Monthly Archives: March 2022

The Birth Machine (HR Giger)

Purpose
locked – cocked and ready
action potential set to a trigger
to place the world in sights
and see to it that she is fired upon
and fired upon
and fired upon.

I am told we are violence
we are the natural product of the cosmos
broken, grafted, and manipulated
into perverse projectiles
fired at blistering speeds to our end
a flash of light
a loud noise
a wound.

It hits me with such shock
honesty transcribed in shades of gray
the negative space of brighter days
that lie still in the background,
victims of the machine.

Addiction

Electric fire shooting through us
as absurd hunger – ruinous
We are ambiguity
broken forms teased by contiguity

No wires stretched between anxious thoughts
leaves on the water’s surface – caught
We are ambiguity
terrified of becoming superfluous

How shameful this time would thus be
our desire all that we can see
self-branded scarlet letter
we wear like winter in a warm sweater

But a sweater is held by thread
while less of us can oft be said
Self-branded scarlet letter
our fiendish addiction to destiny

We pay ourselves gratuity
self-branded scarlet letter
but none of it makes us better
we are ambiguity.

Asylum

This macrocosm is heavy inside
held by a few dozen windows
a handful of doors
openings that force the world small
less than the words on paper
an image echoed on closed eyes
nothing to desire or be afraid of

Outside – looking in
this place is nothing.
No one looks here on purpose
eyes have better things to do
only visiting when lost.

A world this small from the inside
Leaves no hope for those looking back
to see…

Brittle

Birthed in anguish
the love season gone sour
               a smooth transition to a troubled end
the pot of gold
               abandoned by the rainbow.

The cauldron of unbreakable resolve
               sculpted into a ceramic life
                              made fragile
               only able to find peace
as broken shards, glittering once again.

The hammer apologizes,
               “I’m not usually involved,”
We answer in fractured colors,
               “do you think in words?”
silence on a blank page.
               They keep their thoughts to themselves.

Cold Problems

The floors here are disastrous
tornado wreckage
tidal waves retreated
leaving indiscernible trauma
old lives told like nightmares
with baubles and fabric.
Wires could pass as wigs
regurgitated spaghetti
A discarded blue dress
may as well be buried tile
sequins and seaweed
a three-day old corpse;
any of those things.

Three days?
               has it only been that long?

Please

Tell me
               what I’ve done means something
               I’ve still got time
               it will get better

Tell me
               the weather outside is nice
               love is enough
               the worst is behind us

Tell me
               those I love won’t ever feel like this
               their futures are bright and limitless
               I’ll die before I see their end

Tell me
               anything that will keep me going
               that you mean it
               to trust you
make it sound genuine.

Weighted

Familiar streets look new tonight
the day drowning in the west
a thin layer of moonlight opposed
holding everything down
heavy

The self – a body of whispers
bound in loose threads of thought
woven around tooled cotton
emptiness made a fool,
a caricature of substance
like a corpse on strings
dripping with the life inside
desperate for an end
or at least something to catch what is left.

A Soft Glow Masked by Metal

The pilot light defies the dark
               a flickering of potential
                              this is every Tuesday now
What was at once time cycled by the moon
               then every few weeks
                              has become common place somehow
Though the basement is an abandoned place
               left to wires, pipes and tubes
                              of all the hidden movements in the house
               the quiet void is the most intrusive.

Gordian Knot

They say [no words could describe] the world beneath
spawning [this terror I feel] deep within me
corrupting [where the soul abides] into blaspheme
the dark heart [tearing through the walls] with savage teeth
rips through me [to find what’s inside] to excise it
let feral things see [and devour it all] before my eyes
consuming me [until all that is left] are my cries,
yet even that sound [is a hollow call] I can’t commit.

My remains are sent [out to the darkness] to retire
like a bat [searching for an echo] in the vacuum of space
if I could divine [some sound to harness] I’d leave this place
but all that’s left [in the loud silence] is my desire.

Outside [there is no response] I delve within
Where [the sound inside died] art was made
becoming a kiss [just past my lips] and falls on the heart
which once had thought [there’s no life outside] where it had been.