Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Poetry Survives ~ Wednesday, April 12, 2023

It is only I
who cares too much about words
no one wants to read

This applies to you
who writes to impress the world
with your poetry

In a dark cavern
the end of the universe
without heat or light

Sit down a moment
echoes of memories past
on this you may feed

Obedient forms
bend like saplings in the breeze
these are your children

Not the sleeping moths
the spawn of Satan who eat
your sweaters solely

Let us say, to piss
you off, to annoy all sense
just to start a fight

Yes, these nocturnal
creatures who won't let you sleep
call them thoughts in dreams

I remember when
in college, I went to class
to meet such villains

Who passed the tantō
across the table for me
to spill out my guts

How much I felt love
the absence of heat and light
the warmth of hailstones

Over the decades
thankfully, I've forgotten
the sinister cuts

Collaboration
by omission to speak up
freedom spits out bones

Asinine Asian
the one with long donkey ears
listen while he screams

Read not the darkness
beaten into his mush brain
perhaps he's insane

Empathy won't help
to feel the cut stem helps none
her perfume still stinks

Sell the bouquet, move
on, no time to smell the scent
of beauty undone

Tranquil, the evil
of humanity, to move
a pawn with a cane

Obsess over harm
caused and received as karma
conditions each act

Order the players
as any director would
still one player blinks

Murder the actor
as capital punishment
her crime being one

Understanding words,
sounds, phonemes, makes a poet
rhyme on stage, a fool

Comes the spoken word
broken and bent, mangled bones
to forge a new pact

Heat the tempered sword
until sprung rhythms hammer
steel grey-blue and brown

Asinine Asian
ridicules cherished values
skews rules to favor

Brown over grey-blue
her sad hue in her coffin
kiss her forehead, frown

Obtuse emotions
overwhelm his confusion
her breath to savor

Understanding burns
bridges of experience
with wisdom, a tool

Trauma opens wounds
rips off scabs, peels memories
spits bloody phlegm, runs

Wounded through the woods
naked, eviscerated
deer beside the road

Only the hunter
drinks the blood of her first kill
reckless abandon

Rituals relish
thick black milk, red hot, buck shot
silences the guns

Diminished fifths play
tritones as augmented fourths
the adversary

See in the mirror
reflects diabolus
diamanté, load

Nervous energy
displayed on the hood, trophy
witness Abaddon

Off-kilter, perish
the thought, destroy the image
the bottomless pit

Our ruin, Sheol
the end of the universe
the tributary

No stream of payment
for corruption, politics
baksheesh, grease the wheels

Enter red-handed
caught, hands severed, a cleaver
shows a clever child

What is optional
to steal, to desire, to lie
choices Satan deals

As you see your cards
the clairvoyant psychic reads
five-card draw, eyes wild

No tarot foresees
other than self-fulfilling
prophecies, 8-bit

To program random
acts of cruelty, kindness
senseless as beauty

Slip into sequins
satan in a satin gown
she remains undead

To read poetry
an oncologist might laugh
how inane, donkey

Of Balaam's angel
mercy for the talking ass
his faith in duty

Restless sleepers toss
turn in their coffins, in graves
deep enough to rest

Exit innocent
a little boy, three years old
never understood

As a child, I cared
too much about what others
thought, as a zombie

Demented and dull
wake up rooster, time to crow
fire provides the test

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