There’s an empty place…
inside of me…
a box hollow, a circle vacant…
a cavern dark, a belly hungry…
a pit bottomless…
a now unattended…
the past a mask…
a phantom future…
a paradise only imagined…
like so many other childish things…
I must be in here somewhere…
my body waves and wobbles…
twists and quakes and contracts…
from years of unbreakable concentration…
and other unnecessary abuses…
my mind is not my own…
nor ever has it been…
it’s an endless movie…
of silence and shadows…
bridges of light and oceans of darkness…
the flashing and the flickering…
the common and the strange…
the usual and the astonishing…
the bland and the exotic…
the placid and the erotic…
the grind and the effortless…
drugs, poisons, and expired antidotes…
bright blooming giant colored flowers…
that eat the sun and soil…
eventually succumbing…
to fodder and worm food…
the amazing and the miraculous…
the obvious and the obnoxious…
follow me, wherever I go…
worn out boots and worlds of wonder…
wheelbarrows, shovels, and spaceships…
bad jokes and dead philosophers…
a plain paper sack of inspiration…
and a remedy for panic attacks…
excitement crushed and tempered…
enthusiasm trampled and smashed…
under and against a wall of sleepwalkers…
the comatose hoard of faith and tradition…
but then comes a vision…
of snakes and sharks and spiders in love…
giraffes dancing on golf balls…
tiny elephants and toothless alligators…
in a wild lover’s embrace…
a wedding of right and wrong…
the multitalented centipede…
crawling across the celestial harp…
picking and strumming a Brahms lullaby…
while juggling Dixieland Jazz…
from Rainbow Bubble-Top Wurlitzers…
with a hundred spitting trumpets…
and a thousand trombone slides…
tossed from pillar to postoffice…
pile up at Heaven’s Gate…
while blood and bones and black bananas…
rain down from porcupine clouds…
the slippery slope of humanity…
stability an illusion, solidarity a fog…
the mist of make-believe romance…
ignorance is king, and evil his lover…
a fun-zone of distorted mirrors…
that make you stop and look amazed…
you appear so sure and smart…
so content with your ambivalence…
so smug, so convinced, so strong…
now dogs barking, crows cackling…
mynah birds screaming Shakespeare…
pink parakeets chirping lost hymns…
from a stack of burning Bibles…
their wings now feathered flames…
the Devil alive in a smoke filled room…
God Almighty on a pile of ashes…
the film is on fire, the movie ablaze…
and there’s no emergency exit…
I’m searching for the red glass box…
that holds the righteous ax of delivery…
I’m prepared to destroy the obvious…
in order to save the obscure…
I’m ready to rid the hypnotized world…
of the One Great Delusion…
the Murderer of us all…
the Grand Indifferent King…
now old broken toys…
a painted horse, a hand print…
a picture of a well loved pet…
a little poem long forgotten…
a dry pressed flower…
yellow and purple rapture…
now a photo of a happy child…
they say it used to be me…
I don’t remember him…
I wonder who he was…
now dust divine stirred up…
from a long ago last dance…
I can hear my heart pounding…
keeping up with Cozy Cole…
I’m a madman in my memories…
and a bore in my dreams…
a knife dull, a leaf brittle…
a twist of string, a tiny twig…
an ember now crust and cold…
charcoal, chalk, lead pencil shavings…
half finished fantasy sketches…
of the never was, and the never will be…
undeveloped scripts and scores…
epic songs never sung…
ridiculous self portraits…
the grit and the grim details…
problems never solved…
adventures never pursued…
unworthy tears, regrets rock hard…
watercolors dry…
blue lake, green trees…
a golden morning sun…
now brittle on the page…
ecstasy and depravity…
excitement and boredom…
destiny’s conjoined twins…
expectations, obligations…
nagging necessities…
the ghost of who I once was…
the phantom of who I’ll never be…
my eyes, my ears hurt…
they’ve always hurt…
but from time to time…
she walks through…
even more beautiful…
than last she appeared…
now a fire forgotten…
smoldering in my mind…
life’s little leftovers…
I’d thought about it…
a long, long time…
it wasn’t like some sudden decision…
it wasn’t as if I’d finally had enough…
I didn’t just snap…
it was the inevitable outcome…
of a life lived longing…
for true love and comfort…
pleasure and compassion…
while chaos and collision…
calamity and catastrophe…
kissed my lips…
and turned down my bed…
did I ever like myself enough…
to let anyone really love me…
I was foolish and reckless…
in so many other ways…
I will not die of old ragged age…
but of unimagined emptiness…
unanswered questions…
and self-inflicted wounds…
I am no stranger…
to the stress of hopefulness…
I grew up with death…
drunkenness and gluttony…
insanity and perfection…
they were the uninvited…
the ghosts in my house…
I wrote a little prayer, it goes like this…
“When the angels of apologies and excuses…
come to sing your praises…
come to calm your cares…
may you rise up from your casket…
and rip their fucking wings off”…
all I ever wanted…
was to create something wonderful…
something shimmering, glowing…
something kind and sweet…
warm and precious…
out of this world of puke and shit…
lies and greed and corruption…
I heard this once, long, long ago…
“The Kingdom of Heaven…
is spread upon the Earth…
but men don’t see it”…
I know, I know…
but there’s so little peace in the truth…
I worship at the alter…
at the window of the Universe…
the passage between…
the then and the now…
with my head, my face…
my eyes, my ears…
my nose, my mouth…
my lips, my tongue…
my voice, my breath…
my thirst, my hunger…
my hunger…
between her legs, her thighs…
pressing, pressing, pressing…
I am the wolf, the beast…
the resurrected raptor…
the cannibal cunnilingus…
the never completely satisfied…
the always wanting more…
I want her more than life…
even more than death…
I give her my every prayer…
desire…
the cruel curse of desire…
it never goes away…
it can’t be put away…
it can’t be cut away…
it can’t be ignored…
but there, over there…
blue butterflies…
beautiful blue butterflies…
and wild gidley fish…
flying miracle monkeys…
the diamond eyed dove divine…
the holy white whistling swan…
and ripe yellow umbrella trees…
their fruit sweeter than anything…
ever to grow in Eden’s garden…
am I finally home at last…
don’t make me start over…
deep down it’s clear…
I did the best I could…
no one is more disappointed…
in me, than I…
there were times that I was big…
when I should have been small…
there were times that I was small…
when I should have been big…
I have tried, but I just can’t be…
a friend to failure…
I too sing the blues…
I also sing the magentas…
I have been robbed of everything I valued…
that or I just left it somewhere…
discarded in Heaven’s landfill…
Satan does not rule in Hell…
he owns a brickyard in New Jersey…
and a bank in lower Manhattan…
he sells over-priced hot dogs…
from a silver cart on 5th Avenue…
and drives a green Lamborghini…
my creations are all in storage…
in a safe whose combination…
I can’t quite recall…
nothing seems to stick to me…
other than scars and stinging visions…
of something I will never attain…
someone I will never become…
I should get drunk and run naked…
screaming through the city streets…
but I’ve done all that before…
and it didn’t change a thing…
I am high above the Ever Ever Land…
a small, swift, invisible bird…
gliding on eternity’s echo…
diving through the driving rain…
of the always evolving…
collective unconscious…
sailing over the pristine pool…
of ancient wisdom and waste…
the fountain of lost youth…
the fools gold city of El Dorado…
the corrupted continent of Lemuria…
the Atlantis that never was…
nor ever will be…
I’m alert, alive, a joy…
in the Undifferentiated…
Aesthetic Continuum…
I am…
always ready to return…
to a nest of needles and noise…
a discouraging dream…
a discarded cause…
the arms of ambiguity…
the embrace of pointless resolve…
the imploding star from whence I came…
I’m hoping that once I dissolve and disappear…
as the sun is swallowed underneath the sea…
while the sky bleeds out across the horizon…
and the full moon races the unpredictable wind…
like all poets and prophets…
like all liars and thieves…
I’ll be thought of and remembered…
better than I was…
End.
(c) Billy Batson, Saber-Tooth Poems
