Signifier

if emblems
of the in-between
surface from the cracks
of your charred linoleum
artifacts of the last time
you were certain you’d be gone by morning

occasionally afraid
to communicate in scribbles
scan through pages
of a tragedy
with a highlighter pen

and emboldened words
magnify
the blundered sequences
scars across your facade

and if humanity is just the account
of history in a continuum

then we need not worry
about finishing last
now
or in the end

No joke

Awoke to a bulldozer
from three hours of static daydreams
felt the earth shake
as the monsters packed up to leave
from beneath my bed
rent overdue as usual
god, how I love a good night’s rest

the local bar
just isn’t the right scene
so I waited for midnight
to grab coffee and walk to the cemetery

I’m in that space
again
the architect tampers in sadism
unconfined geometry
shifts these walls
like an underrated
experimental film
that no one even watches
the voices echo over the screen
until that moment you look up
and decide
you could spend forever like this
fucked up and confused
but not alone

I wish I were alone
for an afternoon
that doesn’t
involve standing naked in the rain
and does
own the phrases I can never say out loud

because there’s wasted hours
wasted days
chasing off an aftermath
that will never come to be
convinced those extra seconds
at the front door
will one day
make everything okay

but there are worse ways to be

Rise up Job

If you ever get the suspicion
that you just might be walking
on egg shells
somewhere around
the graveyard of the nearly dead
you might be human
maybe I’m just human

or maybe I sacrificed my sanity
one too many times
and the one I don’t believe in
is out to destroy
whatever fragments
of faith I ever had

but I’m not Job
or his propensity
for letting god walk all over his feet

I don’t take that back

nor can I apologize
for not pulling out the red carpet
to curtsey
every time life steps in
during those brief minutes
when we’re able to catch our breath

because there’s an empire at work
mass-producing superman
that not everybody can be

his image is etched into prison walls
snickering at the ones who couldn’t win

If I’m victorious
thank satan

Dinner Party

pristine dinner arrangements
earlier that evening
post-poned by a shattered sliding door

and the breaking point
was at one AM
around back
sharing a fix with lucifer
the original sin
of getting less than you bargained for

and it’s all okay
that god is dead
how we’re the ones responsible
we just did what we had to do
in this mercy killing of the century

because we know the feeling
where it’s a little too hard to breathe
there’s plenty of seductive air
thrusting the body to this ridge
with a head too afraid to let go

of that weird pain
harbored privately
with a serpentine texture
hissing gently
at the ones that don’t deserve it

and it fights in the eternal crusade for happiness
biting hot and cold
a custodian of the forecast
snickering as we use chalk
to outline the bodies of snow angels
warm-blooded creatures emitting frost as currency

dinner will be served by morning

Goodbye to Laurels

Dishonest creatures
we advocate denial
in the heart of cherry blossoms
and thousand watt smirks
manufacturing mirages
to safeguard a sorcerer named hope

just let the frost devour
like glass particles of rain
you won’t be a hero
aged of silicone dimension
because it matters too much
the sensation every time you fuck up
and you spend ten days
tearing at the linoleum
until you see your face
in the puddle on your leaky floor

you damn all the legends
and folklore champions
who coast into history
with an unfair advantage
of fiction

when deep inside
every one knows
it’s in those rare moments
caught in a realm
where abstract penmanship underlines the warning symbols
of absolute defeat
that losing makes the most sense

When days are no more

At the edge of the world is the corner of every bookcase, filthy and abandoned by a herd of ventriloquists.

It’s okay to hate this place. You don’t really. You’re angry because it doesn’t work, for you or anybody you know. And you’ve known it for as long as you can remember, back when they pulled you apart, extracted the venom from your veins. And when the window’s ajar and the breeze visits each loose strand of hair, you imagine you’re just a silhouette easing your way through the ferns.  Someone throws a grenade to blow up this eden so that you’re finally free to float away.

At the centre of the world is a canyon, formed by the the pillars of evolution.

It’s fine to feel like death. For death looks a lot like you. And everybody for that matter. Here nesting in our graves, below a renaissance moon and confined by a bitter sun. You scream out in decibels that bastard above owes you, if he ever cared to exist. Squandering a meagre appetite, maybe just a conclusion that our dens seldom satisfy our hunger anymore. And it’s been spring since the beginning of time.

We’re not okay. Ghastly creatures stumble forth. They reek of fear and stale wounds carved by flashes of the final sunrise. They gather beneath the evergreens of forests reaching their senility, with nothing left to take over when they’re gone. When every thing’s destroyed.

Candlelit Confessions

It’s high time
to escape stagnant cityscapes
concrete ambition
an upheaval of fruitful radiance
so the last facade
descends through crocodile tears

I dozed off for a moment
the crowds closed in
impermanent comfort
illusive dreamcatchers collecting each vision
with melodic impulsive
where I run off into the crescent moon
to die all alone

but the ballad of social remedy
can’t chase every lost cause

in the middle of an ice storm
there’s a tentative staircase into oblivion
and these feet mount it each time
as the fireplace crackles on

Captivated

I know now that when revelation speaks
she guards her ravenous tongue
with a wall of fleeting embers

every time I curse the bastard
whose name I can’t remember
every time the infirmary calls
claiming check-in is two years late
I see a clouded figure
a vessel of demonic compromise
angelic intentions
corroding the egg-shell walls
with a black permanent marker

“everyone is happy
no one gives a shit”

prisoner
of a different asylum
veiled architecture
breathes through broken aesthetics
corrupting my feeble alibi

madness
oh it’s just a symptom
of discerned depth in a time of drought

fantasize
of frozen perches
where kindred rooftops coat the avarice
of winning hands
wagers made
by the winter forecast on our untended bones
and you know I have to respect that in the end

Cabin fever

Up in arms
and woven catastrophe
red trickles entwine fabric
and the peeled hardwood casualties
of the dining room crusade

Mother of compulsion
and a frayed conscience
tired from all those years of crying wolf

She stopped by in the evening
to synchronize your heartbeat
and see if you were ready to leave

this fake fortress of mirrored walls
that reveals the cloud of shadows
and carves infliction onto your laundry list

she read the hesitation on your pursed lips
and took it as a yes

civilization’s a callous heart with few vacancies
and they shirked the guilt you owned
as she left you
adjacent to the ceiling fan

On Every Long Night

A Testament to the unbearable
is this entrance into fantasy
a reverie
six open flames
solace for the brief wish
that you’re the last person alive

the wrath of mother earth
came
knocked upon their doors
forgot to visit yours
as you slept on
one eye open
staring at the crooked ceiling

perched along the kitchen table
armed with scissors
and paper castles
cutting through the scotch tape fold
to unravel allegories
narratives that will lead you home