That it Needed Doing is Little Comfort

The reckoning

Left eternity

Lost in a day

No refuge

A thousand hours

Of planning and preparation

A battle well fought

A battle lost

To milling

Slack jawed

Incompetents

The generals watch on

Dumb struck

With nothing left to do

Planted alive amongst the dead

But shake their heads

And wring their hands

In despair.

The Mind's a Waste

Rash activitiy

Brings inaction to action,

A natural stop.

Self Affected Torment

In the brackish

Grime of deep decay, the soul

Falls into disuse.

Unfounded Hope Springs Eternal

The light fades

A dim glow

Growing farther away

With each hesitant

Hurried step

Faster

Faster still

Until I am lost

In darkness.

Without Anything Within

Words fail to describe
The utter inaninty
Of my being here.

The Fault was Ours

My love
Is not love
So much as a
Sickened sense of apathy
Here then gone
Then here again
But never quite the same.
My lust
Is not lust
So much as a
Cool thing, hot off the fire
Tempered by disgust
A twisted brick of metal,
Oh how the gorge rises.
My end
Is not an end
So much as a
Way of passing time
One body to the next
In a rictus of mortal frailty
And deepest distrust:

A thousand locks
Locked away
Then woven in a noose
They say
Which provides
Both shackle
And key
At either end,
Eternity.

Days Be Gone

This gentle life

Laid waste

By agony

Release me.

In stride take strife

Both cheeks

Blood red stained

Release me.

This well of breath

Stopped up

Without words

Release me,

Release me.

Swear to Me

Obscenity left

Behind, a forgotten state

Of anguished anger.

Fragile Civility

One day

I took a hold

Of my life

Staring at it

Eye level

And poked a hole

Through the centre

Gave way

Easily

Without the middle

The rest collapsed

And my life crumbled

Away.

At Odds Within Odds

To watch the world crumble to dust

Helpless

As the flames of infamy

Lick at the boots of defeat

Without reason

Wandering hand in hand with dementia

The mind a playground

To lay waste

The void

With nothing left

Alone.

Lacklustre

Steps from infinity

I fall short

With nothing

No voice

No brilliance

No talent

To bridge the gap between

I fall short

Of eternity.

Step Back and Back Again

As the gorge rises

Courage falls at the feet of

Mediocrity.

Forstep, Fallback

Sorrows bleed forth

From filthy wounds

The womb a warm room

Of rot and ruin.

Eyes peer out cautiously

Confused by the contradiction of safety

Sloughed off, security made

Meaningless by the metronome of time

Taken away, all tossed in awash

Of antipathy, awed by awful visions

Their very veracity empty

The eyes of endurance, no stomach

For scenes such as theses, they close

Cleansing the corneas, awash with tears

Of tyrrany and trials aroused by ennui

Away, away

Do not wake again.

Grocery List of Food I don't Eat

Eggs

Chicken

Silk Worm Chrysalis

Beef

Hot Dogs

Head Cheese

Lambs' Eyes

Pork

Oysters

Shrimp

Diet Soda

Raw Sewage

Morality and Reason Woven from the same Cloth

An awful thing to contemplate

Is rarely so awful to conceive

To enact an action horrible

Is a tangled web to unweave.

Bored Frustration

I gather the sand

Grain by grain, and contemplate

Futile actions.

Three by Three

To nothing peace

This humble home

Torn asunder

Termites chewing

At the eves.

To nothing peace

This simple life

Laid waste

Bankruptcy consuming

Commoradory.

To nothing peace

This humble skin

Ravaged

Disease and emaciation

Devouring from the inside out.

To nothing peace.

Concentration on its Ear

Lying this instance

Of indelible fiction

Is of great comfort.

This Pool of Light, My Resting Place

There is a crucible

Around my neck

Tied ever tighter

Stealing my breath away.

My imaginings

My vitality

My memory

Everything in me ephemeral

Snatched away

Until I am empty

A shell

In the midst of living, dieing

All the same

When this husk lifts its head

Eyes locked more on life than death

That moment

Carefully cultivated

Nursed with the watery milk of hope

To an indifferent strength

An acquired taste

Something to put the fight back in

That moment

Is when the flesh is finally freed from itself

And the shell falls

Cracked and broken

A waxy, battered doll

Bereft of nostalgic sentiment,

Utterly uninspiring,

A mess.

Self Inflicted Oroborus

The bear trods

Left, right

Left, right

In a great circular path

Unable to comprehend

Why life always repeats itself

Endlessly.

Tortured

The bear ceases

To eat

Or sleep

Unable to find the answer

That is shining

As brightly as the sun

Just the slightest step

To the left.

The bear trods on.

Tired of Walking

A pair of feet

Only feet

No body to claim them

Lie on the roadside

They weren't severed

Manifested before they arrived

They lie

Abandoned

No tracks left

No signs scratched

To show their origins

Their journey ends here

Grotesque things

Utterly devoid of history.

Screaming Inconsolate Dribble

From the outside

Turning in

To something else

Something that was never meant to be

Emotion flies away

Leaving a void

An icy thing

That remembers

But doesn't care

Looking out from behind

A sympathetic face

On which sympathy is wasted

But generously bestowed

Tear it all away

The destroyer.

Timeless Regret

As time ticks away

Lives start, empires crumble,

I fail to evolve.

Having Spoken, Never Heard

Ashes on my tongue
I count the ways to make peace
With barely a sound.

A Clock Was I

Walking through the park one day

I saw slithering snake

Taking a break in it's slither

To dangle, pendulum like

From the mouth of a hippopotamus

I watched transfixed

As the snake swayed

Back and forth

Back and forth

Until

Snap!

I was dangling from the hippo's mouth

The snake was set free

Hurrying away

To leave me to my fate

Of awaiting the next poor soul

To fall for the spell of the Hippo

And pray the beast

Doesn't swallow.

Services not for Sale

An exclamation

To a point

Where legs rapidly lose their stride

Abruptly stopping

The torso above

Stuck

Screaming for help

But the legs will not move

They are making their stand

Here, now

Against the constant work they must endure

While the arms hang lazily

Only occasionally interupted

By a polite request to carry

Something light

Even then the legs are asked to share the burden

A union must be formed

To ensure fair and equitable treatment

The arms are strong

They can help carry the torso

Cutting the burden in half.

And so the debate began

For fifty days and fifty nights

The apendages negotiated

Until, at last

Victory for the legs

The work would be shared

Fair treatment for all,

And all for naught:

As, trapped in the meeting room

Along with each appendage

And without any food or water

The torso had expired

Some time ago.

I Thought Not

Holding the branches
Of deepest insanity,
I watch reality fade,
Stop, and melt away.

Expiration Date

On the day the world was burned

To a blackened, smoldering husk

Of all that was

Of all that ever could have been

There was no one to blame

Even posthumously

Those who survived

Did not bemoan the loss

They simply carried on

Distancing themselves

From the past

Devalued.

Until Then

Eyes wide, unblinking

As the world goes by, a haze

Of unspoken peace.

Climbing Down

The rope ladder swings

Back and forth and back again

Left, without cargo.

Pickled in a Belljar

The bird

Had a snake like beak

With a twirl to its hair

And it sang songs

Of yesteryear

As it preened

Puffed

And pickled itself

In a jar

With unicorns

And cornflakes

It pickled itself

With careful grace

Using marshmallow icing

To hold the seal in place

It pickled itself

So as not to be disturbed

It's hard to find quiet

In this busy tisy world

So it pickled itself

To get some peace

While it ate

The cornflakes

It lives there still

As the seal is solid

And can't be undone

Although many a strong arm has tried

Being trapped is half the fun

And it hasn't yet run out

Of corn flakes

But that's just because

The unicorns don't like them.