Lethargic in matted hair,
moored amidst sticky sweetness;
still warm – [embrace].
Sampson’s strength twirled flirtatious,
as two houses feuding in gusts of wind,
currents wicked with sin.
Reluctantly, with a convulsive hand,
I unearth the treasure within.
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
Visiting a place is not being there,
it is only sight and sound –
drawn curtains
a polished candelabra.
You see in lists and itineraries,
perspective narrowed
to what such places concede freely,
satisfying curious wanderers;
souls ravaged like refugees,
without the time or patience to settle
down.
A distant home that feels like asylum,
pending and uncertain.
All virtues lost,
yet to be found.
You can feel authenticity crisp in
the air.
You can’t grasp it,
though it is there –
it is there,
left only with pictures awash in venom;
that resolve like troubled thoughts,
dying after a sober night’s sleep.
Visiting a place is not being there.
Being there requires sacrifice.
It requires the hint of escape on the horizon,
silhouetting all the shapes visitors ignore;
seeing those shadows and loving them,
for how they embrace the light.
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
What is lost with life – our possessions,
our love, our heart, our intentions
May be found again in somber hands,
outstretched to catch our sifting sands,
The grains of our time tumbling in light,
ignite like fire eager, and over bright.
While the slag that falls past those fingers,
is gone forever, the memory still lingers.
By the end, so little of what was remains;
it is not what is, but what is not that pains,
So, we shield those fragments from the outside,
with the withered parts of us that still reside,
But in this sacrifice, all the light is lost,
we can shine no more, that is the cost.
Eyes slide through the light into darkness
a glass pane, the lone sentry between them
like a polished shield casting medusa in stone.
From within the light, music plays;
literal – metaphorical,
the sounds hold hands and dance about the space.
The light shines bright, inside.
A glow that blankets each expressive face,
as they contort and twist around the words exchanged,
eagerly snatching at unseen shadows.
Outside, where these same shadows reign supreme,
the faces are concealed, maligned in night,
longing for, shamefully, that steady blaze.
The light shines bright, inside.
A glass pane severing them from the night,
there can be no telling what lies outside –
only bright moments reflected from this side.
The darkness is there though, still;
a quiet cancer whispering only a thin sheet away,
no one looks at, no one speaks about –
and the light shines bright, inside.
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
“Leave this world better than you came to it”
words lured out from countless different throats,
aphorisms their old dreams intuit,
donned now in these cold years like warm coats.
Words lured out from countless different throats,
languish there as bricks in a chimney shaft
donned now in these cold years like warm coats,
below, smoke billowing a hearty laugh.
Languish there as bricks in a chimney shaft,
below, smoke billowing a hearty laugh
aphorisms their old dreams intuit
“Leave this world better than you came to it.”
Grow Gray With Me 