Aid

Freedom is defined by the length of chain

Pleasure is measured by the absence of pain

Baptized in due time by the lines of cocaine

Age of five, he was wise to the waxes and wanes

Little was done to denounce the serenade

Drew his shame from the blame that hugged him, a stain

Had no one to his name, brought it close to the vein

A blade, the likes of which ended the game

Had a license to degrade, fuel to shade the grime maid

Aid received only by the men with the checks

It’s a hex, curse of the voodoo that naturally selects

The criminals of the common law and, play the chord

With a claw in denial, a cask of bitter truth, in style

It lets the hourglass of inner thoughts stew

And when he sits in revelation the mental demons brew

Struck by tragedy, in misery, the prayers start to leave

It’s misleading to ever think that ask and you receive

Hope dies in the welfare lines, consumed by depravity

The gravity of the brevity makes for sickly grief

And for the sake of humanity, a plea is struck for sanity

But lack of food and lack of care turns teenage kids to smoking weed

I’m not saying its malign to question the design

Of the system that deigns, I understand that’s fine

And trust me I’ve been wary of the law, but on top of it all

This economic crawl justifies the wall, we build around our friends

An ironic flag on the feet of prophets

Elephant

Look at that elephant. Look at that grumpy-ass elephant. See that frown? That’s a fucking miserly frown for an elephant. Did someone give him a bad peanut? He looks like he needs to take a monster-shit. Not the great kind either, the kind where you feel a new hope for humanity after, he looks like he’s holding back a sharp and rocky mud-slide of celestial proportions. Fucking grumpy elephant.

Dots

I’m a dot-connector. It’s been a curse since my birth. As a baby, crawling around, goo-goo ga-ga and all that bullshit, things came together. The lopsided blocks fit, puzzles made sense, all in all I could rationalize the “baby-ness” put before me. Tasks were, and are, easy to complete. Dot-connecting is a wary path to follow. It’s filled to the brim with metaphors. Metaphorical wolves snapping at your well-being, metaphorical Iscariot-ian villains plotting against you, and metaphorical thugs named Billy F. Turner flipping you over a dusty-futon and trying to force himself into you.

Messenger

I’ve always been told

A golden rule

Something I’m supposed to

Follow through

The men say

Don’t shoot the messenger

Please oh please

Don’t shoot the whisperer

Please oh please

Forgive me my words

Forgive me my sins

In my travels, I’ve learned a bit

Sometimes you have to tense and grit

But in my time I’ve learned the fact

You never break this fateful pact

Don’t shoot the messenger

Please oh please

Don’t hit the diplomat

Please oh please

Forgive me my words

Forgive me my sins

Most situations end with me

Face to face with gritty deeds

Cognizant of sickly greed

I’d rather not see

Sometimes I just can’t believe

That I

Don’t shoot the messenger

Please oh please

Don’t knock the translator

Please oh please

Forgive me my crimes

Forgive me my brain

Tiberius

Too oft I find

My state of mind

Drifting to Death’s door

His chittering hands

They haunt a man

The brutal dance abhorred

This feeling, fleeting

Capricious brood

Of cosmic miniscule

It’s stung by demons

The refusal of agreement

It marks me as a fool

Knocking, braying

At Death’s gate

The port of old Tiberius

I sway and tremble

Wavering sickly

At Death’s door, delirious

Death

I hate the ones that fidget. I completely understand that you are dying, and yes, most likely you are going to spend a good chunk of time being turned on a spit roasted by hellfire, but please don’t squirm. Do you really need me to explain my schedule to you? What with the invention of AIDS, the rise of poverty, and ever-stimulated population growth, my bones are full. It’s bad enough that I have to climb your ridiculously narrow and claustrophobic steps, seriously I’m not in the best shape of my death. Do not plead with me. Don’t wring your hands and summon tears. I won’t make you a ghost you fool. You follow me like an obedient slave and the eternal damnation process won’t be so damn difficult.

Damn.

It was the culmination of all his hard work. The zenith of his achievements. Anytime he sat, sharing stories with his children, and their children, he would recall this moment and, with grandiose movements and a captivating tone, told this tale of wonder. It wasn’t a regular tale. There wasn’t a discernible moral. No foxes were talking, no frogs were kissed. A pea wasn’t under a mattress, and no princess awaited the moment she would be freed from a hag’s curse. It was a story of personal triumph and intrigue.

His crumpled body didn’t seem the type to accomplish any conquering, but in it’s prime years it had been a masterful work of art.

comRAD

I see it comrade, in the snow

It huddles near in fright

We strike for in our hearts we know

The efforts of our plight

Together, comrade, storm the bow

Release the crimson fire

The sweat of toils on your brow

It’s time to claim desire

I waved the flag of fathers old

A community in arms

We will have our stories told

As we raze the fields and farms

See the feet, pound together

A collective thought process

See the trudging, through the weather

The tyrants, we arrest

The fist of crimson gods, they ascend

From a grave of bitter frost

They brand us wicked men, pretend

The weaker group, they lost

Creedance

We are all breathin

Or are we just breedin

I swear, it’s misleadin

Told to give creedance

To heathens

Fools in stove-pipe hats, demons

Put the money in their pocket silently

Sign above the dotted line, agree with me

No more resistance for the blind, violently

But you must oblige him, see

The purpose of your coin purse, is

To buy the things this man makes his biz

The wiz, of commerce and production

Manufactures the american dream, mass destruction

Easy trucking, he puts a blindfold on the people

Easy bucking, throws a tarp on the church steeple

Cosmic

I tumble forth

Ever so swiftly

Into the rift

Cosmically drifting

I slide between stars

Bounce in the dark

The celestial light

Is quite too stark

It threatens to blind

With infinite knowledge

But to float in space

Is to jaunt without solace

Slime-things and Gods

Scrutinize my soul

Saturnine I slip

Into the celestial bowl

A jury of horrors

Unimaginable terror

Is gathered in silence

To capture me e’re

Cognizant stares

Knowing glances

Their limbs strike forth

Cosmic lances

Chicken

She can’t be beating me, I think. But the thoughts of late have been proven wrong, again and again, each time with an increasingly acrimonious sting. Sometimes I’ve got to accept defeat hands up. Fair and square is a saying I’ve heard since a child. In a Universe of non-Euclidean geometry, expanding and bubbling at alarming rates, shifting swamp-like unbeknownst to man, I doubt that anything is truly fair or square. Let the children racing who proclaim this fallacy melt in a worm-hole for the rest of time; if time even exists! For what is time but the crippled arm of space, wriggling about, grabbing at strips of chicken from a vest pocket.

Pretend

I looked all around for you

Followed the light

If you could’ve seen me, damn

You would’ve thought I was a joke

My feet pounded until I fell to the ground

Where were you?

I heaved and weaved

Through the leaves, but see

You weren’t there

I could feel the pocket of air

That you filled up

I was fully aware

Eyes shifting, I’m blinded by the misfortune

Where’d you go, I need you now more than ever

Your guidance

In this dark hour it seems like we all need you

But you aren’t here

You passed with the happiness

It seems like ages since I kissed your cheek

For the last time

I know you’re not here

And yet I can’t help but check

I know where you are

But sometimes it’s easier to pretend

End it

Yes, I am completely aware of the allegations that have been brought upon my colleagues and I in the past few weeks. I am certain that through efforts of tact and genial acts of kindness the murkiness that has surrounded this situation can be de-mystified. Let me begin by addressing my old friend Senator Wather. Senator Wather, fuck you. Seriously man, what the jehova were you thinking? A military leak? This was a two-man army setup and you, my wingman, found a way to completely defecate in my mouth. Congratulations on being the sell-out of the year. How much is Devcore paying you? Huh, that’s interesting. Where can I cash your check for a steady supply of my dick in your ass, because that’ll be your annual salary if you choose to show your pathetic, moldy excuse for a mug. Yes Mel, the doors are locked. This is an internal takedown. Bones are going to continue to be picked. General Stevens, you lazy shit of a fuck-face. I can confidently mark my greatest mistake in life as not going back in time and sucker-punching your mother’s inflated sack of a tummy when you were gestating like the larvae that you are. Jesus you sicken me. It’s a commonly used phrase that if God came back to Earth today, he would vomit. If God saw what you did, he would most likely deliver a swift sandal to your clenched butt-hole. I even paid the pension so your crippled grandmother wouldn’t rot on the floor of some run-down clinic. Really, truly, what the fuck were you thinking? No, no, shut the fuck up. You reporters, no you can’t leave. This story is ending today.

Brood

In damp beds I lie, tremulously dreaming

Sheets of finest cloth

Thoughts of the abyssal gods steaming

Madness brewing broth

Sweat it dribbles on the wood

Tentacles arise

Demon, I beg don’t lay your brood

In front of mortal eyes

Chittering maws, throughout they swept

Clatter on the panel

I pleaded, praying until I wept

Sobbing, sanity felled

Fetal man, I grab my knees

Trembling in the darkness

Avoiding the beast’s cupidity

I wrap my soul in stark grit

No balm or ether soothes my spirit

Eye to eye with madness

The doctor claims I should not fear it

Never knowing the God pit

Solitude in a sea of horrors

Sin and sacrifice extolled

Tremulous leaning in to corners

Dragged whimperingly into a beast’s black hole

Broke

She stares at me with gilded eyes

The face I knew and now despised

The lies and the shame

Hatred toward my name

From a dame

Damn, the main plan was squashed from the start

New feelings and emotions had me stymied at the heart

The kind of girl that had every man on the corner plotting

Left the weak with a mind hurt, fragile soul rotting

A siren’s call at twilight

I feel the tug at my bones

I try to fight

Somnambulism, crutching at the posts

Misinterpretation, gross

Pit terrors have me shrieking to the street

I brave the demons there but inside I face defeat

The man with the design goes down first

Foundation line makes him go down worst

Welfare credits can’t support a family

They say you need a village, but we can’t either can we

Soup kitchens dig a void in a vivid brow

Grizzled men, grimy shoulders to the piping plow

Philosophize, theorize, where it went odd

Didn’t happen in all the wars when we killed God

Eye gouged, blood drained, left with no kin

See the world, see the kids, my heart broke then

Bliss

Har har har, they cry, they shriek

My arm is broke, they declare

But, it’s funny

Because I don’t care

It’s over now, the stress is dissolved

I’m strutting through Times Square naked

Flailing

You bet my gibblets are flailing

Smacking around

And I don’t care

Hee hee, hoo hoo, ha ha, they hoot and holler

Look at the size of that Bandstand!

Yee-fucking-haw!

Well good sir, slap that cello around, spin it

Yes, you are not Jewish, but spin that piece of wood

Spin. It. Good.

Hear that music?

Damn, It’s mystical

Breathing that air?

Isn’t it divine?

Isn’t it amazing?

We proclaim that the dames should be ashamed

But this presumption is lame, from whence is the blame

Bearded crawler, you mad-man

You horrible conglomeration of insanity

You divine oracle

I plod on the grease speckled floor with a thud

Smear myself around

Ah.

Bliss.

Blame game

Is it the brain waves, the purple haze, that are making me smarter

Is it the blame games, untamed shame, that are making this harder

Did it start with you, an angry brew, simmering stew

Did you bake it new, stirring the anger, the hatred grew

If my intelligence is rising, and my intellect is climbing

The products of my own relationships must be lying

But it’s hard to cover up the unnerving truth

Through all this pain and rain, I was happier without you

It’s difficult to speak through the net of self-esteem

The diffidence is rising like the mad hatter, poisoned mercury

Eyebrows cocking at the broke bladder, hands and knees

Long sleeves cover trembling fists, clenching car keys

The battle to bolt is fought on my terse face

Nerves jitter, self-deprecating muscle lace

Should’ve built up the manner, written a discourse

Better to let defeat flow, then have it come forced

Drops fall like cold tea on a sterile man’s feet

My actions fit my final resting, and Satan greets

I can’t testify, or argue my final plea

Try to explain, really, truly, there’s nothing wrong with me

Fingers point in every direction

Outside the circle

A direct connection

The only spot saved a point anew

Is the spot focused right on back at you

With every turn this life changes into a show

Eagerly shaking the phoenix bird, new life raffle

Hoping for another turn on the wheel of misfortune

Fingers crossed, prayers made, maybe this time I’ll win

Dark

Stretch, stretch

The fabric is thinning

Too much butter on loaf

The demons are grinning

Glean, glean

Knowledge is waxing

Inability to spill contents

Is the brain’s greatest gift

Abyss, abyss

Hopelessly tumbling

Are we expanding into the infinite

What blackness are we

Dent, dent

Sanity’s crumbling

Fist to the upheld

Foundation is shaken

Drifting, drifting

The ocean is spilling

An endless black bowl

Floating face down

Ha, ha

The sacs realize

They can do what they want

It matters not

Epiphany, epiphany

Kill ‘em, pillage

The universe is growing

With us or not

Babushka

The first Babushka I opened

Gifted me with a seed

It was hard for me to pretend

That of seeds I was in great need

The second Babushka that I pried

Gifted me an ear

In it’s heart I could confide

Without shame or fear

The third Babushka I cracked forth

Presented me a map

Advising me to travel north

In search of fairies, lusty trap

The Fourth Babushka began to cry

It made me cringe and shiver

I wished and hoped to ask her why

But her tongue cried out in gibbers

The Fifth Babushka knew too well

To even let me near

Her sisters I had cruelly felled

An insidious career

Apple

Funny, that the apple’s a thing of pride

Celestial suicide

All because that dumb bitch lied

And God sighed

Yet Adam tried to remind, but God’s love was blind

Damn, Eden was emptied of human-kind

All because of a girl and her snake

Adam cursed the day he chose to help make

That wretched curse, thus woman’s fate

Is one of repression

Civil obedience, and internal depression

Shouldn’t have eaten the fruit, moral digression

And damn did you make a decision

To go against God and your sole religion

Hark all ye angels, and curse this deaf female

Yes, she bawled and bawled, wail after wail

But it was to no avail

Can we really blame women for their stupidity

They wrap themselves in a cloak of subjectivity

But believe me, they see that they’re not free

Struggling at the rope, bound at the knee

Cursed to trip forever, by a higher decree

All because of Eve

And that fated apple tree

American Dream

They sit you down, comfort you, and give you the speech

They explain what it means, the American dream

They shine their shields with the American gleam

They forget to mention the American scheme

It’s the great mask

It’s the laugh track

It holds us back

Keeps us huddled in our mental shack

I’m told click this link

It’ll make you happy

Update your status

Quick, think of something snappy

Listen to this album

It’ll help you get some

Wear that shirt, and these shoes

They think that I’m an obsequious fool

Take this pill

Let it dumb you down

Relax, sit, chill

Don’t fight, stick around

Why rebel?

You’re life is perfect

No one rings the bell

The dream isn’t worth it

They plug my brain up to a perpetual lifeline

Keeping me alive, a sheep to their life-crimes

The only way to win the battle and get the man to shut up

Is to open your eyes, see the truth, and wake up

Agree

I can feel the recompense

It’s flowing through my veins

Silver stalks of grain, the pale moon wanes

And all of it in vain, ya dig?

Hit me with a platter of broken ideas

Still stuck in the progress, no power to lift me up

But yes, yes I’m impressed

I curse at the thought but I admit

I am behest

Where’s the rest?

Put the children to a test

A programmer, grammar hammer of the

Intellectual jammer

New immigration

The masses, salivation

Pavlov, ringing the bell

Human dogs we trod

To a consumer’s hell

Damn, that’s a mental quirk

Inside your brain where the demons lurk

Between the cogs, where the neurons work

Sifting through the drama, lyrical murk

It’s getting shifty

Lift me into the sky with a spliffy

I’ll get down with the beards, have a few cheers

Send me back to the land of the stone and the sand

Man, the divinity rips it

Cheese and please, your gratuity tips it

T.I.P., charging eighteen percent

Robbed from the pocket and we wonder where our money went

Damn, It’s funny to see

That we all finally

Agree

Stench

The stench never ceases. Even through the din. Through every battle, every bitter and terrifying experience. It follows me through the trenches. I smell them. It’s the smell that’s more grotesque than any sensory experience. We see to see, feel to feel, but I was forced to smell. I spilled the contents of my stomach in a subconscious effort to retain my sanity. Coughing and sputtering, reeling in an insane wave of shock and fumbling. My skin, close to erupting. I still smell them. Putrid, horrible. Often times I find myself at the mercy of a toilet seat.

Stanley, the sexually confused caveman

Stanley didn’t like the times. Not at all. In fact he found them quite dreadful. It wasn’t that the era was banal, indeed it was full of new “adventures”, he just felt out of place. A square peg. It might have been because when he whistled while walking through the woods at night he was often attacked. The creatures didn’t like the whistling, especially show-tunes (the creatures had no taste).

He despised the disorderliness that infected the area surrounding him.

“Mastodon poop and Mastodon food within two feet of each other? My lord what ARE they thinking?” He inquired every time he passed his smelly neighbors to the north. “To imagine how that cave must look.” He muttered under his fresh breath, glaring daggers into the wooly backs.

Draped upon his shoulders was a finely-tailored sabertooth skin. The killing business was rather grungy and Stanley didn’t like to partake in it. Instead he invited the sabertooth over to dinner, and after the cat had left, went outside and found the sabertooth hanging from a tree. For some reason Stanley’s guests were always hanging from trees after they supped with him. He could never discern why.

“It would be a shame to let this go to waste,” He said with a slightly grossed out look on his face. What then occurred was an awkward fumble between an effeminate caveman and a sabertooth corpse. Two hours, one rope cut, and five breathers later, the sabertooth was down.

The cape, however exquisite, was shunned by the other animals and beasts. Stanley didn’t care, what looked good looked good and that was that. The outfit would have appeared less ridiculous if his chest-bowl and scrawny limbs weren’t so lanky and devoid of hair.

“Hair gets sticky, smelly, dirty, and tangled. Why bother?” Replied Stanley as the animals converging at the water-hole mocked his bald physique.

Steam

Since when did my government

Have a monopoly

On my pursuit of happiness

Commercializing my peace

What’s wrong with our society

To free ourselves, others bleed

High-school kids high on weed dreams

Shooting each other just to blow off steam

When did we reach the point of no return

A teenage girl on the streets wailing

Throat burned

Gang-raped, the world’s deaf to her words

And nobody gives enough of a shit to answer

Two and a half hours

Left to bleed

Daddy’s trying to find you

What breed of monster are we

The kind of beast fueled by companies

Swear to god If I got my hands around the mad-men

Who caused this mess I’d make them heed

The words of the meek, the words of we

I don’t even know where Heaven is anymore

The lands of paradise, soil of the poor

I can’t see God in the clouds, a child blinded by the light

I lost the feeling a while ago, that everything is alright

The only power I have left

Now vulnerable to man’s theft

Is the ability to synthesize

The chase of the wise man’s prize

But even then I fear the hand

That grapples and grips

To shake an honest man

Host of the corrupt and the pimps

They’ve taken our freedom

Enslaved us in herds

They locked up my birth rights

How long ‘till my words?

ude

Stertorous groans the man exudes

To frightful beasts his dreams allude

Insanity he must conclude

Thoughts, rudimentary, simple, crude

Burping, belching, the creatures roar

The slayer, not in sight

To sleep alone this man abhors

Sweating in the night

A twilight crescent looms above

Inspiring woeful words

The lonesome cry of a dove

Mental sheep he herds

But the wild eyed beast bray in fear

He sees the madness brewing

On a giant’s head, he jeers

Insanity soup stewing

The bits and pieces float and bob

His nails bite skin unhindered

His thoughts form an amorphous blob

Mutilation masked in thin fur

Treadless

Grimy nails skitter

Beneath the facade

A cringe in the dark

My path, inundated

The lantern leaks sluggishly

A cricket is born

Incessant drops strike

To study is to be divine

To learn, proper

I sit in the pursuit

The chase of divinity

Tenaciously evading the bestial might

Of those who wise to delude

The lives we lead are limited

But the trail of knowledge is without boundary

Treadless

Yet at the same time

Full of prints

The road of intellect

Shall I follow?

I lie hollow

I digress from the topic

The writing swirls

The number drops

A “life” over

But is it done?

The way to glee

Is birthed

Jude

Ask and you shall receive, Jude. Wake. Wake. Wake. My eyes shutter open between intervals of darkness. The grogginess slaps me and my lids remain halfway closed. Inundated by memories, it’s as if there are no thoughts. A zen blanket covers me and shrouds me from insanity. The surgery, the waiting room. My body is numb save a few fingers, appendages of no use to me at this point in time. Strangely cognizant, my mind processes the events of late.

Bells

I hear the bells calling

Bordering dissonance

Cacophonous beauty

A maze of emotions

Do you hear that sound?

The maiden calling?

Her voice rings out

Into the misty night

Does the ringing hearten

Or strike fear into souls

The clanging marches into inspired ears

Ecclesiastical muse

The clergy and the lay

Both observe the bells

It spares no man

No beast, no demon

It’s a blanket

It’s a poison

The bells, they wail

I hear them, tears flowing

Today

Hands callous

Toes tingling

I’m sitting here

Wondering

How would things change

If it hadn’t worked today

The trudge, magnificent

Devoid of maliciousness

I huddled on the street corner

I made like a foreigner

Passersby, not a glance

Thanking god that I got this chance

The slug lugs on

The warrior goes forth

Making the migration

Always heading north

Up, up

Higher, higher

My souls hugging tight

Consciousness on a wire

Eyes bleed tears

Rugged rancor

Petulant facade

The wonder lies

Beneath

Thomas

Tom Everyman strutted down the lane

To find a mate to share his life

Tom Everyman, his mind on gain

In fervid search of an average wife

Tom Everyman wed that year

To a regular looking gal

Tom Everyman had cause to cheer

With all of his normal pals

Tom Everyman raised two kids

Great level-headed boys

Tom Everyman never blew his lid

And showered them with joy

Jane Everyman held back at times

In Tom’s every-room

To Tom this was a prudish crime

Forbidding a man in bloom

Tom Everyman grew discontent

With his slow and stagnant love life

Tom Everyman, wasn’t the way he meant

So one day he called his love wife

Tom Everyman lured her to his room

Lying words he said

Tom Everyman drew his knife

And stabbed her in the head

Tom Everyman shakes in a cell

And has for many years

Tom Everyman met his hell

In the asylum, now he sneers

Romp

I have the tools now. The ants had flooded my tribe, but now they are gone. It is a surplus of space that an elongation of time follows. Nipping at the heels of a loneliness, stoicism and explosions of rage act like a rash mutt. They serve to curse a man. Shoo, shoo I called to the beasts rampaging in my town. It wasn’t without a profit that I tore their disease away with a sick blade of betrayal. Does it turn a man’s heart and soul to take away that which he one loved? I couldn’t bear to feel this way for long, so I forgot them. Their memories swim through the village like eager ghosts, but I can tell their influence is evanescent.

The romping days of yore still pang me in dreams unfitted for a king. In my mind they still bring me to my knees, my crown being nothing but a buffet for sense to seep into my mind. They wish to come back, I’m the man on his knees yet they’re the beggars. I acquiesce. The grand retrieval. The opening of eyes erases thoughts that leave an ember of sadness in one’s heart. This pile. This pile of gold is nothing. It hasn’t moved since it’s collection ended. Mounds of dust and fear mount, just as the incipient loneliness inundates my senses, leaving me catatonic in a tangled massacre of lies and lackluster neediness.

Filth

Limp I lie in the tub

It holds the dregs of yore

I squawk and supplicant the gods above

Yet I remain ignored

What feeling, fruitful do they spy

From thrones of Babylon

Jovially teetering, chairs on high

Praying to Dagon

The deep ones swirl into the mist

Of my consciousness

They skitter and bark, I get the gist

My sanity turns brisk

Dashing, panting in the dirt

Squalor tumbles forward

But at the sight in front I lurch

Terribly speeding toward

Hands up high

To mask the fate

Of an honest man

Insanity pulls

And insanity drags

To the time when man began

Lower

I watched the bugger

But for lack of nothing more

It wasn’t for the sake of Providence

I was not a crusader of empiricism

I watched because watching was, at the time, living

He looked back over his shoulder a few times

Beard, coarse, brow, terse

I saw a fire in his eyes dimmed by workdays

Working in the jungle of monotony

Shoveling in a pseudo-stage inundated with

Bad actors

You see, I realized very long ago that we are all bad actors

We masquerade as humans but

Really, quite truly, we are nothing but pale-faced dogs

Wan from years of huddling in the cusp of “innovation”

Sigh

I wait

As his footsteps deplete the sidewalk I resume

My approach is silent, steady, still

A grey hat crowns his grimy hair, and I can see

I can see everything

With the insight of witnessing a man’s soul

I’m not able to pierce beyond the cuts in his clothing

Breath, breath, stop

His footsteps end where my path lies

Too eager to realize that I follow with an earnestness

Common human ignorance, but am I not an average john?

He turns to me with the roughness of a plough-man

The acrimonious ferocity of a chained man struggling

A man whose entire life was decided by men like me

I sighed and turned around

Line

They followed each other in a rhythmic line. The acolyte’s hoods were illuminated by the torches they weld with assured strength. The flames licked out from the piping-coal staves and revealed stern brows and wide noses. The procession continued under the ancient archways and vastly-branched trees. Their light steps made no sound whatsoever, and Mother Nature’s dusk went undisturbed. They lent their humming and native chanting to the natural environment. A wave of gentility, geniality, and modesty echoed from their throats and drifted huskily into the minds of the animals and plants nearby.

Warriors

We could never comprehend

The war’s travesties

And yet we take a hand

In the war’s rivalry

Bleeding men, our men

Hands and knees

Family men, broken ken

Doubled over their dignities

Spilled consciousness oozes onto the field

Amateurs trip and stumble, bladders tense

The bombs of demigods forming annihilation shields

Momentum rising, pushing forward, forever dense

Will I ever see what those blue eyes saw?

Crumpled man, a destroyed soul

Thrust into the jingoistic maw

A pierced home-land, a forgotten goal

The love of a thousand man

Unto the snow bleeds

The land frosty, wan

Insatiable greed

Noble footmen to dust

Thanatopsis in motion

The land’s haunting bloodlust

Mother nature’s devotion

Woman

She tugged on her last cigarette, the sightless woman

But hours ago we laid in peace, and now I’m frothing

Bitter

We talked and talked, the darts were thrown

The smell of vomit rising, I left the bar

With her

This blind heathen, a whore without sight

It’s funny in a way, she didn’t need to see

Ravenous

Her temple rose throughout the night

Hair swept, she wailed into the cold

Heaven, bliss

But azure demons spawned, and I without a chance

Yes, the devil I partook of you

Bile

I feel as if that phase is over

It ended with a whimper

Vile

The sightless whore offered no respite

And I was forced to stare into those dead, blue eyes

I almost fainted

A corpse writhing, she was nothing more

Meat packed into a lifeless shell

Small-talk

I need none of that evil

A sin worse than any vice

Woman

Words

To turn a phrase, quickly

The verso must be read

The left hand side we all despise

We wish the author dead

His language, uninspired

His subject is abhorred

We find his diction lacking

His details make us snore

The font used serves to grow

Hatred in a man

Truculence they hope to sow

By using comic sans

What were they thinking

When they edited this mess

Who decided this slop was worthy

Of the printing press

We wish the author strung up by foot

Facing all his words

We hope they sting his fragile mind

And cause the man to learn

What deeds of pen has he performed

To produce such sickly work

To read his books, we are forlorn

My cynic soul, it hurts

Work

Such exuberant spending will not be allowed. Pork-barreling, inflating the appearance of any financial statement, damn it all to hell. I need you, I need myself, I need every single god-damned mad man running around like a flea in this pit to realize one thing: each and every wing flutter, each movement of your antennae, each twitch of your ugly mugs, any fractional second you spend pushing beads of sweat out of your clenched assholes costs me money. It costs you money too. So get back to fucking work jerk-offs.

Glenn

“Get up man, come on,” begged the clerk from behind a tangle of faux-ironic chin fuzz. His eyes darted from side to side, presumably scanning for frightened or bewildered customers. I took a slight note of the bloodshot eyes, the grizzled demeanor, the thick-rimmed “punch me in my hipster face” glasses. I soaked it all in as I bent down with soiled pants at my chapped and cut ankles. His voice cracked in his various attempts at tact and reason. Logic would not stop me from completing my task. I laughed in his face, but only on the inside so as not to give the appearance of insanity. Then again, with my cheeks spread wide open, and my anus puckering at the sight of Glenn Beck’s latest book, it was egregious and frankly overwhelming to appear mentally stable.

1620

1620, Idealize

I realize as I dive into the prized bride’s eyes

There’s nothing to hide, nothing to chide

The truth is implied, This sadness was already cried

But see, I’ve made up my mind

After lie and lie, one more time

Do you want to ask me why?

How about I ask you back

No man expects that

Serve your insult on a silver platter

Dress it as a tasty snack

Accept it as fact, reality

That way we won’t have to be

Connecting, linking commonalities

Thinking, molding rationalities

Blinking, refreshing actualities

But instead, let’s be zen masters, in a hold

A position, man finds eager to fold

Not peculiar, it doesn’t cater to the bold

And anyways, who wants to fit into the mold

Why be a snippet in the piecemeal

Struggling, ingenuous, for the common weal

Solidify the dirt, the false compost heap

Cut the cord, Sacrifice the leap

Open your eyes with a squirt of steamed tea

Painfully realize, it’s you, not me

Quick.

There were no songs. No poems. No sonnets. There was only the screech of the machine and the shrieking of her mother. It ended abruptly.

Truth

Truth is a bruise

Lies are the cancer

Smash all the rules

But you don’t find an answer

Avarice in the pit

Accelerate the rot

The numbness doesn’t fit

But it’s the only thing you’ve got

Imitate the dead prelate

To situate your stoic fate

Of stumbling sleepily

Through corners deep, a sea

Of shame, where the chalk is erased

And the last thing left is your name

A gram, a bag, an ounce of humility

Held guilty by the county law, a fee

Of human greed, devoid of alacrity

A suited spree to comfort me

But it’s a painful price to pay

And I’m concluding from your brooding

That the choosing was ill-suited

And I knew this, wasn’t clueless

Deceived the preacher and the pulpit

Yet I’m the only one who noticed

The only one who lifted a protest

Once again the one you spewed at

The source of the backlash

It’s plain to see that it hurts

Emotions run high and your nerves fit to burst

It’s a sad situation

When the one you despise

Has all the answers

News.

You’ll have to pardon me for this interruption

Newspaper has me brainwashed like a mental suction

Paradoxical aid like a slow eruption

Incapable of empathy at your white collar luncheon

Give me a minute to adjust the situation, the elation

Let me begin the investigation of the inspiration

Behind your relations, battle-stations

Man them with fervor, ship sunk so I wade in

Middle-class so riled, but your dividends can’t pay them

It’s fitting that the riddling and the mad-man fiddling

Cause the middle of the bundle of swindlers to piddle endlessly

Cruelly, moodily, define the switch but do we see?

No, madness creeps like a stalker, no shame

Hiding, shuffling, we huddle in vain

But to the human mind the struggle makes perfect sense

Swirls of media evils have a hypnotic effect

Serves to put me to rest, lay me down to digress

Set me up to confess, all the rats off my chest

Clinging to your societal mother, that’s suicide

Be happy with your situation, wisdom in lieu of pride

Don’t drive the insanity that plagues our humanity

Complain about your rotten meat when you could be drowning in Haiti

Pain

I thought I saw children playing

On the corner laughing, but there’s

Sadness like the fiddler praying

For his sanity, but he knows

That the truth is staying, and for

The sake of humanity, he ends his life

With a rope, stepping on the stand

Lost hope, but he knows what he died for

Promise land, and the price of a pavilion

In the gates, got a mad dream, resolution

Pearly estates, but the clouds don’t allow him

Souls bestowed in the barrel of a shotgun, caged animal

And the bitter pitter-patter, the spirit’s flushed clatter

Doesn’t matter, man made his decision as he climbed the ladder

Tied the knot, kicked and shrieked against his own fiber

Man fought

Forgot

What humanity meant to him, languor and solitude filled the brim

Felt grim as his feet brushed the floor

Brow low, realized his heart beat never more

Thought he felt his pulse fade, whisk and gone

Bloodshot eyes see, it was dead all along

Thought I saw hope in the muddled rain

Took a second glance and all I saw was pain

Dear lord

God, I am the empty pit. Irresolute. Bring me the light. What light. No, I plead not for the embers of the seventh day, yet herald the fire. Sound the horns of all wicked men and bring up the casks of shattered dreams, so that I may fill it with my splintered soul. Heavenly Father, I would beg to be forgiven but there is no expiation for the devil. I am ravenous. Rapacious. I have no limit. No ceiling. With each slice and each freshly drawn drop of ichor I plead and writhe. Lord, give me damnation. Pierce my soul. Let the fires consume me, for if the flames do not, I might turn, and the expulsion of evil within me, I cannot imagine the wrath. Lord, hear my prayer, take my life. Please, dear, dear god.