~The Bad Poets Society

Like some thought out photograph
Or some self-portrait of a crowd
A viscous venom seeped through
Slowly but surely, it seeped through.

The dogs in the park and
The mothers with their babies and
The trees with their flowers and
The green leaves

Always the green leaves,
But never the brown.
Why, perhaps they die.
They die.

The night had come and with it
The drunks and beggars came too
But I was still alone,
___in a room where lonely men
_dined wined and died alone
___________side by side...

I saw it all, though
What a beauty it was to behold
The sharp impulses filling my brain with a sense of satisfaction
A sense known all too well
For those who know all too well
The sense of loss and fear.

The venom trickled down my spine
Seeping into my pores
Its first touch was that of elation
The second one was of frustration
The third was of much temptation
To right the wrongs I righted

It oozed down to my feet,
Its burning tendencies torturing my
cold, lifeless
ones.

The cold, lifeless liquid
meandered through my mind.
Where will it turn next? Who knows.
Run hide.
In the dark alley.
Says I.

Says he.
I ran
I hid
in the dark alley.
What next? Says I.

Says I.
The oozing pus enveloped my body,
all my hope was lost.
Says he.
You have just found what it is
to miss something.

Says I. To I.
How true he is. was.
The park with the green leaves and
The flowers with their trees and
The babies with their mothers and
The dogs in the park.

Always that, never that.
I missed it all. I have wasted my life away.
In this poison that oozes over me all the time.
Not my sweat, for that is pure.
Not my blood, for that is thin.
Not my tears, for they show no mercy.

Like some well thought out photograph.
Or the grandest self-portrait of them all.

Just hold myself high off the ground and
let it drip off of me and
ooze into infinity.
Like the helpless souls we are.

Let the venom drip away.
Drip by drop.
By tick by tock.

Why did I let it get there,
and get me so?
How shall I defeat the inevitable?
By facing it?
That's a cowards way out.
Says he.

I take this eternal bath
To bathe myself in glory
To bathe myself in infamy
To bathe myself in death.
As I hang from the rafters

I let the poinson drip down,
As I think about the man who
Guided me into the dead-end alley
And taught me to panic and swear
And steal and kill
And I don't know what to call him.

But he speaks to me in these last few moments I have until I die.
-Says he.
___"What is your name?
Where do you come from?
How rich are your parents?
How far can you run yourself into the ground,
before you notice all the shit you have done,
and all the hell you have brought?"

-Says I.
___"I don't have a clue."

The ooze dripped off of me and away,
and my life spilled into the sewers
to be filtered out
and made into drinking water
that will be pissed down the drain again
and again
in an endless and vicious cycle.

All your goldfish say they're waiting.

i decided that i wouldn’t go back there
-------ever again
---taking my own sanity into consideration
for the first time in a long time
---i turned and left
--(yes, now it is all about me
----self-centered with a smile :)
i don’t know where i am
---but i know where i’m not
and that feels so good

if our sanity wasn’t dangling by a thread
-----------I’d tell you

But the blade still feels cold!
And the wrists are pained to touch!
But the memories are still-
Still framed in my soul.

The pains are relentless
The loves are twice as much
But all I really care about
is you.

Burn it all
Bury it all
Bind it all
Find it all

(!) Is this my surprise?
Do I love you?
What have you found,
but me?

(…)
( .)( .) heh

Call me a sex perv-
I find no shame
Call me a jerk to her-
I have no one to blame

Is it because I am me?
Or because you are you?
Why are we the way we are?

Fire
Water
Wind
Rock

Burns our wounds
Drowns our voices
Knocks us over
Mocks our weakness

You are crazy
Since I must be sane
and one of us can’t be sane
but it must be you?
must it?

Do all the insane
mutterings and crazy
thoughts and irregular
murmurs and erratic
inklings
mean anything
to me
you
us?


Baby I love you
Baby I always will

Till knife and wrist join
in unholy matrimony
and death do us part.

Forever.

There. Again, afraid.

His weathered and respectable trenchcoat with his weathered and respectable hat.
His weathered and respectable smile beamed down upon me.

"You sir." He said.
"Yes sir?" I respond.

We spoke like gentlemen.
Gentlemen in a train station.
Where the lost little boy ran crying for his mommy.
And the mommy who lost her boy crying for her lost little boy.
And we were gentlemen.
Gentlemen in a train station.

The train wasn't stopping at the station,
but it would have made no difference.
We remained the gentlemen we were.
The mommy remained the way she was-
Without her lost little boy.
And we were gentlemen.
Gentlemen in a train station.

He gave me his apple,
I gave him my word.
We bothed damned ourselves in an eternal binding pact.
The fact-
That we were gentlemen in a train station.

He was a doctor.
The weathered and respectable man in the trenchcoat and hat.
He was a doctor who arrived at the scene too late.
He held his weathered and respectable hat
in his weathered and respectable hand,
as he ran his fingers through his weathered and respectable hair
in a weathered in respectable way.
He stayed a gentleman,
even as he said the boy was-
"Dead."

"Dead." The crowd crowed.
"Poor boy." Said I.
"My boy!" cried the mommy.
"Train I." said the officer in the respected but not yet weathered hat and coat.
"Comfort the woman." was said in a respectable way, as if the doctor had been weathered
and through this before-
checking for the vain pulse
in the vein of the infant
on the dirt floor
where men stood like gentlemen
and talked.
and died.

I was a soldier.
I had a weathered and respectable hat, and coat.
I was a soldier who arrived in war too late.
I ran my fingers through my indifferent hair
all aware-
aware of the pact that I had just signed,
asking the weathered and respectable man-
for directions.
To the nearest restroom.
All so I could share in the knowledge-
that we went way back
as war buddies
and we were long due
for meeting again.

Sweet delicious fruit of knowledge!
You make the dumbest men smart-
but you have cursed us enough.
As we now hold ourselves as above you
and we detest your works
and your wonders
and your Maker.

We'd rather know the time.
But the boy was, and will be-
"Dead."
So were they-
the buddies that I went way back with-
where we weathered and respected our coats and hats.
On the dirt floor
where men stood as gentlemen
and fought
and died
and claimed the glory for themselves.

They were Rich,
Famous,
Wretched,
Heroic,
Insane,
Pious,
Just,

and we were the men.
That built the foundation of their glory with our arms
and backs
and legs
and toes
and teeth
and blood
and pain
and sorrow
and souls.

Me and the weathered and respectable man
were gentlemen
in a station.
We had just let a boy die
like so many have had before us.
The lost little boy's name was
"Josef Schrinner."
said the crying mommy
who had just lost her son
to a machine of war
that transports potential victims
where they may lie.

That's where this boy will lay.
Forever.
He would never get to see his mother again
Unless he were to open his eyes
and take a long look into his mommy's eyes
as she stood over him at his viewing
and said "It'll be alright. That's what they said."
Thats what he would do if he could.
So would

One
Thousand
Thousand
Thousand

Others would like to do.


But they didn't die in train stations, and they weren't five
or lost.