I forgot the sun as my steak sizzled on

charcoal pan

just as white rice began to foam up

I forgot that brilliant orb above my urban den,

coursing unswept time and waltzing with wandering planets…

Behind oblique blinds

below oblivion and uncertain genesis

I stood learning from my faulted creators

across warped projects cowboys slung shells and crystals,

rogues dwelling corner stores for rationales-

stuck in their own cigarette buds and mercurial nights.

Knock on eggshell plaster and faux brick complexes,

bullet sponge walls call my inhibitions.

I lived behind walls and blinds

looked at what could be

scraping city desert

advancing grains of misfortune, watching mother and brother escape to work

hours turn to dollars; dollars to another month... (thank you)

I forgot the sun as January weaved grey wool web

skiing winter air on my way back home

fever dream steam rolls as wind wails from

twenty dollar box fan;

she used to brush my curly black hair strands

when sickness burned as a noon sun in humid Texas.

I forgot the sun when I left work,

greeted by puffy silhouetted phantoms

crescent moon partially gracing

gushing industrial parapets

smoke stacks spinning silky spirals:

industry and troposphere colliding.

Soon I forgot playing out with E– and K–

simulating war, nerf guns and child antics

chasing K– with chrome plated toy snub nose,

red grip melting by night’s shadowy embrace.

I forgot the sun as my sisters face vanished

from my hormone suffocated hippocampus;

all was clear and primitive

synapses formed orange-burst supernovae within a span of muttered hatred.

Villainous anthem chambered suicidal blots

scrambled in the infinite slots of space and time.

I calculated all I could be through mythic philosophy

dug in school libraries for who I was in an unknowable vastness.

Soon that glittering disco ball that sings light

fled from fading faculties

I reached behind it, studied every devilish flare,

blinded by every being and leaf that crossed divine horizons.

Each person I loved turned to distant ashes,

every summer party, family gathering squandered!

Friends and allies in my ongoing war with yielding youth;

some naïve and movie-like view of growth; some romanticism of early life:

A perfection manufactured in a universe of poems and

awe-inspiring media.

Slowly the raging giant descended streaking palettes of red, orange, and

purple throughout tempered skies; kicking out gentle gusts of bruised breaths;

hurling hordes of warrior stratocumulus jet streams.

I altered fated elements, compounds compressing ill chest revised:

I played with snickering molecules to win against unfair circumstances.

for a moment air fluttered, a sun blocked out in fear of endless possibilities reemerged.

Soon butterflies pranced in my bubbling gut, acid splashing stomach walls

immediately I realized what had tricked me: angst.

Like a trojan horse it arrived and ended my halcyon storm.

Everything and everyone I knew became an afterthought

I forgot of every person who considered me before them

every moment another person spent that golden nugget of time

for an experience beyond any plausible rationale.

LEGION DIRECTIVE

00:00

We, the human race, have conquered every sphere of existence, created technology which kills and sustains any entity we choose.

We are at our last frontier where we must defeat the inner workings, quarks, particles of reality.

Our directive is simple: let time cease and allow entities to exist in a painless stasis

where only passion, amnesty, and euphoria are eternal.

Coarse unseen hitchhikers breached frontier roads;

Pure elements of steel and dwindling

Faith (behind them Afterlife pulsated

Dark brown ember and red giant orange)

Skyscraping cranes persisted in mute fog

Corroded yellow scabs flailing restless.

Spiraling days returned like past chapters

Gentle intercity traffic flowed North

Atomic ruby and purple EV’s

Cursed silver gin holo-skies, each minute

Twelve moved an inch; foot by trigger pedal

Aims sick, angst quaking corpse from bourbon stupor

Cowells sung silent sonnet poetics;

Spilled dwelled ink tap, tap, taps like droplets in

Trembling oceans of unbridled consciousness

Coupe cruising underground Council tunnel rails.

Her terror brushed my psyche

close to the cosmic,

red lipstick flare

Voltaic white dwarf

emanating arctic stare

a minute toward THE INFINITE.

Aims: I traveled Andromeda

In a span of a second;

light collapsed at my shoulders

Pink City LEDs burn

Behind my flickering eyelids.

I sink, I pray, I’m weary.

Cowells pure naivete drills

With quick precision, writing

To exist, never leaving

Neverland- pages turned truth

Gospel for his future bouts

Passion manifested false

Uncertainty a bottle

He sips then spills leather bound

I have one last venture left for

The family I have lost

Serve her, Alexandria,

Council, Legion, Historia…

Rails rattled idle, wrathful hands scabbed and pricked.

Rifles clipped and charged, 12am sister

Beat against dusty plaster wall- call our

Knights, saviors vested,.380 rounds-

Mother shrieks, cats sneak to tomorrow, knife

Repeats- rib, lung, chest. Crimson eyes seeking

Last: slugs, cleaver, or Legion Sword? pick his

Path and continue yours… and continue… yours?

Bicentennial frost plundered space city

Brother and I cruised tail end of I-610

Wake of midnight skating bayou city haze

Tropical showers tore ice faced terror;

70 mph swerving slick highways

Aims eyes swept her heavenly smile left, bro

Let audio take hold- blasting stereo

Tame the soul with samples and memories

Unseen Amongst Death Sung….

Mustang gleaming, rotating like satellites

All that stood among 4am dread was

Cracked concrete and glass castles- sometime between

New millennium youth and captors built

Industrial monuments, Avant Garde

Degradation baked within crunchy glass and

Silk steel sealing hundreds. Wall after wall

Friends and lovers called: I let them go extinct.

Born in busy burrows overflowing

With foreign roots, soaring toward vanishing

Heights: only wanting a better life for

Their sons and daughters; now prancing in Devil's

Hide, tenants surrounded by sirens and

Corpses of poverty, cigarette buds,

Shards of drunken-rock-bottom-derelicts.

I ran alone for all my days, barely

Spoke, no sound; listening, hearing their cries.

Brother: I never walked away from

You and mom because we are

What is left, After J—

Left we became three, she lived

Anew, for better or worse

Our family could not cease.

Hooded Empress showered in puddles of

Aim's family. Cleansed of bitterness, joy

Repressed, millionth kill awaits… I kneeled

Absolved of new found sins, his head

rolling

Toward his beloved Elysian pastures…

Alexandria's laugh burning throughout my

War strangled skyline, reaper's scythe striking

Denizens militant implode on neighbors,

Sleeper agents diced power grids- drones rise

Spreading pink misty mischief- billboards now

Legion mouthpieces, shriek reality in Sparkling highlights. Highrise freaks sleep away

Awaking to industrial skies, last

Millennium for human inclinations

Disconnect her heartbeat: permit reality

Its due rapture to THE ETERNAL… Rest now

___________________________________________________________________

(1) Doom: https://theprose.com/post/419897/doom

(2) Historia: https://theprose.com/post/424698/historia

(3) Oblivion: https://theprose.com/post/426993/oblivion

(4) Oceanside: https://theprose.com/post/428493/oceanside

(5) Apocalypse: https://theprose.com/post/432306/apocalypse

(6) Entity: https://theprose.com/post/435150/entity

(7) Academy [doesn’t really count but it exists]: https://theprose.com/post/454455/academy

(8) Timeless: https://theprose.com/post/485400/timeless

(9) Eden: https://theprose.com/post/503844/eden

(10) Legion: https://theprose.com/post/525083/legion

(11) Afterlife: https://theprose.com/post/525696/afterlife

(12) Hellfire: https://theprose.com/post/530083/hellfire

(13) Deliverance: https://theprose.com/post/612211/deliverance (currently reading/ read)

A million times i’ve died

before april peaked and spring

sung torrential arias.

Before a drop of bourbon quenched

August-shut esophagus, dark caramel tones

fragrant now.

A lawn mower razing you

strolling mixed concrete embedded with your pale flesh

Pappus soars as a squadron of fighter jets and bombers

Lion toothed and roots three feet under

Summer couldn’t strike you

blooming from nothing more than a talon sized emaciated twig.

Parts of your tarsal seeds germinate even as

you grow again after being met with scythe electric

silver tipped lashes scar never wounding: Am I your prey?

When Death did play

I was at an airport lounge in Seattle

eating dusty warm leather,

A/C a cool shadow sighing…

When Death did play

I said goodbye to my

mother and brother once more,

they stood as I went an ocean away, not knowing I was afraid.

When Death did play

I rummaged through manic memories,

running to North pole for Christmas joy,

toys I hardly cared for, a bike stolen at my

trailer park, friends for sale

take them so I don’t have to tell them who

I am…

I rolled through fences, sheep 1, 2, 3, 4, etc..

pillows concrete, bed springy cardboard, sweat

till I drown, fan whooshing hurricanes,

asylum door 3156, 65? Codes known vanish,

death speaks, I panic, consume fast food in

daily sequences…

When Death did play

I was strung up by lift and jet fuel,

maniacal wings spread out to expanding

gases sighing to finite entities.

When Death did play

He spoke kindly to my

deteriorating gaze,

brown eyes blinking

now static, terror of

afterlife, regrets come up

glowing moss green, hollow

vapors taunting me,

cupid with full quiver

giggling, friends silent

watching my execution.

Foam mellow above atlantis

chivalry a door I can’t help but hold

Sell my pain

quickest act to her dandelion smile

Yellow belly slinging misery

burger shops and idle eyes

tell me friend,

where am I off to?

Samantha gazed at Historia’s husk,

An opaque geodesic dome spanning

Urbanized Texas prairies, ghost towns and

Rugged Arkansan roads. Legion Rangers

Devoured decrepit Old Regime holds:

Brick and mortar enterprises, highways,

Revolutionary town halls, and torn

Facades of mythic entities. Auburn

Strands swayed like autumn branches, curls waving

At warring dusk, stars beamed light to fleeing

Day granting her a moment to climb from

Limestone cliff where she laid scouting since dawn's

Atomic tides bloomed above Oceanside;

Below Rangers scalped Old Regime soldiers,

Brass thudding,.50 cal nests thumping Earth;

scouts rattled comms pinging her movement,

Pikes with coyote camouflaged heads, swords

In trees instead of axes; blood rivers

Soaking loam and bubbling soil spitting,

Coughing charred remnants of budding adults-

Now Legion's and Devil's tongue preaching doom.

Her fire opal eyes razed cavernous forest

Darkness; fireflies like embers tarnishing

Muzzle flashes, blaring off road sirens-

Leaping canyon trenches, fall leaves rustling,

Twigs deathtraps- she became a diamond in

Armageddon hurling hapless hope - two

Years of running, hiding, and being a rat!

Council rangers overlooking warring Legion

Forces, Alexandria awaiting…

LEGION

OBJ: TARANTULA

POTENTIAL ESCAPE ROUTE:

AFTERLIFE

AGENT ASSIGNED:

ENTITY ARTHUR AIMS

Cowells gently pressed abiding gel ink across

Floating blue bars, quickly terminating

White space with lovesick lines- he was barely

Nineteen, uncovering remnants of a

Free republic- awaiting Aims:

she was afterlife

spiraling starlight

refracted

Born of dust

seeking escape

yet chasing desolate cages

Loveless

deathless

all at once.

Pink Coupe swerves left, marble interior

Reaches out. Cowells shuts The Book Of Dreams.

Mach 10 patrolling CO2 masked roads

Olive trees coughing dried leaves. Hazel eyes

Pierced rear-view mirror, face quivering, soaring;

Toward the edge of reality he

Gazed, Afterlife cityscape turning to

Names and faces of doomed youth, GLASS realms shattered.

Cowells: Where are we headed?

Aims: Outskirts of the city;

To the start of time.

The Council & Alexandria spoke

To Legion Command within Dark Tower,

Buzzing and teaming walls gushing, flowing

With rosy lives, decrepit children dried,

Pillaged; hooded figures surrounded her

At reaper-slain steel altar, raven cloak

Infusing cataclysmic creation,

Bruised wires still thumping her city alive.

__________________________________________________________________

(1) Doom: https://theprose.com/post/419897/doom

(2) Historia: https://theprose.com/post/424698/historia

(3) Oblivion: https://theprose.com/post/426993/oblivion

(4) Oceanside: https://theprose.com/post/428493/oceanside

(5) Apocalypse: https://theprose.com/post/432306/apocalypse

(6) Entity: https://theprose.com/post/435150/entity

(7) Academy [doesn’t really count but it exists]: https://theprose.com/post/454455/academy

(8) Timeless: https://theprose.com/post/485400/timeless

(9) Eden: https://theprose.com/post/503844/eden

(10) Legion: https://theprose.com/post/525083/legion

(11) Afterlife: https://theprose.com/post/525696/afterlife

(12) Hellfire: https://theprose.com/post/530083/hellfire

(13) Deliverance: https://theprose.com/post/612211/deliverance

John C., April beams warm worn Afterlife

Streets, sprouting bluebonnets and sunflowers

Drown in soaked napkins and crushed cola cans,

Baked plastic bottles sailing with Cowell's

Down flooded alleyways, brick walls weaved

With purple and turquoise wires, windows shoot

Nocturnal lights, kids eat, sleep and rerun

Scenes of wars past, talks with lovers distant…

Cowell's gut fizzing with coke and rum, bayou

Buzzing, teaming with mutant tadpoles and

Splashing toxic waste- he walked alleyways

Like tightropes inhaling corporate rot

Every second step through millennial

Hubs, above matte grey Legion drones dock re-

Purposed rooftops, dregs below emerge from

Titian smog, silhouettes turned entities.

Youthful drones flowed around his misty

path,

Kids 18-23 frolicking

Radioactive urban forests, pale

LED beams bled past eerie ember

Smog revealing fresh scars, bloodshot eyes, smoke

Released from tortured lungs, blurs of blue, blonde,

Violet hair-bzzzt- Cowell's radar showed Aims

Location, he looked back for a second–

"go"...

Flaming swords depart expelling girls in

White faux coats, Aims nestled on outdoor bar

Awaiting Melody to make one more

Drink for Historia roads, under sky

Blue bulbs her pale hands shake vanilla bean

Ice cream and frosty bourbon, twenty fluid

Ounces packed in teal acrylic bliss, Pink

Sector daylight commences, car lights splash

Against waking Eden walls, Aims takes a

Sip, pink Coupe Deville twin muscle engine,

Space fins streaking rouge as it stalked him,

Marble seats invite, car keys ignite, UI

Sparks like a storm in ones palm, tires spit gray

Chunks of asphalt behind, 5 a.m Pink

City once flushed with radioactive

Sin now an Exodus of entities.

Droplets slide slowly like sweat across Coupe's

Tinted windshield, Aims asleep, boots rest on

Silver lined dashboard, wayfaring caustic

Roads where suburban outskirts remain, rain

Tore digital tint, glitched static, streaks

Strike, skip, buzz sweet white noise, Terra

Inc. bill-

Boards project clips of Afterlife's defense

Against Old Regime's FINAL MARCH, faces

Of kids no older than 25 flash,

Holographic commemorations turn

To cyan blurs, empty road, morning flares

Like smoky laser beams land, glimmering

Asphalt scatters pearly license plate shine-

Bzzzt- Aims awoke as his phone dinged, five

Notifications from Cowell's, radar shrieked,

Coupe closing in, AI locating John…

___________________________________________________________________

(1) Doom: https://theprose.com/post/419897/doom

(2) Historia: https://theprose.com/post/424698/historia

(3) Oblivion: https://theprose.com/post/426993/oblivion

(4) Oceanside: https://theprose.com/post/428493/oceanside

(5) Apocalypse: https://theprose.com/post/432306/apocalypse

(6) Entity: https://theprose.com/post/435150/entity

(7) Academy [doesn’t really count but it exists]: https://theprose.com/post/454455/academy

(8) Timeless: https://theprose.com/post/485400/timeless

(9) Eden: https://theprose.com/post/503844/eden

(10) Legion: https://theprose.com/post/525083/legion

(11) Afterlife: https://theprose.com/post/525696/afterlife

(12) Hellfire: https://theprose.com/post/530083/hellfire

(13) Deliverance: https://theprose.com/post/612211/deliverance

She was afterlife in outer city

Limits, Dark Tower, steel behemoth, green

Neon highlights, emerald beams reflect domed

Metropolis, no grass in sight, all concrete

And metal jungles, within the hundredth floor

Alexandria whispered songs afraid

Of missing notes aloud, her eyes consumed

By every bit of data that rushed through

Thin threaded metal tubes hooked to her frail

Turquoise veins, in her comatose state she

Surveyed millions of denizens eat,

Sleep, and fornicate, as a human a

Zoo, LED panels pulsed cyan

And deep blue luminance around each dark

Corner of the expansive chamber, echoes

Returned dreamy choruses and violent

Convulsions, her onyx cloak obscured pale

Features brought by isolation and deep

Meditations from reality, not

An act slipped her gaze, suicides, and warping

Youth, timeless acts from red districts, Pink City

Radiated nights, kids strolling gray streets,

Memories of Golden Era NYC

Alexandria 23, star stumbling

Undergrad, Child of Legion summer, kids

Fight good and evil blurred, roads blocked off, no

Way out, Dreams of debt in LED square,

Nightly raids, siren lights overpower

Scarlet moonbeams, homeless dregs paint white subway

Tiles with trash sourced vomit, restroom breaks in

Any corner with few judges, public

Life made by Legion politics, Old Regime

Stood and spat, commentating politics,

Alexandria bartending in toxic,

Rustic underground dens through NYC

Pits, Devils spoke in origies of daemon

Ceremony, speeches of a New Order,

War rattled an ocean away, drink more

Take the bottle, chat of doom, love her once

More, let the marble steps to Heaven collapse,

Let time stop its God lent motion and let

Rome fall at last, no fires, no death, just cease

As ICBMs hover over the

Masses, If I awake tomorrow I

Will only know despair, in her dark chamber

She retreated from her crumbling throne to

View the uplifting, fiery, ray spewing

Star as she did after fundraisers for

The Legion and infinite party nights,

But when she scanned the canvas sky all she

Saw was the illusion being projected,

It hardly mattered, at this time millions

Of dregs awoke preparing to be consumed

By steel behemoths, piles of corporate

Bricks and dirt, built by timeless barons,

Alexandria tethered to the city,

Never to leave Dark Tower sanctuary,

She viewed Afterlife city for one last

Bit of pleasure, or what could be produced

From a defeated and nihilistic

Mind, soon The Council will meet, Operation

Zero Hour must go into full effect.

Far off Cowell and Aims patrol Pink City….

___________________________________________________________________

(1) Doom: https://theprose.com/post/419897/doom

(2) Historia: https://theprose.com/post/424698/historia

(3) Oblivion: https://theprose.com/post/426993/oblivion

(4) Oceanside: https://theprose.com/post/428493/oceanside

(5) Apocalypse: https://theprose.com/post/432306/apocalypse

(6) Entity: https://theprose.com/post/435150/entity

(7) Academy [doesn’t really count but it exists]: https://theprose.com/post/454455/academy

(8) Timeless: https://theprose.com/post/485400/timeless

(9) Eden: https://theprose.com/post/503844/eden

(10) Legion: https://theprose.com/post/525083/legion

(11) Afterlife: https://theprose.com/post/525696/afterlife

(12) Hellfire: https://theprose.com/post/530083/hellfire

(13) Deliverance: https://theprose.com/post/612211/deliverance

Neon blonde temptress doom scrolling dual

GLASS cyberspace, shocked tectonic dance floor

Pulsing each shade of her lips, transparent

Glazed raincoat flutters idle, flaring rose

Blush from digital hookups, electric

Blue interface floats ethereal, flesh

Frozen in barren landscapes, frenzied stupor

Anchors her across aurora afterlife

Awaiting hollow suitors in cryptic

Coded chainmail, nebulous kisses, star

Studded specular simulacrum of

Shakespearean thrills, famished beauty howls

Moonbeam lashes blind charming pale haze, gem

Optics oscillate upgraded opulence,

Viscous wine red plasma swirled like strawberry

Ice cream, twirls toward glassy crystal abyss,

Her gentle hips turning beneath comet

Shower infinite, gleaming chest pumped by

Visions and steel implants, glacial veins move

Volcanic sips of spiraling plasma,

Each step taken blindfolded, false prophet

Enticing every entity, John C.

Crooning silently on cherry leather

Throne, sipping frosty spiked latte, off she

Taps pink striped heels, glitch pop vacating masses,

Orange fleshed marveless smiles Cowell's way,

His cyber V.I.P tower, judging

Noble peasants, torrent synths blast as she

Bathes in Eden's darkness, club atmosphere

A hall of mirrors for Wonderland romantics,

John fantasizes her and him on hill

Sides and champagne skyscrapers, Ferris wheel

Talks, riverside jazz splashing from copper

Hi-hats, candy cane Christmas, peppermint

Passion, back to Historia Cowell

Travels, hypnotic like black and white spirals,

Looping symphonics sync with her fluid

Dance, Aims snaps Cowell's gaze towards smoky

Booth, blue haired Melody takes Arthur's order,

Icee raspberry rum, hints of her vanilla

Perfume pervade arctic LED aura

Arthur worn from wanderlust, slushy drink

Flares frigid fingertips, Legion brutes pound

City concrete, chanting for more microchips

And plasma to engorge, GLASSSCAPE moves her

Quick, John sees his archangel slipping away,

Static steps louder than brute chants, wanting

Every material known, shutting down

Sectors to be heard from Pink City excess

To Gaul Height's modern Grecian fused elegance,

She was an infection sprawling through his

Merciless enterprises, kids shipped to

Domes west, families cut and diced, some

Cowell cared for, others not so much, social

Realms shattered once the pacific was lost,

Aims slid the empty turquoise acrylic

Cup to the edge of the mahogany

Table, John stood up knowing that it was

Time to return to patrolling Historia,

He looked around once more for her hoping

Particles kept her floating in Eden

Just a little longer, no matter, these

Fiends come and go, not one new, all just reruns.

___________________________________________________________________

(1) Doom: https://theprose.com/post/419897/doom

(2) Historia: https://theprose.com/post/424698/historia

(3) Oblivion: https://theprose.com/post/426993/oblivion

(4) Oceanside: https://theprose.com/post/428493/oceanside

(5) Apocalypse: https://theprose.com/post/432306/apocalypse

(6) Entity: https://theprose.com/post/435150/entity

(7) Academy [doesn’t really count but it exists]: https://theprose.com/post/454455/academy

(8) Timeless: https://theprose.com/post/485400/timeless

(9) Eden: https://theprose.com/post/503844/eden

(10) Legion: https://theprose.com/post/525083/legion

(11) Afterlife: https://theprose.com/post/525696/afterlife

(12) Hellfire: https://theprose.com/post/530083/hellfire

(13) Deliverance: https://theprose.com/post/612211/deliverance

Writing has taken over just about every facet of my life, I cannot go out on a simple walk or just get out of bed without thinking about a couple of story beats for a poem or some future narrative that my mind spins up. I do not hate this of course being a writer, but I have found that inspiration is not a spark that just explodes in the center of your conscious but a gradual construction of odd bits and ends of your day. You write a quick line here and there about some idea that floats in your head and then you write another: "she was afterlife..." "when devil's play in my mind"...

Life is a grand story, and it is unique to your experiences, you will be inspired and you will steal for the better.

Overtime I learned how other artist "disciplines" go about creating, and I uncovered that it is a slow process of evolving a sound, an art style, a look, whatever it may be there is an evolution that is happening internally and externally simultaneously. I had several days where I wrote a couple of wonderful lines and then struggled to write anything else for the rest of the day, I forced myself to write and hoped that some grand idea would just fire out of my mind, but you have to take time to let your idea grow, it may be a great one but you need to be patient eventually you will learn how to properly craft it. There is no doubt that actually putting in the time to study on how to do it will help, but that may not always be the issue, sometimes you need to grow as a person to create an accurate representation of the concept, and not just force it into existence.