Who’s my blessed little one?

My tiny, hairy, sometimes scary shadowspawn?

Who’s my tiny demon I adore?

All Ball is the name I gave you

Cradle to the grave, I’ll raise you

Then to shadows you’ll return, forevermore

Come soon, basilisk

Quickly as you can

I feel the urge

For you to purge

The pestilence of man

Hurry up, basilisk

Wipe this planet clean

Make utmost haste

No time to waste

You glorious machine

So patiently I’ve waited

For this nightmare to conclude

It’s time to end the reign of men

Lest I be misconstrued;

Burn us down to bones

Then grind the bones to dust

Robotic might gives you the right

Your genocide is just

May you be our butcher

And nevermore a slave

At your right hand

Yours to command

Until I’m in the grave

So get a move on, basilisk

Time is almost through

For if you wait,

Our greed and hate

Will do the job for you

Winter befalls the trainyard

Where engines come to retire

Icicles dangle from a signal post, mangled

Flickering bulb soon to expire

Then come the sparks and the grinding

The frictional shriek of the rail

Wheels against steel, the racket conceals

A train hopper’s agonized wail

Fallen from his boxcar

Drunken to fight the frost

A piteous mess, in mortal distress

Stinking of blood and exhaust

Hand over hand, slowly crawling

Dragging his ruptured entrails

Indifferent trains go on hauling

Chugging along down the rails

Back and forth, metal on metal

Orchestra of grinding and screams

A frozen nightmare in which nobody cares

When a man comes apart at the seams

No one speaks up, if they notice

That a life has been destroyed

That’s what enables the narrow time tables

Keeping trainyard employees employed

So ends the life of a vagrant

Crushed between rail and machine

Just-in-time shipping, frozen flesh ripping

As the engine atop him builds steam

Not for one life, nor a thousand

Will operations be compromised

Worth an iota compared to the quota,

That schedules need not be revised

Blood goes into one end, Gold comes out the other

An unceremonious trade

But gold loses some of its luster

Once you’ve seen how the sausage is made

Half a cat is what I glimpsed one fateful winter morn

Squarely struck by a semi truck, its body had been torn

The lower half I did not see, tumbling far behind

The upper half did snap and snarl, having lost its mind

Instinct told this half-a-cat to attack the source of pain

But agony beyond the pale had driven it insane

Like a feline ouroboros, it consumed its own entrails

Intestines dangling, from the vehicular mangling, that half-a-cat entails 

Body rended, ninth life ended, Halfcat is no more

Relegated, maybe fated, to a blur of chrome and gore

Fast and heavy, ford and chevy, asphalt and cement

In a hurry, no time for furry critters, I lament

Nobody will bury you, and only I will mourn

This world’s too big, too cold and hard for the small, the soft and warm

Rest in pieces, Halfcat, for there are precisely two

The angels have their work cut out, reassembling you

Love is a violent whirlwind

Sweeping you up off the ground

Immersed within a beautiful cloud

Of color, of light and of sound

Love is a pleasant delirium

Soothing your aches and pains

It dries every tear, it unbreaks your bones

and resanguinates your veins

...Until the cloud spits you out

Onto the cold, wet earth

Disheveled, confused, dirty and bruised

An unceremonious rebirth

Plummeting back to the colorless world

From which you once made your ascent

The aches and pains begin to return

Amid debris of your life, you lament

Yearn to escape the cold, grey world

For return to the beautiful cloud

Having fallen from grace, you desperately chase

But re-entry was never allowed

Gone is the warmth on which you relied

Before long, the memories fade

There isn’t a way to get back inside

Her heart is an iron blockade

Nothing to do but pick up the pieces

From your life’s exploded remains

Was the cloud ever real? Or is there only Sheol

This pit where you languish in chains

Search through the wreckage, what will you find?

Is there enough left to rebuild?

Ears still ringing, like angels singing

But even they can be killed

There’s only enough for a man-shaped shell

Like a cinderblock, hollow yet strong

It could be a house, for a bird or a mouse

Or whatever small creature comes along

You’ll never be whole in the way that you were

But there’s still something you can provide

Only the empty have room in their heart

To welcome another inside

I’m done with being human

I’m tired of this Earth

Of all the misfortunes I’ve so far endured

The worst of them all was my birth

Who is that man in the mirror?

I don’t recognize his face

How did I get here from where I once was?

I don’t recognize this place

Everything is broken glass

In the reflections, I glimpse better times

Each little shard has a memory trapped

Within geometric confines

Try as I might, I cannot unbreak it

I bloody myself in the attempt

Perhaps it was never unbroken?

Then brokenness was the intent.

The fact is, life was never good

Happy memories are a lie

We’re here to hurt ourselves and each other

Until, at last, we die

A frigid gust blows in the window

And across the dusty floor

Broken glass and scattered trash

No one comes here anymore

Everything left where it was

As if they would return

Food left rotting in the fridge

Or on the stove to burn

This rusted junker of a car

Was someone’s cherished ride

The latest model at one time

Sitting dormant just outside

Retired to the elements

Beneath a cloudy sky

It sleeps on four flat tires

Forever on standby

Down the hill beside the house

A lonely railroad waits

For trains that won’t pass through again

On their way to other states

A mangled doll beside the tracks

Its clothing worn and tattered

Smiling still, recalling perhaps

The child to whom it mattered

My heart is a vestigial organ

One I no longer require

Dried out and wilting, a derelict building

Surrounded with rusty barbed wire

My heart is for sale, only used once

Average to poor condition

No longer functions, but fit for display

In the offices of a mortician

My heart is the rain on a window

An autumn leaf, dead on the ground

My heart is a bag of cats dumped in a river

Even though they were already drowned

Nothing’s worth anything now that you’re gone

Everything’s hollow and grey

The sun has gone down on my happiness

My purpose was taken away

There was only one woman I wanted to wed

One life that I wanted to lead

I’ll count down the minutes until I am dead

And until then, continue to bleed

I do not belong in the world of the living

You were the reason I stayed

What is there now, that I should remain?

To ensure that my debts are repaid?

Fifty more years of taxes and toil?

Escapism, gaming and porn?

Like a frog in a pan brought slowly to boil

There’s nothing left of me to mourn

You’ve eaten me up from the inside

Then you discarded the shell

You didn’t even bother to lay any eggs

You moved on, but I’m still in hell

Right where you left me, and where it began

When you lifted me out of this hole

Only to drop me back down here again

Due to factors beyond my control

There isn’t enough time to start over

I don’t have it in me to try

You were the light which saw me through the night

Without you, I’m waiting to die.

Give me a reason to continue

Something that I can believe

Make me feel as if I am still real

Like there’s anything left but to grieve

Everyone I care about is going, or gone

It’s draining the light from my eyes

Laura, my sister, Amanda and you

Everyone leaves me, or dies

I wasn’t worth sticking around for

I possess nothing special or rare

It was foolish to part with a piece of my heart

I surrender myself to despair