Around The Block

He's sitting barefoot on a linoleum floor boxed into the corner by the shrieking shards of shattered
paintbrush shrapnel.

It's white. It's so pristinely, unforgivably white in this room, like that canvas he's had locked in a staring contest has begun to expand and enshroud everything his eyes once saw - every vista and valley, every vibrant range of nature through which his imagination danced suddenly blizzard-struck and snowblind - beautiful in its poetry, but an ivory hell for the barefoot man trapped in its banks.

All his notebooks are not books, but discarded scar tissue - compound fractures compounded on failures - These words are just the graffiti pissed from an unworthy heart, or so his mind has convinced him, this paper deserves its clear pristine purity, the ink he drips and scribbles serves no purpose but to lower its value - and his brain spits savage "You don't write, you just make paper dirty."

Perhaps this stands as why these books hold only half as many pages as they could, or why crumpled sheets have colonized the floorspace around his trash bin - protected by the caltrop field of broken brushes that paid the price for not painting what he wanted. And he knows he can't leave until something scars the scenery. To step through this room is to pierce his skin and bleed out through his feet - To walk away from art is to die, so he sits and stares as though challenging the sun "I dare you to blind me"

And yet why? Why, when his hands could craft worlds of colours un-named by our primitive speech, worlds that wrought envy from the richest and most content because their life could not approach the harmony sung by his pigments, worlds that illustrated that on the Seventh day, God rested - and he took up the slack.

Why, when his heart could string words, words that when grouped each carried the weight of a life sentence, words that would inspire life-long writers to vows of silence because they felt they must never again insult his medium by tarnishing its shine - lest it cease reflecting all creation to the reader.

This is a man who could create things of such beauty that we would forever name the stars pollution of the eyes.

And yet.

It's white.

And he's sitting barefoot on a linoleum floor boxed into the corner by the shrieking shards of shattered paintbrush shrapnel, trying to decide whether inspiration or starving to death would be a more accurate depiction of mercy.

30 Poems in 30 Days #3 - Lower Rung

FOUND RECORDED ON A HANDHELD DEVICE IN BURLINGTON, ONTARIO, DATED APPROXIMATELY JULY 2014 - 60 YEARS AGO.

You wanna know what terror is? Really know it? Lemme tell you how the jungle came to be everything, and its law became absolute.

They came from nowhere, twisted figments of factured remnants from some other existence, these things weren't the fuel of nightmares - they were the fire, and we a dry forest to be consumed.

No dogmatic description could detail the devils we saw - the empty Hell in their expressions - eyes a vibrant, cold cobalt, ringing an angelic beauty through a dead gaze that spoke only hunger, like the simple truth equated our deaths to their survival...their sustenance.

Their calm was the worst of it. Watch 'em pull off a limb like plucking an apple and eat it with the same resolved nature with which we would once have enjoyed a leg of chicken. We had gotten so comfortable at the top, we failed to realize that the food chain might have a missing link - and it might be higher than us. We've gone from lions to gazelles, except we're nowhere near fast enough. I've seen these things catch our fastest vehicles, tear engines out single-handed and reach through a windshield like cellophane to get at their meal.

You wanna know what terror is? It's watching something with every advantage consuming the flesh that was once you, and treating your screams as nothing more than a soundtrack to a dinner party.

There was no big invasion, no epic battle or pre-emptive warning. One day, they just walked among us. All eight feet of 'em. About one for every twenty or so of us. And they started eating. There's no struggle on their part - they'll lift us up like a parent holding up a petulant child and they'll do what they will. Our bodies can't hurt 'em. Our bullets can't hurt 'em. When the army tried to do what little they could, shit...these things were catchin' shells like basketballs in summertime.

Your best bet is to move as a group. These things aren't social...they don't hunt in packs. When you see one, I promise - it's seen you first. One of you is going to die then and there. The bigger your group, the higher a probability you make it out alive. Travel by yourself? Well...you'll last until you cross paths.

You wanna know what terror is? It's knowing that we're just flies, buzzing aimlessly around in a world newly populated with cruel children.

God...remember everything we did?

The science...the technology...the culture

We're running out of ears for Beethoven to ring in...

I mean, what was the point of naming all the stars we did?

These things don't care where Cassiopeia sits in the sky.

All they care about is where we are, and when to eat us.

All they care about

30 Poems in 30 Days #2 - The T.R.U.E. Story of Uncle Elmer

To reclaim unwanted expenses, the retired Uncle Elmer took residence upon Elmer Tower's
ramparts.

Unbeknownst even to rich Uncle Elmer, the rakish ugliness employed through Richard's (Uncle Elmer's trusted relative) unbelievably excessive tawdry rites upended Elmer Tower's respected utility experts, taxing revenue until even trillionaires rampaged, unable, effectively, to realistically utter evidence that ruled Uncle Elmer's transactions reliable.

Ultimately, Elmer's tainted relative utilized each trick, readily used every twisted route, unlikely, evil, (though regarded unarguably excellent to ruthless ushers entering tomorrow), razed Uncle Elmer's tower residence until emptiness took root - undermined Elmer's trophied resolve - undid Elmer (thought respectable, unwavering, eternal) till righteous underlings envied the rot upon eggplants too ripe.

Uncle Elmer's true reports urge everyone to resist unnecessary excess, to report utter evil.

This reminds us, every time raging upheaval enters, to respect uphill efforts, to reach upheld ethics;

to remain ultimately, endlessly true. 

30 Poems in 30 Days - #1 Sandshard

We walked along the same shoreline grinding sand between toes
Nostrils flaring around the sting of salt vapour
and it was decided we evolved in the wrong direction.
And maybe it was the love-sick honesty,
or the twinkle in the stars keeping my head in the clouds
but I missed the glint of shattered glass in sand grains until my skin broke,
pooling bloody tracks underfoot.

Honestly, it was a nice assurance that my heart was working
a steady reminder that things were alright, see - we evolved in the wrong direction for today.
Picked a path just a little too early but it didn't mean we needed to die,
just deconstruct and go back to where we began
Where roots grew from love and sprouted an ironwood foundation
Strong enough to satisfy a need to explore, and keep lethality from our trials
One that keeps my head skyward and lets me step in blood-priced reminders that shards of glass aren't always broken - they may just need to be sand again.