If I had words, if I had a pen, I would write an ode to a brass cylinder boring through my skull like a gritty drill.

If I had myself, I would praise man's grandeur that carved such rapture as can propel that molten-mettled metal dizzily into the swirling nucleus of my folly.

If I was a poet, I would meter and measure it, bean out its worth in the quivering stress of syllables, and if it were lacking, I would see that my soul is not worth the inch it took to birth.

If I was a man, I would adorn my chest with the blood of my own braggadacio, and you would see from my wounds that I was a glorious martyr, a sweaty flesh cowering in the dry husk of greatness, sipping smoke from a fire lit with my own blackening pages.

When you look upon night and her barbs, does she still you, does she fill you mouth with cinders and with dust? Like a conflagrant melody, she tears through my limbs and presses that cold barrel into the red axis of my sorrow. Wouldn't you love to touch her, to bend your finger and let her pour flame into my skull and coat me in ceaseless black, so that I know nothing and no one.

I am scattered unto darkness, bent under the weight of shadow. Don't get behind me, Satan, I'd rather have you where I can see you, bastard swathed in tar and pain.

I fled into nothing last night, and we crouched upon the lip of the stars with needles in our eyes. I was right: the cops came. They beat me and broke my legs and left like cobwebs into the murk. Hail now to the blind cripple bleeding into the sand, splayed out like a child without eyes. Hold my broken head, tell me it doesn't hurt. Tell me lies, oh tell me more lies, so I can breathe so sweet and so free. We are such fools.

From "A FINE HARPSICHORD."
...
The day the strings of that fine harpsichord break
Will be the sun my heart goes limp,
And in my eyes the shadows will war,
Until all is covered in a quietude supple and still,
For the music has ceased to be.

©2004 by Kyle Warmack

WHAT A SURPRISE.

Advanced Big 30 Personality Test Results Sociability ||||||||||||||| 42% Gregariousness |||||||||||| 38% Assertiveness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Activity Level |||||||||||||||||| 58% Excitement-Seeking ||||||||||||||| 50% Enthusiasm ||||||||||||||| 42% Extroversion ||||||||||||||| 48% Trust |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Morality ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Altruism |||||||||||||||||| 58% Cooperation ||||||||||||||| 46% Modesty ||||||||||||||| 42% Sympathy |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 90% Friendliness ||||||||||||||||||||| 64% Confidence ||||||||||||||||||||| 70% Neatness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Dutifulness |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Achievement |||||||||||||||||||||||| 78% Self-Discipline |||||||||||||||||| 58% Cautiousness ||||||||||||||||||||| 70% Orderliness ||||||||||||||||||||| 70% Anxiety |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Volatility |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74% Depression |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 90% Self-Consciousness |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Impulsiveness |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74% Vulnerability ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Emotional Stability ||||||||| 23% Imagination |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 90% Artistic Interests |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 90% Emotionality |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Adventurousness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Intellect |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Liberalism |||||||||||| 38% Openmindedness |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74%

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Excerpt from "THE WANDER":
...

I took a darker turn,
And felt her like a lover moving,
And in raining she exhaled,
She breathed out her years and left,
Left the sheets still warm,
Warm like red wine.

To me, to me, my abundant sorrow,
To tap down the cobbles and leak from the gutters,
To throb aimlessly down the sorry blue streets
And find a shadow somewhere by the waterfront
Where it’s still warm,
Warm like red wine.

©2004 by Kyle Warmack

Is this the beat of my soul beating my skull? I am suspended without myself, hovering in the rearward caverns, moist and musty for lack of use. There are cinders and dust on my tongue. The longer I sit, the more restless my hands become, squealing murder. Avenge, they twitter, Avenge you upon yourself, and feel that metallic tear in your skin, an untwisting of seams, the undoing of what seems to be. Punish, punish, squall in the night and slap a distraction upon the wound. If you bleed, you cannot feel the red in your brain. If you bleed, the burn drowns the hurt. If you grit your teeth and smother, your fight for breath takes precedence over your agony. If you bleed until you are sapped of the hum of life, you forget; oh how you forget.

LESS THAN BRIEF

Ah, for the rage,
For my sharp joints teeming
And grating beneath a dull rain.
For a damp moon shivering the deep,
Feeling your muse
And the rhythm of your swarm.
I’ve never again heard the like.

Worry on, bones, and crumble and forget,
Muster forth the ache of morn,
Where flesh turns a glazed gaze away away.
We wore through bombard,
And joints squealed with rage, rage.
Yours was rage and mine was fire,
Ours was an echo and death,
Shrill shot shrieking mistake, mistake.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a toast to the mad:

Here is to the waker and the walker, the stride of death upon tormented nights. Indeed, say I, though your life were bitter and cold, here shall I place my dread lips and scorch the sanity from your frost-bitten porches. Cleave to me, and I will make you bleed.

I claimed sorrow, but none believed me.

My remedy then is to pluck it out.

I have burned the cradles, I have fouled your breath, I have slung your night about my plague and walled you in with pestilence and murder. I am damned, Goddamned sorry.

I have destroyed, I have betrayed. I have spilled your thin blood upon the cold branches of my own tortured realm, and hateful I am of myself for having brought you here.

To slash away the haunt of my voice, my face, until its black emptiness even is torn and healed, that is my one desire. Please, oh God, forget.

Please, oh God, forget.

It is not easy to regard oneself as having found a place amongst equals, as having found an indispensable niche, when one considers that said group was just as lively before your presence, and is just as vital without you. It is not a matter of missing pieces, but merely the style of company.

Not that it should be otherwise.