Unthank

Bound by the shell-shocked, damnation raving decay
Frostbitten teeth gnawing on lantern handles
Starving for the kerosene within, serrated eyelids glued
To screens, the ebb and tide of answers momentarily glimpsed
Ideal forms cast shadow images on cave walls
We shuffle through snapshots of grinning infants
Whose backs break under the weight of olympus, and
retreat into the falsehood of unconditional purpose
You don't matter more than what I can use you for
And past that you're a husk to throw away or side-step
Litter; ephemera minutely ticking away at my conscience
floaters with ribs poking through sheet-thin skin
Images of consonants, a primer for my somnolence
To help me doze, rising to baffled brows and
inkwells shattered across dormitory hallways
Each decrepit toe paths back and fro, hurt egos
show, enraged eyes glowing with the sane madness
of our present day, hurtling to god knows where
He might not even, if he exists, that is
to say that my being could be all that persists
my only assurance is rising from sleepless fits
surmising theories on lifelong punishments
that often end before they really begin

I sit silently in rooms of twine
dead eye stare while I learn about important dead men
in buildings named after less important dead men
all the time I only think
that one day I'll die as well
and I'm not even sure how to do it yet

No uncertain terms

Which truth holds the kernel
Dewy-eyed philosophers gibe
Semantic brawls through alleyways of thought
Induct the meaning of is
when only the past defines us
Limmericks bred of spittle
thick-rimmed, black lacquered spectacles
A sight for reborn eyes, a burning bush waving
Crimson streaks mark rivulets
From drawing rooms, smoking chairs
billowing anathema, Churchill stalks the halls
Forgotten fields, razed crops, sheets of linen
But everything is relative, so I tug at
the tendrils of binding, sprawled across
300 million minds, self regard and jars of camphor
Crane my neck over miles of cloudless sky
Where peaks burrow into lint-filled pockets
and limitless ability is whetted by reality
Drapes mask the enigma of man
Persian carpets conceal the wicked abandon
the distance of meaning, gulfs of nothingness
I am a hole waiting for absolution
and the non-existent plug

The Revolted Man

I am the minute deception of days
I am the smoking gun
I am the was, will, and want
I am the acid flush of desire
I am the plaguing empire
I am vitriol; psychotic sludge
I am the snake's head flared
Blake's great red dragon rears a flame
So as to say to Saint-Just
and the divine right of Kings:
'We are the reign of terror,
sleep for the dead, and acrid
sweeps for all the weeks,
will flourish to the tomb.'