Perezian Poetry

The Mission - A Sestina

2010-08-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

I drink and drink and there is no assuaging

All the myriad tremors of the coming time.

Banish the thoughts that seek to destroy

My confidence necessary to survive

The incessant blows fate must deal.

Another bottle, my good man, for the road!

It is a drunk and solitary road

that no coffee or jail can be assuaging.

The bottle and I have made our deal.

And I’ll be sure to win this time.

It’s what must be done in order to survive.

God’s antiquated plans must I destroy?

Yes, His plans I must destroy!

The car, parked, I take another road:

This one is broken and difficult to survive,

despite all my peers’ condolences assuaging,

despite all my enemies’ ancient notions of time.

This is all and utmost that I can deal!

But the bottle reminds me about our deal

And the hurried pace and race to destroy

This Outworn Christian Ethic – I have no time

to find my conclusion on this dust-laden road

Though all my athiestic saints hurl platitudes assuaging

Pinning their hopes on me, that I may survive

the toils and punitive putations. I will survive

these and more securing my silent deal

And perhaps the alcohol assuaging

me of all the multitudinous numinous notions I must destroy

I bury my liquid bible in my vest and brave the road

that I hope to have completed in my time.

“There is no time,”

The stones with mouths declare, “to survive

this deadening and deadly road.

Fate dealt the hand, there is no other deal

due to you, vagrant traveler. Do you dare destroy

that divine modicum of man’s assuaging?

The road ended in due time

and the assuaging, comforts of faithful men I did survive

to deal out the Truth in lethal doses; to destroy the last reasonless ideal.

The Old Crab

2007-12-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

Long have I languished under the weight
Of many-garlanded, barnicled time.
Every joint creaks like the wooden planks of a frigate
While the silence of the deep makes of me a sad mime.

My friends (there are only two) who have thus far won the war;
Who have run the natural gauntlet of predator and prey.
They too are slow and their shells can molt no more,
So they grow haggard with the stalagmite strain.

But one in particular, Coriander, his name,
Sported fronds of seaweed from his barnicled abode,
And after a time it seemed as if he wore a sargasso mane
Or tail of an exotic fish, to see how it flowed.

Coriander did not complain.
No creak or squeak did we hear.
Coriander did not feel pain.
The answer was ocean clear.

While we plodded dismally with an arthritic speed,
Coriander's sargassum plumage eased his burden,
And then we saw him float away by his weed
Like a bubble of air into the light above.

I then wept (for crustaceans can cry) to see him go;
Then painfully crept through the rocks to wonder how I will go.

Friedrich's Unwanted Legacy

2007-12-01T00:45:00.000-08:00

The lion, once camel, became a child thus:
The coachman's whip descended
upon the wearied horse
like a brownshirt's truncheon.
Friedrich vaulted upon the fallen beast.
A blanket he became to the tormented,
crying, "Basta! Basta!"
as his friends removed him
from a carcass he could not save.

Silent, staring, dressed in white,
a color common of converts,
he watched aloof his sister's spell
as she weaved a caveat into a cult;
an iconoclast, an icon.

And now a history awake
still pines to shake
the lingering nightmare
of a still echoing Kristallnacht.

Jellyfish

2007-12-01T00:28:00.000-08:00

Realizing his life was accomplishing nothing
he found a simple secret.
He promptly signed up for Iraq
and, like Byron before him, looked for a fitting place to die.
He took his chapbooks with him
and often strapped them inside his vest
like a suicide bomber.
His sweat and fear soaked into the pages.
A testament to his testosterone.
They called him 'Jellyfish' though no one knew why.

One day near Fallujah they were attacked.
He fired above their heads and died smiling,
for he knew the secret.
He died seeing pages flying from his corpse,
but they couldn't read English.
One Iraqi had a weakness for literature
and kept two of the maroon-stained books.
He translated it years later.
Its words spread like a virus into the minds and mouths of many.
A poet-soldier's ideas survived his form - no afterlife necessary.

A biologist outside an island south of Tokyo
tries to understand the riddle of the giant jellies
that swarm and clog the straits of Nippon.
In time he learns the secret:
Death is Dissemination.

The Questing Beast

2006-07-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

He followed in fleeting circuits
the elusive glatisant girl.
He measured in meandering mobius strips
every cascading waterfall curl.

She fled his familiar gaze
as if his eyes could cast deadly rays.
She wore hats to hide her brunette curls
and the bridalveil stopped. Silent and still.

How can such beauty - stop?
How can such love be lost?

Like a waterfall hunter in Yellowstone,
finding the secret that seizes his eye
To discover in mere moments
that the cascade runs dry.

Then the search becomes the thing;
Pellinore, ancient and wandering king.
To find another glatisant girl
who will willingly counter my gaze.

These eyes bring hope and new life.
Not the death so long retold.
His strength she will gladly embrace,
Her tresses he will lovingly hold.

Cannery Row

2006-07-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

I think I shall go
to Cannery Row
there by the bay
in Monterey
there to kneel
before California seals
dropping my words of wisdom.

But these words of wisdom limp and fail
like a garden hose in an empty pail
But I learn from them a Nietzschean truth:

"One who cannot be smitten by nature
Should be smitten by men,
For such things are not human
But devils in masquerade."

The seals went erect and howled their glee
As hail cascaded from clouds born of Sea.

The sand turned to snow
on Cannery Row
I ran to my car
on the asphalt tar
to watch the seals disappear
into the surf, white and near.

"These are strange days!"
I screamed to myself
to drown out the hail
rebounding off my car.

I came to teach
Instead to learn
In the raucous cacophony of cascading ice
I am made silent.

Head and Heel

2006-05-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

You curl and slink
Offering the poison all must one day drink.
Multi-venomed Ourobouros,
All-encircling wall of fear!
We feel your venom, feel your sting!
For every night we close our eyes.
Once, you were only sleep,
Somnus was your name,
Until that malic sin was tasted
In the umbrage of that Tree
And the One who planted it.
Then the veil was rent asunder
From top to bottom
And we saw that slumber was only the tip
Of that rattling, serpent
Whose blood is colder than an epitaph.
Your manifold names revealed,
Your true form unleashed.
Who is immune to your inevitable virus
Of which we are all carriers and victims?
We flee from thee still...
Lord Thanatos, Lady Kali,
You, Viper of the Final Night.
And to those fools for whom you are invisible,
Who see no stings
And grant you no victories:
I beg them to circumspection.
I beg them to gaze long
At the cemetaried sepulchres of the ages
Which make no effort to cloak
The evidence of your trampled vintage.
And as for victory -- it is assured,
As every day is a pyrrhic war
Under the pervasive Damoclean threat
Of your terrible, swift sword.
This cold-blooded truth slithers on...
Constricting, binding, engorging, biting
Leaving us with nothing
But carcass.

Written on July 9th, 2005

2006-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

Slanted orange-yellow light
That illuminates the once-white
Now burnt sienna stones of an idle garden.
An orange and white passenger jet
Soars overhead to rendezvous with SFO.
Wind that moments ago was strong enough
To deter swimmers from entering a backyard pool,
Now lazily breezes through -- shuffling a frond or two.
Two dogs yap ceremoniously
At a sound they do not understand
As the slanting light disappears
From the rocks and the sand.
Calm now sets the water of the pool
As birds twitter their unknown tongue.
Black dog jumps in with a splash!
Twilight -- the day is done.

Invocation

2006-05-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

Goddamn it!
I have been waiting here for hours
how many? Five?
Yes, five hours I have been sitting here
Waiting for you.
I have the prayer mat and shawl
I have lit the seven candles
I brought all the right supplications
I have all the invocations
I satisfied all the superstitions
I have sought all the right transmissions
I have arranged the right numbers
I have slept the seven slumbers
I brought all the sharp devices
I have offered the sacrifices
And you don’t even so much as drop a toe
to meet my mat
Not even a whiff of wind
Not a flicker of the candle
Not a movement or a cadence
Not a ponderous, descending trail of wax
Cascading from its red molten crown
Where wick and flame are redolent
With vapors malic and warm
Awakening me to the silly fact
That...

So that’s where you’ve been hiding
You most elusive Muse.

An Infernal Musing

2006-04-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

John, did you touch me, somehow,
in your self-induced blindness
and discover the truth
of a visible darkness?

You had no right!
None! To touch me or understand my plight;
to empathize with me!
Do you know who I am?

Lightbringer am I -- Morningstar!
Now they poster me Deceiver, a lord of lies.
An adversary? Of course.
I will not kneel to any of your kind, John.

I will not kneel to any save Him,
and even that act is questionable -- now.
What god could force that decision upon me;
his greatest and best?

Does a general, even in your pathetic society,
ever salute a private?
No. Never! Not even in peace.
So why should I kneel to an undeserving Adam,

barely out of his limbic diapers,
wallowing from out the pneumatic clay,
seizing the reins of godhood.
While I, in punitive pathos, disturbingly lay?

Pachinko!

2006-04-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

So God one day,
in an hour of play,
decided to hit the lever

and to His delight
the ball gained height
to fall in a forest of pillars.

These posts and pillars
That fail to deliver,
altering the course of the ball

have names.
Fears and shames,
all there to keep an otherwise straight ball

Crooked. Bouncing.
No prediction or dowsing
will do. Maybe He chooses not to

to keep it fun and flowing,
like a seed cast to sowing.
Where will Thomas end up?

He bingles to the side.
In the corner it collides.
"Not many points that time."

Mumbles the Lord with a sigh.
He renames the ball, Guy;
Places it on the lever.

Launching, like a bullet from a gun,
for this is how it’s done
again and again and again.

Someone has to get it right...

Sometime.

Poetry Is For Losers

2006-04-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

Poetry is for losers
For losers have nothing to lose.
Winners have nothing to rail against,
the status quo will do fine, thank you.

But for those who stare from below:
The inferorum masses waiting,
praying for their erstwhile messiahs,
while the money flows all around them.

These losers: whose words are such
to cast like dice the fate of nations,
to nudge and herd the minds of many
like electrons through a copper wire;

transforming culture, accelerating evolution
like some geriatric melange addict
or an otherworldly black monolith.
That is their mandate and their task.

These losers. These losers.
They, the dregs of the draught;
the accumulated spittle of society
shaped into a form suitable for a spark

to set off its mass like an atom bomb.
Let them die with some measure of fame,
let them live with some measure of claim
to the future of this world under construction.

Poets come from this lowest lot,
where reality slaps them more often than not.

Another Chambers/Lovecraftian Musing

2006-04-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

The Sign

In forgotten tomes and a dusted room
Found ancient texts seldom read
I learned a secret known by few
Or perhaps only one, but he is dead.

I drew the Sign as best I could
I marked its lines, marked its flame
I scrawled it innocently on wood (at first)
Then painted it on dormant trains.

On aligned days those trains would move
And spread their gospel through the towns
While I sat indignant near the tombs
Polishing my inevitable crown.

That day the Moon was deep in Taurus
The Hyades cluster embraced that disk
And I made supplication to vengeful Horus
And he I cannot name due to untold risk.

The King in Yellowed scalloped tatters
I became for he was me
I appeared before the court in fetters
I bowed my head - it was plain to see...

I fell into their millenial trap
And he, though nameless, produced the bait
I searched for true power, not monetary crap.
The Phantom of Truth, I knew him late.

Now I lie beneath Lake Hali, dreaming
Waiting for the stars to align once more
Sending my signals ethereally careening
To the minds of mortals, curious and sore.

Should you pore over books forgotten
Should you discover the liberating phrase
Flee to corners remote and untrodden
For vengeance in Carcosa will certainly blaze.

And do not think I have forgotten Earth
That blue pinpoint in the eldritch black
I will return with Horus to a place called Perth
And grant to aborigines a power they lack...

I shall rule the Capricornus isles
With crown and sceptre begin Phase Three
The Sign shall be posted on billboard tiles
For all the world to see.

I shall sit in Perth with my feet uncurled
Reading of Carcosa to the music of Brahms.
You see, there are more dangerous things in this world
Than atom bombs....

Do you think this is anti-religious?

2006-04-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

Salvation History

An eclipse occurred in newest phase
drifting nebulous through the hoary haze.
I cursed the weather and the light
to hide in mist this spectral sight.
Serendipity disallowed
a beatific sight denied the crowd.
I cussed and cursed and disassembled my scope,
turned on the radio and heard the pope
rail against the unstoppable force
that creeps in annual inches from its enlightened source.
Hedging them trapped in Vatican City:
A final fortress to ward the vestigial politti.
Clutching their scapulars and rosary chains,
clinging to their sepulchered papal remains,
clinging clutching clamoring in vain.
Truth and reality closing in, driving them insane.
Such is their fate on this night of doom
as the moon waxes black behind this fog of gloom.
I wept to see the Curia collapse in fetal position
for the evolution of the world reached a vital decision,
and all the trappings of seeming truth vanished away
to return again some other day
when younger youth in yards will play
their rebellious tunes, gorgeous and gay;
learning the meaning of Ecclesia
without resorting to historical amnesia.
Meditating on such heretical tides,
the shadowed moon the horizon hides.
I look forward for the inevitable sun
which in six hours hence in the east will come
and pray humbly for the eventual light
that will chase away the ecliptic night.
Is it a light of revolutionary insurrection,
or a reminder of the first resurrection?
The church on the verge of collapse
will rebuild to the tune of taps,
while high above in vapored flaps,
God in his tent plays a game of craps.
Lucifer passes the dice to that triune lout.
Watch it! New shooter comin’ out!
Six is the point - keep your hands above the board;
Foolish is the dude who bets against the Lord.

This Poem was based on a Robert W. Chambers short story

2006-04-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Prince in Chains: A Sestina

It was done expressly to preserve the state;
The war being fought, it came very close
to defeat and for that they enchained their lord
until the omen came. The three-masted ship,
alongside a dinghy, welcomed the herald and his letter.
Never was there a more ominous mail.

The captain wore his armor-steel mail
reading about his nation’s sorry state.
He wept, folded the document, closed
the envelope and fled for his terrible lord.
Deep within the confines of that ship,
he revealed the sign to the very letter.

The imprisoned prince ignored the letter
staring at the captain with glistening mail.
He cared only for the broken state
he now found himself in. At the close
of this century a solitary lord
in yellow tatters chained aboard ship

would dictate the fate of nations, ships
blazing salvoes in the starlit night, ladders
to heaven cast in smoke and fire while mailed
messengers used its portals to dispense a state
of misery and woe pouring out their bowls:
This, the waking vision, of the saffron-scalloped lord.

A jolt, a flurry, "My lord, my lord!"
The warp and lurch of the galley ship
alarmed the prince to the recent letter
that could only have been written by a male,
for female pythians would never state
how to fight a war, but how to close.

"So this is how the volume closes."
Thought the terrible, fettered lord.
"Unchain me, captain, to save your ship",
he muttered, "Remember the letter!"
The captain clove the adamant chains,
"The gods be with you! Save our state!"

From below the ship, the loosed lord, mailed
in glowing letters stating doom, closed
upon the enemy, as it was written of old.