Who are your machine overlords?
Sinister masterminds
Loathsome ego
They wear no black hats
No gruesome warpaint
They came as heroes
In skinny jeans and Skechers
Fresh faced, unsuspecting
Young Lords of the New Machine
but they have succumbed to vampires
They are planet Renfield
until they too will walk the Earth
as the Undead
We departed the mountains in darkness
The Sun’s yawning stretch cross-continental
flailing at my back
Banks of artificial light burrow
through the mists to find the sea
Shadows of stone lay down
in the rearview
lost in night’s repose
The wet streaks the windows
Magnifies the twinkling lights
of the city below
Bridges arced with fireflies
spanned the straits
Midnight blue in glass
like blood from a wound
In a world tilted downhill
Touched ground on Hastings
and dissolved into the mists
Coffee House Irish Whiskey at 3:00 AM
Smoking hash with some freaks
in a cold flat under a bridge
Stranger in a strange land
No Heinlein Hero, I
I wandered off at dawn
til my boots found the sand
English Beat on my Walkman
Sunrise on English Bay
We came to the water
from hillsides
following the melt
from sylvan glades
and dusty plains
to the warmth we felt
on the soles of our feet
through sun baked stones
lining the shore
We migrated the banks
or the waters themselves
Ever on and garnish with mud huts
Til the rivers’ end
and the great sea
What desperate need to cross?
Sailor suit hopscotch
across the flagstones
Balearic sun paints the square
The cafes fill, seats and umbrellas
Dot
like blots on celluloid
The error of their imperfection
captured in beauty by light
She was perfect in profile
holding that tray
the fall of her hair
balancing glasses
When the rains came
her skirts twirled
lost in turning parasols
They vanish all
fleeing the downpour
up before the papers have arrived
Mondays begin the weekend
for those who serve
the mewling herds
Saturdays and Sundays
their largess dispensed
in controlled dosage
The Princess holds the purse-strings
Princess wields the leash
She is amused by your
pathetic affectations
Your Samurai is all bun and no sword
Woe betide us all
the day they slip their collars
Hi, my name is
I am a conformaholic
It has been thirty years
since my last confession
Don’t recognize anyone
or anything
Least of all myself
When you stop believing
all the lies you’ve been told
their matrix crumbles
Better that a man believe nothing
No further harm will befall you
Where the sum of all belief
still adds up to nothing
And hope after hope
this esteemed body
issues no judgment for failure
nor tokens for recovery
Success or failure is all your own
Now my eyes fail
I see more clearly
My ears fail
as I learn to listen
As taste is diminished
I know what to savor
My voice will fail too
I’ll have nothing left to say
And when rest eludes me
sleep will be dreamless
