As you keep driving on your way,
With your excavations,
The glories of your spelunking may be lavish,
Diamonds and rubies and platinum,
It may be all going your way,
But take note my friend,
Keep your pickaxe humble,
Beware of the stones you part,
They threaten to cave in,
Their gravity more than enough to destroy you,
The boulders whisper to one another,
The stalactites train their blades upon you,
Remember that life’s excavation can be deadly,
Keep your mining light low,
And stay humble.
The sun is a tyrant,
Thermometers were its heralds,
Yet we still opened our windows,
Below these beams of radiation do I reside,
And my willpower is stripped from me,
Melted down to perspiration,
Burned to cinders,
Scorched beyond recognition,
I am a wickerman,
Burned to X’s and O’s,
Sandcastles have become my skin,
Sweat has become my lifeblood,
My breath has become a menagerie of spices,
Made pink by the skys hatred,
I am scorched,
As are we all.
From the brush I rise,
Segmented fury,
Mandibles bared,
All instinct and hunger,
I am predatory,
Make no mistake,
I hunger,
My venom hungers,
My limbs long to rip and tear,
Rodents and avians and insects,
Asunder a hundred ways,
All are meant for these cold eyes,
You felt my approach,
Tingles up your spine,
Muted tittering in the greenery,
A hundred needles across your foot,
Was that me there?
Or am I already on your shoulder?
Once I soared,
A plane built on dreams,
Yet lo did the winds change,
I was broken up in mid-air,
By bird strikes and heartbreaks,
My wings clipped,
Rock bottom welcomed me as a brother,
Fire and shrapnel were its gifts to me,
I am a crashed aircraft,
My frame was shredded,
With nuts and bolts scattered about my head,
Bound anew to the depressive earth,
Craters were my cellmates,
I work each day and night now,
Sweat and blood and kerosene,
To get myself back out of this wreckage,
And fly once more.
I see you,
Supplicants and sycophants all,
Under those predatory spires,
Within ivory gothic monsters,
A church of destruction,
Did you know you stand on sacred land?
Not of the biblical kind,
But a boneyard,
As you kneel at your oaken pews,
You stand upon graves too,
This institution buried these bodies,
It ate them body and soul,
A temple of killers,
Justified by voices in your head and from the pulpit,
An ecclesiastical superiority complex,
You stand upon corpses,
You pray,
Looking up to ghosts of gods in the sky,
Prostrating yourselves to an absent father,
The rays in the clouds are just radiation,
Each skeleton is a sin,
Committed by the alleged unprofane.
Ahh my friend,
With that face that sings detriment and praise both,
You ask,
What is wrong with me?
Both everything and nothing at all,
That is my answer,
Everything is wrong while nothing is wrong,
I smile loud and proud on the outside,
Inside is naught but a hollow porcelain doll,
My voice preaches homeliness,
While internally I tear down the wallpaper,
My visage shows no damage or cracks,
But broken glass is in these veins,
Do not worry for me my friend,
Nothing is wrong,
But everything is wrong.
It’s a shiny new day,
A seasons shift,
Just the setting for a metamorphosis,
An evolution,
The birth of a new lifeform,
My next adventure in aesthetics,
So I paint my hair a new blend,
Scrub on a new face,
Give my wardrobe some new marching orders,
I am a new man,
But it’s a farce,
Life has not truly shifted,
New look,
New me,
But same problems,
Same nightmare,
There has been no true change,
It is hollow,
Aesthetics are not contentment.
With our mouths we give life,
Poets and scholars and layman all,
Tongues as bestiaries,
Aural gates to the world,
Words taking on a vitality of their own,
We release all manner of beasts,
Doves of kind words on wing,
Tones of rage joining the conversation as lions,
Rodents spewing forth as timid dialogue,
Riddles in the form of octopuses,
Speech is an animal kingdom,
We speak lifeforms into being,
Our words becoming both predator and prey,
Lives given and taken in our communion,
Coexisting and hunting in turn.
When I hear its call,
That plastic herald fills me with dread,
It’s speaker a devious homunculus,
With a shrill call,
Ring ring,
Ring ring,
My veins become a red glacier within,
My teeth begin a tap dance,
What will the message be?
Which spectres voice will haunt me?
Ring ring,
Ring ring,
Does the apocalypse beckon?
My mind is a slideshow of worst case scenarios,
Will it be threats?
Perhaps evil news?
Ring ring,
Ring ring,
It trills again,
I must answer it,
I must slay this raucous demon,
My hands crusade commences upon the handset,
Wrong number,
The palpitations in my spine mock me.
The brain is an opera singer,
Constantly on practice,
With a captive audience of one,
Its voice inciting electricity,
Galvanising cortices,
Bouncing within the skull as acoustics,
From falsetto to bass to alto,
And back again,
From a music sheet constantly in flux,
Screaming out messages,
Orders to the whole,
Move that hand,
Take the next step,
Break that heart,
Fall apart again.
