The battlefield fog’s denseness
Lightens at sunrise.
The moon’s light added unease and butterflies,
But the sun’s provides clarity;
I see the enemy’s positions:
Between the trees and in the bunkers, rifles are ready
To shred the regiment.
But the sun pick-pocketed their edge
And gave us a path to victory;
The fog is still there, but clear now.
.Will I advance to the objective
Or bow out in the bog of fear?

In the clock tower the flames are out
The angels grab hold of the dead.
Streets are swept with mothers’ simpers and shouts
Who’ve aching hearts and pained heads.

The beasts of burden have begun their retreat,
‘tis time to find the survivors,
And show them heart, good wine, and sweets
And forgive the sins of the liars.

The town begins its journey back to health
From the ash a phoenix will rise.
Then the town can put this fable up on the shelf
As pits of iron flash in their eyes.

Endure the day
Count hours between meals,
Minutes between carts careening past,
Seconds between shoes squeaking.
Keep the room dark to
Invite sparks of sleepiness.
Disparate thoughts run together, with only the theme
Of agony to join them:
The thought of the present situation-
Where I am.
Then the sun, She who is hidden from my view in this hell hole,
Outside these walls She’s free
And I’m trapped
And I can’t see Her!

If sight of Her cannot be
Relief could be found in the opposite;
Rest my head on the tear-catcher,
Block out the sound and
Bring the night into day.
Dreams of Her
Will have to suffice.

I no longer see the desolate plain
Blue and green haven’t any distinction
Fauna are gone, extinction is here, and
I raise up my cup to see
If its emptiness has anything to yield.
There’s nothing in the field but
Radiated heat that meets with my mind
And tries to tear it in two.
My head shakes its sanity,
I sing of the sun, my inspiration
As I am on the edge of my mental frontier,
Holding on to, not hope, but desperation.

The dark is the worst, as
There’s something harsh in the night.
I’m by myself and I hate having to await
The dawn’s first light,
The song of the birds in flight.
The moon circles around me
Around my head and in my head;
Cicadas play dead and moths surround
Each exhale of frost
Caught by moonlight.

The sun awakes me, just the thought of it
With a couple hours to go.
Each buzz in my hand is the hope of Her
Rescuing me from my trap.

Step down through the tunnel
To where sanity is the exception,
Not the rule. The reception is
Disorienting; the detoxers laugh
And the head-cases cry, or else
Silently portray the visual tome of anguish
With eyes dancing from the harsh, white lights.

Contorted bodies cry, buried by
Smiles, seemingly faked for the sake of normality.
Mutants scream the totality of their lives.
The Big Ship’s communications are grim,
Where once hope was laced in it
Now there are only omens of death;
There’s brevity in my breaths.
Guided by what seems to be deceit to me,
Panic guides my steps
Into the unknown. Dear god,
What have I done?

Asked the same questions for the third time,
Answers no longer hold any meaning.
Dials turn, eyes glaze over and burn.
Could existence move any slower?
Close eyes, lie down
Try not to count seconds;
She’s there, “watching” me.
I’d have been better off lying, I think,
As I gyrate between boredom and misery.
This short note belies,
The hours of agony
Engaged in a torturous game.

Guided in silence
By a uniform of darkness,
With no bark and no bite,
Through back passages, kept hidden
By anonymity.
There’s discomfort between us both
For different reasons, though
A weight around my wrist
Anxiety builds my fists.
Le Jeu Commence.

Didn’t get a good night’s sleep
not hungry
minimal communication on the ride over
force a smile to check in
sit in silence
get called in; say I’m doing well
reciprocate the question
nerves, thinking of only one thing
tears suppressed, fear rings in my ears
oppressed myself, he asks how
the meds have been working.
A deep breath
a shaky exhale
“Horrible, it’s been way worse
black thoughts are back
a plan is in place:
keppra, lexapro, flexeril, and alcohol
don’t know if it would work,
hoped. Spent all last night
crying in dim light, clinging
onto the evolutionary desperation of living.
send me somewhere
isolated from life.”

It’s both a feeling and a lack of feeling
That’s why it’s black, not grey;
Both a color and a lack of color.

I can’t be conscious.
I can’t keep going.

I wake up in a daze
Still a little drunk,
Skunked, take a walk to take a ****,
Feeling like I’ve missed something,
The agony of the day begins.

Kicking myself over fictional sins
The sickly stench of solitude
Sweeps me into silence.
Too much caffeine to jog my mind
My body is nauseated already.
Steady hands left me long ago
Sorrow and saltwater is within my eyes.

I can’t be conscious.
I can’t keep going.

Black thoughts are my wife
Prolonged by life, the ultimate depressant.
Wasted days are ever present;
Not the exception, but the rule.

After nap time, slurp up the drool and
Go to kingdom Cruel where
No self-aware being escapes its own glare.
Thoughts are frantic and fragmented
A stagnant mind, fragile it finds
Relief in not thinking, to be found
In drinking Aristocrat. But it wears off too soon;
It’s a depressant they say
Have they forgotten about life?

Help! Help! The town is in peril!
Its beasts of burden are raw and feral.
They devour children with their hearts still thumping,
Parents are numb, stand by, and do nothing.

In the town square, the great council is hung,
Chaos, with its destructive war, has begun
By lighting the town’s clock tower on fire;
To serve as the town’s funeral pyre.

In the tower, people all tremble with fear
As fickle flames more fiercely move near.
With blurry eyes they unlatch the window’s clasp
And resign their fate away from the flames grasp.

From the flames, there is life
That’s filled with saltwater and strife.
From the air, we take our breaths
And choose the option of a quicker death.

I am the cat that Schrödinger hypothesized,
prophesied of, to be in the purgatory of existence.
This nightmare I've dreamt of
in every waking moment spent
on what feels like broken time;
I reel in my awoken apotheosis
into a devil's living hell.

He knows my speed
but not where I lie
that's wherein my danger lies.
Clasp the trunk
speak of triumph through my chaos.
My deeds are punished
though I receive nothing;
I believe it's time for me to leave,
on towards Bethlehem,
to watch my little demon be born.

Love sank its teeth,
ravaged the other with claws
sharpened by a wheel of raging passion.
Feel outside its cage to taste
iron blood from a punctured lung;
war chants rung out in rain,
each piercing of what Love once loved
by its talons, lets maroon map its path
through trampled grass. The other crawls
in unknown vain, no hope remains.
One love scavenges the other.

They ***** themselves out to the masses;
where clicks are turned tricks, and interaction occurs
by artificial means. Masses surf
where all seek self-worth, and the ******
double-dip into the streams
of admiration and pity.

The pimps tell them their worth;
whether worthless or the rising sun
that they like to capture.
They scream at their ****** till they cry;
hidden bruises caused by hands, obfuscated
compared to the victim's.
The Land of the Web:
where ****** are their own pimps.

Give punks the pearls of protection
work till the problem-children are solved
let abusers lose by the fate of election
hope that jokers will eventually evolve.

Dilute you wisdom with water
or pain will shoot through their heads.
Console the ones who are bothered
bring soft light to where they see red.

Turn the murky water to wine
and separate chaff from wheat
to hear the future strike its chimes
to rid the grimy past of sleet,
and move on forward to a greater time,
and taste honeysuckle, simple and sweet.

I see sanity replaced
       by the despondency of a hopeless feeling.
Look how the sea is placed;
       only determined ones break the watery ceiling.
A school of fish
       break through, towards the heavenly plain;
communicated their wish,
       made a mockery of by his disdain.
Sent back to the surf
       to watch seashells all turn to dust,
his humble serfs
       wait solemnly as he allows their scales to rust.

The game was played, some hot summer night
and the humidity's entrails scattered the darkness' winds.
Though I recall with ease, my opponent-
my honorable, forever-cherished, predatory opponent-
the game itself blurs with the ticking forward of time.

We played over hand-rolled cigarettes and gin & tonics
seeking, not fine spirits, but the depressing buzz
we sat on the porch of the cabin, surrounded by forest.
We played, to lose ourselves in some worthless pursuit
and instead the life-affirming quality of the trivial.

The game began; his face spoke to me throughout
the wrinkles were relaxed, yet the eyes stayed bright;
the game lasted for hours into the night
nicotine, alcohol, and the tension of that game
yielded a high-like trance in our sleep-deprived minds.

Back and forth, turn after turn, an upper hand was never gained
respect for each other formed on our lips
in smiles from the heat of our joy.
The high from the night grew stronger
with our solace from isolation.

Then the sun cruelly rose, and he won.
I felt empty with the end of it,
like the death of one's father, the death of the moment.
I'd kneel before a deity I don't comprehend
for one more of those eternal moments.

I haven't seen him since; I left the next day
dreary, muggy rain marked my departure.
I think of him and the night, when my melancholy takes over:
the dim porch light illuminated the stoppage of time.
What beautiful power we grant, to the smallest of things.

The firs started small, as they often do
some brave souls tried to walk on through;
the fire devoured them before my eye
it turned to me, I was next to die.

This high-rise offers no solution
I cling to hope & a resolution
looking right out the window
I see the pavement below.

The sky has left me bewitched
I see that heaven & hell have switched
as blazing as what lies behind
to go up, I go down, in my mind.

Release the latch, feel the wind
knowing I won't feel again.
Step off the ledge, to the ground I fly
the disgraced angel awaits me in the sky.

Cannibals rust on the dusty plains
the roots erode in the acid rain
trek towards the carnival grounds
enchanted by the torturous sounds.
Survived too long on rotted grains
the barker introduces me to his game:
dunk the mayors of ghost towns
into water, till they all drown.
I can't make out the weather
singed into Eva's feather
'cause Thalia's eyes conquer my mind
and leave the devil's contract unsigned.
Rapists and thieves, in equal measure,
indulge themselves in mechanical pleasures,
while the barker calls out in lucid rhymes
Ulysses rolls on the wheels of time

On through the night, to 3 a.m.
the price, in blood, is what we're payin'
to roll around in pre-dug graves
hoping we're the ones the preacher saves
to crucify us for what we're saying
lamenting on the carnival's decaying
till it's gone, and over it is paved
the barker's tomb, with his quotes so depraved.

Lily runs out towards the field
the night is cloudy with
the tears in her eyes.
Hector sits with crepuscular creatures
little hard pretzels catch in his throat.

Cicadas ****** the air around her
guzzling through foam
is all he knows.
When will the sun relieve the moon?
For her, too late; for him, too soon.

Lily darling, don't fall in with him
regret unfolds when it's too late.
Hector my son,
where'd you go wrong?
She tumbles down the waterfall.

Two pairs of tearful eyes part at dusk
Bodies pushed apart by a hurt to brusque
Can’t the cruel gods let our love get through?
Or must we pray at this forested pew?
Why let what we were die a painless death,
When choking it could take its last breath?

Unlike a light bulb that goes out slow
Ours leaves behind no defiant glow.
And as the moon sinks into the sea
We are bound by time’s eternal decree
That separates lovers from aging desire
And leaves them empty at its haunted pyre.

We fought our cannibalistic insecurities
But became their unwilling allies with frightful ease
They entered as parasites into my head
Upon my horrors they were well fed
And now they angrily push us apart
And feast on what’s left of our once beating heart.

I’ll weep for the day that I forget for forever
Those innocent, youthful memories, we had together.

The rascal sets out for the tree
That holds a secret in its trunk
Which when axed out by his wiry body
Reveals the hopes that a departed friend sunk
Into the dream of getting the girl to notice him,
By throwing apples so rotten
Into a basket too thin.

The friend worked his bony fingers
Through endless days and nights,
While she spent her days with poets and singers
And in the dark dreamed of heavenly lights.
She didn’t understand the passions he consumed
The thing that drove him past the despair
So that his fruitless existence could bloom.

She pushed away from his ashy skin,
Towards the better man,
The friend still looking for the captain
Cried in solace, than silently ran,
Past the pine needles on the forest floor
Into the river of lost desires
Until the bubbles rose up no more.

Now the rascal continues his chopping
Away falls the bark as he hacks
Then he goes home with the sun’s dropping
And the next day, the bark is all back.
All his efforts are in vain
And he cries while laughing as he keeps going
Revealing a man who’s gone insane.

He goes on and on, till one day
He clutches at his breast
And under the tree his body will stay
While the vultures take care of the rest.

Through the soft rolling hills of a quiet lush field,
The breeze carried the scent of lilac in the air,
Those pale, purple flowers upon which I longingly gazed,
Were placed in the waves of her braided blonde hair

We feasted upon daily, the fruits of the land
And passed the day humming a harmonized tune
We slept in the fields, where evil had no home,
And drifted off under the eye of the moon

Until one day the breeze died down
And the lilac scent grew weak,
She became the first to wonder
And first desired to seek

Heaven’s water flooded the fields
Burying the flora in a grave of sod,
Abandoned us, had the eye of the moon,
Our life seemingly ruled by an angry god

We decided we must go someplace else
Settle down to another blissful home,
So we left the hills with only linen on our shoulders,
And sought out a utopia; that great unknown

The hot, heavy sun hit our necks without mercy
As we trudged endlessly through that unripe land
The only beauty there lay in her unmolested cheek,
When she pressed to it my calloused hand

The emptiness of our guts was an unbearable pain
I looked over and saw misery in her eye
How could I fail so horribly, to keep her from want?
I couldn’t stop her tears, her hurt refusing to subside

One day we came upon a gravely wounded bird
After days of feasting on air, we rushed to the creature’s side
I mournfully brandished my knife up high
And ****** down and held it there, till the bird had died

O’ cruel fates! What a trick you did play upon us!
Our lost innocence from that ****** was no small sacrifice
The irony there is but a horrible joke,
That there had to of been death, to give us sweet life

She ate its heart, and I its brain
And after, the rosiness returned to her cheek
A state of shudder-inducing blushing I’d so missed
I trembled with joy and felt my knees go weak

T’was a couple days later, and we’d found another creature
A squirrel caught napping up in its tree
The deed was done, and we’d just begun to feed
While a shadow silently slithered and stuck a knife to the back of me

All my muscles then clenched, I dared not to breathe
She tried to help by disarming the man
He slashed at her violently, wounding her cheek
Then through her cries, grabbed our meat and ran

Over the starving weeks, her cheek did heal
And memorialized in her skin with a scar
Was a realization of the brutality of the world
Leaving our fragile psyche’s permanently marred

The incident damaged me less than it did her,
She couldn’t seem to move on
“It’s so hard to get up in the morning.” she sighed
Her lust for life had gone

The grey cloud took over her brain
And one day to me she said
“Perhaps the bird and the squirrel were the lucky ones,
And you and I’d be better off dead.”

I pleaded with her to keep going on
Life without her would be too great a pain
I begged on my knees to no avail
She said “I must cast off this mortal chain.”

The next day I awoke to find her dress, like a rope around her neck
The other end, tautly tied, around a branch of a weeping willow
With blurred vision I got her down, my tears fell on her cheek
I laid her head down on my lap; t’was her final resting pillow

I buried her in a hand-dug grave
And left the next day at dawn
I marched on to find a new home
To distract from the fact she was gone
  
Trudging along, alone with my thoughts,
To converse with there was no one else
After a while, the guilt had fully come
Because there was no one to blame but myself

On rolls in the grey cloud
My once calm sea grew rough
And the same question arose, again and again
Had I done enough?

I no longer bothered to search for food
I soon stopped drinking my water
I walked for days, without any purpose
It was like leading a lamb to slaughter

On the third day of this
My body gave up and quit
I collapsed in the field and waited for the end
I felt body and conscious split

I had a vision of a speck of light
That grew bigger and brighter by the second
Then with a flash appeared a beautiful angel
Whom to me she beckoned

I awoke from the darkness in a cave
In its mouth stood the fair woman
It tore at my heart to see such loveliness
That I thought she mustn’t have been human

Her long brown locks intricately braided,
Ran down the length of her spine
With skin as smooth as porcelain
I longed for her to be mine

She tilted my head back
And poured down my throat water so pure
She fed me fresh fruits and savory stew
Till my shaking hands were sure

She asked me of my past
I told her of the trip
She asked about my companion
It was then that I bit my lip

The gates swung open, out came everything
And by the end she saw a broken man
I told her I didn’t think I could continue to go on
She replied “My love, let me show you that you can.”

Over time she took my body and soul
And brought them back to health
Just let me say that a well man
Is worth all of the world’s vast wealth

She helped me find some purpose in life,
The meaning of it all without my darling
And in the process I found my heart
Belonged to her now, my precious starling

She spends the day foraging for fruits
And I hunting animals for meat
We drift off at night in the cave
Together we lie while we sleep

It’s not a new perfect Eden
But my love of life and happiness there do grow
For I once again, smell that lilac scent,
And can bask in its fragrant glow.

A last breath
isn't even a chill
down the spine of him.
The difference between life & death
are mere semantics to a vile god
who spits on his creations, and yet winces
at their bravado via a defiant response.
They won't capitulate to an entity
that created them in vain
and mocks their purpose,
or lack of.

The rejuvenation of youth
left me when I was young.
I see only crackled, wrinkled skin
on the faces of me
and my imaginary Love;
predisposed to self-loathing,
we find solace in holding each other.
But what happens when
she's torn from my imagination
and leaves my body bent,
contorted to fit a shape
that's no longer there?

A sweet reprieve for a dead man
penning poems in the bathroom
harsh creatures whispering
trace a familiar path.
Listen to a ****** song
just to mark the passage of time.
Take another swig
give your hand another reason to shake,
30 minutes later they'll find you
with tears cauterizing your wound.

I carry baggage all over my body;
under my eyes
I don't sleep much anymore,
nerves eat at my stomach.
I carry baggage in my gut,
it's filled with guilt and despair.
I carry baggage in my heart,
it's getting heavy, and I
will have to set it down soon.
I carry baggage in my mind
with all the thoughts, unkind.

Pale red contours her frame
vivid red shames the sky,
the eyes of potential glorify her.
He puts his arm through hers,
patriarch guidance, she glides into the hall.
Eyes of innocence lock with eyes of dominance
mental math done to calculate their happiness
and their obedience.
Thousands of candles light the hall
all the decadence makes her nauseous:
the champagne, the oysters
the love, the lust.
So she runs around the hall, blowing out candles
dimming vision.
She's caught now
as their eyesight goes, letting them all see clearly;
true laughter and smiles ring.
But the blind caretaker
heard the commotion,
the thrilling emotion, and re-lit the candles.
The daze wears off
their "vision" returns to normalcy.
They slit her throat
and resume their dance.
The caretaker laughs.
Her bravery is forgotten.

I can't physically comprehend
our reality; its space-time rhapsody,
the fourth dimension is abstract to our eyes
yet we can see it pass us by:
one long day or infinite moments,
we age the same,
gray comes to dominate us.

We forget how to walk
we forget how to talk
we forget how to hear
we forget how to fear,
numb to our end.

We forget how to worship what's above,
jaded from life's scars.

We forget how to love,
our cherished memories are lost.

We forget how to feel
but we lose immortality,
because we forget how to heal,
and we forget it all too soon.

A sweet crunch of frozen grass
the acrid taste of decaying ash
like gray snow, coming down
and airplane engines making horrid sounds.
The war worms its way into your weary heart
as you watch the children tearfully depart
toward save havens far from the train station.
God seems to smirk at his messy creation:
desperate babes cry as they're torn from their mothers
weeping sisters find little comfort in their stoic brothers,
who fight back tears to make absent dads proud.
The chugging trains are far too loud
for tender good-byes to be properly made;
children's innocence is too far gone to be saved.
The youngest of them have never not known fear
a dark world is that which they see most clear,
a bright world would burn their infantile eyes,
better to watch motionless as their universe dies.

One young girl will not see her father again,
she'll hear it soon, from the soft chirp of the wren.
For now she stands still and watches her world burn,
and asks her mother, "Do we ever really learn?"