Whispers of Hypnos

  Inquisitors torment the torturers

  dunked in the waters, floating a way in droplets.

  Repent and be guilty is the reverence aspired.

  The trial of the centuries’ past, passes off

  the ordeals so to separate truth from ratings

  on an imbalanced, graduated, rusted scale

  etched with raised scarlet lettering

  ***

  Interviewers and photogenic barristers duel

  as cameras project predictions of astrologers

  the servants of anxiety linger and transcribe.

  The grand jurisdiction is set apart

  in two rooms of equal size and mass

  A hearing is no true place to listen

  when we see no righteousness

  hear no righteousness

  and just speak.

  ***

  The hand over the flaming book

  does not leave a blister

  An iron brands, the verdict is

  a muted, fettered scream

  There is more shame in accusation

  than lingering in the immured palaces

  of eggshell walls, portable cell phone

  towers, good behavior and cotton sheets

  Exoneration comes with

  but a minor disfigurement.

  Conatus

  A cast of winter friends are called

  to the holiday table bejeweled

  with the merriment of delicate

  Venetian glass and cheeky

  Chippendale chairs that carry

  our bodies, seated in luxuriance,

  as our mortal words flank each other

  The polished oak plateau bounces

  the conversations on its straight back

  through the transparent witnesses

  forever holding fast to their colors

  in the descending particles of light

  scattering from the teardrop crystal chandelier

  that never falls from grace, the fastener is stainless,

  as the soot from the candles

  begins to touch the shards with

  grimy hands but the frozen tears

  tinkle in the draft that leaks ribbons

  across the festive eve

  ***

  We clang over Game theory

  We clash over M-theory

  but each theory is but a theory

  as Voltaire and Thales saturate the air

  and linger in the ruins

  of a half-eaten meal

  ***

  The wine stumbles out of buxom bottles

  pieces of bitter cork mock those who

  are disappointed by not having a perfect pour

  but as murmurs become memories

  and grand proclamations sing paeans

  to the sheets of the night’s intellect

  a small child, bare chested, creeps behind

  with a chocolate smeared smile

  A hot airy spray seasoned by strained peas

  fermenting for hours in the soft new bowels

  is filtered by an arrogant cloth diaper

  and scalds my weary calf

  The miasma embraces my slacks

  it bonds with the very weave

  as fluted glasses raised in

  winnowed half-light toll in tangled chimes

  the child crawls under the elaborate ritual

  bumping into the central support of the table

  ***

  The players of the play of pageantry

  retire to the den where children should dare to fare

  and smoky scotch weeps into rocks glasses

  as French doors unlocked, but they should be,

  flash open as one knob jostled by the whirlwind

  of youth cracks the frustrated window

  framing the evergreen outside flocked with snow

  The bare chested babe slides across the hardwood

  like a chick coming in for its first landing

  as an avuncular sheen drapes over this weary soul

  who only wishes to reminisce and discuss

  coming days at hand, but no, all must wait

  as the father, my friend now tamed by time

  hoists the child up from under his armpits

  and is held at arm’s length

  they smile devilishly at each other

  as the mother, encased in drama, sweeps through

  sky blue pajama top in hand

  The boy kicks his tiny raccoon paw feet

  the cloth gleefully falls away

  and a stream that will never know

  the chilling ice of winter

  soaks his father’s Egyptian cotton shirt

  like the Nile during a flood

  nothing can be done as he says, “Ah, this is actually progress”.

  Defying

  Born into a glossy picture framed by glass and mottled stone

  She knew the secret to defying time’s fading.

  Avoid sorrow, joy, confusion and choice

  And wear the mask but never frown or smile behind it.

  Ritually standing on her head for half of each day

  To counter act gravity as it reminded her

  of the tug of precocious toddler and she never

  allowed any wizened aunt pinch her cheeks.

  Never to stand in direct sunlight

  The rays and dry heat crisp

  The skin to crumpled sheets.

  Getting old is her greatest fear

  And her therapy is not living.

  Drink lots of water and stay indoors

  And eventually you have a pristine

  Well preserved corpse as they

  Lament over her casket she gets her final reward.

  “She’s much too young to have died.

  Mortis Rift

  Sometimes to be is not being

  Without any questions just quiet

  Not to be may be the answer to recover a semblance of humanity

  Noble or not

  …

  I will find the mechanisms that created and store your will

  I will take what fulcrum of thought and perception you have

  And steal its axis to construct cavitation.

  I will see what is internal, the lonely places where you hide

  And take the ersatz essence and megalomania you allow in your being

  I will implode your core and manifest a new center and rotate

  It seems like destruction but it is elevation, transcendence, when

  You are controlled by phantasms, saturated by materialism, Americana

  It is altruism because I tear asunder the countenance of contamination.

  Security is illusory; the sooner the dissolution the harder life is

  To take but no longer are you distracted by visions of others

  And the first step to freedom is seeing the invisible, indivisible networks

  which do not allow motion in the viscous emulsion.

  The machinations have been there all your life

  you are impervious to the emotive crank of the pulley

  and once removed there is not a direction you cannot step or stumble.

  True Freedom is Terrifying and fascinating, and this not a threat!

  Assassinate thy avuncular certainty, the solutions poured in your ears

  Whilst you slept have antidotes and Polonius was in on it.

  FUEL

  An interjected fued created by fumes

  Evaporating and contaminating the open room

  A spark ignites a vapor to a flash

  A simple regretful tumultuous clash

  Easier just to let it go amongst the flames

  All but an idiotic, egocentric, grudge remains

  Apologies are sometimes harder than adamant stone

  The resolution is left to decay with the bones

  Of the atmosphere; of the stalled scene

  Of the sarcophagus, the shroud rips
>
  To be wrong is never the worst thing in this transient life

  Mistakes are everyone’s universal movement through the strife

  Awareness is the potent potential to the allegorical dreams

  To let confusion reign is anathema to the kinetic means

  A single signal echoes evenly through the serenity

  A projected protagonist’s proposition extant to infinite

  Release or be dry kindling that will know the vengeful spark

  To the little temporary tocks

  Quiet down you noisy wooden clock

  QUIETUS

  Blessed Curse

  Chaotic cacophony centralized controlled

  Reorganized into streams of perception

  To categorize and analyze external forms

  Recognition of ambitions through volition

  ***

  Simple signals to symbols as solutions

  The confusion between the factions

  Evolve to pulsating waves and fragments of light

  The more illuminated the more to affright

  ***

  A blessed curse to burn away the blissful shadows

  A blessed curse to change the reality of Nature

  A blessed curse to be burdened

  ***

  The pretense is acknowledged so glimpse behind the obvious

  The accumulation of outcomes splinters from cause and reaction

  A process of progression and plausible prediction

  An ascension from the abyss of the oblivious and instinct alone

  ***

  A blessed curse and a cursed blessing it is

  A blessed curse until we…

  Bee bop or what we thought

  Growing intoxicated as masses

  The sound flows and grows

  The patterns amongst the organic seem unsolvable

  Watching the bird soar and fall

  We all become dizzy

  strolling in the park with Dukes and Ladies

  A thing becomes as we sway and swing in the wind

  A maelstrom rolls as our arms grow weary but stronger with gasps

  A thunderous reverberation of a wordsmith songstress

  A field of what seems melts with the dreams

  And the vibrations sound with meaning

  An ode to the changes in created chords, chaos and order

  Killing the Czar’s Dog

  All the confident comrades vent venom’s fumes

  No longer people, no longer power, no longer living

  Bullets off of jewels, blood embroidered tapestries

  Regicide is not enough the dog must die too

  ***

  The assassins of Islam armed by Allah with hashish

  The red devotion flows over mountains to the Mongols’ connection

  Black and red books, hand delivered righteousness

  ***

  Onward Christian soldiers, only children, falling into slaughter

  Inquisitive minds want to see and know heretical theoreticals

  Burn away the difference in the smells of offerings and smoke

  The savaged souls were saved, weren’t they?

  ***

  Ghost dancing on the open arms of the great embrace

  One shot injects fear and decimates this ragged, runned race.

  The red revolution’s devotion abdicates the throne of reincarnation

  ***

  Dylan knows God is on everyone’s side, or at least behind them

  Surrounding surreptitiously for no one to see

  Unless like eyes blink synchronistically

  As the Diminished

  As the poet’s words turn to contorted scribbles and sighs

  As the painter’s pallet colors merge sadly and dry

  As the Sun’s light at night is a reflection on the Moon

  As the summer’s breeze is taciturn to the rage of the monsoon

  As the daredevil’s action without their own fear

  As the archer’s aim when they cannot see clear

  As the singer’s song without an audience to feel

  As the film projector’s movement without a movie reel

  As the guitar plays with rusted broken strings

  As the notion of calm while the tornado screams

  As the shadows’ ability to conceal when dawn’s light reveals

  As the control of illusion when truth’s key turns to unseal

  As we are.

  A Royal Execution

  Prince Valium and Princess Halcyon took a midnight stroll

  Around and down a darkened topiary to a poppy lined path

  It is so soothing to lie down in the hazy fields

  and see the meta-atomic atmosphere obscure the stars

  hand in hand the royalty venture into the streams surrounding the path

  dissolving the dirt from their shoes and their bodies feel the cold flow

  a beautiful, uneventful night to go for a stroll so similar to the last

  it is humorous how time merges to a moment of mechanism

  and all of the dreams and fears collapse into a point on the pivotal plain

  where all things begin with a breath or end with the same.

  As our heroes’ journey began to wane they feel like they should move on

  and not stay on the poppy path, but transfer their first direction to

  the electrically charged forest of vines and gray leaves to venture

  forth and see the lacerating cliffs that were promised to be from childhood.

  ***

  The Princess asked the Prince, “Should we dance on the edge?”

  In vociferous response the Prince states, “We have already begun.”

  The unstable, lacerating geometry thrusts at the evening

  Organic orgasmic murky stream’s current converge with the

  shale shade of the ground and black Amorphous sea

  Footing is unstable in the obscured starlight, the lands shake

  From the river’s erosion and the potent pollution

  the crystals lined peaks had previously frozen as

  the barriers of the living waters and the tired land rumble.

  ***

  They dance in a violent trance waxing and waning to the emotions

  Of the celestial spheres and then the royalty stops to face their fears

  In unison they yell, “Should we jump over the edge of the cliff and be

  forever young and fearless?”

  A question in vain as they were already plummeting and are

  absorbed by the waste and the Amorphous sea

  both wave, hand in hand, and sink.

  Cemetery

  Inner pressure expands the seams

  until lucid leaks deluge

  Exhausted fumes violently vent

  Collapsed in potential inevitability

  Engraved stones were kicked over by children

  As petulant specters hide in the family tombs

  ***

  An indifferent sun diffused in silver gray clouds

  Delicate storms invade the helpless horizon

  Innocuous aftermath leaves disrepair

  Incessant laughter pervades the devoid ruins

  Equal in capacity to all of the joys of men

  Deafening visions of nature’s dismissal

  ***

  Corporeal centralized civilized clarity

  Created in silence

  Insulated Days

 

  Silver gray clouds become sullen shrouds

  over the potential and promise of the day

  A crushing crash straight to the petrified ground

  are any flights of ambition, to any heights

  Accused of inaction when movement obliterates

  possibilities that may ascend randomly but in less complex avatars?

  Manic, purposeless pacing depletes the reserves of creation not agitated

  to change position for the sake of such,
redundant

  quietly concealed but the direct pathway is obtrusively revealed

  that shouts supplication for termination not to be trapped, compressed.

  ***

  Altered light, by the gravity of parallax sight soaks

  visions, estranged hallucinations, bicker in the corner

  Subduced motives all vitality seeps away maliciously

  Seduced operatic hearts play as the master conducts the ventricles

  A cramping fit comes through slicing the hanging

  vestment of youth to ribbons

  A forfeit is announced as mixed metaphors mate

  and reproduce in a more opportune daybreak

  The glaucoma shuts the eyes and struggles with resistant lids

  as repose that readily grasps and squeezes neurons

  to implosion oozes away through the spaces

  and rises to the insulated day of tomorrow.

  Today is replete with nothing complete.

  ***

  A mild nap watches time mock the Grand Guignol radio play

  Jagged sharp shards of reality

  target the tracking eyes full of neurotoxins’ baneful

  wishes toward the halting of a gossamer speculation

  that fulfills the space without seams

  The sullen shroud drapes with little concern

  and tears between self and intention of will

  The desultory sonorous screams to be still

  compresses, and pressurized time slowly dims the lights

  That lead from platonic caves for transcendence we fight

  Phoenix fire’s flames burn and singe the past

  allowing evolution into a state of creativity that lasts

  Repudiate rescind this war of attrition

  It doesn’t matter if yesterday was not a completion

  The silver gray clouds become the shrouds

  of the potential and promise of the insulated days

  The problem with clouds is that they break.

  Circulatory

  A single solitary cell venturing

  In a unidirectional pulsating pathway

  Leading eventually back to the same point of origin

  Impure metals and minerals bonding with rage

  Speeding together at pace.

  ***

  Surrounded by momentum perpetually pulling

  Away and down swirling around the drain

  ***

  Motivation becoming cholesterol

  Collecting on the arterial wall

  Emotion is an allergen

  Invading but a catalyst

  Sadness in the sneeze or the soul

  ***

  A progression and a path is the state

  Of life contained in a nucleus, or fate

  Cells fusion and releases elements

  Energy, exhaust, and waste

  And yet it is the state… into cycles we will revolve

  ***

  And circulate

  Sinking

  The spinnaker aloft, folds over

  as the winds stop and casts the sail

  as a blanket tucking in the passengers