This Strange Fruit

Stumbling Down an Alley in Dubai, I Heard the Darkness Weeping

Tropic of Luciverium,
or Notes On Topological Pattern Complexity and Sand-Demons on Horseback
by Joseph Armstead


I don't like to travel.  As it was once
written in a proverb,
"It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive."


...forbidden character input
rejected by device interface:
invalid substitution, entry truncated,
sync attempt incomplete...

A forty-five minute mass transit train ride
spent in agony sitting next to a young woman
journalling in her internet blog,
bitterly cursing all the while
about her job and her boyfriend,
via an App on her sleek and wedge-shaped
fifth-generation mobile phone,
ends with disembarking at the station platform
and immediately dropping my briefcase,
all the contents spilling out onto the scratched
and boot-heel streaked tile floor.

It's Wednesday and the sky is gray
while cascading waves of cold wet drizzle
ride the polluted breeze from off the Bay.

... there is a rip in the firmament
and the teeming viruses of Multiplicity
are seeping through from the festering
petri dish of the Great Unknown...

Ninety-six hundred miles away,
it is just after four in the afternoon
and the remnants of the searing heat
that had assaulted
the cracked and baked
desert plateau
begins to dissipate
as winter's shorter daylight hours
ensnare the sun and pull it towards
the undulating dark line
of sand dunes
on the far horizon...
a slender woman, enervated
by her busy schedule, draped
in a charcoal black Abaya cloak
reads from her electronic tablet's
high resolution multi-touch display
and sighs her disappointment
to the evening's wind. 

... entries replicate without reason,
unbidden, the resident algorithm aborting,
then unexpectedly restarting, pre-planned
pattern asymmetry not engaging, resulting
in header line database corruption... 

On this side of the Meridian,
it is Thursday and only an hour
before a lightning strike created
by a massive sandstorm fries
the sophisticated circuitry
of the city's central
telecommunications tower. 

... the open wound in the wall of Singularity
bleeds a torrent of toxic infection,
rampant Randomnicity,
past its ragged lips and into
this unsuspecting Pocket Universe...

There is no full backup from which to restore.

Irritably, I start scooping up the spilled
chaotic mess of loose papers, pens, uncapped thumb drives,
and self-burned DVD media, shoving it all back
into the briefcase, and rise from my knees ---

To suddenly stand face to face
with you
and surprisedly, nakedly
stare,
without guile or ego,
into your eyes
as you rush over to help.

For a long heartbeat, we lock gazes...

Upload link reconnected.  Replication re-engaged, Synchronization resumed.

I still do not enjoy traveling, but some destinations are, indeed, magical.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Saharawi Women Garnet Dress, Desert Background" by Outsiderzone (Fernando Cortes), dreamstime_l_15844713.jpg 

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The Whisper of the Djinn at Deepening Dusk
by Joseph Armstead


Like some dread messenger
of vanishing hope,
night descends over the oasis.

Mile-long tangerine streaks stripe
the cloudless oceanic sky
as the mechanical caravansarai
settles in for the night,
the coughing of combustion engines
harshly competing with the rattling
of the day's last dry breeze
through desert thorn bushes
and spiky clumps of fountaingrass,
the distant call of a falcon
brittle as glass to the ears,
and a small army of khaki-clad
travelers, five hours riding across sand dunes,
spill out from their dusty vehicles,
their sunburned faces hidden
under soiled bandanas,
they are glad to unfold
their sweat-dappled bodies
and stretch their stiffened limbs.

Soundless,
something calls to them,
a susurration
from within
the Well of Time.
 
They have come to the necropolis,
abandoned last bastion
of a forgotten empire,
to listen to the dying whispers
of the slumbering djinn. 

"What would you have of me, my master,
what favor will satisfy thy heart's desire?"

Within the fractured, crumbling walls
of the fallen fortress, the shadows
of ancient myth twist and contort fitfully,
displeased with the intrusion
of The Living into their static domain.
In the rubble and dust lie the corpses
of rumors, entreaties, demands, threats,
and the faithless promises
of Kings and Pharoahs,
the dessicated bones of humankind
left as an offering
to sorcerous legends
and fantastical beings.

"What wouldst thou have of me, my master,
what favor will satisfy thy heart's desire?"

As the shadows lengthen, the teeming cadre
of explorers pitch tents and set up their camp,
eager to start the new morning
digging in the dirt,
ripping the secrets of antiquity
from out the skeletal grasp
of ghosts of a faded world.

The dread messenger arrives
and the cloak of night descends,
enwrapping the oasis
under the baleful glare
of the spectral djinn.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Desert Ruins" by Kyolshin, dreamstime_m_12546359.jpg   

The Paradox Behind the Complexity of Carnivores In Love

Icicles Like Fangs in the Devil's Smile
by Joseph Armstead



Something between us is broken.

It is too much like
music video imagery,
surrealism and cinematic cliche,
commercialized dreaming,
watching a silhouette
solemnly play piano
atop the ice of a frozen lake,
against the backdrop of endless
winter, and yet there is Truth
in it, a plaintive statement
of isolation, elegiacized
and
romanticized,
pomp and perniciousness,
but robbed
of the excitement
from any hint of scandal,
a scotch advertisement
depicting a dandified
Lord Byron
holding a gun,
striking a James Bond pose...

The words are not coming out right.
The message stays caught in our throats.
We stroll in silence when we should scream.

Separately, we each wonder if bleeding would help.

We walked through a field of fallen leaves,
the ground loamy and moist beneath our feet,
and we listened to the fading calls
of distant birds
and
we did not speak
for fear of tearing a hole
in the fragile fabric
of loneliness
hovering
between us --

such cowardice,
a lost opportunity,
such melodrama,

stupidstupidstupidstupid

the falling snow, muffling the music of bleakness,
and we, afraid of the music, wearing masks
like jaded Venetians parading the streets
during the costumed festival
before Ash Wednesday,
the costumery of the alienated,
bereft of shadows,
the snow and ice
an albino carpet
blanketing the road to Hell
and
visions of icicles,
festooning the trees,
like fangs in the Devil's smile.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:  "Winter" by Vojtechvlk (Vojtech Vlk), dreamstime_m_5190690.jpg

The Revels of Abandonment, So Like A Blaring Of Trumpets

To Gethsemane Do We Devils March
by Joseph Armstead


As I pass the headstones
in the cemetery
I think of rain
falling on the meadow
over the hill
and the flash of light
off the drops
speckling
the fenders of my bicycle
are rhinestones;
I am a child in transition,
a thumbtack
on the corkboard
of Realities,
wading through water soaked grass
down a trail
through a silent
necropolis...

To Gethsemane do we Devils March.  

In the heart of the labyrinth,
howling wind erases my voice,
music of the spheres
cast in case-hardened steel,
set upon the double-cut teeth
of a diamond file.
I am an armored Priest
of the Church of Anguish
and my flock is gathered here
for a sermon
speaking of those things
we are driven to do
by urges from the darkness.

Promises festoon our shields
in the dazzling light of the sun
like steel spikes
glistening silver
and
I give the column the command
to move forward in rigid
formation ...

It is the cadence of a drumbeat,
the rhythmic march
of a thousand feet
upon cracked and dry
desert sands,
an army with a million eyes
and a single mind,
focused on a fractured image
from a half-remembered dream.

To Gethsemane do we Devils March.

A child I was, a dirtied bauble
dropped
to roll across the floor
of Infinity,
unaware of its importance
or its identity
as part of the necklace
draped around the neck
of Possibility.

The memory of the cemetery headstones
haunt me, whispering in an aged croak:
"I beg of you, do not abandon me
to the fury of the storm."

There is no answer.

To Gethsemane Do We Devils March...

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "On the Merzouga Desert" by Nuriajudit (Nuria Abad Redondo), dreamstime_m_12275636.jpg

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The Cadence of Her Breath, Echoing, At the Cliff's Edge
by Joseph Armstead


The rhythm of the waves at the shore
...rolling surf under wintry skies...
the pounding of her heart's beat in her ears
...her memory bleeding in drops of mercury...

She knows how it feels when the world turns cold,
She knows where it was when the walls fell down,
She recalls who she was when the fractures widened,
And she remembers all the choices she ignored ---

--- the world stops spinning between each of her breaths.

The pain is her private symphony of hushed tyranny.

Standing
at the edge of the abyss,
breathing tragedy and sorcery,
confusion echoes
in the hollow corridors
of her crowded mind,
She's falling, falling faster
her speeding descent
steeling away
each precious new draught
of air...

breathing the atmosphere
while tainting the atmosphere
while piercing the atmosphere,
slipstreaming,
timesliding,
skyweeping,
as the ocean above
so the ocean below...

She knows how it looks standing alone
on the edge of the precipice
And she anticipates the shattering
impact
when she breaks apart,
when she finally strikes
the tideswept shoreline ---

--- each of her breaths stops the world from spinning.

Falling, she dances to a private symphony of hushed tyranny.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "My Smoke, My Risk, My Pleasure" by Novic (Armen Zhenikeyev), dreamstime_m_2757826.jpg

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An Orchard of Cannibal Wolves
by Joseph Armstead


Alone, atop the hill, The Traveler 
peers down through the gloom,
looking into the depths of the city...

Liquid evening descends
and drapes itself,
like waves of wet eternity
bleeding with surety
from an open wound
in the body of Creation,
spreading irresistably
across a rolling landscape
of city skylines
while the wind
whistles hollowly
through the steel parapets
of the midnight metropolis,
a pin cushion landscape.

It is an orchard of teeming Life,
surrendering again to the rhythm
of a recurring hibernation.

The Traveler keeps his distance.

Wolves gather at the forest's edge,
footsteps from The Travelers back.

They are hungry, battered and ragged
from the rigors of an endless Winter.
Feral lupines, eyes alight
with anticipation of the hunt,
their muzzles wrinkled
against an onslaught of smells
from the city beyond,
The Traveler's presence
is secondary to them,
an after-thought...

Their prey slumbers under shadow,
unsuspecting, unmindful,
and unprepared, drowning
in an ocean of dreaming.

The Traveler keeps his distance.

The wolf-pack flows past him,
focused on the reaping to come,
moving quietly as relentless Time,
rushing silent
past a rock, immobile,
centered
in an icy stream.

Fangs shining in the moonlight,
down into the darkened city they flow...

A cruel Harvest has come to the orchard.

As ever, The Traveler keeps his distance.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Wolves Pack with Moon" by Saniphoto, dreamstime_m_10652971.jpg

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Sylvia Shines Like A Dagger In the Sun
by Joseph Armstead


It is like a movie,
made from someone else's
train-wreck romance...

We all play our parts.

Jazz guitar and saxophone
waft through the air,
dancing with the incoming fog
from off the bay on the dusk
of a passing spring day,
music drifting softly
from the open window
of the car parked at the edge
of the meadow at the marina,
and I look past her face,
where sunset casts
gentle flames
across her smooth skin,
and a breeze
from off the tumbling waves
tosses the reddish-auburn
serpents of her hair,
while I remember the lie
I caught her in,
remember seeing her
locked in intimate embrace
with a stranger
who made her smile
with a fierce satisfaction
and feline freedom,
I could never inspire.
Gently, my name spills
from her smiling lips
and the falseness of the sound
cuts me deeply as the slice
from an assassin's dagger.

Little murders dance behind
the musical soundtrack
to our foreign film
masquerade
of a picnic.

We all play our parts.   

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Woman with Finger Blades" by Vukvuk (Branislav Ostojic), dreamstime_m_20566903.jpg

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Twilight Weeping Moonglow on the Stones of Her Heart
by Joseph Armstead


twilight,
next to a stream,
cool water rushing
over smooth black rock
lodged deep
in sand and silt,
as the evening wind
blows gently
across the moving, wet liquid
bringing the scent of roses,
juniper and cherry blossom
to spiral around the weeping girl
listening to jazz
on headphones,
tears falling
onto denim jeans,
she hopes the music
will wash away
her sadness
and grief

alone
on the branch
of a nearby tree,
a crow watches,
incurious,
through cold,
ruby red
eyes,
the sparkle of moonlight
on teardrops
mesmerizing

jazz plays on,
Mingus, Coleman, Coltrane,
dissonant, polyrythmic

the waters of the stream,
bathed in dim moonglow,
never stop to look back

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Waterfall at Night at Sunset" by Udra11, dreamstime_m_19419488.jpg

Truth Is Watching Sandcastles Drown In a Torrent of Tears

Strangling Eagles
By Joseph Armstead



Astride the Towers of Reason,
suffocating
in the clouds most high,
We're the lightning
that drives the heartbeats
of the Angels who kill things
too beautiful to eat;
How sharper than a lion's tooth,
more savage than a rhino's horn,
More faithless
than a motel romance,
Slicker than a thief
picking pockets,
We few standing breathless
in the rarified atmosphere
sing "Glory hallelujah!",
our voices masked by the roar
of the Beasts at our feet.

We'll give you the black symphony
of broken love and willful lies,
rumours of a faded postcard Heaven
where miracles
are never
what they seem
A kiss of Decomposition,
Welcome to the Choir,
neither Salvation
nor its Dream.

Brave enough to believe,
strong enough to be crazy,
We see rewards for these Faithful
despite their feet of clay,
despite the pools of bleeding
innocence
drawing them deeper
into the quagmire.

Save us...

Reflections of the Towers
shimmer in the quicksand muck,
too dark to see the gates of Heaven
too distorted to find Revelation,
We breathe the air too thin to nourish,
asthmatic airways straining,
and we wait for you to tell us
just what you believe in now.

Windblind, the beasts look up.

We are Wonder.  We are Divinity.
We are Mercy with a sucking chest wound.
We're the lightning
that drives the heartbeats
of Angels who kill the things
too beautiful to eat.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Night Moon Over Mountain Eagle" by Truelight9 (Dan Collier), dreamstime_m_1850501.jpg

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As Midnight Wounds the Day
by Joseph Armstead


Like chariots of stone racing 'round the sun,
the planets follow a Sacred Geometry
defined long before the dawn of Memory,
an imperfect dream that hypnotizes, mesmerizes,
and taunts us with the promise of Heaven,
as we sail along, voyagers through Time,
our vision draws our gaze towards the lights
that burn the ocean of the dark...

The timepiece is broken.

Beautiful and yet Damned,
Innocent yet stained by Sin,
we are children of the madness
drawn to the edge of sharpened steel,

clickclackclickclackclickclackclickclack

each tick of the clock,
the sound of a cosmic metronome
channeled though a guitar's phase-shifter,
kills another piece of the universe,

tocktocktocktocktocktocktocktocktocktock

and our miracles grow darker by the hour
while we drift around a star
that is slowly dying.

As midnight wounds the day,
the blood of fools paints a tapestry
of myth and loss and sadness,
as midnight drapes
the hourglass
in shadows. 

We are born from angels, kin to ice and flame,
diamonds in the rough, we raise our eyes
to a sky grown dark with prayers,
the leaden gates to Paradise
rusted and graffitied,
we sail along, voyagers through Time,

(sshoosh... the electron winds blow cold
over a sea of fading minutes ... whoosshh!)

dancing 'round bonfires
searing holes in the ocean of the dark,
our seething miracles
betray the shadows
birthed within us...
the timepiece is broken.

And eternal midnight wounds the day.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_10382320.jpg

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Shadow on the Surf
by Joseph Armstead


Surge in, slip out,
rolling, rushing, swirling,
the seagulls gather,
their mottled white bodies
bobbing
like torn confetti
cast carelessly
upon the restless waters...

The dry fierceness
of midday's heat
emanates and radiates
from the windswept beach
as footsteps
puncture
its pristine
dunes,
inexorably leading
to the mercurial
liquidity
of the cool,
tidal waters
carrying ghosts
from distant lands
into the dark kingdom
of my looming shadow.

Empire and Dominion,
arrogant whimsies born
from Time and Ego,
washed away from Memory
by the accusation
from a goodbye kiss.

Rush in, roll away out,
surging, swirling, frothing,
the seagulls chatter
and screech,
bobbing on the waves
like loose pages
torn from an old calendar.

The date doesn't matter.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Coast and Night Moonlight Path" by Wildman (Yuriy Brykaylo), dreamstime_m_5982022.jpg

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Actualization
by Joseph Armstead



This is going to hurt.

Peering through squinted eyes,
cold sweat pouring
down a wrinkled forehead,
watching the cruel sharpness
of a drill bit rapidly rotate
only millimeters from this face,
the inevitability of invasive,
unrelenting, brutal honesty
smelling of oil and metal
as it closes the distance
towards trembling flesh,
it is
an hourglass
heralding doom
with every
falling
grain of
sand,
this is
belief,
metaphysics
made real,
stripped
of intellect,
philosophy
and
metaphor,
pain become truth,
savagery ascendent.

The drill comes nearer,
the buzzing of the electric motor
growing louder than thunder, louder
than the pounding
of your racing
heart.

This is going to hurt.

A lot.

Good.

This is how we learn.
 
Peering through squinted eyes,
cold sweat pouring
over a wrinkled brow ridge,
breathing quickly
and shallowly
through distended nostrils,
belly full of angry worms
and hysterical
mosquitos,
lips cracked and dry,
this is Faith,
Reality
and
Knowledge.

Lightning flashes as the drill bites deep...

Applauding
would be
in such bad taste.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid" by Iqoncept, dreamstime_m_18682831

A Pinwheel Theory of Chemical Dreaming

Fire Drawn To A Bloom
by Joseph Armstead


the crash is electric,
burning invisibly
in an ocean of coolness

...majesty and fury...
...nature and physics...

and the scent of
burnt copper
on the howling wind
dances a tango
with the fragrance
from an autumn blossom

Awakened from her dark dreaming,
the Lady Fair draws a breath,
tasting the Real,
inhaling the detritus
of Time,
and gathers courage
to face the tempest.

an angel disguised
as a butterfly
alights on the bloom,
the stalk bounces,
bending from the ephemeral weight
 
...seeing, seeking...
...tasting, feeling...

and the storm fans
petal and wing
with a kiss of fire

She dances on the edges
of the lightning's
strike,
alive with the brutal ripping
of molecular chemistry,
and she sees deeper
into the world's dark heart
than ever she did before,
knowing,
this time,
that the white-hot lash
of a raging Heaven
holds no secrets
to her final destiny.

the dichotomy of nature intoxicates and strangles

the butterfly
and the flower
quake as one under skies
split by
the glint of Truth
in the brilliance
of God's eyes.

The Lady Fair
peers into the gloom
of the approaching maelstrom
awaiting her one good moment
in the glare of the bleeding sun... 

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Fire Flower" by Ba-Mi, dreamstime_m_15616773.jpg

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And No One Can Know That You're Bleeding
by Joseph rmstead



It is hurt.

(imagery)

...the tarnished, golden halls of kings, tarts and dreams...
...a corridor to purpled midnight fading to black...

pain be not common -- a slow leak in a torn heart

It is a scent of nostalgia
and abandoned love letters,
a decaying bouquet
of murmuring flowers,
weeping secrets
into the cool, gurgling flow
of the brook of night,
shadowed water,
as nightingales war with crows,
each singing brittle music
heralding the death
of weary daylight,
the sounds
less heard than smelled,
a perfume
that casts a spell
of events
and emotions
that run too deeply
for mere melancholy
under gloom-dappled skin.

(sensation)

... palace intrigue: the upheaval of a sacred avarice...
... a lost child kicks a tin can down a secret road...

pain be not proud -- a storm of wounds that lingers

It is hurt.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Wounded Heart" by Sundikova (Liudmila Sundikova), dreamstime_m_5489869

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Covenant in Acid Shadow
by Joseph Armstead


The music of my voice is
unheard.
Listen.
We have all come to the Gathering,
here,
in the velvetness of aloneness,
today,
to speak of things we have lost,
And of the friends
we continue to miss,
still unheard.
Listen.
 
The danger in this
is its promise
of addiction.
There are no safe havens.
No future born from past glories.
No hearth, no home,
no sanctuary.
 
No guarantee of Heaven.
 
I've a confession to make
and the nightmare in it
is the soundless symphony
streaming from my lips,
my voice,
unheard,
dreamtime betrayed,
A treachery of adulthood
where we pray to the great Unmaker
And wait, happily, for the fury
of the coming storm.
 
Listen...

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Silhouettes and Shadows of People" by Emersont (Terrance Emerson), dreamstime_m_16832042

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Dissembled Vision
By Joseph Armstead



So I saw something out the corner of my

reddened and weary eye,
something moving with fluid,
serpentine
stealth

while, in the cluttered living room,
by the flickering light projected from my
flatscreen LED television,
a politician dolefully discussed
the latest details of the budgetary downturn,
blubbery lips caressing each syllable
in his grim divinations
and
all his words the music of innuendo
as he played the Blame Game,
endorsing the faux-ideas recycled
from a talking head politico from his own party
some twenty-five years past,
that thing

hallucination ... shadow ... apparition ... revenant...

that ghost I saw dancing at the edges
of my blurred vision,
played with the dollar sign emblem
on its gaudy gold jewelry,
hip hop gauche,
a sight gag from a joke reel
in a B-grade movie
no one ever filmed.

I blinked and an alternate
Reality
fell in crumbled

pieces

from out my eye.

Ain't that the way?  You always have problems.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Optical Art Eyes Fractal" by Cvadrat, dreamstime_m_5365885.jpg

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Substance of Thunder
by Joseph Armstead



the voice, thunderous, echoes in the spaces between the clouds,
lashing like a whip of lightning through the open air,
ripping dream from the dreamer,
piercing the fragile veil of expectancy

Sequence acquisition, Countdown begins, initiate...

super-particles caught on the coherent string
of a randerized web suspended in ultra-symmetric solution
dissolve
falling prey
to the decomposition
of gravimetric membranes
in assymetric chronological orbit

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- Echo

Launch:

memories of the last moment of tactile sensation,
transmission of subconscious intimacy
set to fading music, phantom rhythms spiralling
out
of
control
while the tears burn
wet highways down the map of her face

the voice, like the blast of a canon,
like the passing of celestial Judgment,
rockets across an arid desert
of endless guilt,
demanding your attention,
naming your sin,
calling you,
stripping you naked,
and you tremble in shame.

Fatal error.  Sequence abort.  System failure.     

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Man Ego Accuse Concept" by Drx (darkonovakovic), dreamstime_m_2376696.jpg

Somewhere, Strangers Watch While Caffeine Falls Like Rain

 
Dragon Fruit and Blood Spice
by Joseph Armstead

The wolf coughs,
its muzzle wrinkling
like the onset of wisdom
on an old man's forehead,
but actually
more like the cocking of the slide
on a gun,
and it breathes in a scent
from the shadows:
The darkness
smells like pepper
and sizzling honey.

The feral beast feels the wind
fanning the hairs on the fur
along its sides
and it knows
that this is the touch of its Master,
the caress of its Maker,
and the canine hunter's
primal mind erupts
with the sensations
and feelings
of a dream of feasting.

(Somewhere in a metal-hiveworld city
where I am but one more
faceless shade
out of a million,
I look at your photograph
and I feel my blood begin to burn,
my heart begin to pound, racing,
and I reach for my cell phone...

...I stop when memory, uninvited and unbidden,
replays the thundering sound
of your last angry goodbye.
Somewhere in a metal-hiveworld city
I drop to my knees, gnashing  my teeth,
howling --

Lon Chaney,Jr., sad-eyed and repentent,
laughs humorlessly
as I surrender to the change,
the ravenous animal within at last
breaking free of the cage of my flesh...

Only feeding can stop the pain.)

In a brambled bush,
twisted and choking
on its own unchecked growth,
limbs intertwined
looping one inside the other,
thorns and rough bark
sliding edge against edge
under the prompting
of the night's wind,
a malignant tumor
of brilliantly colored flowers,
midnight lillies, shining red
and olive-shaped, a night cactus,
bloom in sinuous
reptilian
triumph
under the pale rain
of moonlight.

The fruit of the dragon's garden,
exposed for all to see.

The wolf smells the bouquet
from the treasure flowers
and shakes its great head,
the movement flickers through changes
in identity, in awareness,
like the light switch
turning from Off to On,
clearing away visions
of still summer nights
and wet, frenzied sex,
and the Beast-that-was-once-Man
prowls the deepest shadows
breathing in hot breaths
of pepper
and
sizzling honey.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Pearl Necklace & Dragon Fruit" by Lowchinhan (Chin Hna Low), dreamstime_9262174.jpg

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Diagnosing the Sickness, A Causational Wedding

by Joseph Armstead

 

(i) Signs and Symptoms

First a cough, then a fever, the waves come rolling in,
crashing against a dull and featureless shore,
fever unleashes the onset of dreams,
hallucinations

                                 --- speak, cry out, tell someone, do not drown alone ---

the canon of Archibald Garrod: "our chemical individualities are due to our chemical merits as well as our chemical shortcomings..."

biopsy frequently and often with weak substantive explanation

 

(ii) Components in Initial Prognosis

analysis of morbid anatomy notwithstanding,
it is a crisis of biological individuality
violently betrayed
by the inherited pathology of evolutionary selection

"...even in the molecular groupings which confer upon us our individualities..."

it is a management plan for a problematic soul
unknowingly cannibalizing itself

                                        --- the diagnosis of exclusion begins ---

IF/THEN statement
Draft One, Step One: Is it of environmental origin?
Draft One, Step Two: Can the bleeding be controlled?
Draft One, Step Three: Is it fatal?
Draft One, Step Four: Is it contagious?

Defeasible reasoning:

If NO, resort to tried and true treatment options.
If YES, inviegle, distort, obfuscate and then, in privacy, pray.

 

(iii) Application of Curative Hypothesis

the pain begins as an ache and then a throb,
and then it erupts to eclipse all the world,
the fever invades the brain and blinds the mind's eye

stick 'em with something narrow and sharp
inject something expensive from your pharmaceutical representative
sound educated and confident

ignore their pain

roll the dice

 

(iv) Results

The dreams cease and the pain lessens,
courage and a positive outlook,
combined with aggressive therapy,
help the recession

                                    --- speak out, feel empowered, tell someone, don't give up ---

dialectics and rhetoric trump logical positivism
Tabulate the bill

... and the Piper is paid, the devil given his due ...

 

Images courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:  "Science Molecule" and "Money Molecule" by Prawny (Dawn Hudson), dreamstime_4103561 and 4103093.jpg; "Blue Chaos Rays Space" by Sgame, dreamstime_2012722; and, finally, "3 Shiny 3-sided Mystery Dice Roll A Question Mark" by Michaeldb (Michael Brown), dreamstime_5210295.jpg

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Surrogate Melody Played for Ravens
by Joseph Armstead

Startled from sleep,
the black bird cries
and thrashes the night air,
seeking escape.

.............It was the Winter of Our Alienation...................
.............when Time and Mind cruelly conspired .................
.............to relieve us of our sense of security................
.............and enlighten us to the harder aspects................
.............of a Reality that did not want our input..............
.............and a Life that no longer needed our..................
........................participation..............................

I want to fly away, riding this Sorrow to a place without broken mirrors

The sound of the distant surf
echoes
through the trees,
winding, climbing, spinning
past twisted, bare limbs
so old
they have seen the the buffalo
vanish
and the Blue and Gray make war,
through moonlight,
riding the last chill of winter
and into the deepest shadow,
the soft distant thunder
at last vanishes,
and the forest of a thousand
forgotten midnights
holds its breath, waiting,
until the next wave
signals the hope of life
from the far shore
of an unreachable,
beckoning horizon.

.............It was the Moment of Our One Last Kiss................
.............when our hearts sadistically scripted.................
.............a three-act play we couldn't define ..................
.............as either a failed comedy or a happy tragedy..........
.............and where all the words came out twisted..............
.............written in an ancient tongue best suited..............
.........................for mourning..............................

I want to fly away, riding the cool wind to a place without broken mirrors

The black bird's
rough song
rips
the rolling silence
as it flies
into the night season.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Raven Landing - Charcoal" by Aliencat (Linda Bucklin), dreamstime_19333731.jpg

 

Voices, Like The Tearful Music of Broken Glass, Falling Unheard

In Tongues
by Joseph Armstead


Voices raised, our words,
streaking through the air
between us like meteors
afire,
burn,
leaving sizzling contrails
in the demilitarized zone
of space
separating you and me,
the inarticulate
screechings
of angry primates,
primitive speach
insufficient to properly
render
and define
the true complexity
of this picture
of our fractured
reality. 

We speak and it is
the diary of a monster
blinded by moonlight,
an atonal opera
relating a tragedy of errors,
a tale told
in sonic booms
wrapped in the last sigh,
burning cold,
of a dying flower.

So incomplete and yet
so decidedly classic.
A flood
of audible
desperation,
words
beyond definition.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:"Broken Glass" by Friday (Tatiana Morozova), dreamstime_17124657.jpg

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Blades of Black Grass
by Joseph Armstead


I lost my childhood
in the shadows
of steel towers...

It sleeps fitfully
outside
the farthest reaches
of the steel
and concrete
urban sprawl anthill,
this dream of the ghost
of the ancient
rites of summer.

The fields are black there,
ebony with the wild
grasses of twilight.

I lost my innocence
in the drab gloom
of skyscrapers...

It is almost a forest,
almost a country,
in and of itself,
an entity
born of passing fantasy
and melancholy
wishes,
it calls to me,
whispers my name,
pulls me back
past the gates
of Time,
a daydream
of soft magic
and secrets

I abandoned my youth
under a mountain
of glass and metal...

The fields there
are black
with the wild grasses
of flowing twilight.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:"Abandoned Office Building" by Tupungato, dreamstime_9784566.jpg

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Affirmation and Regret
by Joseph Armstead


Get your act together.

                              He stands staring down at the floor, nose wrinkled
                                             in distaste,
                              as if he can see and smell the bitter aftermath
                              of your anger and sorrow, as if you had no right
                              to let your caged emotions
                                                erupt
                              after you heard the Truth, facts and impositions
                                             masquerading
                                              as Reality
                              in a cascade of misfortune, releasing
                              a torrent of raw unfettered You.

Your startled guardian angel
is recovering
from a pie to the face.

                              His face is unlined stone, his eyes are cold
                              glittering marbles, masking
                              the inscrutable workings
                              of an uninspired, judgmental
                                              brute-mind
                              and he is looking square at you
                                            waiting for you
                                            to do something,
                                             say something,
                                            anything really,
                              to erase the shame of your loud,
                              all-too-public display of humanity.

Get your act together.

                              Something hot in your stomach squirms, agitated,
                              and whatever remained of the joke
                                          between your legs,
                              crisps like burnt bacon, and crumbles to ash.
                              Don't look him in the eye.  Breathe.
                              When at last you speak, the words come out
                                        through clenched teeth
                                          in a bitter croak...

"It seemed like the best solution at the time, sir,
but, looking at it now, I can see the flaws. 
Count on me to do better."

                              Yeah.  Sure.  Grovel.  It's hard
                              to save face when you're an
                              anonymous, featureless
                              cog in the almighty machine.
                              Nothing good can come from this.


                              Your so-called "act" is strangling the life from you...

Your guardian angel screams,
disappointed and embarrassed
at being anchored to you.

You discover that Hell is wanting to belong.

Get your act together.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:"Humiliation & Stress Concept" by Vilax (Aleksandr Volkov), dreamstime_13818881.jpg

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Rain Dream
by Joseph Armstead


The slow sound of my
footsteps,
through rain puddles
sound like sands of Time
splashing in whispers
onto the bottom
of an hourglass.

Here but not here, Now but not now.

Dawn poured silver light
across a drowsy sky
and the legendary,
proverbial butterfly
of Chaos and Causation
flapped its wings
in Alaska
and
a wet storm front moved down
the western edge
of the Canadian coast.
California dreamin'
on such a chrome-metal day.
Traffic tie ups, three accidents
on the bridge, a bike race
postponed,
public rail experiencing
twenty minute delays,
crowds of miserable commuters
impatiently wishing
for the arrival of an early Spring,
and all the while
the surreal, insubstantial
remnants of a morning's dream
haunt me
as I feel cool water
slide over my hands
from a leak in my umbrella.

Here but not here, Now but not now,
a shiny Indianhead nickel,
Thomas Jefferson staring
into undefined distances, 
left lying in the street.

Something unbearably bright
hides its searing brilliance,
celestial reassurance,
behind a rolling tide
of thick, dark clouds,
a slave to clockwork
atmospherics,
Time held at arm's length.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:"Face" by 3quark, dreamstime_8492309.jpg
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The Straw Man in the Flames of the Sky
by Joseph Armstead

 

He is burning in a sea
of blue burning night...

............no birds haunt the sky
............no feathers of Heaven
........ litter .................
............the bright fires rising
....... from churning soul ......
of the Unquiet Earth

smoke
the color of a spring memory
pours
into the open void, well of Time,
that looks down upon
the lone figure
of a paper-doll
scarecrow
raging
against his Fate.

All is changing,
All is torn, rippling
through an ocean
of wind,
light,
and enigma.

.........gravity is a candle.......
burning in the vastness of his senses

He is a blue burning torch
lighting the dark seas
of flickering change.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:"Dancing Demons" by Jasnemo (James Nemec), dreamstime_1106593.jpg

Hope Fades, A Parade of Zombie Angels Walking Bitter Boulevards

The Tears of Nebuchadnezzar
by Joseph Armstead


Our kings are bedraped in robes of vermin.

The seeds our Forefathers sowed

sprout,

birthing a parade of steel bulls,
metal maniacs driven by psychosis,
loosed from neon cages, pent-up
and escaped from slaughterhouse
concentration camps
before a televised audience,
hypnotized and narcotized
by digitalized imagery
projected in 1080p resolution.
Should you care?

This is the music of stones falling,
pirates and braggarts, swingers and saints,
this is the aria of a homicidal serenade,
the din, the cacophony
of a colossal storm passing...

Like liquid razors, these are the tears
of Nebuchadnezzar.

Children, savage offspring, should you care?

...ants
......in the
.........dust
............screaming

Like gallows' nooses, Babylon's Hanging Gardens
cast shadows of ghosts on hard and rocky soil,
and beneath the Tree of the Prophet, poisoned roots
feed on faithlessness and bitter turmoil.

On Dura's plains was idolatry
portrayed on gigantic scale
and all men commanded to kneel
before wrath and rail,

prey to the demands of Ego,
hubris and betrayal,

some rebelled, fighting back, refusing to blend,  
treated as criminals but only acting like men,

into the flames went Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

but they did not burn in that furnace of woe,
Chosen by Truth, they were shielded from foes.
Prideful of his achievements, unprepared for the fall,
sanity shattered, broken and humbled, left to live like a beast,
lost in the wild for seven long years...

Children, wounded brethren, should you care?

...roaches
......in the
.........walls
............shrieking

Our kings are attired in vestments of refuse.

Mass market production
of Hopelessness distributed,
with amorality and apathy on-tap,
multi-megaton fascism
and
computer pseudo-intelligence
accelerating and feeding
the rot of the Great God Progress
as the crowd dances
to propaganda pop.

Should you care?

This is the music of stones falling,
crusaders, criminals, pornstars and saints,
this is the aria of a homicidal serenade,
the din, the cacophony
of an eternal storm passing...

Like liquid razors, these are the tears
of Nebuchadnezzar.

And, cutting deep, they fall, they fall, they fall...

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Fantasy Warrior Painting" by Innovari (Luca Oleastri), dreamstime_8377254.jpg

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Galileo's Clock, or Time Expressed As Fragments of Broken Gemstones
by Joseph Armstead



Dawn has broken across the horizon
and I am out bathing in its silvery light,
watching a phalanx of geese
fly south as a hot summer blends
into a cool and dim autumn,
recalling this is a season also known as "Fall",
feeling a vague sense of loss
as the weeks of lazy heat give way
to a subdued lengthening twilight
and the lights of the City sparkle
ever more dimly over the park
down the block from my condominium.

The meteor display
from the pre-dawn hours
has faded to a memory
of miracles and mysteries,
streaks of fire
tracing fingers of Infinity
against the background
of quicksilvery metal,
and the Heavens hide
their conspiracy of timelessness
from my tired gaze.

Slow glass melting on a surface of cool mercury...

As the planets slowly turn
like vast gears in some
great celestial machine,
I realize that none of it is the way
I imagined it would be
and my wounds
are still slowly bleeding,
Slowly the planets pass along their orbits
and I can feel something
divine and immortal
gradually leaking out of me.

Slow glass melting on a surface of cool mercury...

When the sun at last comes up,
whole and glaringly white,
unbearably bright,
I see my life as a tray full of jewels
under a broken display case,
gemstones intermingling
with rough shards
of shattered glass,
debris and treasure
mixed into a grab-bag
too sharp-edged to hold
lest it draw blood
from trembling
hungry hands.
 
Dawn has broken across the horizon
and I am out looking out
a shattered window on Forever.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Faceted Gemstones" by Dafnanb,  dreamstime_14676528.jpg

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Gotham (The Bouquet Of A Rohypnol Martini)
by Joseph Armstead


The fog rolls upward, a polluted magic carpet,
and it spills over the balustrade of the bridge
where hollow echoes
of lonely stacatto footsteps
are lost, consumed
by the oceanic sussuration
from passing automobile traffic.
It is the smoke of a dying fire,
daylight charred into an ashen night.

Walking cloaked in introspection,
I can smell the perfume
from a thousand lackluster tomorrows
as dead-eyed strangers,
spectral shades, phantoms,
and living revenants,
roam the length of the stone serpent
spanning the tumultuous width
of the ancient river
that bisects the City Primordial.

I see the chill
of my cold alienation
reflected
in the fluorocarbon-stained mist,
a mirror
on a corruption of seduction,
My face, like those of the passersby,
a mask of aborted sensation,
a masque at a cemetery ball,
peering through the fog as evening deepens,
a glass of stale champagne,
spiked with jaundiced fruit,
inviting me to join the celebration
and dance
with the other walking dead.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Rain in City" by Tdmartin (Tim Martin),  dreamstime_9510020.jpg

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Savage Soul (Bed of Nails)
by Joseph Armstead


Reflected in the lenses of opaque sunglasses,
fashionable insect eyes, tinted windows
on a silicon chip soul, past the swirling
petrochemical fog,
images of the Savage appear,
and atop the chrome obelisks
of the city skyline,
dances the Shadow with the spear

On the streets outside the factories,
herds of junkies roam like lost zombies,
addicted to intolerance,
addicted to fanaticism,
to pretension, dogma and to pain,
habits feeding an inferno
of moronic fear
that sears away
their diseased brains

Don't look away,
Face the beast
and taste the meat,
rut on a bed
of sharpened nails

Their river of memories stretch long, from Present to Past,
a ribbon of blood and faith, a bridge beneath their feet,
the river flows with fury, the river sizzles with the heat,
the pulse of living History,
it is the rhythm of a heartbreak

The Savage within laughs at all their lies,
battling for control, he holds the reins to Empire,
The Savage owns infects their souls

And dapper glass robots stare from gridlocked cars,
unblinking and dismayed, as fossil-fuel
engines growl and rage, tires made of stone
locked in place,
petrified motion,
a thousand eyes on the overpass
staring hateful holes
at the metropolis
they call home

Staring past shadowed insect eyes, pop fashion house labels
and smooth, tailored pelts cut from synthetic kills,
along the dragon's spine of the chrome skyline,
dances the Shadow with the lance

Don't look away,
Face the beast
and taste the meat,
rut on a bed
of fine-honed nails,
the pulse of living History,
it is the rhythm of a heartbreak.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "City" by Bowie15,  dreamstime_6314787.jpg

Click-clack, Tick-tock, the Hollow Chatter of Winter's Clock

 
Nightblind In the Season of Lights
by Joseph Armstead

The lustre of the glittering
jewelry of revelry,
necklace of lights adorning
the tender throat of a hapless
mid-winter's season
of distress and desperation,
dulls as viscous tears
falling unbidden
from her reddened eyes slide
across their liquid pearlescence.

She cannot see
past the welling waters
of her abandonment.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Portrait of Crying Girl" by Ingadudkina (Inga Dudkina), dreamstime_14028740.jpg

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Portrait in Urban Debris
by Joseph Armstead

 

A car horn bleats
and you look up,
seeing only mechanical motion,
no details.

Grinding your teeth,
you look back down:
discarded
chewing gum wrappers,
aluminum beer can
in the gutter
and
fragments
of a broken bottle on the sidewalk,

curved like scimitars,
razor-edged fractures
lying in wait
for unsuspecting,
inattentive
pedestrians

reflecting light,
cosmic photonic jewelry,
from an overcast winter's sky,

and the dried puddle
from the bottle's contents
staining the concrete
like the leaking viscous
fluid
from the rusted oilpan
on the undercarriage
of a crappy old car.

Her voice, all accusation
and raw, tearful hurt,
echoes in the darkness
inside your head,
ricochetting
like a runaway pinball:
"I can't do this anymore."

Dead inside, you wish you could bleed.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographc Stock: "Deserted Street" by A1ik (Alexander Kolomietz), dreamstime_4882550.jpg

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The Black Dog Manifesto
by Joseph Armstead

 

The moon hides behind the thick gray cotton
of winter clouds over the waters
of the stormy Pacific.

The dog sitting on the hillside
knows that, even though it is hidden,
the moon is still there.

It howls...

They want an apology for our pain.
It makes them uncomfortable.
Like acid, it burns holes
in their flimsy armor of complacency.
Our pain.
It is a thief robbing
their lie of pastoral certitude.

It is a stain of discontent. 

Seagulls wheel over the Bay,
crying in voices like abandoned
children
while, on the shoreline below,
an eighteen-wheel tractor truck
broken down in the commute lane
of the east thruway towards the bridge

assorted remembered histories
of anonymous lives
timeslide by;
lost in reverie,
intersecting
at the most inopportune places,

don't look/don't listen/don't touch

the lost connections
of wheeled nomads
in transit,
moving on past a frozen
present-tense 
tundra primeval,
a wide asphalt expanse
where The Fallen roam.

This is not that famous road less traveled.
This is the infamy of unfocused regret,
the antonym for solace. 
This is our pain
and this, our voice,
is the manifesto of an angry hound
howling in the dark.

Seagulls wheel over the Bay,
crying in the brittle voices
of abandoned children,
while the moon above
the highway
waits behind clouds
for an apology.

Again, the lonely dog
on the gloom-shrouded hillside
howls...

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Night Howl" by Tiscali (Michele Bartolomei), dreamstime_2157458.jpg

Shattered, We Leave These Fractured Hosannahs to You

 
They Smile With Stiletto Eyes
by Joseph Armstead

something twisted and brittle
grows imperiously
under the burning glare
from a distant dying sun

crippled souls swimming
orange panoramic skies, open and vast,
the high frontier
streaked with thin purple scars
and elongated, julienned cuts
of flashing metallic azure,

the bloom reaches towards
the ruins of Heaven

in the perfume of its rosy musk, the voices of ghosts...

They smile with stiletto eyes at tomorrow.

Dialogue:

Her -- "It's the sound of the telephone,
don't you see, that electronic bleating,
that sudden, startling interruption
of your thoughts, its the absence
of THAT
which is the thing that makes me saddest..."

Him -- "Black coffee fills my leaden limbs
with the acid from my numbed mind,
I'm just tired sometimes, weary,
lethargic,
and it helps me summon the energy
to face the dragons beckoning me
from the wasteland at the edges of the map..."

Narrator -- "They converse in an alien tongue,
their out-of-synch voices pitched
just beyond the range of human hearing,
but they speak volumes to one another
through the staring bleakness of their eyes.
A disjointed exchange of discontent,
it is a gift of unwanted predestination."

The audience is confounded.
Their ennui is as solid
as the bars to a prison.

Her -- "I can't stop crying,
knowing I'll never
feel that way again."

Him -- "They won't break me.
I won't let them.  I owe it
to the memory of my father."

The audience remains unmoved.

They smile with stiletto eyes at the image of a strangled eternity.

in ashes, the gnarled flora hungers,
seeking nourishment
in the crumbs left
from a banquet of the dead,
and an entrepot of melody
releasing its goods,
an unfinished symphony
from an alienated, tone-deaf
orchestra pouring in
through the colorful, ragged tears
in the fabric of unstable Reality,
washes like the ocean tide
across a celestial Sahara

starlight feeds the thirteenth rose of hell

and the velvety carmine blossom
unfurls its bloody petals to catch
tainted brilliance
cascading
onto the specters
of a concrete and steel
anthill,
staring

They smile with stiletto eyes at weeping nothingness.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock:  "Sinister Scary Evil Looking Face" by Dundanim, dreamstime_5583200.jpg

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Gunmetal Pentacost
by Joseph Armstead

 

Forget about the gun in the glove compartment.

Eyes squinting
past the chrome glare,
peer through the windshield
onto a panorama of gray skies,
a mile-wide hole
ripped
in the faded tapestry
of the city's fumble-jumble
skyline,
the view wet with the winds of regret,
and the car reaches an intersection,

the car, the rolling confessional,
Eucharist of Detroit steel,
cathedral from which you hold
your asphalt liturgy
for a congregation of one,
just one, only one, alone,
   
Watch a lone man in a dark cotton hoodie
strides the crosswalk frowning,
past a pizzeria
and
an automotive repair shop,
peer past the dinginess,
past the decay and sameness,
past the place
where tomorrow's promise
was hijacked,
where the dawning of a new day,
the writing of a new chapter
on the Book of Life,
was snatched, blindfolded,
from the unsuspecting bosom
of a tourist named Possibility.

You can still smell last night's rain
over the rankness of spilled beer
on the upholstery.

Try not to think about the gun in the glove box.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Man With a Gun" by Konradbak, dreamstime_17041677.jpg

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Exit Wounds and Apple Blossoms
by Joseph Armstead

A stork, tall, grand and delicate,
with wings
the color of hammered steel,
rises aloft
from the surface of the pond
while bicycle riders and runners
traverse the apshalt paths
winding through the park,
none of them giving more
than a passing glance,
a moment's transient
remorse,
towards the impromptu
shrine,
red roses, lillies
and carnations
amid a clutter
of old photographs
and condolence cards,
left by family and friends
to remind them of a lost
loved one
who died
from a bullet
rocketing
out the barrel
of a thug's gun.
Behind the shrine,
an apple blossom tree,
pink and white petals
with green leaves,
and fed by the dark moisture
of spilled, dried blood,
offers sparse shade
for fallen tears.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Bleeding Heart" by Clavusherzlinde545 (Herzlinde Vancura), dreamstime_2801384.jpg

Weeping Lucidity, Insomnia As a Paradigm for Pain

 

 

South of Eternity
by Joseph Armstead

The journey begins
with a single sob,
choking back
the hysteria
of surrender
under Reality's
relentless assault.

The castle in the clouds
drops like a stone
and shatters on the
stony face of the arid plain.
Hope plummets, gravity's slave,
tears float on polluted air.

The dreamer wakes, alarmed...

There are times when
the Great Machine
that moves the Cosmos
coughs and shudders,
gears grinding to a
momentary halt,
as something unexpected
gets caught in the
intermeshing teeth of
Causality ---

(clickety-clack, snicker-snack,
the machine heart in the
belly of the beast skips a beat) ---

 
And all the levers and tie-rods
and rusted engine parts
start screaming in protest
because the engine must not stop,
not ever, the flow must continue,
the roads must roll,
Time keeps a'movin' downstream
as the waters of Life rush
off the edges of an
infinite waterfall,
pouring into the
chrome-plated bowl
of Forever.

The Sheep hide their eyes,
afraid to look up
into the Great Wheel
of the Universe
now that it has stopped
spinning.
They have fallen to
Extreme South,
right off the maps.
They can now see
the places where
the buses don't run. 
The Sheep hide their eyes.

Wonders,
it's all about wonders
and wondrousness,
and dreams.
The Sheep don't,
dream that is,
but they know that
the Great Machine
will snap apart and
grind down
the Moments of Truth
caught in the teeth
of its gears and the
Engines of Creation
will again return to
running smoothly,
here in this place,
this haunted forgotten
nowhere off the map,
downstream,
south of eternity,
where the Sheep fear to look.

Journey's end
is a hysterical laugh,
caught in the throat,
all needles and pins,
hiding behind
the sound of weeping.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_3316842.jpg, "Starry Eternity" by Konstantin Yuganov

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A Hole in the Heart of Desire
by Joseph Armstead

 

The wind echoes
down corridors
of fleshy
memory,
a ripple
in the quicksilver
lake of yesterday,
and I can hear
your name floating
on the invisible
current, across dry
waters that cannot
nourish.

The drop of a stone
through the hole
in the heart
of the zero,
nothingness
squared.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_9489958.jpg, "Hole in the Body With the Heart" by Petr Vaclavek 

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Jennifer Nocturne
by Joseph Armstead

She is polar ice
and rythmic coolness
wrapped in an
eye-candy package
that teases and enchants
and the magic
of her perpetual motion
hypnotizes

I knew her once,
felt the flame
of her passions,
helped her
keep her secrets,
but that
was a slow
eternity
ago
back in the age
where I walked
the edge of the razor
with a dancer's skill
and a rogue's
recklessness

She is a prism
of fractured
sensation,
memory and motion
married to endless
possibility
and I will regret
not keeping her name
locked deep inside
my heart

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_14537129.jpg, "Woman Over Dark"by Chesterf
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Breathing Glass
By Joseph Armstead

He's watching the sea, a vast liquid carpet undulating fitfully under a dark sky, but he can't hear the breaking of the waves over the fervent pounding in his ears.  Rain pelts the ocean.  Forty days and forty nights, or so the cliche says, the promise of cleansing and rebirth.  Lies, all of it lies, a sodden, quicksand foundation for a questionable, contentious future.

...Rumors and deceptions fuse into a clogging, translucent barrier stealing his next breath before he can inhale it...

He is a cowboy riding the backs of serpents in someone else's dream and there is a strange freedom in that.

There's a tribal drumming in his chest that has usurped the beating of his heart, all stacatto syncopation in a relentless march-time rhythm, and that beat injects lava throughout the roadmap of veins crisscrossing his tense musculature.  He wonders if anyone even notices the clear, all-enveloping armor, hardshell quicksilver, tailored tightly to his tensely vibrating body, a suit of glass.   It is a false embrace offering little comfort and a frightening vulnerability.

...Childish dreams and promises of never leaving lace into an intricate web that hides him from sight...

Heat hisses from his grimacing lips, the steam from a crystal dragon's breath as the furnace within him, so nakedly visible, so exposed, burns with self-perpetuating heat, both ends burning, the hard sheath of mirrored steel trapping his breath in frozen scimitar curves.  He voluntarily becomes a naked mannequin on display for debonair voyeurs.  The sleeping part of his mind rebels.  Tension.  A tightly coiled spring of sleeping fury brought about by the invasiveness of a memory too long suppressed.  He has no one to blame but himself and the frustration of that intoxicates him.  He paid the price they asked of him.  He never asked enough questions before buying the package.  All sales were final. 

He's watching the sea in the falling rain and the drumbeat in his chest sounds like the cadence of an army marching.  

There is a strange freedom in that.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_3019014.jpg,"Depression" by Infs187

Distant Summer Lightning Crackles On the Horizon

Between Darkness and Pittsburgh
by Joseph Armstead

The voice on the radio
debates the worst
of the day's news
with a ranting idiot
while I drive through
an icy evening's rainstorm
and I can still taste
this morning's coffee
on my dry
inarticulate tongue.

The interstate stretches
onward ahead of me
in lengthening shadow,
like a rubber band
pulled too far, too tight,
all wound up and,
like a serpent,
ready to strike.

Her face is in
the back of my mind,
haunting me from
an unfinished dream,
and the sound of the
windshield wiper blades
across the cracked glass
in front of me
is like a metronome,
counting beats to music
from a forgotten melody.

The interstate looks like a
snapshot, like a faded
black and white photo
with creased wrinkled edges
from some poor slob's
photo album
of bargain basement
memories.

The rain pelts
the car's roof
like the tiny fists
of angry angels
locked out of
a trailer-park heaven.

The voice on the radio
lashes out at lonely people
and I reach over
and change the station
to a mournful pop song
about leaving your lover.

When I switch the radio off,
I notice the interstate is
empty except for me
in my old beat up car,
dim headlights trying vainly
to carve a path through
the gathering darkness.

I don't know what to do,
so I turn the radio back on
and some group of angry
pop star millionaires
are singing about
"running an endless mile".

I wish them luck
and drive on
'till the morning comes.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Nightrider" by Joopsnijder (Joop Snijder), dreamstime_1961736.jpg

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A Rhinocerous Scarab on A Grandfather Clock
By Joseph Armstead

 

The afternoon
drags onwards,
slouching towards
a quicksand eternity,
and I scale
a mountain
made of ennui,
daydreaming
at my desk,
looking
out my window.

Something hard and wild in me scuttles...
I'm losing my footing.

There is an
incessant hum
inside my head
that reflects the lightning
passing through my eyes
and out into the depths
of the winter sunset
on the
pollution-stained
horizon.

Something hard and wild in me scurries...
I'm losing my footing.

A flock of pelicans,
jurassic phalanx
flying along lines
of magnetic resonance,
pass along the glassy
surface of the estuary
as waves from passing
tug boats die stillborn.
Their heading
is towards the last
of the wild places.
I envy them.

Something hard and wild in me scrambles...
I'm losing my footing.

Hardshelled,
I can no longer
cling
to the face of the clock
and I slip away from Time,
falling,
to land upside down,
upended tortoise,
legs waving in space,
and angrily I right myself.

Something hard and wild in me screeches...
I walk in armored triumph.

The afternoon fades,
dying
as it bleeds
gradually
into a gloom that paints
the the waters
of the estuary charcoal,
the color of
melancholy.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Beetle Rhinocerous" by Kefiiir (Oleg Blazhyievskyi), dreamstime_12870285.jpg

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Rainbow from a Broken Violin (Obsession)
by Joseph Armstead

It feels like a thorn
in heaven's heavy crown,
but it sounds like
the ghost
of a heartbeat.

Come when I call you,
rush blindly to my side,
flock to this cold statue,
alabaster and concrete,
brick and glass,
dispassionate warmth,
A contradiction to Revelation.
No hope for escape
from the shadow
under the rainbow bridge.

A portent of passing History,
at last your time has come.

... a song of frost and fire,
a fear of freezing,
Is it imaginary,
or is it chemical infusion,
stiffened nipples under silk,
arousal and allure,
It's all the music of mystery ...

But you can feel it just the same.

So naked and vulnerable,
Hard Truth cannot hope disguise
the fading of the colors
in the rainbow's arch,
dissolving
under the rain
of the music from your sorrow.

Lurking in memory's regret,
at last your time has come.

It feels like a thorn
and you hunger
to feel it
under your skin.

... it never feels like enough ...

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Violin" by Ahmetor (Ahmet Orhan), dreamstime_14932882.jpg

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