Happy Halloween

 

Happy Halloween to all those
lovers of the dark and dreary,
all those witches and warlocks
lurking in the shadowy corners of
the night.

Happy Halloween to the
ghosts and ghouls rattling
their chains, screaming like
Banshee’s across the foggy marshes
and brick city walls.

Happy Halloween to all the
monsters under your bed who
lie patiently for your one bare
foot to touch the cold floor before
launching their blood-thirsty attack.

Happy Halloween to those Gothic
aficionados, dressed in their
night-clothes, curled up by the fire,
reading  The Raven to a pallid bust
of Pallas, dreaming of Plutonian shores.

Happy Halloween gnarled and crooked
old zombies, wandering the
alleyways in a fugue of flesh hunger,
trudging in the dark, lunging at the
living in clumsy dead rushes.  

Happy Halloween to the trick-or-treaters,
who only seem to be treaters,
joyfully infesting neighborhoods in their
own candy lusting stupors. 

Happy Halloween,
to you and your ghosts that
haunt your anxious souls,
be careful and be safe and
stay out of the woods tonight.  

Witches Woods

 

The dreary Witches Woods,
just outside of town. The place your
parent’s told you to stay away from.  

There’s been a curious green glow
spangled through the trees. It was spotted
at night from the old wagon road.  

Crazy  Old Man Peter, said he saw it all,
with his stone white-dead eye,
and the deleterious vibrating in his mind.

He said there’s late night cackling and
sounds Satanic in nature, blood-chilling evil
moans, sharp and piercing through the rattling leaves.

Fog rolls in quickly as the Sun sets,
bathing the grounds in soupy mists,
tendrils of ghostly arms wave eerily.

Black cats scream and hell hounds
gnash and snarl while supernatural
footsteps trudge formlessly through the brush.

The bluish-green flickering glow of brimstone campfires,
warming great caldrons of witches brew, eye of Newt,
and collected nightmares.

Adorned with dead leaf laurel crowns,
skeletons dance in rings,
chanting lipless ancient incantations.

We can hear their hell-mouthed words
whispering on the late cold breeze in the
scattering and skittering of dead leaves.

Don’t go near the dreary Witches Woods,
stay home in your beds and use the blankets to
cover your heads.

They can’t get you that way,
or so, that’s what I’ve been told.

Jellybean Farming

 

Do you want to work on my
Jellybean farm?
It’s totally real and not
imaginary whatsoever.
It’s the sweetest job ever.

It’s a Jellybean farm,
where we happily toil in the
hot sugar fields, sticking in
the candy muck, under a
bright Summer Sun.

It is all fun all the time,
where no one is sad or scared,
or worried about being insensitive
or incredibly arrogant about their
Jellybean farming superiority.

I promise it’s absolutely not not
soul consuming work, as the
farm silently feeds off you, as you
try to feed off it. You’ll be happily
rewarded for all your labors.

A sickly sweet, rotted smile,
maybe some diabetes and a lost
toe or foot… or leg. But don’t let that
fun stop you! There’s always job security
on the Jellybean farm. Forever.

I swear it’s totally a real place. Some of us go
there every day, every night, and
every hour. Some are even there right now,
knee high in corn syrup rivers and high fructose
fields.

Blissfully crippled, on my jellybean farm.
Are you sure you won’t join us for a spell?

Oof, Ouch, and Other Obscenities In the Ring of Life

 

We’ve been in the ring,
fighting the good fight,
but it’s bare-knuckle boxing
with the shadow of Death,
who doesn’t pull its punches,
and ignores the ring judge.

Jabs to the ribs have made it feel as if there
simply wasn’t enough oxygen
in the world to make up for the
breathtaking rounds of heartaches
the last few weeks.

Tribulations have plagued
the minds and hearts of me
and my beloved, resulting in
an explosion of cussing, cursing,
crying, pleading, prayers and patience
testing; ducking, juking and jiving.

The details are unnecessary,
they are swampy and soupy,
in buckets of tears, crumpled towels
in the corner of the ring, and left in places
we don’t want to go, still reflecting
in mirrors we don’t want to see.

It isn’t special, our recent troubles,
others have been gut-punched as well,
it’s as if a wave of malicious intent pummeled
the faces of all mankind like a turbulent
storm, hell-bent on ruckus and chaos.
All Eye-poking and shin kicking.

It is all nothing new, but freshly shocking;
experiences in sorrow and sadness,
waiting for the body blows to stop,
the bell to ring,
and the bout to end.

Until the next round…

Go Then if You Must

 

                “Do not go to war young man,” said the grizzled cowpoke. He was leaning back in a rickety bar room chair, balancing on the back legs, that creaked with each slow stretch of his legs.

                “What’s that,” asked the young man at the next table. He was surrounded by his young friends, toasting to the next war adventure, to secure the world from the unknown and unknowable.

                “Do not break bread with killers and anarchists, zealots, evil men or true believers” said the cowpoke.  The grizzled cowpoke took a sip from his straight whisky.

                “What are you talking about old man? What do you know? What gives you the right to tell me anything,” said the young man, edged forward by his stupidly grinning friends.

                “Do not take up arms against the innocent, the poor, the hungry,” said the old cowpoke. He tipped back in his squeaky chair, eyes closed.

                “Hey old man, I’ll do as my country asks of me and I’ll do it proudly, because I know that my leaders are the best leaders in the world and they are smart and wise and can do no wrong. I’d do anything for them,” shouted the young man as he raised his hand up for his friends to high-five him. They oohed and ah-ed at their friends bravery in the face of this judgmental old cowpoke.

                “Do not make men into Gods, and do not make ghosts of men,” said the old cowpoke.

                “Dude, what is your problem, you some kind of Communist or some kind a wise-ass,” asked the young man, “I’ll fucking kick your old fucking ass.”

                The old, grizzled cowpoke looked up and across the bar at the flaring rageful nostrils of the young man. The cowpoke pushed his cowboy hat from off his forehead, so it sat wistfully across his hairline.  Old neon lights flickering pink and blue, and pink and blue.

                “Go then, and be a killer of men. I will be there, at the end, to righteously judge,” said the grizzled old cowpoke. He rose from the rickety bar room chair. He walked heavily towards the door, ghostly chains dragging behind him.  Souls begging, screaming for forgiveness. He disappeared into white mist as he stepped through the doorway.

                The young man stood silent, his friends mouths aghast, a glass broke in the silence, before Fortunate Son began blaring from the ancient jukebox in the corner. The young men jumped with fright.

                “Another round,” asked the toothless, sweaty bartender as he leaned forward, reeking of Death and rot.  

Egg

 I rage.

Silently.

Furious.

With happiness.

This world has

Broken me,

But gladly.

Each new day

Breaks me,

Like an egg,

Over a hot pan,

Sizzled 

Over done.

Hot and broken,

Cracked,

Unhappy with the heat.

Animal Politic

 

The animal politic,
has been a fascination
of mine since I first understood
our system of government as
a schoolchild.  

The simple desire for
liberty and self-determination
under the guise of a Representational
government. A way for even the lowliest
person to be heard and have a choice.

A very attractive concept for a child,
who often did not have a choice in
most of what they had to do, be it bedtime
or chores. We could grow up, vote, and have a
choice in the direction of multiple destinies.

That fascinating, imaginative American
experiment was so alluring to me. So special in fact,
that registered to vote the day I turned 18 and I
was at the polls for the next Primary vote early,
so excited to be a part of this exceptional thing.
I was swollen with American Pride.

In those following years, my affections for
the process, did not diminish. Never missed an
election or a chance to do my civic duty and vote,
vote my conscious, vote for my beliefs, vote
for the things that I hoped would continue this
American progress.

Now, I feel as though this animal politic has
bitten me. Right in the heart, as I hear the rhetoric,
the false choices, the ramblings of power drunk
fat cats leeching off the ideals I once held so dear,
using my ideals as a blanket to cover themselves in
artificial patriotism and gasping relevance.

It hurts me to see something I held so dear,
something I still want to hold dear,
taken from me in the most vile way.
It’s a kick in the ideological cojones,
knocking the wind out of me,
as I struggle to wrap my mind around
how we got here.

I just hope we get out of this spot
and one day I can feel as proud and
excited to cast my vote once again
for empathy, for compassion and
an end to divisiveness.
I hope it comes soon.