Category: Uncategorized

Darkness over the ferns
And rocks along the brook
Where the fishes swam deep
In cold water running to meadow
Where sunlight was beginning;
The first swallowtail wings
Opening on scarlet thistles,
As tree frogs quieted their songs;
A lone cricket began to sing.

Dark fantasies ride glistening moonbeams through my chamber window.
They dance their strange ballet on cobwebs in the flickering candlelight,
before they abide among the dusty tomes.
The tapestries strain to muffle the sound of my breathing,
and the frantic scratching of my quill across the dry parchment.
The moon slowly retreats behind thick clouds,
and the moonbeams are pierced by raindrops until they fade.
The raindrops do their melancholy waltz on the sill,
as lightning drives the dark from every corner of my chamber.
I smile as the thunder awakens something deep within my soul.

Somewhere outside my chamber door, a heavy chain drags the floor.

September opens the curtains
to a painful wind
and I know I am the tree
outside my window
becoming bare.
My father’s in his cancer chair
alone
chatting with the nurses
as if they’d made a date.
His wife waits for him
in the vast black parking lot.
She posts she’s been in the used bookstore
and had avocado toast for breakfast.
Too soon
summer’s over.
Every autumn secretly waits, for death
comes into town whistling
puttering about
arranging our existence.
I envision my regeneration;
the same tree out my window, maybe
or on a boat at sea.

Sitting here staring at the screen and pondering life at the moment. Not sure how to come back from this. How do I rebuild my sanity and my life from what I did? How I did it. How I ripped the hair from her scalp and watched her bleed and cry while I bashed her head into the floor over and over till she could not make another sound.

What should I do? There can’t be a god. Why would god sit there and watch me commit this act and sit back on his golden white throne? While i smash this poor girls head into the fucking floor like a maniac. Is this who I am? Am I a monster? Am I a god? How do I judge this woman for what she does and decide if she lives or dies.

And now I wait. And now I must sit with all the thoughts. No matter how many times I wash the same towels and sheets washing the blood in the tub, I can’t not think about that horrific scene. Its imbedded into my fucking brain. I can’t think let alone breathe. I’m not a poet. I’m a killer. And a good one at that.

I think about death all the time. Wondering when death will knock on my door saying it’s time to go.
The constant hunger I crave. That passion I get with that devilish smile upon my face wondering who i will kill next. And I hope it’s soon. The pain and agony an screaming and crying as they bleed out and scream and cry and want me, as they beg to fucking stop.

The peeling of the skin and the smell of the flesh burning as she begs and begs and begs. And here I am again. Washing the sheets and towels, blood running down the drain. As the nightmare doesn’t end.

No amount of vodka or scotch can ail me in this time of need.

In Vietnam,
there are three million mines,
cluster bombs, etc.
A rose by any other name
will ruin a limb, after all.
Perhaps a few less,
as this report
is more than five years old…

To count to three million,
would take more than a month,
more than a mouth
full of empty numbers
could bear, and only
if this mouth should
never sleep.

The mines sleep, covering
eighty percent of what we
called the DMZ back in 1969,
the year after Tet, when the war
changed tides like a moonless
jungle river. They sleep,
holding buried nightmares
for farmers to unearth,
for wandering foot to find.

In Cambodia,
they have their own legacy
grown from lost limbs
and shattered families.
They shared that blurred
border jungle States endured,
before the satellites
came to measure each meter
with relativistic precision.

 
Cambodia,
had Khmer Rouge,
and the split it left
behind. With one
sleepless mouth,
they may have six months
of counted mines,
and one in five rural
villages or more, still
hold that secret fire.
Unlikely heroes have emerged,
heroes that have crawled
paw in hand with humanity,
bringing plague and horror
in their many billions, for many
thousands of wandering years.
The rats, in all their brilliant
evolutionary turns,
each run through
maze’s muddle, have become
smarter than many would
like to admit.

They can be trained,
to smell a mine, or bomb
beneath the soil.
Being small, they
do not evoke the demons
trapped beneath. Magawa,
was retired after five years
and one-hundred-and-nine
successes. Earning a medal
for his efforts.

If he lived forever,
if he worked forever,
if we had the time,
if we had the will,
in 250,000 years or so,
give or take, the task
could be done. But even
sized for a rat, 55,000
medals may be too
much weight to bear.

The crystal blue of the sky
turned to indigo
as the storm started to brew

the fragile paper planes
continued to cruise
as if they knew

this was their swan song

there’s a dead squirrel outside my window.
at first i thought it was alive,
his furry, nimble paws were still
with haalf-lidded, glassy black eyes.

and i don’t know why, but i thought of you,
a corpse so fresh it’s still alive.
but i saw that squirrel in the morning,
and wished it was you that had died.

don’t care
where they
hit –
skin blisters
bones break
organs explode
blood spurts
lives shatter
in the same
fashionable way
for everyone –
be they young,
old, innocent
or passersby
who receive
the gift
of unexpected
high velocity
searing lead
delivered by
mean intent
without any
warning or
reason given
just a guarantee –
thirty seconds
of fame
on the evening news
with thoughtful
prayers offered
while America
reloads.

Seven seals break
On a sacred book a prophet
Saw in his vision, bringing on
Our downfall.

One of the seals break
And he appears:
An armoured rider on a white horse
Turned deep red

From countless foes
From countless battles,
Much like his body suit—
Once chrome—shiny, showy—

He raises no flag, but
Quick to raise his sword, swift in his gauntlet fist.
He represents no kingdom, but
Serves many kings, with wishes to extend their rule.

Anywhere he rides,
His mounted presence incites the use of weapons.
Land mines, launched grenades,
Chattering M-16s, hollow point shots—

Young soldiers fall on
Either side of the field.
The long trail of dead uniformed
Flesh from his hasty, violent ride.

Last known whereabouts:
Myanmar, West Papua,
Ukraine, Congo, Haiti,
Lebanon, Iran, occupied Palestine.

Anywhere he charges
Into fiery disagreements
Petty rich men start,
There’s never

Enough blood
To slake
The twisted knight’s
Supreme thirst.

Anytime the threat of the Apocalypse
Presents itself, the horseman will show and
He’s never alone. His support comes as 3 dreaded followers:
Pestilence, Famine, Death.

To most,
The travelling
First horseman with bloodied armour
Is inevitable War.