#steampunk
coloring inside the lines is impossibly bleak,
with a hissing noise
atomic locomotive
rounds the bend,
extrasensory perception is not
a mindless gift,
it's a train station in the clouds,
tracking all my starting points to you,
nothing in the middle,
nothing at the end.
you leave in opera
with secrets and grievances
under the radar,
and your ready-made
wings catch in the power lines,
you're coiling like smoke
in the arches of my cathedral,
a sense of elegant decay
while sweeping up the debris,
committing arson
with the paraffin of my temporal lobe.
yesterday's fairground waltzes,
ghosted lullabies,
and woodland hymnals,
set in a context not of
resolution and closure,
but of contradiction and assimilation,
break the bond,
away they float on purveyor belts,
one too many molecules,
one too many departures,
always on the surface of everything,
nothing in the middle,
nothing at the end.
Feb 16, 2023
Feb 16, 2023 at 7:27 AM UTC
~
*The disruptor,
whether digital or analog,
strikes the bell,
bioengineered automaton
—a manufactured life form
given little agency or dimension,
mnemonic to the finitude of life,
and subtle muddling of humankind's
supposed moral transcendence.*
~
May 2, 2021
May 2, 2021 at 10:59 PM UTC
Skin supplanted by steel,
As pigment falls to paint,
A hollow duralumin chariot,
Ridden by the affluent,
Fortuitous souls, borne to their heart's requests
Down from below, as antipodes clash,
The behemoth clamors, with metallic clangs,
Conflicting privileges, one invulnerable,
Touted lands turned to tarnished wastes,
With a destiny targeted at armageddon,
Humanity's fate glides, like the zeppelin.
Oct 6, 2020
Oct 6, 2020 at 12:36 AM UTC
from the castle ruins
to the stacked pipes
and tunneled waters
of metropolis
we alone
—family in darkness
layers of india ink
hide useless machines
pressing country skin city bone
into amalgamation
hotwired airfield wings
hovering over abandoned
fairgrounds
covered in chains
and cotton candy
enslaved
sweetened
—so the pill goes down with ease
this is our home
this is where we live
life is zenith
future is chaos
Jan 9, 2020
Jan 9, 2020 at 2:16 PM UTC
You're here for my pleasure
In all kinds of weather
Floated down from above
Like peace in a mechanical dove
Goes through the trapdoor
Jan 7, 2020
Jan 7, 2020 at 1:46 PM UTC
There once was a tale,
(a legend more like)
Of a girl who lived in a clock.
In between the gears and springs,
Away she was locked
All of her days she worked tirelessly
Every second,
Minute,
Hour.
Moving the parts,
Pushing the gears,
To make it tick nicely,
Tock precisely,
Pleasing to the ears.
Never did she complain,
Only perfect timing she did obtain.
Then one day,
It stopped.
The watch did not tick,
Nor did it tock.
Some say she died;
I say otherwise.
She left the clock
Wild and free,
And now she wanders endlessly.
But one more thing lies in the myth my dear
In every watch that ticks,
And clock that tocks,
There is a girl
Just
Like
Her.
Feb 26, 2019
Feb 26, 2019 at 6:41 PM UTC
An airship for me to share.
I wish I had an airship,
And flew up into the sky.
I’d wave to all the people,
They’d wave back as I flew by.
I wish a had my airship,
Nestled high up in the clouds,
Away from pointing fingers,
Nasty jokes, and lots of crowds.
I would take my airship,
Over mountains to the sea,
Find a quiet place above the waves
With only room for me.
I wish I had an airship
That made my problems go away
Maybe someday I’ll be free,
But maybe not today.
I wish I had an airship,
To help me make a friend.
But only one who really cares,
Not one that will pretend.
If I had myself an airship,
What would everybody say?
Would they want to get to know me,
Or miss me when I’m away?
I will have the greatest airship,
With a massive big balloon.
I will save up all my pennies,
I’m sure I could Buy one soon.
When I buy my airship
I will fly it past my school.
When the kids look out window,
They will finally think im cool.
I just really want and airship,
To see how freedom feels.
And not to always be stuck inside
My Annoying chair with wheels.
I wish I had an airship
So everyone could see
I’m not just a boy in a wheelchair,
There is so much more to me.
Until I get my airship,
I will keep it in my head.
At least in there I’m Always free,
To dream and look ahead.
I wish I had an airship
So everybody knew,
I’m not that different after all,
I’m just the same as you.
Jun 19, 2018
Jun 19, 2018 at 2:02 AM UTC
Let me see your soul.
Bare all your scars to me.
All that pains you.
All that burdens you.
All that gives you joy.
I will cup your mechanical heart.
Feel its beat, and oil the gears.
No longer will it be the frost of
the moonlight.
But as polished as
sun-kissed silk.
Oct 4, 2017
Oct 4, 2017 at 6:33 AM UTC
at some queer second
not quite between twelve and twelve
blue planet dust particles dream
suspend midair
while sunbeams dance
across minute hands
in your eyes
shag carpet melts into lush
dark grass
and azure electric runs across petals
of daisies dipped in glass
air swims carelessly about in a tropical heat
and shimmers curiously like
glitter in rain or
paint splattered koi
beneath oil spills
you stand at the
precipice to purple
infinity
and curiously ask the darkness
"what time it might be"
soft words of loved ones
echo faintly in distance
overhead
copper willows generously sprout
industrial light-bulbs
Sep 21, 2017
Sep 21, 2017 at 12:34 AM UTC
You only live
so I keep my life?
why do you speak
so much of
giving your life
in exchange for mine?
As fires blaze
in the sanctity of our room
cards lay out
in a gamble
I cannot allow you
To suffer again
To be toyed with or worse
Ripped and burned
The both of us
We'll be filled with love
When the executioner comes
To collect us
Jul 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017 at 11:45 PM UTC
This is our gamble
these cards on the table
neither of us
will be a sacrifice
your life
for mine
what kind of twisted fate
lays waste
to an innocent being
who was trapped in
a mechanical hell
As gunfire
and bonfires
chaos explodes
take my hand
and in our execution
let's both go
to Elysium.
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 9:34 PM UTC
She talks
and asks
why
I cannot speak
She drags me everywhere
and has a grand time
while I am forced
to live in a mechanical body
she crafted to me
Radio waves
are my only means
and one sentence repeats
in my limited vocal ability
I pray for Elysium
and the soft grace and rest
still she drags me
I'm nothing but a doll
spirits take me
from this prison
why must I be forced
to live a life already full
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 9:04 PM UTC
It's hard out here for an automaton
the sun is hot on my metal
Over heats my copper wire
Causes all manner of motor malfunctions
System failures
In cold winter days the residual wetness I step in
shorts my circuits
and shocks my partners
I am fond of small coffee shop nooks with outlets.
I don't need to travel too far to recharge
And since I'm so shiny
often briefcases and lipstick come around
sit their lattes on my discarded instruction manual pages
To offer me oil
I will let them insert the Nettie *** shaped disk where they choose
it's rough being a clock work boy
I set myself to operate
at three hours before is necessary in case
I'm distracted by some new upgrade or need
to document another error message.
they never write me back,
bronze looks good on thigh plates
I had this woman notice my key today
protruding from my back
the translucent panel showing into all my cogs and gears
she said she wanted to turn it
back, so she could see my program
run it from the beginning again.
I warned her, turning the key
would only turn back me.
I would rather let the program run on it's natural course,
sure, I'll get closer to the end, but I'm a curious construct
haven't seen the end of my functionality yet
woman keep coming up and asking me to turn back the key
and I am weak,
but don't worry I said
if I run out of energy, you can always turn the key back.
I'll play it all over and you can remember.
She didn't like the idea of doing the same thing over either
she turned the key, waited for it to run out,
left me on the doorstep for some other person to turn back on.
it's hard out here for an automaton.
the sun is hot on my metal
over heating my copper wiring causing all manner
of motor malfunctions
and system failures.
Nov 29, 2016
Nov 29, 2016 at 3:36 PM UTC
Sands traverse oceans to envelop me
within the coercion of a dream of Egypt
as I search the turquoise of the medallion in my hands
to match the gray-blue of his eyes.
Too long have I willed for him
to sail the Atlantic,
stride through the door,
and sweep me from haunting this view of London.
But for now I am left
to my own image and a pane,
so I muster the meat of my palm
within this sleeve of lace
to brush it across the glass for a clearer look,
yet my efforts have revealed
no more than engorged eyelids reflected…
manacles of me.
Behest of self,
maniacal I am slated
to perform involuntary tedium,
hopeful to unlock deeper meaning
within each hieroglyph,
once so purposefully etched in a semblance of bronze.
I long to surrender
to the warmth of the taste of iron
caught in his sights over a tomb blanketed in gold.
I will come for you, Daughter of Heaven and Earth.
Spontaneous peristalsis of phrase
connects with the drop
gurgling through the candid quiet
and I wonder
if the image that now reflects would indulge him,
or if he might ****** the lock of dark hair
that he cropped from my neck with the skill of an assassin
when our paths first crossed in Cairo.
Time has softened the image I hold of him;
his eyes are satin,
burning like a flag still waving
as his army advances over our forbidden dig.
There is something
sensation-like in downfall…
copious saline embodies the fractal curve.
I found no scrolls of the Book of the Dead.
Here in my olive skin I rot like a peach
that’s been left in a satchel
forgotten to dust of the ages
disturbed by picks and axes
that strike with the determination of discovery.
A peach, never to be savored;
never to nourish or to pleasure,
or be trampled by insects
and carried off in pieces
to the hollow of the ant queen.
My eyelids are hard to turn like wet pages
forced to envision a river that is not the Nile
where I am held within the binds of propriety,
corsetted, bustled, and locked out of Egypt
dammed from the salvation
of even an intermittent Dutchman’s finger
by dunes and shores and footfalls
to find words that stream in liquid resonance
where firm succumbs to self and
I can feel passion writhing through my intangibles.
Thusly, clouds form over a city that blackens and distorts
the way a river's reflection of my face
would ripple from the plunging body of a dove,
belly-up, encased in wings,
and two thousand miles from him.
Arousal is a moccasin seethed in spasms
of peristalsis and musculature
toward the beckoning pulse of breast.
Any hope for contact collapses into flesh,
venom sheathes each corpuscle,
and a woken neck flails in judgment
before the truth in his eyes
under the shadow of the Great Pyramid
where Ramses II lies supine
across the Turin Papyrus.
I imagine the other side of me
and where she might reflect when
all that there is in such a study
contributes to my wanting
to wreak my bellied freedom
beneath crevices that sink as crevices do
in downward angled layers
to withstand the ages.
Dark hair gleams in contrast,
more for strip of scalp
than the trickle of red down my back.
Breached like sugar that candid—
starburst wings of Monarchs dripping ancient like sunsets
over magenta and milky mauve in the reeds—
my ankles revealed and inverted to the sky they glean, yet...
his arrival is delayed
when the pistol ***** three times.
The still of my breast compounds
with the steady union of the dark, and
somewhere denial flows with the sands.
So cycles change, like a fable for Eternal.
“Daughter of Heaven and Earth,” written by Dionne Charlet, appears in print in Cairo by Gaslight, the second anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books. Books in the series include New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528). Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie. Look for the upcoming anthology Paris by Gaslight, which will feature a poem of the same title by Dionne.
Nov 4, 2016
Nov 4, 2016 at 1:41 PM UTC
Plumped rouge with pigment
her lip fills to graze the ********
intent to disquiet the likes of de Sade
autografted with ocular detachment
should a Marquis wish to harness
the song of the morning
within a bandolier of Seine
to ensnare any bustled Persephone
gilted by discharge of ions
into a ménage of torment
through the Porte des Lions.
Hers is the tincture of doxy
caramelized and debrided of naivety,
empowered by the eve of invention,
swollen to curves and grounded in Paris.
Illumination defies pervasion
down to every gear and pulley
she has hushed through mechanization
and lulled by steam,
swaging a cacophony of flickers
encased in glass by the Lady’s watch,
where every rivet of her plate glisters silken
reverberation in cascade,
elegant, caged, and towering,
outspoken in silence,
ever challenging the Champ de Mars.
"Paris by Gaslight," written by Dionne Charlet, is the title poem to be featured in the upcoming steampunk anthology Paris by Gaslight, the third anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books. Look for the first two collections of poems and short stories set in Victorian Times, New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528). Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie.
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 2:44 PM UTC
Train is coming to the city of steal,
And you are aboard granting the dream.
As you enter the city of knowledge,
A science miracle on the lake's edge.
Two hours ago, you followed a river down stream,
Just then you saw a sky high tower covered in steam .
The tower of Lesia, or so the folks call it,
The greatest library on Earth is within it.
The city's houses are created of steel,
Forever they move, afraid to stay still.
Universities are all over the place,
So that everyone can science embrace.
And mechanical creatures wonder it's streets,
It seems like they are alive, as you hear their heartbeats.
The folk in here works miracles every day,
Each district's so different in it's own way.
The streets are in fog but one thing is clear,
Now there is no doubt that magic is real.
The city's walls With gears are covered ,
Cause all of the city is a steam powered
Huger then lake machine .
Oct 26, 2016
Oct 26, 2016 at 11:10 AM UTC
words self-calibrate to match my emotion
all my wires seem intact in the gas lamp glow
no one understands the strength of a potion
until they pour it inside you and they watch you blow
but this is different I cannot quite describe it
I move like a muse with the corset undone
I sense how the power of thunder is striking
and the steam in my pipes pushing up pushing down
I sit on the edge of this meaningful feeling
and everything's trembling inside and out
like a vessel afloat I'm breaking your ceiling
and reach for you, master, my creature of doubt.
we are two always but one feels the other
the wires are tangled we're both flesh and steel
your arms hold me tight your fingers go further
my eyes melting metal, your tears almost real
now give me a name and teach me your methods
unscrew all the bolts use your lips show me how
this poem will self-destruct in 5 seconds
you may countdown this stanza or you may run.
~NOW!~
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 6:35 AM UTC
Drowning in the sea of red
cartridges stuck inside her head
singing to the pigeon man
about all the stars again
how they crunch under her toes
there she goes
She dines by the candlelight
golden beetles lined with blight
in her velvet dressing room
withered flowers in full bloom
Drowning in the sea of red
cartridges stuck inside her head
singing to the pigeon man
about the dawn once again
how the curtain rises low
on last show
Cigarettes in the first row
burning slow
Rustling of the stolen feathers
burning slow
City shining through the smoke
burning slow
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 1:30 PM UTC
My compass pointing towards my dreams
is broken
my polished brass imaginator
is lost
My gyroscopes spin lazily
now useless
My log contains but disconnected letters
the few remaining sentences
contradict
its stacked and leatherbound brothers
I chained my silver dream kaleidoscope
away
above my head
it's diamond sapphires and amethyst pearls
are out of reach
I said I would sail this way
and I have
forgotten
how to turn this dirigible
around
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 7:52 PM UTC
A heart beats monotonously,
Like a leather-encased clockwork, a spring-wound toy
It ticks away the hours until the moment
When, with a silence like a stone, it stops.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 9:42 AM UTC
She, —
lace papillon
who sits motionless
behind the
glass.
Perched atop
lacuna wire,
ran through wings
handled by
gears.
I lift her glass
confinement
and
I touch her while
she's still. Clock-
work ballerina;
lifeless
until I wind
her up...
I let her
go on. "La danse!"
Create
steam halos
as you
twirl into
the night where
envious moths
tap the window
above
my bed.
------------------------
Papillon — French. Meaning "butterfly."
La danse — French. Meaning "The dance."
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 3:55 PM UTC
Casting shadows of doubt,
tripping over myself.
Molten to the core,
put on the shelf.
Screws in my head,
pressure builds up,
Forty five degrees,
way to much.
Gauges turn red,
point of no return,
open the valve,
release or get burned.
Blinded by the steam
of terminal fates.
Staring alone
into the gates.
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 2:20 PM UTC
This is the core of industries
It's crazy oh you see assemblies before ores fall in the streets but
It's all for you and me
A steampunk nation
Baby pollution rises up then the loving comes arraigning 'cause
Our art's official and only partially artificial
And our heart's in the middle of sharp hardened shards of metal but
There's not where it settles
Because it's beating to the steaming of God's hottest *** or kettle
And now we face it, this creation we made to
To save our craving for a synthetic rebelnation it's
Our safeway they make into a pathetic revelation
In our steampunk nation
Our steampunk nation
It's places having creation
But with black metal makings
And wordsmith's an occupation like phrase on paper's the way we say she's
Making our hearts start raving and baby maybe even raging for
For beaming metals and
Yeah steaming kettles, Meccas of our cyberstation Hades
And now we face it, this creation we made to
To save our craving for a synthetic rebelnation it's
Our safeway they make into a pathetic revelation
In our steampunk nation
Our steampunk nation
Oh how do we face it, this creation we made to
To save our craving for a synthetic rebelnation it's
Our safeway they make into a pathetic revelation
In a steampunk nation
A steampunk nation
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC