The Flayed Man

When great beasts descend to sleep
Night lumbers over all and wakes.

On high sits white cold mother moon,
Goddess of moths -- they swarm

Worshipful.  Unblinking eyes,
Lids torn off in a crime

Named Justice stare, unwavering,
at a black lake.  Rare

Diamonds peregrinate, defiant glints,
Across its surface signal,

Beware:  in the jail
Of mute, broken shadows

Which fled the razor-edged shore
You may be seen

 As you are beheld.
Your scream, heard by his mind alone

Will outlive you.
Starless black, remorseless, your barren home

He takes, leaving you
unable to escape walls that never warm.

Pity from the victim
Meets steel thorns of gloating mirth.

Glares from hate's faces taunt
You with an adamant northern waste,

Where wind bent pines
Mock sanctuary, a dry, empty enemy's place.

The Farallones

"A Jennifer Beales flash mob?
There?  To that song?"

She, exasperated, shuts
her laptop, sits somewhat askance, wrong.

We huddle in the windswept
clapboard New England-style shack.

Dusk, without fail,
that ubiquitous smell:

guano and what may as well
be dog shit:

Seals and sea lions.
One day they'll bark for real.

They'll scream, an army
at our rear as we evacuate

To the dinghy, which will
sink and rise

on the swells.  Seagulls,
an incredible

mess of them, will blacken the sky.
San Francisco,

faded and frayed, these days so worn
will never not be our port.

We, the PBS losers, the abstruse
vermin wranglers

have never had a choice
but to slouch home, derided

or ignored.  It is to be hoped
at best the latter

as our fondest reminiscences
mean nothing

to the stroller-shoving fag,
to the Valencia Street

Betty Paige-banged hag
who drags her feet on stable concrete.

Prophet

An infant's cry
from a reed raft.

This shore
begs you remember

Seneca.  Quote
Aristotle.  Boats

now ply the black
sea between stars.

Think we of ourselves,
in dusty, rustling fields?

Open wide your mouth
to suckle milk, to speak truth.

Appeal to the crimson ones.
Advocate for broken sons

of Armageddon.  Won
or lost, this case must

bend the ears
of the sage and the dear.

Elephant In The Room

Penny cruel
Sun-bright glare
Tracks reflect

Day until
Shadows roll
Over - wheels stop there

Look up
Windows bereft
Of faces bent

Over books
No one rides
Outbound; look down

Gold lettering on green
The name of a town
Citizens insist on leaving

Wane

The path lies stark and clear.
No one else is here.

The horizon glows magenta, spent.
I hear a voice on the wind

now and then, a woman's, tense.
I steer by the morning star.

My heel slides off leaves.  Dense
shade -- rows of maple retreat as far

as my eyes can see.  Blue white fear
and my heart starts as I grow near.

UPDATE: The Book

Hey peeps.  Still riding this bitch all the way to hell.  Inshallah, the finished product, my first book of poetry, The Manzanita, should be completed no later than two weeks from now.  Yeah, I know everyone's been so patient...

The Manzanita -- Book

Hi all,

Thanks for reading.  I'm currently taking a little hiatus as I compile a chapbook.  In the process of editing, and will have it out on Amazon through Lulu.com by as early as the 17th!

Again, thanks and glad to have your company...

William Robert Way