The battle was weeks of hell, baskets of mortar

dropped on a frozen rope, onto my friends trapped

with nothing to win, they are happy now

rendered headless, chopping off what we could

to drop into the sea, we are war machine screaming

merciless mantras, passing a chalice

boozy of humor, laughing with satan

at the suffering fireworks, burn the wound making

cauterized ruination, I fear sepsis

taking hold, for I will die before its done.

 

Pandemonium marketplace setups

selling soldiers to the bidder, elevated not

though square dealing on the level

with rules to follow, and malice aforethought

you understand, for a known game is just

talk of death to traitors and spies

wearing suits, costuming a new hell

in tatters as death in the mirror

again, the children are hungry

but nothing grows anymore period.

 

A cruel, merciless decision we made,

admittedly, to stand apart from fury

with sickly cowardice we turn away,

though we chastise ourselves and each other

for acting likewise, because flagellation feels

good when we use words, joy is diminishing

words we don’t like to use in public

but we still do, for wouldn’t you

if you had esteem waiting, but you don’t

because you only serve, like a lever.

 

Check marks, first thing is the first,

a nice fruity phosphate, Mountain Due

Condition Blue or something, tasting love

is sweet sunshine and comfort costs

money in peacetime, my arms rendered

useless but to pull a lever, push a lunger

off the edge, slipping into a dragon chase,

or maybe it’s a nightmare, but waking

in a box is a bad omen, I’ve heard.

 

Large in charge of the floor, big shot

all of a sudden, struggling still up against

a whiteboard colored in bullshit,

first buy the bonds, afterwards pay the piper

for the tolls that number sixteen

more than before, on the same street

all of a sudden, knowing there’s not a place

we could afford uptown, anyway

hunting a point out, precisely placed

because you might have just one chance.

 

Voltaire and Camus came together

to work on “All Quiet,” or whatever

it will be called, and directed by Dickens

with Gandhi producing, De Sade scripting

the tale of a lonely stable-boy in love

with a maiden of the conquered people,

but alas he is gutshot, and dies alone

in the dark, no dry eyes, best picture

contender at least, that’s for sure.

 

I feel like Django, dragging a coffin behind me

filled with my trespasses, and the yelping

victim wails that fell on deaf ears echo

in the night, haunting things I’ve done

rest in the unknown enemy’s moving tomb,

they would’ve done me as I did them,

but still they glare with hole eyes, sucking portals

sucking to a world of shit, so forever good night.

 

I wrote a book called “Push the Chips”

detailing my fall and rise, it was a whitewash

snow job poorly detailed emotional history,

just as devotees rise and shout praises

out of tune, paper away the detritus

pushing to next, and gearing up is the key

with a spiked helmet and chains,

you gotta mash the allies, tell no one

what you’ve done, it is a horror.

 

The movie’s have changed, and none remain

better then ever, though history clones are

all the rage bubbling, they disappoint

with cookie-cutter mechanics and terra cotta

characters, so open the door and pull ideas

off of the chaff pile, we will shield them

with complacency, I have to write

my new novel, the one to lift them up

by the heart, which is all there is.

 

The first time I attempted suicide

I woke up in the hospital, zippered

into my bed, joining rage and regret

in a blender, pushing pulse over again,

smearing pain and scrawling hate

on the wall, they started marking milestones

after a time, now not even a walker

with me, the sad kids get some hope.

 

This is my resignation not from chiefs

of executive office, in them a poison

growing from their heart through their pores,

making them seem soupy, and red

of brick and beet and tomato, but we know

what it really is, representing an ending

for everyone, I move to my forest cabin,

shut off, my kids won’t talk to me at all

now, maybe they’ll never, but I’m finally free.

 

The court calls me Notnow Neverwas

and they laugh, when I enter or leave,

they say it through a cone, long and loud

“Ladies and Gentlemen!  Boys and girls!”

then they lower the boom, pointing to me

a smiling finger, no, they cackle grimly

without humor, but they don’t even know

no one’s laughing, either and I have a knife

behind my back, time for some justice.