always denied;
and in the dark is
where she cried…
The Tempest
Teeth of concrete I
negotiated; I
ascended from the depths, the
conflagration, the
maw Of the fiery Dragon.
Upward the
humidity lifted me from the
torridity, the foul oppression
that I had to escape,
if only for a moment.
Atop the towers of stone
I saw the approach; the
air was still, as though dreading
the Herald of its passage.
Darkness drew nearer in its
ever shifting form, in
hordes that stretched like thirsty
fingers; an ominous hand
cast its shadow over me,
the solitary figure
feigning defiance.
The wind shoved me
roughly, brooking no insolence;
I was startled by its
brusque attitude, the
unmerciful display of
ill-disposed temperament.
Somewhere in the heaving darkness
lightning flickered;
a promise of unspeakable
power, of
galvanic cords of shimmering fury.
In the uncaring embrace of
the billowing sweeps
I felt the temptation to
fly;
to drop into the mercy
of the winds and be
aloft, borne by the wispy ghosts
that moaned and shrieked as they
fluttered overhead.
I stood with arms outstretched, but
my only answer was
tears
stinging my eyes,
soaking my garments, and
shattering like broken crystal
upon the uncaring stone.
Dejected, I returned to the
smolder, the cavernous belly of
the Beast of industry,
forever engraved by the
touch, the singular moment of
freedom
in the visage of the tempest.
Bard of Darkness
He walked into the misty moonlight,
guided by some
phantom insight;
not instinct or mystic art,
but by the dark inside his heart.
He slew them softly with his words,
his whispered verse and his
proverbs;
depression seeped into their minds
as he revealed the clandestine.
Then slit his wrists
and watched them bleed
on paper for the world to read;
so every word that he had said
had from his very heart been
bled.
Sparks danced around
his fingertips
as dark psalms whispered from his lips;
his evensong that pierced their hearts,
and hymns that picked their minds apart.
Then lightning struck and
thunder rolled,
as he captivated souls;
high on a cliff above the sea
he cast poetic sorcery.
And as the morning fog rolled in,
to hide the
fierceness
of his grin;
they prayed in silence to
survive
the bliss of being
sanctified…
Outcast
Exiled in the bitter night,
I peered inside at the
light;
where in the past
my heart would long
to find a place
where I belonged.
Yet tutelage under
rainy skies
forced open my immortal eyes;
for those around me all became
identical,
one and the same.
When they could not
assimilate me,
they found it easier to
hate me;
a black sheep outside of the fold,
cast out into the bitter cold.
I gazed inside at that bright place, a
sneer of contempt
on my face.
In the dark
I had grown stronger;
I need their company no longer.
City of Glass
There once was a city of glass, of
emerald and gold-chased dreams, frosted
like sheets of frozen diamonds, and
dusted by the smiles of gods.
This was where the
young, precocious, dreaming
boy entered, enraptured by the streets
of lace, the rivers of honeyed nectar, the
glowing beings that drifted on
gossamer wings
like butterflies in springtime, and
laughed like the wind.
This young, naïve, foolish boy was
led by the hand, taken to the
sky-chasing towers, fed honey-cakes
and lemon tea, while singing with the
chorus of angelic, sweet smiling beings who
danced with him across tiles of spun gold
until at last he was taken to a room, a large
glorious chamber with a bed of down, and
pillows stuffed with sweet dreams.
This childish, trusting, young innocent boy laid his
tired head down and drifted to dreams of
meadows and fawns until he was
snatched from his sleep by iron hands tipped
with steel claws; by dreadful beasts whose
tresses were hissing serpents, whose
yellow eyes gleamed with hatred of all
living things.
The bony-knobbed monsters
dragged the screaming foolish boy by
his hair, and he saw that his room was
not glorious at all, but lined with
bones and broken dreams; cracked and pitted
like the ruins of a past best forgotten.
He was dragged
under the glassy city, where all
the fallen, misbegotten, lost, foolish
boys and girls were locked away in
chains, scourged with lashes of
fire and spite, until the well of their
tears
was spent, until submission and
indifference replaced the bones of
their existence.
This was where the
boy, foolish no longer, toiled day and
night, fed scraps not fit for swine, and
beaten
twice a day until he began to
harden, his skin calloused so
he hardly felt the blows, until he
hated for the first time in his
life, until he dreamed of death and
vengeance and woke up
smiling, until he began to forge a
weapon, a blade of iron he called
Muse.
In secret he would
sharpen it until was keen enough
to make the air bleed, until
one sweet, splendid, glorious day, he
struck the creature beating him; the
blade parted bone like water, and
the bitter, vengeful, angry boy
delighted in the shower of black
spurting blood that
rained across his face.
He danced among the creatures like
a smiling nightmare, their
screams
were honey to his ears, until
all were thrashing
in their death throes.
Then the strong, courageous, warrior boy
struck off the chains, and led
the children up the stairs, startling
the beautiful, angelic, winged beings, who
cowered in fear at the sight of
the army of children led by a blood-spattered
demigod
with a bright sword in his fist.
He lead them Beyond, out of
the city of glass where he looked and
his breath caught, for his
reborn eyes now saw the
tentacles that ran along the seams
like throbbing veins, the
electric eyes that pierced
flesh and bone, the
sighs of oppression that carried on
the wind.
So he lifted Muse before his face, and
hurled it with all of his might, and
when it struck the glass, the rainbow-hued
plates of Turkish Delight, the
scream was almost human as the
glass splintered and cracked until it reached
the spire in the sky, then
the city fell in shards of glittering
glass.
The sound of the collapse
was like the sea if it were frozen and
struck by Mjollnir; and the
scarred, hardened, weary boy
led his people away, to the
lands by the Sea, chasing
dreams in the sky;
chasing dreams…
Gutterfly Kisses
The gutterfly drifted
most times,
for her wings were
battered
like sails that had
seen too many storms, her
colors had faded from
the oppression, the
blistering heat
of the merciless sun that
made her long for her
bygone prologue when she
flitted among the windblown spectrum of
shimmering jewels, the expanse of
multi-colored flower petals; enjoyed the taste
of succulent nectar, the ambrosia of
the roses that she
delicately lighted upon.
But that was before the
maelstrom
that had smothered the sky,
roaring in like an ocean of
fury, beating her
senseless and scattering her
paradise like glittering shards of
a shattered kaleidoscope.
So she flitted
aimlessly among foreign forests of
concrete and steel, where
hordes of Nephilim
lumbered onward,
oblivious to her despair.
In quiet moments she dreamed
of a sleek, gleaming gutterfly with
razor-edged wings and eyes of
onyx that would
lead her away from the
stench, the soot, the
gutters, and take her to
where the air was
gentle; where they would
soar across the cobalt iris
together
and share gutterfly kisses
that tasted of honeydew.
But she awoke in the
gloom, in the clammy embrace of
dead branches and knew
dreaming was useless, that
she would have to
find the name of the
wind
with her own battered wings.
Runes
And so I write, until
broken fingers stagger,
staccato a broken
drumbeat; delirious,
inebriated on the ambrosia, the
absinthe of written words.
And so I write,
fire and ice and
greenmagic;
I cast them into the wind like
dandelion dander, every
whisper potent, every arcane
rune that has been carved
across my soul,
tattooed.
And so I write, I
capture dreams in
butterfly nets, sip of their
essence before they
dissolve, before I
awake from the esoteric, the
clandestine world of poetic
sorcery.
And so I write, until
crimson
stains the pages, until
the cogs rust and
crumble, chalky dust powders
across the keyboard,
teardrops
fade into the gnarled
valleys, twilight
swallows every star
in the sky.
And so I write…
Medusa
I approach her cautiously,
for she’s spurned all who came before.
The shining malice in her eyes
has cast them outside of her doors.
For she can turn grown men to stone
from the coldness of her stare;
and who can know the serpentine
coils of her braided hair?
Who can know the causes of
the hatred she has for all men?
How I long to lead her to
a time when she can love again.
But for now she hides behind
a mask of sheer maliciousness;
slaying men that come to her
with sayings of mere senselessness.
Yet I know that deep inside
the wounded woman in her cries;
that is why I drop my shield
to stare deep in her baleful eyes.
Nocturnal
I lay awake at night because
it whispers softly
in my ear.
Serpentine sounds, melodic sighs;
the aria of darkness
calls and I comply, I
slither out of the window.
I behold the lustrous
splendor
of the twilight. I glide
across the murky lake
under the amethyst-tinged sky,
and part the curtain of the fog that
veils the dimly glowing meadow;
I traverse
the misty chasm
where silver lightning flickers,
and advance to the glimmering city.
Streetlights wink their evil eyes
but I stride unobserved,
past cars with steam-obscured windows
from the carnal acts of
whores and husbands.
Past the neglected strangers who
dwindle in the alleys; disregarding
neon signs and drunken fights, until
I stand outside your window;
my silhouette against the moon,
my shadow cast
across your bed…
The Eruption
The gentle touch of
cornsilk grasslands caressed
softly, stirring almost fluidly…
Twin lakes mirror the emotion,
capture the moments as the
sensation
travels to the mountains,
whirling
across identical peaks until the
pressure builds, the earth
trembles;
rumbles across the
taut surface, a glacial slide
to the valley
where the flowers bud in
rosy colors.
Deep inside, the basin
quivers;
gently at first, then slowly
reverberates until the geyser
erupts;
the valley quakes as the
rivers are flooded and the
terrain heaves and gasps with a
satisfied sigh…
November Love
I’d just left October when November came to view,
draped in reds and oranges, smelling sweet as honeydew.
And from her flailing tresses a tho
usand trefoil leaves would shower;
to weave their shawl upon the autumn summer they devoured.
I chased her through the evergreens; the wind carried her laughter;
toward December’s cliffs we raced, in spite of the disaster.
But down the hidden path we slid, to lie upon the shore
of rippling tomorrows, mystery and foamy lore.
And on her naked boughs I saw the tattoo of her sorrows;
of living life with all her might, for there was no tomorrow.
For flesh of flesh was scarred with all the pains of yesterday;
and in her eyes were unshed tears of words she couldn’t say.
For what’s the point of speaking when nobody understands?
is what she’d say to me while spilling dreams like desert sands.
While I would remain silent, because I was never bold;
never warm enough to thaw a heart frozen so cold.
We were wounded, wounding us far back as I remember;
so it was no surprise that she would leave me in December.
Fallen
Dust from my breath…
I lie on the chalky ruins,
painful and twisted.
Recollection escapes me,
striated winds mock me;
sharp like daggers, like
the jagged stones
beneath me.
With a gasp I sit upright
alone;
under a sky so gray, so
fathomless and angry.
The air is foul, sulphuric;
the shadows slinking
like the hissing creatures
that lurk inside them.
And I remember
as I look to the sky, to the
gargantuan mass of ebony
rock; the mountain that tears
through the seething cloud cover
where flickering lightning
expresses its fury;
the place where I climbed, the
view I had seen, where the
light
glowed like silver, like golden
rays of untouchable hope;
before the betrayal
by the rocks beneath my
feet, which
crumbled…
And I realized that I have
fallen again,
alone in the darkness
with fading visions
of eternity…
Weak
A poisonous kiss
from your scorpion lips
is all that I desire,
before I expire.
Your mouth on my neck,
as soft kisses inject