One can feel the reflection on the face,
A steady stream,
Voracious, unending,
Shining past a Cuban street,
For a cultural instant.
And in that instant,
Lays a million dreams,
Cloudish bubbling,
A sense imploded,
Where English alters,
Where sanity distorts,
Where self melts.
A full brain rests on the ground,
Full stomachs pass it by.
A voice cries concerned in a crowd,
For a cage bars the libraries,
The old faces staring out.
Lights illumine the earth,
But darken much secrecy,
Struggle as They may,
The shadows yet appear.
I was bitten,
By a dear pet of mine.
I pushed him too hard,
And he sunk his venom fangs,
Into my jugular.
The poison did its work too well,
Coarsing through my bloodstream,
Destroying affection in its path,
Whose only hope is repair,
From the searing venom.
What happened to my life?
It passed like a fleeing train,
And I can barely feel the air it disturbed,
On my wrinkled skin.
What happened to my life?
One moment I was having a beer,
The next I was having a stroke.
What happened to my life?
I’ve slept through most of it,
Snoring too soundly.
What happened to my life?
I felt it was eternal,
I lived it nocturnal.
What happened to my life?
I fear the tombstone pillow.
What happened to my life?
We’re running headlong on a curvaceous path,
Lit up with lights that twinkle.
We’re running headlong toward a barricade,
Neck to neck,
In some sore footrace,
Our breaths fogging up,
The Christmas night,
Our feet pounding the Swastika Santa,
Out of WWII hibernation.
We don’t know when we will hit,
The lights blind,
But we keep running,
Guns over shoulders,
And money greening our gambling pockets.
My father’s knowing eyes,
My mother’s gentle voice,
They stick fluidly in my memory.
My father’s knowing eyes,
Weighted with experience,
Brings dire laughter to my chest.
My mother’s gentle voice,
Jerks tears,
Lights compassion.
My father’s knowing eyes,
Satisfied,
An unwritten poet,
Our thoughts juxtaposed.
My mother’s gentle voice,
Lilting with color,
With uttering sensitivity.
They are in the reclusive loving thoughts,
Of a shuddering disappointment.
Chirp! chirp! chirp!
Beaks upturned,
Tiny weak wings gyrating,
The chicks cry for food.
A hundred feet distant,
A cloud of shocked feathers,
Scurry with adrenaline,
Parted from their frame.
Wings that flap no more,
A song forever unsung,
Prey to the prowling predator,
Whose emerald eyes mew with satisfaction.
Where is mother?
Where is her living nourishment?
Her children fade away,
In an unkempt nest,
Ignored by nature,
Whose aim is otherwise.
Wolves enter the brisk morning air,
Jettisoned by a whirring fan,
From a neighboring establishment.
The pack hides,
To ambush guardless victims,
Who stroll unsuspecting,
Into a repulsive encounter.
The she-wolf lurks,
Fiercest of all,
At the forefront,
Smell unmingled.
Half the attack is psychological,
Rendering sense repugnant,
Immobilizing.
The trap is sprung,
The pack howls in triumph,
Then dissipates,
Lingering for an instant,
Game devoured.
The black cat stalks,
With lengthened spine,
With prancing paws,
Fearful of naught.
Her mystical eyes,
Glare from the shadows,
Registering.
She roams the rubble,
A queen amongst mice,
Who scatter at her paw beat.
No purrs issue from her cold breast,
Her claws slash adoring wrists.
The black night blankets her,
She is alone.
Alone.
With her sad luck,
A friendless observer.
To cleave poetic with a gleaming sword:
This is the ideal.
A clean cut with skilled hands,
Circulation banned,
Toppled limbs.
Headless monuments litter a triumphant city,
A careless obliteration of past heroes.
Time ushers new sensibilities,
Into toddlers’ playpens,
Who build and stack so many blocks,
Wondering about new discovery.
Pudgy fingers rub the hilt,
Swing with rapture,
Destroy with art.
Each time I catch hold,
It slips.
Lodges under my fingernails,
Darkening the cuticles.
I can feel it,
I can see it,
Teasing me,
Testing me.
Sometimes I can hold it,
For days, weeks.
Other times hours, minutes,
Defying clockwork.
And always the residue,
Under my broken bloody nails.
Last night I had an intrusive visitor. As I was shutting my door, in he came unheeded and unwanted. A chill went down my spine as I became cognizant of his seasonal presence. I wanted sleep not company! Yet my refined etiquette forced me to entertain, even at such a raw hour. To be raised a gentleman is an inconvenient bore. So we sat, he and I, in embarrassed discomfort. Through painstaking efforts, I was able to learn that my visitor came from the northern regions. He had a breezy voice which chilled like winter frost and an overcast stare reminiscent of autumnal decadence. His face was pale and difficult to discern, but I caught the glint of his coal drop eyes from the humble light of a reading lamp. My heater of late was broken. At times it would work, at others it would not. Tonight it obstinately refused to operate, but my guest hardly minded, brushing my apologies aside almost with an air of gratitude. I, on the other hand, was swathed in thick layers for the cold was piercing. He declined my offer to tea, but instead rudely insisted on a glass of finely crushed ice. Though I found this peculiar, my hospitality acceded to his wish, and my manners prevented me from rash critique. And so my eccentric visitor and I sipped our respective beverages in fatigued silence for a dreary while. The tick of the clock was painfully hypnotic, and I could feel my eyelids grow heavy. At some point during this tete-a-tete, I dozed off. Though appalled at my own rudeness, I must say in my defense that I’d had no sleep for at least two days and, quite frankly, my idiosyncratic guest was far from entertaining. I awoke to the sound of the blaring, rattling heater, which had kicked into action. My visitor had gone. The chair he had occupied was completely soaked. I can only assume that he spilled his glass of ice on the way out and had not the decency to clean up after himself. Quite an unpleasant experience. Needless to say, my door will be forever closed to that brazen, ungrateful fellow.
There was one peculiarity, however, which strikes me oddly. Though my visitor had clearly departed, the deadbolt on my door remained fastened. How could he have left and locked the door from the outside?
Retract your offending mold.
I am not malleable.
For I am of the unchanging.
Uncompromising, independent.
I am of the We.
Pavlov’s dog is dead.
The good doctor vainly searches
For another specimen.
He won’t find one in me.
I heed not air-conditioned directorates,
They stink of greeded rot.
A pox on your sophistry,
On your mundane meritocracy.
Your time is come,
It is We who shall bring you down.
The pedantic night owl sharpens ears.
Fear impregnates,
Grows fat.
Silence cackles.
Children hide beneath their blankets.
Crooked shadows arrest,
Snaring, creeping,
Like an evil night ivy.
Felt worms wriggle,
Grow strong on little hatreds.
A broken alley gnashes plaque fangs.
The staring mountain range scowls its gruff face.
Witchery claws scrape across the mute desert.
Some scythe in undertaker garments highlights moonlight.
Suckling rapids pour down toxic drains.
A gnarled soul suffocates in a sea of blood,
Clogged by obstructive clots
Submerged muffles erupt from groggy bubbles,
With unforeseen enthusiasm.
A tiny voice,
Backed against smoke stained blue brick,
Cornered,
Calls for help on high.
Soldiers tromp through unfamiliar soil hunting prey with Uncle Sam’s eyes. Invisible radar scans, gleaming. The sun roasts up above, heat waves dance in rolling gaits, darting every which way. Muffled cough, steady march, synced thought. Mirage breaks monotony. Sarge stops, signals battle maneuver. Trigger fingers anticipate, twitch expectant.
Back home, politician clamors with competitive charisma. Invokes fear, desperate fear, reliant fear. Mr. and Mrs. hear him, see him from mounted plasma screen, an honest Western face, a suited savior. Instant agreement in cheap faith. An answered prayer, a sinister hope. Let it never end.
False alarm. Soldiers continue their drone march. An ant stares, resigns knowingly, and then is splattered under jagged boot tread. Another MIA. The animals flee before a great war machine. It mutilates and discards, tromping.
A ghostly face appears transcendent before the gore. Laughing dollar signs, fiery amusement, a gleeful celebrator. The phantom is politic.
The man thought he was amoral. The man thought naught could affect him. The man was wrong. The moral perspective is stronger than most think: as strong as a titanium mirror, reflecting in all ugliness. Silence attacks cruelty, like some muting angel, and streaked light shears from above, burning night crawlers. One sense, two sense, three sense, four. Old lessons crop from dry earth. Ethic barren, or so the man thought, within his marble suit. “The bomb is here,” he monologues to his secret self, staring at passive resistance. The man snaps his fingers to hipster tunes, dreading television cameras, awake unharmonious within the most peaceful night. On stage, he is an actor, giving “we the people” what he thinks they want. The man is a professional.
Hail the spoken word.
Your god, my god,
The God.
It blesses or condemns,
Commands or pleads,
From all directions,
With such sacred power.
Manifest is the spoken word.
Obeyed is the spoken word,
My spoken word.
Don’t you love your God?
