The wordsmithy raided the vowel-shed
For a round “O” to hold up surrounding consonants.
In the smithy he realized that alone it could not hold the “R” and “T” together,
But he always kept a few “E” at the workbench.
In two short decades he found his job obsoleted by script kiddies crawling the fourth channel,
RSI brain cramps birthing automated skynet.
Black twisted gnarled gristle
Lawn dance and howl whistle
Spew out the fire bile
Hate-wracked the whole while
Teeth gnawing blood-glistened
No time to love-listen.
Can’t rue the damned day
Eternity’s the same way
Dance down the death-glade
Empty with heart spayed.
What’s left is tied taut;
Pain fills the no-thought.
What was the self thing,
Clutched, did this hell bring?
He drove into the dark night
That street lamps barely beat back with bleak light.
The spastic highway loomed languid, leapt aside,
Bowed down before the doomed ride
As he barrelled toward his dead bride,
Seeking pitch to patch the gape in his side.
Darksomeness engulfs
Low fallow fields left
Firm as rock dried in sun,
Cold as crisp iceberg submerged.
Submariners stumble on
Unseen fissues, folds,
Crevasses, barren blisters
Of lifeless locked land.
Passengers punched their tickets,
Paid their fares, folded
Clothes, packed bags, braved
Jet lag just to be here.
Groping in obsidian night, all
Rend asunder suddenly, then
Rend again, rend again,
Ever tearing never ending
Souls unbending, breaking o’er
And o’er again in pain
Unmending, sending lame
Desires (unquenched fires) drowning.
stars scream heavy metal silver screen
heart strings tugged taut ripped clean
death dealt down to damn mean
man brought through no more green
played for laughs aged thirteen
main stream man’s a sad scene
In the morning as I brushed my teeth
I vowed to mark the day by valiant ways:
To rescue orphans, open up a shop,
Write that novel, win that maiden’s heart,
Climb that hill, convince a bitter friend
Of God’s wide mercy, till the soil, plant
The choicest vegetables, grill meat
Upon an open flame. In short,
Engage in derring-do,
And leave upon the earth a healthy brand.
Instead I shuffled off toward my job
(leeching little life from radio’s wiles),
Sat in my cubicle, answered emails,
Took calls, called shots, most of which were small,
Mundane, of little consequence. And while
I always tried to do my best, at end
Of day I’d lost so much to waste,
My puny fight ‘gainst entropy unwon,
And still to lose. I shuffled home, then
Microwaved some food, watched video,
Paid homage to the goods that fence me in
And hinder me from seeing the sublime
In humble living, mastery of self,
Right conduct, purity of heart,
And noble deed. Indulged on, fat
And restless, I hied myself to bed
So I could rest to do it all again,
And leave yet more undone.
The tree-struck star stuck the landing,
Knees nailed to ground, brow down,
Soul still ensconced in briar crown.
Apart from Him he’d hewn to
Aspirations, plans He’d blewn to
Smithereens; and left bereft he
Clung to holy barque.
Sitting on the curb by the park bench
Barefoot listen to the buzz growl
Motors on the tires on the asphalt on the feet
What a sandwich, what a sandwich
Now God don’t exist but oh! this sandwich
Slave to the toil for the belly, the hunger
Wish I was slave for the love of another
We born let to die and then, my brother
The poet look cockeyed at whistling trees
He call me a trickster, I ask “Who art thee?
Are you of this world or are you born free?
This concrete jungle, what’s in it for me?”
That sandwich was tasty I wish I had pie
If that’s all there is then it’s all been a lie
Scatterbrain scatterbrain eat, poop, die
Love lies crouched on haunches,
Coiled prehensile set to spring
Unsuspecting upon prey.
In the proper hour Love leaps,
Thrusting self through myocardial tissue,
Dissolving as a tear gas in the bloodstream.
Hurtling slowly through the void
Floating about in a flight suit
Checking, rechecking the ship’s math
Occasionally putting the helmet on
There are lots of checklists in space
The ship always beats him at chess
He never watches films anymore.
He never reads novels anymore.
Sometimes he cranks up the music,
And sometimes he drifts in the silence.
When he can’t sleep, he remembers when he used to dance the tango.
Wage servants sit glued to the glowing
Of the monitors, manipulating
Electrons of Industry.
Inside, spleen gives way to toxins
Untouched by liver, imbibed
After terms of indenture.
In deeper, indivisible selves wither,
Except for the few that forge fearsomeness there.
In the realm of Whimsy everything’s verdant:
Centaurs at leisure braid each other’s hair.
Ogres belch as they work on their cross-stitch.
Weeping willow branches sparkle like wind-chimes.
Knights take care not to trample on butterflies,
Lest the King be unable to brew his tea.
Unsurprisingly, mimes have nothing to say.
Velveteen unicorns eat day-glo batteries,
Drink carbonated rainbows.
On Thursdays the King distributes gold stars
To everyone who has achieved.
Vile split of self from same,
Extinguishing of vital flame;
Halfway there is merely maim.
In factories and bathroom stalls,
Farmer’s fields and city halls,
This interloper all men calls.
Bits byte the address space
All round the spinning plate,
In the Mathematic place;
Objects soon instantiate;
Network packets rush to take;
Threads start to bifurcate;
Dot/configure and and make;
Computation filled with grace.
Unto us, Von Neumann spake.
I saw the best minds of mah generation
Hurtling down the intertubes
Captioning photos of felines in bold sans serif
cuteness aplenty, lolling all over myself
Eager to disprove or win by force your momma, mah bukkit, bukkake
Full of fail
Let us read this treatise on the death star, how it is like unto a womb.
THIS POEM HAS BEEN RICK-ROLLED
I could bury you with a staggering
inventory of despicable instaculture
Perpetuated by the hypothalamus kickstart
Suns out, reboot Mountain Dew Ganja