I’m awed
by the playful
abscission
of leaves
along the
woodland path, and
the dignified
marcescence
of those who
refuse to be
tread upon
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński
Playful and dignified
Albatross
The albatross, she hangs desperately about his neck; delighting and smothering his senses
The weight of her coercion pulls him ever downward, into the depths of her eternal sky
He can’t bear to look away, for fear of forgetting; he won’t dare hold her gaze, for fear of forever
Choked by the thought of her, the strength of her grip, and bearing the rictus of delusional peace
His flesh rots, weaving through her skin and time and memory, as if to remake her with his sacrifice
She sings so only he can hear, a siren for the shoal; providence for his madness, damnation for his soul
The albatross, she won’t release him; the albatross, he can’t set her free
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński
Until is here/Until is gone
What had he done,
but tempt the star
When warned it keep
his wish afar
Until his time,
come be it still
No strength befell
his wavered will
His days forgotten,
gone by too fast
When then until,
would fall at last
Until is past,
until has passed
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński
Fellow Man Not
Alone, but for the innumerable, in a cacophony of pandemonic howls; he weeps inconsolably, an outpouring for the downpouring
Hollow and immovable, akin to those withered rampikes propinquitously poised; one within a wilderness of wails, yet never felled
Tremulous and numb, as the thunderous wrath disturbs the brume that consumes him, assaults the superego that subsumes him; a fellow man, not
A beggar bound in mute torpidity by their vanishing touch; the maggots feed and the leeches bleed, for mere nourishment, is he, beneath the boots atop his shoulders
Their discordant gnawing – picking and clawing – strips the dignity from he they tread; a destructive perturbation of diminishing identity
An ever-growing grove of rotting madness remains; greying roots and spraying splinters, tearing limb from desperate limb; if only, to be seen
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński
Broken Does as Broken Is
Watching noir in the cracked rearview / petrol pools beneath moonlit dew
A fire’s rage berates his prayer / too late to save, too lost to care
Carnage lies in forward cast eyes / ever drawn whither madness cries
Afraid to live, but scared to death / a swell of questions, yet naught to quethe
A siren’s wail then splits the night / enticing hope, and horror’s bite
She proffers hand, the offer lingers / ‘fore kindness turns to dagger fingers
His broken head can’t bear the bait / as justice deems, just blood will sate
So pressing hard, his essence low / for all a broken gift bestow
To swallow smoke and ash and ember / to spare the world, who’ll not remember
art: psychodelicious by Peterio
The Deadening
Memory is the bane of impermanence, and impermanence, the enemy of memory
His salivating eyes dine on the beforeward and afterward, hungry for what was, never was, and shan’t be
Straining against the current, he’s awash with sins of the past, for to take away the pain, would be to suffocate
Survivor’s guilt for this one, who undeservedly exists; while the living embrace the breadth of his present wasted
His bridges adust, trembled under the weightlessness of quotidian, phatic chatter; threatening, promising, a benighted isolation
Thus, overmorrow or what then follows, he awaits the numb of decay and sublime windchimes to perturb his silence
When finally, behindhand, whithersoever he lies, he shall relent
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński
Trying, very trying
Very hard, I’m trying, very trying; apologies drip from my every pore; unbalanced, I can only clumsily trip over the mystifying vomit of images and words
These eulogies for mere existence, I offer from abbey to abattoir, as they paradoxically dam my mind, yet let the rivers run rapid and true
My fleeing footfalls disturb the understory, leaving a flutterance of palliative epistles flowing behind, in corkscrew exclamations and damnations
They borrow time, while sorrow convalesces in its private, cordate suite; evagations that stay the journey to barathrum from a double-knotted swing
Very trying, I am, for the exiguity of patience in the kindest of hearts; for the plaintive howls of distress that demand an absent shoulder
For comforting the crying wolf in its death throes, innocently suffering the sufferer; for slapping the palmate that bears empathy and camaraderie
The guilt gives chase and the corkscrews pierce; guiding a circuitous flight to the end of beginning, to the beginning of end; all the while, I’m trying, very trying
art: (untitled) by Zdzisław Beksiński
