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stillhuman Dec 2021
My brain is soaked
in lukewarm squalor
stagnant it stays
the same darkened
soiled rotten pictures
and I wade
through murky water
of memories
and I
feel at home
Yet I survive in this state of mind
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Imperfect Sonnet
by Michael R. Burch

A word before the light is doused: the night
is something wriggling through an unclean mind,
as rats creep through a tenement. And loss
is written cheaply with the moon’s cracked gloss
like lipstick through the infinite, to show
love’s pale yet sordid imprint on us. Go.

We have not learned love yet, except to cleave.
I saw the moon rise once ... but to believe ...
was of another century ... and now ...
I have the urge to love, but not the strength.

Despair, once stretched out to its utmost length,
lies couched in squalor, watching as the screen
reveals “love’s” damaged images: its dreams ...
and ******* limply, screams and screams.

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll

Keywords/Tags: tenement, rats, unclean, cheap, sordid, despair, squalor, TV, screen, sonnet, limp, limply, screams
Rimbaud watches me lay waste

his eyes like a rat's

from the bathroom tile

Christ watches me defile

atop high throne of bedroom wall

clock face keeps beat

as moans become wails

as ghosts grow taller

women grow older, shrinking

cars breed iron oxide, collapsing

on cinder blocks out window scrapyards

near hole in plaster

I turn to you like a child,

my cement blocks bleeding

"I hurt my hand"
Ben Johnson Jan 2019
Pimps and ******
Missiles and guns
Death the score
Sacrifice for fun

Dollars for dancing
Paradise for blood
Money men prancing
Preaching the flood  

Jesus the Christ
Bringing the end
Mohammed given the keys
To Syria, Persia, & Yemen

Religion’s a bubble
Waiting to bust
Propped up by the gullible
Distracted by lust

The Gods are worthless
You better short the dollar
The faithful and faithless
All living in squalor

Mammon, a prince of hell
That’s who we worship
Ring the bell
Ready the warship!
we,
as potentially conscious beings,
do incur such fantastic Purgatory
and yet we seem
indeed so very keen
to choose to wallow in
vain and irksome squalor-
a comfortable yet blind stupor
when it comes to
the very real causality
wrought of our intention:

yes, you read right:
i said "potentially conscious."
Mavis Mayhem May 2015
wanna guess
my empty distress
inside I'm a mess
this **** I detest

crack open a book
hey degenerate, take a look
flip a page
the world's a stage

blind, ignorant rage
our youth's worth minimum wage
living cheque to cheque, dollar to dollar
most of god's children grow up in squalor

the blood, the gore can't you see
it becomes ones destiny
no peace on earth, death, war and greed
ignorance dug the garden, hatred planted the seed

turned a blind eye for far too long
I became weak when I ignored the wrong

— The End —