dull mangled orange has ripped out all of life’s shadows.

My dogs eyes wickedly glow through the haze
as he stares out at what I assume to be

a better
day.

He walked by.
***** smog.
Brown air.
Down his lungs.

so then

is my um

i think

is my uh

therefore

is my like

but hella remains

for real