War—
War is ugly.
The cries of the fighters
Meet the cries of the anguished.
(How easily the two intermingle.)
Life bleeds out upon the ground—
Or in the air—
To be lapped up by the animals
And absorbed by the plants.
The reds of rage
Meets the reds of wounds—
And the wounds weep
As the heart weeps
And the heart weeps
As the earth weeps.
War destroys so much more
Than what is before the hunters.
War sends echoes
Reverberating through the ages.
When will everyone hear these echoes
And put a stop to the cycle?

The writer pours his soul into being,
Letting his blood turn to black ink.
It splashes onto the pages and forms words,
Words that give his life meaning.
He sits back, looking at his hands,
His hands that created this wonderful work.
But then he pauses, staring in captive horror—
The words—his words—are moving—
Moving quickly—squirming—rising up—
Bunching together—swarming toward him—
They’re at his hands now—no, his arms—
His neck—choking him—darkness—
*Why?

It’s the dark creature crouching in the corner.
You know it’s there, but you ignore it.
When it first came, it screeched into the room,
Clawing at your face, your chest, your arms—
Anything and everything it could reach.
But you fought it off, somehow,
After a long, sweaty, arduous journey.
Now it just sits there, brooding in the blackness.
You don’t look at it.
You don’t acknowledge it.
But it’s there—you know it’s there.
You can feel its presence like a vortex.
And it knows you know it’s there.
And sometimes it reaches out a gnarled, clawed hand
And grips your clothes or cups your cheek,
And ice inches down your spine
And crystals cascade down your cheeks.
Soon the creature will fade from its corner,
But replacing it will be a hole—
A hole in the very fabric of the room.

The fires of war will burn
Deep within the heart.
Ev’ryone the ache of loss will learn.

The enemy we spurn—
Their blood spreads far apart.
The fires of war will burn.

“Bring us death, sir. Please,” the wounded yearn.
“We have done our part.”
Ev’ryone the ache of loss will learn.

The war’s at last adjourned.
Off the fields I cart
The fires of war that burn.

Soldiers pile up in heaps. I turn—
I list the dead in charts.
Ev’ryone the ache of loss will learn.

The past will ne’er return.
The conflicts always start.
The fires of war that burn
The ache of loss will learn.

The dryads shake their boughs in the cold half-light,
Their bright, faded leaves leaving handprints on the sky.
They sigh to the wind all their troubles and woes,
Their roots absorbing the wisdom of the Earth.
“Come to us,” they call to the bright-eyed traveller.
“Come and share in our universal knowledge;
“Listen to the croak of the frog, the hoot of the owl;
“Exchange breath with the deer and the lion;
“Remain as we are, everlasting far into eternity.”
Eternity is nothing to the dryads beckoning the traveller.
Their bark shivers in anticipation of the future,
But they know all will be well. “It always is.”
And so they crane their selves towards the travellers,
Hoping they will hear their everlasting message
And join in the blissful peace so oft deserved.

Pigments cascade down the canvas,
Coating the blank white with imagination.
Drip, drip, they fall with grace to embrace
The pocked surface beneath their bodies.
They intermingle, form new forms,
Yet continue to go their own ways,
Unaware of the driving force.

The artist stands off to the side,
Watching his creation swirl.
He created a storm, a beautiful storm.
He folds his arms, his face stoic,
For the pigments express his emotions.

The dust and grime and dirt and death—
The darkened gloom of corners near—
Invade the mind with waning breath,
Steal peace of mind with petty theft;
And lightless grins rise up and leer
Until you think there’s nothing left.

Two lefts don’t make a right.
But I make use of this.
I want to make the left left choice,
Find the left left word.
Because this left left word
Is the opposite of the “right” word.
It does in the opposite direction,
Forges its own stream.
And this is the left left choice.
This is my way.

The glossy raven-crow perches on the wire,
Its carefully-preened wings glistening
With perfect drops of moisture.
It surveys its domain with coal-black eyes—
Coal-black, but not void, not empty—
Black with all the absorbed knowledge,
The deep black of knowing too much,
The tacit black of the extraterrestrial skies.
The raven-crow omits a sound into the air,
Silent to some, but volumes to others.
The raven-crow spoke directly to the air,
And the air understood the message.
The two share the deeply-seated secret,
So it’s not as much a burden as before.
The sun falls into the embrace
Of the curvature of the Earth.
The raven-crow, having received its cue,
***** its obsidian wings once more,
Sending crystal tears to shatter midflight.

The whispers in the corners of the classroom
Rise up like the quiet hissing of serpents,
Swirling around in verisimilitudinous eddies,
Less quiet, less quiet, less quiet, less quiet,
Whispers becoming cacophonous.
The silence screams for quiet;
The silence screams for itself.
But it clings to the forgotten corners of the classroom.

Swirling around in a cloud of chaos,
Of cacophony and disillusionment,
The person floats aimlessly in deep space.
Atom after atom rips itself away
And goes spinning off into the UnKnown.
Dust created, so return to dust.
The person flings arms wide, wide,
To encompass all of the cosmos,
Revel in that which is complex beauty,
Be at peace with Knowing but Not.
And the face begins to swirl
As the dust environment does
And so the person is physically unKown,
Known by personality only,
For the universe has reclaimed the mask.
The arms slowly begin to fade
Just as the face crumbles in finality;
More and more atoms flee
To rejoice in their newfound freedom
Until at last the heart swirls to dust,
Unleashing the long-imprisoned soul
To fly, unbridled, around the world—
Beyond the world—beyond, yes,
Even the farfetched, unrealized dreams.
Flying, swirling, one with All,
Bound by no chains, child of love.

In the deep shade cast by a towering mountain
Lies a monstrous warehouse. And inside this warehouse
Is column after column after row after row after row
Of shelves, shelves, shelves, more shelves,
Fading off into the gloom of the farthest corners.
And on each of these shelves sit dolls—
Hundreds, thousands, millions—billions?
And each of these dolls is defected.
The reason for the defect is branded across the forehead,
Melted plastic forming the biting words:
Pathetic.
Weak.
Prideful.
Snappy.
Self-centered.
Egotisti­c.
Stupid.
Ignorant.
Useless.
And on and on and on these dolls sit,
Shelf after shelf, row after row, column after column.
The dolls gradually age—slowly, almost unnoticeably.
But they age. Each is an “improvement”
Of the one next to her.
The newer model would get though a bit more,
Last just a bit longer, but still fail at some point.
And so the brander draws near, and brands the skin,
Melting plastic to drip softly down as tears.
But the doll can’t cry.
She’s already been shut down and awaits
The day the space next to her will be filled.

It's a delicate dance that writers perform.
We bow to our insanity and take hold of its hand.
One, two, three; one, two three; one, two, three.
Our feet spin on the fragile glass floor
That is called "proper society" by the masses.
Our coattails or skirts fly out as we dance,
Whipping through the air like our hands do
When we write or scribble or type.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three.
The tempo changes, the dance is changed.
Still we dance the time away with our partner.
The lighting changes with our mood—
Broadest daylight to deepest night.
Each writer has a preferred time.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three.
Sometimes we glimpse another's partner,
Bump into them by "accident."
And then our own partner changes,
Taking on just a hint of the other's partner.
And we glide along the dance floor,
Our hearts beating out the rhythms of life,
Our heels clicking out our words,
Our partners forming the stories we write.