Max, or Not

lo, without cats
there is naught

but ostentatious hordes
of vermin

restive nights
bereft of reason

spiraling
down the dwindled path

wistful wants
of fitful fervor

servitude
to slakeless sovereigns

flailing
in the self-bound prison

patrons
of a cruel indoctrine

frigid
sans thy furred companion

left
to tend the toil of humans

gone are purrs
that soothed thy sorrow

destined
for the noose of morrow

mother nature marred
with chaos

failed
by deus ex machina

lexicon
no longer valid

relics
riddled with patina

felled
by man’s incessant malice

lost
without the feline bounty 

humankind
a hopeless wasteland

exiled
from its god ailuric 

fear is antithetical
to everything we hold so dear
the impetus born of impotence
fomenting civil disrepair

when doting on the self, preserved
absurdity presumes its place
our ethics become bastardized
until we fall into disgrace

how boundless is the unknown sky
whose breadth of freedom lingers nigh
’til ignorance besets the heart
and wrests the mind of its comply

no solace for a soul condemned
when exiled by the ego’s id
redemptive reins are soon forgone
replaced by trustless narratives

whose bias stirs an untold ire
as fires unfold before our face
our conscience lost amid its remnants
fostering what fate conspires

such conclusions since foregone
e’er culminate the darkened dawn
spirits bereft of fulmination
spinning in their spires like pawns

with resolve and voice surrendered
frightened by our shadowed self
we turn away from all the world
to wallow in our hollow shells

a view
so revealing

whose vision
we spent

from entrenchments
of trust

failed
by bloodlet ideals

all would vanish

‘neath the weight
of fate’s bus

Cupid…
what a stupid jerk
afflicting fools
with poison arrows

who could ever think
his bane a boon
deserves to wind up sterile

i’m not bitter
just a bit perturbed
by this disturbing cherub

leading people on
with false ideals
affixed to fleeing carrots

sure, i’ve known love
just enough to make acquaintance
with the toxins

seeping from the oven
right beside my outline
freshly chalked in

love is but an err of humans
hiding behind freakish guises

spurred by reproductive urges
triggering grave compromises

heed these words
and save yourself
before your better years
are wasted

flailing in the fantasy
of chemically induced extasis

face it
there’s no fucking way
that you can win
romantic matters

i submit
you ditch your shits to give
before your heart gets shattered

i think

of this pen
as a crutch

to adhere me

to anywhere

“here” might be

fleeting embrace

as i flee

in antipathy

conscious abandon

to pyres of prometheus

fool
and his fellow

the pen
he will follow

with filial ardor

a prophecy poised

sowing parodied selves

by the math which was spoken

for then
it was them

and now

by the spurious path

of this pen

do i send my regards

to the garden
of eden

wrested
by her ruthless arms

would shards emerge
untrue

the trepid ward
of words
left wanting

deftly held

o wintry dearth

awaiting
in the wane
of mirth

to etch our hour

there
beside the withered branch

which bore
what youth

yet squanders
into soot and silt

jaded, mayhaps
but the sadist, i know
by the drear of spent days
in this sentence

of dreadful displeasure
and tenuous tether
to that which was wrought
by my penance

to what vile avail
did this frail heart relinquish
to perish, impostor alone

the solitude gloaming
bequest of conclude
viewed through mirrors
of a prelude moon shone

whose riddance is cast
‘long the tides of the past
rigid shores deftly shorn by shed selves

with the dawn wind, arise
amid rows of wreathed eyes
reap the seeds sown
by this wretched shell

to wither in writhing
‘mid throes of spent worth
the worst is…
alas, ask us, Edgar…

for so cruel is the crux
of a bedward soul vexed
since the hour
heaven’s coil did beset earth