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.

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.

Why won’t they set my siren free?
I shake in fury miserably.
Grant me my pain,
you with the two French braids.
I contemplate my grey-zone state
& regret riding with my instant whims
that carried undercurrents
of desires held deep within,
that go against the tide.

Is it too late to go back
to when I declared with a whimper
what I should've kept silent
to release another day, so
I could act like a man:
cool, calm, and collected?

If so I'd wait till
you and I were eye to eye
to ask you out for a drink
that neither you nor I could buy.
Once seated I'd lay down my suit of hearts
in front of my queen;
let sweet dreams retire in the night
full of hopes, and solemn despair.
I'll wait to see if I'm your Erik or Raoul,
Christine I am a fool but,
what I wouldn't give...

I will wait till my patient death
to line your breath, and I
am even willing to be your late-night regret
discarded behind shadows the next day,
forgotten in the recesses of your mind's missteps.

I'd rather be your mistake
that you wish you'd never made,
than be a no one to you;
some weepy wimp in your wake.

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?

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?

Take a step out of the room-
Its 5 a.m. – ****, time’s distorted.
Sit in the common area and chat with some
Restless detoxer; he talks about women,
How even the church girls are adulterous ******.
We laugh at our pains, there’s little else to do
And the alternative was already attempted,
So laugh we shall try.

Bruises heal in a day or two
But what use are smiles, a simple ruse?
A lump in my throat, I carry
These burdens in all I wrote, and now
As they fade, I wonder:
Will they return with anger, and under I go
Beneath the waves, where the sun is garbled
And its light only reaches so far down? The sound
Is drowned out by ringing, it pounds my head
Spots are red,
Am I slipping into patterns once more?
Is there a route to the surface?
Is there any way out?
Is there a place where I can freely breathe?

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.

Sitting in the haze of smoke, arranging
thoughts of mine that are so quickly fleeting
and flying from my mind towards my thumbs
as a Dante singing praise of Beatrice,
or a man in black walking the line for June.
With you and misery as my muse, I stumble
to my room, dazed, focused on remembering the words
and the arrangement they first held in my head.
And here I am, a long-haired ***,
a beatnik marching to the beat of his own drum.
This is too much about me, not enough about you,
here’s your spotlight, it’s long overdue.

It’s a frigid night, I peer through the window and
you’re there, wearing ripped jeans, a faux leather jacket,
a punk rocker somehow avoiding cliche.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve
instinctively smiled just at the sight of you, knowing
that for at least a while, in my mind,
all is well.

You reach to give me a hug
and I don’t shy away; I’m not one for hugs,
I don’t even like hugging my mother, but
with you it feels right:
a one-armed hug with a two-armed intensity.
Food is ordered,
seats are taken,
chatting commences.
I don’t particularly like the food; that’s fine,
It’s not the reason I’m there anyways.
I’ll barely remember what you said afterwards
but I’ll always remember how you made me feel.
Even with the brief time we have
we find ways of making it last, after all,
happiness has the longest half life of all emotions.

Like that, it's over, as if a snap of the fingers
is all it takes to lose you. I tell myself
it's better to have loved and lost,
then to have never loved at all.
But that doesn't help in the moment.
In the moment, all I can think of is how I'd ****
to be by your side, for just another minute.

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.”

She died drunk as desolation
played her a gentle hymn
with flies crawling from under her tongue
and leaving her to her grave.

My tears made spots in
the dirt on her face,
we were in love with the chase of
highs we no longer attained.

Like sunken bug bites on her arm
with cuts all along her thigh,
I couldn't keep her from harm so we
cried through the nights as our highs
damaged us as much as the lows.

One day she moved no more,
having begged and beaten on the door
for too long till her hands were bruised,
and her soul failed her after so much disuse.

The sled is overfilled with gifts
Given by friends to friends,
Lovers’ quarrels have begun to shift
They dance in the streets again.

It’s a light fog, not smoke, that romances the air
We don’t have to weep for our sins.
There’s atonement to be found at the local fair
Where today is the day that forgives.

There’s hope in hearts and laughter in lungs
No beasts around to rob them
No longer trying to descend the rungs
To solve a short term problem.

Love or lust is
The semantics of romantics.
There’s love in my heart and veins
For the two-braided blonde, with the off-color tooth
And the smile that somehow both
Gives me chills and soothes me.
I am the earth, my thoughts- the moon, and She is the sun:
The constant by which my time is measured.
In day I think of her, at night I dream of her.
I cordon off my thoughts of her
They lead to a loss of sanity.
The right dose, however, keeps the motor running,
The eye on the prize,
Puts me to sleep where the thoughts are good
And innocent, instead of the thoughts
Where I’m lying awake
In the dead of night
Thinking of the other options she must have;
Why she’d waste time on a **** up like me,
Who’s confined to this space and can’t escape,
Forced only to think, i.e.,
What got me here in the first place.
I want to leave
I need to get out
To tell her the feeling that courses through
Every inch of me- now, while the fear has abated,
Before cowardice comes back, and I think she has hated me
All along, and the smile was forced,
The laughter, pained
The sarcasm, disguising disgust instead of playfulness.
My body burns
With the desperation of a young man’s desire.
I have to get back to her
To put out the fire from the sun
Or at least tame it;
For she can keep me going
While I’m kept here, tucked away,
Or she could destroy me with
The thought of her each day.

Birds with clipped wings outline her eyes
Her eye shadow is her divine disguise,
That hides the tears that overflow
They pitter-patter on her chest, as her heartbeat slows
Into silence; the violence of her red wine dress
A good merlot, alcohol makes her depressed.

To see her blurred mind in its state of undress
Is to watch genius itself infinitely regress
To the point of pictures that adorn cave walls.
She sees the light flicker in the hall
As synapses lapse and lost are the words
They’ve all gone rotten, solidified into curds.
Exhaustion provides a high in her mind
Though most of her thoughts are quite unkind.

She knows the danger of the man who enchants
Her, and makes her body obediently dance
To a greater demon, with his demonic hymn
He weakens her conscience, makes her integrity dim.

She pursues dusk at a New Orleans café
Surviving on French roast, and warm beignets
A stranger sweeps through the foggy air
Running his fingers through her brittle hair,
Devilishly trying to steal her resolve
Till her past is lost and her future’s dissolved
Like salt into a saturated ocean
Where despair is defined by a lack of motion.
Her notion of life is just the beauty of its rhythm
Its color diffracted by poetry’s prism;
Her head is filled with her loves and lusts
That killed her heart with a thousand cuts
To end the war before it could start
Her captain sailed her home with his outdated charts.

Cigarette butts are put out on her tongue
The smoke and ash remind her of when she was young,
How tobacco evaporates as cigarettes burn
And how pain is love’s method for making us learn,
The lesson of despair contained in every regret,
Best learned when she lets her feet get wet.
Her epiphanies’ are dormant in her single-minded brain
Footsteps catching echoes of the departed train
Leaving the station for some stable place
The mountains and sun conjoined at her face,
A pas de deux she devised at Swan Lake
A heavenly intervention done for God’s sake.

Her mind is warped and can’t recognize
That the warm promise contains the largest of lies.

Fluorescent lights destroyed her poet’s vision,
She recovered her strength at the holy mission
Only to give in and be hypnotized,
By the greatness that the priests prophesized.

The words seem clumsy in the day’s rough light
Their power comes from the isolation of her nights
To go under and not once come up for air
If she dies she’ll realize she has no heir
To look after her fortune of memories and tissues
When her heart shuts down from years of disuse
Because she put up bricks to keep heartbreak at bay
But it ended up keeping those she cares about away.

She’s losing the invincibility that comes with her age
Sacrificing her thoughts for what gets on the page;
But is it worth it in the end? She really hopes so
Otherwise her disguise will fly off when the wind blows
Too hard and fast for her suffering mind
She feels her body getting closer to death all the time.

She prays for a friend, so not to spend her nights alone crying
Indulging in self-loathing and truly despising
Herself. Her tears fall and splatter
Meanwhile her heart’s aching; it’s in tatters,
She puts on a smile to show nothing’s the matter
And hopes that next time it’ll be her heartache that’s shattered.

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.

It’s faded, my future is jaded and
Is paraded through my line of sight like
A mangled, malnourished show pony that looks
Older than it is;
Old beyond its years, in terms of exhaustion.
It’ll be a work animal soon enough, a day laborer
With nights spent with the moon around it
And days with remembering the sun, imagining Her
Finding some other demented soul willing
To drive himself insane over Her.

Take each step one at a time, and only once,
The detoxers know this well.
Cling to the hope of getting better
And becoming whole again.
It seems so unlikely, I know,
But hope, no matter how slim the edge of it is,
Is worth grasping with every ounce of strength.
Then you can pull yourself up,
Drink from the cup,
And see the sun
Shining Her warmth with a smile.

It’s in those hours that flicker between dusk and dawn,
those hours where but a few lone creatures
carry the emotional weight of the world,
that I find myself- with reckless abandon-
pursuing ******* and bards on a one way trip
toward hysteria and decay.
                                            I stand
at the crossroads where the devil purchased souls
back when they were worth something.
‘Cause now the devil has gotten too good;
souls aren’t worth anything if they’re not worth saving.
I shake in rage at how he throws us away,
the ones willing to sell ourselves to him
so we could grasp at the straws of immortality,
and revel in sin for the sake of something
that doesn't matter anymore,
and perhaps never did.

Why do I think that
small gifts will curry favor?
I can't give my friends what they deserve.
I'm a cockroach in the dark
desperate for the light of their love;
let me feed off the wreckage of my damaged hopes,
my daring to dream of simple pleasures:
the embrace of camaraderie,
the gentle swelling of our hearts together,
a reassurance of their caring for me,
and the space to let the insecticide to work its magic.

I can't fathom my worth,
what is a star's worth in a universe of light?
Precious little, I reckon.
Their existence will carry on unscathed
by the dying of the light,
and so I go now, wearily,
into the loneliness of that night.

A beach is roughest in winter
As snow and sand run through my hand
I lie in the dunes
Awaiting Doom and Death
My brethren in fighting life’s last joys
We delight in lighting the ocean aflame.
Lions are tamed in their cages, when
The strings of a harp tighten around their throats.
Analyzing the ragged fabric of my fantasies;
How can they be so dark, when they’re mine?
I’d like nothing more
Than to envision my paradise:
Drinking milk from the ****
Spitting cherry pits out, with
Gregory’s soft voice filling my head. But
The visions and sounds are murky,
It’s always lurking nearby- muddying up the water.
My fantasies instead, are of the beach.

The fire is spreading now
The flames are tinged blue
Doom and Death are collecting my dues
Their fingers leave bruises.
The fire is hungry
And milk will no longer put it out.
Human sacrifice was fine for ancients
Barbaric now, feed to it the sacred cow.

Standing rigid in the temptress' dream,
Moses is bathed by ragged stone
in the fortress' light at the dawn
of his sacrifice.

She transfixes him with her whisper
and plants the seed of
a needy higher power,
to which she can attach
her sadistic, demonic thoughts
and give him pain
in the name of loyalty to
a nothingness holding its power
over him, like a wind without the chill.

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.

I remember the nights spent with you,
under the stars and sharing a blunt,
back when my life was better,
and the **** only used for a bit of fun,
instead of the necessity it has become
as the alcohol was, once upon a time.

I've learned to blunt my pain with apathy,
choke back sobs with determination,
and to go into the bathroom
when my panic attacks come on.

I try and hide the pain from
my closest friends because
I'm afraid my misery will push them away,
and then I'll be alone again.

I've stayed my hand from
the hilt of the blade, for many reasons,
but you're the biggest; the person
I love most in the world
and the fact that I'm not ready
to leave you just yet.

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.

See dawn & dusk all morph into one
as I bid my friends adieu to
the city encamped below,
make my way through the hills up towards
the shrine of the harlots and hymners,
and feel a release in the blood-red sky.

Chanting,. prancing, panting in the heat
of the desert mountain night, I found love
in the eyes of the duchess whose
temperament screamed into the lake of fire
and whose broken fingernails were the result of
digging into and consuming the earth.

Once returned to the city, never the same
the game has been lost to
autumnal shame in niches everlasting
into the abyss of our future
Let these words serve as a requiem for
the lost lives of our future kin.

I remember those days, sweating down in Savannah
muggy misery washing over us as we schlepped
across a city that was as hot as hell could be,
yet an angel like you was able to glide
through with no problem, demons all in awe.
Transformed at night into a beautiful disaster
spending all night drinking and dancing,
I carried you home and was by your side,
holding your hair as you hurled throughout the night.

I look fondly back at the cooler moments,
in that air-conditioned museum,
and I remember thinking to myself
the true art walks around the place,
these sculptures and paintings don't know
how lucky they are to be
surrounded by such beauty.

Hands clasped in Forsyth Park,
a sundress simply stunning,
trying to hide weird sweat patterns on my shirt
******* in the gut I've got.
I'm self-conscious, but then get lost
in pale green eyes that chill me.

Nighttime highs of holding you
in ungraceful, crooked arms
are usurped with force by the thrill
of knowing you're safe from harm.

But memories like these are all false,
that trip to Savannah never taken,
all this an exercise in making my own misery.
I have nothing but my realizations,
like realizing that I'm in love with you,
and realizing that I'm thoroughly ******,
for it's agony to fall in love with a friend.

Let this serve as a eulogy for a Love left wanting;
god help me for the pain I've welcomed.

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.

Because I'm a **** up
who sees nightmares in all his dreams,
the sun won't come up on the days
that are replete with bleak scenes
of a fleeing dove with broken wings;
poor, tortured thing, all stuck in chains,
acid dropped upon its head
till nothing but its bonds remain.
It whimpers as it dissolves away;
gone from a trickle to a pour,
there's no way to ease its immortal death.
The sweet demon screams forever more.

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.

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.

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.

A tortured heart, yet the body's whole,
the sin of tears my only clue
to awaken the caring tyrant within me,
who won't let me rest
till I know her tale.

A forlorn love, it is, perhaps?
Did he let you down gently
or tear apart your heart and soul,
and take a swipe at your outlook on life
as well?
Is it a venereal disease
from a former love?
Or perhaps it is
a family strife, that splits you open
like a dull knife?
Maybe its just your beaten mind
causing unkind thoughts, like mine.
I pray its not that
but I'd pluck every one,
and put them in with my own.

Regardless of what it may be
this I know to be true:
the next time that I will smile
will be when I see one
emanate from you.

Conflate this with the contents of my heart
and hopefully you'll find a
glimmer of what there was for you; you,
the playwright of so much of my pain,
self-inflicted though it was.

Hush your heart and feel
its beats, are they in rhythm with mine?
I suppose they're not, we never got
on the same page, I'm afraid.
I'm scared of the irreparable damage
I've caused by daring to dream
and touch you, my sun.

Now my feathers gleefully flee from me,
and they land in the sea lightly,
where soon I'll crash,
and enter my watery grave.

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?

I woke up on my final day
With a cut on my finger;
It’s not enough to be invisibly damaged.

I felt the heat before the light
Out of sight, it oppresses me,
She depresses me, in the distance.

Count down the time till we dine,
The paper cups rattle as the
Manic guy babbles against the **** and Nazis.
A funny mind is rotting, as I begin my departure.

Picked up by parents, carry my things, say goodbye
To the light-hearted detoxers, ending their sleepless night;
They put me in a mood worth having.

Step out into the summer morning air
My hair tossed in the breeze, pale pink and light lilac coat the horizon.
Today, my smile rises with the sun.

Bleak skies foretell of a coming rapture
where bloodless brutes break bones and crush
cartilage in their claws, in awe kids stand
frightened by the thought of the brutes' victims
bled out in the dirt by the temple's graveyard;
a swift death yields an indecorous burial.
Let the children yield to fate's fancies
as we all once did to our lord;
have heaven call for all the ******* and ******
and leave the good ones to the earth forevermore.

Let me purge my essence
since I can't purge my disgust
with myself; I cannot feel the connection
of my sisters and my brothers,
my parents and my lovers
are they ashamed of my existence,
or my proximity to themselves?

My mind pulled
in opposite directions
dim reflections of my mind
taint the sanity I once owned.
But what was my sanity ever worth
if anything at all?
Please just leave me to my poems,
the eye of this ******* tempest.

Do whatever you want to do:

pick apart my faults to the point
where I can't utter my own name,

free my demons to let them
circle me like salivating vultures,

stomp on my face and all the while
say I'm nothing more than a common *****,

piece together all my hopes
and force me to watch as you smash them again,

grind my feelings to a dusty pulp and
spew venom on my skin,

make me wish I were dead,

tell me I'm not good enough,

make me feel inferior every day
till I learn to do it myself like a dog,

just please don't leave me
all alone.

A freezing of my frigid soul
it has rigid wrinkles etched
like calligraphy put into stone; there's
a permanence to my way, I've debated change
too many times within myself, I know
there's no hope in the fickle throat of one
who cannot walk the walk.

I rest my head at the
rotation of the light,
pray for a reprieve in the night, and
cast my lot with the hopeless youths who've
been lied to by kith & kin, or else
heard their own delusions in
each utterance they were given.
Either way, we've frozen souls and hearts melted
by warm tears pouring from
our own roaring storms.

You hugged me once and said
that everything would be ok,
but I'm pretty ******* far from fine
as nothing calms my fragile mind.

Once upon a time we were
as thick as thieves in the dark of night;
now I must seem like a stranger to you,
a forgotten friend you know no longer.

Speaking all in tongues, I land
on the beach of a foreign shore.
where the sand came from the hourglass
that Kronos used to keep time.

I miss the stupor of a drunken night
spent singing softly in a room of dim light,
not even sad, so why did I cry?
There was a plea for help behind every lie
that I gave them to keep it all under wraps
to throw off the stench of all the mishaps,
like when I blew chunks all over the couch
or nearly got caught with a mini bottle in my mouth.
My hands shake while I'm awake all night
comfortably crying in a room of dim light.

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.

Let me purge my essence
since I can't purge my disgust
with myself; I cannot feel the connection
of my sisters and my brothers,
my parents and my lovers
are they ashamed of my existence,
or my proximity to themselves?

My mind pulled
in opposite directions
dim reflections of my mind
taint the sanity I once owned.
But what was my sanity ever worth
if anything at all?
Please just leave me to my poems,
the eye of this ******* tempest.

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 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.

I know what caused the bluebird to cry:
'twas the deluge that necessitated the ark,
and the fact he was forced to fly the entirety
and couldn't seek refuge in the broken trees
he once had as homes.

His love, one of two on the ark,
the second- the winner, of a competition
that he'd never thought existed.

He flies close to it
to still have her near him
and he hears her chirp
with what seems like a smile, at the winner
of a competition he'd never believed in,
because he was taught to think
that love wasn't a thing one
could win or lose at.
Yet there he was, trying to catch up
in a race he'd already lost,
because his mind was telling him to keep trying
for something his heart knew
was long gone.

I found heaven on this earthly plane,
it lies in the hours of a gentle night
spent whispering, to not disturb the elders.

A hazy greeting, good food consumed,
A dog barking at the strange people he sees.
A restrained heart throbbing from a rare excitement shown,
A surprise unknown was a sweet green delight.

Returned from the darkness, the haze ever stronger;
for dessert, apple pie, that American treat.
My smile threatening to burst at the seams,
till we bid adieu with long hugs and goodbyes.

It was everything and more than I'd dared to dream,
by far the best birthday I've ever had,
though age has robbed me
of the memories of older ones.

It makes me want to fall to my knees and pray
to a god I don't even believe in
to thank him for bringing you both into my life.

I silently sit in sin and ponder
how it is I wound up here:
a drunken fool with no promise
of brighter days ahead.
I remember nights spent
awake thinking of her,
replaying the dreams I've had,
like the one where she
lunges into my arms and
proclaims with a kiss that
she loved me all along,
while I smelled the scent of
cinnamon on her breath,
persimmons on her skin,
and lilac in her blonde hair.
Now the clock strikes 2 am,
and misery gains another companion,
as I'm forced to use my sleepless nights
to remember dreams of better times.

I've hidden amongst the hidden shadows
of a corrupted universe
spoiled by beings that deserve their fate:
to be kissed by flames for all eternity,
ravaged by the hounds of time,
and kissed by demons with poisoned lips.

I say farewell to my future's plans
and fall in line with the depths of my despair,
hoping my offensive death will change the tide
of regression back to the putrid mean.

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?"

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.