Pride of Their Makers

Pride Of Their Makers

The monsters are coming

their heads in their hands

mouthworks drooling

 piano-wire screams,

with a vitriol kiss

to french through clenched lips

acrid and hot, frozen but soft

masks falling off.

The monsters are coming;

clown cars in the dark

unload at the QuickStop;

pass round the fear,

drink that flag beer.

The monsters are here.

The monsters are listening

with their crucifix remotes

mob on the knob, gloat upon gloat

brains slowly tugged out 

coaxed through the nose,

 thoughts ground to dust

in a hate cooked like meth 

love's disappeared death,

hell's stinking breath

shrill screams at the bus---

the monsters are coming

the monsters are us.

~July 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: I Must Refrain

The often heterodox Herotomost, Corey Rowley (Mexican Radio) challenges us to use that time-honored poetic device, the refrain. I did my best, in this little cynical spit-poof of bitterness on our glorious times.

Optional Musical Accompaniments

"I know you're out there..."

Images courtesy google image search 

Bottom photo : Anti-immigration Protests,7/7/14,  Murrieta, Ca~Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images

Tiger Eyes

Tiger Eyes

Do you like a candle,

lovestruck 
you said,

or in the dark? Whichever

you prefer,  

so willing an exchange,

my customs for yours,

letting me see

your ageless face change

forward-framed 

in a spiderweb nimbus

our slick fingers chained,

your tiger-eyes close, 

flecked tawny hot

in the horrible not,

there to defy

the burst night of youth,

seeming to know

all I never found out, 

lit with the want

of what couldn't be had.

~July 2014

posted for      real toads

Challenge: Get Listed

Grapeling (it could be that) provides us with some photographic images of,and emergence from, the larval form, and a sharp, succinct word list, both of which I have made use of here. For full details see toads link above.

Image: Love The Conqueror, by Jean-Leon Gerome

Public domain via wikiart.org

Don't Look Back

Don't Look Back

Out of the carnage

from the wriggling wreck

what is left

a snatch of song

a smile of peace

gone before the singing  stops.

Impossible to see

what comes next, looking back

as you kill

what pain you can

yet feel it still

in each step on.

Sanity's made from buzz and busy,

a cubical sanctuary;

you can't look back

if you want to sleep

you can't look back

but you, eyes wide, you do

to see just why

there's no forgiveness

no respite, no sacramental

wafer, wishing wine,

heart cupped dry

in the long walk on;

only the thirst,

the broken things,

only the knowledge

dropped from the tree

and the snake who nods

and sings.

~July 2014

Image: Haywain Triptych, circa 1500, by Heironomous Bosch

Public Domain via wikiart.org:

"Although similar to the Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, the Haywain Triptych is a less fantastical and nightmarish depiction of the same tale. From the left to the right, the panels depict God creating Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, earthly humans engaging in all types of sins, and a portrayal of the journey into hell. This journey through good and evil is a much less terrifying tale, as it details the many sins of humans, yet does not detail the frightfully lurid and shocking horrors under the watchful eye of the prince of hell. The outer panels of the triptych, when closed, detail a character called the wayfarer, who makes his way through the panels and through the journey from good to evil, allowing the viewer to place himself inside the world of the triptych, and take the journey along with him."  Ibid.

Cloudy, With Serpents

Cloudy. With Serpents

You moved thin hands across me,

clouds writing over the sky,

thread-fingers ice-cold, shy,

drifting from March to June.

When night's shoulder

darkened earth-rim blue,

you left your markless mark, wrote  

 your vapor signature, a nacreous tattoo

of dragon coils, drake's cirriform breath

masking a naked rune:

your  sailor's heart, caught

in a different  moon. 

~June 2014 

55 snake-shaped  clouds of polar ice crystals for the ghosts

and

real toads

Images: Nacreous Clouds over the NASA Radome, McMurdo Station, Antarctica, by Alan Light

Shared under a Creative Commons license

Snakes, 1969, by M.C. Escher, via wikiart.org

May be protected by copyright, shared under fair use guidelines