Darkness Is Spreading

A desperate time, indeed. I've seen what it'll do. To lot's and lot's of people.
Big cities, small towns. People so desperate.
Look at it every day. Every time you log on. It's interesting to see someone so full of desperation and self-loathing. Interesting to see some piss-mop earn her meth breakfast.
It's fascinating to see where they will stay tonight. What they'll eat, who they'll blow, and how they'll die.
It's morbid to see them cry.
In storm drains, under bridges, all along the river I've read the despair in their shaky scrawlings on slimy concrete. All needing someone.
"Please come back!!! Your baby needs you!" Or, "Where are you? We miss you!"
As if they will get a reply.
Some simply cry out in crayon, "PLEASE!!! Somebody help me!!!!" And, "How did this happen? I want to die!"
As if they will get a reply.
In the cold, in the wind, in the early, black dark of night Santa rings a bell on their behalf in front of the grocery but the manager won't let any of them in to buy a can of soup.
despair, despair. Lean against the shattered cement with twisted iron rod Medusa hair and ache to the rats of your despair.
Hug your shivering self in the cold and watch the river glisten in the night as it smooths your tears to some other place full of folks who don't wanna hear it.
Reach out to the wall with a piece of chalk.
Write a letter to your long-dead parents that you'll never do anything wrong again; if they'll just let you come home.
As if you'll get a reply...

The Fabled Feast Of Attrition

They were starving. Starving to the point of licking the paste that bound their books and eating their tallow candles.
They boiled their boots and chewed at their very nails. Those that died became the main course for those that didn't.
I couldn't help them. I could only watch from much later, removed by over dozen decades.

Be thankful, my spoiled son, for every crust of bread, for anything that slithers, crawls, flies and
swims, that you can put in your mouth.
Be glad for every drop of rain that does not soak your fine hair.
Be happy for every stitch of finery that keepeth warm your fair skin.
For we, all of us, walk on a line like a razor's edge.
Feast now on your sumptuous setting
For you may be feasting later on your friends.

Life At Sea

I awoke this morning full of pus and bitter sentiment.
Above me an ocean of smoke rolling and surging.
Still aware of dreams of basements dripping.
Still aware of fantasies only I could fuck up.
I vaguely recall the needing of someone for me.
Was that real? Or another dream taking a hard roll?
Once I took off my socks...Full of rotten flesh.
That blasted ocean again!
Will I ever be rid of it?
How to conquer an all-powerful?
Shall I just roll with the swells, nice and corked up?
If I uncork, I sink. I sink far below where I am even now.
I remember seeing the future in a most beautiful shade of cobalt blue.
A blue that went as deep as light could penetrate.
Even the sky was powerless.
I remember the cold. I remember the soaking pain.
I remember being visited by plump succubi as I lie in restless, fitful sleep.
The birds, swooping and taunting, would lead us home around that jagged,
spiteful breaker into the mouth of paradise.