SQUID INK

poetry and art by Shaun A. Lawton

Wanted to write
 a new poem
but couldn't think
 about what
until I remembered
 your way
to try to use
anything but

Could there be
another referral
to the sentient fruits
in the trees
or could yet
another reversal
bring new bad
 luck and disease

A spinning carousel
a lunatic tune
descending in a spiral
of madness

Just wanted to compose
something neat
like my dungeon
 of cruelty and badness

To bring about
whatever change
I'm doing at the time
of the scripting
but every time I try
there's a pain in my eye
stabbing as if through
a voodoo doll's head
 over and over
again and again

A nightmare that's never
 quite ending until
its managed to link
up like before to the place
where I started pretending
without meaning to
do it no more

The sorry tale
 of a loser
who lost his way
when spat out
from society
as so happens
every so often
to one and another
among us today

it could be your neighbor
or may be your
own family
member left
out on the shelf
of the moment
 marked in time
like the spikes on
 an electrocardiogram

We're tenants
 in the custody
of the heart all buried
in the darkest similar holes

Married to the muscle
 of the moment
lost in time
 like entombed
 little moles

Carried on the turbulence
the rivers of nuance
It's the same torrent
 churning who wants
to keep burning
and passing the banks
of this river's befouled
 crescent . . . no thanks

The custodians of the heart
all caught up along
 the current
 of the universe
unfolding

The ultimate
fertile basin
 just out of reach
fading like a series
of photo-negative imprints

Serving as fallen glittering
rain that lingers
from a prima donna's
 dismissive fingers

sunk into the blurring
murk of the earth
drowning in this ink
for all that it's worth