The Day I Decided To Live
The day I decided to live,
Caught me in a steel boot panic,
The small of my back,
A wormy spasm
Of mortal Morse code
In hell’s exiled hospital bed.
I am going to live.
Apathy aches
Through crawl space bones,
Her humid bore
Fogging to a damp finish,
While once weathered sighs
Float through grey morgue skies,
Skirting deadweight tides
Of tedium’s laboured arrest,
Lapping and licking my bleached heel
So pathetically.
I am going to live.
The bald scream
Of atrophied helplessness
Staggers me on,
And catches the ears
And eyes of God,
And I refuse to drown
In this landfill avalanche,
Like a perfunctory punk.
I am going to live.
I jumpstart the last nucleus
Of infant flame
That had retired
To a soldered melt
Of sunny sizzle,
As black psalm laments
Crystallise into turncoat hallelujahs,
And mutiny’s inferno
Gives Bloody Mary
An everlasting
Atom bomb kiss.
I am going to live.
Junkyard demon dogs
Drip dross through fanged bluster,
And the devil’s tremulous waters
Are glaucoma eyed bonds
And last gasp glances,
Of stonewalled silence,
Scrambled mirages,
Distorted mirrors
And pilloried ego death.
I am going to live.
I devour the curse
And strike up the band,
As my stop watch pulse
Shivers through my powder keg hand,
And I will unearth the mile high soil
And limp bow legged
Through blood sun boil,
Because you cannot gaol
The uncaged heart
Of one who knows
That beyond death’s saltwater kiss
Waits the sacred miracle
Of reset revolution
And purpled salvation.
I am going to live.
Babel
Once upon a yesteryear,
My size three steps
Were but youth’s aching metronome
And vibratory pulse
Afoot our day glow playground
Of raucous rendezvous,
An atom bomb
Of impish haunt.
Do you hear our faded ricochet
That held imprints
From babble to Babel,
As oblivion’s snow white noise
Clapped out peals
Of static and canned laughter,
When a man, long since dead, yelled;
“Howdy Doody Time?”
And we char the page
With our snapshot flash,
Flame licked lightening
A memorial to the poetry
Of our animatic dance.
We were once black riders
Of the technicolour age,
Too young to die,
Too young to fade.
Do you hear our faded ricochet
As the gloaming eats the light?
While the murmurs rattling Saturn’s cage,
Hang halos in the night?
Memory’s weeping willow eyes
Drop their anchor lids aground,
As patchwork quilted souls of time
Are lost and never found.
For ashes are but derelict heirlooms,
Turned kilter, upside down,
And our childhood in Babel,
Sleeps hushed on fallow ground.
The Funeral Of Mephistopheles
If you squint could you see
If that’s old Mephistopheles,
Arched backwards
Wryly to me,
Like a Hadean jester
Atop terrible ruins,
Crumbling the house of glory
Stone by bitter stone,
A maelstrom of mortar,
Shaken like teeth,
Seething like
The blackened bull,
Or a coiled serpentine,
Lashing his
Fork tongued armoury,
Of deviled fetters,
Weaving dark burrows
Into my bruised
Porcelain skin,
With ugly glory,
The bitter gnawing
That thirsts to
Leave me undone,
Though my crucible crown
Casts her light
Like the sun.
Is it he?
For I am afraid
That the chief priest
Of throwaway schemes
And eater of dreams
Has set his awful sights
Onto me,
He whose fork footed hooves
That trample the seas,
Who fastens his ticks,
And leeches to feed,
On my sour milk rivers
Of blood and of seed,
Has cast his flame gaze
Over to me.
Is it he?
That crazed painter
Of infinite taunt,
His death strokes of fury
Punching through a canvas
Of blood,
Raining hideaway colours
And raw reds deep as rage,
In a hot fire lust
Grown gunpowder grey,
Where circles of smoke
Leave ringlets and stains,
On the canvas of hearts,
To destroy the pure page.
Is it he?
So hear me,
For I have grown tired
Of waiting this out.
I am painting
A handlebar mustache
Onto a white cow,
To show
Absurdity’s cloven hoofs
And her dirty pink snout.
But I buried the devil
In my backyard today.
We sang a dead song
In pantomime play.
Have we forgotten God,
Has He turned away?
In our backwater gardens,
Where lost children play.
The devil lay dead
Of that we were certain;
We plugged up our ears
And drew up the curtains.
But tell me then how,
He still watches me,
With bated breath warm
And thick with sick greed.
Such sublime tragedy
O Mephistopheles,
You terrible dream.
Our groaning eyes
See through your
Brilliant disguise,
But that really means
Nothing
To me.
I’d
rather
Watch
You
Bleed.
Where Seraphs Sleep
There lies a place,
Weathered buttress,
Crag stone face,
That betrays her crumbled spoils
With velvet feather flair
Of once opulent grace,
Now evaporated air,
As vernal tidings
Give marigold kisses
Upon the crater scars
Of this ancient space,
While minutes walk
A carefree pace.
There lies a field
To which time yields,
Her waking dreams
And die cast will,
Through budding trees
And hand clap leaves,
Applauding hope
In emerald green.
Her leaves breathe peace,
Where seraphs sleep.
And Zion’s stars
Cast glittering chariots
Burning firefly gold,
Cloaked in tormentil sun,
Neon lemon bold.
From flesh to dust
With wolf leer lust,
Death pines for life,
His nightshade creep
Of eternal sleep,
Coiling serpentine dungeons
Fang dagger deep.
And my halo is nailed
To shipwrecked sails,
Though I’ve reaped the bones,
Of bygone tales,
Of courses charted
Through heaven and hell,
And suffered long
Death’s siren spell.
Yet we will tread
Those fated steps,
Up stairwell skies,
Where devils crept,
Towards Shekhinah glories,
Through sun capped flowers,
As death surrenders,
Its raven hour,
Where seraphs sleep.
Farewell To Funerals
Farewell to funerals
The bitter respite,
And evaporating port,
Bearded with glum mists
That blur mortal lines
And tarry long to sigh,
Before the dizzying spires we climb
Lead to the tolling bells
With brusque finality,
As death is left pouting behind,
Between Jacob’s abiding ladder
And the windup clocks of time.
Facsimile caskets,
Like dominoes fall,
A checkered melee,
Echoing through celestine halls.
Golden years folded,
A house of cards strong,
But in these faded frontiers,
Where has dawn gone?
In dusk’s jaded contours,
Where night smothers
The sun.
Bruised heaven’s guitars
Roar in gothic harmony,
The triumphal charge
Stalking to besiege
With spirited aim,
Dusty trapdoor ears,
That gnaw through spirit and bone,
To memory’s vapours and tears,
Sunken like stone.
O sacred whispers of God,
Beg your sovereign ear to the sound,
Of wild glorious nothing,
Just laying around.
And my farewell friend,
May you waltz in permanent fantasia,
Bathed in youth’s begotten fire,
And forever may you fly,
Yet never grow tired.
So farewell and goodnight,
To sweetly hallowed ends,
Where light
Swallows darkness,
Forever,
Amen.
Cancer
I see you as a boxcar hobo,
Faded fable, rugged rambler,
Ramparts raging,
Punched up coward,
Swollen hubris,
Dulled knife at the ready
With powered down plasticine stride,
Oblivion’s derailed train
A slow motion suicide
Like molasses kisses,
And thorny embrace,
Wearing a mask,
Of flesh burned away.
I see you scaling Roman walls,
Web footed spidery crawl,
Malice trapped
In your raven cloaked breast,
Buttons of tumours
At the ready to burst.
And I see you,
No name nothing,
Treading a supercilious line
With wrangling hands,
And an adder’s appetite
Hospice hopping,
Surgical window shopping,
Cancer,
Yes I know you all too clear,
For your sulfur weighs down air.
Cancer,
You came to poison the well,
Where imbued mercies
Linger on at healing lengths,
And you only came
To strangle trembling songs,
O black eyed Chimera,
Sizing up your laser focused lot,
Heartily pouncing
On the lame legged gazelles,
Razor wire paws roped
And tethered tragic traction
Like a furious miracle.
Cancer,
Furious with saber toothed shake,
A cold cavern
Of charcoal teeth
Collapsing on itself
With predatory push and pull
To drag the innocents into
Your layered spectrums
Of cracked bulb flickering
Soul broke loss
Rock steady griefs
And a thousand sobs
In your flatline endgame.
Cancer.
You incredulous bastard.
Satan’s plastic tiara,
Atop your syringe horned head,
Dazzled by your own conceit,
Molded mouth
Of the tasteless
And the truculent,
Laid up siege
With readied forces
To sickle God’s flowers
And pillage
His Gold threaded sheaves,
With your wild wraith massacre,
Malicious permutations,
Dividing your spoils
For the great devouring party
With funeral black balloons
Treading glum air
And rising to flame licked ceilings
In your banquet hall
Of fools and saints.
Cancer.
You incredulous bastard.
But I rose today,
From a wide awake coma,
To execute
Your hatched miseries
And microcosm anarchies.
No last rites.
No dove wing covering.
Not a lone molecule of mercy.
Cancer,
Spitfire viper,
Urchin of mankind,
A free form Goliath,
And I plunge into the cold void
Of your sackcloth night,
For I’m not going down,
Without a fight.
Hallelujahs
Clutter God’s skies,
As I swallow your evil
In one cherub sized bite,
And you are felled,
Grown limp,
Disgusting,
A flatlined rogue doctor,
A farewell parade
For dagger eyed victors,
Watching you tumble
Down the black rainbow mountain
Under everlasting scalpel sky,
Splitting your teeth
And hollow bones,
That kill your curse
And worse,
Your pride.
You know,
It really is wonderful,
To watch you try to fly,
As my once clipped wings now soar,
While yours just wither and die.
Cancer,
Evaporation
Of the eternally irrelevant,
Altogether undone,
Your paper bullets
Next to a paper gun.
Lazarus vs. the “Big c”,
It is your last call to oblivion
For all stewards of hell
Caught
And eradicated,
Slink then sink,
Where the slough’s lone token,
Is your jester head on a stick,
Made of the Cross,
Because you neglected to see,
In your madcap avarice to feed,
That your power was never greater than love,
Nor the tombstone ache of grief.
The Girl With The Plastic Flowers
Reposed on top shelf walls,
The mute and starry eyed orphans
Parade their affected wares
With sulking optimism
And foolhardy charade,
To the tuxedoed platoon of the kingly elect
As the fever hot breath of July’s damnation
Cradles the catatonic herd
With animatronic embrace,
Where the spoiled flesh
And desolate machines are shill bedfellows
Betwixt the dividing lights,
For cruelty has been made queen bee
In their crumbled hive,
Where the honey is boiled
While the bees are yet alive.
And the moon is a punch drunken derelict
That festoons her cigar box bed with stingy haunt,
As snub gun noses press smoke signal sighs
That lend a smudge of fog
To lonely aged windows,
And the audacious hope and illusionary snares
In this chamber of youth mirage
Return a spectral projection
Of shell shocked stares
And eternal reflection,
With mirror eyes that bear witness to a panoramic visage of burdens,
Yet cannot wipe away a soul dribbled tear.
She sits on broken glass and holds plastic flowers,
Ready for her quaking applause and a prodigal’s party,
One ripe with white noise symphonies
And blood red balloons,
Begging strains of rhapsodic ear worms to lay their eggs
In the trembling and tentative chapters
Of her dust mound heart,
But nobody picks her number today,
And her song is yet unsung
As naive melody sinks meek into a silent grave
And the lottery of the rejected,
Shuffle back to steel caged skies
With tomorrow a teasing ghost
Of salvation or Judas.
She leaves her plastic flowers on the windowsill
And her bed is sonoran drywall
Outfitted as a coffin of cheap surrender
Waiting for oblivion
Or heaven’s everlasting arms;
And she knows that God is not helpless,
And she knows that God is not cruel,
And the ebony mares of midnight,
Gallop straight for the sun soaked trough of noon,
And the girl with the plastic flowers
Will wake up very soon,
And may today she be gifted a sunrise,
That finally wills her flowers to bloom.
Bittersweet Nothing
Incubation tomb,
Wormhole to the womb,
Out into the skewed scatter
Of a million unknown days,
And spat out like Jonah
From soporific embryonic seas
That once lulled me into a slipstream sleep,
That entrenched its world,
Fathoms deep.
My febrile seedlings are rage ready for feeding
And I am now the starring role
In now here nowhere.
Day one.
They crudely clamp my cherry flesh
With feral precision,
And the mothership of mother
Lays unaware in her morphine drip cocoon,
Now but a rag doll frame
Of cracked and poked contour clay
And a jumbled jungle of sinewy limbs
Hung up into a submissive V,
While the defiant airs of the doctors
Cloud good will
With cloying empty gestures
That sickens God Himself.
And maybe my pinpoint eyes
Saw the monster behind the curtain
And wanted to scramble back
Into Eden’s haven,
But mother lays near death
With her veins a bullet train wreck
Of razor ribbon origami nightmares
As the overlapping overload
And analog readouts
Scream haunted transmissions
Of bad tidings
And numerical harum scarum.
The nurses are angels
Bathed in day glow white,
And dance with tribal drumfire,
While the rattle of my tinny roar
Is but a most lonesome whimpering bid
To return to God
That pulses through glass
And weakly shakes the earth
With its feeble revolution
And murmuring protest.
I am now a flightless bird
That only knows,
That the humming artificial sun
On the chalk white ceiling
Can never warm my numb bones
Nor settle the collapsed composition
Of afterbirth aftershocks,
And the fragmented grunt
Becomes undone;
And all of this,
On just day one.
I already know this place is dead.
Mother’s bed was hallowed
And God spoke like muffled thunder
Through the pale pink walls.
I cry.
My cup of tears runneth over.
I am coma eyed with silver slash vision.
I am undreamed dreams that I dreamt I dreamed.
I am welcomed to the dark ironies
And colliding planes
Of moon and sky and sun.
It is day one.
My cup of tears runneth over.
God,
Hold my hand,
As we walk through this wonderful wasteland,
Of bittersweet nothing.
O Violet Bird
O Violet bird that spies on me
In truculent secrecy
Your stillness cloaks
The hemlock tree
And haunts the birch
And bitter bee.
Movement of order
You wrangle free
God’s Hands of fire
That fashioned thee.
Blurred velvet wings
Like origami flowers
You stalk rooftops
With headstrong power.
Cityscape hewn
Dirty fabric
Azure sky
As your perched surveillance
Takes on mechanical might.
You’re pretty cute
For such a little spy.
A diadem star
Meets diadem eye
Tempering light
Eclipsed as you fly.
You’re pretty cute
For such a little spy.
Treading your wares
In feathery glares
To all of your soldiers
Now rushing by.
Godspeed little friend
In your boundless above
And carry your cheer
And do it with love.
Autumnal Psalm
Cerise stained orchards,
Wrestle Mother Earth,
Beneath the kiss
Of the stirring sun,
While nebulous clouds,
Headstrong and proud,
Take rocketing flight
In slow parade
Of their fanciful forms.
The wind whispers
Baby’s breath,
As marigold crowns
Touch bygone spirits
Of daydreaming derelicts,
Afoot their idle paths
To denizen pathways
And promenade illusions.
God’s bloodflowers
Bid farewell,
With poignant nods
Of weathered defeat,
To the enveloping shape
Of autumn’s drapery.
Here’s to the crimson
And yellow cavalry,
For her pride
Is soon to sweep,
Swallowing the amber fields
With limping stride,
As days fall by.
Autumn’s sickle
Makes her cryptic rounds,
With fevered hot
And indiscriminate lust,
For in this battling
Sea change heart,
Does autumn in summer,
Duly trust.
Behold her weary
Reluctant sigh,
As her valley of tears
Resigns her crown.
Summer now,
Has tempered calm
And lays the mantle
Of her majesty down.
Rose red rush
And ruby lips
Have marked
Her gold terrain,
Where scarlet weeps
And willows sleep,
To lulling melodies
Lost at sea.
Like a solitary soldier,
Crestfallen, ragged and worn,
The mantle steadies
Changing hands,
For such is nature’s
Time worn power,
in such a giving
And yielded hour.
The last of September’s
Hint of flowers,
Float forms
In a tragic dance,
Of ramshackle shuffle,
As God treads
His Holy feet with due grace.
Behold the changing of the guard!
Behold the fury
Of nature’s sword,
And that which befalls
Her fragile
And unshuffled
House of cards.
It is you to me
And they to thee,
As songs of color
Are now set free.
For autumn has displaced
Her taciturn shield,
Emerging spritely
With irresistible grace
And eternal embrace.
Behold, again,
Her weary sigh,
As she resigns to the earth,
Her golden crown.
Summer is peace,
If not cradling ease,
As she lays
Her sunny head down.
O autumn!
O leaves!
O Maldives!
O Greece!
Your golden kingdoms forever remain.
But pain is the course,
For the seasonal horse,
That gallops
Then turns away.