I
In the ageless valley

There’s an endless sky
and all good is lost
to a heartless lie.

A killer sits straight
on a sobering throne,
kisses and praise are lain
at his booted feet,
and lamps slaughtered
for the god
of steel rationality.
He never sleeps
and eats his fill
on souls and trees
and the golden, nostalgic breeze,
spitting out
infertile seeds.
Guilt don’t touch his mind-
he knows
we all must die
and he that reveres only himself
may live freely.

He goes by many
comforting names,
and warps
desperate servants
into his mean image
or else flattens them
with a merciless splat.
Ripping across the land,
mysterious rugged ridges
make way
for empty wastes

II
His works are vast

Among a stretch
Of silent, fresh pines,
a monster awakes,
yellow and loud,
how its clashes barrel
through my head
and steals all I had.
Smells of
a storm in the night
and spaces free
of unnatural noise
are no longer needed,
best make room for miles of tubing
and static blue flame.

Near the creek
is a store,
built a hundred years before.
They say
lets put up
something nice, boxy, and grey.
Universal identity will tame
your strange pains away.

Deep
in what used to be woods,
gone is the abandoned cottage
I slept’
when the winds blew rough
and I couldn’t tell
which way was home.

Coals have burnt
souls before,
But, now its not just fuel
(there’s more factors at play)
and what’s at risk
is the little we kept.

God must be dead,
another causality
of a faceless lie.
We killed him and harvested all he had.
Used his bones
to hold up
lofty gray stones
and burned his heart
back into gas.

III
I want to be buried

In shades of green
and loving relief,
but, I see dusk falling
and it looks like
another viscous red
followed by empty black.
It’s cause
someone made god dead
and the gas and grey
threaten to replace
the blood in my veins.

And
posted signs say
nothing belongs to me,
though, I’m
the prodigal son of this town.

It’s time for my heart
to finally leave,
slip down,
into mind’s wild reaches,
where I can hide
everything real.
I'll sleep among
squirrels and the snakes,
try not to recall
the cold reptilian race
that burned my home
and looked past my face.

IV
Far, far away

I’m gonna build my home
outta my bones,
cover the walls
in filets of flesh,
and the floor
will be my head.

The earth don't offer
no wood or stone,
so ill build it alone
and paint the walls
in poor poetry.

No light to guide
in the night or day,
I’ll work by instinct
and whatever flame
I pull from deep.

It can't be high,
can’t be strong,
but it’ll be
only me.

And,
when the mountains
start shakin
my little home to its knees,
I won’t fall and beg
cause I’m already free.