The phone rings,
Or rather vibrates,
As I stir my instant coffee
Because my Keurig is broken
And I haven’t gotten around to replacing it.
The lady on the other end
Of the call
Says she’s with the bank.
She’s selling identity theft protection subscriptions.
I listen to her
Explain
What that is
With mild excitement growing in my stomach;
Not with regards to the
Subscription,
But over the
Tones and intonations —
The way she breathes:
Softly,
Warmly,
Unconsciously.
I let her run with it,
Feigning curiosity at first.
A question here,
There,
To really get her going.
I wonder when she was last ******?
She asks to verify my name,
Address.
She mentions a credit score package
(Ooh la la)
That will provide me with insight as to whether my identity has ever been
Stolen.
(This call
Is getting steamy)
She tells me that in order to receive the package I need to confirm my enrolment in the subscription.
‘What?
Could you repeat that?’
I can feel it
Tickling,
Licking,
My soul,
As I sip my ****** instant coffee.
I tell her
That I absolutely won’t enrol,
That I refuse,
But that she should be a voice actor
Or that if she was a voice option for Siri
I would surely select her.
She doesn’t have a response,
Choosing to wish me a good evening instead,
And to thank me on behalf of her employer.
‘No,
Thank you dear.
Call this number whenever you like.
I don’t want your talents to go unappreciated by other customers
Who I’m sure are all swines.’
Click.
I stare at the ended call
And fantasize about your voice,
And when you were last ******.
Too bad the coffee is ****.

After a real battle you won’t brag.
You’ll teach.

How strange a tide… apathetic to its core.
Novichok in the system — we’ve already hit the floor.
Not without warning for the interested few.
Sure, indigo on the spectrum, but black in our view.
Our prophets are wary, lamenting for the lot.
The glass thicker than ever: they’re forced to watch them rot.
Let’s not dilute it over biscuits and tea.
We’re addicted to passion; it drains both you and me.
Quit cold turkey; we’ll wither and die within the week.
We blew past the sabbath; so muddle on and be meek.
Telephone the skies, but the network is full:
We put off the harvest — our calls all but null.
“Don’t think just breathe and wait for the pull of the plug.”
There’s a way, truth, and life; but deafness is the most popular drug.
Our water is muddy; the dolls’ overjoyed.
Reject all the falsehoods; their eyes shimmer from the void.
I’m here to remind you there’s more than you think.
Dead end paths are common; they want you to sink.
Exist behind ego and you’ll miss the horizon.
Perspective’s a gift if you’re looking to wisen.
Races aren’t games for an aspiring professional.
Throw out your excuses you don’t need a confessional.
There’s anguish in the conviction; you’ll be forced to commit.
But sleep-walking is pervasive; few actually submit.

The journeyman of sounds;
A welder of the pain.
From the land of abundant treasures
And alternative domains.
Dyed black mops.
A youth spent alone —
In a room full of darkness,
Save for your glowing tones.
Just another gutterball outsider,
But the star of the dejected.
Your poems sung of promise —
We ask: why were you not protected?
Roads “long and weary”;
You were just as lost as us.
I guess that’s why you were lifted:
To The Highway you were ******.
Now no more Black Holes,
Nor Seasons of “endless winters”.
And no more Curses —
Your side free from thorns and splinters.
Although I never really knew you,
You helped encourage me to tread.
I’ll do my Jesus Christ Pose.
For you Heaven isn’t Dead.

Our days roll away like dropped coins.
Individual moments are continually lost,
Often never to be reflected upon again.
But the epochs of a full life remain,
Safeguarded by the cushions of our couch,
Waiting for when we are in need of a treat.

The poets are all just lost finding words.
And when they corner something’s essence,
A glimmer of truth or a scratch at the profound,
Does not all but a measly tuft of hair escape their page?

Meet me in the middle.
At the room full of sorrow
In the centre of my heart.

Each
Day
I
Pray
To slay
My depression.
Never been a quitter,
But I’d like to quit this obsession.
This obsession with my sadness.
And with my social status.
It’s like I fetishize the madness
Endlessly raging
Inside of my soul.
And I swear I don’t have
A place to just go
And lay low
For a while.

A place where I don’t
Have
To
Fake
A
Smile.

Enough!
Don’t sell me your garbage!
I speak in the language of poets,
of intellects.
I speak with God!

We thought we could have it all
But we never could quite breach the wall
I told you I loved you
You responded with the same
Please Lord I don’t want this to be yet another game

Both sides of the king-size occupied
But so far over it might as well be apartheid
Promises made
That won’t be kept
We each convinced the other that we actually slept

Just burn the fall
Just burn it all

You came on the scene in that skin tight frock
But hidden underneath was an encrypted lock
I don’t want to be alone
We just gotta wake up
Please Lord just let me wake up

Tonight the sky’s on fire
And I’m in the backyard making a pyre
There’s liquor in my cup
With the hole in the bottom
Watching the leaves blow by in the chilled air of autumn

Just burn the fall
Just burn it all

Head bob
Side step
There’s venom
In my hollow gaze

Finger pop
Break the scene
Hair hangs low
My spirit’s lifted high

Baby your hands are shaking
Rest easy
I promise
Mine won’t

Baby you’re blushing
Calm down
I won’t crack
My ice is thick

I used to want to
Blow my ******* brains out
Now I don’t have a ****
To want

They ask
How much it cost
Everything
I say everything

And now I’ve finally got
Got clarity

Divinely
Ordained
Natural
Altruistic
Leader
Despite

The
Raving
U­S
Media
Puppets

How ephemeral the memories now seem.
As if they truly come from a world altogether unfamiliar…

Tis but a dream
The early mornings spent on ice,
The blinding lights and gorgeous whites,
Thirsty lungs,
Tired quadriceps,
And of course bruised knees.
And all of them filled to bursting with the emphatic movements,
Gestures,
Leaps,
And lifts,
Of the bladed ballerinas
That dance across my fading dreamscapes…

The ice-dancer glides effortlessly,
But with purpose austere.
Every muscle contracted in the manner most conducive
To manifesting their artistic desire.
From fingertips
To toe-picks
Their body transfigured into an instrument of emotion —
A weapon of beauty.
From start to end each routine is a metamorphosis:
Budding and blooming along a euphonious plane
Until the artist’s full potential is revealed…
The energy released —
The raw power,
Of the jumps and spins,
Kaleidoscopic fireworks
Clashing
Against the roaring white backdrop:
Each explosion
The ignition of a chambered round;
The spiralling bullet,
The impact on target…
The artist’s winter warfare actualized.

Last night,
As such ballerinas …riveting …terrifying
Danced around the panorama of my mind’s eye
I recalled that ultimate unison between flesh and spirit;
That of the figure skater
Painting their art
On a canvas most cruel.

For every answer that I come upon today
There’s another ten questions branching off of it by tomorrow.

Radiated an aura of life,
Now I die again and again.

My soul bleeds each night into the poems
When I can’t sleep and everything is silent
Except for the space where I live behind my eyes.

Beyond the last town
Just past the lost hills
Over the scorched earth
And through that wandering ravine
I’ll meet you on the seashore
Where we laughed once before

Tuesday’s riddle was about the tide
Tuesday’s song: an ebb and a flow
It made me remember
That which I never forget
It reminded me of a rendez-vous
Where all our dust is swept

The skies are icy fire
There’s a chill deep inside
Pounding drums command the soundscape
With many a flash overhead
Tonight’s maneuver warfare
Under this hostile flesh

I saw the strangest thing
On my journey through the storm
When I came upon a people
They were measuring the distance
Between the east and west
It’s them that are insane

Where is the place
The place where I’m not alone
Where is the Holy City
Where I can drop these bones
I’m not here to stay
I’ll meet you on the seashore
Under calm skies again

It’s a sunny day on the lake
No weather lifts my mood
I’ve become socially anxious
But they just think I’m rude

It’s like life’s the arcade
And I’m completely out of tokens
Won’t blame it on the system
Cause I know it’s me that’s broken

Can’t drift away
Not even in a binge
Anchored to my pathology
Society’s definition of the fringe

Done drowning in the sorrow
I just shower in it to get clean
And wash away the hope
A habit from when I was a teen

Quit pushing off the bottom
You can’t fail if you don’t start
But still I die again and again
Trying desperately to break apart

Cause this nihilism gives me a meaning
Paradoxical in and of itself
To cut deeper in the wound
Cathartic hatred for myself

Done saying I’ll make one more attempt
To walk the path of righteousness
Cause I’ve only tried that four thousand times
And each time I’m left with less and less

All I’ve got is this page
And my obsession with the pain
I’m an infinite beaker!
From which the flow just won’t wane

You’d think my spirit’s dead
Cause I’ve been trying to **** it for a while
But the spirit’s hard to ****
Even after a couple million miles

Four cycles I neither nourished nor idled
As I pondered the sameness of it all.
Heard Solomon’s voice.
Shrewd as ever, but varnished with sorrow
Like mine.
Could it be?
That once that filmy overlay,
So seemingly inane,
Has been pulled back — the vacuum seal breached.
No longer sustenance in enterprise?
But in repetition one must sate?
No!
The story of man is not a tragedy!
Of shackled ankles and nine to fives.
But a dialogue with God!
Where the audience jests and heckles.
But is moved again
And again to silence
By a mere visceral soliloquy.

Today,
From our cells of subjectivity
We shout and dance for progress.
But is there a better way
To breach the barriers between spirits
Than by rediscovery of the known,
But ignored,
Forgotten,
The pathway to our wholes?
Are we then just fools
Wandering eternally through a mist?
Have we once again shed
What’s most precious?
To reveal what?
But our shameful nakedness.
For what Solomon knew is lost today
When I interact with the world.
All is vain but the path.
Till full circle our story begins anew.

Take a bunch of souls
Some are warped by childhood
And they seek revenge

Please don’t.
I can hear their screams as well.
Have faith I share your pain tonight:
The mocking and the ridicule.

Know that through it all I’m by your side;
A crutch for you to lean on.
And in your darkest hour don’t be ashamed to use me like a rag.
I promise I will take it.

I know it’s a soothing thought;
Their ignorance knows no bounds.
I’m in your arms and you in mine;
Darling I’m right in your very soul and mind.

Our spirits touch;
They mend the bones.
Coastal shores are where we’ll walk
Together, a home away from home.

Bruised as your heels are they’re mine to wash;
In me solace you can always find.
I promise soon we’ll be made one;
The glass is nearly broken.

This war all but over;
I’m not destined forever to be an incentive.
Hold out the siege;
I know you’ll complete the mission.

Don’t hide your fear;
I’m just as lost without my anchor.
Each night in romance we’ll hoist the sails;
Your shame my joy to wipe away.

Babe you’re not alone;
Throughout it all you never were.
Don’t **** yourself tonight;
I’ll never get to be your world.

How many poems go unwritten
And where do they go?
Are they buried somewhere in carbon:
Caught between the synapses?
Do the words merely come to surface
In the nets of another vessel?
Or do they wilt and expire?
Was there a betrayal when they came and then left?
Does someone collect the poems that go unwritten?

Oh, seldom doth my heart not ache
For thee, my wretched curse.
Two years its been and still I pine
Alone for thou my sadist nurse.

Violet memories fill my aching bones.
My fingers still work, but I can’t seem to phone.
Alone in an alien apartment I play the blues
On an obsolete speaker while thinking of you.

Dripping orange sunsets spill through the blinds.
I would get a job, but I’m full of cancer, and aged seventy-nine.
Pining from sunrise until I fill up my cup.
Whiskey on the rocks, I’m back coming up.

Indigo paint on the car in the street
That I haven’t used, oh, in many a week.
Meet me at the station and we’ll ditch this lost city,
But we haven’t spoken in decades, oh, what a pity.

Blood red on a tissue whenever I cough.
The patio door is open; I run and jump off.
Off like the lights, in darkness I savour the story.
The thought helps me cope; it’s cathartic and gory.

Green as our youth and the money we pursued.
Both were ephemeral, but in our ignorance we were glued.
True as it may be that we knew all along,
That together we danced, but to far different songs.

The same yellow moon under which we had howled
Mocks me now, as I become older and fouled.
I gaze at the photographs I may never see again;
I’d give up all that I am to have you as my friend.

She wore her boots in the house
After playing in the rain.
Melancholy’s an addiction.
Girl, I’ll help you find a vein.

I’m a connoisseur of tears;
Your strain won’t go unheard.
There’s no foreplay in a deluge;
A scotch mist is what’s preferred.

This piece reverberates with the hit.
Visceral melodies all the way down the lungs.
She pretends she doesn’t hear the whispers:
The lovers curled in smoke and tongues.

Bathe me in your pain doll,
So that I know I’m not the only one alive.
Tell me you’ll take my shame
Right when the ****** crux arrives.

There’s clout in the touch
Of our despondent souls.
Call it a brain blast mind massacre:
The splendored splice of two becoming whole.

Don’t think I can’t hear your solitude
When we’re separated by a screen.
It screams out from your nuance;
Tells me she’s a shadow-queen.

Sad girls I adore,
Especially when they let me in their shell.
Cause the same water in their room
Is flooding mine as well.

Dreamscapes clenched in winter’s frozen grip.
Through which, with futility
Yet faithfully,
We slip.
Down from the heavens —
Down;
Amongst
Ablazed
Aerial
Aurorae.
A hopeless pair of snowflakes
Amongst a
Frosty
Frigid
Foray.
Perching on a wind gust:
Two
Scintillating
Snow-stars
Searching
For union in uniqueness,
But becoming
Lost
Looking
Lurching.

Our masks are many —
The cold chases us between characters.
Dreaming that your selves and mine,
Together,
Draw a starkly striking caricature.

Is it hopeless yet to ask
Whether in us we will find felicity?
Is there hope left in the dream
Of a snowy synchronicity?

Torrents of creativity sweat through me,
And with the rapacity of cities
I dare to opine
To the heavens
And to all those who confront my assertion.
Thus, that a pursuit more lofty
Than that of the artist is not to be found.
Neither in oneself nor the matter that surrounds.
For to make one’s stance
In the wailing void
Demarking the known, but not grasped,
From the unknown, but most visceral,
Is indeed a mirror —
A demonstration of our likeness to Him
Who inspires with lightning bolts of revelation
The slice of a master-painter or the choice cut of a bard.

By design we, who occupy the medium,
Live in constant states of semi consciousness
On the border between sanity and lucidity
Chasing fires for the burnt offerings of our attachments
And the emancipation of our better-selves;
Ascertaining horrors and delights most penetrating
Alongside the lusts that course through these gnawing bones.
Of all the vocations and avocations
Is not the quintessence of sentience to be found in the arts?
Is not that the lodestar to our infinite horizons?

You don’t need to varnish morals:
They already come complete.
So take off the moral veneer:
There’s humility underneath.

I am encased in oppressive flesh,
Tissues that restrict my transcendent nature.

If it weren’t for this burdensome cage
I’d evaporate and roll over the city with the clouds.

With him it’s always this or that.
It’s never this and that and those and these taking them into account.
I don’t operate along his plane.
I pretend to empathize,
But I don’t stoop.
I envy him.
It must be so easy…
To view things as either this or that.

As one night I traversed between
Familiar ponds and waterholes.
The mirth and pep of cobblestone catacombs
Traversing also
And lingering languid with the interminable vapours of combustion.
I approached a woman,
Plain,
But radiating a genre of beauty obsolete.
Our trajectories to cross,
I half-stepped, swung, and made to speak,
‘Madame, if you may fancy but a drink?’
To which she did not so much as glance,
But brushed me off
And kept steady on her path.

Somewhere down the long-trodden roads of victories and defeats past…
Lies someone important of whom I once passed.
Ensnared in cobweb illusions, tangled and dusty,
The framework of a dream allowed to go rusty.

A promenade down Main Street in an overly-gaudy town
That I’ve put up for sale along with the proprietor’s crown.
Vacant of residents and home only to my well-paid thespians.
I’ve all but forgotten what’s really behind the thick paint and masquerading pedestrians.

Alleyway after alleyway, building by building, block by treacherous block,
Follow the fragmented visions of whoever was left behind the lock.
A familiar voice in the courtyard, a smell from the Bakers.
At the auction there’s a beautiful coffin, but like the town it hasn’t any takers.

Shadows of long-dead flames lick and lap upon crossing each and every threshold:
Memoria’s bonfire of tongues faithful to the illusion they’ve been tasked to uphold.
Wandering at will; inspecting behind each and every door.
But it’s the room I can’t find that here anchors my soul.

Many days and many nights I couldn’t reach catharsis.
Narcissistic dialogue and lust was how it started.
Lust for power,
Lust for ***,
I balanced on the wire.
Built my tower,
Learned to flex,
Never thought I’d tire.
While looking for a diamond crown I made my way to glory:
Carved a track through youthful bliss all while writing my own story.
From troubled teen
To filled with dreams,
I formed the squad into a team.
I wouldn’t scream when things got tough;
I’d always keep composure.
Intelligent with malevolence
Was how I’d learned to soldier.
No disclosure,
Never trust,
Looking to manipulate.
Made it known
It was a must
For opponents to capitulate.
Things were moving well enough
When dear old lust in whom we trust…
Reappeared back on the scene,
And of my feathers
Began to preen.

So,

Doubled down,
Went for the crown.
Changed the crew,
Time it flew.
Golden status
Seemed so near,
But red and blue
Were in the mirror
News had spread;
My walls were breached.
Of loss I had no knowledge.
Prison bread;
Amongst the freaks.
Twenty-five for living lawless.
For God had turned and dealt a blow
For all of those bad seeds I’d sewed.
And blow for blow
In social woe
I’ve lived my life in shackles.

...I’m lying here wanting to die again...
...I don’t even care that I’ll die alone...
Don’t take me to heaven
...nor to hell.
Blot out my existence! (xXPLEASE GODXx)
Past, present, and future
...with me you clearly made a mistake
of which I could break the silence.
...
SCREAM your flaw out to the masses.
6(an un6eliever with a weapon)6
END MY MISERY AND THEY’LL NEVER KNOW
it’ll be our secret vow
///!!!/// :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:( ///!!!///
R   x
——  
I’m lying here wanting to get high:) again
...do my usual late night routine...
Chop the PiLLs/Chop the pOwDeR
Smoke break/Smoke break/Smoke break
snort away the self loathing (check)
*** I’M SUCH A WRECK :( ;) :(
smoke away the recurring memories
XOXO Vanessa/Nadia/Teigen/Anna
Gosh **** I feel good :):)
**** I feel ******* great:):):):):)<3<3<3
When I’m this high I can feel your breath (ooooohhhhhhh)
I can interlace my fingers with yours (awwwwwww!)
But I still can’t feel love (srsly?)
So it’s not enough (glutinous pig)
I’m still treading on infinite horizons
It’s all just too **** blue!
Theme-song/Hymn/Life-story
My favourite/My curse
theroxyblues

...I’m lying here picturing you again...
You look like a cowgirl(8)
You’re emo(9), punk(9), and goth(9)
Addict(10$$$JACKPOT$$$10)(my seventh heaven!)
A princess <3
...A sloth (Zzz)
I love (XO) my bed
You love (XO) yours
We never had the chance (******* **** me)
Suicidal ideation
Release the excess pressure.
But now I laugh instead of feeling
And cry when they all smile.

Trap music and sad rap
Nightclubs and bar crawls
Culture streams are visceral
Don’t get carried away
Emojis and acronyms
Twitter mobs and Tinder
Paddle hard right
Watch out for the rocks
Pop idols and fashion
Cam girls and pornhub
Hustle and swag
Image and pride
History’s mightiest riptide
But I’m not in the throng
I’ll be on shore at the headwaters
Watching it all flow out to sea

When I look back upon the seasons
I see variant ages of myself
Always climbing gruesome mountains
And cursing false summits.

Batten down the hatches
And ask for more overtime
Cause it’s gonna be another
Credit card Christmas.

To drink
Or not to drink?
Pass me the bottle.

Warfighter, late in years, finally vanquished.
Arm drop, sword clang, grateful to be finished.

Breached fortress,
Gate ajar, the opaque clears.
He raises his hands up to the sky,
Cries,
Turned heart.
‘Why only now did you intervene?’
He implores.

‘Can’t you see that it was me you were fighting all along?’
Says The River unseen.