Great Big World*

beyond
my front door

lies a great
big world

more vast
than is humanly
comprehensible

a veritable cornucopia
of prospect propitious
and liberty endless

brimming
with untold
opportunity
and infinite possibility

for me

to swiftly
and precisely

meet
my ultimate
demise

Not Even Death

when everything
is gone
nothing matters

the only place
you still exist
is barely even tangible

but you don’t care
no one cares

not even death

and so it persists

The Last Pain

fading in
and out of shadows
faces
of bizarre contortion
glaring
as a stranger’s
features
reach into
this bed of famine

trapped within
these walls
without you

terror-stricken

anxious

reeling

haunted
by fates unforeseen

fleeing
from my own escape
on paper
pouring tortured
thoughts

poring over
art
distraught
in attics
dimly lit
amid daunting stacks
bearing chronicles
so unfamiliar

taunting
with disparity
the stalking stares
cast cold as steel

the last pain
I am left to feel
is lost to numbness
pitted in this hole
that was my conscience

Stranded On the Precipice

death escaped
my hands

and left me

standing at the altar

the emptiness
received me
like a self-
inflicted wound

in a room
adorned with trinkets of trifle

faintly linking
my alter-ego
to this faux land

of vaulted heart
and vapid mind

where visions turn
away
afraid
to learn

of their inbound
inception

this blunderous aberration
has no station

nor foot
to find it steady

a cistern of depleted days
precedes each ghastly step
in protest

stranded
on the precipice
of a sempiternal impasse

surely they jest
upon questioning
assent to my depression

such pain belies
its own expression

and politesse yet stays
my tongue

Wrought with Misery

silence ever
bleeds eternal

on such
darkened eves

huddled
in the farthest
reach

of hidden
memories

barren conscience
lies below

where
shallow whispers
breathe

brandishing
the burdens
buried ‘neath
a bed of leaves

once
shone verdant
in their glory

now tinged
with decay

tucked
in scattered layers

singed
in tattered
disarray

everything
that mattered

faded
in a distant scene

drifting
into nonexistent

narratives
serene

pages bare
the words
unspoken

waging wars
unseen

wading
in the erstwhile
waters

wrought
with misery

Shades of Pompeii

somewhere
along this wayward
path

i lost
the sum
of you

in broken
buttons

crumpled
papers

whispers

faintly
promised

to reflections

we once
bared

scattered
over trails
capricious

memories
thread precious
pleas

plotting
their escape

like petty fools
from plighted faith

parched
from implore

upending
thoughts

would mark
the path

that led me
to your vested
heart

when vagrants
sought
the stars

and charted
the descending
hours

of our last
reverie

rapt
in such despair

’til all
that i could
see

were driftless
streaks
of blackness
stripped

amid
the grip
of shame

unearthed

where flashing
shades
of pompeii

stayed
in grim dispart

impressed
upon

the distant
sky
estranged

a world
apart

Another Day

another day

another chance
to wallow
in this hollow
fetid shell

another dance
amid the fallout
of this self
constructed hell

forever burdened
by this curse
immersed in faded
aquarelle

ever is this
burgeoning dearth
fated
until i am
felled

A Mind Once Sound

i bear
your cross

in the frost-addled agony
of anhedonia

adrift
in discrepant lucidity

of dolent disrepair

its wintry sermon
inhabits
my every haunt

taunting
my inhibition

intently
transmuting

this glacial divide
thawing
with haste

forestially untethering

each stinging tie
to a mind
once sound

rant of scant merit

I guess I’m an emotional masochist
because I always fuck everything up
far beyond the precipice
of merit propitious
 
Dare I say
it’s depressingly disconcerting
for it’s duly quite fervid
the ferocity with which I unfailingly inflict
this inbound bondage

I have deemed a living hell upon myself
whose reins I shall never relinquish

Nor shall I ever dispel
the curse that these verses disperse
on my pithless personage  

I search for the dirge
that might deign to divulge
my divergent urges
surging to ravage my visage
with savage compulsion
and vague supposition  

Vulgar and vile these vices I vaunt
when enveloped in venting 
with vanity’s wont

As I saunter hauntingly
to a daunting demise 

I witness this witless world
through wistful windows of time
since rescinded sans residual reticence
of rote compliance
that readily dotes on my amative recalcitrance  

To further articulate this artless affliction 
so to properly parse the veil of this valse 
lacking prevalent cause
prudent pause must be given
to parlay the amplitude of dispossession
so that I mayhap, per se
gain from said deprivation  

With all best intentions
mentioned ad infinitum
impressed upon god’s greatest audience of none  

Yet somehow I find
that the soul of my mind
ever shuns me thus spurring
to run underground
just so that I may hide
from this hideous horror
whorled in writhing

Undermining my chances to shine
with such vibrancy confined to contrivance
in idle contradiction to idyllic ideals

Where no sound is present
to presage profound plights
of piteous people persistently perishing
garishly sinking into sentient pits
of sapient despair

And here I lay
hapless in hyporeactive states
hopeless to extend a helping hand
bearing the selflessness of our sole salvation

To solve any quarrels of lore’s requiem
as ennui quandaries of quietus quell
squeamish skin squandered  

Acclimatization to scandal and scourges
encouraging naught but a purging averred

Spurious inference evinced disingenuously
a word so misused it defines what is wincing

Thrust upon miasmic oceans of plasma
in plumes plotting schisms of ruinous rue

Sophists usurping
poised with dissemblance
in spite of supinely presented sound pleas 

At which point I ponder
to pander implore
that you please apprise me
what purpose this is for

Aside from assuaging an aging aplomb
ere appearing as pompous
as this pen’s pathetically impaired plies
of reasoning so paltry

Alas, I digress
for my state of distress
is distorting the functions
compressing my chest  

Lest I cease and desist
I shall cease to exist
but at least I know this much
is blissfully true:
I am fucked
and I cannot resist
this fool’s fate
of such languorous
and lasting lamenting libration

Intent on selling my soul
to the devil in reveries 
of such voracious dyspepsy
and lack of discretion
so disseminating degrading the ground
that I share with my fellow
formations of foul indignation interred  

In tombs of tempestuous vestibules
flailing in failure
so profound it resounds and reverberates
in sonorous echoes
that beckon our reckoning
in this armageddon that hails from charred skies

Rippling throughout our decrepit contortions
condemned to a cold crippling morphine drip
faintly gripping death’s sinewless hand
where we lie

Existence Remiss

lo, i know naught but an ignorance dire
inflicted upon those who dare court my ire
possessing scant patience for due diligence
i have no inclination to sate precedence
for all that i see is a world which devolves
revolving around me with heedless resolve
to suffer such consequence not born of my realm
indolent irreverence is a relic unsound
so profound is this bliss some might call it profane
still i’m bound to persist as they wither in vain
from the slithering stress steeped in sorrowful waves
such a grave indignation of conscience enslaved
abhorrent abomination i deign piteous
seeking sordid salvation of scorn hideous
sisyphean sell-outs diseased and distraught
such boolean fallout finds fools ever-fraught
with frivolous fears ere their failings forsooth
the fate of their frail bed of tears ailing truth
entailing an entropy expeditious
extrinsically linked to existence remiss