dad is in the garage.
days into spark-light and piles of polyethylene
etched.
soon, he says.
as grandaddy laughs,
rattling the icebox for more beer.

dad’s homemade android:
  the thing.
like a doll polished
& grinning, it
dances for us in the kitchen.

the dog barks, chained in the backyard.

the thing,
do-si-dos for a laugh, catches a glimpse
of the trees beyond the yard,
overheats,
circuits popping into a limp heap of pieces.
  dead.
left to mold-over in the garage.

the days.
the rain.
the cats tiptoeing along the edge of fences
across the street.
the dog barking, chained, &
snapped.
  dead
beneath a truck.

dad is in hysterics.
dad is in the garage,
weeks in and his soaked red knuckles.
mom is drinking with grandaddy.
they rattle the icebox.
  the dog.

the dog dances for us in the kitchen,
reboots and sits.
it digs a pit all night and buries three cats there.
it sleeps on the mound.
it never barks.
it waits there in the backyard, still
& staring into the trees.
  the trees.

dark’s peering into day,
wonder when the dew’ll lay;
time’s slowed as skies turn static,
least the hours are less erratic.
orange lamps glow
outside a misted window;
earthy rain’s falling hard
but fire’s lit and sky is starred.
sometimes mist deceives the eyes:
seen silent figures’ quick demise.
ocean spits over the pier,
almost as grey as the Wear;
lighthouse shines it’s steely beam,
illuminating the horizon’s seam.
heaven’s sealed with wrought dull iron,
far away seems unearthly Zion;
harvest moon’s not as vague:
illuminating an eight-legged plague.
crows spectate above and below,
you’d be surprised what they know;
change leers at every bend,
nostalgia seems an only friend.
the veil is thinner than before,
perhaps open is another door;
harvest season’s coming to an end,
fields of Elysium this way wend.

the mystery of you and I

haunts me,

on city nights

when the mist shrouds

the towers

Mosaics scrawled in oak,
Charters to a new dimension,
Candles bring forth grey smoke,
Filling a stygian room with tension.

A hallowed oversoul awaits a sacrament,
Crimson stanzas chanted, a return anticipated,
The King still needs a benighted advocate,
Atonement was made, with a blade of onyx, serrated.

Throughout the hall, a sensation,
First came the scent of velvet nectar,
Then, the impact of consternation,
And all among the walls, dark and unearthly spectres.

An observance had concluded,
As the veil was torn by madness,
And the microcasm, polluted,
A world overthrown, by the abyss.

I found the two-headed baby deer dying
on a bed of soft pine needles under cover of an overturned oak,
not five kilometres from my cottage,
Its lungs still pumped,
Its crimson heart beat weakly through a thin,
translucent skin,
that decayed before my eyes,
until there was no skin,
and all the organs lay warm and still,
in a heap upon the earth,
like waste.

A god evaporated.

It is human nature to disbelieve
that one may be witness to epochal events,
so I did not believe that I,
of all people,
should be witness to the death of time.

Epochal: the concept itself is dead.

How lucky we were
to know time at its cleanest,
and most linear!

We know now that such constant linearity
was the consequence of a living entity,
It followed the creature like stench follows a skunk,
and we basked in it
as if it was the natural state of the world.

No more.

Time no longer heals,
Things do not pass,
Or pass only to return.

At first we believed this would be manageable,
Yes, we thought, we will relive our pain but also our love,
Everything shall be magnified!
Welcome to an age of great emotions,
a new Romanticism!

Yet we overestimated how much we help,
failed to accept how much we hurt.

And we did not realize the nature of evil,
which accumulates in a way love does not,
To re-experience our love is to know it,
again and again,
at the same intensity,
but to re-experience pain is to increase its volume until it overpowers us,
deafening us to everything else.

I will never forget the creature's eyes,
full of hatred or hubris,
yet seeking aid it knew I could not give.

How does one save a dying god?

It was not my fault!

I was but a child asked suddenly to solve a deathbed equation
expressed in an undiscovered mathematics,
I had to fail,
yet in failing I have brought it all upon us.

I relive it constantly,
Every time its eyes are louder.

But it is the hour for my afternoon walk,
so I will take a pause and enjoy what remains of living.

I will go to my favourite spot overlooking the city,
and sit on the iron bench,
from where the view is magnificent,
Above me,
the clouds will form,
a tangle of pain and human corpses,
and I will sit and ponder until the first blood drops fall,
Then the screaming will begin,
the final storm will rage,
Beating, crimson corpse-clouds under a thin skin
of dissipating reality,
raining blood until we are left
warm and still upon the earth.

Demented
Was this evil
Witch
When she snatched girls from the
Streets
To havevthem sacrificed and
Possessed
By the jinn
When will she end her
Evil spree
Of taking innocence
And committing them
To Satan

On snow, his padded footfalls echo low
Heart beats: haste, fear
As none but its reverberations know
The ancient horror lurking near
A flash! Before the darkness rushes in
Not night but something deeper
Tentacles binding from within
Swift minions of a speaker
Whose very voice is sin
Whispering, listen, listen, in the language of the wind
Across what remains of summer's leaves
A murmured knowledge of the fate of thieves
And as the stolen idol drops
And the ancient one appears
His eyes begin to bleed
Discongealing the accumulation of his fears

I can see you
inside the closet
as I watch you from
under the covers
your eyes peak out
through the darkness
hiding
and I can tell you know I'm
scared
I know you're
there
I can see you

(now read up)