He stands, golden, cloaked in ruin’s thread,
A radiant god among shadows that writhe.
The scorch of brimstone lingers around him,
Perfumed on whispers where lies take flight.
Hell’s legions bend the knee, adorned in silk,
Doctors, judges, priests, throats stuffed with power.
Their temples gleam with duty unspoken, rotten.
Mouths curl prayers that burn in their teeth.
Apollo waits, for 40,000 breaths of time,
A king of truth in deception’s masquerade.
His hands, a forge of judgment, white-hot.
Will they kneel? Or crumble under his gaze?
Servants wear abundance like shrouds of virtue;
In boardrooms, clinics, altars stained sacred,
Their words, a balm, empty. Ferocious as shadows.
The cigarette flares in Apollo’s cold hands.
Touch their foreheads, he muses, then marks them.
Pain is worship; they sip its poison.
Do they hunger for freedom? Never, they crave;
The one who loves will weigh them all.
The sun god waits, his mercy feral.
Not wrath, but a decision, shaped in flame.
Each condemned by whispers they thought sacred,
His light reveals: the truth has wings, and teeth.
8th grade algebra class
Hyper chit chat from black-caped Louis
And his stringy long-haired buddy Richard
In the hallways before class they slap
The bare back necks of unsuspecting classmates
Stamping foreheads
Making the nuck nuck and whoop whoop of Larry Moe and Curly
That’s what they were re-enacting
With knees slipped under their tiny desks
As Mr. B has his back turned
Scratching formulas from his nails on the blackboard
When he pivots like a pitcher to boos
Lifts his toes to first base and baseball throws
The felt eraser full of all his mis-calculations
A lifetime of rage
Poof powder
Waffle imprint on Richard’s cheek
A cloud of chalk blonds his hair
Beards his performance grin
Richard has a look like when he’s seen his dad
Come home again and again and again
After happy hour
Leaps to his bedroom door
Holding the side of his face
“You can’t do that! You can’t do that!”
Out he disappears
Mr. B clasps his hands and fixes his face to his family
“Now for quiet.”
And we don’t dare say anything.
~ Cerebration ~
A promontory vigilant
forehead of foreheads
Behind the curtain
mystery awaits
Lets meet by the gate and jump it
Hands intertwined as we share nothing but short breaths
In the heat
Our shoes beat into the brush
As we forget what's behind us
And when dusk becomes our dawn
And sweat flickers against our foreheads
We can get up and walk back
Then jump the gate.
It is too early
it's a middling time.
Nature lures,
leads us on to a pause
where the weather
is all wrong.
Ice licked stems
are unforeseen
by a too hasty thaw.
Defrosting groundhog's drip
in an almost warm sunshine,
loggers lean on silent buzz saws
their foreheads dry and clear.
People take a day off
from the winter grind
bobble hats
and puffer jackets
are laid aside like bad dreams.
They predict that tomorrow
the snow is going to be heavy footed
and extra lumpy
any hint of avian romance
will be indefinitely delayed.
Yet today is middling mild,
and Pollyanna
dreams of daffodils.
The worlds of our ancestors remain at war.
I saw this endless misery on an old globe,
where battles and front lines, though faint,
bled into blood-red delineations
where borders trafficked the endless dead.
I spread an historical map,
saw the suffering of much minuscule life,
wounded bodies charging or retreating,
body parts everywhere; a Lilliputian carnage,
yet loud enough to end any tune
in a songbird's throat
Old warriors returned again and again
as young men,
the mark of an early death
already seared across their foreheads,
their eyes flashing, reflecting
a world long buried
in mounds of bloody yesterdays,
and red stained tomorrows.
Then I overheard
(horror upon horror),
the yet unborn,
screaming
they were like
little birds
on fire.
“Where They Bloom”
by Positive Mark
Phantoms are groomed where the black roses bloom.
Nights when you can’t find a dark enough room.
Feelings were hurt on all sides of the fence.
Thousands of wonderers left in suspense.
Masking true honesty.
Nurturing pride.
Luggage of falsehoods they pack for the ride.
Foreheads to eyelids to noses to chins.
Left handed hand shakes and satanic grins.
Gleaning from parables.
Chanting the psalms.
Jiggling the cheek ‘til it’s bruised by the palm.
Screeching of gospels surrounding a body that’s covered in flyers that reek of the party.
Black roses tossed out the window at night.
Dark enough room, now you search for the light.
Cyclical madness, but no one is taught.
Wars that are lost
when they’ve never been fought.
The worlds of our ancestors remain at war.
I saw this endless misery on an old globe,
where battles and front lines, though faint,
bled into blood-red delineations
where borders trafficked the endless dead.
I spread an historical map,
saw the suffering of much minuscule life,
wounded bodies charging or retreating,
body parts everywhere; a Lilliputian carnage,
yet loud enough to end any tune
in a songbird's throat
Old warriors returned again and again
as young men,
the mark of an early death
already seared across their foreheads,
their eyes flashing, reflecting
a world long buried
in mounds of bloody yesterdays,
and red stained tomorrows.
Then I overheard
(horror upon horror),
the yet unborn,
screaming
they were like
little birds
on fire.
One step back, two steps forward,
Swing around and do the dance,
Keep it fast, a little awkward
A whole world audience to entrance.
Now you've got them captivated
Up the tempo, raise the heat,
Some may need to be sedated
As they wither from your beat.
Hearts loud-pounding, foreheads thumping,
Gasping air among the shouts,
Doomsayers bleating, markets jumping,
Second guessing, full of doubts.
Quite the showman, what a show,
Media breathless wanting more,
Fans elated, bask in tow,
Others crowing, keeping score.
Just the start, watch him work,
Revelations by the day,
Not all true, surprises lurk,
Act with haste, keep foes at bay.
As for us enthralled spectators
Barely able to keep track,
Cajoled and pressed by paid narrators,
Every week a heart attack.
If we can but drown the chatter,
Keep a cool head, crack a smile,
Train our thoughts to things that matter,
Take the long view, wait a while.
Let the music work its magic,
His gyrations entertain,
Learn that life need not be tragic,
See the sunshine through the rain.
RAI 5/25
Moments become wet steppingstone
over a stream of consciousness.
At breakfast, a TV delivers omens
with a perky disposition.
Buttering grilled bread, distracted by normality,
slipping through the well-greased gears
of a self-made reality,
then a singing hint of burnt toast
ripples through suddenly aware
nostril hair.
What should you do today -
walk the mood off
or pray brother pray?
Will the monstrous appear,
its likeness --- cute and kittenish,
though even now
new velvet satanic horns
are already budding.
Will the fuzz and fur turn quickly
to scabs and scales?
Sinister left-handed slaps of hysteria
swipe the sweat from wrinkled foreheads.
In a room bereft of natural illumination,
a light on an open laptop is blinking,
imagination types a nightmare
on the underside of its blank screen.
Brains unchecked by reason,
swivel inside their bony portholes,
they search this way and that
for a more feasible fantasy
before this amorphous apprehension
emerges fully clothed
as an all too familiar
mirror image.
I don't know the faces
in the old photograph,
stored in the attic
with other relics
of lives long past
I don't know their names,
or the stories etched
on weathered foreheads,
and in eyes that saw
both sorrow and joy.
I should have asked
their names
before grandmother
rejoined the family
in that old photograph.
In Pacifica
I despise that portrait of me.
The likeness ends
with the name.
Yes, Jane Seymour, unbeheaded
Queen of England.
No, not of pinched thin lips
and sharp bird-beak nose.
Those hideous wimples
tented on over plucked foreheads
displaying protruding toad eyes....
I was not the smoldering gypsy beauty
of Anne Boleyn
nor the loud, youthful
excess of everything
Katherine Howard
but look what their beauty cost them:
one head apiece.
I was pretty in my watchful, rich-wombed way.
I carried a King in my devoted belly
and a great love for my cousin-husband,
a fondness for estranged young Mary
and a fervent wish for peace.
I carried the scent of my beloved garden
sweet forsythia
nor the harlot’s stink of
Paris and promiscuity.
I was loathe to undergo
a coronation
I did not want to be Queen
and yet here I am,
the only wife to receive a queen’s funeral
and share a tomb
with the Beheader.
In the back floorboard empty Boones Farm bottles,
rattled to the rhythm of lust without love.
Fourteen and her world was a different backseat,
staring at another gray rooftop above.
He’d abandoned them so many years ago,
it was hard for her to remember his face.
Each new boy now was her attempt to find him,
but a father’s love was hard to replace.
It was an endless stream of the same old thing,
though she knew they didn’t have what she’d need.
They only drip the same sweat from their foreheads,
taking what they want to satisfy their greed.
Each night ended with her alone and ashamed,
the same tears leaving stains on her pillowcase.
Each time the razor blade slid slightly deeper,
each memory taking longer to erase.
vermilion on foreheads implanted
shines as on our very own
for are not all one
Frequent famines, furrowed foreheads, faint
Father's font fructified, free flowing
fare for fragile famished families
finally fullness, faith
freedom from fervent fraught
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