The Verge of Mount Ararat

All hail the glorious,
victorious, and heroic dead.
All relish in their deeds.
Send them your blessings.
Send them your offerings.
Sing to them songs of pride.
Write of their noble valor.
And then burn the scrolls and tablets
and topple their sacred temples.
Man needs no idols to keep him comfort.

A Leaf from Your Brow

In truth, you tricked,
deceived, influenced; and
consorted with kin
to send them well
on their way,
as Skrymir in kind.

The Serpent Fills the Sky

He reign down from the skies
and splits the earth divide.
Terror fills the swollen streets
as men shamble to defeat.
He is Leviathan. He is god-
monster come reign supreme.
An apostle of fear. The chaos king.
Serpentine doom-bringer of worlds.
He reign down from the skies
and drinks the tiding flood cries.
Horror fills the soon dying lands
amidst seas of prayer and clasped hands.
The serpent fills the skies
and the earth fills the serpent.

We Own the Night

As men on a path
born by a wrath
of unkind virtues not taught;

We set out alone
hopeless to atone
as those come overwrought.

No plan, and no gain
to relinquish our pain,
but will to find what we sought.

With our last breaths
swore by our deaths
no villains will halt how we fought.

But we set in abound
to hold and surround
buildings that annul and ignite.

Our hearts were weighed
upon our parade
to street lamps that may alight.

We sang and marched
leaving us parched,
yet pressed on with our might.

So let us raise toast
to the coming ghosts
of those of us who own the night.

So let us raise toast
to those of us who own the night.

Retrogenesis

Drenched in darkness, and soaked in Saturn,
I let loose the tides of reversion and retrogenesis.
I've a mouth for chaos and a gut for unlaw, and
I'll drain the sky of all its power to regress for
chance, a chance.

Awaiting the newest tribunal in strict confines
for an inverse, perverse audition not unmarked
and not unkind, though that holds no justice, and
no litigation. An ataxia habeas corpus. A hearing for
chance, a chance.

Lilith waits my indictment, Baphomet stands seizure,
and who am I to attest such a solid court? Never
two alike, nor attested in unfair cross-examination,
I await the final prosecution of a dynamical system for
chance, a chance.

Samael is false, as the Blind Dragon is beguiling,
as is Lamia, Lillu, and the infamous screech owl.
All are apocryphal and blasphemous to each reach,
and all should pay so dearly upon their own sayers for
chance, a chance.

All queens of Babylon and kings of Sumer sit by
idly, and graven imagined, amidst the dynasty of one:
for a house that sinks down to death, for the wings
of the fallen, for the gates of Sheol, for all things and for
chance, a single, solemn chance.

Way

It's not that I'm too afraid to change.
It's that I'm scared I'll never be the same.
You say that I procrastinate the day,
but I've spent my life living this way.

The Glorious and Noble Janitor

I am here.
But here in my homeland,
for my mind's sake,
I have to believe the parts are greater than their sum.

Upset the Balance

I love the sound of thunder.
To my ears, and hand-in-hand,
with the sight of a terrible storm,
it brings me a sense, a feeling,
of chaos that desires to upset the balance,
to break order.

Marina

I'll be waiting down by the docks,
even though I know you won't show.
I'll be sitting at the end of a pier
waiting for you to meet me there.

Coward

I wish you would have had the guts to tell me the truth.
You called me a coward in secret, and lied to family and friends.
I knew the truth without a word.
Remember, I predicted it years ago.
We are only our parents' children.
Nothing more.

Waarfhoezen and Burum

Steeped in infamy unkind and stepped in ties bind due north
I centered my true path upon stone and lath and went forth.
With no two bandits, nor even two hermits, shown ever alight
where silk trades for cotton for those misbegotten in sight.
On a rightful pilgrimage beneath a justful passage weighed in
to count of Spanish scholars by a lady of seven dolours within.
To escape a Sea of Wadden and drivel of wise men so untrue
I collected twigs and logs amidst a dense fog to form a canoe.
Upon the morning light mine eyes greeted sight of a new home
in an old hermit's abode at the end of a road: a one man Rome.

Days to Come

You sleep soundly now.
Your breath is clockwork in your repose,
and your mind tries to trace the steps back
to where you went wrong.
I creep quietly now.
My breath is held in my stalk,
and my hand grips the handle of the blade
as I make you smile beneath your chin.
The years will fade
and decades will pass away,
and as children of days to come look back,
they will not remember today.
They will not remember today.

Far

Too far
from the winds
that could blow
or from the waters
that could flood
or from the quakes
that could topple
and shake this away.

The R-Town Zombie Invasion (revised)

I was headed out on my way to work when I walked by a passive retail clerk
who had empty eyes and a blank look. So I stopped him and threw a right hook,
and grabbed the tire iron behind the seat and beat him down to the concrete.
I knew this poor bastard had been bit and he would probably never make it.
The R-town zombie invasion had begun. I knew the undead had finally come.

So I called Tyler and Sheebs, but they were already on their way to see me.
There was a group between our trucks. So we sped up, jumped out and ducked.
The sky lit up and left the group dead 'cause of all the nitroglycerin in the bed
that I keep for situations just like this, 'cause I always knew that zombies exist.
Out of ammo, so we went to the gun store ’cause we’d been through this before,
but the guy at the desk had that same look and thirst. So we shot that fuck first.

I saw some zombie kids headed off to school, but to them I couldn't be as cruel.
Rather than shoot them in the head, I ran them over with a school bus instead.
John lopped off the head of an old bitch and she fell down and started to twitch.
Kevin beat in a ghoul's brain with a spade like he was on a fucking crusade,
and tore off another's arm with his own hands and beat down a marching band,
Brock pushed a shopping cart full of kerosene at some fat chicks with ice cream
and shot off a round that blew off their faces, and their hair, and their braces.

We hit the streets with shotguns and grenades as the zombies began to invade,
and decided we probably needed an assist, so we called all our friends to enlist,
but none of 'em lasted too long 'cause it was only we who had been ready all along.
We blew up the mall and shot up Wal-Mart, but all of that was just the start.
I rigged explosives to McDonald’s and BK, and then burned down China Buffet.
We attacked every place where people go and left Richmond with a new asshole.

We hit the quarries on 121 and 227, 'cause the damned don't get into Heaven,
and took two giant dump trucks 'cause they were dead and didn't give a fuck.
Then we siphoned gas from Speedway and Shell after we sent them all to Hell,
and turned the town into a police state and then we reassembled for our fate
to blockade all of the roads and doors and load back up to prepare for more.

With Molotov cocktails and machetes, the fucking undead will never be ready
for the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who severe heads and empty clips
like a little kid begging for some candy. So sit back and crack open the brandy
and celebrate the end of this shithole town as we four turn it all upside down.
When you see us next you may want to grin. Otherwise we’ll have to kill again.
The pandemic will spread across the USA. I've waited my whole life for this Z-Day.

the passion of perdition.

enter sedition.
and they,
thwarting few pockets
of passionate resistance,
and grossly underestimating
our complete displeasure,
all but hand the world over.

civil disobedience is ultimately
much more beautiful
than the swollen, setting sun.
hand in hand, hand to hand
we pass the shells
like a quarter mile relay.

and they being cowards
and we being brave
bring a timely color
to an otherwise transparent world
with cocktails and songbird songs.

consumed by the hate,
welcome to the end:
nothing will fucking remain.

the statistic of one.

it's 10:13 PM.
I've been
here
before.
I know this story
like I know the back of my hand.
I've always known you
too well
to ever love you.
there is more truth in that
than anything
you've ever said.
I'm drunk again.
and on edge.
just like those times on Main Street
when I would break dinner trays
and put holes
into the walls
and break window panes
that I always promised to fix.
I would say I never knew what came over me
but I did and I still do
and I feel that self-destructive
rage
that only I could feel.
they say that only those with little
respect
for themselves
destroy themselves.
that's undoubtedly true in every case.
except mine.
the mighty and the savage
are divided by
a line.
I crossed that line
long ago.
a lifetime
is a long time.
I know this story
like I know the back of my hand.

Summer Nights

The summer nights are filled to the brim
with choices of ease made only on whim,
with the bottle rockets and signal flares
that spit out, light up and fog the air,
and rash cruises with a part faulty GPS
that never stop or ever hinder progress,
with a twenty-five year-old acting five
on trampolines, for a few minutes alive,
and with a bonfire that defied dark sky
that began to rise while I tried to dry.

The King of Awful Things

All nine legions underneath my command,
made of staunch men from a lion's glen,
with their eyes afire and hands abrand,
tiered the valley for their final stand.

In the cold expanse of December night,
which Luna kept and while others slept,
and behind their faces painted white,
they waged their last and final fight.

The blood spilt and flowed until dawn,
and I, the king, made of awful things,
praised the first and last feline pawn,
and told them the world had finally gone.

Mount Repose

Here I am
crushed beneath
the mountain of my sleep
sitting softly
level on the fence
balancing my repose
as I am
crushed beneath
the mountain of my sleep
sliding fluidly
dancing with the stars
balancing my repose
and I am
crushed beneath
the mountain of my sleep
where I dream in keys
and numbers and footprints
and echoes and sand
and sun beneath
the mountain of my sleep.

in full bloom

to the west
is a settled lonely
blooming Sour Cherry tree,
the dark-red morello
will ripen soon.

to the east
is the Great Caspian
where Stenka Razin,
the sea rebel,
made his glorious raid.

these two directions
are the same.

The Wading King

We slipped through transient terrain
across the ethereal and the arcane,
leaving beneath us white waking trail
and floating on the sway of cattails.
A kingfisher met us upon the harbor
with foundations laid of fall arbor
of the Venetician lagoon fertile,
stretching from Brenta to the Sile.
We paced ourselves through the dunes
descending further into the lagoon,
stopping only upon arrival of a heron,
wading king, a brackish marsh baron.
The acqua alta was soon on the rise
as twilight hours birthed glowflies,
between Chioggia and the Torcello
we sank with eelgrass and Othello.

People Never Change

Weary of all these bottomless days
we replete away into the nights
in our glutted drink and our haze
longing for sights and better days.

We press into the twilight hour
sinking deeper in a selfish rut
letting our inner sloth devour
to stumble and strut in the hour.

Draining open bottles and lit ends
to shake away the day's routine
we slink in lasting, decaying amend
embedded in genes here until the end.

Weary of all these bottomless days
we replete away into the nights
in our glutted drink and our haze
longing for sights and better days.

Love long since faded, habit remains,
and dreams die to the daily grind
where nothing is finished or attained
and only rind and procedure remain.

Tomorrow will only ever be the same,
hope only fades away into the mange,
but in the end, so does the pain,
no one changes, we are all the same.

Weary of all these bottomless days
we replete away into the nights
in our glutted drink and our haze
longing for sights and better days.

The Reason

On the day
that I realize
I can no longer
up and leave
with no goodbye
no parting words
no final say
because
I am held here
attached to something
restrained to this town
is the day
that I no longer
have a reason
to stay.

Dóm

We pour sand into wine glasses and engulf your throat in fire
to make reflective mirrors for etchings of our lost words,
to bring about our law, our judgment, our hour,
to set into motion all that should have been in your stead.
We break falsehoods and untrue claims by sham prophets
and stand sure in conviction and the redemption
as we smash through the muddled mass who smile and grin
to their final, gasping breaths of life on this world.
We beat the wretch, condemn the whore, batter the betrayer,
and laugh our final laugh when they are left wondering why,
despite their arrogance, in defiance of their apathy,
and undeterred by the weight of their crowns of sand.
We pour sand into wine glasses and toast to the Great End
to make looking glasses for a fleeting image of vanity
and everything absolute that you took for granted
or ignored in spite of every single whisper I spoke to you.
This is your day of everlasting judgment. This is your doom.

in a waking life.

in a waking life
you see the sun set and
you rise in the early hours
to hapless moments
measured only in clock-ins
and coffee breaks and
empty smiles from co-workers
with four kids,
lemon cars,
and two mortgages,
and cats that eat table scraps, and
none of them know why they persist.

in a solemn vow
to climb up and make
your way out of here
you instinctively make a house
and home and root yourself with iron
chains to this town.

you work your way to the top,
reminiscence about the good ol' days,
take out student loans,
date a few pretty girls,
and hunker down to a homely place
and buy yourself a nice, little house
in the good side of town
where you can have a few years
of marriage, and then maybe
some children of your own
that will go to your childhood school,
become a part of the PTA
and bitch about taxes,
and what they're teaching your kids,
and who's running for president,
and why your boss won't give you a raise,
and what your ex got in the divorce.

and in a waking life
you see your son set in
motion everything you never
wanted for yourself
but couldn't ever prevent.