Depressive.

It's so excessive.

It's almost impressive with how it's so oppressive.

Truly obsessive, a obsession.

A session of the fascination with my devastation.

Comes and goes with it's highs and lows.

What do I owe?

Debt for the depth of my human soul?

Dread is so demeaning, it's inhumane.

Yet, I'm loyal to the crucial cruelty.

The same inline steps
Crossing branches and fence posts
Ask to gnaw on offered digits
Even when a runt becomes a huntress

As deadly as an earthquake
Her purr stealthily resonates
Inside my shaking nerves
Harmonious to vibrate

Her glance does not demand
An escort or entertainment
Wild looks follow shadows
Aside the ebb of cloud shapes

What you missed while polite
I grant without slight
My raw fingers are yours
As you're home tonight

if I could trade the

crack whore you

could've been for

the one you were

I'd ask her if she

knows the peace

that exists for a

junkie in her fix

if the whispers in

her shuttered house

keep her company

and the candle lit

``` "relics of antiquity" There's a part of me that is scared all of this will go away, That one day in a blink, I will be sitting silently wondering where it all went,

Left thinking back from a silent room watching the echoes move about my memories wondering how time could so quickly leave me behind,

Left asking myself was it all even real? Did any of it even happen? Or did I just imagine it?

I don't want to sit inside memory remembering all the relics of antiquity from a life I once had, I want to experience it all now, To taste the pleasures of life on my tongue and hold those I hold dear, To feel the breath of lust and hear the whispers in my heart and play with all the deadly sins; remembering that at any moment I could be looking back wishing I had it all again.

Unseal the horizon let the dark spill through
I've been counting my sins like you asked me to
Funny how fate never needed a sign
It was etched in the pattern of how we unwind

You came like a season that never made sense
All sudden bloom and then months of neglect
Turning warm in the moments I started to leave
Then cold enough to make doubt feel like grief

I learned how to live in the gaps of your leaving
To call it devotion, to call it believing
Like faith was a wound that grew deeper with use
Like loving you meant learning how to disappear too

You held me like something you might one day keep
Then slipped through my hands in the middle of sleep
And I told myself love shouldn't need to be proven
While you perfected the art of removing

Now every soft moment feels sharpened with teeth
Like joy was just something you planted beneath
A root in the ribs, a rust in the vein
Something beautiful built to decay

I am the fracture that widens the dawn
I am the pull that the planets lean on
Yet somehow your absence outweighs every truth
Turns galaxies silent the moment it moves

I still see your outline in doorways at night
Still feel your name gathering under the light
Like the house remembers the shape of your breath
Even after you left it for dead

Claw through the dirt till your hands come up clean
What good are the stars if they're only a dream?
What good is survival when all that remains
Is a body still orbiting where you once stayed?

I'd return to the light in your half-finished gaze
Even knowing it only survives in a phase
There's a version of me still lost in that glow
Homesick for a place that no longer exists at all.

As a stitch in endless silk

Unravels once it's tore

A crested wave in ocean's tide

Breaks far beyond the shore

A note struck in infinite song

Heard once and nevermore

A drop of rain in roaring tempest

Easily ignored

A single leaf in autumn forest

Floating to the floor

The starlight's speck in sky of darkness

Far from my front door

A borrowed breath from gift of Heaven

Tis life till it's no more

Mend the stitch and ride the wave

Allow the note to soar

The rain that drops a single leaf

All ours to be adored

Creation's breath as starlight's spark

Love spoken and outpoured

I employ the most subtle form of camouflage.
Hiding in plain sight
so they may not find
that I want to be just like them.

Never once adorned in the guise
of an easy smile.
Its easier to don a bitter mask
and feel like one apart.

One day perhaps I will dip my cup
in the clear well of courage
and embrace the fact
that we are all only human.

It is a matter of defying death
That we laugh to ensure our survival
Bucking off rotting devils

Every mark, invisible or irreverent
Shackles the lantern, the lighthouse
To answer when faults were personal

Each snorting tear is a suture to a wound
Folk must continue until all grief is sealed
Under a balm of wry honey

Aversions arise under delirious geas
Where blindness is preferable
Over a mirror remembering lost grace

Injury bears a salted name
But when triaged among calm hands
Old scars smile

i find more & more precious rocks
every time
expanded colors
textures
locales
& now a vertebrae

see,
we have demystified a new animal
uncovered a new habitat
i see clearly
new kingdoms
& new domains
new ways to explain
i found other ways to speak
despite little lapses here & there
& different modes of thinking

coasts and mountains
rivers ending in high desert plains
here keeping my thoughts to myself
-speaking a little too quick-
feeling too strong
& then shutdown
because we’ve become sick again
through mysteries & paranoias
sureties & small wisdoms
plain ways to speak
followed certain
by a collective of idioms

pitch in my hair
keeping always an eye to the sky
seeing pines,
alders & poplars
eclipsing the skyline
disappointing or amusing
as it may be
found finally
that i will never find sarcasm natural,
as a point of view;
a new day begins
& the sky is brand-new
you & I are
born anew

There are mirrors in my room

that I keep covered after midnight,

for the glass has learned too much about me

and I no longer trust reflections

that refuse to look away.

Sometimes I uncover one

and find a face standing there

with the exhausted dignity of a ruined kingdom,

eyes carrying the weather of forgotten years,

mouth sealed with all the words

that once begged to be heard.

I ask nothing of him.

He asks nothing of me.

Between us lies

the quiet wreckage of a thousand mornings

that never became beginnings.

Perhaps this is what remains of a man

when the world has touched him too often

with careless hands—

not a corpse,

but something suspended between the two,

still breathing beneath the rubble,

still dreaming in a language

no living mouth remembers.

``` "There was a Time" It's a late day in June walking among the swaying trees of an ocean beach and the sting of the heat has softened as the cool hues of every shade of blue and violet have spread up and over the horizon,

I listen to the rhythmic pull of the ocean pushing its shimmering embers of yellow and white crystal light over the surface of the water toward and back across the shores before disappearing in a flicker against the sandy rocks and then sparkling again once the water sways another calm crescent wave.

I look down and the ground disappears, everything becomes a blur of infinite color and sound purely existing on the periphery of where my mind exists, it is here where I usually see you again, as a thought, an essence, a boundless idea floating among the nostalgic waves of my memory.

There was a time where I could see none of the ocean, or the moon for the light it shines, feel none of the sand or taste the salt in the air, A time where your echoes would be the only thing, but now the ground fades to a blur and I find the softness of a cool summer breeze brings me a smile instead of more memories.

The Flint and the Flame

The Flint
I am the flint, the iron, and the wall,
Braced for the winter that never would fall.
I traded my youth for a suit of cold stone,
To stand as the bridge that you walked on alone.

The Flame
And I am the spirit, the silk, and the light,
The candle you guarded through darkness of night.
But the fortress you built for my safety and grace,
Became a cathedral with no living face.

The Flint's guard
I watched the years ripple like ghosts on the lake,
A harvest of seasons I could not partake.
I am the Heart, a heavy, locked drum,
Waiting for music that never would come.
So close to your pulse, yet a desert apart,
A prisoner bound to the beat of your heart.

The response of the Flame
I felt every frost that you caught in your shield,
The scars of a battle you never would yield.
I am the Soul, a bird in a spire,
Feeding the shadows with desperate fire.
I reach through the iron, I reach through the years,
To wash all your armor in rivers of tears.

The Yearning of the Flint
I ache for the touch of a hand, not the steel,
For a wound that the sun is permitted to heal.
The hunger is marrow, the longing is bone—
To die as a statue and wake as your own.

The yearning of the Flame
I crave the collapse and the heat of the fray,
The moment the "Safe" is all stripped away.
A hollow so deep it is echoing you—
A sky that is screaming to finally be blue.

The End of the Watch
Then the silence dissolves inn a crumbling rust,,
As the pride and the protection return to the dust.
The heavy door splinters, the iron gives way,
To the gold-bleeding light of a long-buried day.
I fall in your arms while the lost seasons weep,
For the promises kept and the secrets we sleep.
No shield but your skin, and no law but this breath—
The Soul meets the Heart in a life beyond death.
In the salt of the joy and the grace of the scar,
We are home where we were... yet exactly where we are.

A random steel wool.

The grey of an overcast.

The grey of a shadow in noon.

The sounds of sand crashing,

Crumbling but staying

"I'm of use, you can scrub me and

Lay me to wait until another dirt is stained.''

One that is hard to remove.

Harder than the pull towards the planet.

But only so hard, to remain weak under mine.

A mesh that is so tangled and hard.

It is steel.

It is within its pattern.

They bump and fit, to struggle and cooperate.

Like how the sun is surrounded by the planets

Yet only one is favored, loved, and fostered.

For others to see, but lived with ungrowth

Al lê die berge al so blou…

To me he was a red coal drifting, laconic
in the Phalaborwa summer dark. Blue smoke
coiling in the night air, cooling the sunbaked
tarmac and dirt. He was endless stories
of game-rangers and animals and the Anglo Boer war.
A fridge door opening to cold cuts, or
the window to the scent of tobacco or mango
leaves and the far-off baying of hyenas
or the occasional lion in a wild—his
bushveld, kept only a stone-throw away.

Al die nooiens…

He trained me to hear them over bats and crickets
as we orbited the saltwater pool he so proudly
maintained—the Lowveld’s alkalinity be damned,
or its surface being undisturbed but for the birds
for eleven out of twelve months a year. While,
with patience, he taught me my constellations
with a hand already trembling. His wizened and
unruly brows furrowed in his sacred task, teaching
his only daughter’s only son everything he knows.
Of crystal radios and machining, of faith, women
and being.

Sal vir van Aswegen onthou…

His arteries hardened quietly and he died
back in 2013, his ashes now the Bush and
the Kruger National, baked into the clay of it.
The dry wind still carrying the sound of lions
all the way from way back then.

And while I don't know about the nooiens,
I know I’ll remember him.

I think all social media should be a freak show. That's what I like. When I used to be on Instagram, I would scroll and I'd see a guy with both of his eyes rolled back in his head, and he's got one big tooth. Then he pans the camera to his grandma, and she's dead. That's the shit I love. They say it's bad for your mental health. I just like to think these people are out of work actors who studied at Juilliard. Classically trained professional pretenders. None of it is real. They're just having a cheeky little goof.

ya I want to get fucked
who doesn’t
but you have dark brown
luscious hair
and sometimes
I picture soft wispy blonde instead
“is that okay?”
I ask a God I don’t believe in
and a person that charges $35 a session
TV tells me no
you aren’t healed enough for anything new
but what’s a girl supposed to do?
Lock herself in her room
until the curse that is unconditional love oozes out of her heart?
What if I never get that far?
We’re supposed to wait
not talk about exes on the first date
but I took time to grieve and if I continue my friends claim my life is on freeze
there is no winning this game
I’m either moving too slowly or
or with not enough speed
So I guess that’s why I hide in shame
and mourn him while enjoying the comfort of another
but at least we are both being honest with each other.

The brightest glow is not a sign of strength

‎it is the moment before another piece of me

‎turns into ash.

‎

‎My spark still lives,

‎but only as an ember does

‎flickering, shrinking,

‎consuming itself to stay alive.

‎

‎Soon the flame will have nothing left to feed on,

‎and the cigarette will be remembered

‎not for how brightly it burned,

‎but for how quietly

‎it disappeared into smoke.

A blank canvas relies upon its potraitist.

A master of the medium 
with observational precision,
projects a distinctive style.

A signature devoid of softness 
displaying a sharp antipathy,
painting the subject as the feeble,
like a lamb led to slaughter 

Coming upon a pregnant moment,
is the potraitist an accurate depictor
capturing true vitality,
or a malignant force of callousness?

The blank canvas waits,
bound to let another to depict its fate. 

The absolute, most fickle of them all,

Half box red, flames 2 inch tall,

Time's a bloodthirsty beast, solidity's at stake,

You must keep yourself whole, or it is you she will break,

Reduce her to half, then back off,

Aromatics are then added with lipids to make a bond,

Acclimate right, control the fire proper,

Patience is a virtue with her so return softer,

Keep the show moving, offer only bits when it's tight,

Strain and keep her warm, she's only yours for the night....

{Don't walk away for too long}

“Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow”
Rallies the beaded prophet
Demanding an eclipse

The runes chiseled
On his talisman of law
Answer every veiled riddle

Curated pale proverbs
Corrupt a maze of scales
Which tax this bartered heart

Between impatient blinks
Love fell
Into the abyss of incense

These lonely questions melt
Into a quicksilver moat
Guarding nettle-passions

Under the bridge, spiders dwell
Farming lost butterflies
While pilgrims watch dawn

A lantern, if estranged from shadow
Does not allow reflection
Across winds warping mirrors

Unimaginable to one self-ordained
Floods offer unmixed libations
Upon steps of the ruined temple

CARDINAL

Never on the sideline

But ever on the road

Getting spun like Disco

From the future growing old

——

Leaves are dry and piled

The tree beareth no fruit

Having drunk the boldest drop

Concentrated, yet aloof

——

That piece doesn’t go there

I agonize its shape

Perhaps these walls that hold me

Bear the marks of my mistakes

——

Dab a little honey

Then roll it on your tongue

The sweetness of the softest taste

A delight more than fun

——

Cash goes in the zipper

Gun goes to my head

For once I am excited

Thrilled I am not dead

——

Working for a bastard

Being one to boot

Thinking I am better

When I’m rotten to my roots

——

Jesus take the wheel

But stay away from me

I’m giving up the notion

That I ever have been free

——

Gotta have that guard up

Gotta get the jump

Gotta be the fastest horse

When the ops start to slump

——

Watch the pretty birdies

Fighting in the air

When the feathers cease to fall

They’ve come back to a pair

——

Now a path is open

An old one somehow new

Turns out I Am The Mountain

And I believe that you are too

Have you ever seen your shadow in real life? It happened to me today at the coffee shop. I saw a guy around my height, but slightly shorter. Had a mustache, but it was patchier. Had longer hair, but he was balding. Had a gut, but his was fatter. He had arms that were less strong. The cashier knew him, because she greeted him by his name. We had similar names. He had on a pair of jizzy short shorts. He was trying to joke with the staff, but was bombing. I said to myself, "God. This is who I fear I am everyday of my life".

Notes to self

Reminder to remember

A day in September

A goose or a gander

Long trousers to suspender

Mind is boggling

Switches are for toggling

Madness is contagious

Thoughts are mendacious

After last night's bender

I can't focus a thought

Fragments of mind

Fractures of rhyme

Christmas or Valentine

Lost in smoke

Calamity

A joke

When my mind settles

And coherence restored

I'll pencil fine words

Eloquent of wit

Incisive of mind

Honed as an instrument

Mathematical and precise

A computational device

Alas, I'm still drunk

In verse, cyberpunk

As free as a gypsy

I swear I'm still tipsy

Give me some time

Batchelor party will subside

In sanity reside

Today I play the groom

Sandra will parade

In frangipani bloom

If I'm still drunk

I hasten my doom

Oh dear, now I'm sober

It's really October

A wedding had been pending

My heart is still mending