Up to my neck again
in chromatic scales.
We all get our licks before curtain call,
understandably.
The new doom,
fresh from its string-laden cubicle,
is coming up short.
Between wails,
I inhale yet again,
feeding my frivilous disease.
-r. miller
The mouth of all this worry
is opening to receive all
us petty hucksters, hustlers,
and vagabonds of intellect.
Relief arrives in pretty parcels
tied with shifting-colored ribbons.
“With the lights out, it’s less dangerous”
and so much more enticing.
The icing on the cake tastes
of burnt hash and asphalt, and suddenly,
life seems that much sweeter.
-r. miller
Pathogens of a unique order
position themselves in hangnail
formation along the body’s dark frontier.
Can you, through waxing ear,
hear their harried hymn?
Puts me in mind of a certain vicious whim
which once cradled me in its claws.
Clefts have formed in the sundry laws
supporting this declining structure.
This is as descriptive as I can be
under present conditions.
Maybe it’s a “paradigm shift,” after all.
Maybe my labored breathing
means more than I give it credit for.
-r. miller
After all intensive
putting forth the pulse
shattered seeking force
through bottom-leaking sequence
undo listlessness
and untoward boredom
scoring shock into the register
a different metric
than one is used to
and whose usage
cuts like rubber
deep into slumber
we drive our noblesse oblige
obliging smiles and all
with a ferocity left unhampered
in the finely burning air
-r. miller
Much of the unqualified
bilge was drained.
The hucksters got their fair shake in
before it was too late.
By now, we’d become weaponized,
given to unapologetics, bent
on breaking the nowhere
leading boulevard into colder
and colder fragments.
An explosive finish dangled
just within reach. I forgot
how good it felt to risk my neck,
to bruise my rind,
for disaster to flirt back for once.
Among the populace,
the prevailing temperment
was soporific, though in rare
moments of wakefulness,
some managed to hurl epithets
in our direction. We were “degenerates”
and eased into the designation
as into a warm bath.
Some just have no patience
for sophistication.
-r. miller
This isn’t the learning curve
I signed up for.
Facing once more
the back door
procession of charade and intrigue,
I hold fast to my limitations.
I express and modify these honestly,
build from them a dynasty
which will rain
fierce fragments of a gaze
upon the estates in the hills.
Those half-baked, half-cocked,
corruptible shills
won’t ever catch us
with our pants down.
We aren’t even
a part of this country;
nor are we apart from it.
-r. miller
Wipe the distraction
from your face, dipshit.
The room is too composed,
too clean, too abstract
for tastes which run
counter to the main.
The whole structure is flimsy,
upheld by a contempt
growing beneath the skin.
Today is one of those days
where I barely have it in me
to keep breathing.
I’ve all but mastered
the seething exercise by now,
and it shows in the way
my veins tremble despairingly
with each new turning of the page.
Small miracles manifest daily, however –
new marketing strategies,
serendipitous decrees.
I’d bottle them all up in brine
if I could.
-r. miller
