Who Are You?
You want to be heard,
But not by yourself.
Then again,
Your loudness becomes silence to my ears,
The words left meaningless.
And I wonder,
Do you think of what you say? Perhaps not,
For your voice speaks of its own intent.
Your voice is not your own,
Your mouth at the mercy of harmful words that no longer belong to you.
Neither, are your thoughts truly your own.
And they are left in mind,
Warping everything they come into contact with.
It seems you have surrendered,
Your body not at your control,
Your spirit connected only by fraying threads.
Even your emotions have gotten rid of their old master.
You are not you,
The you that has been before
Or the you that is now:
The madman of unbalance,
Of uncontrollable rage,
Of confusion.
The plumber man fell asleep
with ash on his lips, losing
track of his cerebral train
John Boy with his stained new teeth
and guns of oil on his stone hands
Paining tires, chainsaws, the
garage ceiling
seasoning the turning of a leaf
John Boy's hounds piss on the porch
warping wood with smoke and sulfur
Is shooting blind since the judge took
his gun from his holster
John Boy stopped drinking a little too late
his brain full of holes, just like
a tree trunk to a woodpecker's peck
As he drunkenly recants the psalm
'I get no respect!'
colors tilt sideways
warping into shapes that talk
here mirrors melt into thought
time folds in on itself
you have entered the Twilight Zone.
The music begins in a minor key,
a low vibration that rattles glass
before the weight of it is truly felt.
Tis the sound of a house settling in the dark,
wood groaning under the pressure of old habits.
We reach for the higher notes, the bright trills,
but the fingers find only the cold, ivory surface
of moments that have already passed.
There is a resonance in the empty hallway now,
a ghostly harmony we once held devout,
now frayed and pulling at the edges of the room.
Every shared word carries a hollow echo,
like a bell struck underwater, muffled and slow.
We are two instruments falling out of tune,
the bridge warping under a sudden, bitter frost.
The lower registers grow heavy with what is unsaid,
a dense, suffocating bass that anchors us to the floor.
We play the scale until the hands grow tired,
listening for a resolution that never arrives, finding
silence where a melodious song once flourished.
an aching
silence abides
young love
b
e
c
k o n
i n g b a c k
once tenderness starved,
t
u
s s l e s t o
s
s
e
d
into
love’s brutal
apex
warping sting,
in bated
breath’s requited ring,
wished upon the same star
in
each other’s resolves
The fragrance of spring inebriates my senses.
Thin snow has thawed into warm wetness.
A slight breeze rambles amongst new leaves.
Various colors spread across the vast plain.
They form a majestic rainbow all around.
A fresh, delicate perfume wafts from the earth.
Yellow and white daffodils are the first to bloom.
The fragrance of purple hyacinths intensifies.
Contrast the white or blue iris with delicate snowdrops.
While here and there, Barberry and Hellebore attract bees.
Exquisite flowers dance around the plain,
Each stem enchants in the breeze’s rhythm
Warping and winding as they search the sun.
Bees dart from bloom to bloom in search of nectar.
Oh, what a sight nature paints!
Last night I drifted between dreams.
The dawn was too weak to keep me awake.
I closed my eyes with intention—
to step back through the curtain.
The dream re-opened lucid,
not as I had left it then,
but as I wanted it to be.
I warped the path of the flowing stream.
Its waters following my lead.
I called to the spirits,
the half-seen and half-forgotten,
and they came in up close.
They hummed their mantras,
their eyes enlivened with flame.
Their fire did not burn.
It melted old dregs away;
things I had clung to.
Renewal rose through my chest,
bright and oddly burden free
I pressed through the ashes.
Sought not to awaken but to reshape—
To change what was fixed.
The dream became pliable.
A soft-clay under my breath.
I felt doubt and concern as,
I opened the door, entered the space,
feet bare on the floor.
Each corridor was pliant for me—
the walls redrew with each sleepy sigh.
When morning awoke and returned,
the dream’s pulse still beat in me.
As my eyes opened, I knew,
that we can rearrange whorls,
when sleep and waking coalesce.
Ominous bays of hellhounds thunder in the bleak night
As a shattered glass slipper is found amongst powdered ivory snow,
The glint caught within incorporeal warping moonlight—
Leading to a blue grey corpse, mangled with frozen tears cemented in place.
Hands clenched around a copper timepiece,
The minute hand paused at one past twelve.
The putrid scent of desperation still hangs heavy in the air.
A note, scribbled in vermilion, is tucked within her bosom:
I'm sorry. I was overwhelmed—and so very lonely. She came to me with promises of grandeur. All I had to do was make a pact: be home by midnight, or my soul would forever be hers.
How could I resist? She seemed so innocent, with the smells of childhood lingering—conjuring up all that is glorious.
Besides, you, my dear family, seemed not to notice, nor care, about the pain quietly consuming me. So I took the deal, inked in blood and sealed with a poisonous kiss.
If you happen to find this note, I never made it back in time. And my fate lies within her mercy.
An alarm clock.
On the edge of the nightstand.
No one came after me the whole night.
Except the skin of my thoughts.
Shaking but nothing.
It’s like I woke up and ate gravity and passed out again.
It’s all about time.
Wrappers crinkling underfoot.
More and more trash scattered.
Warping.
The sound of the garbage truck is blending into everything…
And no one calls me anymore!
An alarm clock.
Which cooks up seconds for us.
And burns us.
Feeling unwieldy when I stand.
Getting up even though I’ll be late anyway.
Being strong is doing things to make yourself later and later.
Uncooking the toast.
Unbrushing your teeth.
Creating more places to be.
Places which are just outlines.
There’s still that alarm clock.
That goes on.
The thing about killing Angels
you have to remember is always go for the kill shot
Most of them can easily take a grenade to the face
Those arch ones usually stay put and watch
Basically on tap with God
Seldomly they will make an appearance
Demons are tricky
Disguise themself basically animal vegetable mineral
One time my electric razor tried to bite a clump from my cheek, huh still makes me smile
He turned towards the boy
His crumple of a face
grimacing
The book boy learn it well
He turned hunched over
Bent and snatched the head from
the prone child at his feet
The sack boy open it
Without the head
We won’t be fed….
The boy pulling a single golden strand from his pocket
the strand warping reality around it
air forming the sack
Please
Just once
Not a three point shot…
Another 3 seconds he chide only infinity to go
At this rate we will be working long after the end
w o r d s
wondrously wielded
warm wenches
wise with witless wet with woe
w i c k e d
weaselly wolves
w i z a r d s
warping wills
watering wishing wells
waylaying wishful
w o m e n
who wanted worshipful watchmen
when winters would wrest wealth
!
I can feel the darkness creep in.
The chatter in my mind is getting louder and stronger.
I steady myself as I know it’s coming for me.
That inner voice has awoken again,
like a starving beast, wailing for its fill.
It takes hold of my reality.
The rage flows into me like the poisonous venom from a serpent bite.
The pain takes hold.
like a bullet as it leaves it’s chamber.
my inner self twisting and warping
in the vortex of chaos.
I stare out into the world
The twinkle in my eye I once had, vanishes.
Replaced with numbness and a single tear sliding down my lifeless face.
I want to cry and let it all out.
Release the pain and hurt but I can’t.
It won’t allow me that merciful wish.
I am trapped.
In my mind I am screaming for something to take away this painful dread I feel.
It consumes me and becomes the only thing that lets me know I am still alive.
How much longer can I keep fighting this invisible invader.
It’s taking away everything I am.
My dreams, my love, my purpose.
But when the darkness fades away, and it will.
I still have hope, that one day
I will be released from its grasp
and allow my soul that peaceful silence It longs for.
I cannot see untainted,
The world without the warping windows.
I fail to make, for I am merely
An illusion of inconsistencies
Stolen from society.
I wonder how open a mind can be before its brains
start to
spill.
The buttons on a blouse,
the proportions of her face,
the rules of a tennis court,
Lost in this familiar place.
The simple essay makes me think.
A pen out of ink.
We shrink.
What will happen when I experience
The real world?
Get a grip
And grow up.
He hears again
the far-off jiggling of keys,
the throaty cough of ignition,
recalls strafing lights
on a night-blurred road.
Moths, like pale flowers,
crash against the windscreen.
Over-reaching branches
whip back and forth, warping
a transfixed retina.
A gritty sleet, then,
the bloodied head, the matted fur,
the flaying shanks;
a frozen shock laid bare.
Returning to the garage,
warm metal ticks,
he stares at a dark windscreen,
the dead
spread across his mind
still looking for a way out.
Dozens of glass pieces glittered all over the floor.
A photo of their
wedding day lay bare between her feet.
She felt its nakedness warping it
gently in the soft breeze breeze,
blowing from her mother-in-law’s room. It was
an omen. She painstakingly collected
all the pieces, and meticulously
joined them together with superglue.
Once again the photo was vacuumed
away from the sands of time.
The bonding though, looked as though it was
disintegrating.
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