Category Archives: #death

THE SILVER AXE

He wondered with horror how so many memories, so many forms to be branded on his skin and engrave there.

Then the wet rattle of a twisted throat, and he beats his last breath to his knees, gazed on from above as the wheezing thing sagged, and began on his shoes.

One God looked in that one eye of him, took in the whole writhing weight of him, and, from the spine of that beast, blew the darkness that will not let me alone!

It is yet again where we find the Poet’s Muse. Her eyes are green, and they pierce backward and forward even into his head and his heart, his brain and his soul.

I have been chained to this post for six months and now I am to be hanged, it’s a winter morning, half-light.

The axe’s face is pale; its teeth are ready to cut; the poet stands slack-jawed; and waits with a satisfied grimace.

She smiles with blind malignity; I am hanging here, she begins, and her voice gears in his head, makes him mad with every anger and whimpers sound with a silver-sparkle, It is another wish shattered, this one made to whittle the Golden Ace’s life down to a ring so narrow and brutish and pale and inhuman.

The writer cannot see her but his ears are mad With unspoken sounds.

She has left dark-green circles.

He had tried to fill them with wonder and beauty; she: they’re her, only more so, every blot and abrasion cunningly and by dark cunning by her own hand, ever more revolting; why the hell did you bring that creature with you?

There is nothing for you to do, (the axe growls). You cannot even reach me.

I told you that I wanted the axe.

Then are you sure you’re not just nervous?

I am telling you nothing.

The truth is harsh.

This is not true.

Well then stop worrying.

I am telling you nothing!

The Poet looks up in alarm.

The axe comes down, it makes a hideous, brassy sound.

And it is still: I am telling you nothing!

Her face is as white as that of the blade.

He is sweating.

I do not want the axe, he says finally.

I am coming down!

A chuckle.

The axe’s blade is laughing.

The Poet spins in place, does a somersault, lands on his feet.

He moves fast.

At the touch of his right foot he has snatched up and spun into the air, caught, dangled over a canyon by the thin tip of his finger.

There is a rattle in his head.

Okay, okay, he whispers, I am coming down.

He lands and slumps, panting.

His face is flushing red, his hair disheveled.

He grins through the tears running down his face.

Just me, he tells the axe.

You are alone in this awful place with all the stupid, insane weirdoes.

Where is the fun in that?

This place is for people like you, not me.

He is in a mood.

The axe slashes through the air, a silver blur.

The Poet leaps into its path, somehow knowing, somehow having seen what it will do before it happens.

He leaps back and the axe cleaves the air, then comes down to strike his left foot, where it clatters on the ground with a dull clatter.

He starts to bend over to pick it up, but the axe’s weight is too much for him.

He stumbles to one knee and falls to his left side.

The axe rests, not quite pointed at him, but ready, at his right leg and stares at it, mouth slightly ajar.

The blade is warm against his right leg, the handle warm against his cheek.

He gets himself up, he bends over, picks up the axe.

He kicks his right leg up, the axe goes flying past his body as if to his left, and he stretches his left leg out to catch it.

He pulls himself to his feet and does not bother with the blade and bends down to retrieve it, and reaches, but there is nothing there.

The edge is dull. Within his mind and he frowns, picks it up, holds it up in front of him, glances behind him.

The axe is nowhere to be found. But it is mentally within his hand.

He looks at the blue-gray sky, frowns, turns to walk along the canyon wall, head down, watching for the axe.

He waits.

The axe sits on his shoulder, blades jutting up into his neck or so it feels.

Yes! he thinks.

The axe.

It is not true.

He is all alone in the world.

And an old man.

What do you expect him to do?

He thinks about the little old lady he saw in town today, and starts to weep.

:: 04.23.2021 ::


DEATH IS NOT WASTED

DEATH sheltered upon the spit of dying souls;
sun and heat a giant cat with one flat foot
upon a devil’s wing — the homosexual and
amorous spirits that cross a garden in dead
of night make scary sounds.
my throat an elevator from heaven descending
toward hell with every swallow; my non-
existent ring upon a broken finger as throbbing
sexual oysters.

to smell the clean spirit of angels are as hanging
clothes upon a clothesline within a Spring’s breeze.

:: 09.21.2020 ::


ALONG THE SHORTEST ROAD (a treacherous journey)

along the shorest road ever (a treacherous journey) an opening appeared before me;

bright equations bleeding time squished all memory of what i was i am or might be–

A preponderance of suddenly)meets the long Shaman of My Thoughts. i lassoed upon

a moat of dust (cherubs swinging cherubs singing) & road myself)not that way(toward

a whole certain corner )_and touched mySelf searched mySelf…forget mySelf when i

think of who many broken Kewpie dolls cry silently foreverfully and mySelf and

myHeart and mySoul invent grand ideas of an Enormous Language

that touches all hearts.

:: 02.07.08 ::


THE CORPSE

There as still and quiet as dead.

Sleeping. ?

Yes.

The walls had grown used to the scene. The dreams tired of the same actors with different faces.

The dead take care of their own.

The corpse lit the room’s lamp and in the gray dark began to work.

It bathed the perpetually sleeping body that lay in bed. Trimmed the hair and applied blush to it’s cheeks.

The sleeping know nothing of the awakened world; the dead know nothing of the sleeping but that they sleep the deepest of all. Dripping, the legs were dried.

The sleeper’s eyes opened.

The corpse closed them with the coldest of fingers.

Placing the stiff scrub brush upon the nightstand the corpse was pleased with the Sleeper.

And smiled.

:: 01-15-2019 ::


TODAY IS THE DAY I DIED

TODAY is the day
I died after the clouds broke
their water and still-birthed
the evening.

I am standing outside
by the edge of a mysterious
forest and the wolves are
sniffing the air but cannot
find me.

I am a ghost. And my house
is the tomb I was born within
but no longer contains me.

There is an empty space
within my heart’s shape
that no artist can draw:
all words too broken
for any poet to express
my emotions.

I was birthed on the day
the beautiful angels were
sick and have now died
as God is sick and the world
a breath away from me.

::: 10-23-2018 ::


PHENOMENAL GIFT

IF it all ends with you I shall extend my hand
and pinch time into two butterflies.
Do you see the orchestral skies? It is teaching
the stars a new dance for the world’s coming
funeral and the eyes of mystery are now weeping
for the blue-white jewel. The Sun knows and she
is aching. and every bird. Sings one less song
each day.

The phenomenal gift called death.

:: 10-06-2018


ACT (of) TWO

THAT in my fever while sanity has escaped by baluster
i continue to gaze in daze across the sea of white-
capped madness

Each o-shaped mouth
Each Black-bead eye
and all the ears
all the chins
teeth

speak an infinite story of nothing but sadness.
And within the orchestral pit finely dressed musicians
they shed b-flat note tears; their mannequin powder-white
skin a color of pink’s sunsetting murmur.

Simply, the true story is off stage toward this
improbable army audience; the finely carved polychrome
citizens start to move; half-bodied and more alive
than the flesh-kingdom.

Last night. Last night i felt.
That one’s life can be as real as one’s imagination
if you sinerely wish it.

:: 08-23-2018 ::


SHADOW TOWARDS THE LIGHT

i hear a shadow walking towards the light
in all amazement i feel tonight is the
deepest of all the darkness

and in all the suffocating intention
i miss the sun but love the moon
its everything i was raised for this night

i was snared when so ruined
begged forgiveness but knew
there’d be no mercy for what
was brewing

One thing is holy
among the ruin
one thing is evil
among the beauty

And i’ll tell you
over lunch tonight

I’ll show you love
I’ll show you ruin
I’ll show you heartache
in all that’s brewing
within me this night //

:: 05-30-2018 ::


I have not a Mouth nor a Brain

I have not a mouth nor a brain
and not a body for conveyance
but a thought is mine.

I know many have wondered;
death, death, death —
to what end is finality?

No ending but always as always
beginnings; mostly bright
colors and rushing sounds by.

Not a dream nor a waking moment;
but the in-between compromise
and serenity we go by that way.

The actor releases one costume
then decides upon another persona
and learns lines for the stage.

AND wishing the curtain falls
upon roses and much-desired

applause.

:: 10-01-2017 ::


LACRIME DI DOLORE

LACRIME DI DOLORE
(Tears of Sorrow)

oh! How sweet is Death
MY! how love burns in Life
that much more in Death
oh! How sorrow becomes concrete
MY! how sparrows Sing in Spring
that is how you are dear

Always will be for me!

:: 02-10-2017 ::