Nature paints a violent portrait
In a thick impasto of worried gray, bruised maroon, frigid blue
Gulls get stuck in the oil
Invisible wind punishes the sea grass
And blows sand onto the canvas
Blending with the palette’s tortured colors
Half a tube of titanium is squeezed
To frost the curling surf
Endless coils of leaden thunder break
In silence behind rain distorted glass
The stormy world melts with a Van Gogh eye
I bought myself a parrot
A kaleidoscope of tropical hues
Bleeding from jungle flowers
I tried to teach her to talk:
“Pretty bird”
“Pieces of Eight”
“I love you”
“Scotch and soda”
She just squawks
She flaps her clipped wings
She makes a mess
Yet each time I try,
Each time I try returning her to the pet store,
She talks me out of it
Whenever I have a bout of insomnia I try to make the best use of my time. I usually try and sort things out that I have been ruminating on during the day. But I never accomplish much. Moreover, it is very dangerous. Although I am conscious of being awake, I think my subconscious is more active than I realize and I can’t form coherent thoughts. You can’t trust what your mind tells you in this state. It must be what a schizophrenic experiences when a shadowy character in his head tells him that nothing good will ever happen and he should go jump off a building. If you make it through the night things always look better in the morning. Even still, insomnia is a miserable way to spend the evening.
Sleepless
Seven shards of moonlight
Shimmer on the sill
Brittle as silver ice
Shaved from a frozen block of midnight
Ghosts pace their cells
Behind glowing bars
Sliced from brutal street lamps
By Venetian blades
Never welcome 3 A.M.
Or shake her sable hand
She tricks you into talking
In dark, spinning circles while she snores to mock you
Four turns five in nine chimes
Wood grain drinks the melting ice, ghosts go free
The Angel of Dawn descends
And slowly stretches out on the carpet
I compose a humble prayer for rain
The paper drinks my ballpoint dry
Below a sheet of baking tin
In the steaming thicket locusts drone
Like monks they murmur
Invocations for a cool shower?
Maybe.
Who knows what locusts want.
Food, obviously
Locusts are always hungry
“They will cry out with shouts of victory”
A plague of drought descended earlier
It’s too too late for supper
Our crops wither
Down the highway rolls the swarm
Gnawing tires whine and hum
Off to McDonald’s or the markets?
Perhaps.
God knows what humans do.
I check my empty refrigerator again
The air is cool like a cloudless sky
Above a sheet of baking tin
My prayer for rain remains unanswered
You were
Born with
Flames in your eyes
Showers
Of sparks
Firecracker surprise
Black gunpowder, short fuse
Built for beauty, for speed
Waiting to go up in smoke
One spark is all
You needed
A glass
Bottle to be strong
Countdown
Lift off
Into oblivion
Wake up you lazy Guardians
Will you sleep too through this blast?
Prepare a room in Father’s house
Here comes another bottle rocket
Faster
Than life
Exploding into night
We know how Red feels
Warm
The more it is touched
Hot even
Inflamed
But how does Red taste?
Like blood? The blood of Christ?
Wine then.
Ruby Bordeaux with a ribeye
Seared blue
Red and blue coalesce into luxurious purple
The palatine shade of sovereign indulgence
Red meat on the bone and exclusive vintages
The color of a pulsing vein
Engorged with warm, hot, inflamed
Red
A pineapple cookie in both shape and taste
8000 feet below are souls I’ll never meet
The newly wedded groom has beer, his bride, vodka
Three hours has exhausted polite small talk with giddy strangers
Shades pulled. We are a fuselage of midnight
Crossing coordinates our bodies cannot understand
No matter how patiently the brain explains
Night swallows the East as the West basks in gold
We glide ahead of shadows on the shoulder of Apollo
Classes separated by diaphanous curtains
The sounds of crystal, silver, smiles
Drift back in a cloud of gourmet aromas
To the starving ears and noses of the budget proles
Hush! London is sleeping. New York yawns.
The stomach of earth churns and vomits
Molten sick into the shivering Pacific
Eons of uncomforted turmoil and viola, Paradise
Salted nuts and a cold martini, sudoku, a movie
Words yet unexperienced assemble to be written home
On the pale paper underbelly of a stunning view
I dream of white noise in sleep’s fitful lap
Stiff, restless, motionless at the speed of sound
Sipping black coffee in heaven’s blue parlor
I smell an exotic flower blooming in the travel guide
Her ancestors adorned waving, brown bodies
Welcoming His Majesty’s brave sailors
Ravenous with ribs showing, thirsty mouths agape
Months adrift in Neptune’s wilderness
Surviving on salt pork, beetle and grog rations
We dine on pasta primavera, white wine, salad
The nectars of dry land restored a sailor’s faith
Finding God waiting for them in a heathen paradise
I’m the lonely veggie sandwich on the catering tray
No one wants to eat me and I’ll just get thrown away
Despite my zesty pesto and portobello meat
Ham and Swiss that old standby on rye is hard to beat
Grilled on open charcoal my zucchini hits that spot
Yet pastrami gets the attention with mustard that is hot
The tuna and the turkey breast are popular indeed
Even though I’m served on bread topped with pumpkin seed
Roast beef with smoked cheddar is a hearty midday meal
Yet somehow roasted peppers carry no appeal
Even the egg salad fills a culinary niche
Like curry chicken salad wraps, I might as well just be a quiche
Regardless of my first-rate healthy lifestyle cachet
I’m the lonely veggie sandwich who will be thrown away
I am an active volcano
Beneath my mantle is magma fommented
Sulphur roils into toxic venting clouds
Seams tear through my crust, opening
Furious pools of boiling crimson, spitting
White, scaly ash in the air, landing
All over everything like oily snow
Capricious Pele is offered sacrificial ointments, salves and creams
Pacified, the inflamed goddess sleeps
Dormant for days, erupting again with no warning
And yet I am not Paradise rising
A gift to Heaven from the Sea
Covered in flowers, fruit, and trees
I have nothing against the duck
They are very well and good
The emerald sheen on the mallard head
In the flesh or a decoy of wood
Yet sometimes they hint of discarded old shoes
On the banks filthy and wet
Then in glides the swan and all that is foul
We are obliged to forget
Trying to live a creative life
Rock & Metal Reviews That Hit Hard
Epic fantasy & military sci-fi author.
A blog full of humorous and poignant observations.
the literary asylum
Now without semikhah!
Daydreaming and then, maybe, writing a poem about it. And that's my life.
…where words and drawings breathe
Life Through A Lens
Contemporary Dark Fiction and Poetry
I dream so I write ..
Finding Meaning in the Madness
Dedicated to everything recreation!
Pen to paper
The goal is to help make people’s lives easier
Poetry, haiku, tanka, and micropoetry
Floating thoughts, A place where my beautifully weird thoughts floating around in my mind are posted.
John Truelove 