Alchemisland

Twenty four hours a day inhaling haze, halfway to outer space, out of place

Innerspace displaced, face starts phasing the mirror noncomplacent

Something different between these pictures, something missing, I can taste it

Cannot trace it, I’ve been led into the maze astray and have been for ages

All of my best days just me, an ashtray, a RAW grinder and as many pages

Of utter fecklessness as my ailing fingers will allow me to confess

The feeling lingers, primarily in my chest, tips of my fingers

Green as Flanders Fields, I was there grasping my steel

Life-stealing chunks of debris flense me unto eternity

I come back from the ether, heads turning toward me

Face pulled from history, so many doppelgangers perplexes me

No mystery why I’ve always been so eager to hear more about the first world war

Nothing’s fine I’m torn, the queen of thorns one I adore, adorn me with war wounds

Pledge me to daring Mars beneath a horned moon, make me target for all archers

Arches cast hillround shadows on the passing soldiers, snipers on the overpass

M1 slung overshoulder, looking older in khaki, hear those rifles cracking

Some of these men looking neat and keen will die uncleanly, gangrenous

And leaking, screaming, nothing scheming Eton prepared you for

Opposite of Eden, oil sheeting from a rent truck buried in wet sedge

Horses can’t stand up, whinnying in the gutter surrounded by riders’ guts.