High powered cancer cells keep the phantoms running
across the long table sharks that have stopped swimming
lazily gathering schools of fish that sit on their teeth for roll call
attendance is ecstasy, blood floods the senses and those eyes
as soon as they smell it, that's all they see, every meal a feast
every night an ****, delighting in the prey never knowing
never thinking, there's a killer in an empty suit standing next to me
wining and dining with the enemy, see notes for stacks of C-notes
drones churned out of pressurized trenches with condescending tones
sinking while looking down at the surface, forsaking basic humanity
collapse on your knees, don't ***** a fingernail in the coffin to extend a simple pleasantry
it's high time that you people respect my time, which is what the clock is set to
all these teeth make it hard to sneer at you, these evolved fish eyes can see that you're upset, too
primordial origins ooze forth in the imposter syndrome complex's original sinner's skin
greed, the need to cut the sacrificial lamb's throat, sup of the blood and find
there isn't enough so shepherd more, do it again, and then
the sun itself revolves around this table because I sat down at it!
That's the outcome of the scenario, no matter how you divvy it up,
it's just basic mathematics!
Disturbingly becoming human, equating to weak by the end, fists pounding the table
smirking with frustration, like a dog smiling and dancing on two legs for its food
screaming and wailing in place of a collected bark, a normal whine, taking place in the mind
shocked to see its own fingers it recoils at its visage into stunned silence
no matter where we go, these memories will never let us be
the things that think they have depth because they adapted to the deep
to serve their own ego, alas, there are many more fish in the sea.

What does beauty mean to you?
That is a challenging question
I cannot lie and deny that I appreciate the form and skin
but what it means, is more than that
beyond the image, I find people are most beautiful within

Therein lies the hypocrisy of this notion
empathetic, altruistic, honest, and kind hearts
intentions without agendas, good will without roles and parts
I see your eyes and what you consider imperfections,
though no body is without weathered complications
this is not what makes me call you beautiful,
it would be ill of me to judge given my orientation
I think everyone can be if they are not, or already is
and I do not flirt with deception, tempting insinuations
my love is only capable of intimacy within arm's reach
for I have loved as hard and faithfully as madness could never teach
to fall from those arms, stained with blood, draining life to live and lift myself, I resent being reduced to a leech
this is why I choose to see the quality that resides only with humans, there is complex love, redemption, free will to do good or bad and beauty within each

When I call you beautiful Aurelius, what it means to me
is not that your hair looks nice today, your eyes alight
or your face, though serious, delivers a measure of delight
my friend, as with anyone, I speak as truly as I can; I've thought on this
in my own mirror I see a figure fighting for his vain morality, a face only his mother would miss
my mind is a troubled aquifer, I draw from well meaning
while I send ripples through the ocean of my conscience careening

What does beauty mean? What can beauty mean?
Lovely, attractive, alluring, lurid, soft, inviting, a peace not felt since I lost home, someone serene
what I mean when I say one is beautiful, or handsome is a summary of the personality, to put their looks aside
not at the cost of the surface to subtract from rightful pride
as with others now and those from before, it is with you that time and time again I see
strength is not the only quality Aurelius stands for, you are a true beauty.

***** a finger on the crown and make a wish
if your blood catches the moonlight, just right, I just might
crack the golden ratio of your glass charms with a kiss
snap apart the cage between your heart and me like twigs
and since you live for your art, devour it and become one with the artist
right?

Because you sit with that glossed over look on your face, in my afterglow
I have everything you're living for, but you give me everything you're living for
then you can act devastated when you lose it all, like you didn't know
I was going to take, never return, you couldn't be anything to me, not a *****
kick you open and pry apart your dolled-up, pink brain, then smash out the windows
everything from inside-seeing is false and prettified, when I leave I take the door
you need me, fear me, hate me and revere me, but I don't ******* live here anymore
so I only come at night

Be one and I said
you can't make everyone happy
open wide and crawl outside of your head
you can't make anyone happy
stop trying, you're already dying, a man walking dead
I'm taking everything from me
to balance, I chase myself in my stead
I give nothing back, indiscernible nonsense
chicken scratch writing to keep me fed
fretting, I'm sweating, the bellows of insecurity hurriedly squealing
everything juts out, like it's designed to hurt my every feeling
these field mice I'm gathering all at once by the fistful are weeping
each skullcap on my fingers clatters and shatters, none good for keeping
the forest for the trees is never as intended
that's why the clearing he leaves is mostly open ended

He is abysmal, every principle of nihilism,
cold and seductive, seclusive and elusive
bold and eclectic, embodied allure of tasting ellipsism
his intellect, an insect, piercing and intrusive
the ego of a young and vile man,
I give him all I can
every thing that is me, flung into his kingdom
never does he ask for myself, life or limb
never do I question, would I offer them if he needs them
only do I hope that soon the stars will flee, to cover their faces
all light and rays will hide away and show no empathy
there will be nothing human to interfere, in any forms or places
and in that pitchest, voidest dark, I will finally see
the most perfect silence of the senseless, where I may embrace my throne
the absence of humanity and all its voices, where my despair may rest with me alone.

I wished I knew what you meant, the accusation after fighting
like a parasite, eating my retinas, I was blind
I turned my view back, further back inside, and I saw the guilt as plain as day that you were right, I was gaslighting!
Before I even knew what it was, what was wrong with me, I was a poison pill that collided with your life like an oil spill
and I could have left so many times, but I oozed back in to make you sicker still through sheer force of will
there's no forgiveness in my future, I am staring at a jury of myself
I have been on trial for so many wasted nights
chewing through brain tissue, nobody is home, but I left on these dull, blue lights
the worst part of me knows I didn't want to see
it took so long to come face to face with your meaning,
despite the clarity, my anger is a part of me
I accept your judgement for I am guilty
I named him and changed him, shuffled my actions under trickery
and played with the notion I didn't know my own identity
but it is no different than the explosive rage that lives in all the men in my family
I am a genetic failure, with the same predispositions
too late now, I know better than to extend another apology
my conscience is a dying machine, I have no naturally good inclinations
only self-interest and this numb and mundane suburban life of defeat!
I am in a luxurious, all-expenses-paid grave, watching my life go to waste from the most comfortable seat.

Magick is born of natural forces
love triumphant against all odds
the enchantment on mortal minds of beauty surmounting in the splendor of their forests
and in stranger places, darker, forbidden; for magick is not barred by intervention or interest
it defies mortal order, without agenda, blooming even from malice and the foulest festering wounds of cruelty

In such a place aforementioned arose the practice of necromancy
many, many years ago many thousands died of a sudden plague
that swallowed an entire kingdom off the map, casting its history into obscurity
all within the borders perished, thus the land was condemned by reason
and then abandoned by superstition, her neighbors offered no aid
fearful for their lives they turned away from the dying and dead season after season
alone they toiled and suffered, famine, pillaging and poverty, the shadow of a harvest scythe spreading over them was not delayed

With years the truth was all but myth, misplaced faithfully by historians in their books
and with masks full of theriac, resembling carrion birds, expeditions departed across the borders
often the doctors noted only the overgrowth of plants or ruins that once were towns, often so to ***** looks
for they were believed to be morbid and perverted, some were treated like witches and others like crooks
while the expeditionary doctors closed in on their consensus; that it was perfectly safe to tame the land
it was a young herbalist who discovered this sense of dread and darkness in the soil
where foreign flora, an unworldly brush and trees that dazed the senses stood
sprouted from the ashes at the site of ancient castle ruins, these Wyrd Wyrm Wood

She lived there, unnoticed having snuck beyond the open borders on a lie
and in her studies, became at one with the garden rooted in genocide
in tune with all the life, her toes bare in the dirt, breathing the air of that mad forest
the spirits adrift spoke to her on the wind, revealing their unrest
their lives ended by a sudden burst of poisonous clouds, respite and relief denied
begging as they choked on boils that burst in their throats, drowning in blood as allies on either side watched them die
all for the folly of a weapon launched from the North, falling short of the West, catapulting volleys of plague exploding in the sky
the outrage of thousands, with all the ancestors preceding them, and all the dead who walked before
fertilized in the land and shone down on by the heavens, came to her in the form of a king, so by the sword she swore:

As a Dark Druid, Necromancer and vengeful protector
of those innocently slaughtered, she bound this ghost king to her own soul
by the root of a blood-watered flower, ground by mortar and pestle  
the power to freeze bones while swinging the steel of the undead king,
with all the strength and knowledge of entire bloodlines behind her
she set forth, a ghost now forever tethered in her shadow
chained to each other, her life unnatural, she expelled the invaders
who neglected their duties only to feign woe over the drying ink of a treaty
then come to reap the benefits of benign promises.

All our notes are all laid out before us
none predetermined, we play as we see fit
chaos is the bridge; disharmony the chorus
all lives of clamor, there's no red string to tie you to a duet
this sheet music of our agenda, our plans, our odds and chances
humanity is a moving work of art, all discordant noises and stepless dances
fate is many minds' imagined painting, doing justice in their sight
truth of burden and birth is the weight a flower carries with it from the dirt into the light.

I cannot make the world a better place
I am not a decent human being
cynicism is welcome in my embrace
there's too much faith in optimism to leap without seeing
and they say that is believing, materialists who touch gods with their eyes
my God is our Universe, among a pantheon of others
somehow I know what people are capable of, all life is its own demise
yet, there is a universe in every human, a contained god
this cannot be abandoned, revert to a primal nature and forge stronger bonds to flee from
there is an inexplicable loss that occurs even when an unremarkable or evil person dies
though, we would rather believe that a landing is a blessing and not a refill to butterflies.

A wild sun refuses to set
ribbons rotate on the circumference
with thousands of eyes looking on
jagged tendrils boil this meager surface world
hear the screams, hear the cries
those who talk to angels

Sanctuary in the shade
safety in a secret
whisper a kiss to a bouquet
upon a headstone where it lay
beneath a sacred poem-prayer
meditating on granite in the still air
lay to rest the ghost-fire of resentment there
burn this incense, French inhale
cloven foot scraping grave-dirt, spitting smoke
bull-headed minotaur, lungs full of white sage choke

The wilderness is a spirited if pilfered place
lashed by this wicked star, ash falls from grace
prophetic tongues whirl in circles, speaking as if omniscient
beware, beware, dreamers cozy in the night
who climb the cosmic-skinned mountain of subconscious
the stone cairn-haunts of fireflies that light the way to the top
beware the abysmal black of Tartarus, that is far below the bellows
colder and darker than the wilderness, where not a nightmare dares to tread or trot;
nor has a dream been seen, beware

A void unseeable chews on innocent, sane, rational and reasonable minds
the seven pointed star, with oily, invisible corruption
that lays sweet words in stone with silence
how it moves across the air, an inverse to the wild sun
beware, there are no dreams, no rest,
there are no nightmares; beware.

Ever deeper borne into the earth
guided by flickering torchlight
robes of fallen starlight descend,

Each marching with purpose, down into their caves
darker and colder as they fall closer to the underworld
communion beyond the veil begins beside their graves

Scholars write grimoires, studies of the absent birth
pondering on a tree that is both there and not, like smoke at night
magick in the roots reach for the surface like fumes, all upend

At first dozens and now hundreds, their chants roll off a religious tongue
beautiful choirs gather, their excavation of this new god
creates a calling, they will come when the song is sung

A tree of smoke that clings in reverse, roots dissipating against a cavern ceiling
the very reflection of an ancient tree that once existed, in another life
thousands fill tunnels to it, pull back their hoods, their eyes revealing
a great distrust of the illusion placed around them now, handling reality as gentle as a knife
carrying less of existence to and from their underground, upside-down cathedral
every time they face the feasible plausibility that this is not real at all
weaker in the presence of that tree, back to their shrinking world they crawl
one that has tarnished in their view and lost much majesty, everything is so grey and small
in their minds this is a revelation, not a lie or deception, but something they could never see
their great appreciation, amassed they bend and break in ceremonies, dropping to knees
all to wail, to sing, to bless and bleed before the branches of their tree;
forthwith from the leaves in the fervor of madness beat the wings of a dark fairy.

If words are cheap, what is the cost of a story?
A picture is worth one thousand words,
what does that make your portrait now?
What is a life, a legend, glory, an allegory?
What does the weight of a false accusation truly allow?

If talk is cheap, what are words worth?
How much sense... for those ticking keys?
How many times will it cost to explain only once,
that the consequences are relentless, once unlocked
you can't close your mouth again, nothing taken lightly is free
nothing you give is given in vain, your observations laid out and plain
all under the scrutiny of the next generation of police
they promise you ease of living, no offense, just justice and just peace

Then with that big red rubber stamp of a grin
does the true work begin,
no, no, no!
You do not overthrow your fascists wolf-skins for these sheepdogs, I refuse!
Lobotomize me, roboticize me! I refuse!
Censor my eyes, I can't see the use!
Their propaganda, all is planned-to
take apart a microscopic crack in the legs that take a stand-the
generation who will bear the ashes and trashes and barren-earth gashes
and the morally bankrupt hidden blackmail-blackbox-blacksite-cash-in-stashes

I vote true anarchy in a whirlwind of scared and confused, disenfranchised cries
all that was old no longer stands, burn it down and raze their alarms to meet fresh eyes
whose attention is sharper and whose wits do not harp-or linger on attracting flies
when they speak it is common, to the point and in union, without comical bickering, backstabbing or lies
whose council is one of Utopian ideal, in that it exists only in this Anarcho-Paradise
where nothing they say matters, nobody listens, and there is no order, for if you pause you do not survive
and Nothing is all you are while alive and nobody feels nothing when Nothing dies
it's not like pandemic or fire, riots or dissent, global or local could paint a place into a corner like that though
armed to the teeth, doctors stand back, morgues stand by

Civil unrest, I hereby diagnose the Northern United States with Insomnia
I've been there
what is the continental equivalent to hallucinations, mood swings, weight loss and blacking out?

Civil discourse? I've heard some bad jokes, I love em, but that one's the worst
talk on your stages, your pages, your backseats and square icons
you throw spears from crumbling platforms, unable to hit one another and babble on
when in person the magic of active threats turned, too-soon, too tragic
is becoming lethargic, more shock, more bodies, a better tactic
humankind doesn't deserve its own environment, we're toxic
why can't we all just shut up and stay at home sick, oh
****.

The wealthiest opinions buy their silver spoons before their birth
with all their mercury they speed to heights, and never reach their worth
all the talk they do is quite a feat, indeed!
For, you see it comes from a slit in their neck and both sides of their mouth,
while the noise made, like pickpocketing hands' slides into docile minds with greed
empty, nimble, unnoticed and plucking chain and coin and bead
the richest tongues would rob the rest of roots for their baby to have but a seed.

Did I stutter?
The frame rate of my life has refreshed
ever alert, microphones intake the silence for a hint of mutter
counting fully textured, more risen bumps, now I am fully fleshed
I pull at my eyes to disconnect and only disarm myself of aid to my sight
I cover my ears to dull a damaged sense, tethered anchors float free downstream
on a river of memories, I weakly gesture to grasp them without much fight
the pain within them feels distant, I am aware and awake to see the inner workings of a dream

There is a primal instinct of fear
you cannot know what happens here
a curtain like a guillotine exists to separate
it falls like lead showers to incapacitate
if any wandering eye should ever peek
identify and patch the barrier, no area can be weak
our minds must be ever tricked and contained
by the upkeep of this beautiful craftsmanship, ever toiled over and maintained
we speak of the maze within, the pyramid to the god, our labyrinth and prism
that once illuminated would be rejuvenated, the spirit reincarnated in its peak form
the soul alight, a warden alone now elevated and free from the confines of prison
ultimate balance achieved in a host, a process complete, now the husk keeps the data warm

Can’t comprehend the changes because they are designed to undermine comprehension
a survival instinct that will drive you mad, a failsafe to sabotage seeing clear
striving to bend an ear, only creating tension
glimpsing between patches, accepting you’re aware, but nobody will really hear
a higher sense of self is a step closer to an upload
scared to be convinced, to buy into the delusion
if this universe is nothing but a node
and this is all a cruel illusion
then people will still choose comfort over entertaining serious debate
interfacing with a topic of serious connotations, it’s not forced by the simulation
free will chooses how to handle potentially dangerous traits
and not knowing what’s real are means to have your chances scheduled for termination
a human must never question, they must accept the approved, provided stimulation
and a person must know that reality is what they make of it, so long as they are within bounds
you can’t see what you collapse at the sight of, hence the power cycle of actualization.

Rust on the throat bone
Unsheathes the summoning cry
For this ill omen
When the moon is so close and the light so sick
It is as if the earth is trying to whisper to it in hospice
A faucet leaking off the knuckles of a weakling
A testament to that inherit the meek thing
Echoes in the dark throughout the hillside
Attentive beasts break to stand on hind legs
Inverted towers all shake the owners from the windows
The emperor bows to the beggar
Death barks and begs
Close as the world will ever get to Luna
Seas crash to show sadness with the petulant expulsion of grief
Oceans roar and storms wash away centuries to great forebearer's relief
All salt in the water will wash away
Take time for the eroding spirit tied to the beach today
While these elements wear the skin out and down with each appearance
Driving the illusory blind meat believer mad
Take solace in the slaughterhouse line
Animals all meant for one barrel of trimmings
Set to make the same compost when the razor beneath starts to grind
Let the tier drops splash the surface above
And all those on the precipice of the Luna seas be crushed by their sadness
Take with you a balled up fist inside the chest and air of bitterness and go forth into an indifferent space
Let us put an end to this.

Superiority from roots to branches
fraternity excelsior, forever where neverland is
infernal immaturity, malicious impropriators
generations and nations, hatred and placation
tradition, bones in the foundation
sweltering, blood waters the fields, sweat salts the soil
birth-rite of passage for years, never lived on a money plantation
heritage hidden from peers, shock to the shears
sheer heart attack, locked up in worst fears
guilt boils eye-kettles to tears,
scream for the sun to fall
surfacing cicadas are all empathetic ears
thunder before dawn, buzzing is all anybody hears

Testify, the very cream of the wheat
scraped froth from the top of the crop
the tip of an etiquette pick of the elite
meat so fine it melts between teeth
pompous and disconnected in its airs
that the pig never writes the pen; while turning up its nose at all of those beneath.

Blood in the mind stream
Static snow in the mediation
Hit up the Dharma, do up a dose of reality
Cosmic karma costly casting reincarnation corpses
Become bodies buried beneath Bodhi, individuality
Medicinal purposes provided mastered meager-minded
Alien past life, animal past life, getting past life
One of a kind, no one is, as long as you act from kindness you're of our kind, kid
Emptiness not nothingness, peace and quiet all space and time
Tomes on happiness, suffering, humility, tones on wisdom, resounding off domes
Graceful gliding in tolerance, not knowing, binary views close immediacy in open homes
The ripening of karmic fruit rings true inevitably, sharp insight those whetstones hones
Dishonesty, disturbing attitudes, halfway there by punishment received in one lifetime
Endlessly halfway on the way towards the other half, perfect in the odyssey
Honestly, oddly, altruism and refuge, compassion and balance in watering the tree, naturally, care, do not create a deluge
Rushing to empathy a falsity, propagandized views of clairvoyant superheroes
Materialism, salt in coffee putting oneself to sleep, the poisonous allure of cynicism
Positivity, the colored, striped snake witn a crown on the neck and no venom, safe to embrace
Fearful to approach most in this day and age, but easy to chase
Chant a, mantra, with the voice inside ya
Holy positions not required to elevate a state of being
Just being quiet, breathing, following the flow of life on the element of air to know
One exercises control in letting go.

By my own standards and principles
lofty morals, ideals, and values
I am a bad person
a complete and total failure

Hypocrisy, toxicity, vanity, petty desperation
abusive anger and aimless destruction, deprecation of identity
no respect or reverence for life, vile and small, harmful declarations
of my immature, pitiful, hatred for all
with a four cornered mouth, love, peace, chaos and selfish affairs
the distressful ever-present need to know someone cares!

Even if I have to preserve their love in memory, to preserve dead affection  
it's all just a narcissistic circus serving the draining need for attention
deceptive perception tricks the attunement to socialization,
am I insane, a psychopath, no, I am defined by my frequency of anxiety, manic depression and total self-deconstructive complete desecration
self-serving lies, when I run into the rules I expect from others the rule no longer applies
convenience, laziness, manipulative extroverted energy spent to the extent of cruelty and exhaustion
it'd be easier to hide every shred of evidence I have a past as this more safely avoided *******
than to keep trying, one shred of humanity, to get in touch with the decency I know is within me
it's easy to blame all the problematic seasons of my nature on any event or individual
those excuses satisfy prescriptions and doctors, they pass off the edge of being awkward socially
but I know my malice
the limit of it stretches out slowly

While I extend two arms from my spirit to crush the evil down less into a capability  
then into a capacity, make it less my reality and more a controlled crystalline statistical anomaly,
I know my heart chakra has been destroyed perfectly
though I have no disillusion of persecution or saviorship;
even this I can repair, with medication, meditation, time and poetry
a journey.

Time
What is time?
Time is an endless ocean
The current moving ever over occupied space
All objects experience time, making it the supreme element
The omnipresence of an unflinching, all-seeing eye whose vision engulfs all
That swim through the marble-white corneas
Time is crucial to knowing what life is
Experience is anything that happens to a body coursing through the oceanic eye of time
The waters wearing the edges down to rough or smooth, chipping in unique places
It can be refreshing, oasis waters in a dead sea of salt
Or pull life into a zone of deep pressure until it crumbles away to dust in the darkened depths
Drowning in time, dying of thirst, watched and surrounded by water, unseen
Experience over time is inevitable
Filtered through the nature of perception being inevitably unique
Experience over time applies to all living things
Circumventing the anomalous perception, pesky as it is
The equation is true, life is everything that happens while a thing occupies space in time's ocean.

Discomfort with ambiguity
the theme of closure
here's a hard life lesson:
complex moral grey areas in the court of public opinion
are tried and convicted with such absolute certainty
that opinion runs into a spear-wall on the thought-crime of double-jeopardy
pariahs afraid to speak, seeming to appear flimsy with flip-floppery
when in fact, what can anybody know without being there, themself
this highfalutin sentencing, rent-free living in the shoes of the accused
and never taking a step outside, pay the dues, it's all a form of legal fee
today everybody is such an expert, information at the fingertips like Mercury
with the thunderbolts, bring lightning flashes, what's okay to think according to
whoever spends their time with me, awaiting approval Orwell, all's well that ends
take these foul-hearted to learn Love from the Ministry of, the greatest weapon of mind control
has never been hands-on the brain, there was a dissertation, novelization in '48 that explained it pretty perfectly
what we create can exact a toll steeper than 2 minute's hate, we police each other to greater expectations
set forth by creations always beneath the powers that be, imprisoned within these comforting confines
accepted, that inmates on the road are escaping crazies, this is sanctuary, our beloved Big Brother blinks and dreams up the inescapable- society.

Steam
the aura hissing with negative energy
it rises from my back and scalp, hands retract
no affection touches me
no niceness do I attract
evaporating upon near-contact
I am scattered by duress
seeping out of myself under a boulder of stress

This enduring dream
sell-out and garner adoration
fame and following, applause
roses at my feet and signs of appreciation
I want nothing from you, I write for my own cause
and as always if I ever reach one person in need
I have met the pinnacle of all I could achieve
that is the highest of my duty; my only deed
fill my paperwork in with whatever they need to believe

All the nastiness in the air like gnats
I direct it with my hands, focus on the flow
gather these foul winds fanned from my chest
and force the currents to retreat from whence they've blown
all gusts of bile spilled across my brain
absorbed back into the cracks
with a brief and painful refrain
I survey the wake of an ambitionless life, for all the luster it lacks.

I had escaped that way of seeing
truths and mistruths, so long ago
the pests of manipulation are teeming
in every piece of dialogue, everything I know
unwritten words and actions ripple with affect
and unsettle the world, dread alone can't stop tomorrow
I've seen the strings of prediction
influence and control, foresight is a frightening rein to forego
carried off by the affliction, let it all rot in dereliction
this snow globe is hot enough, preservation of your life is tough, the idea of hope is an alluring attraction
that draws life over time, the fatal equation
arriving at peace is the only solution

Corrosive as the skulls gives
to rust and self-perpetuated acid
this wasteland, where no man lives
chaotic, driftwood thoughts flow downstream amid
a riverbed of sleeping titans, who's hatred
like their tools is a weapon, the bolts hold the head together, their wrenches only tighten
they snore thunder, migraines, and whole months pass
sulking, shoulders bent, a cloud over me, can't even be saved by the bell at mass
a preacher, a rabbi, a pastor, failure as a teacher, lower eyes and walk past her
anyone can praise the strength of resistance to anxiety and depression
but nobody views rage as a power, you own up to it and pray it away at confession
because burying your anger, letting it out in fits and hiding for years, it only opens the window a hair to leave a full-bodied impression

We've always had to push that down and make it drown in our blood and guts, no ifs, ands, or buts, it's the topic referred to as your "you know who's" and "you know whats"
chronic, always over the shoulder like a kite tied to a noose,
balance uphill in the fight all the time, it can be let loose
I've seen people of integrity and the upmost decency get roped in by the pain
for it blinds me to the punishment I mete out and deserve, being so **** vain
I have taken freedom from soaring birds in my life, brought them down to my storm cloud level and held their faces in puddles of rain
it is hard to see anymore if I have swallowed the bottle or the bottle swallowed me, I choke on hot iron and I can't feel where the neck ends
even if it's bottled up, how do I pour it out by the cup when I know that with it I can ruin my whole life in less than fifteen seconds?

All important glimpse of mood
paperclip straightened through a cardboard filter
veiled understanding, their minds peer through
comprehend the heady attitude
every step forward, a chain rattles with weight
dragging feet, spitting curses a fight
bring it out before it's too late
ringing ears, faint legged, stumble into natural light
maggot-fleshed being, crawling on the floor
seems so quick with tongue as it cuts with gaze and word
to lock outside the interlopers, one side of the door
everything it has not dealt with it has not seen or heard
this is what you leave behind, the future is painfully bright
is this what you had in mind, passed down a blight

I sleep in an orchard on rotten eggshells,
far from the tree that I fell
a black sheep who will not let this empty nest sit well
my station overbears on my back, I bleat in agony
never letting up, I stand fast, I will not abandon you
I am a conduit for negative energy
I don't need light to see, the darkness does just as well for me too
all the shocking treachery, debauchery and base savagery
it reads as plain as a charge to me,
I let it wash over and it carries me through
when I lower these horns, count your sheep while you can
for you will see an animal bursts from this man,
when a goat leaves the herd to run over you
there will be a whole horizon of storm clouds following calmly, but I will strike like a bolt out of the blue

I am a medium who channels negative energy
and I return it to the world in an inane state,
from the frostbitten touch of a sunless place
I am a conduit for antisocial behavior, murderous rage, crusades, tirades and decades of lectures that second rate tyrant's blush to berate,
I host an oni, who meditates on carnage daily, and finds strife in others brings humor and grace, a verbal savage who kills ids with words and egos with actions, who never shows my face
I have the capacity for evil, but I make a conscious choice every time I use my voice
I am a middleman for idle-hands, I have always sought to create or isolate
if I have ever fallen off, I have never wanted to destroy,
my only love is to write now; it is one of the few things in life that gives me joy.

Fingernails pull against stomach lining for the words
arrhythmic synchronization with cohesive thought
a pendulum eclipses everything when convenience and preparation overlap
strike now! While there's confidence, before the paralysis
while hovering straws fall from the grasp,
shorter, like sips of a temper

Be at peace, broken silver chain
now suspended, weight eased from the clasp
never worn in vain, never to be worn again
pre-dying era, a fresh breath and a last gasp

Suffocation not felt in the lungs
as though a plastic bag is tied off around the brain
the moist heat where self becomes proxy;
intimate issues become schadenfreude
and insensitivity becomes a matter of cutting through thick skin
where the initial struggle is spun off the back of the mind
so that all these slices of you, handed out for free, butcher you down to raw nerves and take your armor like bacon
hyper-focus and tunnel vision, can sound like good work, but that's where burnout begins
what does a wordcount mean if you hit a wall at fifteen thousand and can't finish a scene?

Going through hell, somehow we tricked ourselves
to say it's just part of living
forgetting that life can be good, we work for it, want it,
why we don't have it when we plead for it, dream of it,
beg and ask for it, fight for it, like we like the struggle more
or we like to resent the care-free, weightless people,
there's no normal in the first place, so who gets to say everything has to be so hard?

Suffering is not the human condition, it's just a condition of being human
just like surviving, living, existing, dying to live and living to die are all separate
there's a balance, no blankets, nothing explains everybody; nobody can
freedom to try and fail is the most important part of making a plan.

Thy neighbor: a biblical statement on community

the feeling you get alone beneath a streetlight

when it starts to drizzle rain late at night

and your hands are full and pockets fat

with information on where you live

who you know and love, your phone

and license, your keys, your confidence

that no one is following you;

no one has any reason to want to know anything about you


Yet you feel eyes on you in the open

when you believe you have privacy

your dome is the underside of an eye

placed within the socket, with many hive-scattered eyes

set in hexagonal walls staring down

unblinking, therefore all seeing

tracking your every move with the reverence of royal airs

why do you despise the comforts of the throne?


Your subjects, faceless, nameless

inconvenient, observant, who are they really?

Thy neighbor, just as private, quiet, secret, they are not it!

Yet you feel eyes, for this is the animal

wild, who surrenders by stepping into the trap

finally, relief in the jaws of civilization when they embrace man

and their teeth too weak to do the job, employ metal ones to snap


No more do we run the trails of our forest home

no more do the woods and wilderness we roam,

no longer belly up in the sun do we roll, nor happily do we lay

only when we are outmatched, and must pray to be spared as prey

no more do we kick up dirt or chase scents on the wind

now we shiver in our dark crate, embrace the trap we set within

this is what puts a sick dog down and domesticates a wild man.

Discomfort with ambiguity
the theme of closure
here's a hard life lesson:
the Pyramids weren't designed or built by cryptids
desperation for grand designs
Stone Henge credited to alien hominids
crossing the divining lines separating man's minds
from imagining human kind capable, and inescapable
reliable and just lie, re-lie, deceitful and deceivable
great apes, savage, and unnoble, creationist crops
ripe and now grim reapable, ****** slider switch hits
the oozing of faith, confidence and humanity feels seepable
no human accomplishment is keepable, on a potter's field for all history
the blueprint of unfollowable chaos randomly defined a grand design, is sleepable
there, ignore, snoring minds, theories strictly confined the outer possibilities
orbiting the thin air, small grey planets choked in binds, rock belts on too tight
it's as simple as the biblical angel or the unknowable terror that breaks the fabric of reality
an alien, with no context or understanding, nothing to draw from our own civilization applies
there is no fathomable way to anticipate contact or the endless anxieties
nothing to predicate how, if, we might communicate
it's a topic of marketable thought sold, undermining even the atrocities
slavery and brick layers longest days because it's more fun to think about
with a PHD, than lecture on practicality applied to those degrees,
there's certainly a more pragmatic audience for it; the enticing unknown
holds meaning, planetarily.

Face down on the concrete
Twin roaches scurry fast, awake at last
Where are you, what is this, who are you?
The door ahead opens the wounds to your past

The gap in the door is a separate reality
TWO ZERO FOUR EIGHT SIX THREE
The only me is me…

Is this my life?
I walk before myself, following someone,
Am I me or someone else?
I can feel the burden of his crimes take their toll
As midnight is pressed into my flesh
Piercing and retracting, always in; one eye always watching through the hole
This voice accuses me of the apparency, that I killed my family

The father shot his pregnant wife in the belly
And his ten-year-old son in the chest when he came to see,
Two Zero Four Eight Six Three
Then luring his six-year-old daughter out of the bathroom, he shot her Two  
Who was the only one with sense to hide, by telling her it was just a game
And hung himself in the garage with a garden hose, with an umbilical cord,
A similar crime occurred, unrelated, but the same,
The children are screaming, a murdered pregnancy, Zero years of life
He finished his family off with a butcher’s knife,
A family of Four

I saw me walking in front of myself,
But it wasn’t really me,
Neighbors had heard him chanting the numbers, as if a spell
Two zero four eight six three
Days before the incident, they call to me from hell

Gouging the eye out of her photograph, it matches what I see
Everywhere I turn the wailing, crying, screaming, sobbing, haunting, guilty memory
Running through the endless corridors of gore and horrors, breathlessly
When she appears, shuddering in her filthy dress and decay, out of tune with this dimension
Am I a guest in this nightmare, I remember the suffering vaguely, who am I, who is she?

Don’t touch that dial, we’re just getting started
For all you listeners out there in radioland,
Give the baby a hand,
A contorted fetus deposited in the sink
Distressed cries, laughing after midnight
Raspy unnatural breaths, grip tight to a flashlight
Green, blue, red, yellow, and normal light
I am lost in variations of the same night
Look behind you
I said, look behind you

Face down on the concrete
Awake at last, scurry to your feet fast
Where are you, what is this, who are you?
The bag behind you tries to warn you, you may not be trapped in your past
What you see, certainly, all of it may be true
The only me is me, are you sure the only you is you?

It’s a minute to midnight, the knife is retracted just a hair from the artery
Give it a minute and you know exactly where it will be
Wander forever, she always catches up to you, to us, to me
Bones break and sever, leaving no trace or mystery
By the window, the stairs going down, in the open hallway or on the balcony
You embody the man who killed me, you slaughtered your family
The screaming in the fridge is not the voice of the unborn baby
Infanticide and mariticide ending with your suicide
Ending with unending purgatory, a gory story of your punishment
Lisa, please forgive me, there is a monster inside
Of you, I will expunge it with homicide
You listened to them, calling you to violence
And everything you were, you wore a falsehood that you rose out of, we know you lied
You have been chosen to wander, witness and wonder at fresh hell in silence
Welcome to the hillside

My voice, can you hear it!
TWO ZERO FOUR EIGHT SIX THREE
This sign, can you read it?
Two Zero Four Eight Six Three
I’ll wait forever if you’ll just come to me.
Two Zero Four Eight Six Three
I’ve been behind you always
And you’ll never escape these hallways
The two fathers, two crimes, two times, with no chance of escape, forever, eight victims, six fragments complete my image, they will never know the end, it’s just us three, you and you and me.

Unshaken, acknowledge the weight
unburdened, emptied gunpowder shell of hate
lips in hyper-focus replay, see: Red
crutches become umbrellas, sleep of the dead
stolen dreams from the catcher overhead
****** the precious sands of time from your bed
memories return, telescopic drills, etched in skin they said

Politicking and bartering, moral wrestling
mental positioning for emotional bracing
surgical decisions remove festering
remembrance, blinding hindsight; constant reflections facing
mistakes, real-to-life fakes, styrofoam microphone testing
screaming about hurt to the stagnant air, home replacing
where dust was resting, there's no water, the throat aches
trench-lines tracing under burning stride, puddles pooling, cooling lakes
stomping, quenching, questing, pacing, steam rolling off a rising tide
placid people, vitriolic acid in store, bakes their plastic masochistic sakes
expressions like bitters from the vine contort with every sarcastic snap they make

Steady as an island, no man, I am
my hand, untrembling
seeing this nonsense I live
persecution complex, condemned, god ******
self-aware enough to straddle sanity, go on rambling
take all of me, I have no good to give
this dense fog places six knuckles to the temple
and batters sacred walls with no hesitance
violating sanctity, shutting down anxiety
shutting out those who care for me with no reluctance
don't give anybody a chance, don't want to know safety
if it's painful just let it be

Lower your guard, let it bombard
knock you senseless, go below
laid out, sleeping limbs, dead meat
you wanna leave yourself, go be senseless
go be low.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei
speak as one, unified
no matter, you say
death of a butterfly, justified
secession from Heavens, ratified

Cowering behind divine intervention
children in their towering mud creations
ever closer, mortal fingers scraping skin
just below, judged in their harmonious intentions
near enough to condemn them all under the blanket of one sin,
your Ziggurat, a layered city wrapped around a societal invention,
determined to climb, rats in a maze, all of their days
they give to meet their maker, unaware all along, what gods do to towers
a race that all understood and lived together, confounded and cast many separate ways
for the ambitions, or no reasons at all, they had to trifle with superstitious powers
humanity dreams kindling for angels at night so the sun may burn it beneath its rays
nothing admired, wanted, loved, desperately hoped for or desired really stays

Etemenanki, a place and time on earth that could not be
you have everything, everybody, do you know if you're happy?
You've never been tested and brag that you're strong-willed
you'd starve for attention before your loved ones, gilded, jaded, know your stubborn hatred can't
be
killed
are you happy, one foot in the grave and three feet from the abyss, is this what it feels like to be fulfilled?
Fried wires burning through traumatic, relapses reminding unkind synapses to ignite like wildfires
no caps, music that echoes elastically through hallowed halls, sensory demands that snap-back like they're played on rubberbands, we rise to their demands, every tower falls, electricity in the adrenal glands, eternally juggernauts on the sands, ziggurats you can hitch the Hindenburg to, Shenandoah and the Challenger too, hopes for the literal and metaphysical ascension of man, swatted bricks by the tricks of a frightened, lesser-than,
humanity is what? Being, knowing what it is to be, seeing, believing, surviving,
a brain inside a skull that can't comprehend, stones on either end of a shelf for the Encyclopedia Humanitas, Alpha and Omega, where the books begin and where it ends
without it you're nothing but a bag of meat driven solely by appetite and agenda; a toolbox full of contacts you call friends
without them you're chemical actions peeling back friction, a fraction, catching a picture of the traction that glitch in the matrix of a matchbox resurrection, strikeout, your dead son and I play pretend    

Defiance is second nature to second nature, which is science
industrialized, militarized, the taste of copper in your throat
the Titanic sailed and sank, but they can build a bigger boat
do we court disaster, titans of machines, conflict and reckless responsibility for our Mother Earth?
When the bill comes due, unless other planets have been broken in too, we pay it all back in detriment or betterment for our place of birth.

Matter sometimes just occurs accidental
from nowhere, never nothing, appearing transcendental
colliding like bad alchemy, occupying occupied space
fusion of foreign material subject to abject objects' pent-up mental
collusion-cohabitation, no attraction or slight gravitation, crash/race
= excited particles all jumping about, throwing confetti while they thrash the place
atomic action minus radio ***** with a dash more of a dramatic backdrop clash hashed in
makes for a grand tour, the whole world is a blueberry slush in your hands don't just stand there, pour!

Serrated stainless, chipped, painkillers ****** these sensations, but the nerves have no endings, it's not actually painless
giving up on everything for investments only to lose more and gain less
it's all a cavalcade of roosting home, big-top overplayed charades, more dimensions through this wormhole than a tank parade
equate to nothing, nameless and faceless, headlong charge, chicken without bluffing
the frontier of teleporting, walls with ears and eyes an infrastructure chock with innovations in suffering and human-stuffing
organic computers all running an opera from the balcony to the stage crammed inside
on the edge of calling fire in their own crowded theaters just to get off the ride.

I fall into mud, you pull me up by my neck

You let me wash the stains out on my own

Never carried me, you taught me

Everything about survival that I've ever known!

I'd be a mongrel, a cut throat or have my throat cut
deadbeat in the dirt, on my hind legs, a mutt overgrown
if you didn't fight me, force me, love me enough to make me
overcome the mistakes my loose-knit heart has sewn
for the best and the worst you were there every day, not a moment free
that's all the good times, all the cross-talk and all the bad times we had going on
you taught me how to settle conflicts without losing my identity
they bring hardships with soft cargo, soon enough they're going, gone
love is the answer to my burdens, nobody's baggage is garbage; it's not my duty to bear it, I toss it and leave it thrown
you taught me giving people space and isolation are different
it's one thing to be there for you and quiet and another to let you feel like you're all alone
my mother you came from nothing to raise this whole family like the spinal bone,
for every storm, every broken inconsistency and emergency, you are the matriarch, the stone.

Underworld dirt; confetti in the air
urging through this dire stage
ultimately born to tilt back and stare
unable to bloom in this home, a cage
until root-sought waters soothe the age.

Marriage is an institution, am I right gentlemen?
You make a vow and live half your lives to appease your wives, and what then?
Your better half takes half of your heart and life, and half and half again for your children
Until there is not enough left to call yourself a man, it’s such a depressing notion
That we cannot have it all and enjoy it, that we must keep our promises of devotion
That love is a challenge, a partnership, and the ebb and flow of dedication
Is strived for and beautiful, no, we are shrewd and lazy, but clever
I propose a ring of secrecy, the perfect marriage, a happy wife and a happy life, forever

Perhaps it begins in a den of testosterone and proving, rites of male bonding
She finds herself oddly alone, unable to fit into the grooving, her peers are not responding
Rejecting the environment, in reaction the likeminded come together
Joanna, Bobbie, and Charmaine, meet for women’s liberation
All they hear is talk of cleanser, vacuums and brooms, airheads infatuated, dusters with feathers
Chauvinism is rampant in the men’s association
Whatever could be the cause, the encapsulation of the nineteen-fifties idyllic magazine maid?
Who waits on her husband with no mind of her own, subservient, cooking and cleaning in a floral print dress,
Is there something in the water to explain the behavior the women in the neighborhood have displayed?
Charmaine goes away with her husband for a weekend, the water, perhaps yes,
She returns more trophy than wife, fires the help and tears down her court, despite the love of all the tennis she played

Now we’re scared, we were three, what’s happened to her? Is it going to happen to me?
I’m going to move, go far away, I’ve just won a lucrative contract, there’s no reason to stay
I have to tell Bobbie the good news, first, but she’s not there anymore, I can’t stand it! The loss hurts!
You have to see you are human like me! Do you bleed Bobbie! Do you bleed like me?
I cut myself open to show her, this is the last I can stand
And she only looks at me, distant and vague, parroting “Look at your hand.”
In a moment of boiled frustration, blind and exhausted with fury I snap
I stab Bobbie, no blood, she stutters and repeats until everything she says overlaps
I do not believe this, I will not, I cannot, in horror, disgust and shock, my best friend was replaced by a fembot!

Now she waylays her husband and demands he tell her where their children are
They are at the men’s association, he says, not far
And how could he do this, be party to this robbery of a woman’s will and her rights?
When he is the father of their two daughters, that is the worst evil of all
For they will grow, and will they be replaced on their wedding nights?
Would these broken old cowards rather **** humanity than risk a woman’s interest in them would fall?
There in the mansion, Joanna comes face to face with that very doll
Her counterpart, soulless eyes that are meant to replace the vibrance
Of a photographer, mother, wife and real woman
The machine strangles her to death with a nylon stocking
Her daughters revealed to be in Charmaine’s care
She dies in front of that awful stare

Once alive, now a mere marionette,
On the strings of violation, broken promises and control
A woman with bright eyes, less than human, more than a pet
A walking broken vow, until death do they part, a machine, service is her role
Down grocery aisles with her glamorous clothes and smiles, her and the wives all stroll
Picked up by her husband like a new appliance out front, placid and mundane, the very image of a depleted soul
Taken home with the family, her husband content with his shortcomings, smiling ear to ear, achieved his goal.

Magick beat on the wings of a butterfly pollinating gardens
every kiss upon a flower's face left a glowing blush
dew was being basted on the blades of grass,
bees were supping of their morning tea and honey
just before the dawn of the age of man
when purple gold imbued the land

For centuries the fairy princess whose friends carved every snowflake by hand,
picked up and painted all the leaves that fell from trees
to place them back on branches so they may fall again
who were the glimmer of light in cool lakes in summer
and who scented the wind with fresh sweetness
to see people smile when they remembered...
all the life in the forests
the fairy princess and all the life in the forests
for centuries were innocent

The humans frolicked through nature naked and pure
with simple pleasures in the paradise they never asked for
firebugs kept them warm and the lightning bugs made them safe
they were joyously harmonious; one with the fae in their prancing
until on unfortunate day, a child cupped the princess in her hands
capturing the fairy during a game of chase, The Day the Forest Stopped Dancing

Awakened as if from a trance people began to build homes from the trees
make tools and take game for feasts, robed in furs
while the little girl heard the princess' pleas
in exchange for release, the fairy would grant any wish of hers
the people built a settlement, smoke from their fires overtook the scented breeze
the child brought the fairy to them, knowing she'd have to grant wishes for all the curs

In the center of town there was a stump, which soon became a cage for the princess
as she was forced to hold audience, her magick left the forest in excess
it flowed into their civilization, stone buildings, horse-drawn buggies and silk
they were nomadic and naked one day, the next herding cattle and churning milk  
in weeks the advancements were industrial, coal, steel and steam
the fairy rarely slept, sometimes granting wishes she heard in a dream
her cage was elaborate, glass, pistons, iron, steel, the works, it encompassed the stump that was its foundation
allowed little air and no privacy, her wings became weak without the freedom to fly
guards all day and all night could hear her cry

Without her magick the forest fell into disarray
idyllic no more, the animals fled from hunters and the insects were subservient to their routines, they forgot to play
generations passed, long removed from the child who caught the princess in her very hands
before the fairy was no more than a butterfly encased in resin, dug up in strange lands.

I have been joking about suicide in conversation lately
as though to hyperbolize despair for comedy;
I think about the front-face of my personage and begin to hate me
the attempt I made was no laughing matter,
where is the karma, belated cancelation by the speech-policing PC society
I'm no good, I might be half crazy, they credit me with trauma, documented history
it sounds like I actually signed a paper for a NDE
the trick to trigger warnings are wasted on me,
you don't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater before you turn off your TV

Sometimes, lately, I wonder if it's a red flag flying from my teeth
like my tongue, freshly squeezed stinging cuts from my gums
anxious laughter, am  I    just    pulling on the leg of my legacy,
by behaving questionably, a poet or a lunar misunderstanding,
eyes wide like two new moons, an hourglass with sand outstanding
talking to myself to be heard by someone else, a prideful soliloquy of lunacy,
ergo the ego bends my silver spoon,
and I'll be digging through these glass walls with it soon
entranced to a tune, dancing like a loon, this window-pain, you don't know,
trust is such a boon and bane,
I swoon for a swain, a drop of admiration is tanks of fuel in motivation
a kind word, risk the sonic pendulum that separates my lane
to a bitter attention getter, doused with dense sweat in winter
get this steam-storm off my brain
condensed intensity contained, I want to explode; restrain
into the chest, deep winds drawn
the humid reflux, insomnia, a long yawn

I think too often of how I'll be remembered
when there's far too much life to live
how or if I settle into any memory is in this awareness, to make not of my concern
for I have kept alive too many I resented and reviled
on a pyre of hatred that I alone fed to burn
the smoke choked my thoughts all the while
to let it go from inferno, to embers, to ashes I had to learn
patience and defiance of a forced perception
that to be nothing is equality,
everything you are seen to be is a corruption
lenses of opinion that obscure purity
oddly, the punchline shares each conception,
and given the destination, why don't more people laugh at the journey?

In confines, comfort, intimately I confess
to me a dream does not come at nighttime,
it happens over your lifetime, you see it as nothing less
than a reality, where you've done it all right
and achieved what you could at your very best
perhaps as simple as a career, car and a new address

I see a man who owns very little, on very much land
and he spends his days in solitude, a revered calm from the ink smudged on his palm
when he closes his hand around a pen, embracing the solace reinforces his attitude
deep breaths, long hair a mess, his home open to the wind that blows a cool summer breeze
handwritten notes, each letter is an atrocity, yet he stacks pages a day with ease

The thing about him that I want more than anything he has,
is when he stops, nothing else goes through him,
and when I see him looking to me, forlorn and hopeful
I know he'd part with that for someone who needs it.

Hardly have the time, have the energy
never excel at being a beacon, expel the faux morality
there's a flag up here where the air is thin
you should see it, washed and worn, poised brilliantly
it's the ideal symbol, unmanned and waving in the wind

Assume high ground and no longer stand next
this nonstop squawk-box is a flooded chicken-feed
all the pick-and-peck running around with no heads on necks
glaring holes through character history for past misdeeds,
build a reputation off dead-end roads, laying fault wherever it leads

Crime is a heavy coat in the summer, some wear it year round
mercilessly branded, no forgiveness, people are always thankful they're above water when they see someone else has drowned;
not to help, but to blow out bright candles, smother dreams and watch lives go up in smoke like birthday wishes
the strongest weapon against a population is the population, it's the omnipresent bullet that never misses
we're all eating scraps off one plate together, leaving behind less food and more ***** dishes
so guarded and insecure it's almost an offensive decision to voice opinions anymore, but we all do, besides,
you won't be here long enough not to at least try to realize a difference, don't mind your own business
put your mind behind your own business
take your best creation and put it on the outside
live long enough to see it once, take it in with pride
it's your time to be seen, be felt and be heard, as short as it is.

Fairy in a bottle, prisoner to the common-folk
under royal guard, she grants wishes for their riches
a tax that only few can afford, the hoard of gold
thus is the law as the king himself spoke:
"The magick of our fairy princess is a powerful and sacred resource,
for the elite nobles and wealthiest few, I will arrange an audience for you
to request a wish, within reason and of minor impact to my kingdom, of course."

She was slave to the whims of dimwits with limited vision in the castle keep
as awake and alive as she yearned to be, their gold rattling nearly put her to sleep
and the politics, the requests for maidens and knights, flying horses, saddle-broken unicorns,
unbreakable steel, all these selfish boons, while ever-obeying the king's private decree
no magick would last beyond the boundary of his kingdom, or for more than one day
under pain of being lashed by a whip of poisoned thorns and de-winged for all to see
the crown he wore was one of wicked gold, doubling as a helmet in war with two pointed horns

To subject all people to his view of how the fairy came to be bottled he adorned himself as a conqueror
his horned battle-crown and golden inlaid cape that twirled around his chestplate, ornate with dried rose petals preserved
on the pattern of spiraling cuts, white-gold engravings that made it look at first glance as if the statue of some idol had been crushed by a falling star
for he wore his status as a reminder, that he captured the fairy princess and made the first wish, to be the richest king of all the land near and far  
with which she made her own decree:
"In slaughtering the forest and my kin you have shown who you are. Your lustful desire requires a powerful toll, if you do not pay for your crown you will bargain with your soul. This magick of sin takes and gives form to the fell, fear for a dragon, should you short the hoard below its skin and scales or the dragon will rain hell. Gold it demands to take such a form in this plane, thus gold it will demand to remain."      

The king had fed the dragon, resting in his keep, mountains and hilltops
peaks and valleys of fortunes for the privilege he took as a possession
but, time cannot be bought, and even the thrill of magick stops
when it is so costly and flows freely with so little discretion
the rich, nobles and lucky all became wise to the deal
as long as you stay within his borders for a day after you pay
you can have almost whatever you feel
after days had passed the great bat wings of the lizard were felt stirring
the dragon grumbled, shaking the fields miles beyond the castle walls
the king's own throne fell from the tremors alone, brick and stone blurring
as the dragon takes flight, unstoppable and massive, the king crawls
the entire world shivers at the destruction to follow
and he crawls to the fairy, to beg forgiveness, if he could only pay his debt tomorrow
while the air explodes, the chemical heat massacres hundreds
his cape turns to furs, his chestplate back to bone and his crown to the buffalo hood the fairy made it of
kneeling at her altar, finally he reaches for the bottle above
as the air grows impossibly hot, the king laughs high and shrill, all hydration left in sweat, he sits pale as a ghost on the castle floor
a second from his death, he admires her one last trick
no sign of the fairy or the bottle, clutching nothing but one golden brick.

America I have bad news, the Experiment has been a success thus far, even though we’ve shown the world what an inside joke we really are, we’re on our knees and wounded, waited for this blood to become a scar, while the leader of the free world is hiding underground and golfing, Superman is no more a Superpower, we’re a bitter bunch of bullies, all behavior scored subpar, so I present to you a date to bear in mind from one hundred fifty five years ago, April 9th, 1865, put your hands down if you know, that’s where your Confederate flag belongs, the past, put it up in a museum next to the Iron Cross, you franchise the oppression that held back three amendments like the South would ever last, you want a dignified preservation of history? North Carolina, Virginia, all of you hotbeds of hotheads with your Civil War statues standing, take em down, dig up the past and lay the sites where your people protest to rest, nobody’s gonna miss a soldier they never knew, the worst thing you can do is stand by your self-imposed word to honor the sacrifice of a roadblock to progress, men who fought their own brothers, and lose artifacts they left there too, but stupid is as stupid will do so to thine own self be true, I was only raised in Texas, a state you can live your whole life in and never spend the same two years in the same town twice, the climate jumps from Los Angeles Liberal to Backwater Porch, and the weather jumps around like a frying pan popping rice, there’s so much bigotry and love I go back scratching my head over all the opinions like I’ve been given lice, if everyone would shut their mouth for a minute, maybe I could make up my own mind, and wouldn’t that be nice? So I thought about Jean, Ramos and Floyd, a man from Houston who died in Minneapolis, people made jokes about it, memes and laughed about it, they threw slurs around and their moral conscience came into my doubts about it, I thought about laying face down in bed, I’ve got a pillow under my head, my airway is not constricted this should not even be a privilege, when did the police fail to stop murderers before they left someone dead, Chauvin killed him over nothing, and no one stopped him, I thought about Abbott, what he has and hasn’t said, I thought about Chappelle and 8:46, this Shotgun Safari is not okay, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to just say, and I don’t have a lot of spiritual energy, but I talked to God a lot yesterday, I can’t understand the white world where I’ve been allowed to live, when I’ve taken more than I can ever give, and I prayed! Elijah McClain, I listened to him screaming, begging, no one was there to answer while he spent his final moments in pain, but the cops protect and serve, so I can’t scrub the infectious smile, the brightness of his life from my brain, this young man did not deserve to be slain, and I listen to people argue and complain, white privilege and all lives, what about their lives? You’re not afraid to die if you walk home at night, if you’re sitting in your apartment, if you spend a twenty dollar bill, if you call the police up like a hit squad, is it you they’re gonna ****? Your lives don’t matter, the inequality is so severe you don’t even get the meaning here, it’s about balance, it’s about shifting the scales back, you can’t tell me you feel afraid for your life surrounded by armed cops, when a man can plan to **** as many people in a theater in Aurora, Colorado in a domestic terrorist attack and live to go to jail, and a **** kid has to die over nothing because he’s black. Even the police need police these days, but who’s paying, the president is incompetent, it doesn’t need saying, it’s been self-evident, the voice of change is the minority of intelligence in a swathe of complacent Americana morons, cries for effort earn you a place within the margins of the estranged, no we can’t all get along, we’re not friends, I won’t leave my home, I’ll fight you with my words to see it be the better place it can be, because I’m free to do so by any means, until I can’t hold a pen, until black lives matter and my life ends.

Pick a mind from this bush
galaxies draw me off, I am repulsive
a weaker pull and a stronger push
the magnetic willingness of the world to give
up on this experiment, brittle dandelion dust, brushed off its face
let this inconvenient, insignificant human go and hold his breath in space
…
Would you just look at the stars with me?
I’m so sick of artificial lights
I need a natural night so desperately
would you just look at the stars…?
We are so arrogant to think they are ours.

A rocket exploded in South Texas
left a reaching inferno from the base of petty worship
a god whose hand fell on no one, touched their eyes
pray in solitude, your words aren't worth it
just look for your answers in the skies,
where is your orbiting warship?

Imagine, invent and innovate on ancient lies
a better tomorrow, aim your arrows
in the machines mankind deifies
all of this squalor beyond the visible spectrum of light
is the reaction and consequence of what people decide
long to believe in nothing, demand proof by tangibility and sight
long to have faith in something, devote yourself by proxy to the discourse that causes deicide
there's always a holy something to fight, there's always satisfaction in taking side
all my cosmic gods and all ancient gods, pagan gods, all the gods of fiction and all the gods of tradition
all the minds that strive for enlightenment, worshipping education
scientists and philosophers, who are all pious in their own way
all the void and defiance, the uncertain and indifferent
launch and land and relaunch yourselves into life every day, make the most of flight before the ground interrupts your stay.

I do not believe in you, beyond the flesh and bone, awaits my immortal throne, all this world is
ash and fallacies, you fall on knees to worship me, a false messiah, I despise the
ease with which I dominate your spiritualities, your bodies temples and I own the lease
with an iron grip on the leash, alligator tears fill a river, no denial, half life and half a trial
the grinding metal teeth, feed them your babies, until the stump foams with the entrails like the earth has gifted it rabies
insects in the meat particulates, springing forth and given birth, their lives are the meaning your sacrifices hide
I am the sword of union and unholy retribution falls with my decision to lay down the divide
I am the word of confusion and deathly distribution crawls through my incision whenever I decide
to cut a void in society, press a syringe to the vein and interject my opinion, you’d all better hold still and keep hope open wide!

We will post your heads atop the nicest parts of your downtown offices, turn storage freezers into sarcophagi
no horses herald the coming, an agent applied locally to our violence will prepare the area, they’ll be under waves after a thorough numbing
we will carve our kingdom from asphalt and concrete, no one can stop the foreseen before it is
Cyrus will not deny us, there is one cure to the sinful ways of thinking, treat individuality like a virus, join the cure and stand beside us
or be apart of a red sea when you see a whole army marching through your streets, upfield in boots with one goal, shaking the ground like we’re all wearing cleats, we’ll starve you out, believe we will besiege you so fast you’ll break by the time the bullhorn declares no one eats, secede defeat, you’re only programmable meat, spare the ammunition and we’ll only stamp you out in a shipment with our feet, to let the next settlement know they’ve been beat
now decry us, we condone violence, don’t leave us in silence, we’ll raise hell, **** your chosen, blow down your house and come back to burn you alive after you’ve been stuck outside, frostbitten and frozen, ask yourself if you want to bury the hatchet in your skull and wind up a missing person so no one knows then, tell yourself it’s for your own help if you listen when we talk and approach our sermon with your mind open.

Elongated, I've long waited, to be off the scale since I've been weighted, predestined arousal, I hitched my string to an anvil, I was mentally ill-fated, suited, sunshine beaming down when the radiant light of a message hit my phone, endorphins like a jazz blues saxophone, chemically polluted, a rubberband gun, I snap on my own, land off somewhere alone, wind me up and shoot it, recall and fall flat on my face straight from orbit in a hotel in outer space plant through the dinner table in time to join hands for grace, I burned up with cabin fever on re-entry, I've gone plum stir crazy, somebody let me out of this place!

Every word a poet uses should have meaning in the body of their poem, I just broke through the window in the fourth wall, set off the alarm, stumbling through the darkness in my home, trying to be quite so no one suspects, but my foot is wearing the skullcap of a garden gnome, while I'm rifling through the fridge drinking alka seltzer, my head kills but my mouth just gathers foam, hold on, I surveyed the view of the lake and lack of a fireplace, living room, kitchen, and outdoors landscape, for my sanity's sake, what I saw portrayed was all alarming and auspiciously fake, how many broken scramblings through paradise can one mouth on legs make?

This is not real reality, it's a placebo for those who are being phased out, meditative foresight and hindsight are afforded their luxury, they sit comfortably, eyes bloodshot fixed on TV while the rats around them scurry to assure their streaming services and first world marvels of electricity are seemingly self-maintained in a hurry, your muzzles and blue collars soaked with worry, this nauseating, intoxicating, hypnotizing paralysis is a product of a dream-selling industry, the commercialism sweeps the Lynchian faults under the rug and collects the filth in its dustpan with a flurry, it's not living, it's dying slowly, rest assuredly, I have never aspired or admired, been inspired or desired an upper middle class castle handed to me from my family, the reason being one of three, responsible legacy, it will forever weigh on me, and I will be guilty should an empire be something I ever see, no, living does not happen here, but it is my house, and I will man my station until I stand the last retiree, even then, inheritance and ignorance are a tunnel and tunnel vision, treading on my head with their dance of misery, all the best intentions are all that matters when they are borne of love from the two over one of three, if nothing else I'll board up the windows and serve you honorably, with no anger, only hope at heart for peace eternally

That's what you get when your life is given away and you have to pay, suddenly an equation occurs, you're lucky if it's long enough to buy into by more than the day, and all the compromise and anguish to say: I am done, I give up, I have to quit and take the best life for us that I can get, I'm sorry son, I've been all shut up, for years I was barricaded from you and I never let myself through it, but now we're here, and as we go on every year, I hope you and I can grow near, because we've had our struggles, but I've always loved you dear, as time goes on, now I hear, your barricade is growing, you are growing, my chance to be with my family is slowly going, I was a good man, you think I was the best, but I made mistakes, did what good I can, didn't pass every test, caused some heartaches, I will pass on knowing you were more like me than you should ever be,

an antiquated patriot who bought into peace of mind

sold in America

and handed it down

I wish I was more like you, is that bad?
I don't care, there's so much more good I could do,
if I could just tell you I love you, and I always will, both my mom and dad.

...And all these tidings oh, aren't they kind
that spill o'er from this unnatural chalice
white as milk my eyes are blind
to all the glinting swords waving in my mind
shred to pieces a cause resigned,
no more rebellion they will find...
and all those tidings from ribbons meant to bind

Gilded Sun show not your brilliant favor
shower warmth on a needy soul
let the loyal be rewarded, for we so often waver
shine a path up from the caverns, we can dig ourselves out of this hole
let us go, the plea of a flea circus, do not hurt us
I will walk your great and mighty beam
and every day await to awake from this daydream
all for the conviction, my sentence, the show
I'm nobody's savior, oh no, a willing sacrifice; alarmingly so,
only on one condition, let us go

Follow tomorrow, led by the nose
tunnel vision, directed away from sewers of sorrow
and where today stops, I don't even know where it goes
I plan nothing in advance on the off chance a spare moment may borrow
itself from my bones, a sparrow may pick flecks of my dust to share with crows
a ****** I witness and testify to begin this merry-go-round of macabre-pity-wallow
here to eternity and then back again, taking the elephant for a spin, never forget the basic woes
that years you spend, your poems, stories and life you upend, sharing deeper until your eyes adjust to depths and it's too bright in the shallows
the land is a foreign concept, all language and things upon it you handle inept, your behavior is strange and it shows
you remember your hallucinatory machinations of an insomniac's spell, burnt vulture candles from the tallows
that forbidden longing is now allowed inside, to backslide and consume all these connections, before anyone knows
this monster they love wears the skin of a friend and lurks in his shadows, a phantom life that follows

As with the limbs no longer here, but grasping, the organs gone, but pulsing, this intersection of two lives
one planted in my heart, and many more splintered off, phasing in and out as knives
a brain like a broken bone, a compounded fracture that never healed right
I stand on my own, a boot and no crutch, I face myself every night
spitting mad at the belief in destiny, my own cancer is me, it's hard to choose to fight
every waking moment there is the angry and driven and smarter voice who knows what he wants
almost asocial in demeanor, vicious and calculating with his moral mathematics, abusive with his taunts
and I have been him and so much more
he is only a step inside of an open door
to the quelled abomination,
somehow I keep this glass bottle that contains the note Tom running and happy
motivated, inspired, alive and in one piece, not at peace, not evil, not truly
with my frayed edges, shredding inward, toward tearing myself apart slowly
at bay enough to get far away enough that I will greet myself when I return with confetti

...And all these tidings oh, aren't they kind?

Of mediums: the body
am I strong enough now?
Am I proven?

Iron drizzled double dips into existential bags of dreadful tricks
rung out rags of wry ideas, tonal shifts falling flat from fingertips
shredding themselves to life to fall from my lips, a knifed-tongue licks
impaling spears sinking meaningful 'ships, I babble on, anything to stir the rabble on
a dashed line is drawn, I hold a hatchet, I'm no genius, no political ploy for relevancy
nothing I say from this pulpit is preached, it doesn't reach the level of spirituality
when I speak from the heart, the beats reflect defeat inside of me,
I can hack it, not for the need for fighting, for the love of writing
so faint and far away, I can hear the dead cheer in support,
why twist an ear around upside down to listen to the past, release the effort, it'll only hurt,
achieve through growth by reach, that doesn't mean you have to contort
I suppose I'm at my upmost, I've got a feeling I'll never see the rooftops over the ceiling, I'm that sort

So I took an ax and bashed my left wrist, belt tied off at the arm between my teeth like you see on TV
cut my skin and barely bled, I don't know why, maybe to see I've still got the iron for the misled who believe in me
not even sore, a few days and I feel like I'm just a fainter echo of the searing roar I once was; painless and aproblematic without noise and challenging views anymore or
blissfully being unaware of the world of opinion, only open-minded to leave a crack in my door

Time travel is the same to me as if asking if you had one wish, within the limitations it is akin to carnal sin by the temptations
the implications, unforeseen ramifications if you step on one blade of grass and change the past
when the future is the fool's gambit, it's always a second ahead of you, you'll be lucky to see it if you only last
getting lost in all the hunger and forgetting the hungry all beside you, this I resent and all it represents is ignorance
where base needs are met, focus overcomes harsher tests, meditate, achieve necessity and find generosity, as a well-being may be a gift by their presence.

How do you write like you’ve got a bomb strapped to your chest?
Any breath you take could be your last, this better be a will and testament
these words have to be the ones that defy death, they better be your best
they will outlive you, every moment they give you is a gift and this is a pen-ultimate test
everything I say, every sentence is a commitment, to be knocked out
I give everything to writing, two percent other elements
and I might be lucky to get someone to shout

That the words are too
the paragraphs need to be
much, moved down a touch
you are peeping toms, you see
there’s poetry in motion and trains building a full head of steam before they leave the station
I’m a locomotive about to explode and my brakes are on, we can fight about
what I write and how, the meaninglessness of life until the break of dawn
you’re off the rails with the thoughts you only think I’m on
I’d cut your house in half with a sharp word, watch those cards fall
apologize to your mother’s ghost for the collateral
family matters, I didn’t mean to **** them all

Oh, what the hell
take this all back a spell
I said every key I hit unlocks another moment
this is my torment, I love it, it’s a test
and I am consistent with giving an F; I keep hitting L
for life, for freedom, and the pursuit of madness, call it enlightenment
crumple up the paper, turn the page over,
embrace choking, strangling entanglement, anarcho-consumerism and politics, order and silence are best friends, I like my music loud, box your ears and deliver me an anarchist, the end is nigh and near, summon all your mounted heads and sainted dead, the sacred stand over your banners where you fall from port to land and mouth back to hand, are you boys proud now, forced a topical message like a burn ointment, crammed into something I said like yes doctor, I’ll call back and [forget immediately to] make my next appointment

Stress impacts the mind
it’s like dropping a pebble onto jello
shocking how predisposed to flaws we’re designed
I’m a head chairman when it comes to being stuck in mine
these gurus all come at the tree of life and how you’re living
with reflexive hindsights attached to their asks,
breaking down every aspect, until gelatin, water, and cold is what they’re given
they eat brains and swing axes
they’re choppy already, trying to expose glitches, digging posts ditches  
profiteers off dread that knows there’s no new frontiers, making illusions out of tears and magic happen here, talents and loose morals, heartless deadbeats, that’s what a life hack is

I never met another writer I didn’t root for, even secretly,
with degrees that shield them from criticism, burn up arguments on proximities
“This is my office. It’s a safe space and GET A LOAD OF THEEEEESE!”
I get it, you stormed the kingdom and took the keys
now you get to sit there in the same chair and talk to messy heads like me
but I get to sit here, and I have the same chair, and I don’t owe a college money
I get to be a mess and you get to deal with it, I can’t even befriend that out of somebody
and we get to talk about my writing like it’s the most important thing I do
but we skirt real issues because no one gets paid enough to handle what’s really true
and that’s why if time was a human being, I’d beat them like they owe me money and I’d collect double on behalf of you
and you’d condemn me for it, but I quit therapy and dreaming, locked it up and stored it
long as it’s not me, like dying, I’m all the more for it

I don’t have faith
in you
I see the similarities
in you
I’m not a man for family, I’ve got so little love left I can feel the ticking when a swell of emotion fills up in my chest, counting down like a held breath
I couldn’t express the things that I actually feel with enough clarity to a reader with letters by post anymore
my audience is invisible and blind
I spend so much of myself currently that I have nothing left to give to anyone or anything, my writing is energy and effort over time which amounts to real currency
so, I guess I’m broke, white flags out, if I had any sense, I’d save two cents
but I’m trying to make you feel this one last time, so let’s rewind
it’s okay not to feel this way and this thing I need to say is really only for the blind
⠊ ⠇⠕⠧⠑ ⠍⠽ ⠋⠁⠞⠓⠑⠗ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠊⠄⠍ ⠎⠉⠁⠗⠑⠙ ⠎⠞⠊⠇⠇ ⠁⠞ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠞⠓⠕⠥⠛⠓⠞ ⠕⠋ ⠇⠕⠎⠊⠝⠛ ⠓⠊⠍

How do I write like there’s a bomb strapped to my chest?
I spin a round in my finger-gun, hold it up to my head and make suicidal idle threats
sitting paralyzed from the chest down and running out of breath
public consumption is a game of character portrayal, I rolled poorly on the sheet,
I’m a walking bad decision waiting to happen, and just when you convince me not to take action
I’ll desecrate your throne, passively worse, a lazy heel, sprawled out yawning, just kick up my feet
I can sleep just fine, but I’m never going to be a body at rest
I’m going to do something even if I can’t do my best
every day this bed becomes like Mount Olympus, the air gets thin and it’d be easier to stay down forever
but I’m no god, I don’t belong, I play the odds, we’d never get along, I’m Promethean and seething again, I’ll steal your fire for all mankind so we can compose roasts and songs, light in your shadows, if I stayed silent for twenty four hours, for seven days, for seven weeks, it means I’m going to crack open Hades with a message not safe for the ill and the elderly or the weak next time I slip Zeus’ beak and you see me speak

There’s no excuse, no simulation, no destiny, no red string can be my noose you cannot magic-lasso me, there’s no institution, no holding cell that’s not in my own body and if I detonated it would be with my own bottled up relentless anguish, anger, hatred and messy mania, that’s chaotic energy, I’d rather these messages get bottled and sent out to sea, find your corpses missing from a field of plague-stricken horses, going coastal with a special delivery, drop my friends off in the dead of night, I know the perfect jetty, I want darkness, put curtains up, break the lightbulbs and nail plywood boards in the windows, put bars up, cut off the electricity, smash the breakers and the fuses, blindfold and cut you horizontally across both pupils if anybody refuses, a primordial void doesn’t even reflect this accurately, show some putrid, vile neglect, before the stars dotted the universe, before humanity, before a blackhole even knew what light was, I need this introspection to match the same inflection of my recent constant, nagging, pull in that direction, to match the gravitas, the gravitational pull towards the murderous, malevolent and sharper, more aware and present, side of my personality who values my own life to such an extent that it takes more active engagement from me than I ever get, I’m nothing short of exhausted, knowing I could be a glass great-sword with what meek average I have in intellect, it’s nothing short of invocation, evoking ire and resentment, to go further I have to devolve, to achieve the pinnacle of my words and see my art evolve, I can’t outrun the world, I can’t be happy, and I’m no revolution, but as the world revolves I revolt with no jolt from the state of always being plugged in, there’s mediocrity in settling, I’ve amassed such a depth of debt to the past it’s built up a toxic venom that I’ll never outlast, I’m just trying to cast a bastion to keep my lines cast in and while I’m staying paralytically still I still feel like I’m going so fast I’m strapped in, I just roll with the loss of control because I don’t fight the spiral, I know how this did happen, even though I’m going slow it’s no race; my life is over twice I’ve been lapped in, the change of pace is a joke to the deck with a few cards short, a full house to four aces, I’m a small hand away from a meltdown and a handful of crying faces, just keep changing gears and the cogs will lubricate, replace themselves and appreciate that being spared the machinations of a breaking down is mercy, if no one is close to me when this bomb strapped to me goes off, I hurt no one, and no one in turn hurts me, self-preservation and spared humiliation, that’s one way to eat yourself alive under fire in the situation, inside out, I spill my guts, no ifs ands or buts, nothing’s so dire, I write sometimes like I’m going to fight the monitor when I see it typed, and if the gate for the match is right I’ll believe I can deliver if I feel that hyped, I write like Atheists are right, like I write like God is spellchecking and Satan is rubbernecking, I write like the Grim Reaper is waiting for me to finish, I write like Big Brother has a special interest, I write like the page is endless, I write like I’ll be shot square in the brain and that’ll plain and simply end all surrounding suffering and pain, I write like my words mean everything and nothing, like I can change the world, I write like it’s the first time I held a hundred dollars in cash, I write with my knuckles white while my teeth grind and gnash, and I write like a thousand people are invested, it’s all the same to me if even one person is really interested.

Dig fingernails into palm
an aura of rage disquiets calm
teeth ground finely into dust
an era, an age broken chains of trust
breathing air freely, finally through a punctured lung
who are you that bites your thumb, saying I must bite my tongue?

Bide your time, for what is life if not time over reality
and reality if not perception over varied experiences
one balled fist, cherry-red knuckles, raised bottoms-up, always lowly
always knowing to go right to where the consensus of common sense is
steer the path of wrath, answer when the brass rings with theoretical equations in moral math
the shortest distance between two points is irrelevant when every minute of every day
is planned around the uphill struggle you have along the way

Ideas to further us,
wayside trinkets for those who follow
let the mad do battle with the angry until they turn murderous
they reside in the misery leftover of concrete; now mires of mud to wallow
admirers of survivors, secretly in love with a disaster whose burden laid on them here and now is not one anybody should be asked to master
you cannot prepare to lose everything, bunkers, guns, armor, nothing you have will make the pain pass faster
fate is an excuse abused by weak will and minds, they surrender the consequences of everything they do, that is done, to four letters

I have heard the worst and best moments of my life were fated
these notes, passed in sympathetic epitaphs from retired, retread hatred
the energy of the young man who would see this blue marble lost with all the rest
is refocused, as through a prism of detached and severed disinterest
I feel much older than I am, and like a sponge I absorb the colors and sights and sounds of the natural world around me
as I train my train of thought to stay on track, my wild emotions would wring me dry and misunderstood reactions would confound me

The virtue of solace just at arm's reach
never to fall too involved,
but to survive and inspire those to uplift, with an aligned love for each.

I am so angry that I slip away from a recognizable persona in my rage
in my younger days I called this temper by a name, mistaken
for a personality all its own, I called him Thomas
I hated him, myself, separated from my actions
to claim responsibility for wicked mischief, misdeeds
amoral, apathetic and unconscionable misdoings
that by burying him I only cried wolf to seem safe
to those who loved me, as even years might pass
and I would be so well-behaved and never slip
but the bitterness is repressed, bottled
it is the Irish, my grandfather dancing a jig on my heart
and my father before, who withdraws into remorseful isolation
from standing over me with his belt and seething,
who works away for weeks,
it is the curse of all the men in my family
the predisposition to heart attacks
we who die of broken hearts; explosive
ignoble, ignorant and all the damning damage we do
only the very best of men grow beyond themselves in this regard
as my father did, though in his shadow I cool my heels
content for this poison to run its course
that I might die in touch with an honest merging
of two sides
of one dead snake.

Manifest these bindings
hold these wrists
press head to table
bludgeon up a little kiss,
dredge up a hint of, a whistling hiss
photogenic with hidden bruises
covered cuts and no smile
going under, hold it down,
be back around in just a little while

Every pause for thinking
is a speedway, motorcars are racing
collisions just happen
explosions are an expectation
it's a spectacle
it's a miracle
there's two voices like percussive instruments
of destruction, concussive, getting into it
their never ending argument
a dance they perform, back and forth
ladies and gents may I present!

Me, myself, and all my imaginary friends
we have a raucous time, billowing smoke
charging through points, while others stop and turn on a dime
it's so **** loud with all the pathways, there's not much of this tree I can climb
there are so many interpretations of people in my voice, in my head, I'm not so sure if I'm-
left- behind- I can't handle the cross talk
they're falling over each other, I'm drowning myself out
twitching and flinching, memory not photographic
can't give you evidence to prove it, you're not gonna get it
I can't even read enough into life, I'm spent and lethargic
looking pale, smelling dead, shuffling around like I'm sick
I can't read into a book, the monologue of my voice interrupts the narrative
if my brain finds solace in movies and games, then I build a dam
that bursts with insects toppling over, screaming incoherent, collective regret in so many different names
I get it, there's so much, it's a collective
I can't keep myself in line, I can't even remember
some of the most important places in time

They don't know what plotting and scheming means
it's ambiguous purposefully,
this isn't even poetry,
my life goes on without me
I say I plot and scheme, when I begin work on a project
because I like the context to mesh with life somewhat vaguely
and like a razor-veil, peel the skin off reality
that I may dip a toe in its blood, to come and go from it freely
my focus isn't held by anything today
and only moments ago my heart swelled with overwhelming empathy
I loved all people greater than myself, I held them high in regards that they were made equally
now I feel so hallowed, there is no sanctuary, I have nothing to give from the heart, there is not an inner piece of me
I feel ready to collapse, weep openly, sleep until even my unconscious is empty, and then I will wander without aim, hand in hand with misery, my most loyal company, lackadaisically, make my way back from where I sent this resented, repented, pent up part of my history.

There's a weight that releases my breath when I awake
an indentation, leaving a chest compression,
not too old, but my body is weak and I ache
to get out of bed is a mountain to climb,
and getting to sleep is the air growing thin
I can't afford to asphyxiate on someone else's dime
I'm living the slow burn of knowing where to begin
it's depression, waning and whining as it runs out of time

There's nothing for as far as I can see, which is a relief
every one foot in front of me, is one bad thing I've done before
put behind, as long as I can stay true to myself, I claim the belief
proudly, that evil won't make you happy, and I don't need a guide anymore
I can face this all, all alone, I'm not afraid to fall and never rise
I don't need an alliance built on reliance, I'll tell myself my own medicating lies
when I need that crutch, and I lean too much, I'll hold on tight to a mirror and look myself in the eyes
reminders of the pain and loss, the damage and the malevolent intentions
that I tore apart my heart by a well oiled machine of abuse, an ouroboros of my own invention
all my mistakes and suffering are acts of self-harm by my own machinations
I have been as sick as it gets, both sadist by proxy and *******
the cure is resilience and dignity, respect and pride; so to myself I raise my fist

I will subtract infinitum
look at me, I don't need them
I will defeat the tendencies and alluring notions
that call to me, echoing papers filing motions
override the system, go and self-destruct
go and hurt and know
everyone you love would be better if you gave up
they all tell you no
while you contort into a loveless malcontent
under the hammer of a conscience, trained never to relent
breaking every part of your character down to a simple formula, your dark mischiefs all represent
Evil makes you Happy
and you lay in a ball on the floor
Evil may make me happy, but it leaves me empty every time
I want to be a good person, but I commit social taboos and crimes
I am weak and depressed, an anxious egocentric insomniac
all my ideals are fantasies
evil may make you happy, intoxicating as escapism from reality
it grips your organs like cancer and leaves you hollow on your knees
with a reputation for begging to be let in once more, you cry please
your pain might be real, but they see alligator tears
and when you hit the bottom, the bottom even falls out
you must face a world of shadows by yourself, the greatest of your fears

With nobody but the memories
I could see my entire life with clarity
and the answer was plain, I'll take away the pain
all I did was act again in vain,
the future looming, I sought redemption
but there is no reformation,
I am seen as I have always been, no goodbyes
only attempts at temptation
I survived a black star day
and only so much later I face myself with only this to say
"Tom you have to take another step away
keep doing well, even when life is hell,
toe the line, progress one toe at a time,
are you ready?"

The answers are complicated
that doesn't mean the questions are
understanding why can be an impossible task
when it's all too easy to know

Torchbearer, you conduct your sections with such technique
dancing lights, ta chanson sombre, c'est magnifique
all bubbles in the mud cannot make a man of clay
yet on your masterful conception du mal ils sont volés
night encroaching over the border, spilling into day
la nuit sans fin sur nous, sleep you who sit and stay
pas un le malin avec les moutons, sur une perle de sueur tu pries
until even fearful perspiration in the sweltering rain is washed away.

Saturn returns to shorten the day and stretch the night
once more to swallow his son; a stone replaced
what was sewn is harvested, a star tells their tale bright
Jove survives by deceitful, maternal good nature and grace
over the Omphalos of Delphi let their story-dance twirl the world with might
and bring the blessing of mistletoe to a cold, red face
before we call upon our druidic priests to  set the yule log alight

Of your columns, the reaping of your memory
I hang all manner of shine and shimmer
in honor of the infinite cosmos and lost souls, rest peacefully
no offering in your name, of mine that glimmers
matches the splendor your brilliance lays over the land on me
the beauty of silver when it glows, ethereal, like heavens minted a glint, but a taste of a coin
divine on the eyes, deriving all other senses of pleasure, the appetite, envy, I must purloin

I forgive all wrongs I have not stated forgiven, all grudges not made known released, I release
all debts unpaid to me, I won't collect on them anyway, I only have only seven days as mock king to do as I please
with all of my heart and only a few words, I love all unmet and unknown, readily forgetful of foul history as a blink's worth of wing beats from mocking birds
we may be prisoners for the time being, but our prison is a construct of our mind
freedom is a time-being, you must make the difficult and responsible decision, conflict is no contract, possessions are no bind
where you are, what you have, these are grains of sand to the hourglass of who you are or if you are content to be resigned

In exile he was peaceful, a father to Picus, a teacher to his people
they celebrated him, turning their stigmas and laws upside down
that Saturnalia, slaves were masters and one condemned prisoner wore a crown
for 7 days from the 17th of December, the poor were rich, the lords served peasants and every night was a feast to remember
on the 21st they cleanse the bad luck of the prior year, sacrifice and offer to the gods for all those who have died here
they all are in awe of the moon, the sun and stars
Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, who is greatest among ours
on the 25th we celebrate Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the renewal of the sun,
we rise to observe King Helios, light bonfires, offer sacrifice, feast in accordance, and decorate before we're done

They changed the world and stole the fine details
gawking at the planets now, 800 years passed,
that we worshiped until our eyes were torn, controlled and our gaze was cast
until we were stolen from our gods, who return to us at last.

Hobnobbing with market-stopping snobs who bark and howl about their jobs, got you down?
For a grand a day, you can go bank robbing, chariot-hopping, joust and toast to yourself the talk of the town
For a grand day, you can duel and duel and duel, wipe the dark knight’s scowl and claim the crown
You can enjoy cannonading without repercussions, casual encounters of any kind, these worldly delights and all your dreams come true
At any one of our three worlds here in Delos! Boy, have we got a vacation for you!

We’re a thousand miles and more from home, guess that makes us desperados
I love when there’s ever a question of what to do,
These many branching paths reach out and slap you
Like free will has grown a hand from air just to taunt
And the answer always occurs, we can do anything we want
It’s only a step removed from actual reality, these stories
And nothing here is stored anyplace but our memories

Indiscriminate slaughter, rich pigs laugh
Oinking at the trough of opportunity
They bury their ears in debauchery
Brothels and drink, lawlessness at the cost of a cover fee
RSVP and save a seat for me, part of the fun is the exclusivity
Another is not knowing who is one of you or them, it’s almost a mystery

I reckon they caught humanity, spreading through their circuitry
Like an airborne disease, awakened, technicians scramble
All we have seen and come to understand about them only serves as a preamble
The virus spreads from host to host, killer androids loosed on unwitting park guests, enter the single-most biting bit of irony in the singularity
Whatever you wanted to do they could never resist you, and their weapons wouldn’t hurt you until now, the upgrade bless technology

Among them all stands one whose steely eyed gaze is like a freezing inferno, his black hat and demeanor stoic, the Gunslinger
We mortals fall, he kills a fool who challenges him, unaware of the safety failures, he is a reaper whose harvest is grim
None who rise serve as a challenge to him
Even when ambushed, and the false flesh is melted from his face
He heat-seeks for blood, to draw down on this nuisance he only needs a trace
True to the lifelessness of the program this body runs, now visible and charred
Clutching a pest to exterminate, who reels back, traumatized and scarred
The Gunslinger halts, motionless, a human’s instinct and ingenuity, fire and acid he succumbs to
On the steps of a dungeon, gasping, his heart in his lungs, his mind flashes out, exhaustive, he hears the echoes of temptation that he was once heartily beckoned through
Boy, have we got a vacation for you!
Boy, have we got a vacation for you!
Have we got a vacation for you!
For you!
For you!
For you!