Xenodochium

ACT I: Savage
scene I: Ferrousity

I am a savage,
that is who I am;
just another bored little human
waiting to enliven himself.
I may kill something one minute,
love someone the next,
and never the twain shall meet.

This nailless coffin is enough
to keep me secure and safe
as a whole new world rushes by
and dances with dichotomies
of the needless and the hopeless.

This brave face I explore with
is enough to see me through
many dark nights thinking and preying.
What little mindless acts of arson
and sabotage I can muster
in the spontaneous seconds
each side of awakening
will keep me occupied forever.

For whom’s eyes the colour of iron
could I possibly deny myself for?
What ferocious language barrier
can linguistically flummox me?
I am a savage,
that is who I am.

scene II: Cheap and Nasty Behind the Bottle Bank

This expressionist turmoil
by the dog piss-pocked grass
behind the clink-clink bins
eludes by precocious mind.
Somewhere, maybe next to me,
is my shadow, my malformed doppelgänger,
the faceless visage where I can be myself.
It haunts me,
it hunts me,
licking the sweat from my brow
as it puffs up its haunches
and swallows me
in one, monstrous gulp.

Its footsteps are louder than mine
when I run, always to whence I came from,
the perfect circle from nature in absentia.
To whom do I address my letter of death?

Myself.

scene III: U.F.O. Spotted Above the Nursery

This is an exhalation on a cold night,
the frosted-glass breath floating over
the next-generation abattoir.

ACT II: Proper Gander
scene I: A Little Less Conservation, a Little More Attraction, Please

Why do old walls creak at night?
Is the Horizontal Man afoot?
He is that creature in my dreams
who wakes me each time He appears.
He hands me the diploma in Fear
then produces maggots from His eye sockets.

So, naturally, I throw Him away
and replace Him with myself,
only now I dream that I am Him,
walking up someone else’s wall,
frightening them closer to Death,
but always just out of Her reach.
She’s always been attracted to me,
or Me I should say. Yes, Me,
it has a sonorous doom-laden ring to it.

scene II: Aqua Vitae

The glass of water controls the shaking,
but my narrator is still stirring shit.
It’s bubbling, threatening to spill
and burn my thighs in penitence.
It’s taking my life from me,
but the irony is lost.

scene III: Prelude for a Farewell

I am about
to say adieu.

ACT III: Farewell
scene I: Degeneration

I am of a former generation
and as such I know more than you.
I was here when the universe began
and I will be around when it dies.
What facilitates me I do not know.
Perhaps, when I walk through the door
above which glows the red light of shame,
and I take off her bra
as she rests her groin upon my expanding lap,
I might consider some final words
as I expire and make way
for the next degenerate
who fancies himself as a Zeusalike.
But I don’t do words,
it’s not in my nature.

scene II: Adieu, Fool

This is my price,
the nightmares, the fiction,
the over-sentimental hypocrisy.
Mine and mine alone.
What solace lies here
is purely accidental
and should not be taken literally.

Adieu,
fool.