It was 98'.
No, it was 99'.
That was the year.
Yeah, that was the year.

I had just landed abroad and knew no one.
Well, I was there with my girlfriend, Page.

I knew her.

We had to get out of the states.
There was nothing for us there.
We were drowning in that nothingness - that lacking future.

Cookie cutters everywhere.

Everything I saw was like an outline of something that had already happened.
I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't ****.
I could barely call my parents to let them know what I was doing.

Nothing really.

Floating downward like a leaf broken from its stem.
I was scared.
I'll admit it.
I was terrified of the next four years.
Twenty-five seemed so far away and so close, all at the same time.

We had a found an apartment to live in while in the U.S.
We were lucky because people we met later on said it was hell trying to find a place after arriving.
I was never too good at that stuff anyway.
I always felt like people were trying to cheat me or something.

It was small.
You would have said you loved it, but secretly hated it.
One could barely stand in the shower.
Want to spread your arms wide?

Forget about it.

There was a balcony though and you could watch the street traffic from above.
People look so small when your high up.
Down the street, there was a large theatre where they filmed movies.
I rarely saw them shooting, but I could tell it was a good place to.
It was beautiful at night when the lampposts would flicker on, orange spilling on the street.
Everything was damp in the Fall when we first arrived.

"What do you want to do today?" I asked her. She was laying face down on the bed.
Whenever she was hungover, she would do that.
All the covers and pillows over her face, blocking out the world and its light.
I did the same thing, so I couldn't really say much.
We were hungover a lot those first couple months.
Then came the jobs and everything changed...mostly.

She moaned something that I couldn't understand.
I was standing by the window, staring at the pigeons and crows perched on the roof across from us.
They had made a little nest under one of the shingles.
Clever little ******'s.

"Look at those things," I said.
The coffee I was drinking was bitter and made from crystals.
It gave me a headache, but it was cheap and we were broke.
I stepped back to get a better look at their nest and knocked an empty beer bottle around.

She moaned again and rose up from bed, kind of like a stretching kitten or a cat.
Her back was arched like a crescent moon and she stunk of ***** and Sprite.
The blankets were twisted and crumpled and she was tangled in them like a fly in a spiders web.
I went into the kitchen and poured out my coffee, thinking of what to do with the day.

"Breakfast?" she asked me from bed.
My back was to her, but I knew she wanted me to make it.
I put the electric stove on and opened the refrigerator.

"No eggs," I said back to her, "I'll be right back."

She moaned and slithered back into bed.
I threw my jacket and slippers on and made my way downstairs.

"Dobry den," I said to the cashier.
He was a tiny vietnamese man with a extremely high pitched voice.
I struggled to stifle a laugh every time I came in.

"Dobry den," he said back, sounding like air escaping from a balloon.

"Dear God," I thought, "How does his voice box do it?"

I went straight to the eggs, pretending to cough.
All around me were packaged sweets and rotten vegetables and fruit.
There were half loaves of brown, stale bread wrapped lazily in thin plastic.
Canned beans, noodle packets, and cardboard infused orange juice lined the shelves.
Where were the ******* eggs?
We needed milk too.
Trying to drink that crystalized coffee without it was torture.
I don't even know how I did it earlier.
"I must be getting used to the taste..." I thought.

I opened the single refrigerator they had in the place.
It was stocked with loosely packaged cheese, milk, beer, and soda.
There they were, those ******* eggs, right next to the yogurt.
I looked at the expiration date of a small carton of chocolate milk and winced.
"Someone could die here if they weren't careful," I whispered to myself.

"Everyding O.K.?" I heard the cashier squeak behind me.
I turned and nodded and showed him the eggs.
He was suspicious I was stealing something.
It was ironic.
I put the eggs on the counter and handed over what the cash register told me.

"There you go," I said and handed him the 58 crown in exact change.

"Děkuji," he peeped.

His voice sounded like a stuffed animal.
I nodded, smiled, and quickly got the hell out of there.

"You know the guy that works at the shop across the street?" I asked the body still in bed.
Well, she was up now, back up against the wall with her laptop on her lap.
"You mean the guy that has the voice of a little girl?"
"Exactly. I was just in there - getting these eggs - and I nearly laughed in his face."
"That's mean," she frowned, staring at her laptop.
Many of our conversations were with some kind of electronic device in between us.
We needed to work on that.
"I didn't laugh at him directly."
She smiled and nodded and moved down the bed a little more.
Only her head was resting on the pillow.
I cracked two eggs and let them sizzle there in the butter and the salt.

"So, what do you want to do today?" I asked Page, "It's not too cold out. We could go on a walk."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Over the bridge and maybe down by the water."
"It's going to be so cold," she shivered.
"I was just out there in slippers and a t-shirt and I was fine."
"That's because you're so big. I'm tiny. I don't get as much blood flow."

I flipped the two eggs and looked down at them.
Golden and burnt slightly around the edges.
******* perfect.
Now, just gotta wait a little on the other side and make sure to not let the yolk harden.
I hated that more than anything in the world.
Well, that and hearing **** poor excuses like it being too cold.
It was nice out.
She'd be fine.

"Come on," I sighed. I did that a lot. "It'll be fun."
She looked up at me from her computer with a dead look in her eye.
"What?" I asked her.
"You're such a...nerd," she said.
"No I'm not."
"You're so weird. Some of the things you say sometimes..."
"Like what?"
"Let's go on a walk."
She exaggerated the word walk.
I laughed and knew I was being a little too excited about a walk.
"Yeah. So? What are you doing? You're just laying there doing nothing."
"It's my day off," she scoffed, jokingly.

We were unemployed.
Everyday was a day off.
This was not something to bring up.
It was touchy subject.
One had to go about it...delicately.

"We need to find jobs," I stated, "And we can probably ask around or look for signs in windows."

"Oh JESUS," she gagged, coughing and diving back under the covers.

"I'm just thinking ahead so we can stay here. There's got to be something out there we can do."

"Like what?" she asked, her voice muffled by blankets.

"I don't know...something," I mumbled, trailing off as I flipped one of the eggs, "Perfect."

After breakfast, Page finally got out of bed and took a shower.
I tried to sneak in there with her, but, like I said before, one could barely fit themselves in there.
We compromised to have *** on the bed, though I did miss doing it in the shower.
As Page got dressed, I watched her slip those thin black stockings on, half reading a magazine.
I had gotten a subscription to The Review because I was trying to become a writer.
I thought, maybe if I read the stuff getting published - even the bad **** - it'll help.
Later, I realized, this was a terrible idea, but I enjoyed the magazine all the same.
Page finished getting dressed.
I jumped into whatever clothes were on the floor and didn't stink.
Then, we were out the door on Anna Letenske street, looking at the tram, downhill.


"I can see my breath," Page said, "It's cold..."

"Alright," I said as both of us ran across the street, "It's a little cold."

"But it's ok because I'm glad were out of the house."

"If we would have festered there any longer, we would have stayed in there all day."

"And missed this beautiful day," she said mocking me, putting both of her arms in the air.

The sky was gray and overcast and a single black crow flew over us, roof to roof.
No one was out, really.
It was Sunday and no one ever really came out on Sundays.
From the few czech friends I had, they explained to me this was the day to get drunk and cook.

"Far different then what people think in the States to do," I remember telling him.
"What do you do, my friend?" he had asked. He always called me my friend.
It was a nice thing to do since we had only known each other a couple weeks.
"Well," I explained to him, "Some people go to church to pray to God."
He laughed when I said this and said, "HA! God? How many people believe in God there?"
I had heard through the news and some Wikipedia research Prague was mostly atheist.
"A good amount, I'm pretty sure."
"That's silly," he scoffed, "Silly is word, right?"
"Yep. A word as any other."
"I like that word. What else do they do on Sunday?"
"A lot of people watch football. Not like soccer but with..."
"I know what you talk about," he said, cutting me off, "With the ball shaped like egg?"
I nodded, "Yes, the one with the egg shaped ball. It's popular in the Fall on Sundays."
"And what is Fall?" he asked.
You can see our relationship was really based on questions and answers.
He was a good guy, though I could never pronounce his name right.
There was a specific z in there somewhere where one had to dig their tongue under their teeth.
Lots of breath and vibration that Americans were never asked or trained to do.
Every czech I met said our language was a high contradiction.
Extremely complex in grammar and spelling, but spoken with such sloth.
I don't know if they used the word sloth.
I just like the word.

As we waited for the tram, I noticed the burnt orange and red blood leaves on the ground.
"Where had they come from?" I wondered. There were no trees on the street.
Must be from the park down the block, the one with the big church and the square.
There were lines of trees there used as leaning posts for the bums and junkies as they waited.
What they were waiting for, I never knew.
They just looked to be waiting for something.
I kicked a leaf into the street from the small island platform for the tram.
It swept up into the air a couple inches, and then instantly, was swept away by a passing car.
I watched as it wavered in the air, settling down the block in the middle of the road.

"Where's this trammm," Page complained.
Whenever it was cold out, her complaining level multiplied by a million.
"Should be coming soon. Check the schedule."
"Too cold," she said, "Need to keep my hands in my pockets."
I shook my head and looked at the schedule. It said it would be there at 11:35.
"11:35," I told her, still looking at the schedule. There was a strange cross over the day of Sunday.
"You mad?"
"No," I said turning to her, "I just want to have a nice day and its hard when you're upset."
"I'm not upset," she said, her teeth chattering behind her lips.
"Complaining I mean. We can go back home if it's really too cold. It's right there."
"No," she looked down, "Let's go out for a bit. I just don't know how long I'll last."
"Ok," I shrugged.
I looked up the street and saw our tram coming; number 11.
"There it is," I said.
"Thank God," Page exhaled, "I feel like I'm about to die."

Even the tram was sparse with people.
An empty handle of cheap liquor rattled in the back somewhere.
I heard it rock back and forth against the legs of a metal seat.
"Someone had a night last night," I thought, "Hope that's not mine."
We had gone to some dark bar with a lot of stairs going down - all I really recall.
Beer was so **** cheap there and there was always so much of it, one got very drunk easily.
I couldn't even really remember who we met or why we went there.
When everything's a blur in the morning you have two choices:
Feel guilty about how much you drank, lie around, and do nothing or,
Leave it be, try not to think about it, and try and find your passport and cell phone.

We made our transfer at the 22 and rode downhill.
Page looked like she was going to be sick.
Her sunglasses were solid black and I couldn't see her eyes, but her face was flushed and green.
"You alright?" I asked her.
"I'm fine," she said, "Just need to get off of this tram. Feel like I'm going to be sick."
"You look it."
"Really?" she asked.
"Yeah, a little bit."
"Let's get off at the park with the fountain. I don't want to puke here."
"Ok," I said, smiling, "We'll get off after this stop."

We sat down on one of the benches that circled around the fountain.
It was empty and Page was confused why.
"Maybe to save money?" I suggested.
"What? It's just water."
"Well, you gotta' pump the water up there and then filter it back out. Costs money."
"Costs crown," she corrected me.
"Same thing," I said, putting my arm around her, "There's no one here today."
"I know why," she stated, flatly.
"Why?"
"Because it's collllllllld and it's Sunday and only foreigner's would go out on a day like this."
I scanned the park and noticed that most of the faces there were probably not Czech.
"****," I muttered, "You may be right."
"I know I am," she said, wiggling her chin down into her jacket, "We're...crzzzy."
"We're what?" I asked. I couldn't hear her through her jacket.
She just shook her head back and forth and looked forward, not wanting to move from the warmth.
Dogs were scattered around the brown green grass with their owners.
Some were playing catch with sticks or *****, but others were just following behind their owner's.
I watched as one took a crap in the center of the walkway near the street.
Its owner was typing something on their phone, ignoring what was happening in front of him.
After the dog finished, the owner looked down at the crap, looked around, then slunk off.

"Did you see that?" I asked Page, pointing to where the owner had left the mess.
"Yeah," she nodded, "So gross. That would never fly in the states."
"You'd get shoulder tackled by some park security guard and thrown in jail."
"And be given a fat ticket," she said, coughing a little, "Let's get out of here."
"Yeah," I agreed, "And watch for any **** on the way out of here."

We made our way out of the park and down the street where the 22 continues on to the center.
"Let's not go into the center. Let's walk along the water's edge and maybe up to the bridge."
"Ok," I said, "That's a good idea." I didn't want to get stuck in that mass of tourists.
I could tell Page didn't either. I think she was afraid she might puke on a huddle of them.
We turned down a side street before the large grocery store and avoided a herd of people.
The cobble stones were wet and slick, glistening from a small sliver of sunlight through the clouds.
Page walked ahead.
Sometimes, when we walked downtown in the older parts of Prague, we would walk alone.
Not because we were fighting or anything like that; it was all very natural.
I would walk ahead because I saw something and she would either come with or not.
She would do the same and we both knew that we wouldn't go too far without the other.
I think we both knew that we would be back after seeing what we had wanted to see.
One could call it trust - one could call it a lot of things - but this was not really spoken about.
We knew we would be back after some time and had seen what we had wanted to.
Thinking about this, I watched her look up at the peeling paint of the old buildings.
Her thick black hair waved back and forth behind her plum colored pea coat.
Page would usually bring a camera and take pictures of these things, but she had forgotten it.
I wished she hadn't.
It was turning out to be such a beautiful day.

We made it to the Vlatva river and leaned over the railing, looking down at the water.
Floating there were empty beer bottles and plastic soda jugs.
The water was brown, murky, and looked like someone had dumped a large bag of dirt in there.
There was nothing very romantic about it, which one would think if you saw it in a picture.
"The water looks disgusting," Page said.
"That it does, but look at the bridge. It looks pretty good right

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Not for long, anyway. Cake doesn’t settle well when it’s all you’ve had to eat. It’ll churn like butter inside you, and creep up your throat to project like a cannon, barreling through a wall. Cake won’t sit right with you anymore. At the mere mention of cake, your insides will crawl with disgust and an association of icing will replace your taste buds with *****. You will never be able to enjoy cake—at parties, as a delicacy, with ice cream—because you got greedy and wanted to eat your cake first rather than save it for such an occasion. Now all the different kinds of cake you fantasized about trying—black velvet, coffee cake, buttercream pound cake—will only be a reminder of your pitfall that led you to make yourself sick with desire, for cake. You can’t get the icing off your tongue, the smell of batter baking has festered in your nostrils wired to the pungent taste of red from between your teeth. But it’s all you can think of when you’ve been wronged by your favorite dessert. What sort of chemical reaction in the bowels of your stomach caused all of this sorrow? What rejected the cake? Your body has a way of telling you things—we should listen more. Cake is not sustenance, it has no value as a nutritious food. It doesn’t help, only hurts.

Festered with Love.
Feigned by an Illusion of Trust and Deceit,

Never had a chance to clarify the Endless Desolation.
On the Twilight before a dark night,
I lost my light to a starking sight.

The love that Festered with the light is long lost in the oceans of the night, The sight of the shimmering light, dwindled in the mighty ruth of the dark.

So what's it they have, what's it all about
Work for the bossman.
Use your brawn Earn your pittance,
Then eat, Pub, drink, **** and pay the bills
Go footie, shout and scream, at one with your tribe
then  go sit in front of the telly, play at family
Week is done
Till the morrow when you do it all again

How about a soap opera, you direct and act
Gotta a Royal down the road ripe for the taking
Lets go invade, see how the other halves lives
Come, lets all join and become Kingmakers
Under our ***** thumbs he goes, we pull the strings
Entertainment for the masses, beats our mundane cages

For once, we are the bosses and can pull the strings
Knowledge is Power and its all here in Mao's Red Book
Lies, fabrication, distortions and misinformation
Disinformation, half-truths, slander it ain't no matter
Everything he says will be taken down and used against him
This is control at our finger tips, this is power to play with
He's going through the Red mill, drilled and ground into dust

Look we've got him as the puppet, we destroy all his trappings
So gather round and join the fun, this is us like God
Lights, action, now you do this and this and watch us play him
what do you mean puppet ain't moving or re-acting
OK let's do this, you go there and you do this and do this now
Still no action, OK let's try this, if you go there and say ah
You drive here, you stand there, you watch here, you stand
Nothing still, OK you come here, you put this here
Still nothing, This puppet is NUMB, this puppetting is no fun

They had drawn up the master plan, written their ****** script
The puppet looked and laughed, what a bunch of prime morons
No substance, no value system, no morality or basic sense
Infantile, one track minded sociopaths full of flaws and manure
Go back to your drinking and ******* and your mundanity
The united pack of crooks, ****, racists and the vacuous coerced

Go look after the Leading Lady stuck with rehearsals and scripts
The imagined romantic interest paying debts for UK residency
Waiting for the Prince to come running and tomfoolery begins
The bit part actors are still playing, too stupid to realize
The control is on them, their time energy and effort all a sham
Our Directors are directing making it up as they go along
The supporting actress are still hopping and hoping
The new characters are still buying false scripts and playing
Playing with themselves as Puppet stands and watches it all

They wheel out their demented scribes and brain dead peoters
To write dirges, glooms, ******* and negativities galore
Casting their dark fantasies and the rancid spittles of their dregs
Muds from the festered pools of their putrid minds dresses up
Ready to visit nightmares of their making from their darknesses
Areas thankfully unknown to a mind and soul untainted, unsoiled
As is their bitter lives, valueless breeding and hate and prejudices One ignorance and neurotic existence, the depravities of depraves..

Poor, poor imbeciles, they really don't have much in their lives
Illusions and delusions by the bucket loads, anything would do
To remove them from their sad, miserable sorry realities
Hey its Clockwork orange, we are all stars in our *****
Diversions to their mundane, unrewarding and depressing realities
Their frustrations and powerlessness, their insignificance
At last a vent for their frustrated lives, miseries loves company
A release valve for pains of centuries being underdogs and serfs
A safe playground for psychos, control and pain in abundance
Let's call it Revolution and add Republic to make it more palatable

Down at the palace of Attrition, a blameless man sits and muses
Crazed dogs of war at the gates, salivating insanely, bloodthirsty
Watching Controllers tieing chains to masses and jerking them
Into frenzied hysteria, nothing beats permitted wickedness shared
Dropping poisons and acids into hungry jaws, patting heads
Shouting rallying calls, we got the Bastille of the blinds going on
Scientists please take notes, this is Herd mentality and Groupthink
This is how to manipulate the masses and incite Hate unawares
Majority wins here, this is Democracy, this is people power

Do, you are ******, don't, you are ******, Hate abides all.
Puppet sees injustices but better to play dumb and numb
They can't abide a black do well, hate spews from fear
Hate festered by the unique decency of a successful blackman
Who had all they wished for but could never have or be
Riddled with lust and envy they merely went on to steal his
But that wasn't enough, the bullies and cowards had to ruin.
Under the pretext of them and us, blue versus Red they lied
Rabid racists takes another black man down, green bottle falls

Man proposes, God disposes, UK, KKK now play god
Thy will will be done O'Lord, I am but your servant
It's rather flattering being The Real Deal in this production
Confirmation of differences betwixt Gifted and the Depraves
A Travesty full of sound, false images and fury by the loonies
A Red Racist Production by Idiots and psychos for fools and sociopaths.

Lights, camera, action
Yawn.......................

The rat smells the air, squeaks in alarm and runs off.  
Black boots come into view.  With the sharp tip of a sword.
I crouch in the dark, behind the bins of *******.

The boots walk on by.  The sword, poking into corners.  
All the while, eyes of glowing red, within deep sockets
of a musty old skull, scan for signs.

I look at my hands.  The festered and rotting flesh.
My bones showing through.  The stench unbearable.
Glad my nose fell off last night.

The timing was off.  It was just a little sneeze.
PLOP!  Right in my gruel.  
Every one at school laughed.
Skeleton Puberty *****!


And now, Dad is mad.  Just cause I waxed the hearse
and didn't use "Ear Wax".  You could hear him rattle
all day.  What's wrong with the "Toe Jam Wax"?

Wait till I catch sis.  She went and showed mom my
mags.  "Raw!  Boo To The Bones".  I'll bet dad had
mags like these when he was a teenager.

They have good stories.  The pics are just a bone-us.
I think it's safe now.  I'll just sneak into the house.
Just sit and look innocent.

How did you find me?
A whole trail of pieces?  Sheesh!
I know.  I'm grounded.  Not for the wax job?
The Mags!?.
Skeleton puberty *****.



My Halloween offering for Oct. 12th

No sirens are heard the morning is still,
Hope awakens, a vibrant animal
It was never dead, only hiding.
Modern individuals, can reveal
The root of their plight, let old wounds heal
Daughters, allowed to make their own decisions,
Mothers, remembered for loving care,
Fathers, passing wisdom to their children,
The hibernation of falsehood.
But what of those who never found these things?
To them we must give our fullest kindness,
We all were children once, and we all deserve love.
With forgiveness, justice, and harmony.
Let no further judgements be passed,
Let lovers rejoice,
Let shots ring out in celebration
Not as signals of termination.
These cycles never end,
But what festered yesterday,
Today can be healed.
Let lovers lie together in bliss,
Absorbed in communion of affections,
On this day let us heal each other,
As we heal our world,
One individual at a time.

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
   Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

January 23, 1993*

Tender young thighs and old cushions
Warm places to rest her sweet head
Hard sweating smells and soft fingers
And hair stretched out on the bed

There's a ghost in the jewellery box mirror
As pretty as any you’ve seen
There's a ghost in the jewellery box mirror
Reflecting a tired old dream

Ah but none of us know why she’s spinning
When in truth she is headed nowhere
Though each of us forms an opinion
We must lose as the truth comes to bare

There's a ghost in the jewellery box mirror
For the devil is female it's said
There's a ghost in the jewellery box mirror
It's pretty 'til it turns its head

There's a grace that we lose when we're aged
There's an honour we lose when we lie
There's a guilt that can tear the heart ragged
When it beds down with truth at its side

There's a ghost in the jewellery box mirror
And all I can do is to stare
There's a ghost in the jewellery box mirror
I know because you placed it there

There's a heart beat to count every moment
We're apart and both in despair
You cry for a love that is past, Dear
I cry for a love is still here

And what trickery has taken this anger
That has witnessed your love laying dead
and placed it full in the sunlight
where it festered and flew from my head?

James H. Webb

Vespertine, fatal dream
Mistress conjuring shapes of night
Seventeen little fiends
Elegy for a demon’s plight


Alone in my study, sitting
before a roaring fire
Visions so ******
they churn desire

With the dead of night
summoning hellish zest
They come to incinerate
my corrosive flesh

The hymns of *St. Lazarus beckon solace
from the cathedral outside
But I linger here in the bowels,
where my ancestral sins reside

Animistic stares gazing through
these dead-soul dreams
Where another horror story is not
always what it seems

Portraits of deceased queens
looked down at me with blackened eyes
Layers of muffled screams
festered while judging my vacant lies

Years before, my grandmother watched
over me as a boy in his bed;
Endless, ambiguous rhymes of prayer
are what she often said.

She promised to ban the spirits
that steadily linger
But dark twisting hands
outreached and took her

The monsters and invisible abominations
have always been here
Following my whereabouts,
watching me year after year

Subtle ghosts keeping my heart
and house cold
I sat and waited for what my
icy breath foretold

The dreams, the demons, the ghosts
all that severed me
From experiencing the love of flesh
I so forever longed to see


Came the hour the church bells rang and tolled


The dread of things to come
The moans and cries had begun

From lissome shadows and corridors
Like Charon beating souls with oars


Creeping evil fled
to the refuge of my home
To reap the sins
that my family had sewn

The rippling, screeching strings
of a malevolent orchestra
Scored and produced themes
worthy of infernal Sumatra

The flames in the fireplace
surged a green incendiary wall
From the hell mouth jaw emerged
a dark figure I saw.

Mother Mephistopheles,
            clad in silvery pieces with a pale face
            Manifesting atrocities, her emerald eyes
            welcoming our embrace

I backed away from the sights in,
my trance lost in her glimmer
But the noises and choir peaked
in a swarming fit for a sinner

In a gush of surrounding ash, Father Selaphiel materialized
The otherworld lovers reunited,
their bond revitalized.

“We come unto thee, Son of Faust, heir to Blake.”
They said in unison like a choral demon snake

“Create a fleshling worthy of a child, of many in one
So the deeds of your family’s sins can be undone.”

I stared at the figures with execrable bewilderment
Fearing my sanity had seeped through my temperament

They threaten my eternal existence with continued torment
A living anguish that would solidify my hell-bound descent

“What must be done?” I asked these surrogate advisers

And they instructed
A body made from flesh and metal
Of dead and living components
Blessed and cursed
From God and Satan
Men and creature
Using their collected powers
to merge with the night
I swept across the villages
and cities to obtain the materials
Now all these years, I’ve wondered
Why my medical expertise had been put to waste
“Did the demons prevent me?” I pondered
“Or did they aid me?” I concluded in my haste

Innocent or not, I claimed what I needed
To rid myself of the terrors deep-seated.

A steel-woven chest piece
and half-incinerated cadaver
Twenty feet of large intestines;
boys, girls didn’t matter

Shelled-out cranial cavity
with cerebral cortex to match
Mixing bladders and gallbladders
worth its catch

Punctured spleens and insolent creams
Circulatory, digestive, endocrine,

Iron bones, infused tendons mount
Smells and rancid odors spilling out

Guts, pus, worms and maggoty brains
Boiling in holy water with dried remains

Sacks of chain mail and velveteen potions
Seething concoctions conflate emotions

Patches of caustic skin made like adamant leather
Bolted with steel fingered brutally severed

Into gauntlet armor, this mechanized abomination
Personifying my sickened, wailing degradation

I showed Father and Mother my life’s work and creation
A flesh-iron shell waiting, they stood with appreciation

“Vespertine…” they called to the collage of my work
They petted its face while the shadows continued to lurk

Seventeen little fiends and creatures
appeared and surround
The moon shined through the glass
and the room around

The Seventeen shadow children became smoke and entered the monster
Now a being both ethereal and corporeal

My sins and demons locked in my own creation
Mother Mephistopheles and Father Selaphiel
Left Vespertine in my care

All that plagued me
All that haunted me

Personified, solidified
And barely alive.

My half-dead servant.

and Halloween child

You ensnared me like a dog in its cage
Locked me down in your cellar
drove to my estate
told my son it would be okay
Massacred my family with my face
And made sure to replay it for me everyday:
recorded the depravity so I could see it on tv
-Said to me:
"I know your heart is bleeding.
I will set you free when you watch,
Without shedding a single tear."
-I remained locked up for close to a year
I needed to know why you would trap me here
just to let me walk away
when you finally released me at gunpoint;
I learned to keep my tears at bay
Your response when I pressed for a reason:
        
               "...its just a game I play."

You set lives on fire then set us free
How many suicides have you kept as trophies?
Does it tingle like a wet tongue on your neck,
When you rip a life apart?
Presenting to us the imploded pieces
Like a perverted work of art?

You psychotic shapeshifter you sicken me
You serial-stealer of sacred space
You think the human race is a plague
So you became, "The Locust-Eater"
Playing out macabre fantasies
With such swift shifts of physical features
You delight in deriving such clever machinations
To deceive us ...
...but can you deceive yourself?
Underneath the bone and sinew
- you are still just YOU
...even though you masquerade as everybody else

How can I spot a chameleon in a kaleidoscope?
Belay your false colors.
Show me your true shade.

I studied you
Created a secret space- like you
Where I could stash you safe
Poured through claims of being kidnapped
By a being who could change its shape
Corroborated their claims-by the dates
Of misdeeds they were framed for
-And when they took their own life
In my research I found a smoking gun
-In your case your kryptonite
You must regress to your real skin
         once every month
So i set out ...
picked just the right target...
...and started to hunt

To lure out the chameleon...
I captured something...
      
        That I think you might love.

You wore Anessa's life like a glove
Was she to be your masterpiece?
You committed a crime so brazen- as her
it went viral within a week
you stole her child in the darkness of night,
Anessa's husband- that child's father
Must have been filled with such awful fright
He called authorities, you fabricated stories
you turned the victim into a suspect
Over a single fortnight
Not long after he was killed
in a drunken bar fight

As Anessa you were spotted months after
Ignoring a green light of a busy intersection
Parked in the middle of the road
Placed their child on that busy street
Then sped off in the other direction

Anessa was blindsided when you finally
let her go
Oh, i bet you waited with bated breath
For her self-removal from the world?
You ensured she would never again
Get to hold her baby girl
But Anessa never gave in
Did her steadfast resolve
feel like I rash upon your skin?
Where it festered forming feelings foreign
to a fiend such as you?

You scratched that itch
Began by sending her anonymous gifts
Even started shifting into her too
Stalked her waking moments
by engaging her as a stranger:
all the while unaware your sick infatuation:
Had put her in danger

I'm counting down the clock
I kidnapped maybe her or You
I left my address at Anessa's house
A note saying, " this is a game I play now too."
Soon now: a month will have passed
And it all comes crashing to A head:
at last.

So shed your skin
Prepare to fight
This vendetta ends here:

Tonight.

There is a lighter
          
           Just

waiting to ignite.

A knocking at my door
A knot in my stomach
Anessa...( or is it You)
bound beneath my floorboards?
I peer in the peephole then pull You (Or Anessa) out of that hidden hole
I drench us both( for every second You stole)
I  pour it all over
( my life will never be whole)  
I douse everything in here in gasoline
Confess your sins
(before the fire finds them out)
Its time to come CLEAN!!!

And it seems:
I will be dipping my hands in red tonight.
This will all end in the worst way.

I open the door
let Anessa( or You) In
She runs to my captive saying,
"Where do I begin?"

"I made something of my life
after it let me go
At first, it caused the Locust-Eater misery
You see it toys with humans:
ones it knows are weak
I was so meek and feeble before we met...
Yet,I'm the one person it failed to defeat
Its game gave me strength i never knew...
... resolve had always,somehow,eluded me
I do believe its games are vile...but,
They are necessary?
Please,**** me instead
"...but let the Locust-Eater free"

the captive Anessa(or You)
begins thrashing their feet
I yell," which one of you killed my family?!"
They both calmy respond:

" Me."

The lighter flicks in my hand
I'm unable to speak

A month has passed
Which one is the one I seek?
They both insist I let the other go
And you should know:
it slips from my hand
The lighter(like my grip of reality)
falling faster with exposed flame
adhering to the clear rules of gravity

The two Anessa's embrace.
They both begin to burn.

False colors from the chameleon fade out.
Hungry flames swallow me whole.
I am( am I?)...
seeing the Locust-Eater's true shade:

This is how I take control.

-

what sound!?
god's surprise
smack to dictate
needed her words
formulate doubt
from the hillside
curious answer
feeding his curse

grab her by the arm
gently
time to go
tonight
we ride tonight
following heart
to the edge of the end
tonight
we ride tonight

if the fallen sore
seeks the golden shore
what can we offer
the muse that is fueling
our destiny back to the throne?
and if the festered rose
abhors in its death throes
then how can she bargain
with those who have wagered
she'd never abandon her own?

she'll lie
awake
haunting dreams
she'll ride
always
to the end
solely her own

a ****** of crows gathers
over Hamburg, carrion carrying on
with business as usual.
feeding on the festered flesh
of a gentrified populace.

in private jets coughing carbon
they fly from the west on turbine wings,
engines screaming as they dive towards a nation
secured by razor-wound walls
and barb-wire borders.

they pitched a battle in Germany,
convinced that austerity
would ******* the resistance
and give justification to premeditated violence.
but the tables have turned on the thieves again.

we are the end result of your failed policies,
globalization has destroyed our homes.
if your cabal rallies like a kettle of vultures,
you will do so behind closed doors,
cowering in your fortress' halls.

you shall not pass. watch as the power shifts
like the melting gears of torched BMWs.
we will tear the vestiges of your authority down.
we will black out your surveillance cameras,
smash your windows, and block your limos. no pasaran.

flee, while you can still run. this city belongs
to the wild ones, a black bloc, thousands strong,
dancing amidst the tear gas, tossing molotovs.
marching to liberty's sturdy drum,
equal in our solidarity song.

Aye, Montecelli, that's the name.
You may have heard of him perhaps.
Yet though he never savoured fame,
Of those impressionistic chaps,
Monet and Manet and Renoir
He was the avatar.

He festered in a Marseilles slum,
A starving genius, god-inspired.
You'd take him for a lousy ***,
Tho' poetry of paint he lyred,
In dreamy pastels each a gem: . . .
How people laughed at them!

He peddled paint from bar to bar;
From sordid rags a jewel shone,
A glow of joy and colour far
From filth of fortune woe-begone.
'Just twenty francs,' he shyly said,
'To take me drunk to bed.'

Of Van Gogh and Cezanne a peer;
In dreams of ecstasy enskied,
A genius and a pioneer,
Poor, paralysed and mad he died:
Yet by all who hold Beauty dear
May he be glorified!

She saw the face of Judas in him.
The bearded kiss festered no truth
and the metallic breath
exhaled putrid faithfulness.
The trampled petals spoor no lusting stares,
redolent no more
even as the tongue creeps by the shoulders.

The razors have summoned from the stinking room!
A slit in the neck
could rhythmically go by the thrusts unnoticed
But the chorus of the beasts
as shrill as the gongs of hell
maiming vengeance yet
not in the loss of blood will you die.
Not in my hands.

His demonic pleasures went on as the voodoo doll
resurrected in the beat of my own gongs.
Keep stirring as this spindle rouses my anathema!
his chest hairs
pint of blood
vulture’s beak
stallion’s tails
bobcat’s eye
dead evergreen
Deborah’s tears.
Stir and stir and stir!
Murmur satan’s prayer
mana mana mana boo!
ruba ruba ruba hoo!
Count the sands of the transient hourglass
expiring ‘fore tic tac sound.
Now her man froze,
bulging eyes, blackened pulse!


‘tis freedom, Deborah!

Free.

Doomed.




© Glenn Sentes
03-06-13

Little unforgivable creature now.
Grime of the Scottsdale mellow.
I never belonged here;
not in this magnificent, foreign place
where they grew;
not in the calm and relaxation
their family, wealth, and happiness offered.
Not me.
Family history: poor and dysfunctional.
Personal background: self-destructive and anxious.
Still I was offered an opportunity
to become someone better,
a step up from the wasteland I knew,
and most importantly,
a new home without memories.
I clung to this safe haven
and hid myself away.
thinking I was clean,
I built walls in my pretty new refuge
to keep the tarnish away.
I wasn't clean then.
I'm not now.
I brought this filth with me,
under my nails and in my clothes,
in my memories and between my toes.
It festered and multiplied,
perfecting this chaos in time.
Now again, I seek escape,
from all these mistakes
that were made along the way,
to any foreign world...
or sanctum without a cage.
I thought I was better than this!
...And yet like a snail,
I have left a trail of slime
all while mistakenly thinking
I was leaving it behind.
.

If the world knew what I knew
About the broken heart-disease
And how it festered deep inside you,
Or if they’d seen you change as I had
Caught quick glances of the real you,
If they’d watched there be no cure
As it became a trust infection,
If the world weren’t so sure that you
were just an imperfection
Then they’d box up their rejection
And accept you.

When my height is matched only by my age,the sage told me, 'that I will have found an ecstasy so rare,that no one will ever, have ever been there.
I count the rings as if I am a tree
but ecstasy eludes me, as I knew it would.

I could have counted grains of sand and after,started on the rice or carved upon a cuckoos egg,something very nice,just to let the cuckoo know,that we know why she builds no nest.

I have festered long enough and boiled up in the glare of a staring midday sun,it's time and time has just begun to interest me,
never mind the ecstasy, that will come as surely as the night begets the day,one day my day will arrive in all its splendour.
This is the agenda that I look towards the sky and pray for,
a gender difference in her magnificence and I would bow before this maiden,laden as I am with all these wantings in my head.

I read once in a book,
that all it took was just a look and then we're trapped,wrapped inside her spider web,carried off and eaten in her silken bed,but I would like to try it anyway,come what may my day will run before the settings of another sun and I will taste that which is fun or I will die,
in contempt and contemptuous of my inconsistency,I allude again to my search for ecstasy and is it that my eyes or indeed my body fail me,when she hails me from her sanctuary?
and I see only what I want to see,
something that the sage had been careful not to tell me,
fruitless.
On the tree of evolution, I am just some insects ignorant secretion and as I wait for some predetermined 'who dares wins'completion
I count again the rings.

11/24/2017

Everybody says i dodged a bullet
But the bullet landed
As for the trigger, was it him or me that pulled it?
I thought he helped my heart expand its hard to think i even could with
Both feet braced on solid ground
Our situationship wasnt planned
I know its hard to understand
From the outside its easy to brand me
Can we analyze every time i noticed how masterfully he handled me?
I understand that time is the only poultice
But for a moment Id like to be candid please

The bullet landed and it travelled
It ripped a path through my flesh
Day by day i ate less and less
Let this be as many lessons
As you can manage to pull from this
The side pieces and the rest is all fluff and *******
He put strings on my heart and pulled it
And i danced and said “how high”
And my soul became dull it became harder and harder to wake up every day
Is it ok to say the only redeeming quality is that he never struck me?
But i wanted to escape the pain of being stuck he told me never, ever again to cut
He didnt see that he was the reason i needed release
The Mona Lisa was out of luck

Finally the bullet festered
The pain became so great
And the benefits so much less
The bullet ripped a path
I cut it out and sealed it back
Now the bullet is nothing but waste
And i can find a new way to relate
New tissue to create
It takes talent to close, to suture they say
“Approximate, dont strangulate”
And now the bullet is disposed

So they say i dodged a bullet
But the bullet landed
It ripped a path through my flesh
Til i became so much less
And the wound began to fester
So i cut out the bullet and cleaned up the rest
Now i have a scar to show the truth
The bullet landed
And i still choose
Not to be bulletproof

A shadowy shop with
Shelves that bend and buckle
Under the weight of years.

The dust of  the decade
Lies undisturbed

Volumes lined in motley ranks
Anthologies, albums and almanacks
Heaped in
Precarious stacks.
A few flaking pamphlets.

Dream-like sepia images
Dog-eared and damp
Bulge from mildewed and
Musty manilla.

Some are excited by
The acrid smell
Of old books.

Not sure that I am.

A bargain box or a treasure chest
Who cares.

Festered and forgotten
Between the yellowing pages of
A railway timetable
Lie someone's drawings.

Quite clever.
A little deranged, if you ask me.
Nice colours

But you wouldn't want them on your wall.

Maybe your mothers and fathers do not know right from wrong
Maybe those that birth you cannot tell real from unreal
The apples do not fall far from the trees that we know all along
So no surprise when off-springs and all fall into the reel
Unable to decipher the lost and damaged from their midst adorn

My mother washed me in truth, honesty, sincerity and real love
That's the only path that graces the soul and makes humanity
So all my life I know what's real, true, honest from all else above
You walk your path and serve your gods in all their profanity
Your festered minds and putrid brains is not like mine thereof

In superficial abodes, your falseness lies fakery has confused you
No truth or honesty exists all around only deceits and raw fear
You rot from the inside and feed from poison not breastmilk too
from start you're ******, your brains from chemicals they rear
Spooks with semblance no substance, serving satan them born fools

I know what's real what's true what's honest and sincere or not
That is me from real bosoms raised in edifying values not falsity
Come in thousands you stink from a mile off satan demons squat
Sincerity truthfulness if erred makes amends not sit discordantly
Real Humanity embraces love and peace not mortal duels that's fact

From negativity you drink in darkness lies your bread and joy
miseries and fears you seek to share cause your souls lies in pain
In cancerous fears you scheme and plot your ****** evils ploys
Cause it destroys you to see goodness whilst your souls' in chain
Weak corrupted dark and damaged subjugated to lucifers noise

Gnarled old wrinkled before your years you envy my young looks
Borne of inner joy and unafraid pious calm pathetics  spit zombie
Too sick to know a clear conscience never pines or fears like crooks
Pure and noble emotions caters no dirt or negativities like loonies
Dignity and integrity offers granite to malevolent duds and hooks

Frosted lips met rusted leaves,
Surprising both parties at its rightness,
Between the freezing and the warm,
Between the snap and the crunch,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Hearts met in the mix of November,
A tossed salad of a month where both coexist,
They met with eyes of brown and blue,
And to their shock and everything else managed to meet too,
Between Autumn and Holly.

As the eons went by,
They muddled through ice ages, warm fronts,
Surviving only in the holy sanctuary of each others' arms,
And even when their battling storms came,
They came out with hands locked,
Gladiatorial victors of all things wicked their way come,
Possible love strung between them in the month of November,
Between Autumn and Holly.

The world grew below them,
and they did their work exactly as the atmosphere demands them,
They can nearly feel it in their bones when each meteorological tide must come,
It is the way their work happens,
And the way their world, our world turns,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Yet as humankind appeared and grew there was something stirring,
There were mechanisms and smoke clouds and an unbelievable flurry,
A heavy weight of some subversive demon latching itself lightly onto the lovers,
Then deeper,
But they refused to open their eyes; their earth and humanity won't either,
So the demon festered and grew to breathe noxious fire,
Eventually making the air too caustic in their ignorance,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Words could not be spoken after the inevitable occurred,
Autumn's world is near dead from a new, ferocious Holly storm,
A touch of the hand is all each heartbroken season wanted,
But they and the world stayed silent when everything's wrong,
And those fingertips and their vast love and brilliance created this hell,
A silence and death fell onto the possible love that possibly could have been forever,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Silence is their new normal,
Quid pro quo, in a way,
Holly's eyes scream her sorrow and guilt,
Her lips, on the other hand, say nothing,
Instead of their beloved, romantic November,
They now only meet for work,
The world becomes more chaotic and its weather distressed,
And the chasm between them grows larger with each atmospheric catastrophe,
The squalls screaming like their broken hearts,
All created by their ****** brilliant fingertips,
Between Autumn and Holly.

All they have left is staring down at their world and their humanity,
Hoping one day their November, their seasons, their world can be its own again,
It is too late for them to change the tides of the atmosphere,
But across the chasm they both somber and hope one day, some day, something can bridge the divide and:
Calm the atmospheric disaster,
Calm the storms,
Calm the world,
A maybe even fix the possible love that is left,
Between Autumn and Holly.

It has never been my intension
nor was it ever a bone of contention
to alter or disrupt the social convention
but now is the time to pay close attention
to the decline of the human condition

Responsibility rescinded creating moral decomposition
accountability abandoned causing legal repercussion
right and wrong are muddled in a malicious juxtaposition
public opposition has festered into social imperfection
the omission of tradition by politician’s redefinition


HEED THIS ADMONITION OR ARDENT APPREHENSION
SAGACIOUS SUSPICION AND PERSISTANT PREVENTION


Of the decommission of the Physician, Pediatrician
the Technician, and the Mathematician
and give this acquisition to those with no ambition
even those under suspicion of sedition
or held in detention without fear of restitution

This is the deception of the devolution
of the middle classification
and the total destruction
of American personification
praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

Chains and shackles

Chains and shackles weigh me down
Ties to strong to break, helpless struggle
Unheard screams, guards surround me
Your around me, and you run blindly
So I sit quietly, with silent thought
Not knowing can be easer, so I remain unheard
I falter under pressure so squeamishly
Why slow you down?
You would try to carry me

Chains and shackles hold me down
My echoed heart beat is the only sound
A thudding heart could be heard
Tare it out from my very breast
It stop the twisted breath in my empty chest
A tortured heart freed from the rest
My body now a cesspool
A wasteland of festered stress
I will **** my hopes and dreams if it means
Honesty, equality, fairness to my loved

Chains and shackles ground me down
I could fly when your around
But I will squash anything
I wont dare let my bleeding heart sing
So let the guards hold me down
I challenge the people to there bliss
Tragic is no way for loves first kiss

A full moon like an evil eye
pointing behind the streetlights
the pack long gone
the herd festered into a rat horde
rickety bones and unused ******

"It's never enough, its too much,
what's the point,"
the only way to shut it up is blunt force
to bully it away
beat it with a vengeance
before the evil feels the void
fills it with cancer
the Devil knows my weaknesses
tease me with the blood
but there's nowhere to hunt
grind the edges off my fangs
cavities and smoke shaded
murmurs, tremors, ticks and triggers
free me from the pain of care
doubt, anxiety, helplessness

I never wanted the love, but respect
the freedom to be...
advice I never asked for
questions I don't have answers to!
run until I hit the water
nightmares of drowning in darkness
never ending laughter
and you - just staring at me
like I planned the failure
I built this burned out temple
my birth was my plan
The best part of me
is the animal you say I'm not
and when it dies - I'm going with it.

Cut me, leach this tumor within me
it has festered into a separate entity
with its own blood supply
grown overbearing in  its voracity
taking up more space each day
edging me out of the picture entirely
seems as though it'll devour me whole
dismemberment appears imminent
I'm only afraid of what I'll find
a face similar to mine with two heads
a cancer of your caliber, eating me alive
cold, ruthless treachery of no denial
ancestral antecedent, I'd prefer it dead
set fire to your name in vain
demon feasting decades after
it will never surrender peaceably

You glow
Your radiated purple hue
Just touching you multiplies my atoms
Just touching your pedal is cancerous

I grew you in a chemical spill
I watered you every day
With my dappling of sunshine
I hoped to elevate your foliage

You kept reaching out
You reached for more nature
Until your sickly festered roots
Tore you in another direction

You grew towards a reactor
Beyond the need for gardening
You grew towards the processing plant
Beyond the dappling of sunshine

You keep growing and growing
But you won't grow anywhere
But further into your toxic
Pedals never face the sunshine

All you want is clean rain you say
All you want is some sun
All you do is lay there in the waste
All you do is wait for it to be done

All you do is grow mutant fruit
All you do is grow your thorns
I'm trying to live in the sunlight here
While a new gardener collects your scorn

I threw fertilizer over toxic waste
I gave it some fresh new earth
I planted roses in your place
I allowed my garden rebirth

The roses are coming in just fine
I'll expect them still next June
They grow towards sunlight every day
They're my positive giving negative prune

I hope you like to wasteland
I hope you like the sun at your back
I'll keep growing my Fresh Roses
I can't grow your Toxic Lilac

Is that a frown I put upon your face child?
As I tried to soothe the sadness that smiled on your inside
That festered like pathogens inside your heart
Is that your index finger?
Sitting inquisitively on your lip?
I see the distraction in your whirlpools of corneas
Your hair lays insecurely on your shoulder blades
Let me console you with a joke
Pacify your placidity with these sad bars
You pick up your phone.
You read your texts.
Oh?
Is that a smile I put upon your face, child?
-zaba