Butchery

To most who look,
Poetry looks a glorious act,
A noble act,
But it’s a lie,
It is butchery,

I hack and cleave,
Words into prime cuts,
Punctuation into mince,
It is a foul process,
The table glistens with grease and crimson,

Exsanguinate the prose,
And remove narrative viscera,
Carve a strip of exposition there,
And rend from it superfluous fat,
My pen thirsts for more,

Boiling bones of expression,
Reducing them to grist for future ventures,
Everything is red,
The grisly work is done,
For the punters to love and hate,

Caked in blood and gore,
Of projects discarded,
I am no writer,
No poet,
I am a butcher.

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Nonsensical

Feeling a touch nonsensical today,
Feeling a dash ridiculous,
My mind is scarlet jelly,
These thoughts are hundreds and thousands,

Once lost which way does a page turn?

Can a cookie become a chef?

Does winter prevail in many competitions?

Can a merchant learn to sale a ship?

Does my coffee need some medicine?

Can a mansion ever be a lady?

Random thoughts dart about,
I know I’m not making any sense,
But did I ever?

Blocked Mind

The mind is a prison,
Shackles and all,
All your ideas are kept there,
All your machinations are bound there,
Your minds eye is temporarily blindfolded,

Upon request these treasures are released,
Creations given wing,
On to page and stage,
To captivate and terrify,
To enlighten and appall,

But something has designs on these gems,

Writers block,
The plague of the author and artist,
A malady so harrowing,
So abominable,
So soul-crushing,

Now my mind is blocked,
The affliction comes for me,
It’s an unwanted guard to my prison,
Authorizing no creative release,
Me and my psyche are in solitary,

Will we ever be released?

Asylum Jaunt

A crossroads in my life,
I remember it well,

Mundanity one way,
A tiresome future,
A pointless existence,
Eccentricity over yonder,
The way of the top hat,
The path of the face-paint,

I chose the only path I could,

Now I jaunt along it,
A cane in one gloved hand,
And a pen in the other,
A jester marotte in my pocket,
My top hat standing tall,
A capricious design upon my face,

Where my grin goes,
Kaleidoscopic and macabre images follow me,
There can be no end to the madness,
This procession of the asylum continues.

The Smuggler

We are criminals,
We are dead men walking,
Smugglers and felons all,

A pall falls over our vessel,
A dark mist,
A palpable guilt,
As if the sea knows our illicit purpose,

A distant lighthouse stands guard,
Its light is our doom,
The tension is tangible,

The white coast is a reminder that we are outcasts,
The cliffs tell us we are doomed,
The chines call with a foil behind their backs,
The surf tries to drag us to the gallows,

Our vessel a prize for the law,
Our cargo a trophy for Customs,
The disquietude is discernible,

Waves lash at the hull like blades,
A far-off sentry spies us,
The sea knows,
The sea grins.

Suburbs

This is the suburbs,
Residential utopia,

Gardens disheveled and unkempt,

Children with blank faces,

Creaky marred front gates,

A young lady who hears all manner of sordid gossip,

A shed kept from prying eyes,

A policeman with lewd secrets of his own,

A community full of cliques,

A weary young man who keeps his basement locked,

A husband and wife who never look at one another,

A girlfriend head-to-toe in Stella Artois contusions,

A widow still in a black veil,

A crowded yellow school-bus never to get home,

Some utopia,
When perused closer,
Even the suburbs aren’t so idyllic.

The Unknown

I gaze out of my window,
And up into the sky,
That sapphire display of experiences and worlds unknown,
That projection screen for hopes and fears,
I see other worlds that are out of reach,
Or are they imaginary?

The great azure sky looms over,
Acting as a backdrop for my minds eye,
The sun illuminates it,
Acting as a catalyst for what I see,
The clouds act their little plays,
Trying to obscure the enigmas I see,

I see worlds of splendor,
I see nightmare-scapes,
I see fiends and seraphs,
Horrors unbound,
And otherworldly monsters,
Oh the monsters,

Alien worlds that are wholly unknowable,
Stars shimmering every colour of this world,
And many that are not,
Worlds of untold beauty and potential,
And worlds of misery and black lightning,
I’ve seen these before in my dreams,

Then I become cognizant of something,
I was staring into a mirror all along,
A window into the human soul.

No Power

I have a problem,
I seem to be lacking in power recently,
I’ve never really been pushed,
I’ve never been overcharged,
I’ve never been struck by lightning,
My consciousness lacks a certain electricity,

No power,
No motivation,
No current,
No ambition,
No voltage,
No impetus,

Do I need an electrician?
A new battery?
A new transistor?
A heart-shaped motor?
An inspirational amplifier?
Does my negative have no positive?

Why do I have no power?
Does my meter need some change?

Hateful God

There once was a God who learned to hate,
He grew tired of benevolence,
And perhaps of divinity too,
His creations only brought disappointment,

Beasts of fang and scale grew tiresome,
Achieving nothing but a tedious cycle of predator and prey,
His creations of the waves too,
Fins and scales offer no diversion,

He looks to the skies,
And hates the souls flying overhead,
Cursing at his avian creations,
Each wing-beat an assumed insult to his godhood,

Most of all he loathes those of his image,
Dominating a world he made,
Squabbling over salt and dirt,
Boring, boring and boring,

A bored God is a dangerous God,
A dissatisfied one even more so,
What if he decided to inject some amusement?
A cataclysm there,
A flood here,
Or a plague over there,
Something a hateful God could unleash upon his subjects of ire,

What if this God decided to throw his toys away,
And started anew?

My Second Moon

I gaze upon the moon each night,
I sit in the dark,
Staring skyward,
My eyes reach out,
They can’t reach her,
They’re not worthy.

Crescent full or gibbous,
Her dazzling form lights up the dark,
An astral goddess,
An empowering icon,
A source of inspiration,
Playing kiss-chase with the clouds.

So why do I see a second moon beside me each night?
And beside me each day?
A moon of such astronomical beauty,
That it blots out even the lunar goddess,
Earthly yet still heavenly,
A goddess of a different kind.

Then I realize,
You are my second moon,
Superior in every way.