Only because I’m listening to time of the season by the zombies
art
wish you were here
don’t call it a flashback
I do as I can to avoid drugs
other than those readily
available to me but
tucked away in some sac
Or gland other hidden
wrinkle of the brain.
A perfectly measured dose
triggered by random
but accessible memories,
a passing fragrance
an old photo
a song on the radio
moms cooking
that one shirt.
let those gaps in the brain
be flooded with the
transcendental ambrosia
our flesh has prepared us.
The Trojan Horse has Nothing on Us
imagine for a moment the passion that must exist, despite everything else, between two lovers – enough so to create a new life. to procreate is to sit at that unfathomable symposium drinking the nectar of the gods.
the only weight worth carrying
born violently into a violent world
I will teach them to walk
and give them every part of
me so that one day their
legs and hearts will have
the strength to leave me
behind.
the sixty-ninth hokage
What might that world be like
where the curious monkey
never drank the rotten juice,
or consumed that strange alien fungus,
or took in those thick and billowing
clouds of smoke that emerged from the burning bush.
What might that world be like
where man sought nothing more
to stop the pain
than the works of thine own hands and fortitude.
Where it was never learned nor taught
that we were capable of giving up or giving in.
Where doing anything was better than nothing
and was everything you could ever need.
How those never ending city skylines
might reach out and kiss the heavens.
How the sidewalks littered with the hopeless
might instead be plated in the golden broken dreams
of those who didn’t resent them, but gave purpose to them
through contribution to the greater good.
How our children and our children’s children
would enjoy the shade and bountiful harvest of plentiful jungles
planted by those who walked before.
How the earth and all of its abundance might coexist,
only borrowing from each other with the intent to return with more
than was received.
How so many of those lost souls may have made it to the morning,
just in time for the light of the new day
to wash away those black memories we all have
woven into the organic and gelatinous fibers of
our DNA.
the future is now… (and it’s AI generated)
(A few pieces of AI generated artwork. The original prompts have been mashed up into whatever garbage this is. Sorry but your welcome.)
It’s your second wedding anniversary but your wife is literally in a mental institution.
A man too scared to acknowledge his God but even more afraid to deny him.
Like a dying animal on DMT, I try to laugh the pain away.
I just want to see what a computer thinks “the death of a dream” looks like because it can’t be worse than reality.”
Every time I try to outrun myself
They traveled the open oceans by the light of the stars
and despite my path being laid clear
as though Siri was reading me the turn-by-turn
I feel lost.
Just as a stone thrown from the trail
becomes buried among the thicket.
A slight miscalculation is a critical error
when your dreams lay among the stars.
The answer must be somewhere,
In my children’s smile,
In the bottom of an empty bottle,
under the flashing lights of some
dark and dingy back room,
with a fake name and cheap perfume.
Madness is one hell of a drug.
Scared New World
Did you know?
There was a time when strangers
shook hands every time they met someone new.
That people used to pack themselves shoulder-to-shoulder
in halls and arenas to see a concert or a game.
Did you know?
We didn’t always wear a mask and gloves
when we had to go outside.
There wasn’t always glass between us muffling conversations
at the bank or at the store.
Did you know?
The restaurants used to be so crowded
you could barely hear the people you sat with.
That people gathered in bars to drink and enjoy
the company of people they didn’t know.
Did you know?
It wasn’t always a crime to cough or sneeze in public.
That work wasn’t always done from home.
That movies weren’t always watched on the couch.
Did you know?
That we used to have something called “freedom”.
That we didn’t always have to carry papers proving we were immune,
Or let the government trace our every move.
Did you know?
The news wasn’t always bad.
That you used to be able to visit grandma and grandpa
without being afraid.
That there wasn’t always fear of a kiss or a hug.
Did you know?
That farmers and simple men once fought the largest
army on the globe to give us everything
we surrendered in an instant without a fight.
Did you know?
Are these the questions our children will ask their own?
While they are living life through a screen,
a part of our scared new world?
Did you know?
Preserve the Patina
Within you it breathes,
Beaten but strengthened,
Bloodied but mending,
Tired but restless,
Hidden somewhere behind
Deep-tinted windows,
Basking in what
little light shines through.
What is shattered
is not broken,
But instead
sits in waiting to be built anew.
Open that window,
All ye battered souls,
And feel again
The warmth of the sun.
Suburban Youth 