WORDS

resentment
__________
there is no glory under God
nor lack of sleep it seems
for every hour lost to such
give voice to myriad screams
if all is gone, or all is lost
may we follow it to the cause
from oblivion we came unknown
to seek in pain, a pause
to see the face painted blue
and feel the troubled spirit bow
the whimper of strength, known to itself
and knowing this, knowing how
the heavenly horde of which they sing
could, by such song ignore
the fracture of soul and break in flesh
the child pounding on that same door
there is no comfort found it seems
nor satiation here below
the greed of heaven knows no lease
for all the devotion that we show
demand an audience, tell them this
you bear a scar, we bear a stain
your scar is glory, your hurt is plan
and ours is only pain
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
oh my god, sleep here with me.
i have spoken to the bottles and the tiles and the curtains all concur.
a blade for which to lay my neck upon
and to hum a dying song
the only words that ever were:
‘alone’ and ‘love’ and even more rare the
hallowed ‘I’
will not pass these lips that are forfeit
that are to die
oh friends, take notice and groan with me.
i have reckoned the cost, the losses, and the numbers will not agree.
and i touch what you’ve touched and the simple truth
all these inanimate things live when i give them your ghost
and i change my inflection
stopping in respect for the first cut
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Uranium and Cynicism
__________________
its a flood-plain, failing this a shallow valley
where we sit throwing fists
at a thousand feet a second
tipped with uranium and cynicism
let me tell you what we know..and you can take it to your grave
bear it as a gift to your creator
i’ll wait to see your burdened shade
tarrying like you have life left to live
in my restful noon, my hour’s contentment
the perpetual answer to your death
the smoke is rising, you will also
please shade the noon of my contentment
my face, my skin, my pale reflection
the water’s surface marred
by drops of you from the bridge above
(notice the traffic stopping?)
a gift from me to your creator
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Half-Remembered Dream
come to me in love
and love that never is heard
beneath shelter
that hides vice from the sun
and the finery of spring
to seal all the above
never like this,
and never speak my name
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
FIRE FOR EFFECT
______________
fire for effect, so the day, dreary-long
metamorph into night
drawn near by steely-song
that the trees offer shade
and obeisancies to the dust
that raise tall in mud clouds
and swap ‘we shall’ for ‘we must’
fire for effect, that the exalted, brought low
with wisdom-found declare
‘as god draws taut his bow!’
the remorseless ever seek
and peril ever find, that
the only certain truth
is the life you left behind
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I’m Going Where You Can’t
i scan the horizon to paint an arc of fleshtone
skywriting your name to put it elsewhere
away from me
tracings of scar delicately embossed
caligraphy of sin embellishing
a ruin of skin
setting a pace for this trance, i’ll be
along as soon as passage is paid
and debts discharged
unable to adjust or unwiling to do so
shows the lie in this premise:
it never killed anyone
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
wonderful, absolutely so.
dropping, then beating
nickels to the ground
pouring, raining, sounding
somewhat train-like
but it will get you nowhere
beating this, then send
remorse to an early grave
unbecoming, surly
conduct of a bastard
sending word, be always
receptive to pounding
time-drenched,
morose syllables or phrases
sharp like spun silver
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
look at it: present tense,
it doesn’t have to make sense!
a world to ourselves,
we straddle the fence,
and pray out loud,
to a God that’s too proud,
or maybe perhaps He’s too dense!
but if its all the same,
to withdraw from the game,
I’ll put up a token defense;
and ride on a wave,
washed ashore at my grave,
having added my last two cents.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
‘To Say the Shahadah in Reverse’
if we wish aloud
the world to be empty before us
ghosts only, the plain of Megiddo
a carrion feast fit for a God
then do only this…
and how the time paces!
hands to shape spaces
and throat to shape sound
and endless stream of sickness
dripping from the rim of heaven.
we know Him now,
we smell our blood on His hands.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
paris of the east

————————

if these were longings you could not smother them,

but reality provides for more convenient murder.

such enterprising gentlemen as yourselves ought not reveal your fear. baghdad never burned like I thought it should.

you haven’t the soul to grant me respite.

you haven’t decency to hide your face.

try as you might, weakness will never become virtue.

try as you might,

baghdad never burns like you think it should.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
APRIL TASTES LIKE SUNDROP

I can be determinedly non-drowsy

for you to sense, crackle like tiny lightning

at your fingertips, not static, ever

fog obscuring the scene:

trying to meld my body to yours

pressed flesh alchemy and magic

of slick skin, fog condensed

to drip…and I make a worship

from the lingual attention I pay

to your pearl…and to your last

bastion of resistance against

the forceful shedding of inhibition

and acquiescence to surrender…

I measure my heaven in centimeters…

I taste your pulse, I reciprocate

I lie in wait of your little death

and set a rythym of fight:

in pursuance of you deeper than before…

push back against me, and share space for awhile.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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hypnos spreading wide the veil of hell

a sleepy descent lends weight to fears and forever repeating thoughts of

other things.

all this is real, all this is really not,

all this shows its kinship with secrets earned;

and faith eroded by the constant moan of time

through the trough of sky.

the love of the blinding sun leaves much to be desired.

presently, it grows ever so late.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Repeated Lament

i feel a calling in my blood

or, rather, i felt it

i cringe; the howling of the long-dead

and not rightfully so; deceased;

they rose in a funnel of smoke

a quickly dispersed columnto support the bias of heaven

i don’t mean to borrow their rhetoric

or harness their impulse for my own ends

i think we must,

i don’t envy their aesthetic

but just look at them

and see if hate is perhaps

not so enriching as tolerance

or enobling as kindness

and none of this compounds

none of it adds up

to exceed the neccessity

of our continued

whispered conversations with God
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bog’s Eye

the whole reeking sky frowns on you

and the moon is Bog’s eye

tumbling arcs, a sinister hint

in his winking; like intent to harm

while wearing the masks of summer

fades the influence of the sun

and gives leave to cool the soil

of a thousand mounds

both metaphorical and real

untold and untrod

a crime under the cratered tyrant

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ELDRITCH, CYPTIC

reaching mindfully to therefore snare

long shed memory for a clue to where

tattered ages past we knew its fetid air

and silent, patient r’lyeh waits

and upon discovery, so woeful a clue

for those who wept, and those who knew

the sight undrempt, the beast unslew

creeping morass through r’lyeh’s gates

perchance the world shall meet his gaze

and dimly realize through terrors haze

that which was unborn, forever stays

and consumes unmindful of our varied fates

for now they pray for that to rise

he who causes tremor and darkens the skies

bred from foulness, in hell’s myriad guise

blissful in the moonlight a foul God creates
(NOTE: this is my ‘cthulhu mythos’ poem. Natch.)
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