Love Is A Serpent

Love is a serpent
That squeezes and swallows you whole
Nothing is safe when saturated with its venom
As fangs sink deep into flesh
And penetrate veins which give strength
To a heart which may bleed or swell
Depending on a fate which one cannot know

I Am Here

I am here, right now
But I do not know where here is
I am somewhere
Which could be nowhere
Or everywhere
I am here, right now
Are you?

Choke

Today my tongue felt most unnatural
Fat and numb
Hard up against my teeth
Swollen and trapped
Like it did not belong any longer
In its pearl and flesh cavern

My throat seems to swell
And I fear asphyxiation
That I might choke
By means of swallowing
My own blessed instrument

I may gasp as
My passage for air is blocked
From where does this strange affliction arise
And why do I bestow upon it such attention
Am I so afraid of this?
Or do I tempt it?

How do I free myself from this?
Does a warning lie herein?
Speak now or forever hold your peace
Alas, I cannot
I shall tempt fate
Let it do what it will

Desire

My thoughts are naked
As a blue flame
Clandestine
I lay awake plotting my confession
In darkness as red digits
Measure the hours tick over
Desire does not care for sleep
For in sleep it lives uninhibited
By reason and repression
Dream is desire burning

Imitation Of Life

The modern Lolita’s hail to the thief
Of the idols of the glossy weeklies
Souls slip into the great divide
Between desire and reality
Of things that they can never be
Just a copy of a product
A cheap knockoff in chain-store tank tops
And faux diamond drops
This is the new age tragedy
Underage slaves to a machine
They have been in the pockets of
Since separation from the womb
Lost herds parade through air-conditioned markets
Dressed in this seasons must-haves
Fashion is an elusive state
You are not ahead until someone emulates
Imitation is the best form of deception
One more day of fooling and faking your worth
They say: Play the part and you will be somebody

Unravelling

I feel like I am pulling apart my reality
It is unraveling like a sweater
Being ripped apart
Such a weak fabric this existence
Full of holes
We all slip through the gaps

The Greek Statue

Out of sync with this world
As if I might pulsate out of existence
I see the lecturer
A Greek statue
Rendered gray with antiquity
Sculptured still forever
His features molded
Aging in decay
From the battering element of the air
His head rests on his fist
As he ponders the paradoxes of time
The low rumbling chords of the orator
Echo in monotone over tiers of ears
Awaiting answers that cannot be found
For the wisest of men know
That he who admits he does not know
Is the wisest of them all

The Idol and the Martyr

She makes an idol of herself
One who wavers in mirage and myth
Shackled and trapped by her own vanity
She bows to worship at the throne
Every day she makes the sacrifice
She is the lamb to the slaughter
But her prayers are never answered
For her idol is lifeless, a shadow
Only becoming
It rules her life
Yet yields no real power
She is hungry for salvation
But will find no solace
In the face of a hollow god
With dedication she performs her sacred rites
And stands tall against non-believers
She will fight to the death
Only to die a martyr
For a cause that never mattered

Butterflies

Butterflies hatching from their chrysalises
Eager for a spring not yet blossomed
Spreading their restless clumsy wings
They flutter in the brief Indian summer
Only to catch the chill of stolen innocence
Born free before their time
Ravaged by the hands of winter
Which gravitates to the garden masquerade

Rain

I watched as the world flooded
As it tried to drown itself
Waves of rain moving through the air
Such a great deluge
I wondered if it could wash us all clean
But the people they just run indoors
And hide under giant black umbrellas
They wipe their windshields clean
And shake droplets from well-groomed manes
They wraps their thick cloaks around them
So afraid of change
To take it all in
Me?
I would like to walk in the rain
But there is a hollow solitude
Of facing it all alone
So I’ll stay inside
One more time

The Pious Sparrows

Birds congregate in their rising wooden pews
As they sing their praises skyward
To yet another rising sun
They have woken with the dawn
To worship the light that breaks the shadowed heavens
Every night they wait with baited breaths
Hoping the darkness will end
They arise to chirp, thankful for another day
Of daily scraps of bread and wiggly worms to pull from emerald fields
The pious sparrows wake the weary,
Shuttered and blinded to the horizon ablaze
They roll over, groaning for just one more hour without disturbance
From man or creature
Eyes gummed with sleep
He mocks the day as most unnatural
Curse these birds that sing in worship
They wish of night and dreams
Unfettered by boundaries and rules
A king of their minds
They grasp helplessly at the path inward
Birds take to the air in nature’s golden glory
While men only fly in the land of illusion
But day will come to pierce and deflate fantasy
Until the day when man will wake no more