Butterfly with rusted wings

Pray for Plagues

Close your eyes and pray for plagues.

Hazmat skin and split lipped fears.

Can you feel the pull?

The rivers will flow with viscous blood, bled in a million different ways.

Butterflies with calcified antennae and rusted wings will gather upon the river banks,

Scabbed over to drown us all in boiling sweet metallic nectar.

Can you feel the longing?

I cannot run, don’t turn back, save yourself.

My skin is terra cotta, it fractures with each step.

Can you feel the call?

The sky will fall, to smother us all, in psilocybin clouds birthed from the mouths of babes, swatched in Beryllium shawls.

Can you feel the heat?

The enemy is slain, once and for all. You made a deal with the devil, didn’t you?

The ferryman calls. We must pay with everything that was or could ever be.

Can you feel the cold?

Let us shake and tumble, like cottonwood seeds in the breeze.

This motion brings no heat.

My bones are bristling, bumpy marrow and sandpaper textures.

Bones claimed by the sea feel its ebb and flow as they are assimilated into coral. Bones buried in the forest hear the birds call, echoing into eternity.

Can you hold my hand?

Please?

Streetlight Prophets

Streetlight prophets scrawl, with blood and tears, their scriptures across the underpass walls.

“There are no monsters left!” Their paint clammors silently.

A concrete artery, hallowed halls of partial protection for laissez-faire ne'er-do-wells whose whole existence is swathed in rain-proof outerwear.

It leads to 4th ave where the clowns,

In polyester smiles and uniformed mediocrity,

Spill saltine tears onto pressed white collars.

If the vagabonds are vilified, we become only what we have.

All I am is inked skin and thoughts and a lopsided smile.

What can a violin with four broken strings do against such reckless indulgence?

Sherbet skies and cotton candy clouds call forth sweet memories.

Diluted quickly by northeastern winds, back to atoms.

The sky fractures into geometric madness, spiraling into infinity from cracks in the concrete.

Looks like doomsday's come early this year.

Nothing

I don’t know what to say, if anything.

Alien apes ate all available alpine amore.

Profoundly stupid, I know. I wear that label like a scar.

Togas slip off quiche shoulders, Rome is burning. But yo, I can play The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

The cute blonde barista smiles at me and remembers my name.

It’s her job to be nice to you, relax dumbass.

Sip your overpriced coffee with smoke-dulled taste buds.

True coal quietly burns cold, gotta heat the house with fury.

Quintessential graceful failure is what I aim for.

Tears are born of the sea,

You aren’t crying, you are returning to our crucible roots.

The sea has sung so many to sleep,

You are not roiling alone.

Neon Skies

Wasted potential, a senseless tragedy.

Hear the call of bloodborne melody,

Take up your pen, your arms, your dullard’s hopefulness.

Against the unknown, avail yourself to the universe’s senselessness.

Be joyous in your creation, make the fabric of space time sewn.

The chaos of chemistry, the serenity and

The beauty of the stars is in your blood dear sister.

You are of cosmic beauty and luster, the stillness and light, keep up the fight;

Of useless words and bits of clay, melancholy on a rainy day.

Weave them into a tapestry of focused minds, refracted memories.

The universe is in and within you, dear brother.

You know love, you come from above, our electrons will dance with each other.

I changed her name in my phone to Athena

It goes like this.

She told me that my writing was beautiful.

It was all written about her, how could it not be?

Christmas lights sit upon the upper wall,

Diffracted ocular anxiety, soft circles of milk-laden breasts and smiling faces.

Would Nero have played on the deck of the Titanic?

The 4th.

She touched my heart, like a pickaxe through the ribcage.

We walked through the neon dark together, taunting Cheron’s legion of drunk drivers who know this town like the back of their own taint.

Bits of skin fell off with each step, smushed into the cold concrete by uranium feet and dissipated body heat until we were naught but lights, flitting twisted ladders.

Let’s take a day trip to hell and ask Ronnie boy if it’s swell down there.

Felt belt sheen, the clock ticks past 12 to 14, the end of the Maya.

Why does the songbird trill from Sing Sing?

The 5th.

A buddy of mine wanted to go on a spiritual journey through the desert. The cops picked him up at 2AM high on Ketamine trying to swim through a sandbox on a Montessori playground. He said the community service was very enlightening.

Years blinded by sodden silence.

I wanted to love her more than I wanted to love myself.

Her hand is on his chest, a surprise appendectomy.

I can’t breathe.

Do I even want to?

The minor fall.

I don’t think Helen of Troy was a supermodel sex goddess. I think she was a 63 year old cashier at Rite Aid with curly white hair and cakey foundation who called Paris sweetie and told him he looked very handsome in that jacket.

I look into her eyes like a snowman appreciates the colors in the sunrise.

If gummy bears started a religion, would their devil look like molars or the factory belt?

The major lift.

What do you think happens when we die?

I think we take a nice walk through a national park at dawn, following a kind snail with a deep, reassuring voice. Our grandfather's voice, heard with a new set of ears after a long car ride. He will ask us how we liked it down there beneath the sun, and we will finally have words enough to describe it.

Strawberry mornings and pastel sherbet sunsets will come again,

Sickly sweet love of sugar and sunbleached roadkill.

Don’t fear the decay darling, a thousand little creatures with a thousand little teeth will take what we no longer need and grow flowers from our lungs and evergreen trees from our eyes.

Time isn’t kind to you, dear Theseus. But it’s necessary, forever a part of your story.

I don’t have a white half-mask, would you still sing for me if I asked?

The baffled king.

All I hear is the wind.

Maybe tomorrow it will be warmer.

Maybe then I’ll remember enough to forget about her.

Composing.

When my sacred string is severed with silver scissors in the knobby hands of a crone,

I will stand before the lord of conscious thought with tears rolling down my cheeks and ask her what it is all for.

She will look at me with hydrogen skin the color of the ocean and helium eyes the size of the universe and reach down to hold me softly in her arms and whisper sweetly into my ear:

Daisy chain/Sike

Bold foals roll coal, gotta pay the troll toll lest the soul runs cold.

What glitters is often... Pyrite.

Alright, take time to get your mind right.

Slight tights alight the night's blight. It's too bright to fly kites,

Activate my fight or... Cry.

Why do the shy lies get her so high?

I try my guy. Let’s slyly die as we fly through fields of fried rye.

Life's a thick slice of... Dogshit.

Spit-slick tricks, two bit fits of filled in slits, or as the Brits call 'em: gits.

Pop me like a... Land mine.

Lost time shines upon the lime slime. You're fucking blind Einstein;

Thyme don't rhyme with your fine kind.

Think about it, use your... Grey matter.

Fatter platters clatter down. Pitter patter, let's get at 'er.

Sadder chutes and badder ladders shatter spines of adders and Galadriel’s bladder.

Push me over the edge. Watch me hit the ground and... Roll.

MF Dude

Mirror view, accidentally handsome fits.

Steer and veer, no fear, BMW’s leer and jeer ‘till the beer shears tears.

Or one for more, four score on the floor of the shore, what a bore.

Softcore whores investigate the lore of poors, sorry, no ores in my drawers.

Too few shoes for true news, midday snooze after Blue’s Clues.

Oblong flack attacks the black track. She lacks a Cadillac but I scribble silly shit like Kerouac gacked off some Afghan smack.

Uhhhh… Bruh.

Pen lines send trends to young men, looks like the end my friend.

Crawl before you fall babydoll, lol, sirens call from stalled malls to kill ‘em all.

Lee blows trees and swears she’s the bees knees.

Freeze! Drop the cheese!

At ease, no new breeze flows through our disease.

Now you’re in a jam young man, oh damn. Slam the plan, Tía made flan.

Your dumb son got stung from too much fun; huffing Chinchilla dung straight from Manilla hun, the young plum woulda spun chum on the offramp of the 101.

Spit slick tricks, bits bit off mitts while the drawn curtain slits serenade perfect flicks.

Wanna cheer me up? Show me your… Favorite guardrail.

I wish

I wish I was taller.

I wish I could befriend a raccoon, nickname him Corporal, and eat popcorn with him in a dumpster on thursdays.

I wish cotton candy floated in the right kind of weather.

I wish I had a good camera to take photos of pretty sunsets and smiling strangers.

I wish you could rollerblade on the rings of Saturn, and see the stars up close.

I wish trees would tell stories if you knew how to listen.

I wish my sister would call me and tell me her deepest fear, so I don’t feel so small.

I wish I could lay in the grass without getting itchy.

I wish I could start all over with what I know now, so I can make the same mistakes without the fear of not knowing the outcome.

I wish my mom would hug me like she did when I was a kid with an upset stomach.

I wish I had a million dollars so I could spend Christmas Eve paying strangers medical bills.

I wish I knew what I am doing.

I wish that I don’t.

When I fall

When I fall, don’t turn back, just look away.

When I fall, don’t bury me in the shade of an oak tree, please, I need to see the sky.

When I fall, don’t cry for me, I will be fine.

When I fall, please just think of me.

When I fall, spread some ashes of mine in the park by my house. There is a hidden creek that gave me peace when I needed it most.

When I fall, find a rock to remember me by. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just one that made you think of me.

Where I fall, leave a pack of gummy bears and american spirit yellows. Modern coins on the eyes to enjoy on the last long walk down the forested trail.

How I fall is of no importance. We all do, eventually. From the hardiest trees to the smallest atoms blinked into cold oblivion by unfair transfers of energy.

When I fall, I will return. Look for me in cloud formations and warm spring rains. I will give all that I have left for the old growth forests.

When I fall, I hope I get to see the sky. One last time.

Leigh’Lagh (To the tune of ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominos)

What will you do when you’re awakened?

Will you consume the stars in the sky?

We’ve been running and hiding much too long.

Kill us all for our foolish pride.

Leigh’Lagh, you’ve got me on my knees.

Leigh’lagh, I’m begging, mercy please from,

Leigh’lagh. Will you please spare my mortal mind?

I’ve tried to feed you your own cultists

When you first entered our time space.

Like a fool, I gazed into your maw.

I will never sleep again.

Leigh’Lagh, you’ve got me on my knees.

Leigh’lagh, I’m begging, mercy please from,

Leigh’lagh. Will you please spare my mortal mind?

With more eyes then there are stars in the sky,

With wings that mimic the darkest night.

Our hubris brought you here to destroy

You are the reckoning we must face.