The Twisting Voices

Each pocket holds a ticket
Each ticket bears a number
One child likes to lick it
The other stares in wonder

Old metal moves unbroken
Blue twisted rails cut out the sun
And between the rusted gates standing open
Confetti silhouettes chase air and run

Wrappers trace the beaten pathways
Crushed by little rubber souls
Feasts for flies in dim flickered rays
And pain for love in dark bouncing strolls

Dirty lights drape the complex surface
Flickering as the fat flies flutter
Leaving the moon a cold gray purpose
And giving small hearts a warm flushed stutter

Cities of steel curve through every scream
And the children climb every structure
The metal connects and breaks its seams
As small feat jump the gaps that rupture

Electric songs pulse through the rails
Sung by the voices hiding in the night
Their faces spoken soft and pale
Their words heard loud and fiery bright

Synthetic flags herald each winner
Smoke rising from their crowns
As smells of burning plastic simmer
Over smoothly cracked concrete grounds

The great metal contortion forever grows
Feeding off hotly contested tickets
Trampled by rubber feet that never slow
And picked up only by those who risk it

Each pocket holds a ticket
Each ticket bears a number
One child likes to lick it
The other stares in wonder

Water Marks

Cool liquid glass fell on our rigid house
Gushing like rivers from iron rusted spouts
The tall foundation saved its frame for some time
But the dark fluid snakes slithered and twined
Down the steep hills that protected our feet
To quench the rising sea so eager to greet

We crept on top the roof under thin paper cover
Waiting for blue sky and its dry burning lover
Damp heads fell low between soaking cold knees
Looking down upon our God's angry rippled seas

The darkness consumed so fierce and so fast
From storm cloud militia and the shadows they cast
Striking the sky blind with silent jagged swords
These armies marched loud with a viscous accord

Their thunderous clashes brought terror to the ground
Shaking the house with rough metal-born sounds

These booming cries of war grew loud and louder
Chanting to the winds who grew proud and prouder

The strong iron beams began to waver and shriek
Under the invisible fate the drizzled air seeks

I wondered if the house would fall before the waves
If the crying iron would bend to the rest it craved
If the wind could conquer before the seas could quench
If the water would scavenge us inch by inch

But soon the sea broke the crest of the foundation
Each drop adding depth to our drowned salvation
And soon the water slammed up against the tired walls
That briefly held us from a deep breathless fall

As moments seemed to reach their final hour
And the waves reached our faces closely cowered

The azure sky opened as quickly as it came
Cloud warriors bleeding through with a yellow flame
And we stood on the iron just feet from the sea
Holding the hands of us, the final three

But the water never fell, never receded
And never gave way to the land our hearts pleaded
So the sea held us captive and drowned all the trees
As we lived day by day off the liquid glass sea

Leap in the river and explore its warmth

Watch quick liquids steal your form

As the current pulls you under the moon

Flowing whispers sounding soon

Now feel the light and watch cheerful faces

Take joy in all bright spaces

Where the ones you love tread soft and spoken

Your heart beats loudly woken

By the laughing voices touching your ears

Each cheek wet with joyful tears

And under lunar glow water is home

Built by the golden beams shown

Flow with these faces for the rest of time

Under light brightly lit kind

Jinx

The secret jinx wastes within our dreams
Subsisting on tapestries of thought
He eats existence from their seams
And drinks threaded hope once held taut

The fiend slips through brightly woven minds
Consuming the most vivid shades of essence
And in our pale digested fabrics we find
A roughly sewn childlike presence

So from this young cloth we must return
And witness our jinxes starve and fall
As we light the match and watch him burn
Our new forms breathe from ash and crawl

Lots

Cracked dice tumble down the alley

Tip toeing toward their final tally

Edges churn over rough surface

With randomly driven purpose


Trip trip down the cement

Dying pairs sing their lost lament

And new born couples boast their power

A presence shortly sweet and sour


Dot to faces and face to dots

Whole lives revolve on random lots

On the aimless dance quickly goes

As tense eyes eye the thrower's throw

The ancient woman sat under her roof

Thatched with straw and soil and youth

Her fingers curled 'round a dying candle

Lighting her uncomely home as she rambled

"Why is my daughter so late in coming?"

"At this hour she aught to be running!"

She sat in an old oak chair pushing and rocking

Waiting for her daughter's hand to come knocking

The middle of her gaunt face stood enlightened

By the mangled candle where her fingers tightened

The tea brewed on the red fire beside her

As the hot steam began to choir and stir

The woman turned her face, exposing a scar

Rigid and deep and black as tar

Its depression remained drearily dark

Where the candle's light lost its mark

Its hard form was grotesquely violent

Speaking horror, intensely silent

The woman rustled and finally erected

Rising to walk with good footing selected

Slowly she shuffled over to the fire

While the flames sent her shadow higher and higher

She sat the candle down on the mantle above

And handled her tea with unrivaled love

She poured it gently into an old cracked cup

The steam escaping and fuming up

Then a knock barked from the crooked door

Its vibration traveled through the wood floor

She laid down the kettle and picked up the candle

Shuffling to the door as she again began to ramble

"Finally you come you ungrateful wench."

"I thought I could smell your ungainly stench."

Her old hand pried open the door

Exposing the wind and its magnificent roar

A beautiful, trembling woman stood outside

With an old looking hatchet hanging by her side

"Have you yet to find some desperate man to wed?"

The old wretched woman sharply said

And with that the woman's hand came to rise

And drive the hatchet between her mother's eyes

Blood spewed two rivers around her crinkled nose

And as she fell to the floor her cold eyes froze

The daughter left the door open to light of day

To show all the world the demon she slay

Glass Stage

Winter chills shift and thrive once more

Ice begins growth, brittle and thin

And her feet tremble on the shore

Her back thrusted by freezing winds

The grass behind stands still and pale

Crisply frozen in yesterday

Its touch and smell begin to fail

As she blindly walks on today

Across the river lake so slow

She shuffles on the clear glass stage

As her frozen aching fears grow

Tranquil faces observe her cage

Roots

The womb lies deep in branches
Entangled upon age old bark
Inside the sweet babe prances
A naked joy softly stark

Light breaks through uneven seams
A sharp glow seeps through the leaves
And from her sap the babe weans
As her lonely mother grieves

For when the moment arrives
The babe will break through her walls
Igniting flames in maddened eyes
That watch the mother tree fall

Roots slither into the ash
Taking hold of a sleeping warmth
While limbs above fiercely thrash
Upon famished insect swarms

The locusts and moths well know
The babe is wrong and wretched
And as armies fly and flow
Her leaves become digested

But the daughter does not fall
She only stands black and gray
On the ash that gave her all
And here the price paid shall stay

The Widow

Eight paths writhe through thick rubble
Faces on stones lie blackened and crumbled
The eyes that atom loved sleep somber and humble
And the deep white flames flicker and fumble

On the livid corpse both burning and dead
Of an eight legged widow deep black and red
The ancient love of atom grows fondled and fed
While eyes sweetly sleep on her carnage crowned head

To Be Continued

The heart divides
Into a thousand shards
While the time it bides
Leaves thickened scars

Swiftly halting action
These pieces hold their own
Like stubborn waring factions
They crack the brittle bones

Until the blood grows cold
And death does divide
Blood conscriptions sold
Into an angry red tide

Reaper

Reap the green fields clear and well
Sow the seeds and never tell
Wear the scythe and hide the plow
Grow the pure and kill the foul

Slaughter stock and feed the young
Whip the mule and hold his tongue
Work him hard till fall of dawn
Revel in his silent brawn

Quiet the wind, calm the rain
Give noise an ill sense of shame
Step lightly though greenest fields
Choosing wisely what you yield

Red Opium

Formed figures feel no pain
Their souls find shelter from the red rain
Clay built from clay to remold earthen masks
Concealing foul faces drunkenly cast
Nights shine darker
Pale clay grows starker
And strong comes the opium
Into a love melted utopian
Love from the poppy
It's love's mold the seeds copy
And clay melts to mold
Useless, ancient, old
And so love the forms
Sanguine in red storms

Glow

Little spots of vibrant warmth

Glow bright in lively golden swarms

Through air full with giddy children

Small hands clutch, softly gilded

Fluttering wings weave to and fro

Yielding to hands both high and low

A swift release is offered most

Whilst some suffer talk and boast

Bodies move swiftly in the night

Causing fights in desperate flight

Avoiding quick fingered cages

Amongst a laughter so contagious

These tiny souls in the dark

Yearn deeply for the bedtime hark

The Hour

The hour shall arrive
So quickly unexpected
When silly minds contrive
An idea oft neglected
Their heads will surely thrive
On thoughts to be respected
Spreading jolly lies
While curing the infected
They shall blind the wise
Concealing words suspected
Hiding in the guise
Of knowledge near perfected

The Creature

Faltering steel built in a dream
Constructed by a monstrously beautiful fiend
Who dwells in the earth forever alone
Each day turning more the black stone
He slaves as storms rage and slaves as they die
Whilst no ears hear his tortuous cry

The Black Water Rhyme

Black waters surge from the rocks overhead
Dancing between cracks carved in primal stone
Shrill liquids sing in love's forgotten stead
As scars glisten in madness plainly shown

Endless chaos wildly waltzes within
Gray forms both weathered and smoothly ancient
Seething channels reveal sad songs of sin
Their power and lyrics all but fainted

The struggle ceased before talk told of time
Now the solemn trickled dance dictates death
And the smooth stones heed the black water rhyme
Of a great colossus who once drew breath