Archibald at the Terminus

Garbed in a uniform of blue
Dappled with a hint of gold
And, grinning with his asphalt teeth,
(Saliva, a liquid dynamite)
Cyan quivers, shaking rage
Bold and twinned with chaos
The order-general Archibald
Stands, gazing at the gates
Of entropy.

"What madness!" he says,
Enraged and distressed at the
Swirling-grey curtains of light
Soured and knowledged in
The arts of destruction
Archibald, with rhythm-quaver
Syncopated sideways into
Nothingness

Giving form to senselessness
And sprawling forth from chaos,
Became a singularity
Expressed as a wave-length
And burnt through history

Out of the Hands of the Gods

I live in the global capitol of hubris
A dilapidated ruin of culture, commerce
Consumerism in lieu of thought
A television set drilling faux-facts
Factoids
instead of teaching Ideas, Ideals
we are broadcast Ideologies
Systems of handling ideas
Bereft of all form and purpose
And left, like the channels we
have not paid for
buzzing
like static
in the minds of children
of all ages.

What causes such malaise?
That boredom enters hearts of men?
What--
ennui--
is this that lurks within
my mind?
The wonders of the world!
Such are prescribed by doctors
as an opiate for the masses
THIS IS HOW WE MUST LIVE
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION
Or else, you live, like
savages, relying on the
Gods
like Fortuna who is known
to be unkind and
whimsical.
Accept not your lot!
Dominate animal
Dominate plant
Dominate the very earth
Bereave her of her essence
Extract her life-blood
Murder her children
And take from her
Her dignity

"But now we conquer fate
and now we conquer nature
and now we conquer all that
preys upon our psyche"

You have taken yourselves- no
We have taken ourselves
Out of the hands of the gods
And, thrust into the arms of men,
found ourselves wanting.
Whom shall we blame
when no one is left
to point to?

Highway Blues

Well, I saw the ghost of Robert Johnson
on Highway 61
The devil's breath stank on his shoes
beneath the winter sun
Silence screaming in the wind
a shrill murder of crows
A guitar note and somber tune
so the murmur goes

Longing Road

I'm trapped in a city with a million broken clocks
Everybody stands still and then nobody talks
"We ain't goin' nowhere" the street sign says
I see a sad ghost looking just like Joan Baez
She's dressed in a gown but she can't seem to find
The groom that she wanted because she's gone blind

I sit with the junkies on their yellowed picnic bench
I can't say I like their taste or care for their stench
But still, they can't judge me, and I enjoy that
Their brains pour out from the back of their hat
And then this girl turns to me, "Hey, I'm Leah,
You don't seem like a person, you're just an idea"

I'm gliding on my anger, I'm through with dismay
All the church bells are ringing, it's only Saturday
The night is gray and I'm lost in a sea of gold
The cornstalks brush against me as I'm bundled and sold
I feel no shame, I'm listless like a lamb
I wish I had a purpose, I wish I had a plan

Santiago Serenades

I was sitting at a dinner table with an open bottle of wine
A woman came up and she had asked me if I had the time
"Why yes," I nodded quickly, "it's just a quarter past nine..."
She looked like she was waiting in line for a victimless crime

"Have a seat," I offered loudly, hoping to relieve her stress
She flashed her teeth, looking hurried and a little vexed
She lowered the straps of her tiny black and white striped dress
And said, "My date, he left me, and it has me so very perplexed..."

We talked for an hour as she told me all about her day
I felt as though I knew her though I never even asked her name
And as soon as she remembered, she asked me if I would like to stay
With her or by myself, and we left from the way she came

She changed as we had entered her cozy cul-de-sac-bound house
She kissed me on the cheek as she started to unbutton her blouse
I saw a picture on the mantle and wondered if she had a spouse...
I saw her diamond-ring finger and my hope was so quickly doused

"What's the matter?" she had asked, her lips curled into a sneer
"If you already have a husband then why'd you bring me here?"
She looked to the ground and said, "He's been dead since last year..."
And feeling quite embarrassed, I pulled her so close and near

There was the hint of passion and a yearning hidden on her lips
And every time she moved there was a certain sway in her hips
I felt my senses fading and I could not seem to come to grips...
With her or myself as the sun and moon kissed and eclipsed

As the minutes turned to hours, I was feeling jubilant but sore
I could barely move but she was calling out to me for more
But then there came this loud knock over from the door...
She said, "You have to leave," and I said, "Baby, what for?"

"My husband is home," she told me and began to cry
I could tell she wasn't kidding and I looked right into her eye
"You mean to tell me that all of this was a lie..."
"Well, yes," she responded as she offered up an angry sigh

The door flung open as I hopped outside the window frame
It was a second-story room and I fell onto the ground in pain
I ran down the street so that I wouldn't be the one to blame...
And when I went to the doctor he told me to walk with a cane

So now I wander aimlessly, misguided by the loss of lust
The only love I knew had betrayed me just to steal my trust
And as my cold heart is buried beneath a vast sea of dust...
I remind myself daily that the world is neither fair nor just

Liber

Shadows wreathe the ravens as they fly into the light
They are stolen from my sight
Unbound from all delight
What fright they have and give to all the people

You look as though you've seen yourself
A ghost outside of time
Throw your matchbook and resign
Can't you see, you're nothing without
Wanting

The capsules holding happiness
Devoured by your breath
And still yearning for your death
Your tresses, without feeling, are withdrawing

Fountains flow within your eyes
As your hands wave in the sky
With freedom sailing high
What could I persuade you to
Give me

And sitting on the spinning wheel
That jumps along the road
The tongue, the scarlet toad
This episode still wishing and misleading

What could the caves of sighing trees
The weeping sound of tyranny
Abstaining from all melody
Could you be alone and still not truly
Dreaming

Together in the fields of pine
Our heart-strings will entwine
Searching for a sign
As everyone is visiting the circus

Elephants and acrobats
And a dozen twisting tents
Hidden deep within the hints
What danger lies within your fields of
Sorrow

What Shutter Shipyards Should Have Said

In my crossroad travel book I found a distant land
Entangled in a field of corn, owned by the river hand
The captain corpses of the army marched along the streets
As heartbreak handsome heralds hopped upon the mayor's feet
Women built from portal posts and pathway ponder pasts
Were risen from the stellar sleighs and put upon the masts
So that the lighthouse cryptic duke could call a violet face
Upon the telephone he wore in the hope of fashion taste
For who could say what men in fear would do to Camelot
When cast upon the open rocks of haves and of have-nots

A lava-tongued aristocrat of the bold and bland brigade
Approached me with his man-at-arms and holding both grenades
Proceeded with his other arm that grew out from his chest
To steal my water and tell me that this was for the best
My empty canteen wishful thinking ceded simple sighs
As the railway worker men approached me from all sides
Telling me in velvet words that they had lost their jobs
Because of my own carelessness and my phony mobs
And as I tried to tell them I was not their wooly goat
They began to pour concrete into my open throat

The cackling history of faith and the hopeful hierophant
Expect me then to scrub their ears and hold their hollow chant
I asked them in my letters if they sought some form of trade
But life inside their decade minds was only a charade
So poised was I inside the halls of commerce to convince
The castle-creeks of cancelled freaks that I was their lost prince
That, in a haze of mist and maze, I told them a blue lie
About their center-village square and my silent silken tie
But as soon as they discovered that my top hat was a fake
I knew that even coming there had been my own mistake

The road away was humbling, not pleasant in the least
I soon became a servant boy, a peasant and a priest
So that I could evade the tiger-truth of pumpkin fists
That followed me to where I went and played my tragic lists
As though they were biography, a blemished banal bore
The carnival of all my dreams with clowns and clones and more
So maligned were these all these freaks I took a greasy pen
And drew faces on their empty heads and truth upon their skin
I promised then I would destroy that awful travel book
And never return to the place that God himself forsook