Poetry of August 2019
- by Linn Barnes
Cthulhu Rising
-Linn Barnes
Cthulhu rises from the earth,
as terrifying as he may be,
and cries out to all
who choose to listen:
'Who can this man be?'
'Could he be of my blood,
a rip in the flesh of the deep earth,
which is unlikely, since I am
that which has been, is and will be.
Yet, he daily struggles to bring into
the lock shop something like identity
with the ancient Lords of time and
volition, who, like me, have ruled
over the centuries from the the first fabric
'till now, with his strange new artifice,
with no firmament or edge, no roundness
or shape, attempting to find glory
in the chaos of his own false creation?'
'While, what I have forever wanted was
to manifest myself as needed to bring
the holy to the Earth, for which I am
the greatest of priests, no matter
the reality currently stamped into being,
but never be a conjurer, liar or fool
casting weak shadows along
soon to be forgotten lanes.'
'It will not end well for this imposter.'
Moreau
-Linn Barnes
The trump dragon and
his fallen angles, busy,
have widened the horror,
seeking to seal the death of
countless innocents
suffering unimaginable terror
loading them onto the
hopper of hatred and fear
for a blood laden fling into
the wheezing and gagging
final days away from the care
that promised if nothing else
a slim glimmer of hope,
where we, at least some of us,
hoped to have a say
in the care of the sick
among us, yes, us.
‘Are we not men’,
we hear the scream from the
the shadows of the isle
of the hideous moreau,
now incarnate and
swaggering
among us,
deaf to all save his
hideous heart,
rallying the faithful
for a public and screaming
dance of death.
In Dreams
-Linn Barnes
At night, secretly calling to the four winds,
in glowing dreams, looking to mirror antiquity,
brings into focus the shards of poetry
vanished in the bog, bound and strangled,
sunk beneath the venom of revenge,
committed to the wrath of forever,
when the could have been did not.
Concatenations
-Linn Barnes
Stuck in the stink of another long night,
the dreary death soldiers bare their fangs,
kick the shit off their feet,
and rally, grim, tribe like, before
the dawn, somewhere near
the horizon, hanging just left
of east, if you’re sighting south,
to the confused stars out of orbit,
in the mist, pouring over the last
bit of a flash of desperate mourning,
trickery tipping the scales to another
explosion of confusion, lies, and humiliations,
cheering the advent of yet another day
when the sad shuddered state of truth
will be ground and pounded into the endless
mill of propaganda for the morose
concatenations of yet more foolery.
-Linn Barnes
These are times when being alive
is a bit like grifting another day
from improbability in a world gone so
damnably insane that the leader
of the free world can shamelessly
cavort in foreign lands
muttering mirthlessly
murderous lies that bring
dishonor to our country
and tears to our tired eyes.
Are we so doped beyond reason
that we will allow this aberrant creature
to continue to contaminate the
days and nights he has so polluted
ever more into an intolerable future?
Try hard, then harder, mes amis,
for the banner must be raised,
and the battle must be engaged
‘till the field is cleansed and may
once again be plowed with the
hope for reason and redemption
from this catastrophe and shame
we have for too long now been
made to grimly suffer.
Prometheus
-Linn Barnes
Prometheus, shackled to the earth,
stalked by the darkest solitude of night,
before the flights of vultures and eagles,
ripping flesh, day after day, are driven back,
for a brief moment, into the deep black vault,
while he remains nailed, crippled, torn,
shouting at no one to rise up and bring
the dour dark to the broad new light,
since the earth, betrayed, refuses to spawn
the day out of grim and hopeless rage.
And where, now, will he be?
Dreaming
-Linn Barnes
'It is dawn',
wrote ee cummings,
'and the world goes forth to murder dreams.'
And now, dreamless, drifting,
we've morphed to
day or night,
lock and load,
and murder the world.
Final Days
-Linn Barnes
Donald, Donald,
don't you see,
the time has come
to leave the stage,
and not mutter
anymore the grim drivel
we've been bored
with into the night and
into the day, now that it's
been clearly shown
you've been
gathering death
and shouting for more
among the shadows
that reek and plague
your final days, but
not ours
The Ax and the Sword
-Linn Barnes
The disaster is taking shape,
beneath the cool veneer
that is trying to gloss over as reality
what has been happening,
when things that have gotten
way out of control,
and the peasants you so
gleefully mustered are
beginning to take up
the ax and the sword
and, out of betrayal,
will finally demand your
life and your head.
But, this is the way
it has always been.
The only question,
as forever, is why
must it take so long.
At Dinner
-Linn Barnes
While I set the table
for the wonderful fruits of our garden
that Allison has so carefully nourished
and transformed into miracles,
I cannot but weep for the stricken with horror
in Texas and Ohio,
lost to weeping into
something like their dinner
they must try to consume
to survive...
and for them, right now,
death shall certainly
have a profound dominion.
I weep for them and theirs...
Iron Maiden
-Linn Barnes
“Good morning Mr whatever your name is.
I’m the chief prosecuting attorney for the State of Texas,
and I’m required to tell you that we will not
be seeking the death penalty for
your hideous crimes,
as unimaginably worthy as
they are of such a truly American procedure.
But, well, ‘the times they are a-changing’, get it?
Anyway, have you ever heard of the Iron Maiden?
Well, me neither until I got a
call from the director of the
Torture Museum in Rothenbuug, Germany.
It's really cool and kind of simple:
The 'Maiden' is the effigy of a large, fierce
and powerful looking woman
who opens up like a book
to reveal layer after layer of
iron spikes, which, once the
'accused and convicted' is 'introduced',
as it were, to 'our' Maiden,
oh, yes, we've ordered one,
well, all you have to do is 'shut' the doors,
and let the screaming begin....
There was a time when this was very popular...
We think it's on the way back.
How about that?"
Hemlock
-Linn Barnes
When the simpleton,
bullshit street thug who lives in
the white house tells everybody
to get it on, what right do we have
to be surprised when they do?
We have little to say
when we've had nothing
to say.
Out with the national pox,
bring on the hemlock
before all the youth are
drawn to their, and our,
doom.
National emergency rings
in the heated air.
-LinnBarnes
Oh, summer whither hast thou fled,
that now we are left with the sad
glories of Lughnasadh to come,
home again in the great plain of
the sacred year, with the harvest
soon to be done, under an August moon,
looking to the Fall, under the broadening light,
blinding blue fading with the early
flurry of leaves now beginning to fly
in the cooling wind bringing solace
to those who still dance,
and those who still sing,
though it may seem the
tunes are hard to find.