In humble Illionois,
A beaten boy becomes a fiend,
A gift from a sire,
I wish I could yearn for the best,
But alas it did not end well,
Thirty three innocent souls,
Taken too soon,
By a portly smiling man,
Bespite the theatrics and face paint,
Garottes are not magic tricks,
A crawlspace is no place for a party,
And quicklime isn’t punch,
Please my friends,
Behind even a clowns grin,
A demon can hide.
I find myself in a barrow,
Caked in dew and ash,
I know not how I found myself here,
And yet I hold the shovel,
In my personal astronomy,
I’m at my nadir,
Bedrock,
No longer illuminated by lunar,
My eyes are asteroids of ice,
And no stars rest behind them,
My zenith is now obscured,
Hidden by clouds I myself painted,
I know not why,
But even now I hold the brush.
Do you emulate both slob and insomniac?
Cursed with too little rest one night,
And sleep like a corpse the next,
Does your routine remain fluidic?
Unpredictable and overly pliable,
You see,
A sleep schedule is like a beast,
An anaconda with a foul temper,
A stallion not yet broken,
A sloth and a dragon,
It won’t always heed your wants,
It has a wild heart all its own,
It’ll thrash and kick,
Bite and try to flee,
And your daylight hours will bear the wounds,
It could indeed be tamed,
Through effort and habitual changes
Fewer chemicals and bedtimes kept,
Respect this cavalier animal,
And you’ll rest anew.
Sitting alone in your cradle,
Dross all around you,
A world in turmoil,
It’s hard to ignore the grey,
But did you forget?
You hold the solution in your hands,
A leather-bound saviour,
Pages upon pages,
Filled with worlds and invisible people,
It’s both a blindfold and portal,
An unguent for the world weary soul,
Hiding the monotony of the world around you,
While permitting you to traverse others,
Befriending all manner of secret friends,
My friend,
It’s a temporary respite,
But a necessary one,
There is no shame,
In sheltering oneself between the pages.
You say underrated,
That I’m unfairly overlooked,
But that would require hidden worth,
A trove of treasure undiscovered,
Let me say this truly,
There is none,
I am simply a feeble writer,
Playing at greatness,
A mouse among skyscrapers,
Scrabbling,
Reaching.
You moved forward,
Healed and loved anew,
Built this cottage of a new life,
Thatch of new beginnings,
Timbers of healthier boundaries,
You found pride in this new homestead,
Yet spectres of past creatures encroach,
They want to haunt your new home,
Wailing falsities and evaded liabilities,
They scratch at the windows,
Caressing the glass,
Begging to access you once more,
They’ll offer apologies and sugary tongues,
But like the vampires of old,
Don’t let them in,
Withhold your invitations,
Close the curtains,
And sever the ties.
If you could see into my mind,
And witness my imagination,
The cerebral alchemies at work,
You’d be both mystified and sickened,
Perhaps alarmed and inspired,
It’s a funhouse with no safety rails,
All ice creams and guillotines,
Clowns and lilies and landslides,
Horror and wonder beyond my eyes,
It’s a nirvana within a nightmare,
And vice versa,
But it is where my palette resides,
Harvested from the very fields of my wit,
The darks from gloom and hopelessness,
And colours flowing from my oddity,
All of this ink is required,
Regardless of its source,
To force this imagination on to the page.
I often think,
We are bundles of hay,
Fashioned by unseen hand,
By stitch and Hessian jute,
Into vaguely living things,
Soulless effigies,
Voodoo dolls,
With vacant button eyes,
Existence is a witch,
And she casts spells through us,
To create breath through herb and cloth,
It’s a curious form of magic,
Unpredictable yet sympathetic,
She often pierces us with crooked pins,
But it draws no blood,
For we are but poppets.
When the sadness encroaches,
When the skies are violated by fog,
Not all hope is lost,
For I can return to my art,
That beacon of inspiring radiance,
A lighthouse,
A port in the storm,
Built of written word and ballads,
Bonded by ink and stanzas,
A structure as vital as my own blood,
A sun at its apex,
Versicolour in its gleam,
Burning away the void of the world,
Drowning it in lyrical hues,
It’s a haven,
A sanctuary of poetry,
So no matter the malic of the twilight,
The light burns ever on,
The art shall ever flow.
I dreamed I was set upon by wrongdoers,
They wore masks of my own visage,
Incarcerating me in my own den,
Setting about butchers work upon me,
Slicing and beating and burning,
A transformation by gore,
Replacing my veins with barbed wire,
Restitching the whole,
They plucked out my eyes,
Garnets set in their place,
Azure shifting bloody,
They screwed horns into my scalp,
And forced fangs into my gums,
As well as a Chelsea smile,
I shed no tears nor cried out,
I was merely a spectator,
An observer to the scalpels and needles,
I had been mutilated,
A slaughtered scrap of meat,
But there can be no doubt,
I finally looked without,
As I am within.
WorldofHarley 