Hell On Earth

I don’t recognise our world,
Was it supposed to be a modern purgatory?
Have they made us devils?
Feasting on a diet of microplastics,
From this trough of serfdom,
Tiptoeing on hooves to find that lithium,
Earning those insufficient pennies,

These lords in their walled estates,
They promised all a chill life,
But it’s only grown hotter,
Life is still full of those daily gifts though,
Canned beans and cyanide,
Toxic fumes and tree-stumps,
Playing collectable card games with endangered species,

I daresay they lied to us,
We shouldn’t be demons to one another,
But they gave us these pitchforks,
In the name of progress,
They brought us hell on Earth.

Pottery

Towards the end,
We embraced your every breath,
Holding on for dear life,
But like fragile pottery,
You began to crack in our arms,
Wilting,
Fading,
Now resting,
We’ll be curators of your name,
We no longer have the full article,
But in our tearstrewn hands,
We still hold the shards of your memory,
Ever and always.

Virtual Reality

Are we not living a virtual reality?
Are we living in binary?
Chrome-filled goggles over our eyes,
Flashing every shade of ruby,
Screens of ones and zeroes,
Winners and losers,

It’s a life within a life,
Unreal,
Fake,
As if nature were moved to the recycle bin,
It’s all apps and numbers on screens,
And media that is less than social,

This VR world,
It’s a misery machine,
It’s not living,
And when it gets too much,
When our eyes are straining,
Can we even take the headset off?

Loose Ships

Are we not but sinking ships?
Slowly but surely,
Fathom by fathom,
Taking on caustic water yearly,
Our cerebral captains have run a loose ship,
Mutiny is the standard,
The posts aren’t manned,
And the hull is leaking,

The navigator is mollified at the helm,
Drunk on a rum of broken aspirations,
And there’s always a storm in the distance,
We drift past similar vessels,
Kindred spirits,
Unable to salvage one another,
And is that not what we are,
Just shipwrecks in the end.

Uncharted

Each day,
We enter uncharted territory,
Unknown waters,
A new chronology,
And each hour,
We take another cagey step,
Afeared of the possibilities and consequences,
There is no knowing what we’ll uncover,

Steep cliffs and jungle heat,
Glaciers and deserted Chernobyls,
Places not on the map of yesterday,
Sandy tombs of new information,
Great canyons of unforeseen challenges,
Sanctuaries of familiarity,
And drakes masquerading as new friends,
All are on the map of today,

This fluid geographic chart,
It’s wiped clean at midnight,
And tomorrow,
We venture out again.

My Foil

Dear stranger,
You are my foil,
My counterpart,
Your virtues shine light upon my limits,
Pulling them to the stagefront,

The comparisons are stark,
You are an attractive prospect,
Whereas I am a red flag,
Whilst you enjoy success and royalties,
I sit in grey and anonymity,

You’re everything I am not,
But perhaps it’s right,
The world needs losers too,
I’ll be hydra to your Hercules,
And so I’ll be your foil too.

Havoc

There is a ruckus in my skull,
Like static and flame coupled,
It is a scene of havoc,
Only visible to my minds eye,
Yet this is no storm of the brain,
But an armageddon,
While red skies enshroud,
Memory lanes are being churned up,
Every cottage on the way in embers,
Memories and photos vaporised in the inferno,
While tidal waves are swallowing every anecdote,

This is a time time coming,
It may yet desist,
For now it is just havoc,
But I let it happen.

Dreamscape

Last night,
I went for a walk within my dreams,
Traipsing through that dreamscape,
With nary a hand to hold,
Under a kaleidoscopic sky of grinning clouds,
Through violet and teal oceans of grass,
Crossing bridges suspended over fuchsia streams,
With the breeze singing sweet tunes in my ear,
It was a lonely trek,
But a euphoric one,

Alas,
The dream ended,
As the sun returned me to grey,
But does that world still remain?
Can I go back?

My Wound

The wound you left,
Though invisible to the eye,
Is still festering and bloody,
As malignant as any other,
Just as replete with maggots,

Let there be no doubt,
The pain is very real,
Though no grimace rest upon my face,
Scarification by romance,
That is the cause of this wound,

My wound
A cavity where a heart once lay.

Puppet Strings

These days,
I’m more of a marionette,
Twirling on puppet strings,
Performing to no audience,
Jigging upon stained-glass,
Acting against my own interests,

These controlling cords,
They descend from somewhere above,
Puppeteer unknown,
Like veins pumping demonic blood,
Piercing my hands like stigmata,
Wrapped about my limbs like tentacles,

I’m so tired,
Yet here I pirouette,
I’m on puppet strings,
And I don’t want to dance anymore.