It's a time to be outside
so I open the door
but can't believe my eyes
seeing an insect horde.

I should be able to enjoy the day
without perking their antennas
so I foolishly say I should stay
as the world becomes Gehenna.

The bugs tell me to keep it moving
by making me itch
they say it would behoove me
to be rich.

They crawl on the ground
and fly in the air
they make annoying sounds
and get in my hair.

So I ask the nicest of neighbors
if they have a solid solution
but the bugs got them belabored
so they only suggest pollution.

This world is too itchy
like a thick sweater
that I always keep with me
through scorching weather.

There are millions like me
who can't stand the discomfort
making it all the more frightening
when their bodies are discovered.

The gnashing proboscis
of a million mosquitoes
might eventually cost us
the skin of our heroes.

Echoes of words never said reverberate
through the desolate rotundra of my mind
encapsulating stabbing nothingness
featuring the limits of chaotic kismet
until the shade creeps into my eyes
like bubonic wraiths scouring the globe
searching for cravings, craving the search
discovering urchins and serpents alike
in the ocean that now fills my eyes
I watch a giant squid shoot ink
and articulate itself away
swimming to the bottom of my retina
where everything is flatter to withstand the pressure
bottom feeders suckle at the **** of the depths
pervading my flattened vision
swirling in a frenzy over pieces of my eyes floating downward
forming an inescapable black mass
trapping me in its rotating world
until a bioluminescent olm wanders through
trying to reach the surface
its light inspires me to follow
like I could grow to one day glow
in the sheltered cove of my eyes
the salamander rescued me to
where the shade still exists
with feeders beneath
but all those do anymore
is make my sanctuary feel like home.

I don't have any photos of when I was young
because they look like Chronos holding a gun
I just need slow-mo or time totally undone
or maybe I just need to hold onto someone
because I can't hold on to the before
after bombing all my bridges with C4
so now I walk on the sea floor
wishing I could see more

but all I see is myself as an aquatic gorilla
after spending too much time with Poseidon
precariously between Charybdis and Scylla
as pictures make me look more like Joe Biden
while I feel like I'm the one with the trident
but I'm just Janus' migrant
and that guy is a tyrant
because no matter which way he's facing
he can always find someone to replace me.

So I don't ever take pictures
because they give time a fixture
from which to taunt me like a trickster
showing me the different colors in the mixture
like a lowkey Loki
giving me the okie-dokie
luring me into moseying moping
leisurely leading to rope-a-doping
a mirror-morphed bizarro-me dope fiend
wanting to stay in a Kumbhakarna dope dream.

Time is a sausage link
clogging the gothic sink
of a drain we all would think
seems as fast as goblin's wink
so I try to focus on the myopic pink
but always end up finding reasons to drink
the ambrosia of a nova from Krakatoa
the ebbs and flows come and go with intensity
brought by the power of Jehovah
as well as two cameras with which I can see.

Prognosticating patriarchs
pundits and priests
pencil paladins
in penthouse palaces
riding what they're writing
writhing while they're rising
everyone's got a chance
chants the gaunt equalizer
its equal lie heard
plunges us into the absurd
assured of justice and fairness
we become curt and careless
saying if you work in a hairnet
or get your verve from clarinet
you deserve less than a baroness
because she has parents best
but when I ask of the parentless
those talking point to the talking points
so what's the point of talking
when talking leads to pointing
the finger in anger at strangers
who they just called equal
but that was merely a platitude
I'm starting to hate people
and their selfish myopic attitude.

I went down the rabbit hole
scrounging through darkness
squirming a maze of movements
just to reach a dead end
with only a rabbit waiting there
to inform me that I’m stuck in a hole.

Words are exchanged
words that are deranged

arrows are midrange
but words hit home
where our minds are made up
before we put on our make-up
to walk with our face up

into the public arena
pitting our words against others'
like we're not sisters and brothers
but words to discover

housing a stable of labels
protected by cultural shields
enforcing all the angles
of a rhetorical force field
we see the power words wield
and say "I go, you yield"

until we're talking to ourselves
and screaming into the void
checking into hell
where everyone is annoyed
yelling at text on computer screens

enacting prohibition
on others' volition
because we have different dreams
and other differences it seems
based on what we believe

which is expressed through words
to which we have different definitions
that at one point we learned
and now no longer want to listen.

When life started death seemed like a blip on the radar
and as death nears life seems more like a blip of time
it’s like wanting to travel but being stuck in the hangar
then going there and back in a record breaking flight.