My Glass Captain

Oh Captain, my Glass Captain

That is your name here

Amidst the crystal courtyard of a glass castle

Between emerald leaves and trees

Refracting and focusing energies through our pupils

As we thread ourselves through garnet roses

And citrine daffodils, Peering into the stream

Of a a thousand tiny mirrors

Of what currents had drifted us here.

My Glass Captain, can you explain this?

The castle?

The currents?

The daffodils and roses?

You?

I think I remember

I think I remember once in a dream

Or on a far away travel past the precipice of night

Being here over tiny mirrors, under emerald trees

Are we a reality?

And my Glass Captain, what of you?

Photons focus and beam through you

Transparent Queen

But yet you are volcanic, and your obsidian

I can not see through with all the light and song you make

But I will follow, I will follow you my Captain

Your glint guides me, a seaman in the bay,

As astrologers' cryptograms once did

I will follow in the wax and wane of the sun and moon

I will dispatch my eager, confident palms

Earthy wooden masts for my Glass Captain

And sail, as vehicles often propose we do

Sail on your glinting crystal

All the shimmers and sparkles throwing me into a possessive trans

Sail on sturdy earth

Knowing it will never escape your toes

My Glass Captain, I think we finally have an accord

You and I, about the nature of you

About the sands and volcanoes of your genesis

About how we tread across the ash

I see, now, why we step so lightly

How one benevolent slip of the chisel

Will leave us rescuing gems, or worse yet, sand once more

On the Dark Side of the Moon,

We sat as cold pueblo indians

Barren bodies entangled and shivering

Frostbitten knuckles white

Clutching the skin of ourselves as we fight

The killer winds of history

Not a hutch seen for years or miles

On the dark side of the moon

Never has a dictionary been so dangerous

Never has language cast such destruction

As the spark struck for heat died

The fire that burns remained inside

And the crater we sat in stayed dim

Because there is no oxygen

On the dark side of the moon

Or perhaps this is the coy carrot

Years ahead of me

When told the passages of a narrative

I've yet to live

I'd almost rather not, but those were the terms

Whispered to me by the Astrologer

On the dark side of the moon

Failure is a norm

Failure is epic

And all the stars seen past these rocky crests

I cry to and wince and protest

It can be bleak here

But those are the consequences of living

On The dark side of the moon

Witness Star (Fusion)

I pray to unreal gods, for,

I believe,

I have seen you.

I have, in no uncertain terms, leapt out through a telescope

Lain a gaze across your angry blackened thighs

- your sunspots -

And I have confronted hateful heavens and bleak skies before;

In no uncertain terms;

The universe is a litany of spotted and imperfect stars

But they are all putrid brown dwarfs.

You? You are a giant!

And I embrace you and all your inky pores

Because I have witnessed.

I have witnessed you ignite the Earth

Your remnant trails leave auras, curing me with furious passions

And thus I can no longer settle on my cast iron furnace.

Inciting rebellion against the Monster,

I yearn for a single thing;

Permit me.

To carry all my unspoken energies to your center

I am an unforeseeable orb - a darkly internal core of pressure with no rays

Let me fuel you.

Let us perform fusion;

Let us ravish the plains with heats and clutched hands of trembling thrill;

Let us confound societies with allegories of never-were-worlds;

Let us educate kingdoms and  uncertain souls with flowers of genesis and revelation;

Let us press fires together and morph combustions into pure gazes.

Let us perform fusion.

Radiate, radiate all those brilliant energies

Shed and shine light into the black valleys of dead asteroids

Evaporate icy moons

And know that I am there - a quiet darkly core - to fuel you.

Let us make a star.

Let us join those wiser orbs.

I know you have sunspots -

But they are just that

Scared away by new days

So let us perform fusion.

The Monster Speaks (III)

It was the middle of bright breaking day

Not a night in near vision

Yet it attacked me

The Monster could see dangerous things taking form

It could ill afford to let such triumphs run rampant

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

Embodying roars fused with my bones and laminated my soul

It stood decades tall peering deep within me hunting and clawing with black eyes at
     worlds it could not embrace

Today was war

Those silver fangs shown long again, but on my grounds, the soil soaked with
     the blood of the sun

"You have broken a pact! you have broken your vows."

I knew no certain vows to The Monster

"To us! You vowed to silence. To keep that flesh of yours still until
     you are a king."

It is a part of me--

"It is a disaster! You and it are destined to frail decomposition.
     And what will you be then?"

The Monster circled me and stalked my words and my wants and the reason
     we were born

"I am your eternity. I have given you all the universe necessary and all the god
    you could dream of."

It's appetite was insatiable

"You are insatiable! They were sacrifices. Sacrifices you knew would be devoured."

I knew nothing of--

"LLLLLLIES! Do you wish to be a king?"

There were no prophets or crystal balls or Jesus's inform me.

"I am your prophet. Do you wish to be a king?"

The Monster was a rage. The Monster was the saddest I knew

"Do you wish to be a king?"

How many sacrifices will The Monster demand?

"Until your flesh is still and your mind is glass with obsidian thoughts"

Then I am dead.

"You will live enough."

I will be dead, and what is The Monster when I am dead?

"I am your eternity. I am your prophet."

Could it take me? I offered myself as a sacrifice, for it to consume my childhood
     and my loving whispers and my imagined worlds.

"Ghosts can not wear crowns. Vampires can not drink their own blood."

I wept and I whimpered and I cursed The Monster for knowing what I was
     as we stood in the Fall's silence

"Hush, dear Jared, I know where you have been. I will make you a king."

I was asked where I had been and I could not answer.

Where had The Monster taken me?

By Request

There are those moments

Those rare moments

That can be most commonly found on bright fall dawns

Amidst the suggestion of awakened morning dew

When the sun brushes a kissed hand

Across the long hair of an open field

This is where you will find me

The sky-veiled universe sheds its light

Letting wiser orbs look down upon us

With endearing candor

And recommendations of synchronicity

Because they - the orbs - are never alone

Burning hot with explosive epilogues

I hope to find you

Are you here tonight?

Do those hands seek the same epilogues?

As they draw my wings back down to sides

And land this amorously peaceful flight

Tell me the orbs are wiser

Tell me the dew is awake

Tell me if you are here tonight

We Are Holograms

Ladies and gentlemen, tonights are the nights that define us

     and who we are as sad melodies inform us of our circumstances

Never forget me, and the adobe winds that whistle salvation

     across jersy shores at midnight where narrow eyed journalists

     were burned alive

And live by the scruffy-bushed portraits of veterans resting on
     our sequoian mantle and by the indignant flames nestled in

     limestone hearths

Our times are ruminating on the golden arches of ronald
     raptures and the souls of rescued rappers; Whitman and
     Ginsberg are weeping

Take root in the honesty of Patagonia and Adirondack lapping
     the summations of Navajo chronicles and the butcher
     allegories of Constantinople

Dream of the Vatican and Oz on the same naked night and you
     will know the bruised bones of us iridescent holograms

The Monster Returns (II)

It is too late for me.

The night has buckled and swallowed me up

Along with the winter of a Northern Michigan

While I had meditated on the white treads of my want

written by others before in a path that snaked for miles.

I thought I had given it everything already...

It returned, the monster, six times that night

It wanted more

So it showed its long terrible splintering spears

Its eyes remained black and lifeless

And it wore furs of all wolf-like kinds including my own Shady

At points it was treacherous with leaping purple necks

Or bore the talons of a raccoon trotting like a sheep

These are quite literal

My verse and my voice and my solitude had broken down

It demanded more and I knew not how to give it

And then it came for her - I had already surrendered her

But it wanted to remind me, to vilify any shattered shrapnel of the wound I had left

And once again I gripped her and shook her with my barren desperation

We have been here!

Horrified.

"What's happening to us?" - desperation without question.

Barren.

It screamed... it roared... all the terror and cosmos I knew of

So I raced to the edge of the stairs and to the edge of the cusp and to the edge of its gaping jaws

Open wide, it revealed my dead mother, my dead Shady, my dead--

Awake, I knew.

The Monster is here to stay.

Gideon - The First Day

"Why Gideon?" I asked.

"Because we're heroes!" He bolstered with a hearty laugh at my expense.

I failed to comprehend. It wasn't until later that night, while we were still in cortex range, that I looked up and discovered that the name of the ship was from an ancient religious warrior of Earth That Was. It still made no sense - they were mercenaries... or we were mercenaries... or I would be a mercenary soon... In either case I never found the idea of killing for hire terribly heroic nor religious. But since this certainly wasn't my first time aboard a ship, I decided to let it go knowing that I would eventually find out.

Regardless, Gideon was a concerning vessel, first and foremost for its suffocating cramped interior. Even the cargo bay could barely fit a vehicle. The most impressive spaces were probably the bridge and the engine room... speed and command of it; the two greatest commodities of a merc. You might have the powerful want to say weaponry... sorry, I just let out some boarder-speak there. It must be wearing on me... Anyway, you may want to say it's weaponry but there are two factors that come into play. One: the weapon is only useful if you can draw it fast enough. And two: anything can be a weapon. This ship, for example, has no weapons according to Alliance law since ship-mounted weapons are quite illegal if not licensed. It does, however, have four very efficient mining lasers. There are restrictions, of course. The lasers can only point down. Any fore, aft, or broad side lasers would be classified as weapons, but a simple flick of the strategic wrist can make these just as dangerous. We could punch a hole through four-inch-think hull in just under five seconds with these lasers, which is why I imagine they thought I'd be a useful deckhand.

Like I said before, this isn't my first fist day. I had just finished touring on a legitimate mining ship this month and spent quite a long spell in the laser control room. It didn't quite appeal to me though. Moreover, while merc life isn't very heroic or religious, it is highly lucrative and the taste of hazard pay was too irresistible. Even as a lowly deckhand, simply being in the company of those whose job is to make enemies and kick ass pays me more money than when I was as a miner. I could have trained to become a laser technician or a mineral analyst, but training licenses take time and money. Time I had, but I gambled the money away in a bad deal my first week in the boarder planets. Here all you need is sharp wit, a steady eye, and a sheer will to survive that's strong enough to overpower the will of the person on the other side of your barrel. I didn't know if I had any of those things, but at least I could find out for free or maybe even get paid to. In the mean time my parents - back in safe little Osiris - are looking forward to hearing about my internship on deep space mining operations...

"Out of the way you gorram meat sack!" Borret growled as he side swiped me with his duffle bag... which I'm pretty sure was filled with guns and not clothes. From the hard floor looking up at him, Borret seemed more comfortable with me. "The cap'n assign you your first toilet yet?"

"Heh, not yet but..." I don't think he heard me because...

"Haha." Again, a laugh at my expense as he lurched down the corridor.

Strangely enough, Borret was the one who brought me onboard. After I told him my story he was amused and joked that I was perfectly qualified to mop floors and scrub toilet seats. At least I'm assuming it's a joke considering the work I did as a miner. He had a good point to see the captain though since we were just clearing moorings.

I scurried between the brutish men unnoticed. The most contact I had was when I bumped into... actually I can't remember his name. All I can remember is how he wears an Alliance uniform coat. He equates it to Reavers wearing the skin of humans as a trophy. It's disturbing. They're all disturbing. The men on this ship make fantastic amounts of money and yet I see no luxuries. Best I can tell they spend all of it on weapons, ammo, and ways to accelerate mortality. They're not in it for the money. They're in it for the satisfaction of making someone very bloody... or very dead. That was the difference between them and me, at least for now...

The movement was electric here on the bridge. It was everything I had dreamed of while trying to escape boredom on Osiris. And at the center of it was Captain Charles Winston. He was an uncommon element amidst the rust gutted bulkheads and oil smeared plating. The animals around him were violence-driven ogres who would pleasure themselves at first glimpse of any symbol remotely female. And here he was executing a machine of meat-head cogs.

"That's not your job, Rodin." Winston's voice was as straight as his marksmanship the day I met him. A dreadlocked man stepped back from the dismembered bulkhead without even a glint of resentment at the captain's cool cutting command... I spoke too soon. Rodin was different too. He had not said a word since the day we were introduced but I could tell he was different.

I continued to be drawn in by Winston with his flat gray long coat and leather gloves. With his head compacted into his spine and his back knit up tight, I debated whether he was tethered to the floor by his jowls or being strung up by his shoulders. Either way there was an immovability about this man who would otherwise appear to topple over in a light summer breeze. I imagined that it was winter and the freeze of space that kept him stiff.  Now was my chance to speak to him. I prepared myself and waited for a space between his orders.

"Morgan, I want that bulkhead up and that console back in order before we cross Hera. Rigs, get on the line with Belmore for some more cells. The last gig left us zilch on our lasers."

"You got it."

"Cale, what's ETA?"

"'bout twenty hours."

"Good. Rodin, see to the engines. Vern..." Winston's coat flailed out as he spun his tethered body. "Where's Vern?" With a heavy exhale he crossed the bridge to the rear airlock. We made eye contact, instantly volts ran through my body... "Omar, mops are on the bottom deck."... And he was gone. I guess it wasn't a joke...

        -- Omar Habul, Winter 2517

Crypticism

Ladies and gentlemen, tonights are the nights that define us

     and who we are as sad melodies inform us of our circumstances

Never forget me, and the adobe winds that whistle salvation

     across jersy shores at midnight where narrow eyed journalists

     were burned alive

And live by the scruffy-bushed portraits of veterans resting on our

     sequoian mantle and by the indignant flames nestled in our

     limestone hearths

Our times are ruminating on the golden arches of ronald raptures

     and the souls of rescued rappers; Whitman and Ginsberg are weeping

Take root in the honesty of Patagonia and Adirondack lapping the

     summations of Navajo chronicles and the butcher allegories of

     Constantinople

Dream of the Vatican and Oz on the same naked night and you will

     know the bruised bones of us iridescent holograms

The Monster (I)

It is while sitting atop tall endless nights

Starring down the crater's black infinity -

The whole of the twilight buckled up beneath me

- That I can muse and discuss disasters and epiphanies

Before it buckles and swallows me up... like a... never mind...

Tonight it will be a disaster

The drama will not even play in order -

The morning after...

We're eating with brilliant smiles at the refurbished diner

Just off Rochester tucked in the parking lot on Tienken

The waitress tells us how it burnt down, rebuilt anew

It's the first time I remember her eating a burger

- I don't think this is the beginning... it's the end
     or somewhere near

I think, yes, here it is, she had such soft music on -

It was any other night...

She invited me over, that was the thing

Yet there was nothing to say, She had nothing

Just that she wanted company so I kept her such

You can never get her to talk, not even her father

Or if you do you usually regret it

- "Flyyy aaaawayyyy" it sang, beautifully

I recall what shocked me was how much she'd drank -

Awfully insistent on that sixth beer...

Once when we celebrated my first success

She had so many glasses that night, more than me

And there she was holding me up, how I loved her for it--

... Now, her leaden head plummeted into the covers

Something was lurking amongst us tonight

- "Flyyy aaaawayyyy" it sang, beautifully

Then she asked me to tell her about my house -

My house... my... house...

"It will be our hidden circular palace of the far east

In the center a courtyard is guarded by a cherry tree

The back of the house will open to an emerald vista

Down the left slope is your greenhouse for our home grown--"

... She broke into tears. This was her last chance

- "Flyyy aaaawayyyy" it sang, beautifully

We will never return from this -

All she said was "I love you"...

So I rattled her with my barren desperation until she confessed

That she had no intention of seeing the morning. And I would 

     be her testimony

That her philosophy was firm and there was no

     avoiding it - she had taken all her medicine

I demanded she cry for help - she wouldn't - and so I cried
     for her and to the world beyond
So she cursed me for knowing what she was and loving her
     and we stood in the song's silence
- "Flyyy aaaa**"... I found it repulsive.

The songless void exposed us and revealed us for who we were...
... The Morning Dove and the Midnight Owl
She reminded me that I had ruined everything
And I followed the EMS with puffy eyes and trembling thoughts
And watched her in the hospital bed smile at one after another
All of them asking the same questions
As I contemplated the purpose of destinies
While she called it A New Experience
I stepped away from it, from her. It was impossible.

And when I took out my phone to grapple with
     the tomorrow, I looked
Beside her bed of nurses there was a monster
Just beyond the curtain it loomed with its gaping jaws
Sneering its crooked spindly silver teeth
Monitoring me with its cloud of black eyes, showing
     no signs of life
Entranced, I gazed back
Down its cold white empty pallet, through its rubbery intestines

Right into its vacant heartless void, without even a bed to
     cradle its victims
Bleached by the florescent lights, it was the darkest thing
     I'd ever seen
And it spoke to me
And devoured my loves and my sorrows and the memory
     of our sunrise
And it wanted her and it wanted me and everything we slept with
So I gave it to it...
......................Everything.

The morning after, we're eating with brilliant smiles at
     the refurbished diner
The End
or somewhere near...

Ode

(to Naved)

Behold yourself my adoring kin,

Naked walker of the East.

I have, or would be, captivated

By the cadence of your soul

Across the beating dirt.

How I long for you.

I once prepared so many words.

All for you, and your return.

But instead I take fortress here,

Before our golf course on the campus

Where we watched for UFO's

And close encounters with our own spirits

Do you remember?

It is all a foreign novel to me now.

The open green is an estranged cousin

Without you to introduce us.

I travel long night roads...

Roads we've conquered.

I run lapse around them

And tread common paths by foot.

Eight hours a week or more.

I sit up in cafes

And speak to strangers

And commune with your comrades

And keep you alive

With rampant gestures and flagrant terms.

Do I fill your shoes?

I know no minds akin to you.

On these nights, before greens and roads,

I dare to desire we were

Crooked Sinners...

That both had the constitution to be unthinkable.

You know as well as I how simple it would have been.

We could live in octagon houses with

Tigers and all your dangerous beasts...

But we were not constructed for this love.

This love I long for.

The rest needn't be spoken... I know you understand.

The Desert & The Future

Speak to me Stallion 

Talk to me on these notions
Of why you are so black
Of why you wear no saddle

You are running
From so far away
Do you run to chase me?
Do you run from the vast storm crest above you?
Or are you chased?
By the vision of a cube
And a ladder leaned upon it?

I have seen them too
The Cube
And the Ladder
They are no figment
But they degrade me
And bestow me sad arsenals of lonely void

Do they haunt you, like I?
Is the cube rotten... hard and heavy in the sand?
Is the ladder untouched... separate and erect by nothing?
No. Yours are leaned and beautiful, I know.

Then why do you run?
From the storm crest?
To me?
Or is it the Sun?
Ah yes, the Sun, I know you see it beyond me

It has offended me, the Sun.
I turn my back for it.
Does it not offend you?
That you run to it, right past me?
Think me no fool though, trampling friend
It is hot, and after all, still day

Can I slow your pace, Stallion?
If I set ablaze this bleached desert with Red Carnations
Grown from tyranny of the rotten cube
Inked with its sacrificed blood
These carnations are sweet
These carnations are beautiful, I promise you
Could I slow your pace?

It is all making me laugh, this play
Do you not see it?
This desert tells our Nows - you see a Sun
This desert tells our Futures - I see a Storm

Apocalypse Surrounds Them

The epoch is an ignited firefly [or a swarm]
I witness it as I am
          recessed

Sunken deep within my chasms
Absorbing the flames
Through their dilating precipices
Apocalypse surrounds them
          the chasms

This phase is a terrifying thing
And my mother is worried that
         I will shoot myself at 40

This phase is a sensual thing
          [sex and love fall woefully short]

And my friend [my brother] doesn't
          Understand why they [or we] travel such twilight muddy roads

Because you must

Speak what you know
Write what you know
I know nothing
          it is a terrifying thing

I feel nothing [or everything]
          it is a sensual thing

But I am only 22
          and I hope my mother is wrong

It should have been different
It should have been easy
I am not
         different nor easy

While I rake the walls of my chasms
And of forever-faceted layers of filtering smudgy blankets
And the rolling valleys of my cranium
          deeply recessed

For a "what you know"
Seeing nothing through my chasms
          widely dilated now

As apocalypse surrounds them

ROFL ::decompressing sigh::

You know, I remember stories...
"Do you?"
Of funny things we praise.
"Tell me about them."

Well, take Bradford;
Offered 3 hours of recording time. Free of charge.
Had to cancel though.
Teammate had checked out the equipment,
Charged them $100 - their only option then.

          "That was a hoot! Albeit not within dictum..."
          Indeed.

Oh! And remember Jezebel?
"Do I ever, sexy princess."
She complained about the quality of men,
"LOL! I recall her rant."
Then left Loving Edward for a Man of Quality.

          "A doctor I think. How is Ed?"
          Eaten by worms while finishing his book.

And then there was Max,
          Well, Maximus to be clear (or Maxine to be queer)
He climbed Everest in just 3 years,
But the Economics Committee appealed -
He'd taken too many unnecessary steps
          Sight Seeing he said
So they refund his ticket...
          and his application fee

          "He did look rather gangling when he got back."
          It was a steady diet of chickpeas and vegetarianisms

But let's not forget my fav.: Luke!
"The one and only!... poor bastard."
He declined his seat on the shuttle to the Light.
"To the Sun, actually... He told me it was on principle alone."
Either case, they laughed him into a flower pot.

          "I heard he drowned."
          ... In the flower pot. See?

But forget all that. My brother gave me gas money.
Right in front of Justin...
... or is it Justice? (he's a she, right?)
Anyway, Altruism insisted that I fill my tank,
But I bought a candy bar and two sodas.

"And?... What happened?"
Well, nothing, it's Justin... and Altruism is a sissy.
"Right, she's quite blind without her glasses."
I fathom that's why she loves piñatas so much...

The Swing I Loved

Dream-clad hands clasp chains

The ammo is mounted in the sling

I have come to visit you tonight

There is an eruption in ears

These melodies are so quiet

Don't worry, I will return after daylight

There is no home

There needn't be a home

I have come to visit you tonight

To and fro it's flung

And land amidst burning orbs

Don't worry, I will return after daylight

Ink Sky, you are an edifice

Burning Orbs, you are time travelers

I have come to visit you tonight

The air is hot

The glow of the clock, bright

Don't worry, I will return after daylight

I have come to visit you tonight

Don't worry, I will return after daylight

The Abandoning Locust

You have eaten me to a sterile desolate thing. Why?

Of all the infinities among you

Why endanger this one?

Oh yes... my ears you nibbled as so many others

Of sweet and wise corn

And yes, I confess, your heavy weight was a blanket

A hungry belly! Thou must be fed, no?

Fly high! Find a fairy ear

And whisper

Those riveting crystal machetes

My spears are barren potent posts

My ears are gone in and from you

So one day your world will be a desert of grains

Of sand that blasts your ever-open eyes

Your waters will dry up

The ears will wither and die

And you will be the last apostle of your crusade

Before you starve, I implore you

Surrender yourself, Abandoning Locust

Arrest yourself in these earthen shackles

And hammer your wings to this crucifix

So that our legions may skewer you

And let your Pride-Red blood floweth

Out and through as rivers to feed us

Collapse and evacuate these veins

Of your self-pervasive prejudice of perfection

Become a lamb to your cause

And your Microscope Deities will forgive you

The other-heavenly fathers will put hands on you

And be a locust no more.

But know, Locust

That us ear-less ones cannot forgive

Having these stalking spears

Which you widdled

And roots

That run so deep

The Land of the Falling Sun

A mossy sloth once asked me,
"which way does the sun set?"
So I pointed
just above Capitol Hill
Where the Westmore Banker luxuriated
with his native pipe tobacco and pocket watch,
sitting atop the treeline
and its crawling shade leaves,
that were infinite impaling killers.

The Crow of Charlevoix Inn

There he stands at the utmost tower,
gawking at the weather vain,
waiting for his Easterly wind,
scouring the porous ground for nuts and treasures to gain -
The Crow of Charlevoix Inn.

He squawks and wallows on the hour,
calling to the fair-goers and passers-by,
about the fire he witnessed in the northern woods,
on his travels across the Westward Road to the promised honey dew rind -
The Crow with the limping foot.

He wanders his gaze across the long dead fodder
as the Fish Fairing era crawls with its cane,
and the dawn of the Airy Wind billows again,
thawing soils reveal their underbelly's dry fruitless bane,
To the crow and his shameless sins.

His cries crecendo ever louder
- his enigma airstreams in the sky -
as he contemplates if the other fowl will bring
themselves to the fields that are blind -
the crow that composes like a king.

He spreads his pious, the black velvet martyr.
His futile days will pass in time.
He is dangerous. He is passive. His time has arrived to leave this bloodstained cavern.
The shifting tides collide.
Ladies and gentlemen, the crow of Charlevoix Inn.