Does a headstone speak to you too?
Do you hear their voices?
Friends and family from beyond?
You’re not imagining it,
There is an energy among the resting,
A family reunion through cemetery gates,
A last chance at reconciliation,
Or chastisement,
Life lessons,
Spiritual advice,
Placations too late
And loving words missed,
It’s meditative,
The feeling behind you,
That is your ancestors behind you,
And they are your allies.
Heed it.
We met upon the face of the moon,
And yet we felt far from alien,
Talk flowed like cider,
And affection persisted like cigar smoke,
A dose of gorgeous hot chocolate,
An ochre beauty,
Piercings and lightning bolts,
Something of a novel experience for this clown,
A royal flush of nightlife fate,
I didn’t expect to meet you,
A new empress,
Or the closest a serf could expect,
That night.
Let me tell you a story,
A yarn of spies and the spied upon,
Of a world under our own,
A world of shadow and masks,
A world we are not privy to,
For the better,
She is a woman,
But also an agent,
A clandestine weapon with fake lashes,
All false wigs and suppressors,
A dame of deception,
She had slain tyrants while wearing unfamiliar faces,
She once had a lover,
But the flag stole him under its yolk,
He is a man,
But also a tool,
An extension of his nations left hand,
All handguns and sabotage,
An artist of wetwork,
No foreign dossier is safe from his gloves,
He longed for a normal life once,
But the flag kept drawing him back,
It’s a tale of two nations,
A love story spelled out in gunshots and dead drops,
Of two souls under opposing masters,
Once brought together by their humanity,
But rent asunder by the flags inhumanity,
Forced in future to kiss via crosshairs.
Atop a statue once depicting liberty,
Perches a foul creature,
An avian actor,
Decaying piece by ruinous piece,
A scavenger feigning regality,
A vulture wearing the feathers of an eagle,
Mould and droppings falling upon a flag,
Nonetheless this animal is loved and reviled both,
Regarded in both sycophantic and tyrannical aviaries,
It wants not for fodder,
The carcass of a republic lies below,
So it rends at putrid meat no longer protected,
Picking at the scraps of the citizenry,
The flesh of a populace with potential,
Each wing of this beast is dyed an opposing shade,
One crimson,
The other a dull blue,
Battling over which part to gnaw at,
Even as they rot and fester,
But make no mistake,
Both factions are wings of the same rotten vulture.
The waves are the embodiment of mystery,
An oblivion of crushing weight and shadow,
More unknown than the dark side of the moon,
Though its wane and wax has a rhythmic aria to it,
The abyss has a song all its own,
A dread tune,
Like tentacles licking at your eardrums,
Distorted static of whalesong,
The crunch of crabshell underfoot,
Its lyrics manifest as thalassophobia,
A warning in the mind,
Sharks teeth and squid beaks upon your nape,
Salt and brine on your tongue,
The knowledge that man is not welcome.
I know that monitor is not just a device,
I know what it means to you,
It’s your social safe space,
The real world was always too bitter,
You met these souls without seeing their faces,
Side by side exploring myriad galaxies,
Across battlefields rendered in digital space,
Amicable rivalries upon podiums that never were,
They were and are real,
They are not mere pixels and handles,
They are friends,
Past and present,
And perhaps future also,
People not profiles,
Place a hand upon the screen,
You can feel their palms against yours.
Life can be a market street,
Neon and sin in equal measure,
Glitzy lights mask the horrors behind,
Roads teeming with snake oil salesmen,
Moral vampires hiding in alleyways,
Vulturine hounds slavering for hours of your life,
You need to keep your chequebook shut and turn away,
Despite their honeyed words,
They do not mean well,
They are artists of heartbreak,
Painting red skies and earthquakes,
Architects of every inferno under the sun,
You need to be strong,
Permit no chink in your plate mail,
No hint of manipulation,
These ghouls would take you into their rotten fold,
Don’t let them stain your blood,
Be incorruptible.
I once knew a man,
Less a friend and more an ally,
A true winterborn soul,
His face was obscured by unfeeling sapphire,
And he wore that azure mask well,
An emotionless shield of ice,
A frost king carved from the keenest pain,
And when he spoke,
Gales rose in chorus,
His breath was the coldest blizzard,
Each taunt and retort shaping the most briery snowflakes,
Cutting in more ways than one,
Ivory shards in each syllable,
Each word a drop in the mercury,
Yet I tell you,
There was no malice in his visage,
Just the indifferent essence of the arctic,
Nothing personal,
Barely any feeling at all in fact,
No more than a heart of frozen water,
An avalanche holds no grudge.
We’ve been savagely chased from yesteryear,
Demons of loss and pain at our backs,
Like Jack Russell’s nipping at our heels,
Chunks of us left in the last year,
Physically and emotionally,
Not all survived the rout,
Yet we must look forward,
It’s a mad new world,
Time waits for no man,
The days ahead are in flux,
Waiting to be crystallized by new experience,
New faces and affairs to be held in glass,
But take note,
It is yet unclear if this new year will also maim,
That same glass may be jagged,
But our assault must be sustained,
For time will not tarry,
So we ought face the year like a hopeful sunrise.
Throughout this thousand year war,
Numberless threads have been severed,
Both political and carotid,
Every fall gives rise to a cult,
A coven of worms,
A morbid congregation drawn together,
Each elongated creature both priest and disciple,
Each slain prince or pauper,
Becomes a temple of writhing masses,
Another prone parish of rot,
Erected on putrescent pillars,
Ribcages holding up their necrotic chapels,
Flesh is chewed away in ritual feasts,
Marrow supped like wine from bone,
These cultists are no fiends though,
It’s simply the way of the world,
Entropy and taxes being the only certainties,
Even the most triumphant and grand of us,
Shall be naught but a temple for the worms,
Little more than grisly alms,
Meat for the cult.
WorldofHarley 