Retrograde

Smoky eve undressed screeching crimson winds

Blood moon swaying sinking curls brushing steel

Monoliths; bombers cruised bruised skies.

stars

Charged hypersonic fighter jets, plasma

Full of serenades, Dark Tower showered

Shallow shadows: world spit me out, fell back to

Entropy, pills, and pornography. Gaul

Heights center of gravity, what holds me up?

John Cowells watched nights collide, blue moon… rounds

Rolled in rusty cylinder, journals stacked

Up to Oblivion, quarter filled bourbon,

Taste never budging. He wrote the only

Girl he could imagine, one before Hellfire

Out in Dallas? Pink City? her my last

Care in this domed state. He wrote nights, lost

Days of sleep- an obsession driving him.

Stale UTOPIA night fell deep into

Lovestruck sheets; he cut empty gem pages

With diamond tipped pen, every word a moment

Closer to realities dictated by

A fairytale love. another parade

Of drones and Legion Rangers, surveillance

Swayed away a dwindling writer’s block;

Manic fist clenched shimmering inky dweller,

Stellar pilgrimage to ego death; she was

Out in New Navajo, galloping like

Josey Wales, battling giants, Major

Dick Winters amongst gory poppy fields:

An infinite war of love and hell. He

Wandered memories of his dear mother

Wrapping him before leaving for DC.

Dagger cut, hours venture to insanity.

The Machine crackled wicked vinyl pops,

Voltaic rhythm etched rigid landscapes

Against hole-punched walls, galactic shutters

Assail solar winds, warping time through borrowed

Sleep, tomorrow seeks today venture noble

One; Cowells peaked blinds divide; Interstellar

vacuum awoke him from his afternoon

Hibernation, depressants and valium:

Analog God silence suicidal

Idealogue, repent! repent! four walls

Judge closer, days wasted, hold on to what

You can't, soon she'll leave, love's reprieve. sorrow

Sweet, digitize for an hour or eight, just

Enough to make crickets chirp, shirts stay on

For weeks, showers optional, misery

Like a hawk swooping as I begin to stand.

Fade away Flower of Evil, burn! shrivel!

Before destruction

of Empire

Council carved Legions;

Became one

Under

Canvas skies.