Zina
-Linn Barnes

one day sometime ago
as usual alone on the beach
the fresh breeze splashing my 
burning face under a hot sun

and left stranded on uncertain shores
the tidal flux lapping at my withered feet

now wrapped in a sheath of green
as I became more like the water

and less like the familiar earth
where once upon a time

I freely strode and smiled
grieved laughed and played

then,

You better be getting busy
because time is running short
on a fast burning and despicable fuse
enabling this man to dabble in
just about anything he may fancy.

Sign up 
Take a step
Write something
Speak out
Be outraged
Don’t be shy
And fear nothing.

until as the day wained
and upon the holy screen 
a game was cast before

my squinted eyes which 
dragged me away from 
my stalwart easel

to face the glamour 
of yet another dusk
of gladiatorial grins

along with a nation
of sloths and fools who’ve
been duped into thinking

as caligula would have had it
that what they see will bring
gloated and grinatious

fancy into desperate lives
hanging filial like over 
the constant flames

of jonathan edward’s
crispy consuming flames
for us like his spiders

into the sharp and pure 
light of a moment’s relief
before the cascading

fall to the distant
and hopeless valley
where legions of the lost

shall suffer despair and madness 
as the rest wait patiently
for the next ride down

for the fall seems upon us
as the light seems to fade
and courage is all we have left.

Once wobbled me to the verge of collapse
until I guess I got used to it and learned

To bathe in the multicolored fantasy
flashing without fail each December

While always fearing that one day
a shadow would pass over all of it and

The glamour of the glimmer would
crinkle crack and creep away

Leaving me stranded with years of
desolate nothingness ahead

But that has not to this time
been the case as I revel once

Again in the primitive seduction
of sparkle and twinkle blinking

The old routine and nothing has
been lost to time but time itself

The old and merciless enemy
stalking all the days we have

Wandered into careless vanishing 
while the twinkling lights pulse

Glow and shatter the shadows
so eager to put them to rest

where there is no 
place to hide
where there is 
only the truth
being born which 
rattles the storms 
that rattle
your being

where there is 
finally no retreat 
and there is left 
only the need 
to engage
to bring joy

and 
hope 
to 
survive

shock with booming wave after wave fields
mountains forests lakes seas and plains

with the clear good news for all the living
that the darkness will be swept back

that a new sun is busy being born
after the longest night is weathered

while the raw cold and fierce winds
hold all on earth in shock and fear

the fires are lit heaped and banked
as all await the dawning of another year