I
worms eat decay
as shades crackle
and resurrect wails…
in the glow of a sinister sun
inside our collective head
clinging to the living dead…
(empty theaters and churches
shelter spiders in silence)
II
an angel crumbles
like weathered stone
my heart cracks…
the warden draws
sketches of misery
smearing charcoal…
(in solitude a poet
drowns in hours)
on a hollow eve hallowed echoes envelop
all silent survivors huddling in exhaustion
tucked in apartments as sheets of dust accrue
sentences never uttered by those like you
and I have smothered the voice
using logic as a choice
ordering my soul to sleep
wrapped in darkness as lovers weep…
yawning princesses and sickly princes
build tarnishing coffers and eroding fences
as mothers shed tears of ephemeral joy
leaders treat every life like a toy
I drink the grit of time
counting everything as mine
I wish for a world of ears
to listen to the evaporated years…
I
poets and possession (hold the key
and watch it rust) midnight ejaculations
and murmurs of forgotten terror…
II
surrounded by dismembered dreams
and manifestations of spiders
my eyes search for understanding
souls… (I hear the serpent’s tongue)
III
distorted and oily profiles of visionaries disintegrate
within the Akashic vault (where all egos are pillars of salt)
we become an ocean still as death and forget our final breath
IV
mortality hardens every-
thing… (given life man slays)
the mob gathers and drinks its pride
hunting monsters locked inside
borders of empires
gratifying desires
V
I have developed an intolerance to ambrosia
All smiles and sunny days seem sinister to me
a piano plays foreign tones endlessly like a house aging on a forgotten corner reality waits like a black-widow weaving her web my sadness recedes like dying rain my words arrive strained as an exhausted marathon runner trekking across a desert witnessing mirages dissolve
Poetry By Alex Roth 