It's not necessary
To walk through a cemetery
We'll still get graveyard dirt on our boots.
There are billions of bodies
Innocence buried everywhere.
Just take a step.
They are the foundation of things
This hopeless empire built on corpses


Wine-drunk time well spent
in cheap shirts
with ring around the collar.
Sweating. Sobbing.
Furthering the stains and their hidden agenda.

I have a nice watch though.
It was a gift. From the cosmos.
It’s this inside joke we share and
we're laughing at you because
you don’t get it.

we are the masters of self-destruction
trying to numb the pain with wine
and drugs
and smoke filling up our lungs,
we write down in lines with no rhyme
all the things
that make our souls burn and die.
our poems bleed
we drink their blood
then we write again,
listening to stupid songs all night
wishing sometimes we were deaf
wishing we were dead.
we let the doors open
anyone with a knife can come inside
cutting our hearts in half,
any tear is welcome
to create the ocean around us
in which we deliberately drown ourselves.
masters of self-destruction,
our bodies are temples where dying souls hide,
we run till our legs are broken
jump off cliffs
go between sharks' cheeks
forgetting to sleep
to dream
we bleed
we drink
we love
and hurt
it's a madmen game we play
each day
laughing hysterically
while slowly taking steps to the graves
we dug for ourselves,
the masters of self-destruction we are
lunatics
worshiping what's not for us to adore
crying
hiding
falling again
and again.
legs broken,
hearts cut and eaten
flesh ripped from our bones
lungs full of water
ears burnt
our eyes scream
but that's fine
'cause we are the masters of self-destruction
and our life is just a mad game

It consumes you, devours you,
Makes you wonder if you’ll die
But when you are feeling it, oh,
You are never more alive.

grilled stamina spiced with arrogance
marinated egos in bitter gall source
a touch of pickled common pride
a suggestion of mashed personality
served generously with indifference
on a platter of wonderful ignominy
going like hot cakes in these sad days
of lies emblazoned against night skies
hurry my man while stocks last
and before the merchants of doom
begin their desperate auctions of ethics
done with cynical glee and callousness
held together by a spread of mediocrity

The Living Said
 It seemeth such a little way to me
 Across to that strange country - the Beyond
 And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
 The home of those of whom I am so fond
 They make it seem familiar and most dear
 As journeying friends bring distant regions near


The Dead Said
 We are here, finding little but existence
 Staring at your world of breath and air – the There
 Far past, only permitted glance of glass fence
 Seeing just cause, no viable way to share
 Hard but not solid distance, a depurative mist
 This knowledge not for you now, but does exist


© Piyali Basu/PJ Poesy 2013

For hours, I tried to sleep.
The rain drums down on the tin roof;
the demons are knocking.
I see their tears stream down the window;
a cleverly designed artifice to distract
from their true intent.
I ignore their subtle attacks, but they always
find a way back in.
I watch their shadows drift in through
the windows;
morphing from one shape into another,
hovering around me,
their whispered breaths cloud the air –
there is barely a space unfilled by their presence.
I can’t seem to chase them away, and I’m
wrapped up into their world.
Empty, cold and alone,
my reality remains stranger than any dream.

© Sia Jane

When the dusts settle from the last wheel
and the sickle moon stoops on the bamboo grove
the dead rise in the whispers of the southern breeze.

You may hear them splashing the canal's water
beneath the hazed halo of one quarter
by nocturne music of barn owl and crickets
in lights of glowworms from darkest thickets.

If you stop on the Rotwood Bridge
can hear them sing in gay abandon
though we're now all dead old spirits
the night can't make us anymore forlorn.

The twin moon may from the ripples broken
beckon you and if your spirit awakens
take a plunge for a joyous down go
amid cheers from the watery hollow.

Ahead of
     this present
moment is a
void, no
        name, no
detail
beyond what
our
imaginations
    can impose, its
    bedrock not
made
of stone but
       sand, if it
were a
wood we would
           warn
children to
   avoid it, yet we
follow its fire, it's
        flames reaching
higher
     & higher,
        seducing us with
their power,
       all the things
that might be,
         glittering
then
  disappearing

Only yesterday that your glass blew
The flame was burning untouchable
The disk spinning fast, un-reversible

No home in a town so inhospitable
A world where questions are daft
Drafted to unravel an inbuilt psyche

I stand out in the jungle countryside
Strumming listening to “wild world”
Each rhythm a wavy walk on a path

Steps and strolls always sidetracked
The poppy field faded in sheen redness
When it turned cold and bled sourness

It was me who was left by the riverside
I sat by the bank and dreamed away
Then viewed my mirrored reflection

Melted in indecisions and intricacies
Extreme ongoing cognition appraisals
Silenced in the sound of the stillness

The flash of the grassed field called me
Embraced me as I paraded on the verge
A resolving embrace of a stab erased

I plead not to be understood or wanted
For these riffles are fixated on our heads
Bolted in our thoughts, wants and desires

Let me go for a gleeful ride on the rainbow
Or sit on the moon to watch the stars put up a show
Put on my wings and light up the night with fireflies
Or just calming the earth as the wind in disguise

Sometimes it seems to me that all I do is dream
Try as hard as I might by any ways and means
Please don't force me to face reality
When all I want to do in life is take the time to dream

Be it floating on the clouds admiring the beautiful sight
Or dancing with my love in the snow showers
Little fairies hold buckets to collect my tears at night
While I dip into a pool filled with my favorite flowers

Because to me inside a dream is like a playful tune
That I love to sing by any means letting the dreams loose
From the middle of the imagined to the very edge of time
A steady stream I hope to dream forever in my mind

Strolling through a delicious tunnel of sweetness
Savoring the generous free flow of chocolate fall
The trees humming melodies, they leave me speechless
As curly vines of mixed berries crawl up the wall

Using life as the reflection inside of my dream scape
Moving further in the direction of the dream for the dreams sake
Where in time I hope to find what all along I have believed
That the dream I'm in at this moment is in fact my reality

Eudora*
*Mike Hauser

I hate the thinking about your body in the ground.
ghosts aren't real
but I knew you'd find a way to haunt me
I still have your ***** laundry
and I swear to god it talks to me//
I was smoking when
someone asked
how I deal with everything.
I blew smoke in their face
I said you'll feel this way someday
someday, someday, someday//
I feel the urge to dig up your bones
is there anywhere special you'd want to go?