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Jan 2013 · 791
The Impossible Observer
Bob Henry Jan 2013
Ceaseless ****** of the future,
Weaver of possibility,
Engine of chance and
“What would it be like?”
That endured the infinite
Hallucinations
Simulations
and recitations
Of its own creation
Never knowing why -
Just falling endlessly
And into place -
Who said:
I’d like to be on high ground
When the end comes
Not for safety but
to watch a while
whilst it tears apart
And then finally
unravels when my eyes close,
The thing of things
That orchestrated the
Mutiny of the heart
In those senseless
Undergrounds
Stairwells
Attics of sanity,
The cracks in the hologram,
As all of life were truly hollow
Sep 2012 · 633
Something Died.
Bob Henry Sep 2012
Something died
We dug a hole at the back of the garden
Mumbled in some words
And filled the rest with dirt

My mother missed the funeral
She was ten days in bed
And made strange snarling sounds
When we tried to change the sheets.

This thing has no face
And what do you call a paper swan
Unfolded out of grace,
In its blatant two dimensions,
With its hideous crumpled skin,
When it bares neither form nor purpose?
Sep 2012 · 1.6k
Gimp Bailey
Bob Henry Sep 2012
Your father is dead, Gimp Bailey,
We found his body all bloodied and mashed,
Wouldn't have known it was him, Gimp Bailey,
Had he not screamed your name with his dying thrash,

T'was but days ago, Gimp Bailey,
You and I walked the town in the cold
I saw the scars on your bald head turn blue,
And your leg shook right out of your hold,

The wolves hadn't touched him, Gimp Bailey,
Though we could hear their howl in the wind,
'Treated him with the respect he never showed you,
For a sinner, that *******, sure new how to sin,

When we passed the catherdral, Gimp Bailey,
You looked to the bell tower high,
And you asked me, confused, Gimp Bailey,
Why men build their towers so high,
What's so wrong with the blue of the sky?

We know it was you, Gimp Bailey,
'Cause against the blue-black of the dusk,
Saw your silhouette, Gimp Bailey,
We saw your limping husk.

You bowed your burnt head, Gimp Bailey,
As we passed by the looming bell tower,
And we both know why you did, Gimp Bailey,
For it rang out for your final hour,

His blood turned to red snow, Gimp Bailey,
Whilst our hounds were sniffing your trail,
And where did you go, Gimp Bailey?
How did you run if you are so frail?

But you weren't trying to hide, Gimp Bailey,
Because we saw that scarred blue-bald head,
From the top of the tower with the toll of the bell,
You screamed, "He is dead! He is Dead!"

Then we heard the crash, Gimp Bailey,
As the Bell fell down the stair well
Into eternity, Gimp Bailey,
It fell into the depths of hell,

And still we waited, Gimp Bailey,
With our guns, oh so ready to shoot,
We didn't know how much you hated,
That man - that beast - that brute -

And when you appeared out the doors,
We saw your hands all bloodied and bruised
From the pillars you smashed, Gimp Bailey,
From the hate of being abused,

When the roof came down, Gimp Bailey,
We didn't know what to say!
When the walls folded in, Gimp Bailey,
There was nothing to do but to pray!

I wish you had run, Gimp Bailey,
But you were a gorgoyle instead,
I called to you, Gimp Bailey,
Whilst those stones fell upon your head...

Each brick that fell, Gimp Bailey,
Was no different from your fathers back hand,
And they twisted your limbs, Gimp Bailey,
Like your leg broken by that man,

And the mortor that crashed, Gimp Bailey,
Ripped open the scars on your head,
Like the fire your father had set on your skull,
Oh Gimp Bailey, are you happy you're dead?
Sep 2012 · 1.2k
Stitches
Bob Henry Sep 2012
Why doctor G
Do these stitches still bleed?
The wound has no depth
But a hole in the creed,

That was once the goal
Of thy shallow soul
Gushes the blood
Numbs the control.

Why doctor O
Does the grass not grow?
That once stemmed the thought
In which the seeds could be sewed,

T’was once a marvelous tree
Doctor O, doctor G.
See the death in the spark
Of the mind of the free.

Why doctor D
Is all attempt to achieve
Thoughtless finite means
In an infinite sea?

Doctor G, doctor O, doctor D
Don't you see?
The blood will not flow,
But the stitches still bleed.

Shoot the sparks through thy heart,
Doctors, count them three,
Fill my lungs with the air
Of this failed surgery

Let the meter run flat
Cease the breath, if you please,
And remove from thy corpse
The stitches in the tree

I may pray to the three
Once the coil is released
That the grass  one day grows
And the stitches not bleed.
Sep 2012 · 1.2k
I Read
Bob Henry Sep 2012
I read
I read anything,
Prose or poem, article or essay,
I'm so hungry for it
I wish my eyes had detachable jaws
That ate ink and binary alike.

Its not for allure of assonance and alliteration,
The collective subjective seeking the objective,
But the idea whittled, still unvarnished,
Because that is what we are and that is who I am.
Sep 2012 · 2.6k
Untitled
Bob Henry Sep 2012
Moments, each like a drop of rain
That is the continual movement
Of the Omniverse
Forming, falling, breaking and rejoining,
Inhaled back up to the skies
And starting all over again,

Eventually, even the Gods,
Like energy into matter
Like electrons and protons and neutrons
Like atoms into molecules,
Like those bodiless strands of DNA
Floating in magnificent soups of matter,
Cloning themselves,
Like the cells they formed connecting and creating life,
Systems of energy making machines,
Like the bodies that wasted away
When their brains became their graves
Breaking away into pure information,
Finding each other
In the vast expanses of space
And reconnecting like the broken lines of a puzzle
Finally piecing together
To make the image of a single universal being…
They too shall join and make one,
For many are the plains of the multiverse
And many are the gods that stare out
Into its infinite dimensions.
Sep 2012 · 748
Sleep
Bob Henry Sep 2012
Sleep was the demon, that beat the waking mind,
I mind these hours of wasted life
To find time to waste time
I could write 'waste'
A thousands times
And still not waste my life
As sleep.
Bob Henry Sep 2012
I woke up to find my padded bed, upon a padded floor,
Walked outside to find myself between some padded walls

I stood in the pill line adjacent to the kitchen sink,
And took my daily dosage, so that I wouldn’t think.

I drove along the padded streets to meet someone who’d say,
That nothing here is padded, you simply think that way.

Along the padded sidewalks, I saw my protected peers
Hobble along in straight jackets, to protect them from their fears.

I took my third pill today, then lay in my padded gloom,
I thought not to inflict myself, for how would I in this room?

The only thought that met my mind was that tomorrow, like today,
Would protect me from my sadist acts, to which I am enslaved.

I decided that before I sleep, I’d take a little stroll,
But take dosage before such action, to keep me in control.

In the park I sat myself, upon a padded seat,
And watched my jacketed friends try to make their lives complete.

And before I left that painless park, I saw a man beside,
Who wore no such straight jacket, and stood not in the pill line.

I asked him “How have you such freedom? Do you not fear what you could do,
If you found something sadistic, although they come in few?”

He said to me “Now listen, I know that you can see,
All the pads and pills they give to keep us from our humanity.”

I looked at him and wondered, then asked “But what’s too do?
We’re all tight in our straight jackets, all of us, but you.”

He told me we must fight it, and I let release a grin,
And said, “If you cannot see the army, however will you win?”

He cleared his throat and smiled with me, then said with careless ease,
“There’ll be riots in the asylum, when we discover that we share the same disease.”
Sep 2012 · 2.2k
The Swine at the Cabaret
Bob Henry Sep 2012
By the run of wine, by Champagne's flow,
Swine did dine and watch the show,
'tween Squelch and Squeal, they Screamed, "Bravo!"
As merry went, did jolly go,

They drink their drinks, they oinked along,
To cabarets enchanting song,
So hypnotized, it won't be long,
'til Something goes horribly wrong....

For how were the jolly hogs to know
That butchers sat in the fifth row?
As blades grew sharp, their haste did grow,
Impatient to get on the go,

The sows were deafened by the tune,
The boars blinded by drunkards view,
But tact is what the butchers do,
But time at hand is profit due...  

So nice the price of pork these days,
And chops and ribs are all the craze,
A roast in beer with honey glaze...
Makes fortunes for the butchers blades.

Had the swine been wise, for moments thought,
To greed they are cash to caught,
They could have run, they could have fought
And not been swine to the onslaught,

But they danced and sang, stupid and heavy
As butchers killed the swine of many,
That now sit in pieces, at a deli,
Their wage in wallet, meat in belly.

— The End —