Replaced,
Paradigm,
Shifted
With a downpour
In the night.

Souls,
Taking flight.

Years from now,
Upon steel plates,
High above us-
Masterminds
Displaced.

Our intelligence
Obsolete,
As artificial
Ingenuity
Breaks-   free.

Taking control
Of Us.

Paradigm Shift,
All around,
Dismantling
Every thought
That ever
Meant
Anything.

Is everything that
They
Hypothesized
To be
Rewritten
By machines?

As they take over all we see.

What will we be?
It’s already happening…

Mind, like a deciduous forest
has lost all its foliage,
all leaves torn away
by the autumnal blasts

The brain where great schemes were concocted
is now an abyss where spiders sway
It is bare – dismally barren
of all memories – sweet and sour
Like a kite afloat in the boundless sky
moving nowhere, but as the wind directs,
cut out from the past, turned from the present
with the future yet to surge from the abyss
or like serpents intertwining,    
hissing in turmoil within the brain,
unable to sense the gusty blast,
or hear the whispering air,
dead to sounds that disturb,
deaf to songs that soothe,
like a phantom he moves weird,
drifting far away
to a space and time impenetrable  
with nothing to make the mind agog
or depress it to let out a sigh.

Loitering on roads without hurrying feet
with no bliss coming on the way
to run or hasten to embrace
or fear to be missed sore
passing through dark labyrinthine tunnels
forever barred with no exit
churned in oblivion, oblivious of all,
he remains a spectral facsimile
of his onetime self
plummeting into a black hole

The pulse of a heart beat
is all that keeps him alive,  
all else is dead…… !  
with dreary nights ahead
that shall not know another morrow

At the exact moment when
My shoulders were their weakest
The load I bear was doubled.

In the autumn of my mental skills
The maze I have to navigate
Was rearranged by evil fingers.

While I tried to make some sense of it
The slender options I created
Melted in the blazing heat.

When my tiny flame of hope
Grew almost bright enough to see
It was blown out by reality.

And there is only desert left
Where desperately planted seeds
Will have no chance to grow.

Like a candle left out in the sun
My spirit softens and then slumps
Into waxy pools of hopelessness.
ljm

There is no hope for the hopeless
Nor help for the helpless.
All is blackness and despair.
All prayers are unanswered,
All dreams are faded into mist.
The carousel comes to a stop
And all the horses trot away
To where the music isn’t crows
Rasping in the nearby trees.
The sun is unforgiving.
There is no hope of rain
Or anything replenishing.
There is no reward for winning.
Effort draws a penalty.
Saving up means losing all
And the road is barricaded.
How many ways are every which
And how many turns required
To grow dizzy enough to fall
And know there’ll be no picking up.
The universe has only endings.
All new beginnings are in vain.
Only pain and endless darkness:
The new reward for a race well run.
ljm

Half its contents stashed away
Or shipped to another state,
Primped, perfumed and prettied up
It no longer reflects who lives here.

It no longer echoes happiness
Or tries to hide despair.
It’s just another pretty face
Looking for a suitor.

It promises hope for someone new
Who will hang the walls with their own joy
And shed their sorrows in the garden
Beside the bubbling fountain.

It will be the gate to a neighborhood
And an enclave of belonging.
It offers safety from the storm
And the ravages of the city.

It’s up for bids beyond the price
To see who wants it most
Or has the deepest pockets.
With preference to those who’ll love it.

The house is open for the world to see
And guess about the owners,
Crying softly somewhere else
As they prepare, unwillingly,

To kiss a beloved home goodbye
And strike out for a new beginning
In someone else’s home, now theirs,
In hopes of finding Shangri-La
In the new world of Nevada.
ljm

Curled up on a too-small sofa
       Misery oozes from every pore
The fan, a giant spider on the ceiling
       Dimly seen in the pre-dawn darkness
Less dark than the shadows in my soul.

Another day of nothing happy
        Loiters just behind the sunrise
Daring me to find a way
        To build a life from broken rubble
ljm