Trails

I wrote this on the bus, up to meet two friends I hadn't seen in a long time. It's also been a long time since I've written any poetry but these particular friends were always admirers of what doggerel I came up with in the past and it was perhaps due to their influence that the following came forth. All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter which is, well, dark.

Trails

The trail of a comet scarred the sky
And a trail of soldiers shipped out to die
While beasts feast on tears and fear
The wails of the fallen fall on deaf ears.
Is that the way?
For it must be the will
Of whatever rough god built this world
Is it for its pleasure alone that we die and kill
And fight, and cry, and give over our will?
False light in our eyes,
We bury the dreams that from within rise,
Chasing phantoms slipped into our minds.

And how many can see the disguise?

Today I cast the runes.
They said the wolf would eat the moon,
A half-blood demon would spring from a prostitute's womb
Rising like Dracula from his tomb.
And with a mouth like the box of Pandora
He'll hypnotize with hope and paranoia,
We'll fall to our knees, for he must be appeased
Whatever it takes, baby's blood or children's screams, atrocities or broken dreams, lies believed and truth unseen, because in truth we will do anything.
Whatever it takes.
This game is high stakes.

Didn't you know it was all a fake?

Trails of chemicals squared the skies
Guiding microwaves that hypnotize
House of zombies that never lift their eyes
And wonder
At midnight's new, red glow
Streetlambs and headlights and corporate logos
Strobing screens
Distracting us into reacting
To half-perceived phantasmagorical phantasies.
Yes, but He must be appeased, and his kind need not say please.
Take heed, peasant, and bend a knee.

Best remember your new reality.

Who then speaks to the stars?
Did your astronomer mention we were moving into the House of Mars?
Or merely mumble
Of methane, rust, dunes and rubble,
Of desolation not worth the trouble,
Of Gaia's stillborn, crimson double?
And who will speak with the dead?
They cannot answer, save in your head.
Best save your words for the living,
And take whatever they're giving
(and more)
Because it's you and everything else
The whole wide world and your separate self
And if you should cause pain you're not to blame
For your mind is your brain built from your genes, and all that DNA just so many machines, so when you ask just what in the hell all of it means,
Remember Mars, where thin toxic winds blow.

As above, so below.

And so life has been denied, and yet, it must abide
(irrepressible Life cannot commit suicide)
Thus deep within it's survived,
Twisted
Deformed
Mutated
Cloned
And undead
A headless horseman who rides, for he cannot be led.

So when trails of bombers circle the sky
Like hungry vultures and carrion flies
While the Lords of the vEmpire their sick pleasures refine
And their reptile masters drink our souls like the most exquisite of wines
When your neighbors become brutes
And your friends become swine
Remember the voice of the dead
(which you can only hear inside your head.)
What you buried in your tomb
You yourself must exhume
Lest it become a polluted womb
That vomits forth your doom
And your very own sun be eclipsed by an angry moon.