O Say, can you see
By the bonfire’s cries
What so fearful we strayed
As our kingdom was vain?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Ran from perilous fights
O’er to isolation
Were so anxiously leaving?

And the rocket’s red glare
Was a sign we don’t care
Still we gave up the fight
With our flag draping there

O Say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the “free” and the home of the “brave”

time forgot
the scars
the words
the open sesame
of my miseries
my contempt
for the irony,
of freely contrived romance

how her lips,
pressed against mine
became the toothed suckling
of her vampiric abandon
the sucrose of my affections and adorations of her
how she fed on my caresses and poetry
how she wounded my soul
bled me out of devotion, mercifully, with adultery
and in the coffin
where I lay
kosher, rigor mortus preserved, for her trophy cabinet
taxidermy of bloodmoon, post-******, post-disenchantment
if the coitus fits, the honeymoon was faked
how she planned it
bottled my tears for a dry day
lubricant for her tryst

for having faked it
so many times,
surely the ink has run dry
surely the letters were forged by faithlessness
my Hancock used,
to certify her authenticity,
against my imagination
the signature of my pleasures,
a wife's knowing,
turned to the devil's archives
my powers
turned to the dark
where my light
illuminated wonders untold
impossible
for a monkey has palms and thumb
but it builds not empires with feces
wherest, withal, man builds forests where monkeys swing

and I sung at her wedding
canary fleeing the coalmine, of debauchery,
"Speak now, or forever hold your peace."

hours ahead, the setting sun,
I spoke, and the world's light dimmed
that I should be beleaguered
20,000 leagues fatigued
taking my meager pay
how many times
can a heart break
beholding infidelity
a woman so treasured
if one should have
20,000 hearts, and 20 souls,
how many times
would the domino effect
produce domino displays
like rivers and waterfalls
seas and skies
mountains and snowfalls
lakes and ponds
oceans and mirages

I sung it all
for never shall I bear peace
in the sight of infidels
for they massacred love
in their ****** of my love
a thousand men took her
willingly, she walked
into the church mass
and let them have their way
to spite my face
to rend my heart open
with joyful, painful *******
and drain my heart of its love
in the pews
for the children's sake
to see the fraud of their father
that my blood be tears
and my tears be blood
I have no quench of my sorrows
I bleed ore
and cry thunders in the bellows of my torment
known never peace have I
though having supped of Nirvana
and forged heavens
from my joys abundant
I have been mad
and wasteful
surely
to weather myriad wicked adulteresses so
and still have peace in my breast
it
surely,
I profess
was never peace, but madness!

SURELY

and so,
that is why
it took time for my heart's breaking
for every ******
and every pulsing
of cave, to womb and back,
the journey of each sacrilege
of innocence
that generations
of children
have been metaphysically unborn

by such a fuckery

that worlds have been destroyed
before spawning from nebula

that lives have been destroyed and saved, both,
before needing salvation
before being endangered

that hope was undone, in need and dream,

that songs were unsung, and sung in their unsinging
before stories wrote their need to be shared
that bards would be unborn
before legends could prophesy this unholy merrymaking
befallen me
and I,
soft of heart and lung
could be drowned
in my keep
with nary a poppy seed
to sate
the breaking of water, in me, soft-hearted I be
that meteors
could shatter the stillnesses
of the surfaces of oceans, tempered as I,
and I,
as ice shattereth
and remain disparate, frozen in time,
I break, and continue, beyond need - beyond agony
beyond warmth that wets the rain to stir from sleep
beyond ice such that tears never dreamt of cold
to neither have walked the sky
such tears are dream itself
but
to dream of cavernous sorrows
mere
to satisfy the torture of things wished to be unknown
what madness could be avoided
though blessed be the avoiding
that there need be sorrows such that hells become heavens
and the devil become deserving of all the hells
due the death of Christ
that lucifer bear the scorn of all sinners
for all time
till time loses meaning
and joy becomes as vapor to lucifer
as vapor is to the vacuum of space
but a pebble in an ocean's wealth of nothing...

Therein, my wrath,
due all my torments, chronic as breath,
that my heart has become a vice
that empathy has become chastity belt
frostbite, my melanin price, cakes my fist
as I behold my gavel,
and judge all the ****** 1000-years before their deaths,
with such wisdoms, my rage knows not end
my fury knows not storms, in universes beholding their eternal gaits,
my fury cannot fathom taming,

that my heartache become a madness
that neither holiness nor love canst quell
save that nothing save me otherwise,
that I become married to,
nay,
that I BECOME love and holiness,
righteousness, too,
that my righteous wrath,
be spared annexation to evil,
that my vengeances be preserved
and mine enemies kept alive
in my everlasting joy
of what punisheth them,
eterally!

That I,
may be born celibate
before knowing my virginity
simply to inquire
ahead of custom and common ontological seeking
query women,
that they do still, without vanity,
utter the word, the sign, the force, the mind, the passion, "LOVE."

let alone perform it, that which it is I say,
a man's privilege to declare that he knoweth love,
and women darest have never had it,
yet they deign gave God's breath to their desires of love,
reified it
believed in it
let alone had faith in themselves that men died for their ******
that marriage be ****** by the succubus in God's heaven!

They'd dare!

take it, from me, in my offering,
that I would love her,
truly,
in earnest
and see her fed of love
as like water
like milk to a babe
or,
should she deign me less than a man
due my will to love her
should she deign herself queen without me,

whenever the moment strikes
she'll dare, on a whim,
part her legs
for any man
declaring himself "King."
though he be a vagrant,
a pauper, a louse, a street urchin,
with gold bullion cascading from his pockets
because I, dared declare, "I love her..."
that she should **** such a lecherous, maggot semened
cuckold of love who would bed her with envy of me
and joy of that envy sated
true joy in his ******* of my wife
for he sold his soul
to bed her
buy her
and found his purchase met faithfully
that he might, unfaithfully
unholily,
amuse her
dwell in her
due the purchase of womanhood
due the market prices many celebrate ****** by,
rather,
due the "Graces", the unlovable, evil, malice
the bloodied, rancid, defiled, arrogant ignorant, so-called
"love" exemplified, demonstrated primarily, of
a djinn, a monster, a fiend, a demon,
a devil, in fact,
so called:

SATAN

You’re a crash out,
Life hanging in the fray,
Like meat on a hook,
Begging the gator to grab it’s bite.

Worthless in your self indulgent importance
Weak bodied malcontent
A mental amputee with no prosthetic to aid a thought
Narcissus in Australian skin
You resemble worthless.

You prey on children
Like a bad Freddy Krueger film
Promises of encouragement
In crude pornographic suggestions
Buy them off in golden tickets,
But no one buys the chocolate,
You’re no Wonka at all.

Derelict in a domicile
A stranger to your ailing family
Not one reaches to save,
Just wishes you’d die to match the day
You died in their eyes
Already forgotten, beside a grave
A walking cancer, zombie like in parasitic need
A whirlwind of discomforting regrets
Wrapped in a middle aged obese frame,
No one could ever love you.

Sad impotent invalid,
With your melodramatic fallacies
Crying wolf to any ears unaware
And yet the only animal resides
Behind beady feminine eyes,

The mirror reflects,
And reality rejects
A simple, simpleton
With tiny hands,
And malformed manhood
Better befitting a woman’s pleasure nub,
You stimulate not even an emotion from the corpses.

I don’t hate you though,
No hate requires a measurement of care
And the truth is if you disappeared,
And washed ashore a bleached whale,
And they said you wrote me love letters
I’d disregard you the same,
Take your animosities and add them into a sum of zero
Because I feel nothing but indifference

A predator that ***** at hunting prey
And I am the poacher,
I’ll skin you while you’re alive
Just so you can see the ugly underneath
The muscle will touch acidic baths,
And the current will wash you away.

You wish to ****** a child,
But I have ****** your brain,
Without consent and there is no safe word
And no where new you can hide,
Because you kicked this hornet’s nest
And I am not so easily extinguished
An eternal flame to watch you burn
I’ll render you embers and ash,
And spread you across the web
Like outstretched stars in the universe
A connect the dots to the face of a *******

And I’ll watch you hang yourself
By the very rope you’ve woven
With every lie typed and spoken
I will see you, destroy yourself.
And then I will have peace.

When rights are taken,
people stand alone.
The world moves around them,
but they are outside,
unseen, unheard.

Dignity crumbles.
Inclusion becomes a distant idea,
participation a closed door.
They are left with nothing but silence,
a void where their voice should be.

Education, healthcare, justice—
these are not gifts,
they are foundations.
Without them,
the ground gives way.

Isolation grows,
not just in the mind,
but in the spaces between people.
It spreads,
weakening the ties that hold society together.

They are here,
but they are not.
Their absence is felt,
but not acknowledged.
The system turns,
blind to the cracks it creates.

How long can this last?
How many must stand alone
before the world notices,
before it stops,
and begins to rebuild?

In the ethereal realm, where Themis holds sway,
A cosmic ballet of justice, a metaphorical play.
Yet, in our earthly sphere, reflections intertwine,
Empower women—the catalysts of progress divine.

Like Themis, with scales, a celestial display,
Let women’s worth twirl within the sunlit ray.
Respect and recognition, whispered dreams unfold,
A symphony of progress, a story yet untold.

As Themis adorns the sacred tapestry of mythic lore,
So too can women ascend, their voices galore.
Grant them the stage, society’s sacred decree,
Witness progress soaring, untethered and free.

If you seek justice for yourself and others, you must fear God, for God grants us what we desire. However, if you seek mercy for yourself and others, you need not fear God.
—Timothy Charles Carter