Truancy

Shrug away the saddle of gravity,
and float free through this reality,
unearth the joy of a liberated view.

Up dissolves, always retreating,
down wrestles, always pulling,
Neither are accountable to you.

Forward insists on forging a destination,
while all else is mired in hesitation,
and, as need arises, can be made anew.

Hold fast to your curious nature,
be bold with choices that bring you favor,
in the variety of forwards to pursue.

I know the weight of that pressure,
but nothing can hold you down,
even when you feel the most tethered
don’t be so shook as not to look around,
find your forward and push through.

Hurricane

All those years of emptiness, a tomb;
inside – gestating such violent dreams,
coalesced into form, condensed, collapsed,
and unleashed ever more as tortured screams.

Calling out across an uncaring void,
to cull the ambitions of lesser forms –
ignite the dark expanse with fire unseen
and raucous solar storms.

A bold pearl is suspended within eternity,
a mote of dust that trembles as it falls,
the ceaseless waves of horror crashing,
impressing their desperation against its walls.

The tiny planet steels itself with hard mountains,
calms itself with vast sanctuaries of ocean,
and soon suffers the anguish as a comfort;
finding growth in the soil of those emotions.

Life then finds purchase after eons of false starts.
It rises, one rung at a time, until it thrives,
standing astride the eternal fires and bear witness,
to the struggle of existence, and survive.

The pearl is set aside for ideas to take their place,
the sound of suffering out amongst the stars
muted by the growing transitive bustle
of wagons, ships, planes and cars.

But the screaming never stops,
the oceans secret the agony away,
holding it in as long as they can,
until met with cooler days,

When contemplative rain falls like bricks,
confident in an end the earth can easily dissolve,
but is met with Discordia’s ancient anger,
and the horrors of time forgotten and unresolved.

With terror, precipitation rises as a squall,
to retreat from the known and unknown,
evading the languid web of fatalism,
rather than become another sterile seed sewn,

The exchange of current and course accelerate,
until the violent motion is more than function,
birthing a determined prophet of intent;
Helios’ blind messiah of destruction,

lumbering towards a pregnant shore,
where years of engineered fertility,
could only now germinate malevolence,
sprouting anxiety, poverty, vulnerability.

The maw of the storm stretches for miles,
carrying with it a spiteful inevitability,
amid the storm’s callous consumption,
solace nestles in life’s tragic tranquility.

What We Began

The self,
absurdly reaching for,
a place on the top shelf,
where we are reached no more,
a solitude of health.

Desire,
a veil across the eyes,
our innards turned to fire,
what reason underlies,
lost in futures conspired.

Panic,
overwhelms emptiness,
drops in the Atlantic,
swallowed by loneliness,
madness becomes frantic.

Lifespan,
the gift turned albatross,
doing all that we can,
to stave the ceaseless loss,
from futures that were planned.

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.

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