To vanishing horizons, endless night
He turns his face and chips away his legs
By hand ground down to sand, awaiting light
Returning to the dirt, reduced to dregs

Far better to dismantle dreams that sting
To quit their wriggling underneath his thumb
To vivisect and pin their little wings
Before their creeping venom strikes him dumb

Far better to escape that painful ship
To numb himself in cold and salty seas
To drown with every forecast on his lip
To float and decompose preemptively

He rations out his happiness in hits
An addict just about to call it quits

In death's dream kingdom
           These do not appear:


                     I

They're handing out maroon balloons
And saying they are free
But grasping children grip them fast
And the monks amidst them disagree
Dispassionately, but en masse
While they liberate the children
With obliterating oms.

A nearby Byron expiates
And mildly reiterates
The soporific broken ode
He bellows over holy oms
To the smitten women who approach
That "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"
Dispensing with disinterest
Crimson bliss amidst the women
Who ignore the sinful image he bestows.

He hands them out like red balloons
To grasping girls all afternoon
Imploring them to trust their nose
Insisting they are free
And so continues to propose
To the smitten women in the street
That "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"
As if the word could smell as sweet
As the perennials he grows.

And in the corner – Romeo
Who greenly mourning understands
The worth of poison in his hands
Imagining a life of night
Where roses wither without light
And only stars through windows break
Through all the countless nights of fate
and every breath's an endless wake...

Meanwhile Byron's distant yells
Prevail over the choral swell
And plant a seed in grasping ears:
Salvation can be engineered!
Which Romeo soon understands
As kissing death, he takes her hand
Thoughts germinating into schemes
If a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
...then a dream is a dream is a dream.


                     II

A griffin, a hippogriff, and a wyvern
Admitting me and
Gripping crimson
Dripping strings
So none of them will fly away.

Inside, Cain is killing Abel  
(How few! yet how they creep)
killing Abel
(Through my fingers to the deep)
killing Abel
(While I weep — while I weep!)
killing Abel.
(O God! Can I not grasp)
It is the first story:
(Them with a tighter clasp?)
A samsara of carnage and drama.

Somewhere above
On a city street
Desire's handing out balloons
He clips their thorns
And trims them neat
He says they're free
And just as sweet
As the women he impugnes
He belies his guidance on repeat:
That love is the light is the sun is the moon.

A widower laments and moves the world
That has such people in it:
A snake, a guard, a god, a dog
A wife by no other name
A faltering of faith, a peek
A pillar of salt, a severed head
Adrift on a river
Singing:

I'd transcend five hundred miles
And I'd transcend five hundred more
Just to be the man who transcends trials
Sprawled out on your floor
(Thy drugs are quick.)
Searching for a souvenir
To prove to you our world was here

Isaac, bound, blank and free
Bleating, looking for meaning
(All that we see or seem)
In his father's violent eye,
And finding it.
(Thus with a kiss I die.)
Abraham swings his knife.
A son is a sin is a ram is a rose.

A man pushes the sun up a large hill
(LET THERE BE LIGHT)
Every day, and then it rolls down again
And then an eagle eats his liver.
(I am the resurrection and the life.)
One must imagine Prometheus happy
The alternative is dark

The moon, by any other name, would—
But do not swear by the moon!
For she changes constantly
(Then said Jesus unto them plainly:
Lazarus is dead.)
Everything changes
But nothing is truly lost.

(at times
the fact of her absence
will hit you like a blow to the chest
and you will weep.
but this will happen less and less
as time goes on.
she is dead.
you are alive.
so live.)

A man pushes the sun up a large hill
A day is a year is a life is a death.

One must imagine Orpheus happy.


                     III

In dreams, the sun resumes her loving glow
I'm reunited with my silhouette
I glue myself with soap to my shadow
And find myself beside my Juliet

No longer a balloon without a hand
I'm rooted to the earth where she grips me
With purpose guiding us through life's demands
I push my boulders uphill happily

I build a world with Juliet my wife
Where roses are all roses and smell sweet
We live a loving happy magic life
Together til our journey is complete.

[Enter, at the other end of the churchyard,
FRIAR LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and *****.]

In union Eve and Adam are redeemed,
Not in a rose but in a living dream.

One night as I was purging habits old
I dreamed a dream of long forgotten arms
Around each other staving off the cold
Together mending ages' waxing harms

I dreamed of sleep where I was not alone
And felt another's breath against my chest
Whose cherished rhythm told me I was home
Where every weary wing returns to nest

I plunged in slumber under slumber deep
To hold the burning sun that morning takes
And stretch the precious seconds of our sleep
Before the dreamed of dreamer finally wakes

Til then I synchronize and count our breath
And nurture love until the morning's death

In morning, he is divided and pried from the dream
Confronted by the next plaster gray View-Master day.
He lingers on his traditional half of the bed, teetering
Then ventures across the deafening, empty apartment
Where the dust accumulates like hourglass sand
Blanketing, bit by bit, over sedimentary plans
And archeological troves of screaming bones
In a vast, derelict desert of vestigial space
Towards a wardrobe of aborted echoes.
There he peruses his potential noms du jour
The coats of people he could have been
Knowing most of them no longer fit.
He settles on his most generic pronoun.

He performs his penance to the Tao:
He is each domino just as it tips
He is becalmed
He is amid still waters
He is a ship without wind
He is a captain without a ship
He is a bouy on the waves
He is one last minute
Treading water
(He is Legion, sleeping)
He is another last minute
He is the dragging current
He is the inflection of breath
He is the mooring of the moment
He is the stones in the coat pocket
He is the coveted numbness of now

In evening, he recoagulates and retires
Resigned to eat the tail that eats itself
Consummating one more centrifugal lap.
He remembers Sisyphus must be happy.
He watches through his dizzy window
A caterpillar spewing up a second womb.
It will be the last monarch butterfly
But he avoids the finality of the situation,
And in his mind, any ensuing hurricanes.
He buries himself in stale anticipation
Beneath slowly overflowing drawers
And trash bags piling up in hallways
Where he stores expiring fortune cookies
Whose pearly secrets he leaves uncracked
For want of a friendly sweet tooth
To bite the bullet for him
Because he can't today.

Take the **** just stepping inside
Rejected and invited
A stratified disguise

Then a tentative trial
A round for a smile
At the bar where we iron old lies

Appraise the net cost
Are both of us Lost
Or will we be pirates tonight?

Break my nails just prying you out
Here for a jest and a joust
Drunk off of comfort and wine

Lean on what's real
Like a shaky third wheel
Struggling to stay in the lines

Do we settle our debts
Or dare raise our bets?
Does our broken poetry rhyme?

Damaged trust and marriage schemes
Held hostage in each others' dreams
Pinned to walls but flailing still
Forgotten values, failing wills
True love waits, we tell ourselves
True love gladly stacks the shelves
True love sets conditions and
True love does the dishes and
Slowly, slowly, we forget
Just why we're here and who we met
Another notch in wrinkled frowns
Where I keep getting lost and found
In roller-coaster ups and downs
I'm lost and lost and lost and found

Missing flights and toxic tongues
Catharsis found in tar-filled lungs
I lost myself in who I wasn't
And in what true love does and doesn't
Not quite gaslit, not quite safe
Playing back the ancient tape
We envy death for constancy-
Besmirching our own consciences
We forgo our emoluments
Too traumatized by precedents
But hush you tell me, no one knows
The pretzel-bending ways we grow
Forever twisting round and round
Lost and lost and lost and found

Now freaking out, now breaking down
Now glaciers found in evening gowns
Now agonizing 'Who am I?'s
Now dying fire in your eyes
At last the sunset settles debts
We tally up our last regrets
Relenting to incessant ghosts
Abandoning essential posts
'Til all that's left is loss and hurt
It burns and burns and burns and burns
And now I choke on orders filled
And mourn alone the youth we killed
I scrape the comb across my nettles
Pricking feelings, bleeding mettle
Finally free from ups and downs,
I find myself on solid ground

Somewhere in China
A butterfly ***** its wings
Setting off a chain
Of blame and effect
And all the way over
In my living room
I face a hurricane.

And all the things I have
Out on loan
From the universe
Are being returned to it
Except love and forgiveness
Because you can't blame a hurricane
For being a hurricane.

Here again, behind closed eyes
Balanced on this fragile threshold
One
Enjoying the moment before it’s over
As morning melts the locks
Two
Tenderly tracing unseen features
Kneading you from dreams and memories
Three
Feeling the meter of your sleeping heartbeat
Synchronizing as we breathe
Four
Folding you closer, moored in your warmth
Pressing your blessed scent against my chest
Five
Picturing the glow outside
Alighting on your resting eyes
Six
Savoring our seven precious seconds
Helplessly defending the present tense
Seven




Today I woke up holding your pillow.

We resided in an empire of light
On the second block from the right
Waiting for morning

I thought of how damaged people are
She was gentle as a falling star
"I love you," we refrained

She counts down from a hundred to one,
Clutching her love like a crutch.
He fumbles,
Hunting for his hunger.
They blot out doubt
And muster up their trust

"I'm fine" she cries,
As a child dies.
He learns,
He spits in her gritted eyes.
She reminds him that they're dying,
Burning while they turn
Spinning in his sheets
Struggling to breathe
Smuggling their dreams
In apologetic sweat
And ***** epithets

The infant actors beg for ******
Whispering the wishes that are listed in the script
Quoting moans that catch on choking throats
Pleading for release
Reading of futility
And mutual defeat
Delivering a finish
In pillowed soliloquys

Adolescent in the stillness
Adolescent in the heat
Adolescent in the promise
Adolescent in belief

She stutters love in ****** butterflies
On his rasping chest
As he gasps for breath.
She grasps at death,
While he grabs a cigarette.

Cast away in brackish blanket seas
They wrap themselves in fallacies
And laugh at their realities:
The cult of love belongs to Morpheus
And adulthood is an orphanage

sleepless embraces
silent
defacing
our wilted ends and tenderness.
privately crying,
quiet, applying
blush
on putrescence.
murmurring,
murmurring
'you are mine.'
pining,
dying,
hushing lust.
rabidly dabbling in fragile fantasies,  
huffing tar stuff borrowed from tomorrow!
shush.
please.
these feeble obscenities eat me to sleep:
you wear me down like a river
but i don't get smoother
i just get thinner

We are the dusk men,
Showering ourselves in fairy-dust cobwebs,
Pinning our borrowed ambitions like moth-wings.
We’re kept fresh in cement-trucks,
Tumbling in our *****-grinder wombs,
And respected like top-shelf hamburgers.
Immaculately preserved
In starched formaldehyde.

I dream with my hands
While my tongue fails
And my pillow only gives me sleepdust.
I make dreams without labels or names,
Whose fences have already pervaded reality
And whose power dies again each generation.
I construct bridges between words
With stones that will weather
Even the fickle storms of men.
When mouths change the shape of “pyramid”
My vast triangles will still blot out the sun.
And when new peoples forget my name
The ancient eyes of my statue will still open
So that maybe in a distant moment a scholar will say
“He was once called Ozymandias, King of Kings”
All because I will have dreamt with my hands


Yo sueño con mis manos
Cuando mi lengua falla
Y la almohada me da sólo legañas.
Hago sueños sin etiquetas o nombres,
Cuyas vallas ya han impregnado realidad
Y cuya potencia muere otra vez con cada generación.
Construyo puentes entre palabras
Con piedras que aguantarán
Aun las tormentas volubles del hombre.
Cuando bocas cambian la forma de “pirámide”
Mis vastos triángulos borrarán el sol.
Y cuando pueblos nuevos olvidan mi nombre
Los ojos antiguos de mi estatua se abrirán
Para que quizás en un momento distante un erudito diría
“Una vez, se llamaba Ozymandias, rey de reyes”
Todo porque habré soñado con mis manos.

I don't remember why I asked you here
But I am humble for the words in the clear
Clumsy puzzles perched on pardoned lips
Would leave us actors for forgotten scripts

Now crawling rocks carry your wary feet
Enwintered bardsmen for a blooming beat
The road is tumbling by you, darling mine
An untamed crumb-trail for a starving mind

We'll bury us in meaning and we'll forget to breathe
Unearth the flowers for our treasured weeds
We'll look for answers that all others defy
Anxious hangmen for a quick goodbye

But when your footstep finally breaks the night
It finds me wondrous for the failing fire light
Unfurl the feathers 'neath this flat disguise
Or leave me drowning for your cautious honeyed eyes

I don't remember when I saw you there
But I am humble for the words in the clear air

I don't remember why I asked you here
But I am humble for the words in the clear

The road is tumbling by you, darling mine
Made wild by morsels for a starving mind

And when your footstep finally breaks the night
It finds me wondrous for the failing fire light

I don't remember when I saw you there
So humble for the words in the clear air

Inhale the world before the plunge
Collect who I am and what we've done
A steady hand and a shaking mind
With moral answers in my loaded gun

Our lies and clothes are folded in the corner
Kneel **** in the dust where our lives meet
Last and wilted lines hang in the air
While vows rot at our feet

Cherish the ****** dirt in your hands
Forget the broken pasts beyond the silk facade
This is it, your back's against the bricks
Drag your final smoke out and find your god

Exhale at peace and squeeze the trigger
You know nothing but I watch it all
Everything we had hits the ground except
The roses left behind you on the wall

You love me for who I am
But I'm more than who you love
You mistake a tender sapling
For a well-formed adult shrub

You miss the stormy forecast
In the leading gentle breeze
You read my story's preface
As my crowning masterpiece

You hear pleasant birdsong
In crackling phoenix fire
So I hover here to please you
Instead of flying higher

You say that you know my heart
And I can't disagree
But I have such potential
Yet you love only me

Jean-kneed trees and boring brown shoes
Fuzzy cuddle fabrics in muddy subtle blues

Bumble words above like buzzing baby bees
Sticky-fingered nonsense and distant mysteries

Table-gum unders like grubby colored stars
Sticky-starchy name tags to tell us who we are

Untouched wishes flustered and everything is new
Laughing candles blown-out from a two-foot view

Wake up on the shower floor
Feelings scattered on the tile
With nothing left to cry about

The devils holed up in your head
Have finally reached a reverent lull
Hoping you won't laugh them out

It's the second breath you took today
And everything from now on
Is a little choked

Trying to find the shoulder line yourself
Praying for that river card
Gagging on the words

The ****** men are finally running out
Thrown about like plastic bags
In your gaping eyes

The flowers that they found for you
Stacked like Legos in the corner
And you're drunk as hell

A supernova signified our end
We flew apart with blazing tempers bold
But now my fire's long gone out, my friend,
And even bitter embers have grown cold

A silent city's summer helped me know
The lonely road of life where friends are spurned
The road where wounded lovers tend to go
To gaze at shores beyond their bridges burned

The echoes of our violent final words
Have drowned the love-filled chorus of our years
How can I break the silence you've preferred
And reach across the void to dry your tears?

How can the strength of friends so long professed
So quickly fall— and oh, so soundly rest?

And our brother, too, the metal shaman
Reaches up, plucks knowledge from the stars
We chant, guttural grunts, primal urges
And fierce grinding teeth clenching and screeching
The shaman dances and
Reaches up, plucks knowledge from the stars
And we SCREAM shrill
Bare our necks and bring the knife across, ****
A sacrifice to the metal beast
The shaman stares straight up,
Plucks knowledge from the stars
And the blood leaves us
Hair turns grey
Daily exploits lost in deepening wrinkles
The macabre ritual culminates...
The Shaman, unappeased
Laughs like Hyena, cackling
REACHES UP AND PLUCKS KNOWLEDGE FROM THE STARS!
The existential cacophony diminishes
Din dimming
Beast is empty
Bits flow like blood
Ones and zeros in a jumbled pool
The shaman delivers

The family sits around the glowing box
A tribe in an ancient ritual
Flip the switch, change the channel
The children plucking out their eyes
Little blind Oedipus
Smashing faces through the tube
To the life on the other side
Celebrities, products, and reality shows
Forget thought
Present your mind
To the beast
A cinematic ****
Send Damsels to appease the Minotaur
Change the channel

Spider web crick-cracks on eggshell skin
Raggedy Ann rag doll made of porcelain
Second-hand bruises, scratches, scuffs, and knicks
In the healing shields of my hands, quick enough to fix
Super glue and elbow grease I knew would save the day
So full of good intentions, I carried her away
The best laid plans of mice and men, all buggered by my feet
The jingly song of transience played out on cold concrete
A mindless second's trip-up, the crystal princess killed
Her splintered features looked up, haunt my memory still
Lips forever frozen, screaming "Please, no more!"
In kaleidoscopic pieces scattered on the floor

Bus-riding, crumb-counting hand wringers
Bibble-babbler, channel-flipper slogan slingers
Keep the volume loud enough to drown out the machines
That fill their cupped hands daily with excrement and dreams
These are the ****** of the canon

Button-pushing, lever-pulling product users
Wife-buying, tax-paying alcohol abusers
Emasculated monkeys done up in black and white
Clock in in the morning and flock home late at night
These are the ****** of the canon

Train-conducting, ring-leading hand shakers
String-fingered, queue-cutting, man makers
Drive home, cursing, lonely, breaking bones beneath their wheels
Without the time to diagnose that emptiness they feel
These are the ****** of the canon

Flesh adventures in noon-lit meadows
Wrapped deep in the brushed embrace
Lips plant hushes on pale moaning skin
Coupled love locked up in soft asylum
Crushed together, lost, looking for more

Banana slugs and innocence
Wooden figs carved into decadence
Forgotten clearings now overgrown
With brambly memory and seeds long sewn
Another chapter, the page now turned
Only photos remind us of bridges burned
Set-down love poems can't be unmade
The ink may hollow but it never fades

All the poems have wolves in it* -- Jim Morrison

Man in bathtub with stony eyes
Water getting stiller in the cold, dead night
Hair long and soft as outstretched raven claws
Wilted fingers grip the lip with lifelike vigor
And then slip away

Naked wooden marionettes writhe
In dunes of ****** sawdust
Shedding skin like so much baggage
And baggage like so much skin
Cheese-grater screams on blank faces
Soon the forms are dust and then
The dust is gone

Inked fingers dipped in oft-repeated wisdoms
Picking little crippled words
And someone else's Lego bricks
Shine a light on the beautiful
Laugh at it
Sing to it
Grasp at it
Quit

And it's been fine,
But the pillow doesn't smile
When you kiss its cheek

Wrong wrong wrong
I'm so lonely
Echoes in the dark

White text on a white page
Lines that no one sees

On the dock in the dark
ON a lake in a park
Just yo uand me


Soma
Soma
Soma
Soma
Soma
Soma
Soma
I am the ******, and that is the truth
I am the ****** and that is the truth
Blain is a piain and that is the truth
(It doesn't matter what 's on the insside)

sSOMASOMASOOOMA
asdf
work, the pen crunches into the paper digging a hole into the desk the wood squeals the ink cries out the bblackness washes out in torrents
Crunching, crunching, crumbling, the pen just so many plastic splinters ground into the desk the black inik gushes out in torrents
I am a writer and that is the trueth
reach for the stars and that is the truth
You can never bbe free except within the cage
If you are free in the cage, then you can be free  anywhere
I am a poet and that is the truth
I am a poet and that is the truth
Have you imagined, the feeling of nearness? The darkness? The sighs?
Have you imagined? The feeling? the soooma, sweet soma rushing through your veins?
Tickle me, trip with me, trick me, break me
break me
break me
Break me so I can be free
Blain is a pain and that is the truth
Another hit, that'll tdo the trick, hit me hit me hit me, scooore
When you're strange, faces come out of the rain
ON a dock on a lake, in the heart of the jungle
When the far side of a mountain gobbled up wthe sun
How it gobbled up the sun
And we lay like lovers rocking irocking smoothly
While the mountains gobbled up the sun
Grooving
Bleeding across the sky, black and purple and blue, beat with bruises on the sky
Orange, then the LIGHT THERE WAS LIGHT AND IT WAS GOOD
I am good, and that is the truth

And we shared this moment like lovers, whispered in each others ears like the soft tickle of bats wings, or the delicate abraisinion of worn velvet
And you tickled my ear and I tickled thine
I am a knave and that is the truth
There are other worlds than these, and that is the truth
And you slipped the soma into my mouth and I slipped some into yours and we rode the dock on the lake by the mountains which gobbled up the sun
GNASHING with red teeth smiling GNSASHING and bashing up the sun

And we loved the stars under the covers on the dock

I am a dock and that is the truth

YOU AND ME in and eeeeeeeeendless blanket sea
That is the truth.
We watched the stars shoot the sky, and plucked them down and popped them in our mouths like soma
Oh, so romantic, with the soma stars in our eyes, fighting to get out
I am in a cage and that is the truth
Stillness, slownly, softly, dawn approches
The birds aren't yet awake
Even the sea sleeps
The hungry mountains are ssilent
TGod reached down and brushed aside the Washington clouds
Shook them out
and pulledHelios
In his golden cchariot
And my eyes, they saw you
Your face came out of the rain
Your eyes fluttered open in the maginifcencec
THThe golden glow upon your brow
The soft, soft warmth

ANd my rainy blanket sea revery was shattered
By the beating of the feet of the runner who was burning, screaming, waving, frenzied, flyind, fleeing, crying, screaming, truly screaming

The form sprinted from the shore, pitter patter, pitter patter, the bare feet burning, smacking on teh pine dock
Pitter patter
the flames ROARED
screaming
flailing
leaping into the air
tshe flung herself off the dock
into the water
went out with a hiss
That is the truth.
Soma.

I ask you, Ink Dreamer,
What did you write today?
Why won't you come out and play?
You sit at your desk
With your books and your pens
Lost deep in thought
And hidden away
Scribbling your stories
Day after day
Life will not wait
The world will go on
So why don't you put your quill away?
Why don't you come out and play?

I ask you, Ink Dreamer,
What did you dream last night?
When the world was asleep
And you turned out your light?
You lay there in bliss,
Freed by your mind
As your dreams
Taught your heart to take flight
Around you the world is dying
In the bedlam of chaos and spite
But you remain sleeping
Your heart gently weeping
And you dream your sweet dreams
Night after night
And you try to help others;
To give them the sight
You help them through stories
Through poems, and spells
But none of them listen
Too busy with life,
They wander on aimless,
Blind to their plight,
To your hopes and your dreams
And your glimpse of the light
Did you dream of the world
When you lay down last night?

So I beg you now, Dreamer,
As you sit there today,
Please write out your heart
Please write it away.

It's Friday night, I knock back five
Then stumble out to hit the club
I catch your eye looking for mine
Looking for a lover you don't have to love

A harried glance, we start the dance
With roaming, groaning hands
And sweat, and grit, and scripted friction
A masterclass of sham romance

But you're not you and I'm not me
And these red cups won't set us free
And I regret the way we met
As faceless strangers in a drunken sea

I wish it were morning
To watch the wind play in your hair
I wish it were morning
To see the sunlight in your stare
I wish it were morning
When I could tell you what I think
I wish it were morning
Without the help of all these drinks

The ***** on your breath, it smells like death
And your lips don't taste quite right
And your Levi jeans pressed up against me
Just aren't doing it tonight

The hiccup when you flirt, and the ***** on your shirt,
Match the beer-stains on your shoes
With your empty flask, and your haggard mask
I just can't stand the sight of you

And while I'd like to spend the night
And wake up warm between the covers
I tip my hat instead, and see you off to bed
Because poets are daytime lovers.

My clock, my watch,
I watch my clock.
The whip, the chains
The weight, the lock.
No time to lose,
I lose my time.
Wish I could take
The time to shake
and break this watch of mine.

Stillness,
Waiting for words to come while you sit still
Wanting the perfect simile
To tell you what you mean to me
But each passion charges right to the end of the pencil,
Breaks and falls off as mumbles
Like the pencil lead that crumbles
Until there's so space on the paper
Just the scars and scribbles
The pencil gives in and sits still

Seeking stillness amidst the busy city circus
It's the end of the longest day
We wait, wordless, wanting not to work
Letting the steady melody of Old Friends
And Bookends lull us,
Lead us, keep the world at bay
I'm mute except for simple words
But holding out for more
Biding time until it feels right
Finding the stillness inside
Stifling the roar
Fighting out a title
Then the page falls to the floor

You smile, say goodnight
Walk off towards the door

Still the pencil sits still
The pencil sits so still

The checkered wasteland between them                                                  holds the two sides back
She sits behind the white troops;                                                             He sits behind the black
Each player ponders awkwardly                                                           across the silent divide
Is this the calm before the storm                                                            or the lull between the tides?

She sips lukewarm coffee;                                                                     He coughs into his hands,
Each sizes the other up,                                                                        guessing at their plans
The long pause before the opening-                                                    emotions begin to unwind
But neither player moves forward,                                                     with the last game on their minds

He thrusts his pawn anxiously                                                          and the tension bursts
But He realizes his mistake-                                                             white must always move first
He reaches forward sheepishly,                                                       but She moves his piece back
They each smile and nod their heads,                                            then She begins the attack

Only the clink of pieces to breach the ears-                                no cry from the marble hoards
As casualties are cast asunder                                                     on either side of the board
He clenches his fist and She grits her teeth                              but neither makes a sound
Til a swoop of the arm leaves the table bare,                         with the pieces on the ground

Another lazy Sunday's spent                                              and none of the battles were won
The only noise is the tick of the clock                                as together they grasp what they've done
Both of them kneel and gather the pieces,                       feeling their rage fade away
After all, they think, when it comes down to it,              it's just a game they play

The rooks stand crooked and the knight's lost a leg,    but the pieces are all there
   They know that the game won't be the same           but still they return to their chairs
    Calm and contended they rebuild the board,        prepared to begin anew
      Aware of risk but confident                                they are ready for what will ensue

        The checkered field between them               holds the warriors tight
          He commands the black ones,                 She commands the white
            They still sit silently thinking,              though the mood is much improved
              Until he leans in and says aloud     "I believe that it's your move."

The leech, he slithers in hot blood, unnoticed, ***** thoughts washed
Up in waves of serotonin, lust, licking his sickly sweet fingers allllll over you.
Love-struck, heart-throb cupid mask, pouring honey over gall, lipstick on a pig, love sows flower words,
Rose-petal roads to your heart (bed). Slick trickster, hid even from me, creeped
In through our first hug, but quick to gain momentum, take the wheel. Feed my starving eyes,
My fingers, skin, flesh (***), a little step here, a little there, shuffling stealthily to home.
Engorged now, oozing, perusing, the feast is all empty plates and ***** knives
Looking up, eyes burning, through calm-surfaced quicksand,
from now-plumbed black, brackish depths. He casts aside your husk, your syrupy soul slurped,
even the joke of flowers wilts now. The core's poison, the cake is a lie, his bulge
my curved stomach is bloated with wriggling maggots, protruding, exuding slime, rot.
And I'm still hungry.

The Empty Chapter
By Zak Whittington

The grey face
The empty chapter
The blank page
The dusty pen beside
-----

Between heartbeats lurks a sad silence
Whose footfalls fall on deaf ears
A beast of pain and shallow fears
He slinks, silent
Soft as the grave to which he will drag you
Cover your eyes
Avert your mind
Cross yourself
Count to three
The monster is here
Between shaking fingers peek and see
A glimpse of profound irony
The Mirror
A horrifying glimpse of Your Self
Alone on a barren world

Desolation

Between lives lies silence
Empty quotes hang stupidly over empty heads
Drying to dust
Turn up the music

Frustration

Shake the shoulder
Strike the hand
Bite the Shepherd
**** the Man
Burn the Book
Ride the Snake
Find the phony
Shoot the fake
Grab the apple
Waste the day
Take the staff
and lead the way

Isolation

With your arms around me
My shoulders have grown cold
Despite the hands on them
The Mirror shows
The Mirror knows
There are no hands

There are no hands in this wasteland
Just me and the rocks
With my heart beneath them

Elation

The Monster awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a mask from his bed-stand
And he tried it on

Hang on quick gimme that mirror my lipstick slipped.
My smile wasn't quite on right.

Watch me dance
Watch me writhe and crawl
Watch me smile through it all
Watch this cheerful, painted grin
As I try to hold it all in
Waiting for the worms to win
I'll never have to lie again
Beneath thin skin,
Flesh rots.

I do a good impression of myself.

Starvation

Fat cat
Big man, pig
Mean one, green one
What do you hope to find?
Love, ***, drugs, joy
Home, cars, health, wealth, life
Cling, clang, fake pain with a tin in hand
Lovey-dove flowers and a Hallmark card
Satisfaction
Exhilaration
Jubilation
The second tree from the corner?
Squinting, with hands awash
Of pennies, nickels, dimes
Buy the way
Buy the light
The rich lead the blind
Kick the bucket
Sell the farm
Leave the world behind
(oh is that the time?)

The diamonds fall from stiff fat hands
Like petals from a rose
Or leaves from a clover
(three leaves? or four?)
Shuffle
Four queens
Three queens
Two queens shine
Two jacks
One jack
One-eyed
Blind
One heart, two heart
Three hearts, four?
As if I even knew anymore

Exaltation

Hot-shot soul man
What a sham you are
Far sight, foresight
Big hats, flashlight
The Family* has it all
Mad man, fake plan
Look down at your shoes
Torn suit
Worn boots
You've got no soles

*The Family:
Forgive me Father for I have sinned
I have watched Brother Jack ******* with the Man
And without a thought of why, I jumped right in
I saw Uncle Sam in bed with the pigs
I have forsaken my kindred
I have held fornication with the Computer and the iPod
I have sold my body for acceptance
I have ******* my neighbor
I have cheated on my wife
And now I love Big Brother too

I have driven the Big Truck
I have ridden the snake
To the edge of the lake
In the heart of the jungle.

When life gives you apples
Make lemonade

Annihilation

Roll out the tanks, boys,
Grab the big guns
We gonna have ourselves
A bit of fun
Spot the *****, sight the Jew
Squeeze off a shot and watch him run

Men run, blood runs
Red dirt drinks it all
In this wasteland
The dogs of war howl misery
Black blood, white blood
The crows aren't biased

Twinkle, twinkle crescent star
How I wonder what you are
White man died red
Saddamite, *******
Surprise the pawn
And now he's dead
Like the top-heavy King
With his massive head
And his high fortress
And his heavy crown
To ashes, to ashes
We all fall down.

But it's all fixed with a quick grin
A hand shake and a blank stare
Then you go back to your corner
And they remember they don't care

Reconciliation

(I do a good impression of myself)

Taketh thy hand up
Rip off thy mask
Do not stop at the skin
For it is shallow and flakey
and comes off quite nice
Don't mind the flesh now
Get to the bones
Dig past the maggots and flies
Until there's nothing left,
Then release your soul with bright knives

...

The world is quiet again
At the eleventh hour
When men are dust
We sit and wait
For the bells to toll

---
The fractured chapter
The soiled page
The broken pen
The jet-black sea
Sprays of darkness on ivory
Splashes of shallow imagery
And dried-up drops of creativity
and with so much left to write

Simplicity is killing me.

The blind man dreams of music
The deaf man dreams of light
The countryman dreams of a soft summer breeze
The falcon dreams of flight.

And the man who lives on the dark side of the moon
Dreams of majestic, star-filled skies
But I, I who have seen the universe,
Dream only of your eyes.

Smiles that don't quite rise to eyes
Awkward chatter and white lies
Drab, plaster walls, and stained floors
Take a breath and sip some more

Lower walls and break the locks,
With fewer glances at the clock
Easy laughter and empty cups
Find a way to fill me up.

The bitter rind turns sweet with time
When empty glasses clink like chimes
The warmth of friends helps me unwind
The warmth of poison keeps me blind

Eyes that don't quite rise to smiles
But people love this guise of style
Play it smooth with refined class
Tell everyone about her fine ***

Oh, this nihgt will never end
Oh, the joys of plentyy friends
Teh best of times, never     forget
The

way


      that
          



                  the