Credendum

Felled plumes of youth tread light to spite sequestered serving spoons that bear
The watermarks once silvered shining,
Once dried & polished, now dulled & tarnished
Reclined in coffin-trays of age, last breath expels in Delphi whisper
Reminders offer up redemption - memento mori – calm & for the few who’ve stayed
A toast that you’ll fall fast asleep within the lap of modest gods
Who’ve yet to wield their powers claimed but stroke your forehead just the same
Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?

Lost wishes dance beyond vast heaven’s burning light of satellites
Shined brightly down upon tomorrow (as for today, we shan’t believe)
We’ll not conceal our efforts though betrayed
W/ blinded eyes & raspy voices carried far & vanished all
Through billowed clouds of smoke the declaration - per aspera ad astra!
Laid glories paid to ashes straggle late, in fact they come but only once upon
A long awaited, antiquated jewel of sparkling alteration set in suspect demarcation
Celari vult sua furta Venus

Corruption of the best is worst, far worse than better laughing laws of added insult
Injured by inventing customs mocked & morbid, teased & sordid
No creature dies a virgin - this existence bends & screws us all
On blankets made from ferns of dust by unapologetic apparitions floating free &
Unforgiven - sic transit gloria mundi – headless vespers starkly bowed & flourishing
Like April’s sighing daffodils come springing forth through dark-infested, soil-digested
Tablets dunked in Dramamine soliloquies of ghosts heard singing languidly
“Nemo liber est qui corpori servit”

Cadavers slowly grow & quickly die, the clocks unwind their blood-stained hands
While friends who knew dread time draws nigh have long departed, broken-hearted
Finding troubles multiplied as sure as sun meets tempest sky in revealed caveats
Spoken by dear Daedalus who can’t deter bold Icarus from soaring ever higher
Toward the fire - adversus solem ne loquitor – a late appeal from fabled lips
The flame attracts the moth’s wings laced w/ wax while Mona Lisa’s missing eyebrows
Raise: ‘tis better to be hated for yourself than loved for who you’re not
Ars est celare artem

An empty cask is simply rolled down labored mountains giving birth
For centuries the mouse lies breached until w/in the caverned-womb recedes
The condemnation of misunderstanding, the fear that molds numbed ignorance doled
Out to hungry witnesses who can’t compare to one lone conscience pricked & prodded
For veracity, indeed - veritas vos liberabit – impunity shall not provoke though truth
Be found in vats of wine, to quarrel with a drunkard is to wrong a man who is not there
His vacant stare transfixed upon the grapevine’s luring flattery, the smutty jest molesting
Quod me nutrit me destruit

Fate stalks in stealth & sets its trap with tears, with vile sacraments of coy persuasion
Forced upon a host who has not learned to die nor translate mandates
Penned in chalk by papered fools who use the wall’s deceptive template
For their forged negotiations, creating bogus lamentations thus diverting tiny minds
Abjection of the self-made kind must be surmounted - vincit qui se vincit – as all things
Change so change we w/ them, tortured by the arrogance of horrid wars & barmy lovers
Cradled in the thorny eye where argyle webs catch origami silhouettes of days gone bye
Dolor hic tibi proderit olim

Abandoned hope for rope to suture up shorn burlap sacks of burdens tied around swelled
Heads & left for dead with all but fa®ce to save men, save them from depravity &
Wrinkles etched in wickedness that feign what’s left of shameful sin enshrouded in
Enduring dimpled malice cast to sow the crops of gardened excess graft to masks that
Bury winter’s sly insurgency – mundus vult decipi – for summer will not always be
As everything that shines like gold is not as posh as it may seem sat dangling from
Hoodwinked earrings shaped to fit the feel of evolution’s hollow earlobe strained to hear
Parva leves capiunt animas

Reverberation tweaks the brain producing rain like blowhole Moby edifice
Torn down deluxe scab train electric swank eccentric vertigo abstraction quicksand
Sink in elephant parades which pave the way for maiden voyage Starship Compromise &
Bend dreamed knees to sacred Dahlia Terror bum hum round the barrel’s blazing spire
Scorching scandalous skirts afire - suum cuique pulchrum est - round zoftig hip of
Backdoor sun splash spread as grass sharks scan the seedy scene in shades of green
Embracing each lost chance begotten, clever slip & tiptoe round the hippo dipped
Brevior saltare cum deformibus mulieribus est

Dismembered limb of peg-legged poet flail vis-à-vis pure dumbsaint great wild teahead
Compositions mixing w/ the maddened visions crawling out of inhibitions exhibiting
The past & present future of said discontent while rapt in frantic fog fantastic swirling in
A language sea of energy, the knowledge of no hope can bring the courage to move ever
Onward, rest peacefully fair Marian - eheu fugaces labuntur anni – such holy contours of
The Earth can disappear without a warning, in truth to find another form emblazoned
On the chest of independence from your captive skin & curl up at the feet of fine infinity
Ad limina apostolorum

Accepted loss can reconstruct the aqueducts that flow so deeply in the mind of
Solemn ages stilled in streams where bathe the sages searching in the pooled
Reflections plunging deep for sunken passions, fractions of a misspent youth is proof
The seed falls further from the tree than what initially believed so does authority have its
Place but beware casting pearls to swine – quis custodiet ipsos custodes? – accountability
Is a necessity if we are to agree democracy is key when dealing with our convoluted
Views on human sovereignty & world responsibility - is it too late to save the queen?
Astra inclinant, non necessitant

As glass doth shatter when it gleams the brightest so do fortunes splinter sending shards
Into the mystic mist of everlasting bliss & comfortable forgetfulness, the patient watered
Spots of teardrops excavate the hardened stone, not done with force but falling often
Fingers pricked on rapture’s rose, high places sought by narrow roads, make me chaste
But yet not so - forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit - those who are allowed to sin
Sin less, experience lends best to them that teach on what they learn for learned men
Find wealth w/in the history of their error’d ways which teach them best how to behave
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum

Led hand in hand to comprehend the whole of beauty turning inward, laughter sung by
Foreign children following the path of seldom, seeking trails w/ unknown outcomes
Trusting instinct won’t relent – be not confused nor circumvent, this life is an
Experiment, insist upon yourself & listen closely to the whisper you alone can hear
W/in the temple’d walls of unique celebration - nosce te ipsum – then fall behind
So you may finally find the finest traits locked deep inside, trapped in the genius of
The mind can one discover thoughts discarded - winds that blow the sails departed
Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

Unite w/ fond fidelities in lieu of fretting futilely in towers made from shiftless
Interests fixed to castles built on distress, instead decant a firm foundation boasting
Groomed humility, become the artificer of a calculated destiny & if there be failed
Faults to find abandon them & start again amending flaws as best you can while still
Asserting soft submission - dum vivimus servimus – like rivers nourish ocean tides
So must creation learn to lap upon the sands of distant shores & drown its weakness
Evermore: man’s nature can be modified but not the nature of mankind
Consummatum est.

The Sacrifice Remains

How did your heart feel when you left my world undone?
The broken shards of happiness
Were spoken rumors in serpent tongues
And how do your nights keep you from waking in misery?
From the haunting ghosts of laughter and the cry of memories
The painful cry of memories

When you walked out my door how I prayed that you not to leave
But your plastic smile and carelessness were troubled visions with no relief
When you handcuffed my rapture and you led it away
Could it be our love was in vain?
Our late night vows were washed away
But the sacrifice remains

How do I tell you I am nothing without you? How does silence begin to speak?
In the wake of tomorrow inconsolable sorrow feeds upon me for I am weak
All the strength from within me cannot lift empty dreaming
All my vessels lay wrecked in blame
I have all but forgotten ripened love that turned rotten
But the sacrifice remains

Damn nostalgic wine - the fermentation I thought I knew
Yesterday fades to grey like a wilted bouquet
Taking with it my carefree youth
Reveal once more a placid shore, a bright horizon for me to claim
But alas there is darkness and my spirit forsakes me
But the sacrifice remains

How did your heart feel as I laid there in disgrace?
The tears that I wept washed anew a foul past
But my bloodstains were ne’er erased
And how I wish I fit into the garment that bares no shame
My death has razed the agony
But the sacrifice remains.

The Secret of My Distress

I was living in a trailer park three miles left of nowhere and down the road from pigeon shit. All was lovely in those days with the blooms of stifling madness and gut wrenching attempts at compatibility in full season.

It was a tiny tin can asylum; the carpet a dated mauve shag with a dusty, pissed on stench to it. It rippled down the narrow hallway cordoned by flimsy bowed particleboard walls and abruptly ended where linoleum covered the floorboards of last ditched dreams. At the end of the hall was a bathroom complete with plastic yellow sink top and toilet that was constantly backed up. No shitting. No bullshit. Everything about the deprivation was old, outdated, deteriorated. But it was sturdy and settled in; it was home and it kept my feet warm during the months when the bitter Midwest winter would descend upon the dirt lot and taunt me mercilessly, shaking the rusted rivets of the makeshift metal fortress with its sinister wind whistle that intruded through the crack in the living room windowless repercussion I baptized “life.”

Back in those days, humanity smelled like rotten cheese; everybody was into fucking everybody over. “I can’t take it anymore,” I said to my wife one day. “I’m going to get drunk and kill myself by walking straight up to the first sonuvabitch I see and engaging them in conversation.”

“How is that going to kill you, you schmuck?” she sneered in her usual, condescending tone.

“Shut up, bitch”! I barked angrily. “I didn’t say start!” She didn’t understand that we had begun killing ourselves a long time ago; we had begun spreading the poison through our mere breath. I felt the death breath of mankind slowly consuming me.

* * *

“Take it to the back, Eddie!” Louie shouted from behind the bar as I walked in, the rancor of sunlight halted in its tracks as the steel door slammed behind me. “How ya doin’ Lloyd, yew ol’ shit fer brains?”

“Pretty run down and running deeper,” I muttered. “Another fight?”

“Ya, Eddie’s bin at it all day. Don’t know what his problem is this time. Think the wife might have left again. He’s a nut job.”

I nodded. “Scotch and water.”

The bar was half full or half empty depending on your optimism. The worst are the barstool philosophers – a cantankerous bunch seem fashioned in the mold of Irish village drunkards with the charisma of goldfish shit. A breed born to lose with all the trappings of petrified, washed up has-beens and never-will-bees. And yet they seem to possess a keen insight into where the hell we all are and where we’re headed and what we need to do to get our asses out of it; who know full well that none of us are gonna do a goddamned thing to rectify the situation of our own sad existence except corrupt it even more with drink. Cheers … to God’s own forgotten.

Choosing to leave them all pathetically pontificating from their oscillating thrones, I grabbed a table in the darkest corner I could find and struck out to annihilate my sobriety with a vengeance. A love affair too abusive to stay in, that’s what the world and I shared. I slammed the backwash of somebody’s unfinished beer left on the table; it slid down my throat and into my rotten stomach like black sludge prompting me to order another scotch and water.

She came outta nowhere – the holy shit terror every woman comes from who takes up practicing existence on this godforsaken prison planet. She spoke her name; I don’t remember. Her breath stunk mundanity.

“Buy you a drink?” she asked.

“JB and water.”

“You look mad,” she said.

“I am, and worthless to boot.” How bright the fake moon shines in dim-lit corners of forgotten intentions. She sat down across from me, spreading her legs under the table just far enough for me to smell her lingering availability.

Everything depends on everything else; babies cry for tits and tits cry for attention and her tits were full and round and boasted nipples the size of silver dollars shining spectacularly from under her seamless halter-top.

“Are you staring at my tits?” she admonished like an undersexed schoolteacher asking for the answer to four plus fuck.

“No,” I responded undeterred. “I’m wondering how in the hell those two midgets stuffed inside your shirt take a piss.” She threw her stupid head back and let out a “nails-down-the-chalkboard-holy-fucking shit-is-that-your-real-laugh” laugh. She ordered another round.

“I’ve seen you in here before, y’know,” she accused. “You’re Lloyd Durley, the guy who writes all that shit about the end of the world those cheesy tabloid-loving idiots thumb through while standing in the grocery store checkout line.”

“Here it comes,” I thought.

“Y’know, I only live about five blocks from here. My old man’s outta town and I get pretty lonely when he’s not around. You mind keeping me company tonight?” The invite reeked desperation.

“Does your old man drink?” I slurred.

“Corona.”

“Expensive piss water. It’ll do.”

We staggered out into the night busy desperation where the madness was waiting like an old friend. The streetlights’ hallow glow illuminated the diseased masses stumbling through the neon corridors like a surgeon’s headlamp irradiating the body of patients with some kind of incurable sickness brought on by living in the same miserable depression for far too long.

She went down fast when we hit the door; I almost tripped over her as she fought with my zipper. I began fumbling through kitchen drawers searching in vain for a bottle opener while she clumsily explored my boxer shorts in search of my one-eyed shaft of salvation.

I like my beer cold and my women hot and got just about both when she passed out on me in mid-suck. Attempts to manually move her mouth up and down proved futile, so I left her lying on the kitchen floor and moved into the living room, my pants still around my ankles. There was psychotic laughter coming from somewhere down the darkened hallway.

My mind on stall, I rummaged around looking for the power button on the Sony surround sound five-disc CD player complete with remote.

“Hell, whatever happened to 78s?” I thought.

Liberace. Bullshit. Garth Brooks. Bullshit. Stan Getz. Bull … Yeah, Stan Getz. Intensely profound for a woman who spends most of her days trying to figure out ways to spend most of her nights on her knees. I fucked around with the buttons until the music rang out pure and sweet. I laid my head on the back of the sofa and slowly sipped my Corona.

“Stan Getz me and I get Stan Getz,” I murmured. The room went black.

When I woke the sun had not yet risen. I stumbled to my feet and shuffled into the kitchen. She was still lying there on the floor; her smoky stockings were wrapped tightly around her deliciously curvaceous legs. She fidgeted only slightly when lifted up her skirt. The straps on the side of her stockings clung to the side of her skirt with plastic claws that resisted my tugs like a nanny-made chastity belt.

“Going slow sucks,” I convinced myself tearing the fasteners from their grip. She wasn’t wearing any panties and her box was neatly trimmed. Her lifted skirt lay in the shape of a crumpled accordion on her stomach. I began lifting her halter toward her head. Even though she wore no bra I imagined that, if she had, it would be fire engine red; my back was against the wall.

“Time to get in this shit like dirt to a zit,” I whispered savagely diving headfirst between her thighs. Glory to God in the highest! Peace and good God was she solid! Exploring her body with my tongue, I made a game out of trying to lick the alphabet within the salty wooden taste of her sweat.

She let out a soft, inebriated moan. She was coming around. Her eyes fluttered rapidly, then opened wide attempting to focus on their surroundings. I stood abruptly. Not noticing me before her gaze now fixed on me; her face crinkled in bewildered contortion, her expression a coursework of fearful confusion. When she finally realized the situation her expression did an about face.

“What the fuck do yew think yer doing, asshole?!?” she screamed kicking me square in the nuts. The blinding white light of impact was instant and intense. I fell at her side in the fetal position. “What do you think this is, huh? Some kind of all you can eat buffet?”

“With crabs that size I thought it was more a seafood platter,” I grunted.

“You’re a dingy old fucker. I should have known you’d try something like this,” she brandished in disgust kicking me in the small of my back with the tip of her stiletto. She wobbled to her feet. “How far did you get, huh? I’m not free y’know!”

I groaned, one hand cupping my balls with the other rubbing my freshly bruised back. “From what I saw, you should pay me,” I grimaced, the pain of a small chuckle renewing the excruciating surge of discomfort throughout my body.

She stepped over my listless body and reached for the cupboard drawer. Pulling out a meat cleaver she howled, “I’m gonna cut off your balls, old man!” She ran towards me – eyes focused and determined – with the meat cleaver in full swing. I grabbed the phone cord lying next to me and tripped her before she could reach me. She fell forward slicing her arm open with the blade.

“You sonuvabitch! Look what you’ve done! I’m bleeding like a stuck pig!” she squealed. “Don’t just stand there! Call 911!”

I rose awkwardly, pulling my pants up gingerly over my aching scrotum. “You pulled the phone out of the wall when you tripped,” I said. “I’ll have to go down to the corner and use the pay phone.”

“Well hurry up, you fucking rapist!” she wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks. I nodded, zipped up my pants and headed for the front door.

The dawn air was already balmy and stagnant. It would be another scorcher. I buttoned up my shirt and headed down the sidewalk toward home.