Card Games

I find myself shuffling through life,
Forced to play this card game again,
I’m exhausted,
I’m tapped out,
This game of life is using rules I don’t recognise,
Hands growing aches aplenty,
Card upon card ripped from my deck,
And I struggle to draw the vigour,

Life has all the cards,
Counting down in blacks and reds,
No kings and queens to be found,
Yet I still go digging for diamonds,
Beaten down by wicked clubs,
Only spades waiting for me at the end,
Hearts in my pupils as the lights fade,
No ace up these sleeves.

The Gnome And The Fly

The fly on the wall left for a jaunt,
Out of the window,
Across a lawn laid in neglect,
There he met his companion the gnome,
In flaxen shirt and inert gaze,
Fishing rod and gormless grin,
The fly said to the gnome,

“Between us we see everything,
I within the house and you without,
Sins within this hovel and besides,
I’ve seen the married souls lay with strangers,
You’ve seen needles and shady deals alfresco,
I’ve smelt the scent of flesh under floorboards,
You’ve seen where the bodies are buried under turf,
Together we could rule this place”,

In response the gnome looked ever on,
Unimpressed,
The fly’s proposed blackmail not to his liking,
His painted eyes still staring wide-eyed,
The fly seethed at the refusal,
Zooming back to the house in a rage,
He would bring ruin to the occupants elseways.

The Toad

I once chased from my den a toad,
As swift as a garuda,
Into the dank green of the yard,
A soft mist enshrouded the lawn,
It served as a suitable backdrop,
For our dance of drama,
Our filmic action chase,

This little green man,
He was of singular proportion,
An amphibian aristocrat,
I pursued him,
Through a garden I no longer recognised,
The lawn gave way to a bizarre realm,
As if walking into a dream,

The toad was there,
But somehow changed,
Elongate limbs and a humanoid stylistic leaning,
Colours of every prism swam around like tadpoles,
He began a chorus of frog song,
Melancholy to be sure,
But somehow filled with magic,

I lock eyes with him,
His bulbous oculi grow ever more violet,
I feel his tongue strike out at my thoughts,
Amphibian metaphysicality,
As his crescendo amps up,
I feel lightheaded,
Blackness pounces and descends,

I awaken far away,
With nary a memory of mine own,
Just the stink of sorcery upon my brow.

Gnarled Life

The man was akin to a bough,

He has had a long life,

Knowing whether it has been good or foul is impossible,

He can no longer speak,

It can only be read upon his gnarled bark,

His worn face,

Stories carved into knots and wood,

Legends and legacies,

Storied mosquitoes in amber,

History written in oak,

This storied gentleman stands tall,

Thought scored by the years,

He is a monument to his own life,

Paragraphs in timber,

The years read out in rings,

A gigantic redwood in the forest,

Bare in the winter.

Ivy

This plane of existence is tethered in veiny ivy,
Wrapped up in vines of jade design,
Strangling it while in turn holding it up,
The world in perpetual struggle,
Enduring strangulation,

I thought to climb them to the top,
Foolish Jack and a dire beanstalk,
To look out across the cosmos,
To see if there was escape somewhere out there,
A metaphysical cure for this infestation,

But the thorns claw at my hands,
A million little bayonets defending the crown,
The status quo,
Mustering pain and blood for each inch taken,
Punishing my hands for daring to seek change,

As the atmosphere grows sparse,
There are still malms of viridian barbs above,
Even the very heavens are tied by these green fingers,
Bone-weary my grasp dares to let free,
Maybe there is no way out of this sphere,

I do not know.

Harlequin Aspect

Look at me,
Gaze upon my singular face,
Hark to this clown,
For it takes a fool to see the truth of things,
A madman to understand the world,
So I daub each colour upon my jesters aspect,

This face of paints,
It shifts like a tumultuous sea,
Replete with vivid corals of all shades,
Prismatic tsunamis as expressions shift,
Yet this mind is more of a circus,
I’m a deranged showman in truth,

I wield these colours instead of emotions,
Each chroma deciphering an aspect of reality,
To shine light on mans vices,
They are my true face,
For it requires lunacy to be totally free,
And insanity is the only truly sane way to exist,

An arbiter of pure chaos,
True art,
A clown to point the crooked way,
I’m the Oldschool Harlequin.

The Immaterial

I am surrounded by the Immaterial,
Fingers and faces I cannot see,
Like a wind tunnel splaying out to the heavens,
I feel it swirling around me like unnatural wind,
It’s like being submerged in icy water that pulses,

I dont know from whence this supernatural force materialised,
A heretofore unknown elemental dynamic,
Whispers and hymns sung in flux,
Butterflies and figures waltzing in florid vividity,
Their colours unaffected by the dusts of the air,

I dont know what these spectres want from me,
Be they incorporeal apparition or trick of the mind,
The whispers that I can’t help but heed,
Be it sorcery or illusion,
The tingles upon my skin that I cannot feel,

I am haunted by the Immaterial,
A force that sends my senses in to spasm,
Disbelief sprouts from my very mind,
And yet I cannot deny it,
This ever-present wind that screeches to itself,
Neither friend nor foe.

Elephants

I sit reclined upon this scathing sand,
With the resort of the present behind me,
Belly laughs and dances and skipping,
And the broiling sea of the past before me,
Do-overs and regrets and flashbacks,

I spy herds of elephants migrating along the horizon,
A parade of weighty emotions,
Carrying memories myriad of years past,
Mirages of yesteryear images against the sunset,
Fizzing above the waves,

The herd continues unabated,
Each heavy footfall was pachyderm remembrance,
A weighty vision of events past,
My brain sits astride them gazing back at me,
Quizzically inquiring why I look upon their assemblage of years gone,

Why look back?
Why hark to the trumpeting?
Forget the elephants and pain,
They do not walk in your future.

Unwanted

We are unwanted,
We are unloved,
We are forgotten,
We are the given up on,
We are the lost teddy bears,
We are the abandoned pups,

We are the left behind,
The left out in winter,
The mad prophets,
The ladies who eat cats,
We are freakish,
The dropped on our heads,

We ourselves know not why,
But we are unwanted,
And for good reason.

Starsurfing

I once left my body,
Off into the night,
Not into a dream,
Nor into my mind,
But careening into the sky,
Imitating a cosmonaut,

I found myself in an ethereal state,
Riding the coat tails of a comet,
Like a wandering gentleman,
Swept right up,
On a cruise through the cosmos,
Surfing through the silver,

I saw stars die in colour,
And be born from the void,
Attempted slow dances with meteors,
Finger painted with nebulae,
Excursions upon the edges of black holes,
A stellar vacation,

Despite the Earths assertions,
Of sheer importance,
Declarations of eminence,
I could barely glimpse it in the black,
It became an afterthought,
Just another speck.