The Architect
The temple now is slumb'ring in its sprawl
The dark of night has taken it upon
But growth can yet succeed within its walls
And rooms within continue yet to spawn
Does wood not crack if alterations made
Continue so to do while it does wake?
Do tiny Buddhas ever truly fade?
And hallways moan, and bones and teeth do break
To craft the yawning caverns of the god?
A frozen earthquake, trapped within the mud
Always growing, shifting where we trod
To craft a place of worship dripped in blood
And later when the lives and walls can't keep
I wonder, will we remember to weep?
Star-Eyed Child
She cannot see the dark inside her eyes
A film, in day, that eats the world within
The horror that the blackness does imply
Does not reflect upon her gentle skin
A child yet, a flower not yet grown
A bud attempting sight unto the world
But even here, ensconced among her own
She cannot try to even come unfurled
She only sits and stares, her eyelids gone
And never even really there to start
The curtains to her solemn mind are drawn
Her eyes, reflection, lonely counterpart
And yet within, below the membrane lies
Her galaxy, a heaven in her skies
Season Opener
In darkest room a researcher sits still
Rewinding on the Motorola box
To watch the 'faithful' execute God's 'will'
Proselytizing vainly to their flocks
"What makes a man descend so far below?"
He wonders as he presses pause to stare
Bathed in the television's bright blue glow
To watch them, fans still dimly unaware
That nothing will allow them to escape
The hellish nightmare of this picture show,
This prison cell, this never-ending jape
That lost its comic timing long ago
But who'd have thought a basketball's long arc
Can mirror us truly within the dark
Pesterbot
Destruction is its one prerogative
But fate has doomed it to a life of want
Its threats become merely declarative
Without the weight behind to truly daunt
It tries on names like different kinds of hats
Attempting to find one that truly strikes
Fear into hearts of men, those bureaucrats
That treat it like a toy that's meant for tykes
But deep within it burns a heart of flame
A thirst for blood that's never been compared
Yet locked within a body that's been lamed
Its only comfort never truly there
Those empty threats are all it ever had
And in the end that's really rather sad
Cross-Dimensional Barbershop
"Did you know, boy, this shop used to be full
"Of barbers, not just me, a massive fleet
"Of men with gel and deft fingers that pull
"At curls and kinks, voices raised to greet
"The men who came to us, with coins in hand
"To ask us for our willing expertise
"In all things follicle, to make them grand.
"Surgeons, lawyers, corporate types, police,
"All came here to Giuseppe. Now, they're gone,
"Absconded," he said, glowering past me.
The bags below his eyes belied a yawn.
"A handful left, perhaps a score, and thee."
His accent was too thick for me to grasp
"It was fun, once," was all I heard him rasp
Deus Ex Machina
We live our lives in quiet discontent
But safe among the rambling lies we weave
About how we've protected our ascent
To afterlife, and yet we thought to leave
A ranger station, quiet in its place
Among the geyser's roaring waterspout
Concealing network hoping to replace
The world that we can learn to do without
A hidden comfort we cannot learn of,
Despite the fact that it would bring us peace,
A magnifier of the dang'rous love
A counter to the promise of release
But in the end, with blackness ending yawn
I bet no one will even know we're gone
The Black Cat and the White Rabbit / Jackie's Secret / Site-45-C: Floor 24
Oh, listen close to humming in the air,
The disk drive, like a flitting moth, awakes
And spins the empty numbness it can spare
From lines of code that slither through like snakes
The party's in full swing now, and the lords
And ladies in their grandeur turn to watch
The cat among them, slowly drifting towards
The center, now devoid of all debauch
But even masks can't save him now in this
Emaciated form, he tries to tamp
The feeling grown of dread encasing bliss
He's wond'ring if he should have asked the lamp
A sharpened mind's no match for rabbit's claws
Our Sarah isn't here now, never was
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING
Do living creatures not deserve respect
No matter how upsetting their visage?
Maybe. Perhaps we all need to reflect
Upon the thin genetics, and the bridge
That draws us close together, us and them
(Disgusting though their many legs may be)
The tree of life has crafted many stems
And good or ill, entwined with them we see
Them only through the crystal glass I wield
To capture them, release upon the earth.
The index card's a flimsy sort of shield
Protection that we've borne against since birth
Yet tender love for them—oh no, it fell
Oh shiTTING FUCK, IT'S ON MY FACE, OH HELL