Before Us

to awaken
into death

is the dream
none dare brandish

listless, heavy-lidded
landslide

in somnolous languor

beholden to the mercy
of a cursed blink

and the blinding
of our blackest truth

laid out
to die
before us

[image credit: Francisco de Goya]

Singing Sand

i waft along
this cloud of dust
in empty clement skies

a drusy sun sets
streaks of ruby
citron fire
reach on across the land
like lonely nights
in soft sahara

the mountains gain a shade of haze
as echoing winds whisper
with the stoic cries of crickets
in a muted droning lull

twilight bends
beyond eye’s edge

the deepest blue lapis sets in

contentedness
we once possessed

lies trapped behind the silent veil
no map had e’er descried

through layers of lamenting torment

seething of her phantom cilice

ceaseless

in a listless cause
of indolent demise

[image credit: Bud Duncan]

Cross My Heart

if you
kill me now

i won’t complain

i will not make a sound

i cross my heart
and hope to die

if only
in your arms

 

[image credit: Harry Clarke]

Compendium

sink beneath
the sand of sorrows

hallowed catacombs
await

mortal tombs
hold treasures borrowed

sown into
the desert’s wake

time exists
in every tense

with all dimensions
coalescing

ancient tomes
foretell the future

shifting
in between dimensions

drift from ending
to beginning

softly
silent suns are setting

as we shed
our sacred secrets

into the abyss of freedom

Measures More Than Justified

i swear to you
if one more fucking ant crawls on me
i will lose it

what the fuck
has led them here
i haven’t any food to forage

where the fuck
could they have come from
and why will they not go away

how the fuck
has this become the state
of my reality

every step i take
to rid my humble home
of their invasion

somehow summons twice as many
more determined than before

jesus fucking christ
it’s just an ant
how then could it have wrapped
its tiny jaws around my flesh
with such a force for me to feel it

i am but a pacifist at heart
but this incessant onslaught
pesters me beyond the point
of patience and composed demeanor

fuck, i’ll just be honest
their assault has taken quite a toll
i’m hesitant to tell you
of the murderous thoughts
in my head

if not that, then suicide
is fast becoming ever likely
of course, then they would dine upon
my listless corpse
and i won’t have it

even if i stood for hours
smashing every one that came
they would keep appearing
in exacerbated states of ardor

maybe if i went online
to search for homemade bomb instructions
i could build one big enough
to halt their heedless hordes

last time, when i took such measures
all was said and done
no sweat
granted, at that time the circumstances
were far less horrific

it was just a wayward group
of eight jehova’s witnesses
they refused to leave me be
oh yeah, and then those missionaries
mailmen, and that meter reader

let me get back to my point
this siege will not allow for nonsense

since you asked
the answer’s no
i’m not concerned with my new neighbors
church of scientology
whatever in the flying fuck it was they called it

all i really care about
is blowing up those fucking ants
if it should happen others perish
so be it
i can’t be bothered
really

that’s on them
that they were living
as much as it is for their death

shit, i wouldn’t be surprised
if they had been responsible
for sending all these ants to get me
for some fiendishly clandestine reason

oh my fucking god
it’s true
and now i’ve got more work to do

those bastard scientologists
are going to have a blast
and much like it was in the past

i will be the last one standing
bellowing the biggest laugh

Ode to Nicolaus-of-the-Sun

thy faintest contour
stole away
my consciousness of mind

the gods had draped me
in a realm
of excess exquisite

chests indulged
of selenite did slough
with bare refulgency

merging strikes
barbaric heaving

maleness
manacled in chainmail

criminal
didst cup constrictive

summoned heat
from sweetened friction

visceral
precipitant

banded strands
stretched tenuously
strung with statuesque erecting

flesh of cryptid cusp
and blustered hue
imbrued from brusque abrade

strapping
with a sturdiness
to beckon vice
from days of yore

swore studly forms
of ardent study
hours long and arduous

Sir Nicolaus! i cry
what thoughts besiege
my frail composure

compromised by rippled
thew with pulse of potent impose

ecstasy encompassing
his sexton arm’s saxon embrace

brandishing a brawn
to render
every knave his pawn of privy

lash thy leather-laden fury
leash mine impure soul
with haste!

douse me
in thy verse
triumphant

trenchant
as the lunar blade

bathing in thy
breathless inquest

trouncing
like a bison herd
at the hour
of forbidden dusk

hoarding hesitation
forming sedulous
below

shouldst thy barren breast
e’er hover
skies of supple
silk embed

the flames of brooding
wouldst impend
with trilling prod
of importune

like surging wells
on crescent shores
imploring swords
of sowed release

lonesome rogues
dealt swift
a sweltered
sun of melting
auric fleece

bound like mured barbarians
gone mad
with torturous vexation

strident thrusts
of jutting bulge
and urgent bender
banned by lawmen

turgid girth swoons
swathing growth
doth ghastly
fill tumescent eye

pinning this supine
confliction
to a bed of fallow dross

O my precious Nicolaus

let us not fall
remiss

like pistils
sifted into dusted dreams
of lust lamented

let us now succumb
to rubble
amid subtle
swells combusting

~fini~

Groomination

a kitty cat’s grooming is always suspicious
this truth i have analyzed over the years
the agony of aggregate clumps cilicious
alludes to an aeluroid aspect most queer

consider the context of when they commence
and a pattern conspicuous soon is revealed
as subsequent to an embarrassing moment
they feign nonchalance as a means to conceal

which is quite ironic, for as we all know
cats are nothing if not the vanguards of aloofness
yet, somehow they are so acutely self-conscious
regarding their state of inferable smoothness

of course, this technique is applied other places
like when you so heedlessly trample right past them
the shock and appall of an affront so tasteless
will spur such a groom nearing self-mutilation

and don’t you dare think to presume consolation
for all of your pleas stand to fall on deaf fur
their tail tells the tale of availed indignation
no chin scratch on earth could elicit a purr

on some rare occasions, debris might affix
to their feline in such a way barring removal
in these times their grooming airs slow and deliberate
as they give their all to appear as though casual

at times i have pondered, if not for their shame
would not their fine coats fall into disrepair
it’s fortunate that we stand only to gain
when cats most emphatically feign not to care

Wand of Levant

slumber
of saffron
and fuschia
release me

beyond
the bleak desert wall
ceaselessly arid

desiccant seascapes
secluded by sand-chime

soft planes
prohibit
a treason
of privy

siphoning sweat
by the swelter
of swoon

only a midsong
of autumnal tertian

daring descrier
could fly by the borage

brandishing
brushed silhouettes
kissed with sopor

lulling the languishing
planet in spirals

petaline prosody

cistern imbrued

weft in wisteria
wand of Levant

let the Vellela wind
wend you my way

withhold
and i will
most willingly wither

awaiting
on solemn
shore’s wallow
awash

[image credit: Claude Monet]

Distant Earths

i could hide
for a hundred
thousand years

and still emerge
with the same spectrum
of debilitating fears

avoidance does nothing
to avail our evolution

for the breadth of our experience
carries on in our dearth

and distant earths
may yet reveal
our present form unknown

nonetheless

a consciousness
cannot eclipse
its own immortality
for all eternity

and yet . . .

[image credit: Fumihiro Kato]

As I

i thought about writing
a suicide note

what it will say
if anything

to whom it will be addressed
if anyone

what each person will think
if anything

most people
will never find out

alas
there is no cause for alarm

we are here

we are gone

i have no wish
to see the sun

i know what role this life permits me

only in death
is freedom found

i do not need to be remembered
to be free

. . .

i love you.

i love you like a dying star
loves a midnight sky
through eyes of innocence

the wrath of time’s restraint
it paints the moon
as i lay silent

casting off abandoned scars
and erstwhile sentiments unsung

in shadows of our truths untold

let me not spiral
into such hollow affectations

of this entropy transposed

so grave is its disparity
in remnants
left behind

written on walls
in exile unseen
surrendered

to the aftermath
unknown

with nothing
left
to say

we languish
in our broken idyll

so duly run its course

as i