The Cardboard Night

by Michael Hayes

To night

  Fight back the day.

  Sudden drafts

  Of howling winds

  Carry cries of pain

  Across dry fields of summer heat

  Into a pool of despair.

  Lost voices echo

  Off banks of hate

  Disappearing

  Into the future.

  A future of lost,

  Dying voices

  Crying out to God.

  The God of love.

  The God of light.

  The God who long ago

  Turned away.

  Fatigued,

  Night gives up her battle—

  Retreating

  Into the distance

  Across ocean waves;

  Tumbling,

  Crystallizing,

  Breaking

  Into tiny beads of death,

  Sinking beneath the depths—

  Beneath the lost,

  Dying voices.

  And I lie awake

  Listening

  To day

  Assault the living

  Across dry fields of summer heat.

  As Night Stretches

  As night stretches her arms,

  Stars explode in her eyes—

  Crosses float in her tears,

  But I won’t drown.

  The waves rise to meet the sky,

  Driving splinters into my flesh.

  I hear the moon laughing—

  Pointing at me.

  Soon,

  Daybreak will call night

  To her sleep.

  Sleep Comes Down

  Sleep comes down heavily,

  And I feel your breath on my chest.

  Out in the night, winds beat against

  The haven of rest I’ve found.

  I wonder what you’re dreaming just now—

  Does my heart pound like a drum

  In your song?

  Sleep comes down heavily.

  The Lover

  I

  Listen—

  The drum

  Pounding slowly in the night.

  Perfect time

  Rhythm.

  She stops for no one,

  The drum.

  Silent

  Beats my heart

  Under her thunder.

  II

  She lies naked

  In an open field

  Of dust and rock

  Watching clouds

  Form patterns

  Of life

  She grasps her knees

  Trying to smile

  At the phallic shapes

  Which remind her

  Of man

  Her shadow dances

  Across dust and rock

  Colliding

  Merging

  With darkness

  She closes her eyes

  Not wanting to leave

  Slowly the clouds drift

  Into the shape

  Of God

  A circle

  Without beginning

  Without end

  III

  How cruel she is…

  She wakes me

  From the sleep of youth

  Into a dream of

  Passion

  Then, she drifts away

  While I still yearn.

  The Launching

  Should you talk about the launching

  Speak of perfect circles

  On an evening sun—

  Curling whitely.

  Could you understand these images

  Understand the fruits of labor—

  Sweating, dying;

  Would you act as if you’re still alive—

  Praising death from a distance?

  For me, it’s the sound of laughing

  Lapping—

  Puddles spilling onto everything

  As all these circles on the sun

  Brightly damage any thought

  I’ll ever have.

  My Pretend Jesus

  I’ve lost my place.

  The sickness clutches me more tightly

  And I cannot consume the weight.

  I play Jesus

  More aptly than before—

  Healing all that is broken,

  Turning my back on me,

  And allowing darkness my counsel.

  I am eaten alive

  By placid memories

  Groping freely at the mush of bone

  That encases my mind.

  Nothing has been finished

  And I do not have the will to begin again.

  So, my pretend Jesus,

  What shall become of us?

  If you’ve the strength, take flight

  From this world.

  I will watch from below—

  Fastened thick within the sickness—

  Hating a sky that will not bear my wings.

  Home

  Home: where the dragon is waiting

  For me and fire designs

  A worshiped sky.

  Home: where in broken waves

  The heat lies beside me

  Then withdrawal

  And I am more hollow than the pattern.

  Behind This Day

  Behind this day, dreamt

  And perfected,

  I’ll hide unaware

  Letting skyward temptation hold

  Fast despair—

  An indifferent landscape

  To sing my life,

  And barricade the vandals

  Of my mind.

  Into freedom’s broken promise,

  Allow me run

  Off the backs of birds

  Mid-flight

  With flapping harmony

  In a still

  Moment of absolute.

  The Pain Has Left

  The pain has left and I am empty.

  Hate filled drunk and desperate—

  I am here musing a better demonstration.

  The battle has grown weary—

  This soldier shelved and doubtless;

  Sure of contempt.

  I cradle discourse of dreams forsaken,

  Of boasting erections

  And conquered messiahs—

  I am a liar.

  An Evil Muse

  I

  What bonds hinder

  The quick’ning of your feet

  Toward attaining the peace

  You honestly seek?

  Are your wings entwined

  In the fowler’s snare?

  Are they too heavy

  For truth’s pure air?

  There is no sin

  To blind your eyes

  Nor sovereign God

  Would your lusts despise.

  Go and do

  As you please—

  Let your life soar

  Upon the breeze.

  Sing I Am,

  The holy song;

  For who you are

  Is never wrong.

  Allow your soul bask

  In this illumination;

  Life is but once—

  Afterward no damnation.

  II

  If thou must worship,

  Do so what is real.

  Cast a graven image—

  Bow before thy skill.

  The songs of praise,

  Which thy lips proclaim,

  Would better serve thee

  If in thy honor sang.

  And prayers! Let prayers

  Be as they are.

  Thou might as well had

  Wished upon yon star.

  As wisdom has rightly

  Instructed me—

  Serve only that

  Which truly be.

  I Gnaw My Tongue

  I gnaw my tongue to stop

  The vows sworn midst waves of passion.

  My head I hide in ignorant verse.

  I blind my eyes with fear.

  But my hands are loosed—

  My feet swift to betray.


  My heart is split and pleading

  For one innocent day.

  My soul I bar

  That it should not pray—

  Lest I mock the gates of grace.

  In torment, I lie awaiting

  The wrath of he who mercy gave.

  Were it possible to do an act—

  A penance I would pay.

  But never did I earn this faith

  Nor this faith did I send away.

  The breath of doom is upon my chest;

  At my back the endless night

  And I am stooped over

  Bearing this burden light.

  Desire Cornered Me

  In time for the fool’s birth,

  Desire cornered me with a father’s pride.

  From limbs just out of reach, desire

  Picked the sins of my youth

  And like a dying man believes

  In the strength of his final meal;

  I ate the darkness.

  With winter’s wilted wine

  A fading scent on my breath,

  I suffer the bone chill sober

  Thoughts of a coward’s life.

  The sun will soon consume

  My bed of impatient leaves

  And there is no stake

  To hold me;

  No ropes bind my feet—

  Only I persist in this execution

  Where my shadow becomes the stumble.

  Thirty Pieces Of Silver

  I also throw my thirty pieces of silver

  Into the temple’s court—

  For I have betrayed innocent blood.

  I have gained nothing for my sin

  And even what I had is lost.

  Are these not my hands stained red?

  Is not this corruption of my doing?

  I have sought out darkness

  And lingered deliberately in guilt.

  My heart I hardened—

  My mind I set on ruthless schemes.

  Until this very hour

  I have plotted against you

  And my reward is paid in full.

  What price can conceal

  The tower of my sin?

  What payment would rid me

  Of the agony I now suffer?

  My Lord, My God, your light

  Has consumed my darkness;

  I am left exposed before your eyes.

  I am ashamed to speak your name.

  My bones collapse within me.

  The breath of my existence cries

  For mercy and I hide

  My face from you.

  The Furnace

  Lay to waste my ambitions—

  The fraud of self-help.

  Give light to the sword

  And bid it cut cleanly, swiftly—

  A severed nerve,

  A deadened pain.

  I facilitate the numbing.

  This kinder world bears me not,

  Nor I its insidious doom

  Collecting followers

  For the buried furnace.

  One raging spark

  Turned populace inferno—

  Engulfing.

  Hold Me

  My actions claim no righteousness—

  The lips that kiss me;

  Curse me.

  I provoke the hypocrisy of my accuser—

  A fond remembrance of laughing eyes

  Excludes the brevity of wounds

  Too dark for healing,

  Of love too strong for forgiveness.

  The wailing indulgence—

  Calm, horrified combatants

  Lock me into mortal embrace.

  O, savior!

  O savior, here is the scent—

  The maddening psalms of heroes

  Praising your androgyny.

  O savior, I am an ape.

  I do as is done

  And you regret me the spoils of stupidity.

  Should you speak, speak softly;

  My ears are bruised by threats of solace—

  Hold me in your arms and condemn me.

  Run, As Always

  What same shallow verb shall I adopt?

  Run, as always.

  Back and forth

  Between madness and apathy—

  Half-hearted attempts at a beginning;

  My beginning.

  Floating—

  (No!)

  Falling upward—

  White, pure, bright—

  Toward the glow;

  Then sinking.

  I splash in a sudden bath of nothingness.

  Salvation’s Muddled Sea

  Salvation’s muddled sea

  Stirred occasionally,

  If not by rumors—

  By lies,

  Floats the primal

  Into passion’s jovial morose.

  Jugular sweat carves canals

  Through mortar waves

  And tangled prisms fallen

  From the flaming tree.

  Suffer the lash.

  Profit the grimace.

  A fortune built

  Upon the economy of sodomy.

  Succeeding. Succeeding.

  Seceding—

  We achieve the idiot.

  Then You Will See

  Come to the sirens—

  Join in the lust of all that is sacred.

  Take the silence from your ears—

  Call faith to reprimand

  All that you find.

  Reach out to the desert—

  Pull the fire,

  Pull the pain;

  Gather dust from the coming rain.

  Pour sand into your eyes—

  Then you will see.

  Then you will see!

  The Measure Of Death

  Our prophets worship

  Like sour secret lovers—

  Selling their souls a pint at a time

  While the future is decreed

  Over unwanted voices.

  Stumbling on the second guessing of God,

  They have chosen to lie face down

  In drunken guise—

  Suppressing sobriety’s plea for response.

  Who but death can measure their worth

  At the end

  Of some never occurring tomorrow?

  You Are Not

  Lord, do you not hear

  My rumblings?

  My soul is vexed

  And I curse your name.

  I watch the innocent suffer

  And say that you are not

  A God of love.

  I see the torment of war

  And judge that you are not

  A God of justice.

  This Lord, is me, your creation—

  Lost to the drudgery of life.

  This Lord, is me, born of your image—

  Torn by the certainty of death.

  I have deemed all of life a burden

  And you, O Lord, a lie;

  For in the depth of my pain

  I find no solace

  And in the midst of my joy

  I find no hope.

  Who then, shall say, “God hears,”

  To one who has lost the will to speak?

  Is This The Ride

  Is this the ride—

  To cut hope free

  And gamble with fate?

  For too long it has been

  That I am not.

  So, I surrender the pen.

  Press penance upon me—

  Naked, fertile sickness.

  It is my soul and I

  Repent not its searching.

  God, the prey of my awakening,

  Holds quick burden.

  O good-bye my love.

  I will bear your fears

  On the bed of my loneliness.

  The warmth! The silken flow of flesh—

  I have grown into my species,

  My beast.

  Let Us Drink

  Let us drink the water of sleep—

  Fade into
another today.

  I’ll bury my thoughts deep within

  Your distant hesitance—

  Wrap the cardboard night around you.

  We’ll shiver in darkness

  To the cicada’s continual drone;

  hypnotizing us—

  Calling us to rest.

  Maybe we will sleep long enough

  To stop dreaming.

  A Soft Regret

  She pulled sorrow’s stare down—

  Brought it to meet my eyes.

  I filled the frame then looked away;

  Demanding our ceasing acquaintance rebirth.

  A touch for the scarecrow—

  Soft shining blue.

  She coughed to disguise the truth

  Of me shifting in her bed

  As she clothed me with forget

  Stolen from the dawn.

  Morning’s hue had broken—

  Lifting my mind’s fog.

  When mother is gone

  Who will suffer this incestuous child?

  Obsession

  Obsession lingers under me—

  Outlining vague notions

  Of penciled-in sacrifices;

  Hallowed eyes

  Within the stranger.

  A longing

  For its teeth sinking

  Into my flesh;

  Teaching me the passion of hate.

  Masks wet wind circling—

  Watching

  As I become obsessive.

  Liquid Attraction

  The liquid attraction of

  Heaven twisted—drowning

  Clouded tide torrid ebb

  Excess in moderation

  A muddled exaggeration

  Silhouette self

  Feigning modesty—

  A voyeur tapestry

  This dream world dance

  Void of color

  Black

  White

  No one will know

  Secret Dance

  Your secret dance has aroused me.

  Remove the sweat from your body

  That I may see your flesh—

  The eyes of addiction open more slowly.

  Undress my face with claws of hope—

  Gnaw my chest until I am released.

  Bring on the crucifixion.

  I am ready to believe.

  The God Of Gods

  Am I the god of gods

  Dying a thousand deaths

  Under hungry hands of hate?

  Kill me—if I am god.

  Kill me million little gods

  Wallowing in the fear of witches

  And priests and bastard sons

  Of bastard sons.

  Kill me—if I am god.

  Kill me—boastful fools of fire

  Stealing away between the thighs

  Of queens;

  Quivering in beds of sin.

  Your folly is my sport—

  I am

  The god of gods.

  To The Lotus Eaters

  There is sweet music here

  And the stillness of the water

  Lies against the sleeping sky.

  The moss is cool and softer

  Than any I have known.