syntaxandsemantics

[syntaxandsemantics]

consider this, a safe space. all doors and no sharp glances, just gentle susurrations of peace and comfort, a shoulder to rest all those worries, worn and weary. dropped. an arm around the waist, watching hope fall at your feet, grounding thoughts solid and aethereal bodies, floating a window, open escape, considered. this.

[syntaxandsemantics]

[syntaxandsemantics]

Freedom? In this economy?

[syntaxandsemantics]

That first crush

a wedge of citrus in your fist, can't resist

the tang of desire, to hold the sweetness

for a little while, whole before it starts

to drip, trickling through the cracks and leaving

just a taste, one could trace

with a sticky finger or tongue, a teasing

imagination - pit(h)y

the way it lingers, these lines

bittersweet.

[syntaxandsemantics]

Nightmare (I'm now of an age)

Beware! no monsters here, just failed responsibilities and stress; imagine carpet soaked pink strawberry whoops and damp growing up the furniture, an accident and blameless damage - duty calls a mid-friend over, no longer, no time for low priorities, no time for this, it's time to work, a meeting called and international no less a blink and we're driving, i'm flying, now i'm abroad in a large American car now parked and an alligator man, half snouted, snaggletoothed points out faulty brakes, we've been sliding for a while, it's a wonder how we stopped, i ponder as i browse the shelves of bric a brac, pickled jars of parts of creatures and suddenly i'm struck by obligations; parentless children and careless animals and no one to fill those shoes, lock the doors, who am i to abandon my post, home too far and we cant afford this mistake, cant afford the ticket to fly, so i'm searching through pages and pages of ads and airlines and numbers and doubts, who to call this time, in need - a friend, apologetically scrubbing tiles in the midst of kittens, discussing dinner, my mother who cuts connection mid-conversation and I can almost feel the ground rise up to eat me or maybe this is sinking and is this how i die, my family wondering how i am failing maybe this is when I wake

[syntaxandsemantics]

Of Empire, Affirmed

Love: it's been a half a century, and time has only hardened your prophecy— the collective heart now a burnished stone, beating faster while feeling so much less, as networked walls replace iron gates, as waters rise on the altar of currency, as worth becomes code, as attention fractures into meme, as nature's eulogy plays silently beneath the units of progress, as privilege calcifies into what is right and just, as meanness graduates into talent— Empire still stands perfected in its original sin.

[syntaxandsemantics]

this might be my last face

[syntaxandsemantics]

eating weeds adamant about appearances and fences while on the other side, the grass is painted verdant and manicured - nails in this neighbourhood, screeches down the black smoking as it seeps into these little cells we call home - glassy eyes, walls between and breathing the fumes of civilisation, what a gas. enough to turn a humour bilious, this collective sense of hubris (dry).

[syntaxandsemantics]

an itching behind my eyes, oh just some spiders crawling in the corners, webbing crows feet creeping finger keeping track - its a quiet terror, (never) knowing if there's more beyond perception is a ruse, reality a misconception and we just scratch the surface, deep as beauty (shallow) - what a sight, wide - shut windows and doors to keep the bugs out, pity the world's lousy, digging under skin, pretty i'll point every one, draw a line of ants into a vision we could live in, blinking believable.

[syntaxandsemantics]

Five clear steps yet four short of the paywall. edification costs a pretty penny (we can't all afford the price of beauty). thoughts worth nothing more surely a winding journey to the top - a narrow, wavering tower of paper and ivory but what a view! I can see the doom from here - (sycoph)ants crushed beneath the wealth of knowledge, hoping to crawl a little closer to the bright, to be saved by a purported value, or some fabrication of earnestness. just a little further, push, just fill the gaps with optimism and naivete - invest a few extra dollars and anyone can be someone, reaching for the end. such an achievement.

[syntaxandsemantics]

cutting in a thin red line, blunt forces the sharp of war, together we'll cross blades and skin until someone wins, white flags, stars waving bright, the future is bleeding

[syntaxandsemantics]

Look for horses in the water, no legs but they're paddling- believe me, i swear on the sunrise breaking glass and bloody fingers drawing four points on my chest - a southern crucifixion - i'll follow and this i'll die upon, riding this apocalypse into the horizon hopeful for land in any direction, just to feel grounded again. bits in my teeth and leather in hand, a few more kicks and we'll find somewhere faster.

[syntaxandsemantics]

A hyaenic smile too late in the night, too early in the morning - a welcome threat. I'm lounging on the cusp of feline and canine but either way I'll eat you alive, all teeth and incis(t)ing matriarchy. Sometimes our destruction is no longer our choice to make, surrounded by hunger and wildness; it's better to surrender as that sharp warmth descends upon your body, all sense (lost) and sudden (nerve) endings. Fight the urge to run, far too late in the night for that sort of escape and still early enough that we might feel something, together, if you'd linger long enough on that threshold of here and gone, last before the light fades in, almost full I leave, searching for another, won and grinning.

[syntaxandsemantics]

love might not last forever but thinking about it does

[syntaxandsemantics]

a day of dragging chains, domestic and rusty against all that fresh growth, catching on feet like a plea refused, we must, i whisper (in my head - who talks to grazing as if it listened?). the rain's unseasonable but welcome, for some; today it kisses my cheek a softly apology, accepted with grace and a bit of heat while i'm thinking of leaving as a choice, not a place, or the changes of trees - what it means to fall, feel the consequences of gravity. those lines are bold and heavy, drawn in - consider me contained, frustrated at times when movements too slow, i howl at the sky, wait for an answer from over the wall, through the bars, hope for a chorus - one we can all sing along to - like a fugue, something to remind us of unity, of running, of ourselves deciding of home like a cadence, maybe (try) tomorrow.

[syntaxandsemantics]

the benefit of a doubt, maybe uncertainty's too bird to hold - hope's hedged, a mere rustle of potential. \/ Do you believe in hands? not these phalanges or palm readings, rather a grasping of something more aethereal, the deception of touch - we are all full of nothingness, air all pushing out mouths playing at substance, being bodies, so close but not feeling anything except skin - sceptical lovers could be, the romance of strangers, a trust in the mystery of never fully sure of something, or anything for that matter, of faith. blind gains, a certain sense of freedom in the embrace of an unknown, might be empty or everything.

[syntaxandsemantics]

the irresistibility of disaster, there's smoke trailing portents and fire, can't help but follow the danger, lights, action like everyone could be a hero, like it could happen any time like memento mori like remember once you speeding down a hillside motorway and we almost didn't make it; your laughter cracked transparent glass, bleeding pride and i knew then you could be the death of me, or at least the frailest part she's still trapped in a moment that lasts forever in the wreckage, sirens calling for the jaws of life and a saviour crossing hearts and hoping there's a story in there somewhere