The Invasion

Love lost lacking.  Brutal contributions from the master of the filthy undercurrent—swords, bombs, bayonets, flexing madmen and bloodcurdling sounds of dysfunctional regret—

WTF—Belly-side under, still sore from the stumble up the porch—rippled are the emanations my blood made as it sashayed across the puddles in the front hall, knew I should’ve used the insurance money to pay for repairs, but you know, sometimes, just need what you need…WTF, (take a peek out the window)

Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left,

Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right,

Bright lights, not the inner city I’m used to…not anything like anything at all—well, it’s like something, just don’t know what that is, and really, haven’t seen this much commotion since the riots back in ’98, and that was all about some bad call in a game, but Marching feet moving in rhythm and cadence, seriously what the hell, who’s birthday is it anyway, (what is the occasion?)

Sounds above, sirens rise and fall, the streets all cluttered, (better stay indoors), so much metal, so much steel, (be damned if I’m going out there, I’m the kind of guy someone does something to, just to prove a point, nope, staying put)

Loudspeaker off and on, don’t recognize the voice, can’t make out the words, (better keep the drapes shut and the lights on dim. No! Make that OFF)

Cat knows about as much as I do.  It doesn’t seem as scared as I feel though…(have to keep composure, have to keep things together), phones all dead, television works but nothing seems to make any sense, invasion, unknown assailants, unknown, unknown, unknown, static…. television about as good off as it is on, perhaps under the present circumstances, better even (guess I’ll just wait this out, let the heroes do their thing, and I’ll live up to expectations just fine in here) 

Time, time, turning without a witness to bear…yet ceaselessly parading forth…

(Good thing this house is a piece of crap, they’ll probably think it’s condemned, hopefully that’s the case anyhow, as I really don’t feel like doing anything I’m not used to, this isn’t what I’m built for, this isn’t my mission anyhow, so I’ll just try to sleep this off, but doubt the sandman will come on this particular night?)

I know it’s not going to go away.  I’ve seen a lot of bullshit in my small sample set, but, this isn’t like anything I can think of, no comparisons at all, nothing even close, and anything that doesn’t end up with me dead is a good outcome, right? 

Luckily I have a lot of cereal and plenty of powdered milk, that should last a week or two and that much foresight, in itself, is beyond anything I’m used to)

Arbitrarily regimented and statistically irrelevant…in a case like this, is all anyone can honestly hope for…

P.S.  If the draft is sending chills throughout the floor, then, by all means…

Shut the God damned door…

The Letting Go

Softening the blow, letting go—

An entrapment’s set, a trigger’s tripped,

Beguiling solemnity, into a boxed chest of wood

Made of oak, notched and cured—

A tiny key violates a lock of bronze,

Concealing a past betrayed by love

Possessed by lost emotions, a vacant heart persists—

The forecast predicts a surging storm beneath,

Unearthing the many passions deadened by grief

Tethering tomorrow, with the fibrous tithing’s of today—

A venous strain, an ascription stirred within,

Initializing myriad dimensions, then staining them in blood

Vultures circle the hypocritical norm—

A broken voice cracks and screams,

Illuminating the sounds of a shadow fevering the skin

Softening the blow, letting go—

Things happen and then they don’t

Well, I seem to be a day off with my responses this week.  This is two consecutive D'Verse evenings that I've missed out on the link-up, but each time an excellent theme was provided, and therefore, I just had to respond regardless.  For this week's Poetics theme, Claudia presented us with the notion of Letting Go.  

I've always been intrigued by the open-ended possibility with this idea.  One can interpret the theme as a release, where tension is broken and this then opens up new and often undiscovered pathways.  Another possibility is looking at the theme in the manner of eliminating constraints and going with the flow, giving oneself up to the spontaneity that this new movement takes us. Yet another is the old idea of letting something go, giving it your blessing to leave.  Here there is a notion of freedom, yet also the portrayal of giving up control.  I think this also fits the popular saying about love, "set something free if you love it."  

Then, along the same lines of giving up control, one could look at this notion of letting go as being something akin to giving up. Perhaps you no longer have the will to fight whatever is oppressing you, whatever it is that is ladening such a burden upon your shoulders.  So here, you just give up, letting go, and allowing what will be, to be.

In any case, Claudia provided an excellent article on the subject and opened up the discussion to the poets of D'Verse, who, to no surprise, offered excellent insight through each poem shared.  I urge you to check out the post, read many, if not all, of the poems shared there, and perhaps, you, like myself, will find the inspiration to compose a response regardless of missing out on linking up to the Poetics discussion itself.  Cheers.

Internal Scream

Thursday, Anna posted another excellent article and challenge with her latest offering for the postmodern series that she's been working on for Meeting the Bar at D'Verse.  I urge you all to read the article, check out the myriad of writing challenges she directs you to, and definitely take a read through the linked poetry that others have shared.

I've been rather lethargic the past couple days, so unfortunately I didn't get a poem linked up in time, but came up with this piece here, and thought I'd post it anyhow.

Eternity is neither a straight line nor a circle.  It can and cannot be comprised of data alone. We must find the impulse

To what is planned internally, contrite or overt, sentient or parabolic in its off-putting collage of demonic possession. I

plan  scream,SCREAM to dream, planning, play, planner

May  Scream, sCream  may not manage to, or opt for, or

Dare scReam, ScrEam consider, think, fade, fail, dwelling

Isn't  screAm, ScreaM   attrition, collate, collide, meshing

Not   SCReam, scrEAM as a rule, never leave as is, allot

The  ScReAm, sCrEaM pigmented in variety, hue's light        

Lily  ScREam. sCreAM flower, shades of depth, dense, fog

Low scREAM, SCReAM leaves; lifts, lunges, plunges, push

Lens SKreem, SKRRRM claws/paws, scratch, scratching        

It’s inside, the ulcers bleeding out, curdling, it is only without

It’s the only thing left in tryst, asunder, lust. It is only, only and nothing more than only, when what is caught inside the facades implored reflect the carbon lifted under chambers dark—composed of voids and mistresses, tearing apart the seams of a shapeless existence, skirting the equanimity of tragic distance.  Parables are nice. Songs are too.  Yet, when in a state, illogical connections, are the sanest only to the one otherwise considered as being millenniums away. Relegated.

“we build walls, impenetrable walls. We do so, in order to prevent invasion.  To keep things out.  Yet, too often, these same walls, successfully keep things far, far worse inside”

Shards of Mankind Broken

Nostalgia burns a fever

In the caustic river’s eye

Tidal boundaries shatter, flooding shores,

forcing debris to swim, well before it's learnt to drift

Ill-equipped thoughts addle. Matted wings resign to weight.  

Flailing, it all feels like flailing….  

The crows nest dangles. It's broken pole slivers.

Remnants linger upon distressful seas.

Venial thoughts are left to stew. Eventually weariness ripens.

The polished and hewn wilts alike.

Overwrought. Ambushed. Daylight is truncated. Evening falls to Stygian design….to those daring enough to dream.

Danger paints a dragnet from your plaster. Hunger feeds the gluttonous rill. Currents, replete with paroxysms, commiserate.

Tragedies offer casualties alone.  In such moments, mankind as a unity is shattered.  All we have is grief and mourning. 

And a river born from sorrow.

Addendum:

If you believe the vortices will calm their vehement swirl, I pray the shoreline shackle heel to sand.

If you believe absolution will quickly cast it's net, I fear that catch shall never breathe again beyond it's gnarled mesh.

If you fear that time will not heal such lacerations, I pray support is ever by your side.

8 Stages of Regret

I.  Cabinetry

An immobilizing strength plumbed within

Temples left, scarred and alone

Preservation devised a means to push, an

Imbalanced shelter for a defenseless front

Partitioned walls once deemed out of place

Have since become the only blueprints ever drawn

Interred within these assimilated cells, cage doors

Conceal the lost-not-found

And it’s only through the sheer chance of occasion; the hinges may swell and sing their voiceless tilts, shedding skin through the suffocated creaks entombed

II. Thesauri

So violent in the vagueness

In which consent first came undone

So vague in the violence

In which definitions first formed to tongue

The stillness of the songs etch, impressed upon

a hollowed heart—procuring a beauty—persisting

through the unconscious’ paining path of plight

Contusions stir to surface, clogging lines of flow,

Where curiosity catches a fevered glimpse and forever forward is impelled to know, what lies buried, beneath the indulgent purity of snow

III. Breaketh The Dam

Your voice says one thing

     But the eyes dictate contrasting truths

Your words are crafted toward recovery

     Yet innuendo simply spells out an angst swelled deep

Your tone quivers in subservience, yet impotence is a flurry never shown

                       Your outlines cast impressive angles, only to

Eclipse each thought betrayed inside

                                                           Your reassurances are calculated in their candor, yet errors appear as one’s amassing loss

                                    And if such loss rests sightless to the day, the night shall forever forage upon the schematics of those repressions cloistered deep

                           And eventually the levees shall break inside, flooding forth all things unknowing, elucidating every painful stamp left unsorted yet stacked in place

IV. Frozen Posture

Tension bristles the embryonic morn, prickling the cote with metallic shards of veil in scorn, collapsible dignity unfeigns before you here, chastising all memories as broken periods of circumstance—as having been built be demonic scribes and bards fictitiously flirting with the pangs within, damage, repeal, stain and scar

Curtailing truncation’s brutal lop,

A memory, fragmenting forth,

Beckoning penance for sins that

Devoured innocence

You seek forgiveness, yet the soul is untainted, never sullied was this will you own,

                  But fault lines need reparations, cracks random once, breed lengths aligned intent to swallow whole

                                                                        And you cannot forget what was never known,

 Remaining focused, solely upon the broken scabs, remnants that both betrayed and glued, joining together flesh and soul,

         Understanding there’s more here than even you could have known…

V.  What If

What if’s begin to flourish….and wonder you shall, persisting quizzically in such preponderances, refreshing, what image would appear anew

 The shine of the mirror’s gaze reminds what once was and how but that person now, is known, to have been but an effigy, a cursed twin, some Angel once took pity in

VI. Denial in a Time of Advancing Schema

It truly is remarkable, how far you’ve come since misfortune’s kiss shown through the prism’s glass

                                                      You forge forward without delay, yet one must wonder when the stalling shall impede, this admirable advance through such tumults and misplaced apostrophe

                                                                                          You admonish those with good intents, to cease their pity, for its not their love you’re searching for

                                    You chastise the resolute, for not even you yourself entirely remember every nuance of the painful truth

                                                                                            Your resolution is astounding, and yet such pride may be, just the food from which stagnation feeds

                                    There shall come a point where address this all you must, for if not now then when

                                                      You claim all is well, yet ignore we can’t as ire’s rise their flames at those that care; where arrhythmia distorts truth’s gait, emanating unrest in each the shattered pieces that remain left as whole

VII. Betrayals, Buried in the Garden of Time

There are so many things that can and will be said. There are secrets buried that never shall be revealed.  A pain like this is one that will gnaw and feast.  It is not something that can be tossed aside. Pretending that only by paying credence will you draw out it’s worst offense, is nothing but regrettable to the watchful eye.  And still, one can hardly blame one to become engulfed in such a betraying return to one’s true self…in fact, I can think of nothing else…the one you thought you knew is no longer living, instead they are replaced by some vulnerable wretch plagued by the remembered pasts ruins realigned.

And I, the one who has loved you all along, feel I have played my part in this betraying song.  Out of love I allowed the education of others to sway my inactions.  I left you as they remade you from your very ashes; I let you grow as some alternate version of who you are, yet, I did this out of love alone. 

But if I would’ve known that wall would break and that dam would crack, I’d have eased you along, slowly matriculating you back into a world that no longer is the safest place.

Yet it should be known, you are not the only one to suffer.  Certainly our pain is not comparable to what you must feel, but nonetheless it is so very much real.

I, for one, and I will only speak of the pain I known now.  I will not discuss the hurt that lived when you remained in that state of ignorance, no, I will not detail that time, for it is gone, it’s forever gone away. 

The here and now, is far worse than ever could I have imagined it to be.  For, when you arose from your slumber, you could not, and have trouble still, looking at me as you’ve always done.  There is, you claim, a resemblance between your villain and the image I portray.  I’ve changed my size, shape, hair and face, but somehow, that betrayer you see in me.

VIII. A Coda, A code

And what, you, follower of this regrettable tale, may ask, what happened to this villainous man, the one responsible for disrupting this woman’s peace and calm?

                                    This, is something I dared not dwell upon, but the question is begged, and therefore, I must appease…I feel guilty

For I knew she must face her attacker, they say it’s a step toward resolving that within…but

                                    I heard he was leaving. Only I knew it was he that committed such actions…For, if I never dallied as I had, I would’ve been where you’d expected me that day, and if I had been, none of this damage would’ve happened as it has.   Many have claimed that if I were a mere moment later than I was, she wouldn’t have survived. 

They mean well, yet I, as you do now, know better.  But I did espy, this demon.  I saw exactly who he was.  At first I knew not his name, but it was not difficult to uncover.  This, was all information I withheld, a secret only I held close.

So, such a day was forced upon me.  A decision had to be made.  It was a decision that could’ve gone in several ways.  I could have reported this man to the police, but he would have been released, this, I shall not delve further into, but this, I do know.  I could’ve tracked his future, keeping tabs for such a day as is now, where she could confront him for his crimes, and offer whatever justice she deemed fine.  But I could not bear watching him escape.  I couldn’t sleep knowing what luxuries his wealth could provide him elsewhere, while the one I loved is but a shell, a clone of who she once was.  This was not justice, no, not just at all. 

So I chose the path that such situations often come down to.  I cornered him and he knew.  He offered me the world, if close my eyes I would, allowing him to leave, to go away for good.  But this was much too kind.  And I did what I felt I had to do.  But to detail what took place those 72 hours, would be too graphic and cruel.  And so, I alone took away my love’s chance at confrontation…and this, while the revenge was sweet, it was not the feeling I felt it should’ve been, and now I cringe telling you about how I have behaved.

Now, it is I, and I alone, who seeks and prays, for an irrational sense of forgiveness to somehow cease the beat of such a painful malady.  But in truth, it is only you, I wish to see me as once you had.