Proletarian Homilies

The slow, despairing dirge of duty

propels me along on this

blazing, Sunday morning.

Shambling about for a cause,

while eye lids become anvils

and heart resembles a broken hearth.

The minutes countdown before the shift,

yet no nervous energy arises

in anticipation of truancy.

All that recognizably remains is

the monotony of muscle memory—

of routines automated
to the cyclical, auto da fe 

of my minute galaxy.

I listen to a song on repeat

for a clarity that refuses to arrive.

I gaze avariciously at the liberated

footsteps of the seemingly unencumbered world—

only to see the hidden shackles

outlined beneath their garments.

Is it momentary solidarity that temporarily buoys,

Or the clock signifying commencement?

Embers Revisited

Tell me, love, what dwells in that lonely heart?

What spurns the ravenous need for fulfillment—
the temporary Band-Aid loves, whirlwind lusts,

the eye-blink heartaches that have become your life?

Tell me, love, when did your smile turn saccharine?

When did the genuine soul so capable of love suddenly vanish,

only to be replaced by citadels brittle and tiresome—

the dilapidated facades of a queen in repose.  

Tell me, love, was it my wayward heart that bled you dry?

Was it the meandering days that caused the cosmos to disarray,

obfuscating the constellation of our eternity?

Tell me, love, are these rapturous memories but delusions of tragedy,

where distance turns agony into ecstasy

and searing throes of desire reignite in the blinding light of retrospect?

Tell me, love, why try to fill the void that only you can fill?

Manc Pub

Immersed in red,

lush hedonia reverberating:

a palpable freneticism converging

through a timeless vermillion hue.

Supporters erupt in fonts of dynamism,

fueling flames

through combustible life-blood passions.

The war cries of ages past and present

—of glory, pain—

all in stoic solidarity.

Merely a fly amidst this crimson tempest,

sipping sapphires to delirium.

Alas, a détente for passion’s sake—

the beautiful game unites!