Category Archives: Brendon Behlke

I Implore

The horizon feels too strange,
the place of it, too alien for destiny.
A haze of guile undulating like waves,
so that as I look upon that distant goal,
my eyes are strained to hold it down,
yet still – I can’t make sense of it,

can you?

I’ve moved so little,
but I know it has moved against me,
together we both are changed,
though surely the journey is lost;
that future stalled while the horizon continues,
unmoved by my confusion,
taking measured steps long past my ramblings.
I cannot hope to keep up,

can you?

The static landscape envelopes me,
in a skyless desert without purpose,
where neither direction nor pace matter.
The horizon, stranger still,
keeps running towards a pointless end,
Sometimes – I swear I hear it screaming,

can you?

Conflict

I entered this world pure as light,
barren, smooth, meticulously white,
though quickly defiled with desires,
corrupted by eyes blind to sight.

Inward looking for what inspires,
not calm, but chaos to aspire,
unexplored possibilities.
Secrets now fueled and set to fire.

Undertaking hostilities,
nightmarishly tuned as are these,
requires but subtle restraint,
that dreams may also be appeased.

I make no audible complaint,
while I am so forced to acquaint,
with such colors ‘til I grow faint,
not a canvas, but a pile of paint.

Collapse

The harm was not in the fall.
No, the drawl of tumbling
felt like a bow string released
and when it had ceased, humbling.

Pain was the pull from behind;
where my mind, ensnared in knots,
like a tangled quagmire drogue,
the last threads gone rogue in thought.

Though the relief was also strong,
it set wrong, muddled with guilt.
How could the cost of peace be
all of the things we had built?

Cities

Chemicals bound like knots,
in wads of chewing gum,
escape within me through lesions,
cut by fiberglass aggression.
The feelings they give, the mindless chewing;
all distract me from what’s really brewing.
A mattress covered transgression,
answering unasked questions
to find a total sum
of one’s short life well fought,
and reach zero.

Making Sick

Pursue the throat through open bones out stretched
where screams of joy or sacrifice are moved
to live or die absurd amongst refuse.

Rejected, accepted and at last wretched
bereft now upon a wall of eyes smoothed
by past, by present, future all subfused.

What once would shake those tranquil waters fierce
now speaks a common tongue to have them soothed;
silent they watch and wait for more to loose.

Such loss is all that’s left for hearts to pierce,
life’s dues.

Honor Bound

It all comes to a head,
sloped in confident stability,
glistening polearm in the sun;
trembling with each primal rhythm,
an apocalypse in hoof beats.

Echoed close like slow dance,
a warrior’s heart.
A tiny muscle fortified by steel,
beneath so much flimsy flesh,
in a hot dark space – cramped,
with fear, excitement, intimidation.
Awkward, boisterous things,
louder than the quiet duty beneath.

The motley pair gallop towards their mirrored end,
while the crowd pours forth celebration,
enough to drown in if murder were not their intent.

The Reaping

In your hand, a frail rose bud,
the edges whispering falls fatal hues,
curled up in exile,
of the once bright colors that remain.

The fleeting caress of petal’s memoirs,
bloom against gentle fingers,
bent like crooning midwives,
soothing scavengers.

This innocence plucked from wounded stalk,
shifts uncomfortably in the wind,
subtle tremors pining,
for the time and place where they began.

A woefully bare stem, violated,
standing amidst the rubble of its life,
a solitary piteous steel pipe,
its thorns shorn, its head in your hand.

The void you etched,
an echo of absence,
dark – wanting – growing,
where the flower never will again.

Tomorrow (Video)

This is part of a collection of poems accompanied by an AI generated illustration as a response to those poems. In the collection, “A Super Collider of Zigs and Zags” by Brendon Behlke, each poem was submitted as a prompt to an AI art generator and produced the artwork on display. To view them the way ancient peoples would have viewed them, you can order a copy of the entire collection, over 100 poems and art pieces, releasing on November 18th 2023 here: https://www.fontainehousepublishing.com/product-page/a-super-collider-of-zigs-and-zags-by-brendon-behlke

Citizens United (Video)

This is part of a collection of poems accompanied by an AI generated illustration as a response to those poems. In the collection, “A Super Collider of Zigs and Zags” by Brendon Behlke, each poem was submitted as a prompt to an AI art generator and produced the artwork on display. To view them the way ancient peoples would have viewed them, you can order a copy of the entire collection, over 100 poems and art pieces, releasing on November 18th 2023 here: https://www.fontainehousepublishing.com/product-page/a-super-collider-of-zigs-and-zags-by-brendon-behlke

Cthulhu (Video)

This is part of a collection of poems accompanied by an AI generated illustration as a response to those poems. In the collection, “A Super Collider of Zigs and Zags” by Brendon Behlke, each poem was submitted as a prompt to an AI art generator and produced the artwork on display. To view them the way ancient peoples would have viewed them, you can order a copy of the entire collection, over 100 poems and art pieces, releasing on November 18th 2023 here: https://www.fontainehousepublishing.com/product-page/a-super-collider-of-zigs-and-zags-by-brendon-behlke