Misdirection is a Trap

Upon the arts
Be shadows
Less than mortals be
Locked for ever
In a battle
Lost
Between a lovers' tree
The sheets are worn
And oaken bare
Beneath the emerald light
Their souls stay listlessly
Unable to flee the fight.

Autumn

A still shadow falls
Ghost-like through tired entropy
Into fading night.

(In)Discretion

Dissonance
Ambivalent
Empty
Like swimming the desert
While paddling a canoe
Unpleasant
And somehow
Obviously
Wrong.

Summer's End

Cold, the tempest waits
To breach the sea, bring the tide,
and swallow the land.

History will Forget us

An exceptional
Task awaits those well steeped in
Mediocrity.

Life is But a Paradox

These boundless bonds of purgatory
Chafe and tear the skin
In a way soothing as a mother's touch
To wax and wane
Both too large and yet too lean
With nothing of meaning sacred
There is no sense in it
Just to intuit without intuition
Tearing apart a thousand empty boxes
To find a single grain of sand on a beach
Oddly bereft to find you hear
A kind of hollow sadness
Like knowing what you ought to feel
Without the comfort of actual emotion
It lies here, and exhausted heap
Eyes closed and lifeless
With strong breath
An oxymoron of moronic proportions
Ingenious in its lack of whit.

The Spinning Top at Rest

Censure
The East
The North
The South
The West
Where land holds firm
Its bounty
Where the sea is teaming
With life
For treachery lies in wait
Within the beating heart
The churning blood
Of every creature animate
The bad slipped in between the beats
That sound loudly
Brave and strong
A clamour
To cover
The infirmity
The desperation
Of each stop between
Beware
Be gaurded in esteem
Yet take care not to shred the garment
Don't under or over estimate
Measure
But be cautious
For life only succeeds
After climbing
And standing tall
Upon the shoulders of death
The dear may not be welcome born
Without the dearly departed.

Hubris

Within nothing more
Set forth to fight these demons
Without nothing less.

Disecting Still Disatisfaction

Entropy
And waste
These hands
Poised to mold
Wonders
Unseen in
A thousand worlds
Commit acts
Of such mediocrity
That are seen
In all but one,
To sever
Offending fingers
One by one
Feeding the birds
As each is plucked
While cruel
Remains no more
Rare an act
Than
Entropy.

How Lemmings Propagate

Wears away my soul,
This unending circle of joy
And dancing despair.

Serendipity

Dip the seed
In lemming water
To ensure corpulent growth
Watch it
Till the sun goes down
Comes up
Goes down again
To sew a winter weave
With sweaters bare
And thread worn.

A Marker for History

With warring tribes
They cut each other down
Piece by piece
Until each side lies shattered
Entrails soaking the parched earth
And the weak ones who remained
Who watched
Dumb struck by ambivalence
More than fear
Starve
And still say nothing
Save their bones
That scream more loudly
Than the flesh that once encased them
Ever did.

Last Ditch Effort to Raise a Finger

We fight endlessly
A long internal battle
Against indifference.

A Mirror of Many Pieces

It is a quiet place
Where softly spoken words
Breathe life
To everything
Unsaid
In soft
Listless colours
Distilled by a memory
It is a quiet place
As a tomb.

Pooling Sunlight

Waste away

With silent summers

Rest away

With small cacophony

Enjoy the moon's

Sinking slumber

Awaits.

The Tongue

Centerless centrifuge
Without rhyme, reason or doubt
May be fictitious.

Numb Interlude

Feelings ebb away
Bleeding out, a patina
Of sympathy left.

The Minstrels' War

If a quicker wit

A whistle

Watching call

Without

A whistled ear

To wander

A gander at the wall.

Without a

Wotcher who

Will wonder

At what you've done

Weaving varied tapestries

Though wearing all but none.

A wandering minstrel

With a

Wolfhound at his back

Weaving between his heels

Warily watching those

Who wearily

Walk the

Winding path

Westward and Eastward

To Hell's warm heart

The wicked, half witted

Wastrels hack.

Stones Cast Away

Without evening
Tide a pendulum keeping time
Through a water clock.

Sense Memory

Torn into a rage
By lacklustre desire
The human psyche.

The Feeling Corpse

Lying exposed
To the elements
Intestines
Splayed
Wantonly
Smouldering
Eyes
Plucked out by a passing crow
Lascivious
Lipless
Smile
Inspiring
Coiling passion
Giving rise
To a deep
Soulful yearing
Erupting
In an irrepressible
Scream.

Ingenue

Coming Down
From above stairs
A long winding hall
Upon which
The lady tripped and fell
And shattered like a doll
The wind swept up
The pieces then
And carried them out to sea
The freedom of the spirit therein
Left the body floating
As so much debris.

Microduality

Extreme in essence

Duality with neither cause

Nor clear remedy.

Eyes Shut Upon Waking

High upon the shelf

Reaching down with long fingers

Fear and loathing sit.

Cynical Hopes

Dreams, hopes and wonders

Small things left behind the couch

To fester and rot.

My Kingdom for a Dystopia

A simple loss

This pound of flesh

Measured on weighted scales

Hands and feet

Go first

Then teeth by the ounce

Until a pound weighed

Odd how

An entire body

May be reduced to a single pound

Although a bargain is a bargain

No matter how slanted

And Hell the judge and jury

But not the executioner

That office

Lies in Heaven.

Standing Above from Below

From within

The inside

Enclosed

From the outside

Entombed

In the open air

Bound

By ambivalence

Hollowed

Empty

Gone.

However Deep the Purple

Without the virtue

Of still standing convictions

Integrity dies.

Valued Purpose

Traipsing

Upon the merry road

Of diminished options

Until none remain

Leaving a person

No more than

What lies apparent

A cold day

Full of purpose

But bereft

Of possibility.

Tunnel Vision

As hope quickly dies

Eternally extinguished

A numbing cloak drops.