There is a place, before the kings keep
Where those looks of solemn dignity
Go resignedly to weep
Between the gray trees and under gray canopy

To the place where wildflowers wilt and muses mutter
Little words, falling like white feathers in the muddy water

If one walks between the trees
There is a basin, and liquid of silvery green
Imbued with the mutterings of agony unseen

It is the words of those sorrows frail
Spoken with a breath and then a look of fright
And then a frantic run from faces clothed by night
Dissecting looks unrelenting judgments
upon the unredeemed

all who have felt the pain such as muses sing
And cried at night or betwixt the thorny leaves
have drunk of this basin green
And felt the hot swell of sorrow rising from the deep
crevices of our frail corporeal shells

And the voices of all those who filled it up
Violently swell in undulating liquid wail

From those who walk betwixt the trees
Is sounded the great collective scream.

In the velvet screening of the midday
I found something funny to say
I recall its principle, man it was whimsical
But then came the friar in black

He said, “I hope we can reject you a crowning
Hope it didn’t rot within your morning
This is all proleptical, simply reciprocal
We’ll store the proof of it on a rack”

Then!

Here comes Auderre with the stupefying stare
Sauntered like a soul with a sultry smell
How could I not see her audaciously
Luring me into the well?

She said,
“I’ll repeat a story- it is vaguely auditory-
Of the cellar in my room
I kept myself well groomed
Like a baby to the mind”

“Take dutiful care, for to repair’s to impair
So sit rather comfy for now
We’ll whiten you yet, somehow
Make your gears grind”

Here comes Auderre with the stupefying stare
Woke me with the pull of a morning bell
How could I not see that she’s into me?
It only happened after I fell

Through the afternoon of the Cornwall grind
The whitewalls spin in time
My lady is redacted through a codeine flow
And the syntaxation starts to go

Here comes Auderre
                                  Oh, she looks like hell
  I can’t see
                                                  I fell

Half Batman half Robin,
Houston we have a problem,
and you don’t want no problem with me,
I’m off balanced and on one,

at the head of the table,
Delilah’s on a Sunday,
not willing but I am able,
I guess we’ve all gotta go one day,

but that day is not today,
or tonight got two lights,
one for the occasional cigarette,
and one that’s a Brunette that burns bright,

feeling cliche as fck but that’s okay because you know what,
we are at the top of the pyramid so it only makes sense we’re high,

hi I’m high,
how are you,
haven’t seen you in awhile might’ve been forever till now,
then you appear like a ghost at a haunting and say “Boo!”,

ooh,
the things you do your new name’s Obsession,
it’s ironic that you asked me to have a staring contest,
since I’d confessed that I was already staring,

had my eye on you as soon as you entered the room,
I was perched in my throne at the head of the table,
but I was thrown when you waltzed in like a Godsend,
my God you’re the stuff of fairytales and fables,

the only one I wanted to talk to,
to in that whole venue,
and we’re talking Delilah’s not a dive bar,
so you know there were some quality options from which to choose,

but we both knew it was a rap,
as soon as you read the poem I’d wrote on that napkin,
and yeah this is Hollywood,
so yeah sometimes that kind of magic still happens,

you gave me your number in front of your boyfriend,
and didn’t even care so I didn’t either,
because we’re True Lovers,
we’re The Proof that can turn any sceptic into a True Believer,

a combination of all things yet still totally unique,
and yeah we’ve got our issues but hey we’ve all got our problems,
so we come together like two phones tethered or better yet bare feet on a beach,
and then we get ghost and disappear outta the reach of their nonsense,

peace!

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆

October 8th, 2018
Hollywood, CA.

“Congratulations
You managed being five feet above the ground”
Said a man who
Can’t contain a slight, sardonic sound
The situation:
He’s reading eating magazines from the coast of Spain
And yelling himself blue
For the jeepney won’t hurry in the pouring rain

He smashed his head on the glass
Wishing for a train
It nearly cracked / but his
New cadence sounded quite sane

“Congratulations
You took five before you smoked the first one down”
Said a man who
Complimented me for sinking above the ground
“It’s estimation
I might trip before a wheel enters our lane”
I yelled the truth
At this moment, his presence started to stain

A boat that had already passed us
Yelled, “All aboard!”
We weren’t sure it would float
But it had a great deal of cords

Then we clambered on
There was a myriad of golden spades
Two for every buried fool
That was forced to stay
The stench was concealed
By the satisfied old man
A woman muttered
That she was headed to Queensland

A driver viciously flung his arms
Into the air, in apt alarm
The intersection’s volley
Aimed for the starboard
Everyone reached for the mast,
Hoping to soar

“Congratulations
You nodded off before the lights started to blare”
Said a man who
Lied, ostentatiously impaired
I’m at the station
Then, I noticed to my side was a golden *****
I dug myself through
The mahogany and got on with my day
In the rain

In the event of me writing
And that fool’s subsequent passing
There will be word, tied tight like a rope
Exhumed slightly, the “oscilloscope”

It is a fleeting word that I grapple with
Clumsily, with pink convulsions as accompaniment
I know not what brought it, what it ever did
But it hardens in my brain like like nostalgic cement

The sentiment is where I strain it through
The dream that conquers my starving brain
The word that stirs a visceral brew
The dance of the neurons, and their thinker, estranged

It is under a glass ceiling, this electric swing
Where the Oscilloscope Orchestra comes to play
Their transparent tools and conceptual strings
(Through and) In the oscilloscope, for their incessant days
The masked marionette cuts the air into pie
Wave wielders gape through their saccharin sighs
The stringists and streamists play the Forever Sky
Wave-waked comics turn the egg of the eye

Its proper definition eludes my intuition
The time of its birth, closely distant to mind
It may be a device, or a conception of my vision
Or the gestaltic train of my cyclical grind

An oscilloscope sees the passage of time
Through electric currents of a lost frequency
I’m glad and amazed that
I rhymed with the finger of a poet
And could show it through the arms of a mime
Without the immaculate depravity to know it
These conclusions are married to time

I’ll aspire to thank my thought-crime
For my ignorance can unveil the sea

I’m definitely Matrixed in,
feel like every girlfriend is a program,
feel like every experience is a dream,
feel like I don’t feel anything at all now,

maybe I’m a machine,
maybe I’m not a human being,
maybe I’m more cyborg than Sapien,
maybe I’m more electron than neuron,

and maybe none of this matters,

maybe we’re cogs in the vehicle,
maybe we’re abnormal cyborgs,
more flamboyant than incog,
more insignificant and important,

and maybe I’m special,
and maybe I do stand out more than most,
but at the end of the day I don’t think it matters,
because when it’s all said and done everything is just dust,

no justice,
it’s justice,
feeling a bit awkward and bazaar,
suspecting that they spiked the fruit punch,

and I don’t know for sure that none of this is real,
but I do have a pretty strong hunch,

want fresh squeezed not pre-made,
want a spontaneous feeling not an automated response,
want to stay here with you for as long as I can,
but I think that might be impossible because I’m probably already gone,

so please say something real or say nothing at all,
constantly trying to find ways to reaffirm our existence,
that’s why I still go out socialize and initiate relationships,
even though every time I do it all feels sterile cliche and pre-rehearsed,  

but maybe that’s because we’re living in a Matrix,

I’m definitely Matrixed in,
feel like every girlfriend is a program,
feel like every experience is a dream,
feel like I don’t feel anything at all now…

∆ LaLux ∆

Don’t let it make sense
make it all senseless
the unicorn dances
as the ***** speaks
the true journey
of human soul
and through your blood crawls.

Don’t let it take over
just make it your companion
in the solitary night
where you alone are the champion
of your soul
and ***** sings song
for you alone.

Let it wander in the streets
don’t give it a meaning
just like poetry
or like everything that exists
while ***** sings for you
***** song.

Clouds of smoke,
ashes aloof stand
within your hand
let them all dance
while you in jungle sang
***** song
don’t make sense at all.

© Ali Ashraf

stare through eyes
with the vacancy sign
neon green
seeing nothing
of meaning in the twilight
gleam of a thousand city dreams

dream that the world isn't grimy
shut the blinds and return to sleep
where people and problems are dilute
with the ****** we call
sleeping

sweet, sickly dreams seem appealing
in that necrophileistic sensory release
way that spoiled milk spills in
poppy seed daydreams sprung into sunflowers
it makes sense since you trust me

see the lens is cloudy
and the aperture is the eye of
the hurricane in your head
so go to sleep, my love
nighttime is calling
and i've unplugged the answering machine
so your answer won't be
so mechanical
in the future

and the future in illuminated by
the light of a thousand sunny smiles
smiled because we are not in love
but we put on the best show in town
and people roll their windows down
rain, sleet, snow, or hail to hail
we the king and queen of
the nightmare we believe in
so deeply it
seeps through
staining our eyes a deeper crimson

and our son shines in the overcast sky
drowned out in a wash of blues
deeper even than the depths of the ocean
trenches we dug in our war on
love
and the idiocy
of lovers at dawn

dusk has come, and we are young and in

a deeply troubled sleep
too deep
to surface
again without our sin
subsuming
everything lovely

so, darling, sleep
and dream eternally
ugly things