A Polar Divide

a polar
divide

e’er pervades

this wavering visage
of sinuous veil

the restive wrath
of breathlessness

whispering
frailty

the freeing influx
of fire’s adorning

roaring
with impassioned plea

and sordid rationale

a brashness
pent
with lunar ashes

but sooner
harken voices

with wretched dissonance
squandering
madness

freefalling
in monochromatic
disparity

distant reflections
sentenced
to toil the time

where heart’s
divergent dwell

the wells of hybris
beget weeping stone

by the lurching
of earth’s tormented
breeze

release me
to discordance

This Latent Lament

your words
are the sinister fire
that burns
truth
through holes
in my head

with thoughts
that forever conspire
to spurn the unheard
consequence

i look to your kingdom
of ire
to learn
of my lost relevance

with hope
i may someday
retire
from churning
this latent lament

the days
of conflict
and desire
were earned
but would never
be spent

this love
once so fervent
and dire
returns now
to fine
sediment

[Photo: Mary Pickford]

Final Frame

i awaken
into dream

the essence so precise
a place
i know so well
it seems

this feeling
permeates every aspect
of my being

where i can
never again
expect
to be

time has turned

forbidden
spurned
forlorn

for the life
of me

i cannot
discern disparity

alas

my conscious mind
soon finds
the glass rift

as what was once
life shifts

the past
sight amiss

all is ripped
from this fervid grasp

in that fleeting
final frame

of perfect
freedom

forsaken

Our Illusion

i framed
our illusion

with fleeting peals
of idealized
allusion

a restless zeal

lavishly adorning
lucid visions
elusive

so obscenely ornate

even
the great daydreamers
shuddered

hushed
beneath clouds
of shamble

wept shadows

shed
without shame

I Hazard to Ponder

fragments of lovers
burned fast
fall to ash
in this charcoaled heap
that lay afoot

this exterior
excoriated
by the nails
of their failings

but none can impale

for I only have lived
in the aftermath
of a restless memory

forged in a dream

i hazard to ponder

if love had ever surpassed
the scorching
of this insolent soul.

but all I have
beheld

is mounds of
rubble
pounding
plotting
persisting.

the sea now beckons
the sanctity of sleep
on her floor
of forgiving

through this channel of tears
from sorrows impounded

A Brief Importance

in days of dust
and clouded haze
sing silent whispers
amid resignation

where muted martyrs
beckon forth
a call to arms
at arm’s length, lost

dull, broken banter
obscuring cries
as empty bottles
fill out our fears

skies loom strewed
with vacant signs
to feed the void
of eyes so vain

the passive ardor
adorning glass
peers through our window
in blighted light

a hand lay cold
on shoulder spurned
fixed in the moment
without flinching

when dusk came sweeping
the people waned
a brief importance
then saw me home

In Layman’s Days

in layman’s days
sorrow yet reigns
in remnants
of our love’s refrain
disseminating
through these veins
like silken web
to dying flame
a sallow face
of shallow waste
e’er haunts the gallows
hollow space
as wraiths in fallow fields
yet reap the harvest
of a heart’s disgrace
none can replace
the solace lost
absconded by
the albatross
e’er perched atop
the arch of Eden
bound by freedom’s
final cost
where pandered woe
bleeds disarray
sleeves brandishing
a heart of clay
turned languid
from the anguish
of exsanguination
on display

Separation

imprisoned
in irons
of ivory’s irony

inconsolable
impenetrable

in spite of ourselves
a splintered perfection

o, splendorous winter

let us seep into the silent spring

to sing assuagence
and sate the urgent seas
with tempest

Such Dreams Expire

pray this memory
tell no lies

in light
of truth
since shone

to strip me
of my last reprieve

pray not
these newly fallen whispers

speak ill
of our erstwhile tales

should they unravel
all my world

would vanish
into despair

for every sinuous
sorrow felled

arose
a sanctuary

that once
we shared

to dare
such dreams expire

but time
forever
radiates
in solemnity

and thus i am fraught
with this aching moor

of that which
i can never
come to mourn

How Can I

with time erodes the roads of hope
as seconds pass without distinction
wedged between the hourglass
in retrospect, a stranger’s fiction
e’er beholden to the past
shackled by fear’s ersatz depictions
diligently deconstructed
prone to dubious perceptions
doled out in fervid procession
sold out to our indiscretion
futures nigh belie the burdens
of reflective introspection
corporate chains restrain our choices
subjugated minds and voices
commandeering our convictions
volunteering our volition
fostering the hour’s dissension
lost inside our own dimensions
drifting states of lone diremptions
kissed by fate’s unknown afflictions
wistful days of rumination
stripped of our only salvation
dripping death with indignation
listless breaths of consternation
consciously resigned enslavement
viciously maligned by deviants
clamoring to hide misconduct
how can i but not give a fuck