I've Always Been a Poet, 'Though I Didn't Always Know It Read online

  Down here, we all are one

  Down here, we deal in four-score

  And if you’re not family best leave us alone

  Yeah, if you’re not family just leave us alone

  THE THIRD REICH

  So much, so little

  Such drab and such drivel

  We contort to the clock

  Lest we like it or not

  The hours tick by

  As seasons do dry

  Death and division

  What's nuclear fission?

  Compression, convex

  Molting, complex

  Chrysalis analysis

  Regulated dialysis

  On box, and on fox

  Take your cootie-shot

  In car or on plane

  Succumb to your veins

  What is this that stands before me?

  Hark, it just a crooked doorway

  Such tidings and giggles

  Coquettish, belittled

  Death improvised

  And yet, some survive

  The hours plod on

  Devoid of the dawn

  Maledictions inscribed

  Fatuitous jive

  Compressed and repulsed

  Hypodermic remorse

  Chrysanthemum-gigantism

  Esoteric retorts

  What is this that looms before me?

  Hark, it just another doorway

  So much, so little

  Sadistic, enabled

  Death circumscribed

  Morally deprived

  Lo! Hark!

  And I lurk inside

  In my mew, I do hide

  Come and search for me

  I dwell just beyond the archway

  Beyond the blue

  And in the pale

  Don't linger here

  This is Hell

  THE FOURTH GATE

  Doing nothing

  Feeling nothing

  Bereft of maudlin curmudgeon

  What is this that stands before me?

  Just another canted doorway

  Sighing, Perplexed and vexed

  I snidely snorted

  "Fuck you guys, my path is North-ways"

  I had an idea

  Then I lost it

  Scurried off

  Like lambent roaches

  Spangled fears

  Reluctant cheers

  We've lived our lives

  Counting drear

  Shut up

  Stop making excuses

  Shut up, you

  What excuses?

  The ones that blind us

  Like white-noise

  Lulling us to sleep

  Life un-enjoyed

  But we're too busy

  With the hurry

  Hustle, bustle

  Scribble, scrabble

  Skitter, fritter

  We forget

  That blissful winter

  We once enjoyed

  When us childer

  And un-employed

  Thusly then

  And only then

  When the snow fell upon my up-turned face

  I knew my path

  And destiny

  This is Hell

  Don't follow me

  DOORWAY #5

  Silently, incipiently

  I've breached another door in darkness

  On my knees

  I slogged toward it

  Adytum, mew

  Whatever you call it

  Here and now

  I dwell inside it

  Excavate, emerge

  From the gloom

  I'm reborn

  Inside my maw

  New teeth are torn

  I hunger

  I thirst

  I sate and slake

  And then hibernate

  Nihilists and atheists

  Quake before the one true hate

  Deep inside

  Demons do hide

  On our anger

  They do thrive

  This prison built

  Of our free-will

  Beleaguered here

  Besieged by Hell

  Angrily, I fight against it

  The rip pulls me under

  I struggle

  I suffocate

  I remain

  Ensconced in Hell

  Lost in rage

  Forever here

  INFERNO THE SIXTH

  Juxtaposed, and torn asunder

  Meticulously, I wormed onward

  Slogging forth, advancing nowhere

  Through the desiccate abyss

  Loitering

  Idled here

  Shrug, gasp, sigh

  Another doorway

  "Fuck this shit, my path is North-ways!"

  Yet, against my will

  My feet turned south

  Still dwelling here

  Brooding doubts

  Egotism, mysticism

  In the gloom

  The one-true vision

  Lateralized before mine eyes

  Hark, Lo!

  Bundle up, dear childer

  I feel another bitter winter

  Curdling within my bones

  The carillon's requiem

  Long-lost tomes

  Extrapolate the yearning soul

  Yet, another verbose excuse

  Just live your life

  Time will soothe

  But still, we can't let go of those grudges

  Slanders, slights, and up-and-comers

  Challengers who beat us down

  Put up your dukes

  I'm older now

  The phantasmagoria dissolves before me

  Like frayed and fractured pictures of my youth

  Yet the reveries stripped from mine eyes

  Such relief, such privilege

  Such dissolute

  All fades to ubiquitous blackness

  I slink into my cell

  Death was once a doorway

  The reality is Hell

  THE ARC OF DESCENT

  A darkness surrounds me, it holds me, and binds me

  A weak light that flickers intensely before me

  And here in this abyss

  A doorway that closes after I have passed through it

  ‘Cause its pitch-black

  Twenty-twenty visions all I see

  Night terror’s darkness encompassing me

  Pitch-black

  Twenty-twenty visions all I see

  Night terror’s darkness is throttling me

  An axis of embers guides me, directs me

  With my eyes wide open I see more clearly in the dark

  ‘Cause its pitch-black

  Twenty-twenty visions all I see

  Night terror’s darkness imprisoning me

  Pitch-black

  Twenty-twenty visions all I see

  Night terror’s darkness is swallowing me

  I toss and turn within my self

  Watching me sleep below

  I feel the cold caress of elongated fingers upon my quivering body

  And those hollow whispers hold

  They tell me to lie still

  They tell me to behave

  I quaver in resentment

  And if I could, I’d rage

  They smell the scent upon me

  Knowing I’m not their own

  I thrash alone in silence

  In the dark but not alone

  I wander in the gloom

  This is all my fault

  My brash, my lust, my arrogance

  I have traveled too far

  Much too far and too long

  I have drawn this curse upon me

  And now, all I do is scream

  NINE RINGS

  Nine rings

  7 saints

  Behemoth soldiers standing firmly at the gates

  Two geese

  3 crows

  Daniel’s wearing a fine lion-fur-coat

  Apocryphal

 
Ethereal

  Hey, pull over, Noah

  I think we got a hole in the boat

  Five swine

  1 Grace

  Meteorological canonical mistakes

  Thirteen virgins

  No pants

  Gabriel’s gettin’ down but he can’t dance

  Evangelical

  Mysterious

  Hey, pull over, Noah

  I think we’re going down with the flood

  I’ve seen the whole damned world burn down in flames

  I’ve seen man turn into monkey into graves

  I’ve seen free-will revoked by our own thoughts

  Ring around the black rainbow

  Pockets full of Polio

  Give ‘em manna, wine, or cake

  How could things exacerbate?

  Ten laws

  6 wraiths

  Symptomatic symbiotic microwaves

  13 prophets

  A million fleas

  Joseph pawned his amazing-Technicolor-fleece

  Philosophical

  Delirious

  Hey, pull over, Noah

  I think we’re lost in the storm

  30 plates

  What scrub?

  Who else wants to ride a different short-bus?

  50 damsels

  One dress

  Ideologically moronic consumer distress

  Pyrrhonist

  Malodorous

  Hey, pull over, Noah

  I think we need to send an S.O.S.

  I’ve seen the whole damned world flush down the drain

  I’ve seen man turn into mongoose into maize

  I’ve seen Hellfire and brimstone

  Ring around the black rainbow

  Pockets full of Polio

  Let them binge until they break

  How could things exacerbate?

  100 ships

  No shore

  Navigational rotational discord

  Minus body

  1 revenant

  Manic idiomatic peregrine

  Discorporate

  Lascivious

  Hey, pull over, Noah

  I think we need a bigger tub

  I’ve seen the death that breaks before the dawn

  I’ve escaped the gloom that lurks upon the lawn

  I’ve been to Hell and back again, for fuck’s sake

  Seven guards with Polio

  Couldn’t lull me to my hole

  In corporal form

  I do hide

  This mask, this shape, this disguise

  Ha! I’ve tricked you all

  Nine rings

  7 saints

  Couldn’t drag me back with iron staves

  One more door to violate

  My shoulder quashed against the gate

  Palpitating, impatiently

  Anxious, and yet, with such glee

  Give’th way the blockade

  And...

  And...

  And...

  Oh, shit

  It’s darker here

  THE FINAL ARCHWAY

  Deep, profound, and oblique

  I slam another door

  Stewing in my anger, as my father did before

  Pissed, enraged, I can’t let go

  Perhaps, my dove another crow

  We need to talk this out

  ‘Though I fear of what unfolds

  Death is not a doorway

  Just pusillanimity

  I can’t go on like this

  I won’t go on like this

  We shant go on this way

  I pray to God for courage

  He replies, “You know what to say”

  This life, my own prison

  Either or, which path chosen

  This Hell dare I escape?

  ###

  About the author:

  Joshua S. Friedman is quiet, secluded man, bearing down for the impending Apocalypse.

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