It was seaside along the pier,
When I said, "hello, long time no see!"
A cap emerged alongside her,
I turned and let them be.

Later, I looked out over the railing
To see them lying out on the sand.
"A pleasant time to be sunbathing",
Said the woman trying to hold my hand.

I nodded and then left her there,
Following them as they returned.
I should've stopped; I'd someone who cared,
I didn't need to make a point.

But I couldn't, I wouldn't, I just walked on,
And as their key unlocked their door,
I entered; I pushed them in and shot them both
And then I shot them some more.

Chaos now. "What was the point?"
"Take him away." "We're done. We're through"
Don't you see, dearest reader,
I just had to **** them two?

A lit stage, with diffuse light,
An expectant audience,
Occasional murmers receding
Into restless silence.
All are present and
Accounted for; they hold
Their tickets in their hands
Like sacraments,
Reassuring, validating, official.
They fidget, watch the time,
Avert their eyes from their
Companions.
Finally, their anxiety mounts, their
Silence splinters into a cluster of
Whisperings; why are they not
Entertained?
The appointed time has come and
Passed, the show, the
Show must go on!
From nearby places and distant times,
They've all come for one
Purpose; to watch the
Monologue. Yes, the very
One that others like them
Heard; and how now can they
Be left out?
But look, a man walks on stage,
He is apologetic, he wrings his
Hands, he takes the
Microphone and informs them:
Someone shot the
Actor.

This animal will be the death of me,
It leads me by the point to
The cavernous places, the lulls.
The greatest cowardice is in not caring.

You sit in the corner,
Holding the lamp,
As we circle around the furniture solemnly
Ingesting our medicated alcohol,
Living our life in the intervals,
Stepping out at the end of the party,
One by one,
Out of our minds,
Into the fire.

This day, taken in and of itself,
Was a great day!
Maybe yester-day wasn't so great
For my yester-self, but that's ok;
It was a different person.
I got my day and it worked out well,
I end tonight, and hope the
Person who is my tomorrow-self
Has a good day too, and like me,
Doesn't worry about the
Other days of
Other people.

Plod, plod, plod,
He came home and hung up his cloak,
The days of crime-fighting are over.

Tick, tick, tick,
Which corner should he climb into now?
His day of reckoning draws nearer.

Bam! bam! bam!
The kryptonite is doing its work,
He knows it's now all over.

The preset grooves along which I now move
Both fascinate and terrify me.
I wish madly to change course,
But I cannot stop wondering
Where I might end up.
Thus dazed, I roll on.

What is this I see?
A name is necessary ...
Without it I'm lost.

Fingers through your hair,
Digging furrows in your scalp,
With sharp nails,
Pressing down,
Scarring.
You asked for it.

Drive a stake through it;
Cold blood freezes in its veins,
Smile through the mirror.

Ah! What brilliant light! What color! My dear,
You must give me one of those bright
Rocks, it will do well for cutting; It
Chops so well when hit repeatedly, I
Don't miss my knife anymore.

Let go the pliers
Which squeeze and bind your body.
Look! You are free now.

Cart and horse, in front of the marble columns,
Waiting for the next load
Of rubble.
Looking at the half-deconstructed forms
That now lie strewn about,
Some still showing their sublime features,
Others reduced to dull gray facets,
It's hard to say what once was.
A cathedral (some say), that outlived
It's function,
Depopulated.
It lies
Idle now,
In a less than
Idol state,
The grass growing over.

I climbed aboard a train that took me
Further and faster
Than others on horseback.
Yet now I'm desperate:
The map is all wrong,
These stations I pass are those
I wanted most to avoid.
I want to change direction,
But see only miles and miles
Of straight track ahead.
Will there be another junction,
A crossing of tracks,
A way to reroute,
To change course?
Or is the only option
Derailment?

Two roads diverged in my psychosis.
I took the one well-travelled,
And it has made all the difference.

Positively charming, is what she said.
Which cake can I get you?
My dog died yesterday, said the boy behind her.
Turn down the music!
Which party are we going to tonight?
I need to call my mom.
Help me, I'm lost!
I'm going to cut myself tonight.
Do you hear me?
Are you listening?
Give me the toy car!
No, you can't have it, not now.
Can we do it later?
Forget it.
Look behind you,
They're out
To get you.

Oh quit
Your whining, you whiner, you
Poser, you think you suffer alone ?
Why, look around you, don't you
See there is suffering in the world, you
Suffering fool!
Don't you think if you wanted
To be happy, that you'd
Do it already,
Why should you get anything more
Than anyone else? Isn't
Everyone the same? Aren't all unhappy ?
You wouldn't be happily unequal so
You're unhappily equal to all,
This is what you wished for
Most clearly. If now you find
Your aims at cross-
Purposes, am I to blame? I who
Merely make all your wishes
In their glorious entirety
Come true?

I don't want to hear;
I don't want to look upon;
I don't want to feel.

A short glimpse of a disembodied smile,
A run through tall grass,
A sheltering under dripping trees,
A long series of furtive glances,
A rising, a tripping, a tumbling,
Quick snatches of non-solitary
Wandering; these are the
Fading contents of my
Mind today morning.

After the deluge, the waste; or rather,
The wastes, the
Mountains of *******, of
Detritus,
Bits and Pieces of the
Disassembled past,
Presented now in
Disordered heaps that
I tread upon carefully, ever
Watchful of sinkholes.
The horizon shows
No end yet, merely
Silent noise.

Let me climb
The tree, beyond
Where it pierced
Through the clouds.

Don't pull me back to
Sleep, I have no wish to
Revisit the same place, too
Scary it is for me now, too
Hard it is to see now, to
Feel again, to
Know again,
What it was like.

I frantically work myself
Into wakefulness.

Sometimes a single denial of truth,
A single compromise with your feelings,
Can come to define you, or constrain you,
Until you reach the point where
Your life feels like a lie.

Pouring through a prism,
Into a fresh soul.

Bubbling up,
A moving mist.

The first sights, and
The first sounds.

I cannot say
What I want or
What I like;
Fake things intrude
And obscure;
As far back as I can remember
I have always faked my feelings.
I am a fake person.
At some point the fake self
And the real one did fight,
And the former won,
And not content with victory,
Did seek to root out the other.
Yea, I have done ******,
And live on with the terrible
Knowledge of that horrible act;
I am a fake person.

**** it, don’t let it live.
Tie a wire to it and electrocute it.

Send it crashing down a cliff,
Shoot it, dissolve it, decapitate it.

I looked in the mirror and saw my heart,
If you come across it on the street just ****** it.

As we drift away, pulled
Apart by the centrifuge,
I wonder why the rope that was meant
To hold is together,
No longer does.
But I know why.
It stretched and twisted
And then, lacking care and
Attention, slowly
Frayed, until the rope was but
A few tenuous threads.
Seeing this we knew not to
Reverse what had happened.
We could have built a new rope,
There was still time;
But we chose to watch mutely
As each thread snapped in turn
And withered away.

My shadow by day
Shows me the way.
Can your shadow hold mine's hand ?

It looks at me, I cannot hide from it.
The rains wipe away my footprints
But they cannot hide it.
That only the moon can do, by its absence.

I know that it is
My slave, to move as I move.
But I have forgotten this.
Perhaps on some occasion, by accident,
It seemed for a moment
To grow or shrink on its own,
To move,
To make me move.

I have since forgotten, and now
Trail it where it seems to go,
Stopping when I cannot clearly see it.

A different shadow,
Moved by someone,
Comes into view.
I can look up.

My shadow by day
Shows me the way.
Can your shadow hold mine's hand ?

I see them on the corners,
The goers and the comers,
The lifters and the beaters,
The high-flying skaters,
The low-life drifters.
I see the time tick by
As they move in slow motion
The air growing thick
With my anticipation.
I cry, "the hour is here!",
The clock chimes on,
The day comes and goes,
But oh, they linger on.

Skin, green, blue, brown,
Colors of you, of sky, and ground,
Blurring and mixing as we ran around,
Chasing each other in the golden dawn.

Absent then, in my happy state, were
All the thoughts and fears that now abound,
As I lapped the air as a happy dog might,
Having my life's treasure found.

Running, running, wind and grass,
Then we tumbled and rolled around,
Before we settled our quick heartbeats,
And drew each other into the ground.

I panicked, I cannot say why,
And left you lying under the sky,
Searching evermore for the same fields,
Skin, green, blue and brown.

I'm tired of being dragged,
My flesh is worn to the bone;
But my hand is stuck.

Tell me what you see, said the old man,
But it was white, all white, and
What could I possible make out in the storm ?
Yet he insisted, standing behind the rock to my side,
Glowering at me with his steady eyes.
And I in turn glowered, at the
Vast white nothingness,
Which seemed a single mass;
Something there was that seemed to flow
Within it, under it.
Yes, the nothingness did move, and so
On I stared.

Coming into being;
Is it already too late?
I'll be waiting here.

I crawl from
The flaming wreck,
Over the burning sand.
I reach out for water, but
Gather only rocks.
The water has moved away,
Just a little bit further.
Always a little hit further.
I crawl until my hands and face bleed.
When I give up,
Lie on my back,
Stare into the sun,
A pitcher of the sweetest water!
All this while I had not asked.

Sad embers die out;
My muse is on holiday.
Robot writes instead.

Smash the frikking screens,
Smash all of them !
Tear down all the wires,
Pull out all the cables !
Pulverize the mechanical minds,
The mechanical system,
The mechanical men.
Is this what you want ?
And what for ?
What's the point ?
You're bugged anyway.

Sometimes, she said,
I see too much.
It jams up the circuits
Of my mind, and
Reduces me to
Paralysis.
If I could but structure these
Constant
Hallucinations
Into a more
Coherent vision, I might
Manifest it
By will alone.

I am scared of my heart
Beating so hard
That the blood bursts
Through my veins
What would happen then
How embarassing
For everyone to see me
Covered in blood
It would never do

Hey you! Yes, you! It's me and I want
My life back. Look it's been
Ten years and I made a mistake then and
I see it now.

I don't want this life I have, please
Please can't you take this life
From me and sell me another one?

You gotta do right by me, you can't
Just cheat me like this, you think
I'm gonna put up with this ?

I can't go on with this one, look I'm
Making the best of it and all but c'mon !
You must agree this can't go on!

I want out, mister, and you better listen to me.
I've been good to you and followed your ways
And now I expect you to
Return the favor. Is this too much to ask ?
Can't I get a second chance ?

You can't hide from me behind your holiness,
You can't turn away from me now!
You better listen to me, 'cause if you don't make this right
I'm tearing this whole place down right now!

Almost had it,
I was clean again.
Got a prayer, got a mantra, got sober again.

But that was yesterday,
I ******* up once more today.
I broke up, broke down, gave in today.

I don't wanna believe it, i thought I had it.
I was feeling good, wrote a diary entry for it.

Can't give up, I've ruled that out.
It's really very tempting though, to take that route.
Got to pull myself together, and just try, try again.
Can't let everyone down, that's just insane.

But what about how I feel? I'm not happy here!
And really this is the thought that defeats me here

And brings me down and weakens me,
Destroys my immunity,
Till I just can't see
Right from wrong,
What's here and what's gone,
Till I just can't care anymore,
Like ... Who am I doing this for?

A grid, a blank canvas, a blank man.
There, out on the grey moor, under a darkening sky,
Welcoming the fog, and the
Growing disquiet that howls in the distance,
Circling.

A needle going into an eye,
A hundred nails scratching slate,
The hammering of nail into flesh;
These and a thousand other
Means of torture,
Pale in comparison
To the maximum extent
Of the mundane horror
Of everyday life.

The ticking of the clock
Made me look up;
But instead of its face
A protruding pair of batteries.

I turned it around,
Set it right.

It stopped.

A pulsar, beating away in deepest space,
Sounding out its dead chronology.

The fell beast slouches no more: it is born!
Yes, it is born, and walks among you,
And you see it not!

Like flies they are ****** about,
The churning of the oceans sends them
Spinning outwards, the outer wall
Making its presence felt with
A resistance vague yet firm.

Into this ever widening, pulsating
World, with its
Regularization, like prison bars of time
And space gripping you, parcelling
You into regular cubes, the
Common atoms for the
Common people,
Into this are you ******,
Headlong and without choice,
Without precedent,
Being forced to
Retreat from retreat,
Naked and hungry,
To find what you can,
And salvage what you can,
Of it and
Of you.

I don't know where all this came from.
One moment I was a hungry, eager kid
With his life before him,
And the next I was a stuffy old loser.
Cramped in by his things,
Cornered by his possessions,
Shuffling along in his manacles,
Seeing the world in slow motion
Through his blinkers.