quadrennial by Timothy Dooner (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

the pew
It's midnight at the end of the world and
We're out way past curfew
Do you hear that wind chime chiming?
It's just the Hanged Man nickle & dimming
From his fylfot cross
Laugh all you want but he's got the best view
Over the choir singing
We never heard him applying
The bomb for the work he'd set to do
The traitor is the twelveth card in a deck
Stacked against you


Decoda

The battle we woke up to
Was the trudging feet we'd heard
Scaling fallen walls
A disaster has been incurred

He straps on his belt
After a kiss he knows is goodbye
In a guerilla war on our country side

Words that go unsaid
Cowards don't call their shots
But widows sleep in empty beds
Mourning a war
Fought over a thousand virgins
Prostituted in an evening of whores

So send out the SOS via MMS
We've got your location on GPS
Your carpet bomb won't need dry cleaning
As under great duress she wore
Her wedding dress to catch the wounds
On a tapestry painted by her enemy
She can hang in a museum of the life unseen
That morning she'd rather have wore nothing

When his bare feet hit the cold wood floor
Casualties of the Morning War

Addicts Attics - 2012

A Tension Whore

Check-in at false places
Updated for the masses
One more to Markoff
A new listing on Craig's
Like English traffic
Running over Swedish legs
Then there are translations
Typed with no affect
You're under 6 feet
You're shorter than dirt
Why not just do it?
Who could it hurt?
A puddle pooling of rose red
Wine glass shattered by a Russian instead
Little meaning, empty hand
A knotted rope blowing in the wind
They came calling
But there’s no body there
Employee culprit
My bully pulpit


Prop Work Knife

There’s the king of broken wing
Flying in a figure eight
As the sun beats down
A halo formed his gilded crown
Placed upon the trophy
A shriveled jewel forged of entropy
That could glow in the dark
With burned out potential

Place the thorns upon your head
The speculum spreads to his heart
Inviting a vicious spectrum
Through those jaws of life
As I drew blood
With a prop work knife


The Bigot Tree

We've been picking apples
from the bigot tree
Chop it down and build a chapel
To worship our deity

You hit every branch when you
Fell from the ugly tree
It’s always coldest at night
Let’s keep warm by the cross again
They’ll come from afar to see
The righteous burning bright


All Greek To Me

When they wrote seventy-nine
On the back of a bullet
Were you in a cave, my Minotaur?
Or did Icarus lose his wing in plain sight?
Burnt away by a trigger’s sunlight
This blood paints a picture that’s parallax
With the brush strokes of a propeller
Spinning at the back of your necks

Remember when you sang, Siren?
Can you hear the melody as you lay next to your scion?
Hercules came to bring Zeus his Nemean lion
He finished his labor and you woke up with Poseidon
The lightning crashed when the rubble rejoiced
The thunder echoed and silenced your voice
Drifting across the river Styx
To be judged by Persephone, Hades, and Cerberus


Redacted Reenactment

This is not a redacted reenactment
Clues die-cast dropped as caltrops
Little metal landmines
Acting as a reminder
Of cobble stone horse trots
Galloping to our latest destination
As we walk away
The steeple stands behind us
Fingers clenched and eyes aimed forward
A lock's ahead, it is no detour
Peek through the hole and inside
You'll see, a bed's been made
That's still empty
A sunbeam falls highlighting the mahogany
Over her shoulder she can hear
His whispers and nepenthe promises
And she picks them like a lock
That he had the key for
Forged by a 'smith bonded in a year
Knock, he'll let you in
This is not a redacted reenactment


Polaroid Umbrella

These are the photographs we want to take
Of memories in shallow graves
That we can dig up on rainy days
So you can be my shelter on rainy days


methOD

Indented on the label
An Egyptian inscription
I'm too nervous
To fill my Xanax prescription
White coat at a pharmacy
Selling some more milligrams
Transparency of TSA body scans
It's just another chemical burn
On an azure counter at dusk
Light the glass & God'll meet us
Take apart
Rape the heart
There is nothing inside


Cellophane Sarcophagus

Little imperfections
And half used napkins
Stains at recess
Bed bugs and bitches
Staples and bats
I read the herald and
Couldn't figure out if the pipe
Was copper or crack
But baby I'm made of
Iron and there's no crease
I can't unfold
Don’t be alarmed
That’s just the crinkling
Of my cellophane Sarcophagus


Harlequin Ichthyosis

Do you see the fluid seeping through its sutured head
With thread tensioned against the beating of our bitter parts
Your touch a salvo safe keeping unwinding this technician's twine
There's no needle that can form the scar tissue detailed
With demon hoof prints that are grafted in lattice handshakes
Debasing a cardiac shrine

When all the scales are showing
On our Harlequin Ichthyosis infant
Only we can be its panacea
There's no rewind in euthanized solution
No soul in the remains of an abortion
And no solace for caretakers who forgot who they care for

You are the artisan of my desire
Accentuator of my humanity, I am your sentry
We are eternally in cupidity
Without avarice fated under Boston's skyline
For this spirit together we devine
To not ask would be remiss
Will you be my valentine?


Addict Attic

Ask the asp
To find the missing clasp
That caused the locket to slip
Through chain link loops
With a photo inside
Revealing her identity
With horses in reigns
Tugged through the marsh
There she's been
Since the middle of March
As the dental record plays softly
Across vinyl and skin
They knew it was her
Before the search began
But that needle kept turning
Until it was all the way in

the end

Imprint

Text: T. Dooner
Images: T. Dooner
Publication Date: 02-29-2012

All Rights Reserved