The writings of Oddpoet

Poetry that bleeds, screams and never sleeps

Ringed
Inside kalei­do­scopic brim­stone
A Hierony­mus Bosch Vegas strip



Sans tourist



Smoth­er­ing vapors of sul­fu­ric mists
Tor­tures gasp­ing breath

Ya wanna scream

“Mommy”

But

Mommy ain’t here



Fish faced generic pedes­tri­ans
whose idea of a good time
Is a home car­pen­try project
Approved by Norm him­self



They sit behind rein­forced
Plex­i­glas
In air con­di­tioned
Save-way stores
Plead­ing
For dis­counts
And
The real deal



The demonic choir
Sing
Johnny Cash
With gui­tars
Made of human skulls
Stringed with the sinews
Of dead heroes



Big D
Enters
The circle

Wit a
Impec­ca­bly coif­fured
Elvis Doo

I guess every­body
Loves
The king



“You stay­ing Poet?”

“Don’t think so D
But thanks for
Asking”

“Ya know Your time is coming”

“Decided?

“Up or down?

“Think I might start
My own after­life D



Big D
Gives me an Elvis
My Way flour­ish
Swirling his black sequined cape

Get­ting into that phony

Elvis karate stance.



“Sounds inter­est­ing Poet
You always did know how to style
If you need a hand
You know where to find me”

“Cool D”

And I rolled.

In Mem­ory of J.G. my friend and brother.
A vic­tim of the wolf.

Sleep eludes me.
Sweet obliv­ion not to be.

The hour of the Wolf approaches.
That tweener time.
Not quite night, not yet day.
It is the time that Demons and doubt hold sway.

I feel the Wolf’s fetid breath tainted
With sin and abom­i­na­tion
As it stalks me
Ready to rend my soul.

Always a step ahead
He is always a step behind
Like death
He stalks us all
Ready to pounce.

The Sun stretches, yawns
And cries in pain.
It screams “why?
Like Sisy­phus,
Must I be con­demned to this…

Pre­dictabil­ity…

Always to rise
Only to set
Again and again.
Will it never end?”

The Birds, the first to rise.
I hear there songs and their heart­felt cries.
Their sounds are so hon­est, open and true
A sign from The Divine I knew what to do

I began to fade
My ego is lost
I become ONE with the uni­verse
I gladly pay the cost.
A tiny thread
In the uni­ver­sal cloth
Made of sil­ver and gold and shim­mer­ing jew­elry embossed
I become the song of the birds, the whis­per­ing of the trees
The green of the grass and the hum­ming of bees

I turn to face my adver­sary
Weary of the chase,
My heart pounds blood
Which it would taste.
If I fal­tered for a moment
It would be the end.
Because if I lost
My soul it would rend.

It snarled:

“Do you know who I am?
The Demon of Despair
Always a bit­ter end!
Ren­der of souls, the cause of doomed love, and the cause of sui­cide
I am the dark night of the soul!”

“Human­ity is weak, their life so absurd.
There is no God have you not heard?
You search for mean­ing.
In a mean­ing­less world.
You toil in vain,
In a world full of pain.”

“Abad­don, I cried! I name you thus.
And I come armed with a Poet’s Pas­sion. A Mother’s Love. And help from above.

Did you not hear Faulkner at his Laureate’s address?
“That man will pre­vail”
Let that put your doubt to rest.

Kierkegaard, Sartre, Kafka and Camus
Shot arrows of truth, which flew straight and true.

Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and Liszt
Lifted our souls with music of bliss.

Tol­stoy, Chekhov, Dos­toyevsky and King
Moved us with pas­sion and gave our hearts wings.

Humankind is not weak it is full of strength and might
Full of sim­ple kind­ness, love and Light.”

The Wolf howled, raged, spouted spit­tle and yelped
Snapped at the air with the hatred it felt.

It snarled, eyes glow­ing with fire and pain.
“It is true that you poets and writ­ers of song can buffer humankind and keep their hearts strong.
Ward away evil and right what was wrong.”

“But I know your heart
It will not always be this strong
I will have your soul
In this I am not wrong”

Sun­light peeked above the hori­zon
And chased the dark­ness that held sway
The Wolf turned and strolled on and sim­ply
walked away…

I sighed deeply.
Weary, Oh so weary
Weary of this fight
That rages every sin­gle night.

Beware the Wolf
It stalks us all

The devil wind blew through town
All cool and shit like a Sina­tra tune
Snap­ping fin­gers and jazz ass jive
Sat­ur­na­lia wild­ness on the street
Peo­ple want­ing their share
Of the cool
Of smooth moves
Of three car garages
And tro­phy wives



Drunken women
With too much makeup
Who laugh too hard
And too easy
Forc­ing swollen feet
Into glass slip­pers
Need­ing the hum
Of elec­tric Princes
Amped
Promis­ing king­doms of plated fool’s gold



Every­one felt that cool breeze
The fools became wise
Spew­ing half remem­bered lies



The cig­a­rette smoke haze played like heav­enly mist.
We all pre­tended our lives were real
We danced in that clouds of nico­tine
To the syn­co­pated beat of Devil Wind induced mad­ness.



For some
There was no pas­sion in the script
We couldn’t pre­tend any­more



The band never gave up pre­tend­ing.
Throw­ing trills our way.
Wear­ing shades in the dead of night
Always laugh­ing at the joke we never got.



Our fake smiles hurt our faces



It was the plague
Dis­guised as cool
Death masked as glory
The chill of the grave
We began to die



Musi­cians were the first to go
We had lit­tle time left
We wanted to dance
The plague was upon us
We wanted to suck the mar­row
Out of Life’s bones.
But there was no one left to play



The Devil Wind blew through town
And man it was cold…