the other world

“the other world”

Your bright colors are going out – fading, and shaded,

                Dull

Where once you shot out bright green hues, yellows,

                Deep, vibrant blues and vivid reds

Dazzling orange, and garish lines of purple –

Now what’s pouring out?

Muddy, grey, earthy sloshes

Drab tones and notes off key

Empty words, held in emptier cisterns

Dumped out in empty space, filling emptiness with nothing

And the nothing is what fills you

What happened to the roll of thunder?

The crack of lightning…

The outburst of YOU??

Where did your fire go?

The colors, the sounds, the spontaneity

The truth, the ache, the fuck up, the religion

The  “Oh my God, what will he do next?”

The hammer, the sword, the flaming arrows

The power, the stride, the swift yet humble victory…

All of that shimmer – dissolved in the smoke

The bottle

The powder

The pill

The needle

The strange

The desperate world

The world of lies

The world of trap doors, back alleys, hidden hallways

                And catapulted destinies

Oh it built itself up strong enough

With lights and sounds  -

                Like car horns and egg timer buzzers

Publishing its endless list of citizens,

As if to say, “it’s okay to live here.. everyone does!”

Those needles and pipes and straws and jagged claws

                And that vicious look in everybody’s eye

And that smell of rotting flesh and even worse,

                The sound of broken hearts…

Those are all perfectly normal and they are to be expected

So sit back and I will feed you

 I’ll provide opportunity, means, chances…

And I’ll take your colors

And I’ll dull your words

And you can die here, forever