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sun bleached
back home comatose
after all day babbling
past three nights
spit beer cans obscenities dry
dawn, end of the day the month
the year;
they trample one another
in the streets it’s all vain
all knowing all infinite and
between window panes my
face sleepless, heavy-featured
cinderblock eyes crack the light
and sound, staring back.
agoraphobic in department
stores, lines out the door;
“you look awful last night was great”
I can’t process so just sit and
think the fiction dept. is a close-knit
tangle of professional liars with
hidden agendas while the poets
brood over god awful dandelions
that don’t say a damn thing
in public parks and biographers
bury themselves vicariously,
slaves to the old bastard scribes,
but at any rate and for what,
I’m doing it again, not writing
but sitting slumped in a holiday
shop beating the exhausted topics,
rented mules, bleached sand bones,
everybody’s spit flying at everybody,
ain’t no way I’m goin’ downtown
this time ’o day no sir…
I look awful last night was great
the mass goes galloping by…
clarity
we’re the bastard sons of an electric generation!
we’re a mob of illegitimate sons and arbitrary daughters!
we’re going to outlive the Mayan ruins!
we’re full speed and breakneck!
we’re out and open!
we’re carrying torches to hell!
we’re legion!
and god
we’re bored.
the clerics are adrift with their candle-wax choreography
the books cough dust onto the black ash pulpit
the bells are pounding one another into iron sheets
the sparks crack wild in all that ceremonious black.
what a drab dull thing your war was
maneuvers and bayonets.
we’ve got liquid flames!
we’ve got HQ’s on the moon!
we can shoot light through a man’s
skull from a birds’ nest in Wyoming!
it’s easy!
we don’t go to war no more!
we go on vacation!
and everybody comes back well-to-do!
trim those wicks!
we can’t die!
it’s all over!
turn down the sheets!
make up the guest bedroom!
we’re on our way
and we’re here
for the weekend!
Austen Roye currently resides in Cleburne, Texas, a relatively small town located along the underbelly of the Dallas/Forth Worth area. He has published numerous pieces through various literary magazines and independent presses and is currently completing work on his third novel. "Sun Bleached" and "Clarity" are pieces taken from his latest collection, god save your mad parade.
Email: Austen Roye
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