The pretender

 The chair was once filled
by some power unheard of
unspeakable today
echoes of him in the chamber

presence of him along the walls
Shadows that wouldn't obey when he lived
now distort the floor after midnight
The rattle of the doors

That crown still in the glass case
waiting for some far off pretender
nostalgic and naiive
Decides to bathe himself

In a seasoned sycophant soup
That spurned courage of initial conflict
That spun the web of all elaborate traps
plans that included the final step of inhumation

False morals to the end of him
well crafted stories that flew from truth
As the demonized are stained
matyrs and myths will reign

In my vision

 speed of eyeshot
penetrates the psyche
carbonized shoes
flee flee

The speed of this glare
friction singing fire over the path
Toward your face you turn
question burning a sythe 

A simple glance
evade it like a disease
but it's a lazer
Cutting through you

The velocity of my own eyes
capturing your dangling legs
Half of you today
haphazardly over tomorrow

The mere look I dare
bold and inapproapriate
moving through solid steel
desire cooks it and serves it fresh

Interrupting your heartbeat

 Your last thoughts dissove
eyes shut you fall upon the rising stairs
the instinct of grasping the day loosens
you go completely slack

The elevator moves you up toward the sky
Just an enormous face of a phantom spread out

starlight cloud and knife moon
all watching your eyes twitch
hearing your nose whistle
or your mouth snore

Throwing the very spirit of you through a dusty cloud
Which parts and splits into fragments
you are in there somwhere seeking perfection
Silent footsteps make their way down back to earth

But it's not your spirit anymore
It' just a vestige of the wide phantom sky I painted
I helped clone in the shattered swamp
it's methane interrupting your aura

Just so that I may inhabit the untouchable within you
for eternity

Dreams of telepathy

All across the dream
colors and flavors came
warning bells rung
I couldn't find a home that didn't move

Warning bells were ringing
Across the city unknown
faces that would greet then disappear
Flavors that would grace the mouth

But depart like ferries to urgent islands
from across those island towns
I could feel breath on my face
The night air delivered it

A reciprocal sensation
I could smell you
like salt rising off tides inverting 
Morning a thief of dreams

wake to confusion
sweat and drool
what a lifetime
in silent slumber

As I remembered the dream
and it all came back to me
Like a childhood taste
telepathy

Fate's broom

 Studies first as clock ticks
A simplified existence
Being disturbed is a brick
that cracks and fragments

all over the classroom floor
A piece of it fits his hand so sure
fits his rage and violence flows out
Not like clumsy angry shouts

but divine focused will
yet the cycle of revenge spills
circles like the serpent attempts to tangle
curling back around to squeeze and sink fangs in

Wise and oh so patient and bright
won't drown in the uncontrollable tide
but use it's secrets to get back to dryland
The chaos and hostility now under beach sand

When the pen is clasped
and studies resume
the assailant be swept
by fate's steel tine broom

supermarket whispers

 turn into the aisle
Old gremlin is pacing and impatient
child lost cries for father
whispers wash the shelves

Gossip in the long queues
fishfaced lippy cashiers
the overweight nonbinary
Plays her cellphone music out loud

Turn into this aisle and meet eyes with sranger
chomp chomp where urgent hunger
packets and packets
empty stomachs and bouncing checks

gossip in the long counter help desk
illegal giggles and hand goes up to conceal secret
whispers washing the linoleum
She turns the pop music up

deformed hands and midrift exposed

Atwell throw glory

 Atwell wielded fate
The rocky ancients
The sheet drying in the wind
next to last centuries hedge

Rolling the tobacco
gazing across the bay
On new land the eyes must digest
A generation of children cast across it

Atwell in the turbulence
In the fog fighting out of it
standing firm on south rocks
throwing forth a version 

stir these times into becoming
from the root of the last century
spring up in vigor and genius
conjure this divine dream

Bring the power of that hope
Up to these current skies
let us awe you this
Boldness through that ancient vein

Atwell war at a gallop
recession on the street
Through strength after strength
Give your version echoed down

a humble lost vestige
Wandering through those overcast days
Arriving in these words a light
To the mess we tend to tangle further

The editor

 your sip of milk
your fresh morning
tiptoes across consciousness
sweet warm morality

musings on the wooden table top
As dawn gives way to day
Surrendering to your face
yet hungering to kiss it

Mail arrives
news says instability
Sun peeps into your kitchen
inches from your skin

The to do list looking up
A confused toddler
an unborn realization
You reach for the pen

your sip of milk is comfort
mood is moreish
Light fills your kitchen
The early sun a perpertrator

Peruse at the nightmarket

 The night market is just so we can peruse
The waves of nostalgia and novelty
The dusty items and articles they try to sell you
You reach into deep silky pockets don't dribble

Pull out the change lick those lips develop inside it
Bargain and leave the vendor scratching head
Value and prices no relevance just twitch in game
Twitch pretend to catch a firefly

Furr coat purpose in a world spun of silk
The upside town cranium
There you go shaking in withdrawl
Consumer drench envy stench

The night market makes you reach out and grasp
something you might just decide to own
Petty leverage in your tone
Barking puglike excess fat

Those tiny fragments

 You'll fall off the spaceship and well need to pick you up
You'll scream and cry on the ground
We can offer you a planet
somewhere to center yourself

the space out there chilly and lonely
lips for the sun forehead reflecting the light of it
before another planet blocks it out
Gasp in the deep dark usurped

Those heroes double crossed
as they went to put out sky fires
Watch them dazzling flowing climbing falling
Forming into the very words coming from your mouth

You'll fall off your craft neon ketchup impact
Screaming and ashamed infront of their eyes
They'll offer you anything just to shut you up
somewhere far from their ears

The space out there so desolate
cold salt on the tongue
Mangetically disconnected
In the void is an appetite

Strong as the pull of a local gravity well
Locked in to be broken up
Like a mineral disaster
Holding onto the tiny fragments of love

Temptation of pride

 I looked upon him with forgiveness
stubborness and pride holding him back
Hubris mesmerizes the willing heart
You have spent your life comparing

Trends are food
friends are protection
loyalty a currency
So why are you empty

I looked at him with pity
a short life is so bleak without love

Downdraught boldness

 Fierce rage inflates wing and talon
it descends hunger spreading through open feather and claw
Severing the oppressive air resistance on the downward arc
Beak cutting through it tyrannical blades

It lands and spreads grace to apply precise death
Orgasms roar as the rodent loses air and blood
Thundering back toward the horizon prey in claw
each golden red drop of blood escaping

dissolving in the air all remains disappear
The empty nest will see life again

Complacence of youth

 we were just watching t.v wooden cover 1980
in the pine log cabin with large double glass windows
above the flatlands the wilderness watches us
high in the mountains above the snowline

Dusk smiles watching the invisible ghouls watch us
Through those big windows soon the snow flurries will cover the road
The illusion of safety the complacence of youth
Step out onto the narrow concrete slab

cigarette now wafting a drag and a rest then another
The other kids want to join and be part of the adult imitating
The air still at forty, no thick jackets or hats yet
The butt gets pushed against the concrete

back to the beanbags to watch vhs
as the reception doesn't exist up here
Sky now dark lights go on 
illusion of safety

complacence of youth 

Dancing in apocalypse light

Dancing on the surface of the globe
Bringing the old gods in powdered form
To be consumed with indoctrinated victims
 The faith that tips the world in his favor

Lost priests wayward and vulnerable
Cowardly and title driven
Near the embers of fresh wars
hollering for him to come

collusion stripping them of their spiritual strength
as they burn Like the eastern old lands
Collusion as they ignore pleas of innocent people
accusing the bullied

heaven strikes back with a force one hundred times heavier
crushing our arrogance bleeding us out

The death of a moon

Chardin The death of a moon on your head
Life is back, it's fragments jagged and fragile
Along some route to the next day
not looking back or forward

just trying to extract the sugar of each little moment
The dead eyes between worlds pick you up
glaring down sending the imagery back 
Bounty hunters come rushing and burning

The death of a moon in a nearby system
Cracked open like an egg for an angry beast
who knocks on your door now to get his bounty
but you wouldn't sign the contract

Chardim in the arid forest near Pont saint esprit
expecting sabotage and ambush
Men size reptiles sent straight from Hell
tempting you with the kind of promises

Dead moons that God had ordained
Satan took credit and the fat just lay on those lower backs
billions of humans waiting out their fate on earth
some semblance of purpose carrying them on through

Glorious wars breaking out testing borders
and the new coward class upon the face of the earth
Chardim passed through the shanty town
redemption a simple boy breathing his last breath

just a few kind words before his spirit left for beyond
God flicks him back fire and elastic
justice hides in everything and comes out hot and unwelcome
God's own magic adapted in the chaos that blinds you

Deccarem. Chardin's rebirth

 

Often demons who were once humans were allowed a second chance and allowed back to earth. It was God's tool to test Hell, the devil and the demons.
Chardin walked straight to his bedroom in the great two hundred room hotel. None of the beds were made, the room was an absolute mess. He went to the window and looked down from the fifth story window to the cobblestone carpark. It was half full. It was very far down. From this height he thought he might be on the tenth storey.
He slept a few hours and woke to movement in the corridor.
He stretched his arms and ran his hands along the skin.
Who was he supposed to be? After centuries of living in a reality of sin. Death and torture were not the everyday occurence of hell, it was low awareness suffering much more long term. The kind of pain an adulterer or drug addict feels and not the direct slaying and whipping of wretched souls. His job was solely to feed the hungry whims of the masses, identifying their destructive need and supplying it. What was God trying to prove by sending back to earth into human form?

He took his gear to disorganized open shelf reception area in a narrow corridor.
The twenty year old woman with short black hair asked to see his stay permit.
Chardin rummaged through his things, but couldn't find any document.
"You can't stay here, you'll need to move on I'm afraid." Her smile made him realize, she was enjoying it. Was she also put here in some absurd divine test. Looked like she was keen to get back to hell.
He packed his things back into his bag and headed out into the bright but cloudy day.
Any memory he had of earth was vague and despite what they say of hell, it is thousands of times bigger than earth. With it's own classes, births, deaths and hierarchy. A slow reality that imitates human living making more of the opiates addictions and distractions available. For hour long thrills to pay for day long suffering. rinse and repeat. Where the longer living upperclass the prospecting demons, would indirectly make the lower classes lives hell. Only sharing in the misery when the low souls organized themselves into revolution. in which case, the roles would reverse. None of the underlying mechanics of their suffering would be questioned or be reformed.
Chardin got to the crossroads at Pont saint esprit. A hunched over Begger was sitting with his back supported on the signpost.
"Sir where may I find refuge?" Chardin asked.
"You are better to follow the forest path to the next village. These roads only go to the big cities."
"Oh thank you." Gratefulness was foreign and strange to his lips.
The begger stood up with his own satchel of things and said "I'm going that way myself."
He stood even taller than Chardin, ostrich like thin legs, distended stomach, self satisfied grin across his elderly face.
He walked quickly toward the mouth of the arid open forest path and disappeared into the low lying scrub.
Chardin was still catching his breath.
None of the grace and energy he had accumulated as an aspiring demon knight in hell. Supernatural powers that in hell granted him the kind of power he had longed for since he was a simple catholic priest on earth. In human form again he was completely lame and frail. Every movement was an effort.
He ambled down the forest track dried twigs and branches cracked and split under fit, like bones of old carcasses.

Something approaching a land version of a crawling trilobite made it's way after Chardin.
At first Chardin tried to avoid it.
Speeding up his pace. Then Turning, Chardin saw the thing had kept up, two awkward dark eyes staring into him. The rest of the absurd body made no sense, except camoflage.
Chardin ushered it forward. The trilobite transformed into a man with leopard characteristics.
"Flauros, come to taunt me have you?"
"Not at all, I am here simply to remind you of your legacy waiting back in Kasyrgan."
A gale of wind  blew the trees and bushes in the area down. The land darkened and in the sky Flauros painted the city of Kasyrgan. A post grew out of the soil shooting above them. At the top of the post was a silver clock.
Flauros pointed his feline claw like finger and turned the hands forward until they were spinning.
"Flauros what are you doing."
Flauros just laughed and laughed as the hands kept spinning. 
An Image of Chardin appeared on the streets of the city Lauros painted. He could see himself in fine robes walking down The old city street with his own minions some of whom were even higher in rank than him.
"Chardin, imagine all this power will be yours. All you need to do here is allow me to accompany you back to hell." His confident grin matched by shining furious eyes.
"What if you renege on this promise?"
Flauros tapped the lampost a small steel panel opened out and a contract fell into Flauros hand.
"It's all here, just sign."

"You know when I asked you for a promotion in Hell you ignored me." 
"You want to know if you are a pawn." Flauros said.
"Oh with optics like these I know i'm a pawn. God's wants to see if the original priest is still here."
Flauros started to laugh again, deeper than before.
"You are looking for a better offer."
Chardin thick sickly feeling of de ja vu overwhelmed him.
"I never understood why I fit into your group of Demons to begin with. You can wow me with your powers. But i'll be cast down again, by someone over your head. and your contract will be null and void."
"How do you know his for certain?"
"Because it was conceived several times before I even entered this forest. God keeps throwing me back, and the big sharks come in to rack up a few points."

Flauros wiped the image from the sky, the day brightened.
the clock post disappeared into the earth.
"Chardin you are cursed, God will never let you into the after realms."
"Well it's better than being demoted each time I sign away my life."
Chardin pulled a short knife he had stolen from the hotel and cut Flauros deeply across the chest and jumped back as Flauros flailed. 
"It does give me some relief to be able to destroy something again. How does that blood your bleeding taste?"
"I'll see you back in Hell, there will be consequences." Flauros moaned. Flauros pulled dental floss out of his coat pocket. Used it once between his front teeth, transporting him back to hell.

The carcass of the trilobite was left on the path. Chardin kicked it into some brambles.
Silently celebrating Flauro's foiled attempt. His position would be questionable at best at such a fail.
He continued walking till he came to the next town. Maybe God would save him. Or was just observing his little experiment play out.

Feed the grateful

 The trunk was open inside were the last thirty years of sunshine. 
His mind was a game patience dripping into the smile.
Signatures and happy friends pour outdated softdrink
wishing someone something special

The steam bath will go to Elizabeth
the carpark to David
The one that takes up two city blocks
The story goes to Simon

I take every word and form Little rants
That decorate occasions idioms that dance
That vary and light up the lamps
That smile like similies as metaphors dance

The youngest will recieve it all
To acknowledge that persistance
The old man turned to his own father
Talking to the kitchen of his heart

What I pass down is all yours son
The legacy unfold on you
Feed the grateful

Heaven's ponds

 My father's will
thank you father for this creativity with words
these worlds I curate in the swarm of living
the gift you have bestowed me

lifts me
encourages me
immortalizes me
Hubris and grandeza aside

All powerful
witness to the humble movements
of the poet at play
smooth and eager to impress

My father's will
Thank you father for the incredible experience
this life has been
and will be

The tilt of the pen in my hand
the ideas as bullets through the mind
whizzing into the page
with a keeness to live there

See me stumble
was that not the grand victory
toward what is greater than me
A piece of me left behind

My father's will
to nurture he said
those living things in your surrounding
Everything grows

In the ponds of heaven
where thousands of tiny spawn
strive through the algae murky waters
to evolve

You will be Ceviche

 Check this fish packet of death
open and count it
teethy bite taboo and obsession giving squash mouth
Now greedy and tinfoil peel it back lips tongue labor

check it all out the dollar notes fall into the street
Throw in the next hook line and fever
The sea burps and farts freely eternal and frugal
the wind throws it in your face seagull neutral

and raging against the posts where people hang their bait
is a green algae that eats into the wood seawater can't prevent
this packet of flakey fish in the tin foil begs fire and oil
just enough for a basic meal after the rod and toil

an attempt to feed oneself on the rough
the foil kept it fresh enough
It's packed in a suitcase overfilled with papers
flavors for the commuter

Now lick the folds of these hundred dollar bills
roll your tabacco in it
light them up and drag each puff out
fishy and engulfed

stoned and nicotined
weird and gloob eyed
fresh out of oxygen
waiting for the lemonjuice to set in

The shelter you seek

 You see my shadow by the bridge
Signs of my presence
The day tells you to procede
make it to the cold shelter before dusk

You see the last tag I left
A scribbled brag bereft
A piece of clothing abandoned
Next to the column

You see my dirty hand prints 
along the bridge rail
signs of me give you hope
But I am just a ghost

Mist dissipates the late afternoon leaves the world
The bridge enjoys one last ray of sunlight
shining on the spot we once met
now just a trash shelf for derelicts

my name is whispered in the waves below
echoing up to the hobos and vagabonds
as they make for the cold shelter
before true nightfall

Look up to the top of the support post
a seagull's longing cry
It's beak is me it's wings are mine
exposed as day mist dies off

The city's scarcity and abundance
it's life and death
light and dark
I surviving in the contrast

invisible to your eyes
leaning on the pedestrian rail of the bridge
emerging and disappearing until I'm full form
trespassing into the realm of the living

Observing the stragglers as they head for cold shelter
Among them I cannot be counted
I am not there in person only vestiges of me
can be picked up in vague apparition 

 

Unopened boxes

 They lived where the city hills curved inward
A built up area within a shaded one kilometer area
The shade was old age where middle aged people lived
in old three storey houses with garages that opened up to cal de sacs

Even in the tropics the sun wouldn't shine there for some months of the year
An impression that the day stayed at the same hour all day
some time in the morning all the way into the first hour of night blue humidity
Huge garage roller doors opened and boxes arived in long sturdy open bed trucks

An indonesian man sat on a stack of pallets and smoked his cigarette with cloves in it
He smiled and speculated about the contents of teh boxes coming in
As trade war became the reality of the world the black market exploded
An unlikely purgatory in the dim neighborhood police avoided

Soup on the nature trail

 The raggedy raggedy
spitting truth like a looting refuting rioter
pony tail and roasting observation
ranting into the void

taking the day walk somewhere far north
that desolate nature they compare with jungle
Spatzieren gehen alles volle lebensmacht
Pointing out the inconsistancies among us

You hate fakeness
but what about taboos
They used to be more popular
Now we just take everything throw it in the pot and call it soup

The walking stick that got him into heaven

 He got to the window and pursed his lips
what boxes still needed to be ticked off
the longlist the spirit is just little squares and checks
floating on thin air and rough ideas of productivity

He placed his walking stick point on the carpet and steadied himself
Every joint formed an ember and lit up inside his bones
He pursed his lips again confusion overiding pain
Like one ghould pushing the other out

he stumbled across the white rug to his smoke stale lazy chair
cigarette in his mouth and an expression as if he was calculating something
each drag contemplative of the fire ware and tear on his body
pursed lips whatever he needed to take serious has slipped his mind

Old man what do we grow into at this point
the blue wall paper and the blue sheets
her corpse upon it, arms crossed in simulated peace
Teeth bared in an extinction open mouth smile

you potter around the tiny kitchen
So many ages have passed
pleasant times and illusions
the illusions often served instead truth

what sauce do you make of this old man
you point your walking stick and make fun how clever
flimsy white curtains and some nurse to organize heaven
then I see you approach the invisible temple pursed lips

half finished sermon nostalgia rhetoric and soft soup
easily slurped up inside a wide straw with optimism
Don't share any of you secrets of wisdom
don't show any of your sadness

Because I was inside there for quite a while and know every pitch
every speech and every angle every scar and every stitch
for I am the lost one my elder the loner hill pariah
Here to exist and exploit the glitch

The rejected one not fit for sport, nor exacts, nor math
useless burden boiling over with meager words for wrath

Speeding on wheels down the french alley

 wheeling down crusty delapidated creek house hunger in my axis
you can see my lower jaw coming up and claiming the bigger half of my face
I bounce around my knees and calves form wheels the rest of me deals
I roll right down the french alley thats me there

Arrogance and speed and some bilge brackish water cooking
spinning up circus fountain disc like in the curtailing onlookers
I rub off on the graffiti wall criminal grin and grimace set striped and drippy
I crack brick as I move over it dirty sharp wheels things of destruction

The meat in my face reverberates french alley smile sundown floating on it
milking the rest of the reflection in the canal light still pouring up
with my lungs watch them balloon and Im airborn like a calculating crow
perched on a zepplin with this criminal grin wheeling across on and off

I'm speeding back to the city sinister two faced and hairy and free
a brilliant monster for the redlight guilty tourists slip as they flee
my teeth and hands leap out from me and all thats left is their bones
Coughing out the useless tasteless cartilage their body once owned

read my derogatory name mixed in with a trash image across the brick sphaghetti
Across the backwalls grey and red as the deck blood by the port my empty eye socket bay
the second sight full of hellshattering tragedy and gruesome wheels illustrating the escapade
city ditches dry and volcanic buildings that walk and block my exit way with magma disdain

I'll be out of sight at the speed of sound
at the speed of fright out of bounds
Ill be rolling sled crazy with the disregard
fangs and fury of hell hounds I'm forced to discard

shaking like the scarecrow given life and mobility
Running up the walls in the wee hours goblin swift
you can catch my grimace a dagger long and thin
On the rolling wheel catch the mobile contemptable grin

Flirtation speaks

 avoid those eyes

walls swing mirrors

we loved ourselves for centuries

now we are born

It sees you in it's periphery

Nature interferes you want to be seen

admiration makes the heart so thin

eyes meet and you spring a leak

Avoid those eyes

don't even speak

we loved ourselves internally for centuries

no outside validation

It sees you pose and sell yourself gracefully

Nature bounces off hormones trapped between

beguiled and horny the face loses to a shiny grin

Mirroring each other where the connection is weak

Instant face twits

 watch this as the hands go round

emoji murder

what is the demand you found

exploit it

Invisible coming into your vision

bomb blast exit

In human will sum of fool's decisions

instant media face twitch

we counted as sheep under heaven and hell

every gullible numb one slave and freeman

every sceptical intellect you well

hellish do-gooders and heavenly demons

Those who profess to own the world

and the clique behind the curtain

drilling our values with snapshot extraction

monetising our sick opinions

The mirror and the playhouse

 She looks to the highway

then turns around to face the play house

The ghost of the unwed bride has claimed it

skeleton like and screaming eternally

dressed in dark clothes she opens the glass door and exits the main house

Normality and sobriety in each step toward the pond

soft words fall on her curated for her ears alone

That wedding day expected to come some day

The road of life a serpent

a reptillian spine running down a long tale

It's all over when you reach the teeth

It runs from the sacred womb 

To the elegy blessed shiny wooden tomb

She will run this course loveless

like many men who dread their feelings

directed by their fears

the grass is soft her feet step gently across it

she fantasizes about an amazing person a special day

faith so souplike so nutritious in a world without meaning

Not changing herself as she looks in the mirror of the playhouse

gossip and social expectations

The importance of appearances and personal mock tests

Lost youth tatooed and warped by potent illusions

sold and rented across mass produced screens

The deep fantasy of the bridal gown and chapel

The playhouse empty

The mirror

The collective mind for war

 It shines off a shield reflecting the sun
the front line still holds up sturdy and idealogical
Teach me of glory and honor so that I might advance
Not the honor of cowards in virtue of gender

The honor of the frontline grunt
holding up this shield like hero
Not knowing if this day be his last
Bracing for projectiles and a stampede

Teach me to conjure all the fire of battle
to use my voice and hands to organize chaos
To rise up over the gleaming shields
To fill the sky with falling death over the enemy

It shines off the unsheathed sword
The swing and clinging bells of the afterlife
The glory of conquest hidden in the hearts of men
glowing the reflection of city fires

Not the ants of well dressed politicians
But the hornets and drones of the one 
The collective mind is the new weapon
The flow of raw power

Waving at passer's by

 dragged like roadkill
A piece of me is missing
I claw my way back to the roadside
This body is a mess

I cannot stand
my clothes are stained through
blood in pools insects bathe
emerge red and twitching

I want to live
My arm bearly grips the guard rail
the road that promised me
was filled with too many neon signs

bad drivers
blind curves
unpredictable wildlife
a million accidents

meaningless statistics
I prop myself up
blind my eyes in the sun now
as I bleed out to the silent humm of the afternoon sky

I await my lungs to fail
As the vulture gracefully lands upon the guardrail
Looks left and right in prayer
Observes my severed arm

blood drips the seconds away
tourists slow down to get a better look
Then speed up again pretending they saw nothing
I could almost wave

Dusk comforts
Sun abandons over distant hills
streaks of blood tinge the long cloud
breathing clicks and catches on ribs

I subside leaving from my bodily form
climbing up to the whisps of blood cloud
trapped in the day's transition
looking down now able to wave

You are the pyramid

 its about what you've got
where you are going
who you know
the cash in your pocket
in the void behind

it's about clean consumables
water and food
wholesome love
emotional support
some connection

It's about sense of the future
some notion of aspiration
The will to adhere to a path
It's about faith in work and time
adaption and sacrifice

It's going to rain

 he was banging in a fence post with a mallet
Pulling the wire of the fence tight
ankle high grass seed head tapping on his boots
Sun causing him to squint

Thick hands and permanent facial expression
You can hear the far off bahhhhs and neehs
"whack" "whack" the fence post goes in another inch
calluses harden and the day wanders

The spring sky is absurd 
The man's eyes looks to rolling clouds
Turns throws steel headed mallet on truch deck
"Thomp" key turns "vroom" off he went

Dog awkwardly looks up at him from passenger seat
He glances toward him and back onto the narrow dirt road
Rearview mirror darkens as he descends the hill
"It's going to rain, pup" changed gear and spat out the open window

Solid Nihilism

 you feel limited static
just weight on the floor tantrum tragic
On the sofa you cannot see yourself
 yet you are infinite

You get bored by the marketing hotspots
The glowing false euphoria swells and pops
fades and subsides from your brain
you sit programming the next campaign

You feel organic
a physical machine in panic
Product at the end of a line of geneology
No purpose to exist free me of the need

Your peers take to thread bait 
quick highs in love and lows in hate
no final destination just emoji soup
Breeze to nowhere on a happy loop

Minds carved out of nihilism
it obscures your incredible inner course
The eternal part of you forced into a schism
the worthless feeling grows enormous

where is the purpose you scream
what is this life really even for 
This absurd hurdle for dreams
lives disconnected from their core

Stars in the mouth

 I open the door to the night
The sky is a mouth

It comes right out those teeth that tongue
deafened by the shifting words it sung
we are just guests our anticipation brightens the gloom
our bodies disconnected as our spirits are to be groomed

It's eyes are stars
seeing every angle from afar
Tiny lights of compound knowledge
above us night's edge

Those stars followed for millenia
by the primitives and explorers now entombed
I predicted when crunching numbers in the womb
forming deciding how I could get to you

The road she told me

 Walk the avenue that drifts upward
Life once safe like inside a cupboard
Now traffic and criminals spread out
The road young unfamiliar to itself

she says she is lonely and looks up at me
she says cars drive over her all day
Their occupants all off to parties
She just gets the fumes and tyre stains

who am I to communicate with the dead ashphalt
yet it comforts me as I cross the street for an opportunity
Looking for a building I might feel whole in
these smiles for alleys leaping out begger funky

semi rude quite edible my teeth and tongue unglue
the cloud sets in like heavy divine sister an imposition
grandfather lawnmower spinning on sunny obligation
The contrasts obscuring and illuminating the avenue

The eclipsal apocalypse in stasis cradling humanity's sick heart
It's outer hardened veins in concrete vias
that run between families and careers
feeding hudled residence and commerce

Endless celebrations at large halls
young valets tap the pavement
competing for the newest model
She looks up at them all as they get out and in

that stain in the party table cloth purple and ready for impropriety
 Like road tar in the summer I can't pull my lips off it
The road she envies me all of this a tranquil vibration
Before she ends she bids me farewell

The thoroughfare is empty a sheet of rain relief
 at the party plastic cups replace inconvenient faces
lamposts bathe in lonliness and the moon sets the night
a dictator of sorts conspiring with the supernatural

In ways that separate sanity from the sound mind
The road under light drizzle reflects up off the smooth tarmac
communicating with the silent moon no reply
She the road was taking everyone somewhere

and told me of the solitude
the broken white lines wearing
the cracks running from potholes
I stand on the street listening to it all

Nativity Numen

 The door to another universe opens
flaws and defects peeling off like barnacles
Those shiny demons that once clung to your back
Now search for refuge in the shadows

Through the passage way your existence shudders
A million parallel lives sparke inside the vortex
The pressure almost pulls you apart
Step into the effulgent blue gold

Blinded you settle on the new earth
you slowly form weight and organs and thick veins
Gravity pushes you into yourself
The drums of the cosmos beat through you

flesh wraps and stretches against your frame
Layer upon layer until the gift of life is fulffiled
breath after breath until you can taste
The whole planet

Reception at eighty

 Braddock's father dashing and debonair
with botox and flash new head a hair
he was looking sixty in his eighties
and ready for newage dating

The ghost to our left was undecided
In a physical form that would hold her
curly grey hair past her shoulders
grin of thunderous aspiration

whatever she knew that we didn't
Obviously gave her pleasure
Braddock's father died hair
shiny face waxed fair

don't bring roses she said
In a language now dead
he asked her to translate and assuage
the fact roses reminded her of old age

for they spend as long opening
as they do in the vase wilting
People just throw them out early
To keep the truth from unfurling

Three driveways got us here
we stand at the center we care
Braddock's father will marry the ghost
The blessing delivered to guest and host

The past overgrown litter and oil stains
the present open and well maintained
and the future goes onto the horizon
seducing ignorant hearts never to wizen

Keep the roses out of the ceremony
If one dies the other feels lonely
stay neutral and expressionless externally
Celebrate jubilant illusions of eternity

The ashtray

 Thin human pretender attempted ambition
The snide expression merciless heart
Looming shadows looking for entry
Because a man is nothing more than a portal

He swears he can enter heaven or hell
Yet heaven and hell enter him
swirling a storm of hallucinations
a swarm of self induced euphoria

He is the raw container vulnerable
The flesh vessel naked unprotected
yet he thinks he has arrived at
some righteous destination

The cigarette flicks itself
ash and ember spray over
He holds in these experiences
until the the filter is burnt

That destination he seeks a cosmic joke
Awakening inside an infinite laughing fit
observing the world slow motion
running slipping spilling backwards into the past

shadowss applause from edge of memory
parallel they observe the nightmare
drenching themselves in the fright of sweat
streaming down from the pretenders head

Curfew

 On the street they spit in our faces and attack
we drag ourselves to our knees and adjust our backs
so that we might stand up from stuck in a crawlspace
Street sweepers will dispose of us as waste

No refuge in hiding we are better running
we have no land no rights nor money
just another expence for the state
conspiring to shorten our fate

our lives no worth
our footsteps no sound
scattering on the siren of the patrol car
dispersing and finding cover

Shelters burned, food and belongings confiscated
The suburbs arm, we the riff raff predated
valueless in this perfect world we creep
 targeted scape goats among sheep

From the prison tower

 we looked out of the tower together 
at all the prejudice below
Their trendy cafes bars and restaurants
bringing in the acceptable

the wartorn freaks may burn
you sign
we look out of the tower
Intolerance is a brand you can't afford

one everyone wants to buy
but just can't afford
but they are still invited to come and window shop
as our neighbors and family burns under occupation

We were not looking out of the tower by choice
it was our prison
and when we escaped we were snakes slithering on the streets
ushered out of shelter with broom handles and shoguns

The chosen victims in a world divisive
The elite painted every different color
One color envying the next
seasonal shift

zero sum jewellry
wearing across and into the hypocrisy
as children perish Near the warzones
The cog well fixed no longer looks for revolution

Doesn't want to change anything from the inside
The margins grow a little higher
so he may be painted into envy
painted into privilege

From the eyes to the brain

 pseudonym
Hi my name is
People call me
I identify as

On wireless
That old expression
cordless some say
Plug me in

Holistic organic
artificial and modified
manufactured in mass
settling plastic

Then there's eyes reading words
reflecting the message into the brain
not transferring this information to the brain
but inventing your own convenient meaning 

I The metaphor

 I am the metaphor open and closed
shaped by imagination
A puzzle for forbidden prose
I the tool to urge fascination

Purely by claiming a notion
Simply by stating I control the ocean
From the safety of the sure
I am the ship an honest metaphor

transitioning from one sea to the next
Words are just well trained pets
Sometimes the lifestock
For the hungry knife

Painting on the canvas of life
Charcoal on death
Oil on thread
blood on skin attached or shed

The metaphor 
boldness and rebellion
flights of the mind
grandeur captured silent

On the page screaming out
I am the metaphor
sent to undo reality's tight stitch
A spell that escaped the witch

Now a net to catch monsters in the swell
So tomorrow I might have new stories to tell

A pen that wrote for a lifetime

 The turnstyle clicks I enter
From years in the factory
have i arrived there's no answer
Jovial sits at the desk observing

He holds up a pen that he designed himself
The one I use to write everyday
I ask how long is that Ink going to last
He reached into the past there

some lost chapter far away
yet still waiting for me
In a future beyond
he held up the pen

The ink was full
The pen as incredible
I would write my future with this
Short hairs on the arm

each one a factory
producing more and more pens
Writing into the world
Words like these ones here

Superficial Transparency

 I've arrived here bare without clothes
Nude ashamed redeem me I say
For even the sky remains cloudless
The land shallow

I am exposed  here
Not an inch of me hidden
The earth is just one big round eye
Looking straight at me

glaring with the sun as spotlight
Applauses and condemnation
The legs exhausted march forward
Obligation whipped ambition

Discipline abandoned this false hotel
It peeps in from the forest where
it still forages its sustenance
It can see I'm not decent

A Cherubim reporting upstairs that won't unlock me
A test I failed on crashing into the third rock 
With eight billion poorly equipped comedians
Soul mendigo scraping the surface cake nails of tedium

Just to find underneath absent of ingredients
No real sense no deeper meaning
No righteous rhyme or logical reason
No higher value or forever season

bare rock and flesh neon arrows point fun
goodbye as I dry and age under the sun
The dying gaze of organized humilators
I'm seen by all known by none

Pretending to hide something
beyong my delicious superficiality
that spreads so well over town rust
And tastes like acid tax officiality dust 

Inclusion and putting food on the table

 The tight trench with a slight water flow
If good for the image pretend to be short on dough
I could hear an exaggeration two sentences after
well timed moderation inducing soft false laughter

You can impress all demands
But they look up grin in hand
The one that fits across their hungry faces
Over the trench to their tents your grace

A narrow creek running up to the project
The feast is set gluttony gut opiate regret
We sit on the margins smiling with bowls
Of well boiled gruel and a stick dried fowl

Sun beats down on umbrellas lords and ladies
Who spun etiquette mysteriously bliss and bless
their own private dramas and emotional neediness 
How they elegantly move ignoring the real world

renaming it after their dining room wishes and thanks
Where tunnels to the future arrive directly under banks
Where locks and screw conspire along the passages
Opening the vaults on those checks and balances

while the help just wanders up and down the trench
Soiled by the dirt and sun tired peasant and wench
Insane and simple celebrating an existence in dumb
as if made with your fingers under your thumb

The odd one will rob you
Most just beseech you for wheat
A corner of the shade a gram of yeast
as they witness you waste the food the feast

Swagger in the bid

 The thick lip and tongue
The mouth to savor
A life to pleasure
The immediate priority leisure leisure

Fuck all else for my self esteem farm
Is my trip across the sea far
The fact I annually upgrade my car
Soft bonding with the invisible duke

The restaurant opens for me
the people in the line shift across
making way as fleece and I floss
I grease and wax with swagger

I haven't a cent in the bank
But I jibber convince and jabber
I wear several layers of luxury
snort near midnight

The Little king

 False feasts of two sides 
You should be grateful
Do not swap the truth for favors
Wipe your mouth after eating

hide those stains from everyone at the table
Keep the dirty napkin out of sight
Those who hold the chains
that bind others

Spoilt children wander into the foyer
As if in rehearsal for a show
Picking over the sweet cakes
Waiters pretend not to look

You can pretend in real life
We can see the double standards
learning to be silent
Till we get back to shanty

So jokes might touch our hearts and relieve them
Make us grateful for the little we have

Wall of a nightmare

 You all attack together
clever words you woke me from a dream
My happless reality bursts
The inner lining warm and nourishing

You threw me into a nightmare
Each word a stab at me
My body hits the train of derision
splits in pieces across the hard rusted grinded steal

The handsized rocks stained with the spirits 
grease and soot in those words
built to fit in machine gun mouths
No shield to take these flying splinters

They bury themseves deep into flesh
The wounds and blood just urge
The next critical points
Attacking just walls of the nightmare

Pass away on the rocky mess
pieces of my former self

How Buster walked

 His awkward step and unsure face
running up the pavement a concrete wave
His short black hair and glasses
his reflection  an appariton in the cheap bakery window

Looking back at himself not knowing it was his own likeness
Crossing walking stumbling he is a man
Cars wouldn't slow he awkwadly speeds up his step
Reaching the curb lifting that leg and ankle

The sun cradles him
The ground scoffs as he steps on it
He climbs the stairs
derision echoes across the steel

Their voices overfed dribbling sarcasm
The man's struggle is food for the Gods
They weave jealousy and trickery to the jeerers
False sense of seriousness and maturity

The man continues his day
His body seldom obeys
Angels aww and shed tears
the pain of today mirrors that of decades to come

The fork is laiden Gods mouth opens
he chews and ingests witnessing the man below
amongst us being laughed at
by healthy brand buying conveyor belt people