At times I am gaseous,
Formless,
Toxic,
Barely visible to the eye,
A haze on the periphery,
A vaporous outsider,
I am chemical unknown,
Free in the air,
Drifting aimlessly through existence,
Evidently harmful to pleasantries,
Allies retreat from my vapour,
I fear I am carbon monoxide,
I’m a pariah,
Social mustard gas,
Noxious to upstanding dialogue,
I don’t belong out there,
I belong in an airtight container,
An oubliette of four walls.
Beside me perches a dark omen,
An avian herald of ill outcomes,
An eye of Odin,
Such cold hunger in its obsidian sockets,
Why has he come?
Is it the end so soon?
Twitchy and cautious in demeanour,
Its beady oculi looking through me,
Perhaps focussing on the ripe spirit within,
I am carrion to this bird,
I know it,
But know not why,
He is joined by his murder of murderers,
A pack of little sin-eaters,
I can but only sit and watch in return,
They are no pale horse,
But to look upon them is to look upon true death,
An omen of the end.
There was a clown I knew,
Who had forgotten how to laugh,
Rendered grim by alcoholic smog,
His painted smile had become begrimed,
Layered in mahogany muck,
A metallic sheen of depression,
His outfit was tattered,
Ripped asunder by times razor,
No more a flamboyant ensemble,
His clown shoes were worn through,
Revealing yellowed toenails,
Comedic value turned to dirt,
No joy was to be seen in in his visage,
The years have oxidised his smile,
Sections of his form blowing away like iron dust,
I longed to tell him,
His laugh was not to be found in his glass,
He scornfully chuckled and downed his poison,
He’d rusted away.
A sickening snap,
Metallic jaws latching on,
An agonising let-up in my journey,
This travail through life,
It was a clumsy miscalculation,
A wrong turn,
Blades of foul intent,
Or perhaps a deterring voice,
As cutting as any trap,
Bones splinter,
As my plan is crushed,
Smashed betwixt dragons teeth,
On my path forward,
A trail into foggy terrain,
It is laden with such menaces,
Each mutilated step,
A new trial of metal jaws to struggle with,
Ever after.
Hiding in this sleeping quarry,
My mind is ore,
Hidden by a stony facade,
A rock face,
It’s not remotely precious,
Coal and iron and zinc comrades,
Merely one of a million,
Rough in a sea of diamonds,
Demons descend with their mining tools,
Clanging against my willpower,
Pickaxe climbing over pickaxe,
Chink after chink cleft asunder,
Mining for its own sake,
I know not why,
I am no treasure to them,
Not a gemstone,
Just a stone,
A pebble for the grinder.
When people look at me askance,
It must be due to my inhumanity,
As if I escaped from a zoo,
I’m a troglodyte,
Beneath even the street throng,
A subhuman,
I long to be human,
To be more than this primate clown,
Playing with sticks and berries,
I want to be one of them,
To evolve from this crude form,
To walk shoulder-to-shoulder with them,
Instead I shriek and crawl,
Not yet evolving into a man,
I howl in trees,
Revelling in my genetic inferiority,
Instead of maturing into society,
I shelter lifelong in the primeval habitat I made,
A habitat of reclusion,
Out in the wilds.
The day finds its demise,
Tossing and turning,
My rest is interrupted by eldritch fingers,
Emanating a foul energy,
Tentacles in my mind,
I dream of fathoms deep,
To airless environs,
Where even fish dare not venture,
Waters claimed by spectres and arcane chants,
Where the sun and sanity both drown,
Something stirs,
Eyeing the surface with a million oculi,
A million definitions of mad hunger,
Watching a world it seeks to extinguish,
A million maws curling into grins.
Mankind has an addiction,
Technological advancement,
Fire to bronze to wheel,
Iron to steel to silicon,
A necessity turned to reliance,
Then morphed again to obsession,
Progress colliding with social media craving,
Lines of code cut by crafters hand,
We squat in plasterboard boxes,
Civilised little addicts,
Smoking carbon monoxide from factories,
Painting our eyes a glossy television white,
In turn plugging our lives into a synthetic spiders web,
USBs straight into our veins,
An electrical current,
Narcotics of information and memes,
Veins of black gold,
Wi-Fi heartbeat,
The world has become a machine,
With man feeding off of it,
Plugged into its plastic globe,
With carrier bag oceans and global warming skies,
A seeming paradise to most,
Not our problem others say,
But the thing about USB cables,
Sometimes they break.
My foolish friend,
Swim far away from that woman,
She is an angler fish,
A hunter with brunette flair,
Flourishing that bright façade of harmony,
Put fathoms betwixt you,
Make for friendly coral reefs,
The world can be an airless abyss indeed,
But don’t make for the first lure of promise,
Don’t heed her tantalising light,
The fleeting warmth shall turn to thrashing pain,
Her smile shifting to puncturing fangs,
Those lidless dead eyes will feel no remorse,
As she tears you limb from heart,
Swim far away.
Groups of people are ships,
Ironclad vessels built upon hulls of teamwork,
Did you know this?
Families and friendships and workforces,
They are crewmates on the same deck,
Sailing the same course,
To the same destination or goal,
Led by a captain of respect,
A person of veneration,
The rigging to the crews sails,
But humans are a fickle bunch,
Some souls have mutiny in their hearts,
They wish to hold the top spot,
So they drill holes in the hull,
Cut free the lifeboats,
And sabotage the rudder,
A rat-king prowling amongst the crew,
Pity this fool,
Who would sink the entire vessel,
Purely because they can’t be the captain.
