While Morpheus Greek steps
out of the dream within
speaking a muted language
through closed captions on the flat screen tv
over the stilled raving of steel drums.
There is no dream,
only a digitized illusion.
a conjured spirit of electrons and closed casket circuitry
arrives to answer pixelated prayers
that somehow exist in more dimensions than you
my moebius love. I puff on
the blunt as I listen. Seeking only the sacred
council of my own idiocy. Having no compass
here only a broken LED clock
strobing crimson 12:00 pm as it bleeds out
a phosphorescent hemophiliac in the darkest hours.

Hard time taught me its most brutal of lessons
under the rough tutelage of many strikes
Of its blackened hands. trust only the math
and follow only the evidence. Its tattooed face ignores
your animal instincts to incinerate every precinct.
Reject always the useless love of a mad
sow. No matter how pretty the lipstick
I am a true child of Zion
I bathe in the magnificent
heat of the sun spitting eternal fire on my face.
I do not possess a vocabulary sufficient to the task.
Nothing more than trite alliterations of exalted ecstasy of the living.
The ghost dances with dead tongues
an ancient pain sadistically deflowers phantom existences
I bore witness to each exquisite agony every breath
flees my ragged mouth barefoot leaving in its wake
a trail of bloody footprints missing a single little toe
The crimson trail a drunkards pirouettes Fibonacci sequence,
Out of the golden meaning of life.

I empty my bowels of all wisdom
I wipe my ass with your vintage prom dress
once worn to the Hierophants wedding.
and soon I will be dead as the winters light. It’s already May
We are watching old black and white movies again
I embrace the vacuous amnesia of amber-colored alerts.
Invincible ego of anonymity relinquishes its grasp
on torn memories of us. The most precious
years squandered gaslighted in an emotional TimeSink
warped to the self-slashing core.
The existential angel of suburban angst
raw doggerel self-loathing caricature assassin
a barren grifter not even a contender
just another bum-rushed lamentation
the most basic X X chromosome. Cliché
thy name is throated seed swallow
incestuous cesspool of putrid orifices burnt offerings
the eternal reek of fetal alcohol syndrome
And irradiated clay pots of mama-san’s forgotten kimchi.

I lie and tell myself I’m better off
than the laughing GOAT
At least I still have my name.
I wonder after the Sheriff
leaves with my signature on
another stack of “me
too” lies. no one will remember
the flavor of the toxic Kool-Aid self-served by the righteous
who martyred themselves in Jonestown.
Lost in Chronos annals. another cult of the demented
Carving ecstatic agonies into thick pale thighs.
You sit in your car alone in the parking lot sobbing
rejected by your lover’s school-aged child
thank you for the pi times the radius of the hypocrisy
Squares served up like the best revenge “so delicious so cold”
Relax you are no pedophile you have a predator-proof vagina.

This time I win by losing again. My name follows
me like a hungry stray dog into a tone-deaf oblivion
and soon enough no one will ever read
my feeble attempts to sing a poem iridescent resuscitated
in all of its halleluiah-less glories.
perhaps the first vestal verses
to baptize my temporal tied tongue in a half-life.
At midnight I wonder if she still
has that gargantuan V
for victim tattooed on her forehead And…
How’s that working out for you?

– Joey Da’rrell Cloudy