Did we not draw swords together?


I saw you on the field
Haloed and strong
None dare stand before you
Your sword flashed argent in the Sun
As your strokes fell
Demonic wraiths cowered and wept
And cursed the fires that spawned them

But there were too many
There are always…
Too many

The last thing I saw
Was
Your smile
…
…
…
A trail of tears leads
To that
Cold and cavernous hole that awaits you
Ground hard won and truly fought

Your Demons are vanquished
Your sword pitted and notched
Your scars vibrant and glowing
Lay it down my Brother
Lay it down

Merge with the leaf my friend
Let rain water anoint you
And wash your wounds clean
Pay no more heed to time’s march
Or the din of evaporating transience
Embrace the light that bathes you
And…
Sleep my Brother…
Sleep

So I’m pretty ripped right now but you’ll never see it. I’m not like one of those fags on the Space who show off their six packs, I do it for myself and… Okay, the chick next door I hate when you fuckers force me to tell the truth. Now I had this skin thingy I thought was Psoriasis so I’m ripped and I have my shirt off but only for the Sun to cure my Psoriasis thingy and the chick next door. Right?

Now I reclaiming my brothers yard that has been lost to Nature. I’m cutting trees, shrubs and I almost decapitated the Mailman who made the mistake of standing still under a tree I had my eye on. Now the more ripped I get the more the young chick next door waters her tomato plants, no shit! Funny as hell. I wanna tell her “your plants need snorkels.” I just smile and say “Hello” cause I’m on a mission and Rama of the jungle will not be denied. So I finally have the yard back and I get a call from the Dermatologist who took a skin sample a week ago for analysis. Turns out it’s Cancer.

I could give a fuck but I never miss an opportunity to fuck with people, Doctors, Judges, lawyers don’t matter. And the only reason I’m still alive is I’m waiting for Congress to pass that “Kick the fuck out of your Ex-wife day” Has anyone heard anything on that? Let me know if you hear anything. So she says it’s cancerous and I say,

“How did you know Doc? My birthday is the 20th of July and I am indeed a Cancer.”

“No, No Ed, the test showed Cancer.” Concern oozing through her voice.

“Of course it did Doc, did ya think it would show up Taurus?”

Pause…

She starts laughing cause she knows me a bit and she tells me It’s not a real big deal we just might have to “cut your balls off to arrest it.”

“Doc, you fucking with me? Never play around with a man’s balls Doc, unless it’s in the bedroom.”

“By the way what’s it called Doc?”

“It’s Thomaluecytyeyourfuckedatosis”

I know stupid question, for some reason I heard Julie Andrews singing “Supercalifragilous Expialidocious”

But she assures me “just take these pills and don’t get pregnant.”

“Whatever Doc”

Now I can’t go out in the Sun too much and I hope the chicks tomato plants don’t die cause of it.

So I go to the Kitchen, now I’m a muscular version of Martha Stewart, my obsessive nature is to clean cause my Brothers don’t do it. They insist on a cursory washing of the dishes despite that stainless steel thingy I bought back in the day when I had cash: called a dishwasher. I don’t have the heart to tell them when they turn their backs the shits right in the dishwasher. Now to appease them I put a nice clean towel on the “clean” counter where they can lay the washed soon to be washed again dishes. Right? Now I also wash stuff like large Tupperware and pots which I lay on the “Clean” towel to air dry.

Pretty simple concept, ya think? Nope, the “clean” towel is often host to my Brothers making pizzas on it, bottles of ketchup and pickles. Which, of course, defeats that whole clean towel thingy. I can’t say anything cause I’m an indigent, obsessive-compulsive, muscular, Martha Stewart wannabe with Cancer. But I want to scream, “Do you Fuckers make bologna sandwiches on your pillows? WHAT THE FUCK!”

Oh well, I’m about done with the outside work, repaired concrete steps, repaired fence, painted parts of the house, edged the lawn, fucked Mother Nature up and told the bitch to “back the fuck off! Poet is here now Mutha Fucker”

Gotta turn my attention to the inside of the house, what a fucking mess. The first ten times I cleaned the toilets I donned a Tyvek suit with live air. Well I am an Obsessive-Compulsive, muscular version of a Martha Stewart wanna-be, soon to be responsible for dehydrated tomato plants Poet with Cancer.

Whatever…

Female Bird get nailed by a repuplican driving a Ferrai. She is hurt

She is immobile

The male bird brings her food

This is pretty touching. She is lying there helpless and the male bird brings her a pizza with xtra pep

Now it gets a little sad so I’ll forgo the sarcasm or maybe not

She is dead yet it looks like he is trying to move her.

He seems upset

Here he looks really upset

Judge for yourself what’s going on here

I do not believe in imparting human emotions onto animal behavior, but lo can that be despair we see?

Resignation?

Okay is he bird sad? Where I got these pics the dude was all effusive over the love he says is demonstrated here. Well I have my journalist cap on and put the poet away, he is a real fag anyway, good riddance. Birds do not, can not feel love as defined by us, but maybe it is something deeper that would shame us all or maybe he flies away and looks for another mate. Forgetting she even existed, who can know the answer? I would love to interview the dude, as all my faithful readers know, I am fluent in several animal languages. You decide…

Wondering why I’m unconcerned as

Well manicured hands conduct heart attacks

and coax malignant cancers with polyphonic rage

Witches wearing beauty’s face

On pencil legs and stick figured arms

Coo lovely words behind sneering lips

In the hallway Insect feet chitter across tile floors

Clicking and hissing

Pausing

Clicking and hissing

Skeletal hands screech slowly down cobwebbed dusty windows

Accompanied by cowled mourning doves moaning dirges

Shadows echo down abandoned hallways

Blood drips slowly down the walls

Forming words that…

Sorcerers prepare

Giggling like schoolboys reading fuck magazines

Macabre whispers from manhole covers

Woo delighted children with ice cream and darkened carousel rides

Pulsing eerie light

Green as fresh death

The night is punctuated by screams

Drowning amid angry wind and studious ignoring

Everywhere

Forced smiles and the stench of fear

Souls are caged in skulls

Skulls are sewn into the bodies of torn heroes

Mounted on stakes

Eyelids and lips removed

Lidless eyes smile and stare perpetually at anyone

Who would challenge

A city in shadow

Hiding from itself

On crisp parchment unfolded from within a weathered pouch

Delivered by an unknown horseman

His words came to her…



“Inamorata…



The darkness is complete



Through Hades lies



And Cerberus’s breath



I believe again we’ll meet…”





The visible tremble in his usually elegant cursive frightened her.…





“They



Say no man can escape his death



Yet



It’s what I seek to do



I’d travel



Long and troubled roads



to



lie again with you.”



Silently hot tears began to fall

They stung her cheeks

His words, now blurred through the saline and fire light

Grasping the paper he once touched ever tighter

She read the words of her love, her poet, her warrior…



“Beloved



The Stars are strange here



Their mocking light



Lending credence to the darkness



All



Manner of Demon spawn



Assault me



Whispering…



Taunting…



Telling me



You are a lie



That beauty such as yours



Does not exist”



She knew this day would come

The old woman had warned her

The prophecy she denied

It now beseeched her



“It’s as if



They seek to deny you



Have me disavow the



The fidelity of you



I cannot



Give lie



To the truth of you”





The fire in her hearth roared

Blazing with the pain in her heart

She fell to her knees

Shivering in fear, feeling her loss

Despite his determination

Doubt befell her

The witch was wise

The prophecy fulfilled

But yet, he still believed…in her.



“You are the waypath



The



Road



Back to the world



Where dappled Sunlight



weaves webs on flowing streams



Where caressing breeze



Orchestrates the dance of leaves”





Her heart trembled

The locks of golden hair softly flowing

across her shoulders reverberated with her pain.

Carrying the weight of each sob and gasp…

His love was unlike anything she had ever known





“I can no longer suffer this darkness



I seek the light



I seek you



I recall your image in my mind



Growing



Fusing unto itself



Exploding outward



Like a newly birthed Sun



I cast away the chains that would bind me here



Your image glows in the darkness



Laying the creatures low



And I walk



Determined



One step



Then another



Closer



Ever closer to you…”





She traced the last of his words with her finger…





“They call me the



Heretic”





“So



be



it.…..”





Fate had found her.

Her love, her poet was gone.

Falling away like the ink from the parchment



“So be it.…..” She uttered.



And then there was the dipping in the well…



A well of ink to fill the quill of her hurt and her pain.

Once she began, the words flowed for weeks and days.

As did her tears.

Her poet was gone.



“They



Say no man can escape his death…”





“So be it.…..” She cried.



She had never written a word of verse before that day.

She only mused the beauty of the others.

But she loved his the most.

And he knew it.

She was his muse.

He was inspired.

He would create.



“I seek the light



.…I seek you”



Under the gaze of her love

He had written lines laced with colorful complexities and meandering metaphors.

Twisted meanings like puzzles with unseen keys.

They made her think.

And she smiled with delight.

And the passionate ones, of love, were few and far between.

When they came they brought tears to her eyes and a smile to her lips.

But now, her poet was gone.



“All



Manner of Demon spawn



Assault me…”





“So be it.…..” She wept…



Then, in a morning’s mourning, she sat at his desk, alone.

Fingers traced the parchment of his choosing.

Crisp and clean.

Unlike the dusty and soiled parchment delivered in the horseman’s pouch.



“Beloved



The Stars are strange here…”



She closed her eyes and caressed her cheek with his brilliant white quill.

Oh, how she’d watched it dance in the evening’s fire light.

Night after night as he wrote she watched it sway in his strong hands.

Spinning tales and lines and magic before her eyes.

She admired his mind. And loved his soul.

But now, her poet was gone, and her days turned to night.



“Whispering…



Taunting…



Telling me



You are a lie”





“So be it.…..” She cursed.



Her nights were the days she wrote the most.

Line after line she found her voice.

She tried to purge her pain.

But it would not go away.

Again and again, there was the dipping in the well…

A well of ink to fill the quill of her hurt and her pain.





And she knew…



it was forever.





“I recall your image in my mind



Growing



Fusing unto itself



Exploding outward



Like a newly birthed Sun



I cast away the chains that would bind me here



Your image glows in the darkness



Laying the creatures low



And I walk



Determined



One step



Then another



Closer



Ever closer to you…”





“So be it.…..”



She closed the door.



Her poet was gone…

Thinking

I could see something

New

Something no one has ever seen.

Before

Scraped

Bleeding

Swaying



Precarious death

Peers through arched eyebrow

Non committal

Death don’t give a fuck

We all on his to do list.



I climbed a tree

And saw

The deadly same

The piercing wail of conformity

The heart rending cry
of the incomplete heart



I will get up

Tomorrow

And

Know

I will climb the tree.



What else can I do?

Just raw hunks of meat and bone

With flesh hanging in sinewy strands

Dripping putrid gore…

All stacked nice and neat

Around the borders of a mind

Closed from all view other than massacre.

They deserved it.

The mind cried rotten green fingers

From blood-shot eyes

Knowing just one thing…



They deserved it.

The mind spit blood

On them in contempt

Their own blood

Spit

Upon sadistic smirks and laughter.

The mind peeled back eyelids

With surgical precision

So that they could see

Their death upon the minds death

Upon their death…

But they would never look

Past the cornea.

Walking death.

The mind strolls midday

Concealing disease

Coughing out shyly

Rancid bits of elbow and scalp

Into a fancy lace monogrammed hankie



But…



By midnight the mind returns for more rearranging

More chopping

More axing of body parts into smaller pieces

To be shaken free from nostril and ear

As the mind walks down the darkened path

Leaving a trail of mushy decomposed toes, labia, and vertebrae

To find the way back home.



They deserved it.

They all deserved it.

The mind rests at night

On a bed of spines

Snuggling pillows of brain matter

And blankets of flesh

The nightmares never cease

For they laugh in the face of murder.

©Jen2010 1–25