The past is dust,
Illusory and asphyxiating,
Memories kept in a domestic recreation,
A dolls house,
Boarded up windows and plastic veils,
Mental furniture coated in grey,
Left in that abandoned house,
Images of joy and grief,
Cracks filled with anger and serenity,
Dust unsettled by latter discourse,
It combats your urges to clean it up,
Caked deep on to chairs and tables,
Images burned into your brain,
You can’t wipe away this dust,
It remains in that house in your past.
Oh my muse,
Upon these blasted lands,
The squalls are rising,
My life is debris and cattle spinning around,
A dread tornado,
Around us the wind churn,
Encircling our embrace,
In your arms I feel no bite,
No grudge from the world,
You are safe haven,
You are serenity,
The calm in the storm,
Your heart warming me to the chill,
Beside you I am myself,
No victim to the worlds blades,
You make my being bearable,
I simply can’t attest loudly enough,
I love you.
For better or worse,
We are all connected,
Tied together by coarse rope,
As a species,
As a bacterium,
A global paradigm of togetherness,
We are bound like synapses,
We shuffle to and fro,
Working together and against,
A dice roll in every interaction,
We are our own greatest friends and foes both,
Embracing warmly while readying our knives,
But at least we have together,
Sharing this scrap of the galaxy,
For better or worse.
Plated and iron-willed,
Zweihander in grip,
We are the first,
The forlorn hope,
The first of the army,
The first to charge,
The first to brave that barbed storm,
To climb those ladders,
To brave those battlements,
The first to kill,
The first to be slain,
We are the first,
The forlorn hope,
The first to die screaming,
The first to burn alive,
The first to be impaled,
The first to perish under arrows,
To be pierced,
To be slaughtered,
The first to be buried,
The first to be forgotten.
I crawl,
I crawl because death looms,
Tracer fireworks and smoothbore orchestra above,
The air is a Russian roulette of lead,
To stand vertical is to welcome the reapers round,
Razor wire as spectators,
Bullet casings as applause,
Knees and elbows,
Along this dank trench,
Each inch ahead is a marathon,
The mud cossets me as a reliable guardian,
Enveloping me as I crawl panicked,
My uniform once regal,
Is now a butchers apron,
Knees and elbows ragged,
Each pound of the earth shakes forth more debris,
Fellow conscripts lie about as charnel meat,
Carved by arms dealer produce,
This ditch has become the grave of many,
Its mud surely pining to consume me too,
As readily as any artillery,
Knees and elbows bloodied,
Exhaustion grips me,
I crash beside a shredded standard,
I did not choose this war,
Have no ability to quell its fury,
But now I lay amidst its masterpiece,
Etched in grunge and gore and steel.
The road calls,
A journey anew,
Less a siren song,
And more a gravelly clarion,
My trajectory must again be forward,
There is no other way for me,
My soul demands it,
Spiritual acceleration,
I am to be the wheels,
Propelling my hopes into the horizon,
Upon my own steam,
Or atop steel stallion,
To ride beside cormorants and authors,
I’ll lace those boots close,
And throttle up,
The path calls,
The road anew.
Upon the sea we rest,
Callused hands upon nets and scales,
The winds rise in warning,
Waves lashing at our hull,
Begging us to flee to shore,
The storms know what approaches,
The monster the waters try to hide,
Teeth like tantos approach,
Ichthyology turned to nightmarish design,
The shadow cutting betwixt waves,
This is no shark,
No animal of biological leaning,
But a yokai,
A dread spirit of myth,
Isonade,
A barbed tail like a typhoon,
Ready to impale fleeting lives up on deck,
It could be our briny and thrashing end.
The bog is woken up,
The murkiest waters even animate,
Murk becoming effulgent,
That fell flame hovering there,
The waters surface reflects it,
Phosphorescent in its disquiet,
Like a canvas painted by ghosts,
Some machination of the spirit realm,
That dread light,
It’s a foreboding lighthouse in the black,
Offering not salvation,
But a watery grave,
Is it a ghost?
Is it purely folklore?
Or is there a more cogent cause?
Science offering some motive.
My father told me to watch the skies,
A crestfallen voice nursing a missing leg,
He said there were eagles up there,
They’d taken his locomotion in flashes of patriotism,
Ironclad falcons,
Armed to the beak,
Hunting through dead metal eyes,
A video game played malms away,
These vulturine creatures brought death and gunpowder,
Bestowing firestorms at a moments notice,
Butchering villain and victim both,
Father said they were here to remove obstacles two,
Deplorables and witnesses,
To feast upon the black gold we dare live upon,
To eat and answer to nobody.
WorldofHarley 