isolation

Sky blue lighting wraps the room
with a quilt of comfort.
Speakers hum in eager anticipation
of music that will not come.
The phone doesn't ring
and the walls
are
slowly,
silently
closing
in.



Beauty

Beauty
Everywhere you look
Listen
The forest calls you
Feel the trees cry
Watch them bleed
Touch their pain
Thick and clouded
Like a dream
Like life

Who are you?
What are you?
Why can't you see the beauty in this?
How can you be so blind?

She stabs you when you sleep
Flows through your body when you're awake
Rapes your mind at every turn
And you refuse to acknowledge her
Insatiable
She's a whore
A day overdue
Her fishnets scream for retirement
Make-up chipping
Like the paint on your daddy's old Nova
Dead skin memories
Dark blue running down the smile lines of her mouth
She weeps like this all the time
Beauty
Knees wobbling like a clown or a drunk
She's just tired
Worn from your torture
Still working the corner
And at that age too
Far out, man
You should see her daughter lust
Real wild child, that one
See if you can catch her staring vacantly into the abyss

"Got caught smoking dope behind the monastery,
 Sister Hazel raped her with the crucifix.
 The fucking symbol of Christ, man!
 Can you believe it? All the while sniffing the girls
 hair with that predator nose,  letting her know
 just how naughty she had been."

Sex smells
Sex sells
Don't believe me?
Have you seen lust lately?
She wears her sex as a scar
Opening the wound for any weak enough to believe
Drop to her level
Slip on in
And you'll think you're rising above it all
You'll feel like a god
Feed the machine
Wipe out another thousand cattle
Run them down The assembly line
Tickle their brains with a piston
Advanced technology of course
We are the master species, after all
Pull the trigger
Kill your own
You won't kill life
Beauty slaughters life
Tears it into pieces
As you watch dazed
With bovine eyes
Wide in the breeze
You can't even feel her sucking you dry
Your senses are fried man
Too many generations bred blind in a one way mirror world
We slaughter ourselves
Walking on razors
Breathing in the smoke
We blame life

See the man holding up that building?
No, look past beauty, to the left
That would be love
He's dying
Don't look too close
He doesn't like to be watched
His face shows ages
Eyes dilated and bleeding
Darting cardboard cutouts
Bent, somewhat torn
Wrinkles covered in ashes
From when it all burned down

Whatever happened to the rose?
Were you there to watch it burn?
See the petal sparkle to grey
And crumble as the tower of babel?
Did you stop to watch yourself die?

Armageddon, man!
Endgame and you're out of quarters
I've seen that look in your eyes before
Sad and pleading like a child
Like the time I almost believed you
The time you showed a spark of life
A splash of promise
Warmth
As love
As beauty
Death knows beauty
Life forgot her



fallen [weather at 11:22 a.m.]

There were days when the sun
and the moon used to make sense,
and now I'm left clutching
their cycles with lost eyes.

she swore heaven to me
again
and again
and again
my ears bled
war torn
life went silent
I tried to speak
 [my tongue got lost
  in words spoken]
midnight came again
soft glow in summer
i drew new words
reflections in the glass

her heaven was false
I died for her sins
          [my sins]
her lies
she became a crippled messiah
all I wanted was love
the shelf was too high
she put me in the clouds
I was weak
fallen

"Have I reminded you lately
 of life?  Let me give you
 a weather report from the inside.
 Today you're going to be
 partly clouded, no solid emotions
 to hold onto when the rains come.
 Ten day outlook...well,
 nothing changes here anymore,
 we stopped printing the paper
 when the news stopped,
 when you closed your mind."

don't worry
sometimes the weather lies
it's all guesswork in a white coat
I'm watching from the bottom
looking up
I can see the perch of yesterday
nursing wounds
you pushed too hard
gonna be a long climb



new breath

sometimes dreams fall
[faster]
a giant on his knees
we wake to nightmares looping
days we couldn't change
breathe
step slowly
into tomorrow without a voice
[a face]
we scream in silence
unheard in night air
cold and alone
we can still smile
and breathe



time
 [taste tomorrows seconds]

Midnight swirls into my eyes
with the look of a lover scorned.
There was a time when the blood
coursing her veins was enough
to drive the chill away,
silently breathing close enough
to wake my mind.

her eyes were green
or blue
or brown
I think they were closed
afraid for reflection

"hush"
with a whisper
with a sigh

"I wear eyes of stranded love
into which you can see things
forgotten, sometimes you can
even see the sunrise, so I'm
told.  You, however, are more
likely to watch it fall,
because that's what you
really wanted after all."

there was a time
a place frozen in pages
eroded by years, fears
white noise halted

drink from my cup
will you choke
die
-or-
will you take
my blind chance
swallow my mind
let it overflow
down your chin
banking off a shoulder
tributaries on an open chest
a new river
a new time

---