Decay (portrait and violence)

Here are two new poems from this week. The second is a bit graphic, so read at your own disgression. Let me know what you think.

Decay (a grey portrait)

A full alley off a dead street
Refuse and lost lives in piles
Scents to quick-clog lungs
Epicenter of disease

Fluid locks of barbed wire
Wrapping around a still body
Aged and reddened by weather
Scraping along their owner’s skin

Rusted and flaking flesh
Mottled with shades of decay
Still solid and poised for motion
Strength in dead steal muscles

A brittle plastic body
Covered in dust and rot
Coiled and looming
Waiting amid its wires

Black eyes rivered with rust veins
Penetrate with violence
Steal away all but fears
Disperse a death of oil

A face of broken glass
Of dried blood and waste
Jagged and lifelessly calm
Set with a single purpose

A maw of glass shards
Red syringes and nails
A shrill utterance rips
The air apart and freezes

Decay (violence)

Silence beats on empty streets
Sit in rot and crumbling pavement
Gathering grey dust and spare change
Growing fangs and rusty claws

A high rumble screech loosed
As muscle and coiling metals
Leap into the fouled airs
Cutting with sharp poisons

A cloud of dust unleashed
Chokes and blinds the free
Opening them to dead eyes
Prone to jagged orange points

In the blindness’ heavy air
Skin, cloth and bone rip
Under rusted, broken nails
As saviour falls to asphalt

The healer’s dance is swift
And she twists around the blades
Her sea-forest eyes are sharper
And she sees hatred coming fast

The true wise man a fount of blood
His blue eyes focusing and fearing
Building resolve as he gathers strength
Gaining his feet and dripping scarlet

A rusty arm connects with legs
Sending her lithe form a-spin to bricks
Cracking stones and ribs on impact
Leaving a heap unconscious

Gripping the fire escape ladder
Trapped and frightened
Sheridan swings himself into air
Crashing feet into barb wire head

Both fall forward to ground
Rust shards and barbs cut long lines
Sharpened fingers grip a shoulder
Launching saviour from the light

Sheridan’s blood marks his path
Falling and collecting amid debris
A cry unbidden is loosed
Full of desperation and pain

In the dark, hit by scraping sounds
Heat and rage collect in blue drops
Mingling with the red, calling out
Breath giving out, mind fighting to stay

Neci’s fall echos in his mind
The crack he couldn’t hear then
As the blood beat within his head
Is all his mind can breath now

As his vision and the dust clears
One sharp thumb and four like fingers close
And pierce her throat slowly
Flakes of dead metal falling on her

Sheridan pushed away all but Neci
All but she and this decayed life
Weak as he was, he rose from the ground
She lay silent as her cuts connected

Blue licks along his arms
Drip upon his fingers quickly
Flames the color of oceans flow
Around and deep inside his soul

He runs the meters and halts
Bringing his fiery hands forward
Gently drawing out claws
Then throwing the rusted man backwards

Sharp teeth dig into his shoulder
And he feels the poision’s seeping
But his love pushes him onward
His own hurt he will bear, not hers

He slams his fist into the torso
And then to the coarse neck
He draws only his own blood
The flames can not penetrate

With his last strength he grips the throat
And is torn by metal splinters
And brings his essence into the motion
As he rips the needles through his skin

The barb wire wraps his arm
But his force drives the head
Back into the rock wall
And snaps loose the needle-jaw

Rust locks its cold eyes on Sheridan
As the saviour wills blue light up
Up from his finger tips, tight-clawed
Burning decay from inside

As the death crumbles down
He too falls to the rubble
And finds the hand of his love
His dying healer still