The bells rang vividly through the cold misty evening as the carolers passed by,
Their serenades intoxicating the air with more and more of that red-green aura.
Busses, cars, and even an old man with a rickshaw zoom down the street,
Promising themselves they wouldn't let up the eve someplace away from home.

A silhouette emerges from the church carrying something wet and shiny.

Two cars topsy turvied and the passengers fell asleep.

Three men point exploding pipes at each other until they all fall down.

Four women braid each others' hair with clenched fists as the red mists paint the white brick wall.

Five people, all in a row, collapse onto the tracks of an oncoming train and decide to let go.

But the omniscient presence in the domed cloud sees all as a musing, for what are we but inklings?

You can't stay young forever
_________

Life will try to leave you behind anyways

Awaken
Rise
Walk
Empty
Clean
Kiss
Goodbye
Drink
Eat
Sleep
Awaken
­Boredom
Silence/Music
Boredom
Loneliness
Sadness
Arrival
Hello
Kiss
Talk
Smoke
Lo­ve
Eat
Watch
Goodbye
Watch
Smoke
Sleep
Awaken

(Repeat ad nauseam)

Naked, destitute, confused;
My soul bares itself-
Empty to life's troubling ruse.

Mongrels snarl and scream
As I am chased away from-
Tattered dreams.

Misfortunes cast out
Like fishing line to a sea;
Empty woes hollow and prim
Opine shallow heresies.

Poverty and paradise bellow-
Deep through the glistening
Shaft of temporal demise.
Time is a tempest of sorcery
Fueled and filed by wild mages
Scrawling these white pages
Like a shaman on tenement walls:
"Forgive my kiss and forget my lips,
Death's call has me after all."

Humility escapes
The proud
So that it can
Embolden
The meek
Like a small child
With a pencil
Discovering
The Temple
Is weak.

Feeling
Is difficult to express
In words.
Yet I know
What the horn player
Means
When he plays his chords.
Pain can't be made
Plain to those
Who don't feel it,
Yet I know why
The pianist sobs with
Eyes that are dry,
His fingers moaning
A cry of mourning,
Filled with dread.
Until his fingers
Are the ones that
Sob instead.

Many people feel fear
When you speak of Evil,
Their Bibles clutched dear
As their hot hearts chill.
A great deal think of Satan
With his foul demonic band.
Show them a pentagram
And most fear their bodies
Will be possessed at once
By some demonic heathen
Looking for his lunch.

But I, having lived a hard life,
Fear not Satan’s treachery
Or his delivery of strife,
Nor the fabled imagery
The church once did write.
I seldom fear going to Hell
And basking in flames for eternity
Or not getting a farewell  
Into a kingdom of just divinity.

Oh no, my mind is quite filled
With the brimstone inferno
Caused by the wickedly free-willed.
Those very individuals
Who say they renounce Evil
Have beaten me to a pulp
For asking to be their equal.

So don’t be naive and let thy name be trod
By those who yell "Satan"
Only to betray God.

You're only part of it
If you want to be.

The Land of Opportunity
Should not be
The Land of Indignity.
Work for you,
Not for anybody else.
They'll point their fingers
And call you the "Bad Guy"
For being the only "guy"
With a spine.
A job is a job is a job,
But your life,
Your self-respect,
Your happiness-
They're worth more
Than the world.

So make it yours.

When I retire,
You haunt me,
Like a nightmare
That chases people through
Their dreams,
Depriving them of rest.
Foul demon,
Be gone from this earth.
Leave us alone to wallow
In the ashes of our youth.