1. Biopic Should one day we run out of possible serums, antidotes, and ideas that might help this flailing species survive, prevent its tumbling into a morass of sheer madness, mortally wounded, hands cinched behind our backs, nothing gained and everything to lose, we’d have proven pathetic failures, our existence but a silly ruse. Thus the choice whether to rejoice in daybreak or slump and watch the clock ticktock. Rascal clock running us out of time, perhaps closer to an abstract otherworld where choices come cheap and sense stands no chance. So observe that eye in the sky as it recommends we attempt blending sugar and spice in equal proportions, bake succulent pies loaded with diamonds, and ponder how together we can make better a successful forever, evolve into a breed worthy of preservation. 2. Collateral Damage First they bombard you with gloom then follow it up with doom that bristles brains, renders insane the meek with its utter delusion. As though conspiracies weren’t insidious enough, they pile on vile politics that appeal to suckers who feast on ridiculous doctrines. Resigned to maintaining equilibrium and engrain an unnatural status quo religion dupes many a seeker into thinking adoration is fruitful. Enlisting the zest of carnal lust embroils failed souls that shed their virginity while bathing in molten stone during nightmares. Maniacal consequences stoked by a whirlwind worldwide media designed to lead astray both pastor and worshiper drenched in dismay. Porous those flecks briskly lit resting upon the sill at dawn, loose from a nuclear reactor, their purpose a mystery. Take Jed who should be dancing and stung by love, but instead choses scuttlebutt with scrubs mainlining down in the subway. Immortal words of the mockingbird race, charged like electric current through Earth’s innumerable veins and the greater population’s spines. Amethyst, tourmaline, ruby, garnet, oh dandelion, Pikes Peak, Sinatra, mighty Mississippi, Ponce de Leon, won’t you kindly ferry me home? 3. Kangaroo Court Phenomenology dissolves in a vat of pure molten gold. Heidegger defiant, douses Husserl with coal oil. Sartre stuck full of darts and Titian buried deep beneath ruins of the Acropolis. Imperious ghosts emerge full of germs, tattooed with swastikas. Hypocritical oaths a bucket of oats to be munched by the mangy burro upon which rides some motley fool. Most regretful the many slain spirits wafting within rain clouds that darken every second. Patron saints of beauty and grace whose woe is intensely felt whenever voices are thwarted dangle from electrical wires like shot birds, upside down swinging by their claws and out of options. 4. Reflections and Redactions There is no need to fuel succession, nor recipe for intellection ferried on wings of fantasy where creatures stalk the imagination in lurid dreams. Staying focused spurs contentment for those lucky souls above ground hovering amidst love’s lofty clouds, shrouded there in luxurious mists. Service to oneself always comes first no matter what the politicians claim. I praise you because I’ve examined your heart from every tangible angle. Knowledge answers only to itself, inclined to dissipate over time for some who’ve become ostracized, too long operating in overdrive. Waves curl in shimmering sunlight on a winter morning along the Pacific where during low tide seraphs confide in one another and polar bears slumber. Step up and take control. I’m waiting to watch as you carve that solid marble statue of the ideal mate. You were born to take advantage of such superior skills. Forget about all the frills, flimsy tastes, slander hurled from wannabe ingrates, gory dismemberment of innocents, dead presidents and worn sentiments. Creation wasn’t made in a day said the owl with a nest in the woodshed. Its wisdom as sure as your face even when showing remorse or pure rage. 5. Pipe Dream Like starlight you glide around downtown investigating places never encountered in any past life. There to explore and survey but not report. Now you are your own unique government, boundless energy, intrepid entity viewing some addict asleep beside his tent at the corner of eighth and Capitol. Anxiety is repressed for the moment but could pick up suddenly which depends upon concocting a workable excuse in time to talk your way out of it. Potential reprisals scare the bejesus out of you, for who safely traverses this gritty urban core dodging vagrants and sewers clogged with cardboard after a steady rain? Take heart, be patient until the band starts up, then go plant sunflowers, impregnate the land with precious essences. 6. Identity Theft With no Bastille to storm the invaders instead razed Baalbek. Natives scattered like flocks of geese. Those foreigners toppled sacred statues, installed gods and enacted stringent statutes such as no loitering in Dead Sea foam. Devastation lay in their wake. Sacrifice denied except on Saturdays. Bread given out by the slice, miserly the hierarchy of that new united front. 7. Pariah Enter the sound of the leprechaun playing his lute and you find the world has become an empty shell. You retreat to childhood habits taken for granted, not mindful of the present scene. The prime image is lost in a summersaulting body excommunicated from saving grace. Antithetical to life experience this is, although inside the psyche still luxuriates. You once shadowboxed with a soul that knocking you out felt like demotion. Your ego took quite a pounding. Alligators and toads slithered through the slimy bog wherein sin stuck as with mucilage. Cityscapes all ablaze, and you surely responsible, impossible to blame Flaubert, Baudelaire, or Poe. Macro economics irrelevant, and still unresolved are ancient myths that haunt, taunt, and admonish the heart. You are undetectable now, understood by nobody, even in outmost mind of the world’s conscience. Brute thought disgorges you, this as winds of indecision like hurricanes assault vague windows of your wildest visions. Hence you skirl outward, through untold empyreans, and desolate hells where the rudely sacrificed have in due time served proper penance. Next time around will not come because there is no thunder, force of nature creating an undertow to ferry you toward society. 8. Grief Thief Grief thief be gone, no longer albatross circling my head, courier of pain. Get lost! You are not a boss of mine. I annihilate the grip you’ve had on me. You say you make art but I’m bright enough to know you only pantomime the part. You are hereby expelled, at liberty to meander through the perilous void. I don’t condemn you who would perplex soundest of psyches though I’m tempted. No paradisical mind would ever enlist you as captain of its magic ship. Oh you grief thief vanish from view and allow my soul its rightful delight.