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

The world was in chaos

Turns out

The madmen were right

The Tribulation

The Rapture

The Wrath of Trumpets

And the almighty had spoken

His voice

Sounding a bit like Groucho Marx

Proclaiming

“I’m flushing you all down the hopper”

Accompanied by Archangels’ on Horns

And the whole rhythm section was indeed

The purple gang

Men of God

Gashed their Teeth

Unable to assimilate

They were right

All along.

I couldn’t understand the madness

The tears

The wrenching of hands

I always knew

It was a five ticket ride

A couple of laps around the track

Then

Someone else’s turn

I thought of the woman

I had loved

And wondered

What they were doing…

I thought of love

How it never seemed to last

Eternal yet

Fragile, like hand craved China

And

How my clumsy fingers

Always seemed to break it

I could never glue those pieces

Back together again

Sad…

I thought of the rich

And how pissed they must have been

To realize

That at the end of all things

All the wealth they’ve accumulated

Didn’t mean fuck

I thought of the poor and the sick

How they must have been saying

About time

I decide to roll solo

No sense being a hypocrite

At the very end

I got a beach chair

And sat

A hot wind was blowing cold

There was fire in the sky

A young child

In tears

Was wandering lost down the street

I knew him

Apparently his parents couldn’t take the pressure

and offed themselves

I guess they wanted better seats

Selfish bastards

I scooped him up in my arms

And turned him to face me

It looked wicked up there

He smiled

I smiled

We waited

But not too long

Like a dead fish.

Gazing at deep magic

Inside….Out.

Pillars of lust

Smothered

Wrapped in cellophane.

Locked to immoral paths.

Visions in black and white

Against prescribed standards of efficiency.



I peered out of my window

That TV screen whose channel never changes.

And I SEE!

Androids filled with pretended purpose.

Running to and fro toward mock destiny.

I see them harnessed like cattle and led to troughs of offal where they feed.

Smiles fill there vapid faces.



For this was Life!

I see them walk pass fake trees and counterfeit sunlight.

Night nothing more than an unplugged lamp.

They flash their vampire smiles

Teeth gnashing

Hunger’s need temporarily lending false passion to nothingness.

They see me and wave, “join us, and become one of us!”



I am the Last man alive.

I will never let them stick that straw of death into my head

And suck out my passion, love and being.

I will never leave this place

I shall be content to gaze out my window

That TV screen whose channel I can never change.



Tears fill eyes

Pity fills my souls

I am the last soul alive

And I shall never leave my place.

For I will never become one of them.

And memory

I stumble

Over

Dead bodies



The Sun

Begging forgiveness

Envelopes

Me

And tries

To warm

This cold soul



Broken children

Arms and legs

Spread

At impossible angles.

Stab at my heart



The scent of lilac

Competes

With the decay of flesh

Always screaming

In mute agony



The world is not a kind place

It cares little

But for

Sunrises

Sunsets

Ticks of an

Unforgiving clock



Amid the rubble

Of our collective sins

I found her

She smiled

And broke the heart

I though I no longer

Had



I would never kneel before any God

But I knelt before her

She was the last Poet

The faint hope

Of a dying race



With an innocence

That broke my heart

She said

“You are the scarred man”

You are here to die for me?”



Words

Had long since left me

I shouldered my pack

And began the journey

To

The long and dark

Lonely road



She clutched my hand

I fought off

The momentary revulsion

I forgot the touch

Of another

Human being

“It’s alright”

“Are we not friends?”

Her knowing smile

Belied her youth



We walked

In silence

“You know”

“You don’t have to die”

I didn’t answer

I was already dead



I scanned the landscape

For

Enemies

The howling of wolfs

Sang

With heart rending

Loneliness.

“Such a sad song they sing”

I gripped

The unfamiliar touch

Tighter