Poetry Compilation 1

A Riddle to Solve

Behold this great beast!

Born of Earth and Man

To shudder, shake, slide, and screech.

Encased in armor, strong yet hollow,

His organs lie above and below, snapping and crackling with bolts of life and fire,

Demanding sacrifice.

Under the soil he reigns, faster than most wheels

Eyes bright and unseeing, mouth large, hinged, menacing

Inviting the practical to enter

But he is stunted, imprisoned in the tunnels dug for him, unable to ever leave

His tunnels, a regal display, royal halls stretch for days

Mysterious clicking mechanisms bring him to a warm boil

But comfort roosts far from here.

He eats wastefully, energy burnt to serve others, others who use him.

Pray that he never meets another of his kind

Hark! The beast calls

His siren proud as the fire of his eyes

A wail comes from him as he stops before us,

Mouth open, opportune, and hopeful

To drag us to places we rarely wish to be

Cigarettes, Porn, Guns

I am the black mirror

Buzzing, din, bathe in my brick soaked melody

Hollow carpet, plastic moon

Who else knows what I do?

I am the seller of velvet milk

Builder of a great and long brevity chain

I am the melter of truth-paint

I slam the anger door open

I am television

 

Lament of the Alternator in Adolf’s Volkswagen

Look upon me, and say you feel no pity

For the task I was made,

My father bid me, do!

And so I do

Yet the man I carry

Cares not for my electric finesse,

But only for wipers that work on command

And command he does

For I move for him his legions

And keep their lighters hot

For I have not a choice in this

If I could resist, and if he could

Have me shot, I’m sure he would

Do not envy me, dynamo of old

Perhaps I replaced you, but despite combustion

The top is cold

I give and give, charged copper speaks in glorious light

But my master’s interest

Seems to be steeped in fights

My oblong piston, doomed to spin

For my maker bade me, as though on a whim,

Could he not consider my dreams?

A future, I envision, in steel and silicon

An engine of fission,

Or a perhaps a cosmic mission

But all this will vanish

To be no more

And leave me like the dynamo

Should I be remembered,

Not for my splendor,

My dense, iron mystery

My long, earthen history,

But for this pale rider

Whose men demand a hot lighter

 

Peter is a Monster

I find myself lost, where is this?

A far and strange place, found through fog

There is youth here,

Youth remembers

I’ll ask them where this is and home, I’ll go

My cane catches, crinkles, cracks, against

Branches billows, brambles, and roots of willows

The boys scorn me

They sneer, laugh

A fine cane, you have, old man!

They say,

An old man, how odd!

They exclaim,

Hook’s husband, no doubt

They crow,

And leave, flying bravados

No help were these youth, I find

Youth who can fly?

In this land greener than my lawn

In the distance a forest

Thicker than the fog

Through which I walked this morning

Through these dense woods I stumble, cane first, legs uncertain

Never had a walk in the woods been so surreal

Not since I was a boy

Thirteen, maybe less, maybe more

Beyond a ridge to the west

Between the trees and the hours spent

A kiss first received

But then I walked home, and I walked smiling

Now I walk away, and it is harsh

My bones cannot do this as they once did

My body cannot stand as it once did

What do I crave, more than what those boys owned

Flight? No.

Youth

Yes youth

To walk these woods, in comfort

In joy

And to fit into this,

This never-ever-ever land.

Good Luck Nicholas

Cast view into the harbor

You will see

The victim of the militant machine

Named by Italians

Built by man alone,

In any place where he is

Malignant sight,

His body found stripped,

Bled out in water, before he could drown

His kinsmen, an ancient tradition, say

Bavarian nightmare!

Beer bombing badge

Swollen, water-logged reality.

The march of his children

Cold mean, special gold club

Sharp suits, brown costumes,

Hundreds rise to take his face,

His beard, his clothes.

Mommys go shopping, snow speckled

Daddys go chopping, snow dappled

Elysian shellac,

Slicking back black hair

Of rosy cheeked salesmen,

Or a crooked faced cop on the watch,

Murderer, collector of slaves,

For the afterlife only.

Burn down our false heaven,

Maritime borders collapse into plastic trinkets,

A dead figurehead, a live one,

To march to the mall,

And demand our rights

Laughed at, spurned, burned

And turned around

Tear gas and mistletoe gets me down,

Let’s collapse into cheap rhyme and say,

Fuck this, let’s go home

And just watch Charlie Brown.

Progression

He woke with a sore throat. As he rose from his bed he rationalized quickly. “This is a dry throat.” He had been drinking the night before. And with his heater running, the air in his bedroom was parched. He brushed aside thoughts of illness, the signals he had seen around him, both at school and at work, blatantly put away. The memories of coughing classmates and nasally waitresses filed surreptitiously away in the black box of his mind. His day is mundane, washing dishes. Today, one moment stood out. Festering behind his dish-washing machine was a lump of what had once been meat. He had no idea how long it had been there, nor could he figure how he missed it in his cleaning for so long. He had only noticed it because, while scrubbing through ketchup stained dishes, he watched not one, but three flies crawl down between the wall and the dishwasher. Perhaps the fly was the same every time, but nonetheless, the frequency worried him. He grabbed the rot with a closed, gloved hand. Turning it over and unraveling his loosely balled fist, he examines it closer. It appeared to have once been a piece of chicken, a breast most likely, but it had long since melted and morphed into a sad, yellow-gray blob. Just as he rolled it slightly with his fingers, it split open. Thick viscous mucus stretches out, holding two loaves of mashed, rotten flesh together and in the midst of it squirmed two white, little worms, writhing in their exposure. He watched their soft movements for a moment, then without further thought, he dumped the young larvae into the trash, along with their mucky home. Aside from this incident, the day had completed itself normally. By the time he returned to his home, exhausted from a double shift, his throat had grown red and angry, eliciting raspy, painful coughs. He felt a tickle somewhere deep in his nose. With a resigned sigh, he internally admits defeat. Hoping to nip the issue in the bud, he finds cough syrup in his bathroom and helps himself to a generous chug. Cringing from the taste, he gingerly walks to his bed, a bare mattress on his floor and enthusiastically throws himself into sleep.

He woke with a headache. As soon as he raised his body from his pillow, he felt a pounding resonate through his core. Stumbling to the bathroom, he shakily fills a glass of water in the sink. He drinks quickly, his throat tense and sore. Finishing the glass, he takes a sharp breath in and doubles over with a rolling, wet cough. When he believes it to be over, it hits him with a second wave, more desperate and sickly than the first. After he finishes sucking for breath, he examines the palm of his hand, haphazardly coughed on, in a vain attempt to keep the infection contained.  Smeared on his palm is snot, thick and yellow, tainted with noxious streaks of gray and brown. The mucus, he notes, is nearly fibrous, not unlike the soft flesh of the throat. In morbid fascination, he presses the ball of slime between his thumb and forefinger. Flicking it into the sink, he begrudgingly carries on with his day. Another double shift slogs by. He spends his day coughing into a dry rag behind his machine, hacking up chunks of greasy, yellow phlegm. Every time any water would spritz off of a plate, or bowl, and sprinkle his face, he would wince. Even the florescent lighting, typically easy on his eyes, seemed arrayed against him, painfully battering his sight. The air was wet and its thickness made his breathing into a ragged purr. His bones ached now, and his mind set a layer of fuzz over his senses. He felt sporadic flashes of fever, which ruined his perception of time. Many hours would zip by, only for the minutes to suddenly grind on for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, work came to an end, and by the time he leaves, he coughs more than he has peaceful breath. Exhausted, he makes it home, though he does not remember the trip. Another hearty swig from his cough syrup precipitates a long, yet feverish sleep.

He sleeps for half a day. Twelve hours of toxic fluid that has built up in his nose and throat violently long to escape. He wakes with a start, coughing before he realizes he is conscious. He fills a tissue with yellow scum, then a second. The third he only coughs into, for what felt to him like far too long for a reasonable coughing fit. The tissues squish in his hands, as though they are slugs who struggle against a child’s grasp. As luck would have it, he does not work today. He has the day to himself, to recover and relax, until the evening, when he would go to one of his weekly night classes at university. He spends his day in bed, coughing viciously and sipping cough syrup like it was wine. Though successful in further fogging his senses and allowing time to slip by quickly, the medicine seems to fail in suppressing his cough. A crawling sensation dribbles down his throat. Irate fever scratches at flesh deep inside his sinus and a painful tension makes itself apparent in the wires of his windpipe. A rank smell begins to waft faintly from deep within him. Making it to class is a struggle that he does not remember, simply finding himself at the entrance of the classroom, shortly before the beginning of the lesson. His appearance alone seems to draw immediate ire from the glossy eyes of his classmates. He thinks to himself that he must look terrible. It was likely that he did not smell particularly good either. Unable to feel shame in his fever-pitched mind, he finds his seat and quickly takes it, feeling mucus and bitter, cherry medicine sloshing lyrically in his knotted stomach. The projector in the room is set up, prepared to visually aid a lecture. Leaning on his elbows, he tries to listen to the speaking professor, but instead pours his focus into suppressing his cough. It works, to an extent, for he manages to keep his cough meek and infrequent, though the effort hurts his eyes, forcing him to keep them closed much of the time. The buzz of the projector invades his mind, drowning any hope of absorbing information. The professor’s words become a low, senseless echo.

Slipping into fevered sleep, he finds himself at the helm of his dishwasher, digging rotten meat out of the gears of the machine. Each chunk would disintegrate in his latex hands, revealing a nest of fat, glimmering maggots. No matter how many he threw away he would dig out a new fistful of festering meat and with it, white, writhing worms.

The projector clicked out of use, the sound somehow reaching into his subconscious and pulling him out of sleep. Despite mechanical silence, he still could hear the buzzing, now decentralized from the projector and flitting about the room. Suddenly alert to the noise, he looks around nervously, growling softly to alleviate his urge to cough, though a few wet, sickly coughs would slip through from time to time. The buzz radars, changing in frequency and volume, and from time to time, he swears he hears the beating of tiny, cellophane wings. From the corner of his eye a black dot flees. He jerked his head to follow it, but missed his chance. The buzz grew again, teasing him with its inexplicable fluctuation. Again his attention is drawn, before he can rationalize it, to a black dot at the edge of his periphery. It rockets behind his head, buzzing painfully loud. He snaps his head around, hoping to catch it in his hazy focus, only to be interrupted by clamoring classmates, rising together and rushing to leave. In a daze, he sits for a moment, listening for the buzz, but failing to hear it. His focus slips, and he lets loose a powerful cough. As he finishes hacking into a balled fist, he unrolls his fingers and examines the product. Splattered in his palm are white bands of wiry snot, streaked with the faint browns and reds of blood.

The night was troublesome. Sleep did not come without struggle. He had finished his bottle of syrup, yet could not grab hold of steady sleep. Perhaps he had not drank enough, or perhaps he drank too much. Regardless, he tossed and turned for a time, unable to reconcile the position of his head with the heat of his sheets and the soreness of his limbs. Occasionally his struggle was interrupted by a fit of coughing, which would end only when he successfully ejected thick, fleshy gobs of brown-streaked snot from the nooks in his throat. He filled dozens of tissues with his nose and mouth. As he became settled over the hours, and his body relaxed, he began to drift into slumber. In a state between wakefulness and sleep, he felt a surreal crawling. It began at his feet and slid up his sweat-speckled back, like a shiver in reverse. When it reached the nape of his neck, it wrapped itself around his throat and began massaging, as if with thick and gentle fingers. The stringy muscles of this throat shifted unnaturally, half cramped and half asleep, offering confused, token resistance to the ghostly force inside of his throat. When sleep finally overtook him, he dreamt blindly. Sounds and smells shifted foggily around him. Buzzing and squishing invaded his dreams and the smell of musty rot wafted in and out of his notice.

He woke feeling better. He coughed, as he had the last few mornings, but the pain is now gone, replaced by a sort of morbid satisfaction. He feels the mucus that once likely caked his throat, loosen and fly out of him with every wet hack. Looking at the chunks, he notes their continuously strange texture. They’re nearly solid and are marbled with dried blood. He takes a deep breath and feels a flutter somewhere between his lungs and his throat. The irritation of it makes him cough again, but this cough is a whooping one, dry and fruitless. He goes about his day, freshly thankful for his bones, now free from constant, dull pain. This morning he was to attend class, and this time he felt well enough to actually do so. His drive was peaceful. This time of day, there were not many other cars on his route. A red light stops him a couple blocks before he reaches school. Another cough creeps up on him, wet, just like when he woke. He coughs into his fist, measured at first, but something tickles the back end of his sinus and launches his cough into hysterics.

He coughs until he shakes, until he heaves and until he gags. He feels warm, solid slime splatter into his hand, again vainly attempting to block his mouth. He unrolls his fingers to see the product. In his hand, streaked with the browns and reds of blood, lies a pair of thin, snot-specked worms. They feel the nip of the cold air and begin writhing futilely, weak, hungry, and dying.

Slick Kicks

(Open on LUCIFER rummaging through his belongings, becoming increasingly frustrated)
 

LUCIFER

(bellowing)

Boy! Boy where are you?

(from offstage)

ANTICHRIST

Yes Father?

LUCIFER

Get in here boy! Don’t yell at me through the house!

(enters from left of stage)

ANTICHRIST

I wasn’t the one yelling through the house! What’s going on?

LUCIFER

Where are my sneakers?

ANTICHRIST

What?

LUCIFER

(darkly)

You heard me boy. I can’t find them and I need them to steal the souls of the living.

ANTICHRIST

Are they magic or something?

LUCIFER

No, they’re just my favorite pair of sneakers and I absolutely cannot be seen without theꟷ, of course they’re magic! They have my Mojo! I can’t be a charismatic evil being without my Mojo! Otherwise I’m just an old creep with a fondness for weirdos. Haven’t I told you about these?

ANTICHRIST

Oh come on dad. You’re not that old.

LUCIFER

Not that old… If you only knew the half of it.

(continues searching, grunting and growling all the while. ANTICHRIST watches with passive amusement)

ANTICHRIST

You sure you didn’t leave them in another room? This place is like a hall of mirrors, after all.

LUCIFER

No! I don’t forget things in wrong places. I’ve had the same razor since Caesar died and I can tell you where it is right now. If these shoes are in this house, they will be in this room. Everything is carefully put in place. It’s all part of a master plan, but apparently someone thinks it’s funny to steal my shoes! And right before a big election.

ANTICHRIST

Why is it like this? Aren’t we the only ones who live here? Why the complexity?

LUCIFER

I’ve explained this to you before and I doubt explaining it again will help your understanding. Now help me search! Don’t just stand there like a fool!

(ANTICHRIST begins an unenthusiastic search, slowly and dramatically scouring the room. LUCIFER watches the pantomime with increasing testiness)

LUCIFER

I don’t appreciate mockery. I need those shoes. You need me to get them too. If my power is gone, yours will diminish until you crumble to dust.

ANTICHRIST

What?

LUCIFER

Oh yes. Your power derives entirely from me. If my power is gone, then all my creations will slowly fall apart. You are my son, my seed, my greatest and most intimate creation. Your death will be the most tumultuous when my collapse comes.

ANTICHRIST

You’re kidding. Seriously?

LUCIFER

(quickly)

As serious as death itself boy. You see, I am part of a delicate, ancient ecosystem. Balance must be kept between good and evil, chaos and order, and I am half of the equation. You understand that if the wolves vanish, prey will swarm existence and choke it out. My power is the glue that holds together cosmos’, the sinew of the crossbow of time, the lock and the key to paradise, and without it, all crumbles to dust. Even the Almighty above cannot fathom the darkness that will consume reality should I lose my power and be unable to counter his increasing banality and kindness. Now do you understand boy? Do you understand why I need to find my sneakers?

ANTICHRIST

(shocked)

God damn.

(beat. LUCIFER’s search effort winds down and his son watches him slowing down)

You okay pops?

(LUCIFER sits down, puts his head in his hands)

LUCIFER

They were satin black with velvet finish 2k17 Kyrie Shooters.

ANTICHRIST

And they held the power to hold together reality in them.

LUCIFER

That’s why I’m so upset!

ANTICHRIST

I’m upset too! Why was that power in a pair of shoes? Why did you take them off? Why do you ever take them off? What is wrong with you? Can you call God?

LUCIFER

Nope. Not doing that.

ANTICHRIST

Someone? Whose got more authority than you and isn’t God that can help us?

LUCIFER

Pfft. No one.

ANTICHRIST

(ignoring the comment)

Or would even be willing to help us. Jesus is a generous guy! If we can find him I bet he’ll be willing to help out, right?

LUCIFER

Look. We’re not telling God. And we’re not calling Jesus. We haven’t been on speaking terms since the Harrowing, remember?

ANTICHRIST

Why should I remember?

LUCIFER

I’ve told you a hundred times.

ANTICHRIST

Then I definitely wouldn’t remember.

LUCIFER

Foolish boy. Always a foolish boy.

(beat. ANTICHRIST watches a blank faced LUCIFER sitting and he grows increasingly suspicious)

ANTICHRIST

Hey wait a second here…

LUCIFER

What did you say? I’m sort of in and out over here.

ANTICHRIST

This doesn’t make any sense.

LUCIFER

What doesn’t?

ANTICHRIST

This whole situation. You’re messing with me, aren’t you. You made this whole thing up to screw with me.

LUCIFER

(Indignant)

Absolutely not! I would not joke about my Shooters!

ANTICHRIST

(yelling)

Then how come this is happening? How hasn’t it happened before? You’re bullshitting me dad and I don’t like it!

LUCIFER

You watch your tongue! Don’t you think I don’t realize how screwed I am? Why are you so thick? Why have you always been so thick?

ANTICHRIST

I’m not thick, this is just still sort of insane to me! It wasn’t long ago that I even got here! No one ever thought I was this stupid when I was alive.

LUCIFER

Look… I’m sorry boy. I’m under a lot of stress… Come sit next to me my son

(pats spot next to him. ANTICHRIST sits)

LUCIFER

I know this is going to be a hard… transition for us andꟷ

(LUCIFER chokes up and begins softly weeping into his hands, he talks through sobs)

ꟷWe’re… Going…

ANTICHRIST

It’s okay dad, it’s okay.

(Puts his arm around his father, allowing him to cry for a few seconds.)

LUCIFER

Maybe I should tell God. That way we can prepare something, maybe.

ANTICHRIST

You know what? I don’t think we need to tell God.

LUCIFER

You don’t? Why not?

ANTICHRIST

Remember when Ba’al bet you that you couldn’t get that Chapman guy to kill his favorite musician and you got him to do it just by getting a book or two into the dude’s hands?

LUCIFER

(sniffling)

I do remember that.

ANTICHRIST

Do you really think you needed a pair of shoes to pull that one off?

LUCIFER

Aw, but that was nothing.

ANTICHRIST

Are you kidding? It’s badass! Classic you. Subtle, lethal, your experience and creativity really shows.

LUCIFER

Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.

ANTICHRIST

Is it working?

LUCIFER

A little, keep going.

ANTICHRIST

You don’t need a silly pair of sneakers to kick ass and take souls!

LUCIFER

Hey now, slow down. I need those shoes.

ANTICHRIST

No! Now think about it! Do you really need those shoes? You’re the damned Devil!

LUCIFER

(hesitant)

Even devils have their limits…

ANTICHRIST

Not this one!

LUCIFER

Oh hush son

ANTICHRIST

No! Think of it this way, God is all about faith right? And He made You, so your power is derived from his, right? So all you have to do is have faith, just like God!

LUCIFER

Faith?

ANTICHRIST

Yes!

LUCIFER

Faith in what?

ANTICHRIST

Hah! Now who’s thick? Yourself!

LUCIFER

Faith in myself? Faith in myself.

ANTICHRIST

If you just believe in yourself, you can do anything. You are the Morning Star. I don’t know why you wouldn’t believe in yourself. I believe in you.

LUCIFER

You do?

ANTICHRIST

I believe. I believe in the Devil.

(LUCIFER sniffles and wipes his eyes)

LUCIFER

Thank you so much.

ANTICHRIST

Now the more important thing is if you believe.

LUCIFER

You know what? I do. I do believe. I don’t need those pesky shoes! They’re way too expensive to wear every day anyway!

ANTICHRIST

That’s the spirit! Now we have to see if it worked!

LUCIFER

If what worked?

ANTICHRIST

The faith! You have to do something! Something you could only do in the shoes before!

LUCIFER

Oh! Oh I know! Here, I’ll do one of my favorite tricks. And it’ll be easy to tell if it works

(LUCIFER dramatically raises his hand as if to snap his fingers, brief drum roll, loud snap, the lighting on stage changes to a notably red hue. LUCIFER jumps up from his seated position)

LUCIFER

Ah hah! My boy! You were right! I never needed those shoes! Oh the wasted eons! I must go now! I must unleash this newfound confidence upon time!

(LUCIFER laughs confidently, snaps his fingers again, changing the light to green, laughs again, and runs off stage left)

ANTICHRIST

It’s cute to see the old so full of energy.

(ANTICHRIST stands up, looks around the trashed room and stares hard at something behind where he was sitting. He kneels and picks up a pair of black shoes. Looks at audience, cut to black.)

END OF PLAY