this mind
has left me
wading
in the waters
of lost will
unable to awaken
to the realm of god’s amend
whose piteous legacy
affords me no conference
through the fractured eyes
of man’s condemning
Transposing
holding on
with humbled heart
the hills succumbed
before me
raging
like the devil’s hearth
the earth
left drab and scorched
once
while perched
atop these peaks
a piece of me
quietly departed
unaware
until descent
the direness
of this spiraled dream
e’er i shall
endure its depths
as death reigns long
in sorrowed rain
this fallow ground
on which i stand
alluring
with its thoughts
impure
now conjuring
a new entreaty
beading
upon burdened brow
the briars
of ambrosia
tortured truths
remain
untouched
as tempest
tramples all terrain
and virtue
proven
unavailing
sovereignty
disavowed
our souls
denied
a savior
though Nature gasps
in ashen breaths
her song persists
transposed
[image credit: Milton Avery]
Sharing Is Caring:
Fates Since Abandoned
without death
we are nothing
a wintry embrace
long forgotten
grains of mured sand
in an endless descent
adorners of vitrails
neath skies of exalt
the morass of mortality
bound to such frivol
vaunting in vain
for a fool’s validation
regale me with tales
of a fabled existence
with just enough laughter
to stay my own ruin
let us sit on the ledge
where the sea hides the sun
in vigilant view
of our imminence
twinkled reflections
reveal glimpses of youth
lost in mirages
of futures imagined
to think of the fates
since abandoned brings pause
bewildered in awe
as our final breath flees
[image credit: Jennie Harbor]
Sharing Is Caring:
Extant Toll
reeling from the shrill assail
falls entropy surreal
shrieking past in amaranthine streaks
present will
spawn futures fading
fanning flames
of phantom fears
the silphium of self-affliction
arms outstretched
wretched hands of spider-like accosting
insistent to collect the extant toll
mortals of a moribundity
so profoundly mundane
stranded on ledges
of bridges burned
at oblivion’s edge
a futile spiral of lament
into event horizon
[image credit: Freydoon Rassouli]
Sharing Is Caring:
Pointed Lessons
the abstract tapestry of thought and emotion
sifting through memories
persisting beyond the toll of midnight
a surreality poignance fraught
amidst your fabled absence
through context into lucid light
those wayward flecks take flight
seeing now
the urgency defining bated breath
hindsight is a bird unbounded
heaven’s haste begets unheeding
by the merit of its taste
left on the tongue in lingering
how is it that voices lacking tangible disclosure
visibly vociferate through vales
our verities unseen
only to be vetted in the aftermath
of fate’s denouement
moments later, vested virtues
forsaken anew
by the nighest conscious duress
of my conscience’s affording
i will honor your bestowing
in the bastion of my breast
pray not let these pointed lessons fall
when life resumes its pique
[image credit: Edouard Goerg]
Sharing Is Caring:
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
Sharing Is Caring:
Apropos Creation?
sometimes in life
it’s all you can do
not to hang from the end
of a dangling noose
when ideals falter
from altered epiphanies
self-imposed litanies
taunt us as truth
reasons unclear
hearken feelings concise
as we slowly succumb
to scopolamine nights
on a hollow dimensional plane
of feigned platitudes
sorrowful vice
desperate pleas seeking quietude
labeled as sacrilege
should we repair
to undo the heedless act
of summoning us here
where an iron fist reigns
with such ironic scrutiny
e’er you should mention
proactive acuity
still, none dare question
’til quietus calls
of that which our parents
paid no mind at all
the stigma, long-standing
insists these facades
are gifts that cannot be revoked
but by god
how oddly beholden
to cognitive bias
that we forgo logic
and deign ourselves pious
to then misappropriate
most hypocritically
fate in itself
with such flagrant defiance
if only our efforts
were aimed toward reality
instead, we sacrifice all
for mere fantasy
lacking the merit
to make the distinction
between fact and metaphorical depiction
we must make the choice
to adhere to a mindset
consisting of ethics
not pandered by pretense
for should we persist
to exist with such dissonance
life itself will soon submit
to obsolescence
[image credit: Louis Wain]
Sharing Is Caring:
Universal Truth
The universe has once again flourished in my consciousness. Knowledge of my own existence and that of the world around me becomes my reality. There are many things, infinite things for which i feel fear and unknowing. Life persists and time is imminent. I am helpless to anything other than surrender to its insistence.
In spite of the anguished plight of each individual’s existence, i feel the warm energy of assurance and comfort radiate throughout my entire being. An understanding that all that has been, all that will be, and all that is, shall be okay.
The singularity of time and truth looms above. Not as a harbinger of sorrow but as the sun, infusing all with its golden beams of love. Doting on each and every one of us with buzzing motes of life’s exquisite mystery. Anything within and beyond our comprehension may take place at any given moment.
Just as we are here so shall we be gone. As those that are gone are here, surrounding us with their love and granting us stay. Their existence continues in all realms. The love that permeates throughout the varied instances of our day speaks of this divine truth.
This understanding brings hope. The love we all share brings hope. Hope is the understanding that although we have no possible way of knowing what things may come, we refuse to let the fear of the unknown tarnish our weary hearts. For we know that things will be okay.
Knowing that regardless of the surreality of reality and all things contained therein will happen as they will. And this is okay.
Every moment we have ever experienced. Every treasured memory Every misplaced memento that wanders throughout our subconscious as the fuel that feeds the fire of our dreams. Every brief moment of perfect happiness that so fleetingly dashed across our life’s landscape. Every first beholding of love that was previously unknown to our conscious minds. All of these exist in this very moment.
When we gaze upon the open sky of umbrage we are overcome with a sense of wonder and awe. As we glance upon the very particles that compose our own existence in physical and ethereal form. The true essence of everything in every temporal tense of existence.
That truth is love.
[image credit: Chesley Bonestell]
Sharing Is Caring:
Dissevering
never were worlds so condensed
crushing sounds of chaos crashing
the eve of shattered shells
shackled in rippling clamor
torn beyond arm’s length
bracing memories of bartered being
the aching void of absent panacea
toiling for passage
the sting of earned lament
forthwith abandoned
to stations conflicted by minds unsound
long trodden in tumult’s refrain
what burdens we carry in these chains we so cherish
fighting the sins born of heaven
hammering down upon hapless casts of dissevering clay
complexions so fragile
never straying from the vaulted eden of sanity’s mind
ceaseless hordes
in planate procession
fools fraught with erstwhile fixation
betraying the worth of the words carved unyielding
through the infamy of torrid tempest
feigned in fluster
with haste, forgotten
but some flourish ephemeral
~querabus in acquiescence
nonpareil without parallel~
sweltering seamen scout the echoing seas
to plunder the gifts of god’s glory
treasures unknown
to inhabit our hearts
belying these stagnant disfigured illusions
should gentle grace ameliorate
and the rapids arrive at a quietus lull
-they say voices spout melodies stealing the wind-
and here,
this pen spreads jilted verse with piteous affectation
in shades of redundant avowal
this, the pilfer of poets and priests
only in the threads of ethereal thought, does truth reign
neither bound by scientific bane
nor beholden to idle slight of ideal
the essence of knowledge sublime
that we find the one
and the other in spirit
when realms of spent flesh beckon nigh
we shall yet persist – in tether and thyme
the warmth of unspoken goodwill
stirs the ocean’s heart humble
like the fiery swells of our wounded earth’s rain
a feeling which none are to have known
ere we wander into the borealis of the soul’s aura
wading into the florid confluence
to taper off in eased undulation
neath the umbral sway of a burgeoning berth
[image credit: Tallmadge Doyle]
Sharing Is Caring:
Our Condition
this dream that teems with emptiness
is one I know so well
for it permeates the essence
of existence
despite how it may seem
on the surface of this shell
its reality looms ever
in the distance
the laughter that you hear
is the mirror reflecting tears
transmutated by a diligent subconscious
even when I smile
it is to subjugate my fears
in a world where judgment rules
such fools as Pontius
if I appear serene
it is only to belie
every tempest ever brimming
from within
the depth of this despair
has breached the realm beyond repair
and it’s all that I can bear
not to give in
the worst might never be
save to say this lonesome curse
will afflict the hearts of all
who dare exist
that we will never know
any truth by what is shown
the disgrace of our condition
e’er persists
Max, or Not 
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