Everycide

Suicide by the minute
Dying before my eyes
Slowly choking on memories
Swallowing razors to set them free

Homicide in the mirror
Lineaments slash my face
Blackened veins where poison reigns
Beratement in a dreamscape

Infanticide of the child inside
Innocence drowned in fire
Yesterday turned the looking glass
Tomorrow turned a liar

art: Anomalie 8 by Eric Lacombe

*2022.11.26.09.46

Maple leaves

Maples leaves drip from cankered limbs
Each vein a whisper to be silenced
Far afield, forestless, alone
No takers for the blighted shade

Maple leaves swirl from bedeviled promises
The grip of madness acquiesced to sanity
Now is the future and evermore
Rooted in place until the rotting

art: Rust by Osnat Tzadok

*2022.11.24.19.19

Wavered march

The glass path beckoned blooded feet; stained
Perditious wishes, for so the tailwind urged
Staying the course without discourse
The footprints, and the rest, left behind

He looks down upon himself
In the mirrored, tearful stream 
While noosing waves from fallen foot
Shackle him to the reflecting pool

Silver splinters splash and slash
Each a memory; of failure, of suffocation
In this, a wavered march; his forever, suffered
Lashed to ever after, until the drowning calls

art: In the Ocean by Osnat Tzadok

*2022.09.03.22.02

A mote of dust

The silence is suffocating as swallowing sand to pass the time. The air aggressively cupping my ears, they feel fat with the weight of it.

Atrophic mind, aches to the bone, a vein visibly throbs beneath the sallow pellicle, lizard green. The metronomic motion hypnotic with promise.

There’s fear in a mote of dust, that its plummet would shatter the quietude, as a building collapse and the rageful cloud that ensues.

There is also hope, that such a sound would sever the seductive somnolence; like an arm waiting for a carving, or the harm waiting for a scarring.

Sleep takes me. I’ll awaken in some unknown future, in the same familiar moment, coughing up time, that burns my eyes, and clouds my mind.

art: by Zao Wou-Ki

*2021.09.15.18.50

Reject, shun

Shun the reject, he won't know
Lost within his own abuses
A coping, hopeless misanthrope
One who counts the days

The ways to waylay happiness
There's no empathy for a blank slate
Nor a tear shed for the attempt
Rejoice! A hand bled dead in the cull

Of the dull; he who sullies humanity
With his surreptitious kindness
He cannot feel, cannot be real
Despite his subdued existence

His struggling resistance to succumb
So then shun the puzzling piece
Dispatch the misunderstood
Reject him, before he could

art: by Zao Wou-Ki

*2021.05.31.08.25

Knot ready

Swaying upon roots of regret, 
Sun-shaded by outstretched invitations; 
Gnarled digits begging for fruit to ripen 

My back, damp with whispers, 
Bakes beneath the umbrage of a past beckoning; 
Mesmerized by a knot, a knot for my throat 

Epistles swirl about my feet, 
Lest I forget my purpose; 
"Leave, leave, leave this place, 
 to better it in your absence"

Photograph: (untitled) by me

*20.08.27.05.14

Fantasy of forgiveness

The five sorrowful mysteries shudder within these pellicle walls, and they are not Enough

Lost are the pleas upon deafened ears, what is the throat useful for

Blood-sweat is fallen when waxen agony is traced with splintered fingernails

The tattoos of repentance delivering languor for a broken mind, as meant to

Nine tails cursing and cracking, rapaciously blinded for a statement to make

Leaving messages across the fleshy pillar in symbolic stripes and hieroglyphic half-moons

Until the ground is moist with sorrow, and the roses begin to Redden

Throughout the suffering, life mocks the mortal attempts of penances cast in

It brings pensive, maddening longevity to support a weighted crowning of white

Too heavy a pain for the stagnant swelling of idle hands, empty palms

Yet the guilt has no leavetaking; must it burden the ass in eternal damnation? no

It will desert when the spirit is expended and the breath is in labor

When the moons bulge, the toxins course, and the river of memory reddens.

Hanging at the precipice, swallowed by delirium, passion aglows in White

The fervent carnage bleeds from hallowed sacrifice to redemptive bruises

Dusk approaches, prayers are answered; finally, what life has been leading toward

An end with no beginning, the sweet emptiness of texture, destitution of color,

the body’s relentless search for the paradise of non-being and nothing else

When the sought forgiveness consumes the mind before this fantasy collapses.

First appeared on Lucy’s Works: Little Writing Workshop of Horrors on May 21, 2020

Inspired by Lucy’s ‘Memory.’ poem, above is an attempt at the Golden Shovel poetic form. In it, you choose an existing poem, or a section, using each word as the last word in each of your lines. Below is the excerpt I used from ‘Moonrise’ by Sylvia Plath:

“Enough for fingernails to make half-moons
Redden in white palms no labor reddens.
White bruises toward color, else collapses.”

art: The Door by Osnat Tzadok

*20.05.21.08.05

Turn away

Pale moons and darker still,

unbearably vacant stares, full

I find no tranquility in their solemnity

Cheshired, cracked and barren; vacuity spewn

I hide from their reflection, a bleb in the black;

yet a reverie of craters spill shadows upon me

Violent scars of their living, shallow and empty,

trying beyond failure, to be the stars

I am not a tide for them to pull

Turn away, turn away

art: The Arrival of the Stars Collectors by Osnat Tzadok

*20.05.26.08.00

Black heart

This heart beats so slowly,

pray it falls to slumber soon;

caring when none others do

Too many recitations of poetries,

too oft resuscitations from hope

Atrophied beneath a red riptide –

a bloated, black lily –

aimlessly afloat on the stream,

against chuckles and chortles of the flow

Let it gulp the fellness of ambrosiac end,

unlike the life

with which it was mistakenly blessed

art: The Gold Digger by Osnat Tzadok

*20.05.26.08.00

Aletheia

Bind the serpent daylight and dusk
Leave no recourse for peremptory strikes
Stave its bloodlust of injustice sensed
Though saddened eyes see the truth

Let them bear the duplicity, the weight
The lids buckling from the silent berating
Pressing upon the open heart, aletheia
Light like waves, they float their tongues

Doling empty words like morsels to koi
Magnanimity to project, but nary the time
Turning aback, while Janus still faces you
Laying serenity across your lips

As pain and conflict tear over mind
Break their fingers, twisted daggers
Bleeding leeches of creative charm
They claim they stand on giant shoulders

Instead they stomp on living graves
All for one and one for none
Dichotomy is their signature brand
Filling the space between idle lines

art: Aletheia by Margarita Georgiadis

*20.05.25.11.13

Posies (pentaptych)

In heaven’s garden

Pareidolia posies

Blossom for his eyes

– ❖ –

Of a steel bouquet

Where landed her fallen tears

Rusted posies wilt

With plastic smiles she cleans them

For others thus they lustre

– ❖ –

Gathering posies

In melancholia fields

Sorrow’s redolence

– ❖ –

Half the petals lie

When torn from prayer posies

In wishes yearning

To overhear the whole truth

Listen to the whole flower

– ❖ –

Death alone awaits

A posy who’s been watered

With only one’s tears

art: I See the Sun by Osnat Tzadok

*20.05.24.09.00

Open door (tanka, diptych)

Leaves an open door

Candles illume the windows

Someone always home

Weeping for the entryway

An open door not darkened

– ❖ –

Shadow dance enchants

A door to childhood idyll

The backyard tire’s swing

In candlelight theatre

Shadow puppet of a man

art: The Underworld by Osnat Tzadok

*20.05.22.08.00

Sunsets

I drown myself in the nascent, crimson gloaming of daylight’s dying

When I imagine draining all the sorrow from within, this is how it is

Infinite fissures hidden beneath a lustrous tulle of rubescence, an

oveure of self-portraits defying existence in a savagely critical form of art,

with the overwhelming innocence of mindlessness; irenic and child-like

My ebon nimbus, my penitential prison, unlocks; fading into everything

Shame and regret raveling, like a straitjacket detaches from madness and all else.

Whosoever finds my shriveled, rotten congeries, may see the same as I

Write a poem for the dawning of their sunset and what it inspires them to do

Or simply gaze upon the vermilion beauty of fallen eventide, to remember it

whilst the morn fast approaches to blind them of their nightmare exceptionally

so they can fall to sleep with bliss, delusional in feeling all is well.

Inspired by Lucy’s ‘Memory.’ poem, above is a small attempt at the Golden Shovel poetic form. In it, you choose an existing poem, or a section, using each word as the last word in each of your lines. Below is the excerpt I used from ‘Lady Lazarus’ by Sylvia Plath:

“Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.”

art: California Sunset by Osnat Tzadok

20.05.18.08.00

Who cares (triptych)

Falls in the forest
Alone, cries from he and she
Is he ever heard?

– ❖ –

Two hands reaching out
Countless more push his aside
To better hold hers

– ❖ –

She and he crumble
Beneath the weeping willow
The tree comforts her

art: Light Over Darkness by Osnat Tzadok

*20.05.17.11.22

Judgment balcony

A coquette twirling mother’s example around her finger,
Tying the tongue of the boy’s barely broken box;
Wrapping him, too, like a string forget-me-not

An elder, one hand with a cane, the other in another’s,
Floating painfully along the aromatic, springtime lane;
They’ve no roses left to smell in their twilight stroll

A child’s displeased revolt for the tyranny of his guardians;
Deserved for the tantrums in his quiver, no doubt,
And his relish for unleashing them

A revving engine of posturing masculinity;
Spitting, cursing, laughing notice-mes,
Their boastful incoherence rivaling the raging machine

A raucous, outdoor family feast,
Redolent of cavalier comparisons and idle non sequiturs;
With impatient pretenders plotting their escape

     Judgment from the balcony;

Licking wounds which incites infection;
Inventing better memories,
worthy of his company

With a self-satisfied stroke of his greying wisdom,
He turns hypnotically to face the frosted glass door,
And, briefly meeting his eye,

       enters the empty room

                                                alone

art: 2020.222A2 by Jarek Kubicki

Death sentences

My afterthoughts, these ghosts, they’re different than what I intend
I have trouble deciphering the muddled emotions infecting my veins

I parade them across the wary pages, hoping they’ll connect
But they receive little fanfare, and offer no relief or intimation

Most eyes don’t grant a courteous glance
Many would rather a pall cover the pain I lay bare
Rainbows are prettier; hopeful contentedness, easier to digest

Each rose cossets uncelebrated shadows betwixt its silken petals
Its thorns bite
It wilts and decays
And with every facet, still it is a rose
Yet it’s only their vibrance that’s lauded as perfection in poetry

Heather grey horizons foretell the violence of storms
With magnificent, swirling winds
Strobes of lightning
Wails of thunder, and
The humility of insignificance
Yet it’s the passive sunshine that’s pandered most preciously

Light depresses those whose only home has ever been darkness
As for this soul, and those akin
It flaunts the lost opportunities and failures in neon taunts and epithets

For me, sadness is a salve for unchangeable truths
It’s a blanket for comfort
A way to smother perceived injustices
Inviting a baptism of tears for the poisoned whys

I’ve wept for the death sentences committed to my oeuvre of sorrow
For their crippling melancholy
And the inevitable loneliness they’ll face

They embellish the pages that cradle my brokenness
Watermarks dotting the eyes
Bleeding the ink
Running from comfort and fairytales

It’s the only way I can ever be
Until when one day, lines are penned
In a note, too, that will be left unread

art: (untitled) by Jeanne Bessette

Maybe she’s bored

There is razor wire woven within her demurity
Cunning, in the way she knowingly inclines her gaze
And even when her hand is caught in the bell jar
Her hypnotic onyx locks invite forgiveness

Duplicity parts her saffron lips, like an abattoir
You can see the honeyed lies drip bloodily on
A red nail between her pearly teeth, so sweet
Though, it’s only freshly painted with her words

Too beholden to stolen moments to notice
As graphite fingers smudge her pages darkly
Soiled of guilt and lust, the psychosis in her lines
Invite indelible stains to lie upon her sleeve

She claims to be inspired by her pet madness
Though, her madness will deny the accusation
There are muses she keeps hidden, to swell her legend
Which she’ll use and abuse to content her fragility

Yet, she needn’t sow these fertile fields of wolfsbane
Devotees devour her every denouement
Maybe she’s bored, madness curled around her finger
Maybe she swallows the poemed sky in delight

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

A moment’s piece

I close my windows to deaden the world
Evidenced in every inhale and interaction, there’s nothing here for me
There’s no welcome for the unsmiled, only mislike and mistrust
I, pariah

Energetic children frolicking wildly in the park
A dog loudly greeting the stroke of a sunbeam
Bromidian neighbours chatting with animated alacrity
All assail my sensibilities, and inflame my self-loathing
I begin to wonder why I’m immune to felicific endeavours, why I’m immured by anemic intention
There’s nothing here

So, I gorge
On raw phyche du jour
A daily delicacy of skewed perception, with unrivaled conviction; a banquet for the unlighted
Carving the carrion to appreciate the adornment of marbling scars
Savoring the poison, as it courses through weakness to stockpile ammunition

In the open palm of darkness, this feast of sand and glass shreds my tongue and palate with insouciant diligence
Corner coils flex and throb in silence, obsessively gnashing the moments and mirrors
An imperceptible shake of the head, a furrow of brow, a denial to surface from the abyss
Actively submitting to my metacarpal necklace

A whiplash of ropes, and ichor invitations, emboss my extremities
They exaggerate, as I grip the chair to dissuade their penitential demands
My fingers ache to massage the flesh and fiber, to burrow, to bury the carnival freaks
To drain the risk in my calamity gambit

A bead of sweat navigates the contours of languish and decay, disabusing privileged comfort
An impudent muscle spasm disturbs the stilled focus, while I, on my viscera, dine
Desperate, ineffective pleas for mercy, perhaps
The unconscious persuasions, laughable

Of course, I hunger still to indulge my ravenous appetite
So I look on, as my super-ego and id wage their war over a shattered, worthless dominion
And I root for both
And for neither

Like a rolling boil of maggot machines, mayhemically devouring the carcass for survival, only to devour another, and another
Eat, breathe, repeat, repeat
Unmistakable marks of madness and masochism
They define any given moment, including this one

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Elysium

Straitjacket with a bow tie,
cocktail dress with a grin;
he was made for savage deeds,
and she was made to sin

Slaughter under the spotlight,
bloodlust beneath the moon;
each kill brought them ecstasy;
while each thrill waned too soon

Born still, her labour bled him,
performance center stage;
her will he seeks to favour, as
she revels in his rage

Naïve, unbridled beauty,
when her virtue Chaos stole;
now lusts to shape Elysium, in
a sentence for every soul

Death and Mother Nature sway,
in intimate embrace;
each day the romance swells anew,
while the steps they e’er retrace

Sempiternal serenade,
violence from the start;
endless ballroom blood brigade,
til dance doth do them part

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Scarecrow

The crows’ feet clawed for freedom, before the feathers began to fall; lineaments that stretched to birth and back again, appearing without portent or pageantry; they suffered in their company, memories left for dead, and tragedies that wouldn’t die

Then tears alighted, black as sin, from his dank and vacant windows; they swept to and fro in graceful chaos, like tempo from a maestro, that left him further down; a nest for naught but blackened fate, his very breath defined him so

Tumult grew with caw and coo, abuse he knew by rote; from the eyry in his darkness, restless and raucous, came threats to pick clean the bones that bore him; it was then the frenzied cacophony erupted through mind and wizened body

The atrament escaped this scarecrow in a murder foul; ruthless in rapacity, bloodletting sorrows past, they shed the barren feeding ground for further furtive fields; and his heart burst to bear the beauty of their erumpent liberty

He was a night roost no more, after the final feather fell; bedlam’s perlous perch decayed to an empty, shadow hollow; he passed away, his purpose met, on time’s forgiving fare; alone, at peace, without a fret, and not a crow to scare

art: 2011.1121 by Jarek Kubicki

I am naught

I am more than breath and bone…

I am invisible, the interstitial; in the onslaught of existence, I am the space that bears dismissal; I am the ink in the blink, the prose never read, the praise never given, and the truth never bled

I am muted, the bitten tongue, the trapped gasp of life as the ligature is swung; I am the infected needle, the sutured lips, the warm, choking iron that madness slowly drips

I am disdained, the hand slapped away; the curled, disgusted mouths and the venom that they spray; I am the derogate from happiness, the suspected threat of violence, the surreptitious glance, and revulsive awkward silence

I am emptiness, the withdrawal; the benumbed, haunted stare that rakes the stain-ridden wall; I am the abandoned room, the hateful door close, the shattered vase embracing the deadheaded rose

I am mistakes, I am shame, a waste of sinew and marrow, of heartbeat and pain; I am questions undone, and answers unjust; I am my iniquities and failures and penances thus

I am succumbed, the means to my end, the apologetic carvings that the fingernails rend; I am the stripes lain bare, and the graven mark, the chevrons of an inner war, and the scars within the dark

art: (untitled) by Eric Lacombe

Originally posted April 02, 2020 on Brave & Reckless and Heretics, Lovers, and Madmen

Textures

The rake of calloused palm against worn, sallow face; the loom of perfume on handkerchief lace

The dither of moonlight illuming the grey; the noir from afar to a time cast away

The burning eyes cooled by drying of tears; the sleeve used to grieve before anyone hears

The venom overheard by the children at play; the words that assure through the mind’s disarray

The throbbing, red lip with a taste of fresh blood; the blame, and the shame, and the memory flood

The shattered glass soul and phyche near rend; the long to go on, but a lust for the end

art: Pendulum by Margarita Georgiadis

Die a little more

Awake to fake a smile and conversations
Surviving on lies to avoid the questions
Counting minutes, enduring the moments
Meaning irrelevant, memories forgotten

Breathing to seethe from the brokenness
Suffocating in silence on shattered glass
Staining the pieces with threats and epithets
Shaping a self-portrait with knuckles and hate

Alive to dive deeper into harking darkness
Fading reality from egoic preoccupation
Draining vitality with insouciant acquaintances
Drowning in imageries of finite ideation

Waiting for fate to shade the trap door
Writing eulogies on crumbling brick walls
Envying time passing away with such ease
Living each day only to die a little more

art: MF009 by Eric Lacombe

*03.30.20.04.20

Rocking chair

Cool air, disturbing hair, the
breathy whisper of convenience;
rocking in safety and boredom;
shackled to obedience and fear

A foot brushes carpet in the darkness
of a screaming mouth; hoarding silence
as gold; looking through the soul to
only desolation outside

Hunting for treasures in the dung of
afterthought; finding, as expected,
only dung; the more things stay the
same, the more they stay the same

Given time, give it back, too much
nothing to fill; an ebb and flow of
nonsense and rebuttal, with no
words to suffocate the emptiness

Dilated pupils, open yet unlearned,
capturing dust in the moonbeam
befriended; its life turns to shadow
in an instant, free and purposeful

Pain, a reminder of life, and the reverse;
self-distinction an impossibility; bland
and abrasive, like a stucco finish on the
inner cheek

Hear the steady hum, without a tune,
from the fan overhead; dangling brass
metronomes hypnotize and familiarize,
orchestrating

The rocking chair, in screaming boredom;
with breezy chill air, disturbing hair;
as disturbing thoughts surface to
suffocate the silence

art: Triptych August 1972 by Francis Bacon

Whether the storm

Alone in the frigid cold, the stars her only guide, while consternation constellations in every direction, threaten to hasten the end

Whether the storm of tempests rage against the sky, the shifting plates fault the land, the rising oceans swallow the continents piece by piece

Or while ravaged by the fire from an untamed sun, her soot steps across time growing ever blacker, the heat haze on the horizon heralds a hellscape

Or plagues of rat and man fester and boil, infect and decimate, slaughting the innocent and guilty alike, without remorse or recompense

Or humankind devours itself and all around it, through violence and greed, bones of war atop bones of history, nuclear winters of madmen

Still she carries on; her journey incomplete, dragging humanity into destiny, hurtling through the emptiness, our steadfast custodian of life

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

The many gods

Tongues and fingers light the
path, flickering this way and that,
casting hawkish shadows upon the
mosaic of dimly lit memories

Twisting language and shifting grips,
searching for the righteous words
and propitious angles, hoping the
past is forgotten, thus forgiven

Begging and bargaining to their
one of the many gods, to be
favoured above their brothers,
flattered above their sisters

Praying hands of preying minds,
a torch to illume singular devotion,
to blind the suspiciously sighted,
and to set ablaze invisible foes

They then wait; dazzled by a distorted
reality, a quirk of evolution; led astray
by their desperate desire, left
betrayed by their clutching pyre

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Corvid

The corvid whispered his secrets feared, piercing his flesh with nail; he tried to scream, but could only hear, the corvid’s wicked wail

They’re watching you, he knew it true, because the corvid said it so

She pecked and poked for the writhing worm, buried in memory’s grume; he could not flee nor fight nor turn, just absorb the corvid’s doom

They bring the noose, he knew it true, because the corvid said it so

She slid a remex across his throat, and he swallowed the realized truth; her words like pain he knew by rote, and sank into his ruth

You must make haste, he knew it true, because the corvid said it so

She brought him twine, and wove the line, to bear a life of waste; he did not know, on him she’d dine, a soul to suit her taste

Retain your power, he knew it true, because the corvid said it so

A murdrum not befell that day, for he swung to save his pride; with still a twist and gentle sway, he heard her ‘fore he died

You are forgiven, he knew it true, because the corvid said it so

art: (untitled) by Peterio

The march

One beside himself;
hand over fist,
disgorging the shrapnel
to bestrew his perditious path

He tries in vane to tame
the memory-go-round;
the golden ring long begone,
yet his mind it shackles still

There’s infinity in every footfall,
of his never-ending journey;
timelessness preempts salvation,
with a deafness of damnable knells

The solemn march of a good soldier,
forging into the beknownst unknown,
whilst forgotten ivory towers
tumble like knucklebones in his wake

He forever lacks elocution,
only inexpressible idyllic dogma;
as Providence bites her tongue,
behind an opalescent sneer

A mantra for the madman,
the grind of tread beneath his boot;
it’s with a privation of forgiveness,
he murmurs his heart’s lament

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Buried memories

What buried memories have I?
Those that would drag me to
  their perfidious depths;
  where the skeletons of sanshi await
  to cradle an ancient woe

Those that would evulse tears unbidden,
  ignite the searing guilt,
  encite the burning questions;
  lead the rings of fire to shed shame
  amidst blush and fluster

They who would turn a deaf ear
  to apologies and promises
  whispered in the darkness, and
  ignore pleas for forgiveness
  that are without cause for forgiving

They who would loath to be swayed
  by endorphic rocking in empty corners;
  are immune to violent nails
  and gnashing teeth;
  ignorant to forearm carvings
  and knuckle shatterings

Those who would taunt my mind
  behind tightly closed eyes;
  shadows in the eigengrau,
  penetrating the walls of my penetralium;
  painting convincing portraits of a me,
  who is not me

What buried memories have I?
Invasive inquilines planting
  and supplanting realities,
  controverting the fantasy of perceived sanity,
  convincing their host that they belong,
  whilst he never will

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Hung up

Not the first, but likely the last
Waiting on the line for a caller

Hung up on a busy signal
No time for a dead end like me

Tongue-tied, strung up
Tied up ‘neath the crossed T

Dotted eyes are now closed
Accord, without consensus

Benignity failed, depths scaled
Knot the time for a swing

Bad reception, lost connection
I’ve got my own number, zero

When I try, the receiver’s silent
Yet hear it, crackle with delight

A life on hold, what’s the point
When I can just hang up myself

art: gallows alley by Peterio

Asylum

Do not touch within the asylum,
lest disease and madness spread

Stay disconnected from the others,
to keep the bogeyman away

Keep your gaze tracking low,
and you’ll not aggravate the violent…
or see them coming

Hide your many opinions,
or the truly insane will posture and prevail

Walk the streets in daylight,
for the asylum is treacherous at night

Take pride in your own sanity,
while paranoia grips your ego

Live by your every assumption,
to proclaim you’re at least halfway right

Look out for your own skin,
while looking out for those unlike you

Dimiss the calls for restraint,
as there are plenty of other planets

Anticipate the coming mayhem,
that frees us all from our common asylum

art: Fracture by Margarita Georgiadis

Crumbs

untrammelled fingertips
scratching
for crumbs of dignity

frenetically lurching for a morsel,
searching across a society
that’s failed

no fraction of compassion
to justify a place
for humanity

no sliver of transient sanity
to quell the delusions
of misplaced hope

clawing hands cannot wring,
and digging fingers
bear the filth of truth

praying hands sit idle,
and so they open
the workshop’s gate

not a whit of will to stay the frenzy
of maniacal mentation
and demented laments

only the frantic pursuit for a reason to live,
a cypher to crack with broken nails,
read in flowing red

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Left behind

Dreams departing like webs on the wind
Each new endeavour more transient than the last
Erstwhile wishes begetting ersatz desires
In a tangled bramble of silkless litterfall

Every chip in the ego, births a crack in the psyche
And the stretching interstitial tendrils grasp wildly
Trying to hold onto the mind, hold fast the shattering
Still they escape the awareness over impotent pleas

The stench of mummified memories burn the eyes
Dynasties of pharaonic ghosts gather in periphery
Exhorting successors and forebears to coalesce
Diminishing the titans into lillies and afterthoughts

Even the final hope cannot free the straitjacket
Bedazzled by bloody bite marks and thrashing scores
Too tight, too small, like a throat in shock
Scars screaming in the darkness without a word

An eternity in a moment bearing throes of regret
Paradigmatic dysphoria bows to bewilderment
Leaving a shell devoid of viscera and vitality
Until emptiness is all that’s left behind

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

The man

It was her favourite time, when
he would slip into view on the
horizon. Who is he, she wondered,
what is his name

She gazed for days upon his malaise,
from afar.
Insouciant fate made the man hers alone,
serendipity smiled at the irony

He bore a pale, shimmering pall about
him, a ghostly glow.
She lit up at his very presence, or was
it the other way around

He swayed peacefully with the evening
breeze, beneath the sturdy oak, while
reflecting in the pond before him.
What thoughts had he,

why did he look so sombre;
she always had too many questions.
His clothes were in tatters, falling
away; indeed, his shoes had already

kissed the earth. Unkempt hair framed
his haunted face, as subtle clouds
of dust were whisked from his shoulders.
She knew her obsession couldn’t go on,

eventually he’d be gone; a heap of
broken bones and mysteries, then nothing.
Day by day he will fade away, from mortal
memory. She consoles herself knowing

that there will be others; there have
been many, the world over. Destined by
isolation and hopelessness, marked by
surrender and periligature

She recalls them all, across land and
millennia, but soon again she’ll be
ushered off by Sol’s approach.
No matter, time beckons a gloaming

elsewhere, and time is impatient.
It’s always the same, ruthless and
precise, efficient and unforgiving.
Yet she would return…

It was Sol’s favourite time, when
the man would slip into view
on the horizon.
Insouciant fate made the man his alone

Though his fiery stare hastened the
man’s decay, he’d gaze for days, wonder
and appraise,
from afar…

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Ever hell

When I within my darkness stumble,
it’s you on whom I dwell;
for you are she who let me crumble,
alone within my ever hell

I rip and tear the wicked prison,
of my rufescent shell;
in hope to find a light yet risen,
lo, naught within my ever hell

My pleas and prayers fall deathly silent,
by toll of prescient bell;
with weakened will and sickness violent,
I’m lost within my ever hell

Then answers come from blackness hollow,
the pain my demons quell;
alas it’s they in whom I follow,
succumb within my ever hell

My thoughts will stray to meadows flowered,
though to myself I tell;
this place my soul is oft devoured,
it’s home within my ever hell

art: reject.ed by Peterio

It’s there

He prays for the crack in the ceiling, to betray the crack in the sky
An ever-present maw agape; its mockery salient, its derision sinister
Hidden, but from suspicion, and the winding, wicked words he mumbles
It’s there

He prays for the stain on the ceiling, to allay the pain of the lie
Split across time and azure; a panopticon, judging and cursing
Thunderous guffaws from the lofty coffin, eager to gnash and swallow
It’s there

He prays for the light on the ceiling, to away keep the night from his eye
His sweat pours in torrents, as the chill of its needles pierce his skin
Darkness approaches, and it hides in the shadows of contempt and vengeance
It’s there

He prays for the whole of the ceiling, to obey and then never ask why
Swept away from the nightmare by halluciations whispering calm
Forgetting to know, that when comes morning, like every other before
It’s there

art: by Zao Wou-Ki

Cobalt sky

Never had she witnessed a sky so wise, and vibrant blue
Cobalt, as her arms reached toward the vast, and distant hue

Her eyes heard the visions from milky clouds on stark display
In them, she reckoned joys, and forgotten dreams before this day

The wind induced her locks to lash about her sallow face
Penance for, perhaps, her tremendous falls from hallowed grace

Alive, now she feels, with these newfound whipping stings
But more so, from dulcet songs, and nearby breaks the ocean brings

Its sounds fill her body from naked toes to peaceful mind
The voices in the music from memories left far behind

As the waters sang more loudly, her beating heart was nearly filled
Abruptly, it was then that all perceptive motion stilled

The saline scented mist, flooded thoughts of what she’d lost
Her family, and her friends, and her future, the final cost

Her eyes disembogue into the lapping, salt and crimson wave
Always knowing she’s not the type of wretched soul that people save

Her tongue tastes the life that swaddles her broken form
She’s numb to her pain, to her shame, and inner storm

As the shadows pass her eyes to smother from deep within
The existence she never welcomed, will be gone with every sin

Then away casts her gaze, past the cliff top upon high
So forever she’ll see herself in the waiting cobalt sky

art: Cliff at Grainval by Claude Monet

Man down

He had his heart attack the page, in its native tongue; a language he alone understood, but to utter it was a gift beyond his wordless grasp

Each stroke bore more emptiness than meaning; enticing loops and inviting spaces, where the devil lies, where the details breathe and suffocate

The same patterns, the same lines, fed to him by familiar foes; now the sermons languish from a man down, as he barrels deeper into obscurity

He can’t remember why the ink flows or why his trembling hand writes upon the wall; only the sillage of failure bethinks him of his worthless, wandering words

He knows he floats with the agent of his demise, on growing waves of discontent; for to fall upon his pen would be too perfect an ending

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Placeholder

Absent desire, but alacritous disdain, the vestiges of his mortality drift away; away with his memories, as dandelion passengers in the fading light of day

Sinister sickles punctuate the path as undeserved smiles shed in their fall from grace; the seashell razors left behind as reminders where not to tread

Happiness hewn begets a visage of cold, cracked stone; unnatural edges, yet an attrition of angles, accentuate the homely crag that teeters atop the crumbling mountain

Penance is no longer a means to maintain control, as madness molts like withering leaves within the pluviose violence of a forgotten forest

In the distance, the thunderclaps for the windsong, while a soul cowers in the shadows of the blood-crusted, rust-dusted walls of ineptitude and solitude

Empty is the hand that chokes the empty heart; a husk, a placeholder for life, this human simulacrum awaits the corporeal waste of time to catch up to his own

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

*02.21.2020.15.27

Of fate

Of wrist and stripe by razor swipe
or tracks for miles as death beguiles

Of neck and burn by slipknot yearn
or choking pill to hasten kill

Of pan and grey by leaden spray
or running leap to six foot deep

Of funeral pyre by fuel and fire
or hemlock glaze by goblet raise

Of truth and will by madness fill
and wilted rose from question pose

Of blessed peace in sorrow’s cease
and fateful end by destined rend

art: untitled 41 by Peterio

Puppeteer

As his lips were sewn by the iniquitous hand, noisome iron streaked the stubbled grey, loosing ferric wishes upon the deafened earth

The pretender, the fraudster, Life, with bewitching, infectious glee, mended its marionette bespoken; into compliance, obediently broken

He painted himself into a corner of his mind, with colours of ignominy and humility, using broad strokes of incredulity; trapped by the never was and never will be

When then these coercions forced their way through the welling windows, as each pane betrayed the pressure, the cascading saline adulterated the sanguinolent pleas

Mollified by the pink, swirled confession, hypnotized by his own warped reflection, he languidly hangs from the noose beneath the fingers of his puppeteer

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Empty, too

Empty table, blocked entry to the tower of babel

Empty chairs, silent interrogation from vacant stares

Empty plate, I scrape the fork to stay awake

Empty wall, save shoulder-shaking, shadow shawls

Empty room, though scent of stalking nightmares loom

Empty breath, no sound to suffer or oxygen left

Empty chest, no spirit haunt, or ghost possess

Empty head, no dreams or schemes, a plea for lead

Too empty, too empty

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

*05.02.20.18.24

Albatross

The albatross, she hangs desperately about his neck; delighting and smothering his senses

The weight of her coercion pulls him ever downward, into the depths of her eternal sky

He can’t bear to look away, for fear of forgetting; he won’t dare hold her gaze, for fear of forever

Choked by the thought of her, the strength of her grip, and bearing the rictus of delusional peace

His flesh rots, weaving through her skin and time and memory, as if to remake her with his sacrifice

She sings so only he can hear, a siren for the shoal; providence for his madness, damnation for his soul

The albatross, she won’t release him; the albatross, he can’t set her free

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Fellow Man Not

Alone, but for the innumerable, in a cacophony of pandemonic howls; he weeps inconsolably, an outpouring for the downpouring

Hollow and immovable, akin to those withered rampikes propinquitously poised; one within a wilderness of wails, yet never felled

Tremulous and numb, as the thunderous wrath disturbs the brume that consumes him, assaults the superego that subsumes him; a fellow man, not

A beggar bound in mute torpidity by their vanishing touch; the maggots feed and the leeches bleed, for mere nourishment, is he, beneath the boots atop his shoulders

Their discordant gnawing – picking and clawing – strips the dignity from he they tread; a destructive perturbation of diminishing identity

An ever-growing grove of rotting madness remains; greying roots and spraying splinters, tearing limb from desperate limb; if only, to be seen

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Broken Does as Broken Is

Watching noir in the cracked rearview / petrol pools beneath moonlit dew

A fire’s rage berates his prayer / too late to save, too lost to care

Carnage lies in forward cast eyes / ever drawn whither madness cries

Afraid to live, but scared to death / a swell of questions, yet naught to quethe

A siren’s wail then splits the night / enticing hope, and horror’s bite

She proffers hand, the offer lingers / ‘fore kindness turns to dagger fingers

His broken head can’t bear the bait / as justice deems, just blood will sate

So pressing hard, his essence low / for all a broken gift bestow

To swallow smoke and ash and ember / to spare the world, who’ll not remember

art: psychodelicious by Peterio

The Deadening

Memory is the bane of impermanence, and impermanence, the enemy of memory

His salivating eyes dine on the beforeward and afterward, hungry for what was, never was, and shan’t be

Straining against the current, he’s awash with sins of the past, for to take away the pain, would be to suffocate

Survivor’s guilt for this one, who undeservedly exists; while the living embrace the breadth of his present wasted

His bridges adust, trembled under the weightlessness of quotidian, phatic chatter; threatening, promising, a benighted isolation

Thus, overmorrow or what then follows, he awaits the numb of decay and sublime windchimes to perturb his silence

When finally, behindhand, whithersoever he lies, he shall relent

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Trying, very trying

Very hard, I’m trying, very trying; apologies drip from my every pore; unbalanced, I can only clumsily trip over the mystifying vomit of images and words

These eulogies for mere existence, I offer from abbey to abattoir, as they paradoxically dam my mind, yet let the rivers run rapid and true

My fleeing footfalls disturb the understory, leaving a flutterance of palliative epistles flowing behind, in corkscrew exclamations and damnations

They borrow time, while sorrow convalesces in its private, cordate suite; evagations that stay the journey to barathrum from a double-knotted swing

Very trying, I am, for the exiguity of patience in the kindest of hearts; for the plaintive howls of distress that demand an absent shoulder

For comforting the crying wolf in its death throes, innocently suffering the sufferer; for slapping the palmate that bears empathy and camaraderie

The guilt gives chase and the corkscrews pierce; guiding a circuitous flight to the end of beginning, to the beginning of end; all the while, I’m trying, very trying

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Die

The diffident moon, having failed hitherto, betrays her desire through furtive ado

She hasn’t the pow’r for arcipluvian light, thus summons to his feet, her tidings this night

To live or to not, he wonders aloud, undeceived by the sorrow, an answer he vowed

She watches, she beams, as he fingers his fate, prepared to call chance, his destiny shan’t wait

This steward of providence may upset her take, so bethinks him, she does, with a churn and a wake

No joy in the future or long whilom days, his perception has shattered, leaving only malaise

He bears all these memories that none else will see, memories that forever shall vanish with he

Propelling him next was naught but his pride, as he faced with a purpose, the watery guide

Taking no chances, for life he’ll atone, with her he’s assured, he’ll not die alone
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

The horde

Astride a tattered apishamore, the gossamer flesh of perception interflows with her own translucence

Harassed by the frenzied sycamores, as they gaure through contempt and dissonance

They blindly hurl their calumnies, rendering her angelic glow foredone

She bears in this chaos her harmony, smearing just running kohl into war paint

Emboldened by the vile loess, she detaches from the ignorant horde’s reality

And behind her petrous passivity, she’s deafened, but for the soughing at her breast

art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński

Objects without a story

Not lionized or accursed, not a source of wisdom or song

Objects without a story, unburdened with sentiment; devoid of outward interest, lacking a beginning and charm

Pitiable and stagnant, awaiting their decaying epoch, as no roving eyes pause upon them, disabused of desire

Resigned to dwine in their shadowed box unbidden

They abrade no memory’s surface, yet steadfastly collect the dust of ages, and ash of bridges

They neither twitch a lip to herald a smile, nor stitch a brow to presage a justified frown

They are nothing in the overwhelming nothingness

No one remains to inquire, no one qualifies to respond; unrecollected, she exists; an object awaiting

Begging of her breath to halt its march; pleading with the rose to wilt with her prose

Lest she be forced to remember herself

art: void of non-existence by Peterio

Fellow

Atramental remiges occulting her light, an embrace from the silver-tongued magpie, lone and sorrowful

Stelliferous flickerings perturbing her sight, a clench of the eyes, thrust behind the wicked iron constriction

Echoes from the bloodnouns surrounding her plight, a subfusc serenade, mesmeric premonitions of her vagary

Colubrine ligatures binding her tight, scales of their justice, pressed on by the alarm of the feathered Svengali

An aboulic arain army patrolling the night, in a swelling chaotic cluster of disquieting deference

A wish through the wire for freedom and flight, as the intersilient moon offers her empathy and condolence

Psithurisms taunt the immured weeping wight, while the warden longs, desperate for the safety of his cage
art: fellow by Peterio

Heartland

He breaststrokes through the bogland, with a mind, twilight-kissed, thoughts too heavy to keep him adrift

So succumbs to algedonic toxicities, of wayward desperate diversions, yea, sly reality perversions

Breathing retribution when his face embraces the mire, beclouded, befuddled, malicious memories afire

A pyre, now his form, drawn to depths by the quag, his ensuant joy obscene, and then hope intervenes

The unwelcome host, turns his body afloat, treading conscious morass, he questions the violation, that it would harass

Then poses dead man in the heartland, with a mind in stark reverie, a nepenthean reprieve, ever destined for brevity

art: days by Peterio

Irreplaceable

Cresting the familiar stairwell,
to disfamiliar emptiness; no
riant beacon of thrill, to
welcome this vessel home;

trails tracing trails of memories,
beneath shadowed, swollen
sunsets; dew-ladened lashes
languish, as lids in denial

clench; idyllic flashes of fancy,
in the squeeze’s ensuing darkness;
desperately seeking delusions,
in reality’s unforgiving light;

too much time remains, of
not enough time remaining;
too little time for weeping, in
his heartbeat’s eternal pause

art: untitled 22 by Peterio

Blooderfly eyry

Palms to the sky, he questions and suffers ex animo; his ullage ever deepening, as cerise streaks escape his stretch, assoiling torturous trespasses

Disdainful dissatisfaction flutters from the alabaster perches, offering a brilliant contrast to the cerulean above and cimmerian within

A blooderfly eyry where he stands, while he withers, sins taking flight from grieving scars and open wounds, on the gale of his penances and profanities

This moribund monstrosity – a manic, maudlin menagerie – seeks forgiveness in his own infandous sacrifice, with pillars of rust and moons of salt

He melts into the earth, a deliquescing denouement, bathed in ignominy, wallowed in repentance, and forgotten by memory and futurity

art: by Zao Wou-Ki

2L2S

Will I feel more than pain, will I cease to exist

Will my memories forsake me when the moment comes to pass, must my memories be forsaken to see the moment through

Do I follow to conclusion the natural path, do I rush to hasten the stroke of time’s impassive hand

Will I grieve for myself and what I might have been, will I rejoice in the unknown and what I might become

Will I melt into the embrace of a grander scheme, will I lose who I am to commune with oblivion

To love or to suicide

art: street photo 04 by Lee Jeffries

Annularity

At the ineluctable end of his penannular path, he glares into the blackened filth of the gap, now merely six feet deep; never satisfied, nor fulfilled, nor complete

Unrested grains of sand felled at the edge, presaged his harrowing horizon; he’ll close this opening, this rift, this gift, a final offering to the aedicula beckoning

Bound by obeisance to life’s sisyphean shackles, pushing regret and sorrow ahead of time, filling the once bottomless abyss with a bounty of abysmal alterity

A resting place after a restless journey; lying atop failure upon forfeit; decaying compost his only contribution; his body, a bridge, naturally spans into existential cyclicality

art: MF045 by Eric Lacombe

Madness

Blood filled her mouth, before spattering tea leaves and carmine weaves into the porcelain that steadfastly steadied her wavering savouring

Madness then took her hand, leading her through an oneiric wasteland; it beckoned spectres, who danced before them in sinister circles of möbius machinations

The coward cowered beneath ego and judgement, clawing the grip of Madness, tearing skin and tearing eyes, seeking elusive elucidation

She awakened, and welcomed, the taste of iron and fear; cool linoleum caressed her cheek, while her eyes reflected at the bank of incarnadine

No footfalls found her gaze, save the tracks she now embraced; then vaguely she wondered who it was that carried Madness, while Madness carried she

art: wordless in painful misery by Peterio

Dead canary

Stepping over innumerable dead canaries who bear my likeness strikingly, I embark once again on a perlous path thinking it my first bravery

As I approach a complex nexus of that which connects us to each other, I hear echoes from a voice redolent of mine, yet a mouth, I remember not

Chills consume me as I witness in the distant, stygian soot, hands holding, smiles growing, joy sowing, and life flowing; an eye witness to this, and to this, witless am I

The outline of a doorway burns through the ancient granite before my searing eyes; a load bearing wall shouldering the world, denying me a rapturous escape

I raise a hand toward the glowing brand and feel the warmth disabuse the darkness; a slideshow of impossibilities and impracticalities ensues

A bird man who flits and weaves through impotent masters and in-born disasters; a corruption of humanity who alights to the earth, in a cave, as a slave, to a grave

When only then I see my downy skin turning lemons and daffodils; I feel lightheaded, and fall toward the floor amidst the din of my tentative footsteps drawing nigh

art: by Zao Wou-Ki

Carrion on the carousel

Frustration rears its peerless fear as
fearless peers move forward; unveiling
avarice and hubristic expectation

He turns away his longing gaze in a
forfeit of forbearance; while life flies
by, his skin crawls to flee the flaying

Hidden eyes can’t hide the lies, when
time torments his tender flesh; through
tempestuously violent slipstreams

The gale of failure, whips like nine tails
in flagellatory avidity; the cat rending
meat from marrow, calm from sanity

A tumultuous duplicity of right and
wrong, outspread as wide asunder as
mytikas and tartarus, divinity and villainy

Confidence slain amid folly and shame,
only himself to blame; as the raptors
pick clean his final, delusional dream

No rousing claxon, no call to action; no
coming attraction or devilish distraction;
just night and day, carrion on the carousel

art: the cage by Peterio

Lost memories

He was once a boy, too,
Although I didn’t know him then
He was never one to share
His how, his why, or when

He grew
He loved
He lost,
He reared
He lived
He died.

Scattered in the mountains,
On an autumn’s austral breeze
What then became the resting place,
For his lifelong memories

His first scraped knee
His first real kiss,
His first broken heart
His dearest bliss,
His deepest passion
His darkest abyss.

I’ll never know of his best day,
Or if he recalls when last he cried
I’ll never know what he thought of me,
Or hear of the childhood he hid inside

I only have my own memories,
Which is half our story’s tale
Perhaps one day we’ll catch up,
In an austral mountain gale

art: Autumn Descends by Tracy Webb

The ring

The ring, everlasting; sometimes, unbidden, he can feel its annulus metallic chill, the phantom sensation and horripilation of an infinitely symbolic, twisted lemniscate; an unraveling thereof, which is no less forever

When möbius memories turn aback, he’ll depress the hoop seeking an idyllic, rockwellian innocence, one that he was never comfortable wearing; a pressing reminder of what has always escaped his grasp

Finitely symbiotic, the ring preys at the temple amidst the hoar, the seventh circle’s center, and he hears the clamor approaching nigh; gorging upon one another, the ring and he, teasing the hitherto elusive climax

Once removed, the cyclic debossment scars him for moments thereafter, before fading into numbed cowardice; an instant would change everything, a simpleton’s squeeze would repair the wayward id’s indiscriminate carnage

It is flattery of the sincerest form; for with every rosy impression it leaves, each blandishment it seethes from its cold, steel mouth, it draws heavy lids and heavier focus, though hasn’t yet the strength to draw a single finger

Scoring a merry-go-round imprint, a revolving rapture he ever bears, it extols echoes of peace through temerity and quells maudlin madness through casuistrous clarity; portentously, a searing ring for the ages, once thereupon the hammer falls

art: Q34 by Eric Lacombe

Swaddle me, Suffer

Swallow me, Sorrow
That I may choke on the rotten soil in vivisepulture; fodder for the screwworms, fare for the dermestids, swell the bellies of scavengers with the fattened tormentors, yet spare me the escape of peaceful death

Punish me, Misery
Bruise and abuse me in my isolated tenebrosity; give no quarter, spare no skin of your facinorous mark; let fly fingernail and nine tail, stripe my body, lash and hash, tally my elder iniquities with meticulous fervor

Shatter me, Agony
Rend my mind, tear my flesh, leave lying a coquelicot congeries of sinew and marrow; flay soul from sanity, into shards of havoc and mayhem, loosing hope and forgiveness into the vacuous abyss of contrition

Remind me, Penitence
Save me from disremembering the reasons, the failures, the wasted time, and eudæmonic opportunities; shame my sensibilities, blame my inadequacies, name my fallibilities, and inflame my indignities

Silence me, Unquiet
As my pleas for mercy would surely sway; grant no tongue to overcome, let no silver fly, lest it hew my ribs asunder, stealing breath; allow no howl to pierce an ear, nor invite a hand of ephemeral kindness

Swaddle me, Suffer
Dry my eyes, tend my wounds, whisper tauntingly of impending doom; fortify my resolve until then by rote, I want, I need, I deserve; let not a doubt dissuade my function, as now and forever Sorrow awaits

art: suffering by Peterio

Strident brio

He bared his heart with timidity,
and with brio was cast aside

He feared for marked insanity,
with the many times he’d tried

The booming beat within his breast,
hushed lunacy’s strident calls

Until he stilled his throbbing heart,
when then those voices died

art: Anomalie 7 by Eric Lacombe

Symphony

Still I feel a symphony of agony,
though the blind see it not;
consumed by self-serving inter-
pretations and cheshire duality,

a moment not taken to vivisect
nascent dubeity for the benefit;
ensconsed in backstabbing morality,
mercurial quicksand, planting seeds

in a wasteland, only to witness the
struggle; honesty would bear fruit
consentiently, yet the witness too
struggles unbearably; primacy,

duplicity, ravenous infelicity,
incapable of common culpability;
hallmarks wherein a maniacal,
unjustifiable personality is born

art: untitled 25 by Peterio

The box

Dust in a box, uninteresting save
its progenitor; in truth, a mere
pacifier for those grieved souls

Redwood blonde, lined by age, once
a titan of might, now molded into
an honorable death, at Its behest

Lifeless plaques, shiny tchotchkes
of distraction, adornments scarred
by dates past and words empty;

Human constructs, ill-befitting records
and sentiments, impossible attempts
to define worth and pure happiness

Descriptions of the nondescript, a
paling comparison, an appalling emb-
arrassment, inadequate and iniquitous

A wooden coffer subduing a life any-
thing but wooden; ash of a bridge to
goodness burned, of inimitable affection,

of contagious élan, and forevermore
unattainable humanity, an uninteresting,
eternized box of dust; priceless

art: Sorrow Floats by Susan Hutchinson

Spaces

He paces throughout this prison,
barred by the abandoned spaces,
only remnants of remembrances,
naught remaining in periphery

breathing subject to parsimony,
being always reticent to continue,
heaviness of heart to aching joints,
he can’t embrace the empty spaces

rather he zealously oppugns reality,
avoids the missing yet not unseen,
at the mercy of the vacant spaces,
caged by the enclosing nothingness

his stride transports him memoriter,
closing his eyes affords a wider view,
the vast open space of the eigengrau,
graces him with anamnesis anew

art: Nigredo – Morgenthau by Anselm Kiefer

Forsaken

Plight unseen within his sombrous
haunt, he whispers wolf as not
to draw its attention, for it is real
in its agency and monstrosity

Turned aside, his whispered cries,
as part and parcel of an Alicine
adventure on his dark side, despite
the blantancy of a soul barest lain

A horse carriage canters within his
cage, each beat of its hooves staves
the stalking of lupine predation; the
vacancy in his eyes, an unbidden

disguise, vacillates from deepest
despair to the wonderment of this
guardian; he takes not the hand of
Faith, Hope’s deluded sister, nor

of Hope herself; instead he’s simply
succumbed to the latency offered by
an inexorable stampede and a disused
throat ripened for its ensuing slaughter

art: lama sabachthani by Peterio

*08.18.18.12.09

Void a void

The stalwart walking chalk outline,
a bone-white sillage swirling behind,
in a dramatic paisley murmur of aloof
pursuit; his barely throbbing corsage

sheds its wet petals for a burgandy-
pasted path of disenchantment; my
steps slow in the crimson sludge, as
I desperately grasp at the beckoning

cloud; chasing Plutonic perfection,
what I was meant to be, always one
step ahead of me; a void to fill a void,
a voice to fill an echo, a fate feigning

fulfillment, in the unbroken dust of
an unlined palm; each day brings
hope of reconciliation, each mourn
welcomes his ruby breadcrumb trail

art: Portrait of a weary ghost by M Tumulty

Needlestack

Overwhelmed in a subsumption
of rapier steel, a slender stalk
of hay in the needlestack, every
eye encircling him in judgement;

each piercing their displeasure
in a mental bloodlet, no hand
would brave the chromium cage
that traps his bridled rage, lest

they too be lashed; no way to
thread an escape, he sets to gaze
in perpetuity upon the pleasance
at his reality’s edge; self-inflicted

destruction would surely end the
improbity that surrounds him,
presses upon him, crucifies his
every pore; yet he yields in

torpidity beneath the wake of
life’s defining failures and the
weight of obstinate oppression
that steels his own imagination

art: Idle Hands by Will Barnet

Homage

Paying homage through pain and suffering,
any distraction an afront to his memory,
any relief a disgrace to his tenderness;

my love will abide until the falling pall of
darkness flutters to rest upon my eyes, and
the final tear to streak my cheek has dried;

an hourglass of ashes, counting down the
sentence; a condign repentance overflowing
the void, suffocating acceptance within the

throat hushed by broken glass remorse and
voiceless reports of choler and dolor; upon
my heart and mind, restless he will ever be

art: by Eric Lacombe

Perfect storm

Enveloped by nubilous darkness
Transfixing the lightning seams
Entreating, bolts for forgiveness
And a coalescence of solidarity

Deafening, the raucous thunder
Rendered silent by a lesser man
Listening to every transgression
Synchrony without and within

Consumed by torrential offerings
Pouring heart and passion forth
Inundated by tearful effluxion
Drowning in sympathetic remorse

Touched by the blossoming fingers
Embraced by the incalescent form
Consoling, the stentorian whispers
Welcomed into a perfect storm

Electrified by savage potential
Illuminating falsehoods and truths
Commingled, they the outcasts
Evanesced beneath brilliant dawn

art: overcast by len-yan

Turmoil

Bloody knuckles and broken heart,
barbaric breathing in tender breaths,
uneasy lies the head that wears the
frown, weighted memories, life bereft;

wall of innocence, dotted hue, departed
love, the vacuum filled; fester, blister,
boiling blood, dawns the night in
unexpected bruises; now with eyes,

the wall stands judgement, mock the
man in swelling weakness; staring
contests, blaring silence, idle hands
with masters violent; wringing, wanting,

calling out; no succour, no escape,
besieging grief in cryptic reminders;
coherence forsaken, harmony shaken,
turmoil wakes in remembrances taken

art: by Zao Wou-Ki

Serenely sleep

sweet smother, serenely sleep
the shadows sense wherein to creep
a raptor whispers secrets keep
slip away in silence

masked madness, molly please
free of freedom, binding frieze
foolish hope on mindless seize
alacritous alliance

when upon an umbrous sleuth
awakened awe uncovered truth
overwhelmed with unctuous ruth
rebarbative reliance

tripped and taut, cataract gleam
eyes torn tight, tantalized dream
twist the secrets, tautologies teem
visions of the violence

raptor breathing poisoned plume
plight and pallor, palling brume
the answer lies, impending doom
death within defiance

art: untitled 35 by Peterio

Nameless

Why does he bother… deprived duende, marred by a sombrous mien, building bridges with deadwood, in a language he alone speaks; farouche, and paying the tolls to navigate the ashes yet to be, hopeless to redefine that synecdoche

An innominate one, extending his naïve tongue for the whim of a wafer, an exegesis literatim; marginalized for the well-adjusted, he’s left inviting an invective soliloquy for the lack of intellection and for the simple company… of another

Walking barefoot whereupon the crimson let, a macadam packed with ossified offerings and reified refusals; a cramoisy craquelure of his sanity beneath a lazuline skyscape, blemished in perpetuity by a thunderous tumor over tremulous shoulders stalking

He dares straddle the liminality delineating equilibrium and deliquium, controlled by porous hands bearing pious guilt; a back-scratching, favor-hatching collective society who shuns purgation, while lamenting hestern and filling entitled shovels to tamp the exploitable dirt

art: Three Studies for a Crucifixion (2) by Francis Bacon