Minimize unsociable souls
into popular candy bite sized
for a digestible comprehensive cycle
to churn out a simplified phrase from the guts.

A prophetic stick of dynamite
foretold to reach the foregone explosion
gather around the candle-wick, quick witted-jack jump over it
"ooh" and "ah" gape your maw, carefully crafted calculated words form contusions
reaching overhead, knocking sand off top shelves into children's eyes, bygone conclusions
by then, intrusions, no body is no death, no life to who then,
disappear, do this my dear, love is crystal clear,
sharp and a danger unto itself and others here
or so it's said, nearness muffled, deafens ears
hear their leers, squelching placed eyes
let's pry them then, with crow at left and crow at right
let's blind them, and with crowbar test who gods and poets are
let's prey upon and bind them
those who need us to pray to and find them
the masses of maggots writhing in writing that defined them
set a silver place at this table drenched in mercurial gilden-laden falsity before the great stuffed pig with poison apple in mouth;
let's dine then.

How many doors, unlocked by the keys

upon the belt of the old chapel *****

lead to stained glass memories,

now seen clearly, scenes that color "happy"

as "nothing bad is happening"

with light brush stroke through a prism

all things on a spectrum, the abacus of reality

filtered through perspective, subject to change

it feels divine, the aura of decay

how slowly it eats away, no more doors lead anywhere

but astray, how much further can loss penetrate

until all that's left to sink teeth into and bite is dust,

and that is the substance of character that one has, for one must

ash, in the mouths of babes, to and fro,

remember this was a happy place, sour note, a bleak ray

or can you know?


A dog in the church, unafraid and untame

on all fours barking mad, a man only in name

stay away, go away, get back, ruination, rumination

alienation, safety, isolation, redemption, penance

lush paradise, barren desolation

how many keys unlock the doors of perception,

how strange is the mind of a mutt, weakened by hunger

frothing with rabies, barely standing and bare from mange.

Sweet, lucid juices drip from these serrated edges
all the lights have gone out and curtains drawn
who knows what is going on inside?
A melon ball of diplomacy
patterns digging inward
turning that high powered insight inside
on itself, silence
lambs
peering out from inside it's like staying
in a cell, dog's plaintiff echoes incite violence
in this tin can,
eyes that take pieces of people with them
homunculus bandages of clay for the sick man
alchemical alteration of self, ****** makeup,
perhaps a heavier concealer-
holes crop up on the surface of goosebump plumped flesh
hairs rise to the chilling presence with dew fresh on the peaks
like grass in the idyllic morning, sweaty from anxious anticipation
shivering pale beneath, with fever wherever the gaze lands
in a suit of armor, naked before the examination of telescopic pupils
studious at the altar of presence, something to behold
invert the reflection and make the world right
let the mirror swallow whole what you don't see looking back
fill in the gaps of being human by taking the traits away from observation
that trapped inside this social sensory deprivation standing torture chamber
the iron man or maiden has come to lack.

Architecture laid in the grimoire
a sketchbook of arcane blueprints
many-storied towers rising from the dust of time
and nothing, achieving the sky and ending abruptly
heads in the clouds, the end of the road
wish one might, with all their might
if only this could last forever
self-denied, glossy-eyed atop the height
that this red-yarn spun network is so delicate
tight-rope walking between two peaks
strumming the chord, straining the balance
giving and taking, waning, below there is the promised "never"
that fantasy of love, commitment to an institution
on either side are all the concrete hardships built by hand
that simmer on low, splitting hard lines in the spitting demands
letting go is easier than falling into the lurch to never know;
to forget, what it was like to be on solid land, fate tangled with arteries
in the roadmap that constructs the bustling cities, severed
a streetsweeper assigned to come and flood the needy
cleanse all these structures, hollow out all desire,
empty of trust they mean less and grow higher,
safe havens, home for multiples of two ravens
craven, warm by a trash fire, art deco lobbies and grandeur
gilded foyers, all signs point to something deeper, the surface of a liar
guarantees, contracts, no demolition, decay slow and crumble
no fault of the construction, blame time, the equation is out of our hands
it all comes together, separates and rises individually to its pinnacles, then falls apart slowly;
all according to plan.

Behold, you tower of imminent collapse
obscure, picturesque obelisk
dishonest monolith, ironic cairn stone
call yourself behemoth, you mammoth
an affront to the primordial gods
who stir this civilized cauldron and lick the soup bone
how you've metastasized, between two lines
so very fine, you walk the edge of Occam's own
what with the sticks and mud and rocks
brass and iron locks airtight, you cut this Pangea into pie
cover the faces of your clocks and walk away upright
with your cute, morbid curios of olde
the missing link- frozen somewhere in the Arctic cold
carnival amusements for your half-pennies, hay-pennies, hayseeds
you pay, a slithering mass observes your compassion on display
tailing the predicted demise of a cosmic appraisal spans Twain the temporary sun
massive panic in the wake of this poisonous gas from fireball's past
that with held breath, eyes do not turn away

The hairless ape is cleansed of knuckle-dragging to the bipedal standpoint by,
baptismal in a pool perfectly still, reflecting back the boundless stars of a frontier sky
as calm beneath the surface as the shuddering, shimmering lake
a soul can search throughout all time in that most restful sleep;
and be unable to keep everything it has learned once it is finally awake.

Readers scour the white pebble beach when the tide rolls in that certain way
frothy, black as calligraphy ink still drying on the page beneath the sun mid-day
collecting omens on the rocks to declare the future or omni-present fortune
heel, toe, stained with a skeptic life your sky-blue silk and black bristles
carry along over the landscape like a paintbrush, leaving a thin red line
the murky tide of fortune is high

A goat dances on its hind legs the kagura in the traditional garb of the Miko
with his foreign tongue hanging long from his foaming mouth and horned head
wildly speaking of heresies yet to come and blaspheming in manners not invented
unaccompanied, the brush approaches this desecration of all sense standing
with hobbled feet from the miles of prophesied shore that never foretold its coming
to stare it eye-to-eye, without kneeling, as soon as the demoted kami locks eyes
the dance stops, the tide itself stops and begins to roll backwards, recoiling from the land
where this thing has set foot

Clots in the thick, wooly fur of the beast form first, revealing the reversal
dry death rolls wetly backwards up the throat into a long cut,
near severance of the head, a fountain erupts from the terrain in four pillars
all flowing back into the eyes, nostrils and mouth of the goat
without revealing the terror or flailing away, she stands witness to it
stalwart with stoic determination and faith, nothing can deter her
unnatural as it may be, the loosely hanging fit of the Miko fall to the ground
a bleating animal stands on all fours, and leads her into a temple of white ash
high up in the thin air and snow of the mountains, where there is only the unwritten of the pale to behold
with only the trail of her long spindling fate behind her,
and not a natural thing occurs beyond the Kami's gate where they meet
and nothing good can happen once she was drawn to the dance
now a queen in ice, bloodless for all her love given
loveless for all her love given, godless, faithless
and alone.