#passion #poetry #art #my words #soapbox
That guy holding the gun
That guy isn’t me
That guy sitting alone
Slouching over in the back corner booth
No that guy isn’t me
Licking his lips
Remember the taste
Blackpowder and gun oil
Life going around
Tracing circles at the end of the trap line
Start to finish
War wounds open up again. Flag draped coffins carried out as gently as a baker’s dozen for display.
Strong shoulders bend beneath the reality of their death.
Impudent, impotent old crow in a hurry to pick clean the bones of other kills ruffles his feathers and stares at the sun checking the time.
I would hurl a stone at his head in the hope to do harm but the gore crow smells a meal and wouldn’t let go no matter.
People seem to take pride of their choice. They praise the theft of life as the murder flocks to the feast.
I say string each croaking feather from tall white pillars and let wind and gravity bear witness to the crime.
There isn’t time to say hello
Nor will there be for long goodbyes
Even now cobwebs creeping threaten weary eyes
The tide ceaseless carves away
Each wave claiming more of the day
Leaving only to return in the night
Man that is good was often just as evil
So choose your way and be just and nimble
For we all await the somber gavel
And He that bears witness on judgement day
In the shadows lay a daemon
Lurking quiet beneath the trees
Stalking silent amongst the leaves
Until opportunity came to be
Then the devil stole from me
Stole in a whisper a love so dear
Left of her no trace to see
None would ever hold again
The soft shape and elegant line
Of her beauty so devine
Lost to the living
For all time
Except in memory
Shared in rhyme
The cold winter night
A cloudless star filled sky
Only naked branches on the trees
No wind to rub limbs into a screeching creak or rustle dried leaves under foot
The coyote bark and howl from one hidden den
Over the hill another begins their baying
A chorus takes up position
Navigating the dry rills, bramble filled trenches, and deer worn paths
I can feel them closing the distance
Each twisted trunk
Every darkened hole
The night comes to life with slender shadows
Backlit by the northern constellations
Crescent moon trailed close by Venus
The haunting calls of a predator coming closer in the night
But they know to tread softly across my path
I too have a yearning hunger that calls, and a inner desire to be unleashed
Reverberation
A high pitch mixing at the upper spectrum of a ringing chime
Sharp tones of metal on metal cutting away through bone and brain
Screams of pain changing over into images of lightening bolts and razor thin daggers
My eyes turn to liquidized jelly
They melt under the constant agony of pulses spuming forth from now empty sockets
The only escape is being walled into a casket six feet down insulated by the solid earth
Until the volume of gnashing and gnawing grows
Louder than before a chorus of beetles and worm devour flesh
In this one last sanctuary of hell the spirit unable to find release from the torment succumbs
Along the waters edge where sand and ocean meet
The worlds first words are spoken
By the soft and whispering breeze
It speaks of the many kingdoms
and of ageless palaces carved of stone
All the chambers filled with musical laughter far below in the surging sea
The echoing ripples flowing
Splashing playfully upon the distant shores above
Alas the people of the land no longer remember the beauty
Nor can they walk the halls
Time since it has passed deep beneath a sea foam gray
Softly the wind summons back the memory
As the crabs solemnly standing guard lament
And flying high overhead seabirds call out a sullen praise
There at the waters edge where sand and ocean meet
I have been here before in life… a forgotten martyr of a desperate time. Now I lay concealed beneath these layers of dead skin, mummified cartilage and muscle.
The life giving waters have long ago fled back to the sea.
Left alone my corpse’s slow decay releases back my last breaths of air. Returning what little good it once kept trapped within.
Somewhere solemn words stand forgotten carved deep in weathered stone. “The Last”.
Birth shown without beginning. Death left unchiseled. Such a precious thing as life left blank.
Was it for convenience or from lack of concern.
The curious may one day find this bolt hole where I sit enthroned. Disturbing my promised eternities, foolishly attempting to pry from dead lips secrets of forgotten times.
Agelessly, lidless eyes watch for the coming day. Stiff bones growing impatient of the wait.
Silently I listen to the world just beyond wooden walls and marble stone. Remembered sounds echoing out inside the powdered dust that once was brain.
The constant intrusion of spider and moth from clay stained crevices. Pillows and tapestry they weave for me. Adorning my once vibrant pastels in a virgin bower of silken whites.
Dressed in such royalty all my court gather near.
The maddening chirp of the camel crickets add to the music of my ballroom. Beneath the chandeliers of glowworms the seething hoard claw away the grime leaving traced lines as forgotten mosaics.
Still I wait for you my love. Promises made in youth still bind. In death they hold more honest truth. In sickness an in health, for richer and for poor, let none separate what here has been joined, even upon death one should depart. In unity, what once was two, now man and woman be made whole.
Words had become unwelcome aliens to him. During the long, lonesome days of summer verbal expression was of little importance. Even the occasional jotting of notes and poetry had all but disappeared from the watcher’s daily habit.
The absence of human company had begun to void all progress socially made in the early spring months. The warming heat and longer days allowed the once tight knit group of vagabonds to expand out into newer territories. Though beneficial for the group it only drew Pat deeper into isolation mentally and physically. Soon the weak feelings of trust, compassion, and fellowship would all be forgotten. Replaced by an insane anger and hate for the world as a whole.
Change was what the watcher hated most. Wether it was the sun, the season, a simple object out of place, any altering to the system was to be avoided. Only hunger and the need of shelter could drive him back into society, and force a change to the routine.
If only they knew or understood the danger. The thing they felt most at ease with had died a very long time ago. That person had laid buried in some shallow grave for more than two decades, a victim of some forgotten war. The only protection he could give to them and himself was a wall of apathy. Any attempt to break through would almost certainly unleashing the daemons within.
Enoch knew first hand what now walked the earth. The thin cloak of flesh and bone did little to conceal the seething hate and rage boiling within. It is to Enoch that the watcher often thought of. Not since the desecration of Babel, the rise of the Sumer and Olmec ziggurat, and the cataclysmic drift of landmasses had the host of legions been at peace with what he was.
Ah the good old days. Before Moses and his big ten, and the writing of the lesser others, “Pat” had beta tested every one of them with a few still in need of repeating.
How had the worm turned. Robbed of the freedom of the æther. Imprisoned to never touch the quintessence. Left to lay dormant beneath the ever increasing weight of invisible chains. The punishment was fair enough. The watcher knew he was given a very lenient sentence. After all eternity and infinity were going to be a very long wait anywhere he could be placed. This bit of community service on Ki wasn’t without it’s pleasures. The irony was because of those pleasures he was being chastised…
Pat sat waiting.
The clock on the wall had long since died, and now forever marked it’s death at one twenty-three.
It was post meridiem. The watcher knew because he had watched that last hesitant movement on August 5th as he had witnessed the first energetic second back on June 3rd one and two-thirds year ago. The time then was five seventeen post meridiem.
The uselessness of keeping “time” was as pointless as having two heads attached to one heart. When the “time” came both would get there at the same moment.
(Somewhere a small chuckle could be heard. Though the sage only wrote the story as it unfolded a turn of a phrase by his own hand could make him still giggle.)
(Old men often laugh at their own jokes while the rest of the world looks puzzled. – editor note by the author)
Left undisturbed the clock on the wall would never grow old, never change. Though the dust of ages piles up upon it face, and the corrosion of the batteries spreads to eat away within. The clock would never know or feel the changing hour
Pat was very much the same. Forever stuck at one twenty-three p.m. Physically corrupted, mentally deranged, but for the spirit always the same. Time had stopped. The movie that he saw was forever set on a loop. The actors in it always moving along, developing their character, then when the plot line needed a twist a new star would appear as the older one faded from scene.
It mattered little. The movie was set upon a continuous loop. The stage would reset, the actors would take their marks, and somewhere stage right a voice would be heard saying “Action”.
Improve.
As many loops and layers of film and tape were to be used, a good actor could always improve his skill. In that one hope both the author and watcher had learned to count upon. They both had witnessed enough footage left behind in the cutting room floor.
Even now Pat knew it was time to splice, exit stage left, and in the following drop of the curtains listen to the sounds from behind the props.
Echoing footsteps upon a wooden stage.
False Promises Nouveau 