Entombed

Good afternoon, everybody! I’ve got another little piece today. Something sadder than the last one. Without further ado, please enjoy.


Entombed

The writing, my dear.

Scrawled there on the wall;

can you see it?

Those old runes…

What could they mean, my darling?

Chicken-scratch, sure.

But what if?

What if there is something to them?

What if it’s about us?

What if it means something?

All of it.

Can you read it?

Interpret for me the symbols of antiquity?

You always were smarter than me.

I am confused.

Something you’re all too familiar with.

It made me angry before.

Now?

A hollow sadness.

Memories and dreams reverberate through old and decrepit halls.

Could you…

Could you help me remember?

What am I doing here?

Where was I going?

Who are you?

Who…

Who am I?

An American Dream, Almost Forgotten

Blood-soaked visages and fetid rags fill the space before my eyes. You would have me believe that it’s all according to plan? The blunt-force trauma, the brain damage, the bleeding belly-wound that signals a final turn into the worst possible outcomes… How do you justify it all? How does it sit with you? In rusted manacles and filthy, putrid trousers sits the man, the woman, the Geist. Hardened hearts bely broken minds and haggard breaths, the death throes of a bygone era. Will the builders and the founders save us from staggering one-legged into the apocalypse? I shall await forever those things promised to me in my youth. We’ve all the time in the world.


An American Dream, Almost Forgotten

Lying there

staring out the window

look at things you cannot see.

Those little pictures in your head

reflected in the eyes atop your face.

Not broken,

but whole.

Down below

in streets unclean

where windows break

and saxophones wake

perhaps the eyes atop your face

would find themselves adrift

in one foreign little place.

I only wish,

come hell or high water,

that there upon that street

will your eyes not come to rest

for I wish a different future,

with a fair sight fewer sutures.

Fly, fly, fly

little bird.

It’s time to fly away

right on out the window.

The world awaits

your tired little eyes.

The Banks of The River Lethe

Good afternoon, everyone. You have died. You stand here, like those heroes of old, on the banks of that sacred river Lethe. Your ascent to the heavenly realms of Paradiso now secured, you step carefully into the dark and starkly opaque water. Your sins, desires and memories washed away in sacred bliss. As a child again, you are innocent, no longer condemned, but redeemed. Welcome to the rest of forever. Without further ado…


Settling Debts

Haunting orbs

drift across the water.

They come towards me,

stealing away my light.

I am fading.

I flash and flicker;

I am the torch over which your fingers

quickly pass.

The specters

take my flame.

They wear it

and make themselves whole.

I am as the hearth

in that certain dearth

that follows November.

Swept away,

is all my heat.

Through the mist

is seen defeat.

I know why they’ve come:

The debt of one infernal sum.

I cannot pay,

I’m ashamed to say.

This will make their day.

To-Do List

Good morning, all. What’s on your to-do list? Groceries, practices, galas, or lunches. Think of all the decisions you might make today; is it you that is making them? Can you help yourself? Or does your self help you? Think about this as you read this short piece today. Without further ado…


To Do

If it were agency

through which we divined our decision,

would we have defined this insanity?

Would we have found ourselves,

rife in the ways that we are,

at the impasse of that infernal cycle to which we are bound?

Does the man make a decision?

Or does the decision make the man?

If it’s agency, you are a monster.

If it’s not, you are a monster.

Hardly matters, so it seems.

Make the choice;

let it make you.

There’s hardly anything you can do.