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

When I sleep and dream
All laws of Physics go right out of the window.
At once
I’m in a room
Yet out in the open streets.

Turn my back on the house
And it is gone
No matter where I search.

There is Mum and Dad
And many more
No longer with us now.

Sometimes I recall they are dead
And ask them of their afterlife
But their answers make no sense.

At other times
People change from one to another
Or even morph into objects
Or animals
Or anything.

While dreaming
Stories and memories pop into my head
Often false
From nowhere.

I set out to do something
Only to get frustrated and lost.
Stress dreams just before I wake.
Dreams of jobs I hated
And piles of paperwork.

Dreams of the past, present and future.
No Tardis required.
All space and time
Thrown together
In the whirlwinds of my mind.

Yet the good news is
That sometimes I can fly.

Paul Butters

© PB 17\9\2018.

the passage of Time
through the tunnels
of my mind

renders a weary passenger,
(impossibly burdened
by the slight breeze
grazing cheek and
rushing by)

He yells in frustration,
a ringing in my ears

plants fists in the walls,
a throbbing in my head

when i close my eyes,
i picture the passage of Time:

white-knuckled, clenching the steering wheel
his back is buckled, a bitten-up pencil,
and the haunting rattle of wet,
staccato breaths

"i want to escape"

and i am sorry--
eternally, sorry

while F was pointing its two accusing fingers to its right U bent towards her middle wishing alpha bet higher wages and C being blind always kept its mouth opened for the rare change beggars threw at it because K always loves to kick the air with its tight stocked legs.  
    Characters all of them!

:: 09-12-2018 ::