#0137 - "...a sinful aesthetic..."

Cerberus suggests a sinful aesthetic:
salacious suggestions
amid incinerative incitations,
screaming "Anarchy!" in shallow-minded tones.

Oh, the frothing fiends that our forefathers feared:
they've emerged from the shadows
and dropped their masks
and now eagerly rush
towards devious tasks.

Bullets let fly:
      more small, bloodied hands
      lay still on the pavement.
Grand masses of currency
      fuel isolation
      and fuel the insurgency.
And as growing pains are injected
into our weakening lifeblood,
we take on more willingly
our addiction to anger:
an anarchic scream to drown out
      the pained scream.

All tortures end
      in acquittal
      or death.
And the decision draws near
      as to which end we'll get.

#0133 - Violence

Sometimes,
all you need is a little violence
to get through the day.

But fire your shots into the void,

for neither the light
nor the darkness
will appreciate an assault.

#0072 - Thought 15

There it was,
our bright, naïve hope.
Left the shelter of our shells,
found its way into a harsh reality.

#0070 - Alchemy

21 ounces nicotine
19 ounces cocaine
1 razor
1 straw
2 grams heroine
1 syringe
15 ounces marijuana
1 lighter
22 ounces liquor
55 ounces beer
1 glass

And thus,
the ingredients to my magical potion.
I call it the "Elixir of Joy."

The concoction that makes me happy,
plasters a smile upon my face
up until I pass out,
and even then I get to dream of fun, ridiculous things.

#0069 - Advice

I promise I am not controlled
by failure or by fear.
I simply take advice where I
can find it, far or near.

And I have learned a simple thing
about others' advice:
that those who give wise words are oft-
-en scarred and bruised by vice.

The best advice will come from those
who've rolled and bathed in mud,
and those whose countless leaps of faith
have colored them in blood.

The best advice will come from those
who've felt their kind hearts shatter,
and those who stare at blades and rope
and into murky water.

The best advice will come from those
who've screamed and fought and cried,
and those poor souls who've been betrayed
or to whom others lied.

Though when the times are good the on-
-ly thoughts I need are mine,
in darkness I'll take words of those
whose times are worse than mine.

#0061 - "I guess this is what Prometheus felt like"

I guess this is what Prometheus felt like
after achieving the unachievable
- taking the fire of the gods -
and then being exiled
to a lonely existence
upon a jagged mountainside.

This is how he felt
when the world became null
and the only sensation he experienced
was that of bloody vultures plucking out his innards.

#0059 - Haiku V

Obserwuj kiedy
Spadam, miliona mil nad
Parzącą wodą.

#0055 - Somber Thoughts

They fill my head like sludge.
Like tar.
Like quicksand.

They're ubiquitous like air or death,
weighed down to form a
5-ton paperweight that holds down thoughts
like a suffocating slough of venomous snakes.

I am Atlas,
bearing the weight of the world
and twice that.

I am Prometheus,
Constantly having my innards plucked out
by a swarm of gloomy vultures.

I am Icarus,
burning like a gasoline-coated match from the Sun's heat
any time I try to rise more than a meter from the Earth.

I am all of the gruesome Greek legends and tragedies
rolled neatly into one
pitiful,
suffocating,
drowning,
somber
mess.

#0031 - "Pain manifests itself in many ways"

Pain manifests itself in many ways.

Sometimes it's a wave:
it ebbs and it grows.

Sometimes it's a dose
of poison, sinking slowly, unnoticed, into your blood.

Sometimes it's a gargantuan marsh of slush and mud
that you wallow endlessly through; a viscous mire.

Sometimes it's a violent explosion of raging fire,
an all-consuming inferno centered on you.

In any case, the worst you can ever do
with your pain is to leave it unchecked and let it fester

rather than making amends and laying your pain to rest.

#0013 - "Laughter is the epitome of happiness"

Your sonorous laughter is the epitome of happiness,
and your smile is a perfect example of bliss and joy.
Your gleaming gaze is formed of radiant rays of sun:
metaphorical waves of ecstasy diverging from a star.

But when I deeply gaze into the wells of your eyes,
I can see that in their depths rest pain and sorrow;
although you carefully veil them with covering lids.
Your lids are of tin - easily adapted, but easily torn

open to show your festering wounds -
wounds that would be long forgotten
if you would keep from picking them
like a fidgeting child with dirty hands.

When coping foreign gaze
you wear your band-aids,
but by the end of the day
they've long peeled away.

They say that before solving a problem
you must first acknowledge a problem.
You see clearly, but your only problem:
you'll only confess to empty darkness.

I know you crave your solitude,
the safe succor of being silent.
I always hear silence is golden,
but sometimes, quiet is violent.

#0012 - "I've learned the flaw of stoicism"

I've learned the flaw of stoicism: life
assumes its blows have no effect on you.
The world brandishes its serrated blade
and assumes that your armor can withstand

its tearing blows, its tyrannical rule.
Each day it digs in the ground with a spade,
and upon the lip of the grave I stand
and watch: the growing pile of dirt stacks high.

My demeanor remains dully unchanged,
my smile and expression stoic and bland.
My countenance marked by a weary sigh,
my gaze isn't kindly, and isn't cool.

But I feel the tormenting tremor, and
thoughts run across the landscape of my mind.
I constantly think, but don't know how to
stop waning, how to maintain the charade.

#0006 - Thought 2

I was once told that if I'm struggling uphill,
I should remember that each hard step uphill now
is an easy step downhill later.

But sometimes,
it seems like the uphill never ends.