Depression

At the bottom of a well

Filled with tapioca pudding

I contemplate past choices

While silently brooding. 

There is no point recounting

The calamities that befell,

Or shady circumstances

That dropped me down this well.

Such melancholy sunshine

As ventures down this murky pit

Meanders without purpose

Until it is unlit.

The pudding’s thick and tepid.

The sickly air is denser still.

I slog around in circles,

I’ve endless time to kill.

High above my wallowing,

Faint voices murmur their concern.

They offer some assistance

To speed my safe return.

“Return to what?”  I question,

As I dismiss their promised aid:

This absurd abyss embraces

The nothing that I’ve made.

An Unwanted Visitor

Do I hear your bony fingers

Rattling against my door?

Such a lonesome rat-tat-tat-tat,

Just like the year before?

I have drawn the blinds completely,

And retired to my bed,

While fantasizing wistfully

That you would find me dead.

Yet stubbornly you knock again,

Refusing to depart,

Knowing that with each labored breath

I lose a little heart.

At last I crawl from my hiding,

I shuffle through the dark,

I reluctantly escort you

Into my dwelling stark.

We sit beside the burnt out hearth

Faces draped in shadows,

Quietly eyeing each other,

Each in our shabby clothes.

You smirk at my dim surroundings,

Clearing your nasty throat.

You present me with a ledger

And then begin to quote.

The entries run countless pages:

You monotone each one,

Moving from newest to oldest,

Until the reading’s done.

Methodically progressing

You highlight every crime,

Enumerating all my faults,

While backtracking through time.

At the very last and oldest

You clear your throat again,

Then lean towards me and whisper

“Here’s where it all began.”

And the day next to that entry?

The day I've come to scorn?

The day you choose to torment me?

The day that I was born.

A Conversation With My Brain

“Why do you waste your dwindling time

With fanciful diversions?

Dawdling directionless on

Ill-conceived excursions.

“You squander all the gifts I give,

Send me darkened places,

Fill me with perverse distractions:

Screaming, helpless faces.

“And look at how your belly bloats

Like some distended whale,

While lazy muscles atrophy

Beneath your skin so pale.”

“I’ve heard all your complaints before.

Each day you say the same.

Just let me wallow in my filth,

I’m tired of this game.

“This world was never made for me,

I’m like some ill-fit cog

Wobbling on a rusted axle.

So end your monologue.”

“Self-pity in your rhyming verse

Is hardly entertaining.

Who do you think would want to read

Such dull self-complaining?”

An Atheist Finds Salvation

Sometimes a stubborn atheist

Can learn a thing or two

About the many miracles

Love’s mysteries can prove.

No angels reside in heaven,

Yet you lay by my side,

Casting out my homemade demons,

Forgiving me my pride.

You take me by my grubby hand,

And ease my burdened mind.

You mercifully relieve my wounds

With gentle words so kind.

Forget the Holy Trinity,

Confucius and Ganesh.

Fat Buddha never broke a smile

With glowing cheeks so fresh.

Great wonders foolish men have built,

Screaming their devotion:

Sacrificing doomed armadas

Across the deadly ocean.

And while I laugh at all their deeds,

Scoffing at martyr’s pyre,

I’d build the grandest monuments

To meet your heart’s desire.

Cinnamon And Apples

Cinnamon and apples

Fill each breath

As my head rests

Upon your breast,

My cheek warming

Against your skin.

Your heart’s

Gentle cadence

Soothes my own,

While the tender touch

Of your fingers

Brushes aside

The phantoms

Of my tired brain.

And as I drift

In this peaceful

Moment,

I am brought

Closer to your embrace

By the scent of

Cinnamon and apples.

Masturbation

Can we agree to disagree,

And stroke each other off?

Adorn our speech with gentle words

So nothing gets too rough?

I’ll pantomime civility,

Arousing your delight,

Enticing you to do the same,

Ignoring our shared plight.

Our shared plight?

The plight of multitudes we share,

Multiplying faster.

Exhausting earthly resources:

Certainly disaster.

But I’ve got mine, while you’ve got yours,

And those without complain.

We might chart a better path,

Though not if it means pain.

It means pain.

Instead we shall go on stroking:

And consequence ignore.

Let the children of our children

Denounce what came before.

Fucking And Killing

Fucking and killing endlessly,

While living lives so blissfully.

The more we kill, the more we fuck,

So more of us can kill, with luck.

You might pretend that there is more:

Fucking and killing you abhore.

But as the Romans understood

While building palisades of wood,

For hardy nations to exist

To kill and fuck they must persist.

So it should come as no surprise

Fucking and killing fill our eyes.

Go Away

Sunshine bright,

Morning dew,

Won’t you please just go away?

Breezes light,

Skies of blue,

You have nothing left to say.

Laughing mates,

Joyful tunes:

Grinding metal in my ear.

Sugared dates,

Honeyed spoons,

More bitter than they appear.

Sigh aloud

With disdain:

Life’s pleasures mockingly hail.

Darkened cloud,

Freezing rain,

You relate a truer tale.

The End

When the end comes on suddenly

Only my brain will be surprised

To see that I have won control

From the miseries he's reprised.

I must surely work in secret,

Concealing my true intentions,

Hiding from his omniscient gaze

My nefarious inventions.

Perhaps a drop of cyanide

Mixed in with my daily rations?

Or razor blades sewn in my cuffs

While sporting the standard fashions?

But like an inmate daydreaming

Of sunsets and the morning tide,

At last my senses return me

To the prison where I reside.

So while I scheme against my brain

To find an exit from this life,

He keeps me bound to those I love,

Immune to my internal strife.

Eggshells

I’ve built a tower from eggshells,

Braced with girders fashioned of clay,

Atop a foundation of sand,

Reinforced with papier-mâché.

It shimmers in the morning light,

Casts long shadows by noon-day sun,

Sparkles electric in the eve,

Yet its splendor may be undone…

Unruly tenants dwell within.

Ignoring the terms of the lease,

They hurl themselves against the walls

Living lives of depraved caprice.

I warn the walls are made of shell,

But they just laugh at my despair:

My darkest thoughts and tendencies

Will wreck it all beyond repair.

Regurgitations

Only a wanton watchmaker

Would devise such cruel machinery,

Spawning awareness and appetites

To consume the pulverized pulp

Of previous iterations.

Mindlessly duplicating ancient instructions,

Churning out cherubs squalling in squalor,

Burying one generation under another,

Darwin’s darling careens indifferently

Towards unplanned destinations.

Satan Can Lick My Balls

Satan can lick my balls

And god can fuck a tree:

Imaginary ghosts

Don’t mean a thing to me.

Brutish prophets struggled

To manufacture light,

Calming primate neurons,

Fearful of mortal night.

Cowering goat herders

Crowned themselves divine,

Convinced fools to follow,

Coaxing void blood from wine.

Hocus pocus locusts,

Burning bushes and floods,

Fairy tales and riddles,

Virgins stripped of their buds.

Is all this scorn misplaced?

My pen too quick to blame?

My wording crass and crude?

My blasphemy a shame?

Bah! I see no reason

To coddle reason’s foe.

Vulgar verse and mocking

Help discontent to grow.

Zombies

Some nights I dream of zombies,

The gnashing, growling sort:

Faces twisted fearfully,

Devouring brains for sport.

Their clothes are torn and tattered.

Their hair is caked with mud.

Peeling skin drops off their bones;

From chalky lips pours blood.

Crypt-kept collaborators

Plotting my dark demise,

They eagerly pursue me,

Like some postmortem prize.

Each time that I awaken

I peer around my room

And faintly hear their echoes

Shuffling in the gloom.

The terror washes over,

Cool sweat beads on my skin.

Sleep returns uneasily,

My nerves are worn quite thin.

There is but one solution:

To dig a deeper grave,

Rebury all my worries,

And hope that they behave.

Some Joke

That’s quite a prank you've played,

A laugher I am sure:

A cynical comeuppance

For all that came before.

These antics are beneath you,

These stunts too juvenile.

Your mischief is not funny,

And nobody will smile.

What’s made you dark and bitter?

Where did you learn such hate?

Was my joy too much to bear?

All my amends too late?

Maybe I neglected you,

Or squandered all your gifts.

These slights were unintended,

Though now I see the rifts.

Oh Life, you've sucker-punched me,

While giggling at my plight.

Won’t you please stop tricking me

And angling for a fight?