The Ship of Theseus

Replace the plugs,
refasten the bolts,
I will do my homework,
take the tests
and grow from a boy into a man,
meet new people,
change the oil,
buy new tires and watch TV,
I will get a job and vote for mayor,
change the wipers and fix the A/C,
and as the years pass on by
you will begin to see
that I am no longer the person
you once knew me to be.

If I am Angra Mainyu

Not far from Ahura,
upside down
and written in contempt and disgust,
he, equal
in opportune
and all things unequaled,
became the stranger
and the libertine
and the boor
and the varlet to a throne
in the mind
of a sunset head-storm.

Ahriman dwelled
with Auramazdā in passing,
though no two homes alike,
each was the same.

Now encased
and ending on a prophecy
he read to himself,
the dusk ushered
the night
and second sight,
well-founded,
found the brothers
as conquerors
of it all.

If I am Angra Mainyu,
then he must surely be
Ahura Mazda.

Swell

Quite possibly
the most acute,
overbearing,
and morally
ambiguous desires
are everything
so unfounded,
and
utterly
barren.

Golden Boy

For the inglorious, and valueless,
and baseless, and the easily blamable
there is absolutely nothing worthy,
nor engaging, nor rational,
nor left, at all.

Time (II)

The inapt and noxious obligation
in the matter is slightly
more inconvenient than its first
effect.

1:08

It's 1:08
in the early Monday morning
and I can see the raccoons
behind the cigar smoke
one by one
on their way to my trash can
that I'm sure is laying wide open
like a fruitful cornucopia
from the strong storm
some hours before.

I finish the fourth beer
and feel a sense of relief
that perhaps
I finished something I started today.

Buzzed,
and Bukowski's breath grips me tight
and he digs his fingernails
deep into my skull
and I just can't bring myself
to fall asleep,
deceiving myself into believing
the prolonging of rest will
stand time still.

Then I begin to realize
I haven't finished anything
at all.

I think I'll have
another beer.

Crestfallen Confession

Can I slowly abide and remain ever-so-hesitant
and rest the expansive silence to circumvent?
Can my crazy confession calmly wait and adjourn
or will it be written and thrown away to burn?

I sleep and see myself falling with the stars
and awake to this novel world where you are.
I used to think I could grow old and gray
in a contemporary life that could slip away.

Can I slowly abide and remain in my intent
and rest the ending silence to circumvent?
Can my crestfallen song calmly wait by concern
or will it be written and thrown away to burn?

I lived many lives in only a matter of years
in a tasteless manner that left none to fear.
Therein lies my own one true sin to obscure
and words on this paper you burn are a cure.

Can I slowly abide and remain without consent
and rest the reaching silence to circumvent?
Can my crazy confession simply wait to yearn
or will it be written and thrown away to burn?
Will it be written and thrown away to burn?

Father and Son

We were young then - when it all came down,
when worries were far from our minds,
and the morning sun called us out to play
in untouched fields and fresh water ponds.

Our father was gentle then - when he loved us
most, and he didn't care more for his job
than he did for us, and when he trusted
our decisions whole-heartedly above all else.

But he became afraid then - when it seemed
we were growing older and preparing to stand
all on our own, and we asked for independence
that any son who becomes a man would wish.

Then the old man became angry - when we
needed him most, and the family was torn
apart in a feeble quarrel that split us up,
and sent us into the new world all alone.

The Source

Slipping dread and awe and undoing
each thought, each measure reviewing
until the placement of your doubt
slips and leaves you with no way out,
fallacy and fright plague the present
until you condone time not well spent,
until envy and disease become words
and anyone, anything else preferred,
silence, then, takes its own course
and you decide to destroy the source,
an action defined and lacking virtue,
but then, that was always you...

wasn't it?

The Wicked King Wicker

A mongrel's coarse tongue spoke laws
to relinquish the man of his own flaw,
to commission events in Pelham Bay,
to set forth a course he would obey.

Sam's son shouted at Queens thrice,
and once in Columbia spoken concise.

The bloodied Bronx brought two more,
and four finally fell but not before
the Twenty Two of Hell would write:
"For now I say goodbye and goodnight."

The Duke of Burgundy

Surely I could have been ceaseless
and unending in the beginning,
with ever none the wiser;

And slept the days away,
using my instar to establish
seeds of doubt in secrecy;

And kept other cats at bay
with the aid of air and brush
until the realization of exodus;

Surely the nefarious and miscreant
would then shudder at sight
of the great Duke of Burgundy.

Luna

I sifted through the tinsel and the sand
with an ever-argentine and vespertine zest,
we played as children near the uniform monolith,
an obelisk for every star
lined the extending open sky.

Celestial oceans slept ashore
and ash fell from the wound
that never healed.

And yet, the tide
was featureless.

We ran through basins and mare basalt
until we reached the highlands,
and played cops and robbers in craters.

The Earth seemed so big,
when we were small.

We were still too close.

The imposing pearl in your view
is just one leap and one eclipse
from leaving you.

The moon seems so bright tonight.

Sol

Fallacy shines its best at dawn
in this stolen stoning age of grins,
and grimace fills the cup to the brim.

Solaced eyes find their comfort
in dirty dusk and dusty dreams, and
it all just seems too decadent to ignore.

Twilight suns find their brightest
for broken phrase and for evanescent seams
that line the gap and even try
to bridge this grand open.

The faded stars tempt upon forgiveness
of which I can give none,
but I still whisper softly in their ears.

They utter back, and I don't listen.

Deadly gardens of fire burn sweetly,
and staunchly; they engulf, and eat me.

A somber slumber no longer; seas topple
and the hourglass bursts like a dam, and
I let the white wave wash over.

Each grasp is for the present,
and yet, it still slips.

Drifting in complete composure under
swollen lids, and laughter begins to beckon,
if only for the moment.

Good morning, or not.

The sun seems so bright today.

Khaos and the Fall of Order

Foresight is simply realization of rhythm;
there is no fortitude in consistent repetition,
no doctrine except in destruction.
Fickle hyperons resisting at every turn,
the epic splash of Tiamat,
and a plight to the perjurer Marduk.
That which made will sink.
Tonight all in a quantum revolt
the gaping chasm will swallow us whole.
Watch the patterns dissolve.
From Tigris and Euphrates
came eyes of foam and waves
that would give visions of cinder and ash.
She smote and spewed with such charm.
Goodbye, Babylon. Goodbye, Destiny.
Fact and science will not endure,
nor feeble superstitions.
I will see it through to its dramatic end:
the dynamic disassociation
and failed modern determinism;
stand for nothing, stop at nothing, even
for Pythagoras of Samos, none in vain.

Sc(r)am

Left to idle for an era
and left to sift through ages
that left in a hurry.
They went where all good things go
and where others went
to free themselves from
old tyrannical overbearance,
leaving only their ever-decaying pride.
Never resting or pondering
possibility in the making.
Sojourners that had sacrificed epics
and all they never really had
made for their long escape
into a void fully abundant
with eternal choice:
to always leave.

Hello, Cerebus, My Friend

I parted ways with my almost comatose cadaver.
Between inhale and exhale I was gone.
Her uttered vote voiced in all three tones
that should I leave my seated throne
I should surely take my place in her hall
to bask in the sweet glow of Armageddon.

Though a temptress at her best, I expected
the worst to come, of course.
Her behavior was based in appetence.
Rigorous and Draconian in distinct opposition
to any compromise I could hope for.
These were not the features of the only
woman I could trust, because surely
that twin was meant for so much more.

I gave this Venus her newly carriaged name
and shared vintage strawberry wine
with Baphomet, who were one and the same.
I demeaned the impossibility in isolation.

The venture began in the diseased fields
of the west with mechanical scarecrows
and endless mines of ore and continued further
to the wolves of the north howling at Luna to
their hearts’ content and then finally resting
on the futile outbursts of a distant
starburst galaxy contained all in conspiracy.
Affinity fell to sleep beneath the blanket
of the end and Chaos awoke to serenades
of inclination and natural tendencies.

Perhaps a lucid dream, but unlikely it seemed.
I shall walk this dirt road to Hell.
I bid my fond farewell and goodbyes, Lilith.
Hello, Cerebus, my friend.

Vs.

The distaff iris spit out rainbows
on the path to trees,
an augur for his sanguine resurgence
anterior to the brands
brandished for the flutter
ever so ensiform and jagged-edge
to sempiternal twins on the brink,
staunch fists and swords clashed,
refinement and incorruptibility
became a thing of the past
and sooner vistas, even.

Dynasty of Dyad

Prose, ever so seraphic,
nor celestial salvation,
should ever correlate
my aeonian repriever,
my rescuer of resolution,
my amaranth salvation.

At Odds with the World

When I move, muscles become my antagonists,
as though frequenting nothing in absolute,
held for ransom in heresy my doubt persists
in this routine you so hold dear in repute,
yet, despite the dread and felt disaffection
I promote my mind myself to a false belief
that comfort complete is within misdirection
and integrity can be found in disbelief,
one true barrier lies beyond my distrust
of any given cycle you can idolize as God,
my own dogma, my one belief is to combust
the reason you endure under that old facade.

Contra/Version

Disaffirmation is relief, which I
envy you wholly; and when you
negate the truth, liability
is simply no longer
any concern to you, but still it
lingers inside and rips you apart.

Coup d'oeil

As my forbearers firebombed the outskirts
and paved city streets in chromatic parades,
the wonders of the world
fell to my marauding progenitors
potentially freeing me from my ascension.
I should thank them, but I will not.
Their bursts and beams of light
covered the cloudscapes and deciduous sky
turning sun to shadow and saturnine smiles.
A caliginous concert for the converted.
Surely tomorrow will never come.
Eden is in a mushroom cloud.

A Centurion Broadcast (Raw Imperialist Radio)

The Caesar’s map is smeared in red blots
and it's filling up fast.
Even the sea is falling
to the legion of our civil duty.
We strike at the hordes who keep the land
and savior the sweet, sweet victory.
All the world will feel his wrath
for the glory of an idea: this union.

Might as fucking well be Helen of Troy.
They say Rome wasn't built in a day,
but let's see how fast it burns.

The Great Escape Down the Last Bayou

An old hat outlaw rashly on the run
with an overzealous heart and a gun,
the half-emptied shine jug,
the new left-shouldered slug,
and an impending mosiac still undone.

On the homemade raft down the bayou
to escape all those who would pursue
he strayed away from the coast
and the Mississippi ghosts
and the dragons to paddle on through.

Lights flickered beneath the canopies
as the creeping things began to tease
with their old tricks and hex
by this slightly erred annex,
so he left a token behind to appease.

Orphaned on his own accord, he'd admit,
though the past is nothing to forget,
and there would be no doubt,
so proven, he then took out
the old, ivory snake-eyes in his pocket.

The passive current would leave prize,
for beneath sins and his very eyes,
as his famine soon overcame
he no longer held his name,
and now his own mind was a disguise.

The crescent moon lit his final route
finding his way to water pouring out,
his determination could rest
where he settled in the west,
he knew what escape had brought about.

That Final Curtain

More and more I feel the need
to break away and recede
and shake away the past
and make today the last
time I'll walk these streets
and pace my feet in defeat,
so I'm planning for tomorrow
to escape the sorrow and regret,
to replace my debt, to live
and forget the tragedy
that seems to follow me and
make me disagree and make
a guarantee that I can get up,
I can stand up, rise up, and
leave this all behind, and
leave mankind in its own ruin,
these thoughts this late afternoon
leave me feeling it'll be soon,
this one thing is certain
that once that final curtain
starts closing in, I'll be
content within and I won't
be around, because I will
not die in this town.

What You Want is What You Need

You do it all to yourself
and blame others.
You want them to hurt you
so you have something new
to bitch about.
You love the pain
but say you don't.
You need somewhere
to rest your head.
So here, let me tie
this rope into a knot
and hang it from a tree.
Tilt your head to the side
when I let you drop
and just enjoy the ride,
you closet masochist.