Sentient

I paused to think, but there was no pause.
Incessant chatter from the dark synapses
Pooling my thought to and fro
Some delicious skin or sweet tender tear
From an eye not mine but I feel it.
Skin and tone, hot cold.
"All the while I think of you"
But it's a fucking circus in here at times.
Lions eating flesh, snake strike, lemon meringue,
Soft peaches, stone cold.
This is all buzzing in here.
Warp drive, ion particles, and dark matters of the heart.
I'm not alone but am.
I'm living on the edge of this movie that I star in but never see the main character.
Some kind of black out selfie.
Another life each day and no need at all for shouting.
But I will, I'm old.
I search the old magazines I've stored here.
I try to find reason, to explain that moment
When death will certainly stop

Everything. A single line, a thread to be snipped.
It'll float away sometimes tangled in someone else's memory.
But there it will be. I might be cold. Stiff. Rotting.
I may inspire but no, not.
There will be another thought. Not. Mine.
Somewhere out there in nothing
I won't be.
I'm okay with that.
I'll kiss, sulk, rage, spit, shit, dance, and love for now.
For an eternity in my head.
Nothing cold.
Just life, thought, and the pursuit of being alive.

Slipknot

Thin line catching

Her throat white and long

Lips permeating the air with cold sound

He leans in, away
Taunt on his own ropes
Murmurs of dreams like snow melting

Nowhere near
Only worlds apart
Still gripping, both might laugh or cry

Just a cord of discontent hanging
Tying knots as remembrances
Dangling in lonely trees, in heart.

By Norman R. Barton

Two

Just us

Lingering there

Kissing long

Cold air

Warm breath

Perfect delight

Bright hope

Hearts syncopated

Skin trembling

Love flaring

Eyes answering

Being home

In soul

With you

Fox and Dove

Lonely, lonely on a hillside

He spies her, looking inside

Her menagerie bleakly displayed

Each a drop of love arrayed

He attempts to steal her fox

Tidy and pretty all in a box

Dove takes flight in lost abandon

Finding fire again to land on

Blood rides now, moon to sky

Seeking things she can't eye

Brief in moment and lashed in love

She parts red lips and consumes the dove

Monument

I'm carving stone.

Nails clawing small flakes away.

Blood acts as water to erode little canyons, cutting paths to the base.

I cling with all tenacity and hope.

My face stretched, leathery and taunt against all smiles.

I've been crafting since the son was set free into the wind, maybe before.

A monument.

Devoid of real form but esteemed.

Pitied.

Pitted.

Decided.

Using my own bones to chisel relief.

My teeth make ivory thrones to the small gods.

My hair billows, white clouds shrouding eyes not imagined.

Slowly the form is unnoticed.

Storms ebb in again.

Still. I. Cling.

It's throbbing.

Vibrant in the blood.

Solid in a sea of rich black mud.

When I'm done, put it at the base of humanity.

Like a inside out pyramid.

A tomb to a fustian raven.

What Truth

Some dangerous moment hanging just there ahead of me.

Tragic and cunningly gorgeous.

All death defying, really simple melancholy.

Poetry. Poet. Writer in the trees.

I won't slip past it like before.

Deepening my steps to a tempo slow, methodical.

The sun arcing behind the storms glinting through openings like keyholes to forgotten rooms I can no longer enter.

I will slip in key when I find it but it's lost.

Nothing simpler in motion than the whole fucking universe outside of me.

Untitled VIII

Untitled VIII

dariaendresen.com

Untitled VIII (Art by Daria Endresen. Words by Norman Barton.)

What is present is dark.
What is dark is a present.
Now she take the life in her hands.
Then she thinks of future demands.
Tempting paper skin.
Thin veneer of grins.
Just a lonely passion-scape.
Tastes of childhood night escapes.
You are the single one.
A couple of moments from the sun.

And slowly the kiss evaporates from her lips. Tangled in spittal and remiss. You will only shrug it off with a simple bloody cough. All disasterous. All kept from everyone. Now across the present. Into the dark nascent.