Gazing at the what's-to-come
Your beauty is smoldering
Your beauty- here
- is Within.

I'm a linear surface with no reflection

The bumps on my face are of paint splatters in sections

You can look at me

you can scream at me

You can punch me

You think I don't have feelings?
You think I don't care?

You think you're better than me because I can't move

but I can stare

my friends and I stick together

we're always here

we're  always waiting for you to run
through that door

I watch you throw your shoes at my cousin, the floor

And if you hit one of my friends again I will protect you no more.

But no worries because one day I will crumble, I won't be here anymore

I'll take all of us with me!
my friends, my father, my mother, my cousins even my uncle.

You'll be stuck with the family outcast
His name is Rubble.

He doesn't play nice,
like bed in the late night

No shade no shield
No ceiling no lamp light
No wood no steel

Only feelings of cold nights

Do you know what it's like?
To have the person you love
Rip open your chest
Cut out your heart
With sergical like grace    
And tell you it's not red enough
Then throw it to the floor
But before their boot can bring the end
They pick it up say I'm sorry

Tonight is the night, be it All Hallows' Eve
One filled with fright most refuse to believe,
For deep amongst the shadows, silently lurking,
'Tis a terrifying creature, his jagged teeth smirking.

Thou hast all heard of demons, and hast battled thine ghouls
Whilst this terrible beast watcheth with hunger and drools.
It's spittle, like acid, can burn through thine flesh
Making thee so much easier to digest.

No name shalt be found for a creature so foul
That gobbles up goblins, and ogres disembowels.
Dost thou think that thine lanterns shall frighten it hence?
Oh foolish man, it shall consume the light thence.

It standeth hunched over, twelve feet in height;
Stalking thou, watching thou, waiting for night.
It cometh from deep within the forest, as the moon wanes
His fur smelleth of death, his claws favouring pain.

He shan't be stopped ere his hunt is over
Yet he only hunts the thirty-first of October
Take ye heed, then, and hear the warning of the raven
For this beast is coming, and from him there is but one haven.

He preyeth upon the weakest, and the one full of fear
So stand fast, take courage and in another likeness appear
Put on a mask, as treacherous as can be
Conceal what layeth within, do not let him see

Or else you shall be taken, beaten and devoured
For this beast prefers to torture just to see thee cower.
So please, take heed to this warning and believe;
Thou art only safe if thee wearest a mask on All Hallows' Eve.

11/3/16

Do you see what I see?
We have descended into the belly of the beast.

Houses crowd together, their dead eyes staring out.
They’ve sprung up overnight like

Ugly toadstools.
The machines on the hill are busy

Scraping away the old. By that I mean
What was there before,

A forest naturally,
And putting up these monstrosities instead.

It can’t be let well enough alone.
There are too many people and someone’s got to make a buck.

The world burns down to the filter.
We suffer the fevers of the dry needle people,

And are left with what has been
Torn out from under us.

Some privy chair propped us up with potions.
Dutiful pawns, riding the arcs they have fashioned,

They pay us a small ransom
To cull and sell their wares.

Simple sticks and carrots are not enough to wake us.
The damage thus wrought we pay no mind to –

Subdivisions, shopping malls, parking lots.
There are too many people and someone has to pay.

There is nothing to pinpoint of the strange beast.
Only images,

Blurred and refracted,
Fleeing down a hallway of mirrors.

O maestro of conditions,
It is you they are in love with,

A dark sun unaware of its own orbiting planets.
They are the cause of all of it.

Every comet, every lack
Leaves a trail etched across your sky.

And in their eight eyes
Something seemingly whole becomes distorted,

A piece cut out made separate from the rest.
From this gulf appears a war engine,

A bite of venom,
The desire to **** what they can’t.

Darling of judge and jury,
Blame absolves them of all responsibility.

You are the sole carrier of their weakness.
They fill your skin with their nightmares.

Flesh as fruit
Is strictly poisonous,

Bleaching the sheets of the saints.
Now no more –

Vanished,
Like what was found and then lost.

Like what was married and
Soon divorced.

Still, notoriety is a phantom
Floating in cages,

Star player at a masquerade,
Costumed with your own face.

It's always you
My hornèd demon
I hold your hairy head between my legs
My head pounds as yours torments
Your forked tongue finds every opening
You slither hither; hypnotic dance
I forget myself. I forget what else
You love me deeply
Our twin flames flicker wildly &
Burst the sunrise
You wild beast of animal and man.
I will catch you if I can
You were my all, my reason for life
I once dreamed of being your wife
Stars fall like fireworks from the sky
But Night descends quicker than stars
Entranced, trapped, enslaved
Not love but tortured dreams
Your cruelty astounds me
your manipulation and slight of hand
The curve ball, the trick in your eye.

How do you do it?
Smoke & mirrors. All of it.
Here now, now gone.
So long.
Hear the echoes of the crowd.
Memories of your face.; Trickster grin.
And I, the fool born every minute.
And again, The Mask.
The mask we all wear, but tear off.
Your mask, you keep on.
Rip-Off
Under the smiles and grin.
The hornèd demon is reality
I think.
The animal that walks like a man.
A beast walking upright, horns gleaming
in the moonlight.
Pan Satyr, your Dionysian dream.
Your mask so sweet & smiling.
Your funhouse & shattered mirrors .
Your thousand faces laughing.
I’ve left it all-behind me.

©  Lesley Wood

https://soundcloud.com/lescelin/mask-the-9deep-beat-squad

Analytical beast I have a knowledge in my locker

The swarm screams for the author

The red then spills from the blood oath offer

Higher than extraterrestrials and their flying saucers

Universal football we kick meteors like soccer

We battle in coliseums, mediators are awkward

They fear the slanted enemies eyes and their lean postures

They find it so astounding, there movement in green pastures

Hunters become hunted, prey becomes stalkers

They seem to breathe steam and move faster

Engaging renegades will never make it easy for these *******

Thunderous parades of pain reported from the mental telecasters

Wizards from faraway lands land by spell casting

Time is forever lost but what they found is still lasting

And what Is bound is surpassing, it's an avalanche...earth smashing

The lands crashing, the world will regenerate but the swords will keep clashing.

i.

A hand reaches
from the myst
and bids me forth
to the darkness.
He tells me not to fear
"You are safe," he murmurs.
The pit of my liver
reminds me otherwise.
Candles,
statues,
and books
fill this moldy chamber.
My whisper
searches for him,
but I recall
only his shadow.

ii.

She lay frozen
in limbo
when I first saw her.
I tended
to her wounds
and redefined her muscles,
for she had none.
She gazed at my broken flesh
with eyes
that pierced my stomach.
At that moment, I knew
her heart was full of tears
and not to fear her touch.
She is both Aphrodite
and Artemis
and I am nothing
if not her slave.