Afterlife

At first you could not imagine how
I waited in the shadows.

The sky is blank,
Flesh of no feeling

The sun glowing, spectral,
Rising with the smoke.

A door swings open.
The heavenly music surprises me.

Without invitation, I enter.

Under starry skies, in prairies of
Knee-high corn, I dreamed awake.



Poppies

The poppies smoulder,
Lit matches struck in the dark

Where we brought my sister’s ashes
When her life wicked out.

Each red flower
Is black at the heart

Of every burning
Wide bloody mouth.

Sunlight shines through,
Translucent.

Excitement quivers.
It is Winter here.

Frost waits nearby,
Sharpening his scissors.



Fresh Rain

Fresh rain fell
Onto velvet skin

Beneath an open sky.
I seek shelter in you.

Every stranger
Becomes a ghost passing by.

I harvest the fog,
Bathe naked in the waxing moon.

Sometimes I think I hear
The echo of the storm.



Daydreaming

Thoughts come easily
At dusk when beekeeper’s ghosts
Move through the empty orchard.

That moment before sleep,
Black nor white but
Something in between

Casts it’s spell.
The river of dripping saltwater pearls,
The withered moor,

The ashen lake
Where nothing stirs or alarms,
Where no birds sing.



Night

They came out to
Watch the moon,
A chalky paleness in the sky,
Wet from an evening’s
Snow, gathering shadows
In a field and hoarding them.
Darkness waited
Dimly in the trees,
As a mother
Slowly, slowly
Withdrawing a child
From her breast,
Falling snow
Pale as milk,
The elusive shapes
Of twilight merging,
Haunting, full of
Regret, a cry,
And then silence.
Night swallows all.



Birds at the Burial

Near the riverbank where we
Buried her, I light a candle

And wait, patient as a hunter
Detecting what the beast will do

In the next moment.
Someone, somewhere, will see it.

Barn owls celebrate
Over their cathedral of bones,

Screaming skies clawed with crows.
The man asleep on his lumpy mattress

Has a head full of ghosts and
Sad, erotic dreams.

Gulls rise, small white banshees
Worshipping the sun.

​Anxieties and Nights
 
It is the vapor of something, I don't know
a nebulous longing in the guise of an ache, 
that rises to fill me up with your diamond eyes.
Anxieties have wings; existence is a drag.
 
The air is a constant lack, I breathe.  Bones chime,
 and fill the vacuous spaces inside my body;
the interference pattern of death and boners.
 
Sometimes, I want to buy me a lying drug,
telling me that I am living a Bollywood movie.
 It sucks, but it won't go forever.
 
Do I want to be comfortably fooled? Or do I want
to be naked down to my last molecule ?
 
I am not made in schools, books or churches. And
I am not going to drag the corpse of last few thousand years,  
like I am told to. One of these days, I just want to 
be a duck or a stupid pig. What are you going to do about it?
 
"Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. "… Diamond Sutra 
"Form is background. Background is form"….M.C. Escher's Sutra
"Wave is particle. Particle is wave"…Heisenberg's Sutra
"Matter is mind. Mind is matter"….Jung's Sutra
"Nevermind"…..Cobain's Sutra
 
I am going to have a slice of sky for the breakfast today,
 to celebrate the oneness of sublime and junk. And of course,
 you are not invited, because you and me are always one.

Help Wanted: Political Position Open
 
Right now,
quotas on
mud-and-hog
type demagogues
who are jellyfish-witless
were filled
quite some time ago.
Applicants that can’t
accept earth-besmirching
rants ​are welcomed. 

 


Veritas Vanished
 
Aphorists say that
 
The truth is old--
Bristlecone-pine-tree-old,
 
And the truth is cold--
Cadaver-in-the-arctic-cold.
 
Granted, the truth is a lot of things,
But it’s the thing
That’s not being told.
 
I believe
The truth is a stranger
That’s about as foreign as an extraterrestrial.
It will never land on the lips of politicians.
 
That’s the truth.
 
by Bob McNeil
Copyright 2016

Death of Biota

In 1872 Biota and Engine
hatch carbon Black_swan
from a metallic dirtyshell
offering gifts of production
and horsepower to humankind 
by 2016
we stew in hot truth
as denial melts
degrees/megastorms/drought/flood
records breaking like cheap toys
as Arctic poles shrink
stats fib
Biota fell ill
and is dying
conjure death
as we suffer and join Biota



money eyes (back to root)

expressing
a simple damp sadness
that exchange ruined man
the black pig of deathblow chews
as flourishing we
ramp it up
till we're done
back to root
with blind money eyes



Gone

almost in two
when you flew 
my heart wracked
then cracked

​For Your Wedding Pinterest
 
Like a boozy bridesmaid wearing wine-soaked white   I’m
Drunk
in front of that wedding planner’s office near my Harlem apartment
 
My Manhattan mem(or man)ories during my crisis of a quarterlife are a quarter nice
And 75% libido in limbo
 
Heart v. penis
An inner-world war being waged by humans since before the birth of God
 
One time I brought some marriage-ready friends to Kleinfeld
The shiniest gownhouse in all of New York City
And I left the building too at peace to set off my arsenal of sexist jokes
So maybe heart wins

​How To Dream 

Pop your eyeballs
out your head
put ‘em in a jar
leave to soak overnight

plain water will bring you
plain dreams
shopping malls
and one-way traffic
but mix in crystal meth
coke or smack
you’ll dream wild
spaghetti roads 
pulling you down
into the dish

‘course you have to wake up
grow up
but pop those eyes
back into your head
come morning or night
whatever your shift

and you’ll see a world
even duller than the one
from the day before
when you couldn’t wait to get home
pop your eyeballs in a jar
and dream


Joey Boy 


The arsehole
at the end of the world
is here under the M6
waiting to be carved
from a concrete underflow
that was as soft as semen
in 1963
when Joey crossed
the wrong deal
or screwed the wrong hole
and was sent down here 
to sleep away his dreams
in a bed warmed with concrete
and softened with piss

until the city shakes him loose
like a dice in a fist
and he arises in the thirty-third century
arsehole first
and god-like they say

to spit out the light
of the sun.


Doubled Up


Been digging shit
from my own ass for so long
it’s a shock to be here
on the tide-line, not stranded
or washed-up, or feeling like
nails have been hammered
in my head. Four days bail
is four days free, a homeless man
waking up feeling well-fed.

Almost a shock to remember
that life doesn’t have to go
that sad old way; the un-natural
jerk at six a.m, lifetimes lost 
lifting telephones and tapping dead keys
folded away like a letter
in my pocket I’m in no real hurry 
to read. So is this how it’s supposed 
to be, or is this just how it is?

No rapture or judgement
will settle the score or pick up
the tab, I’ll just live what’s left
to life and suffer the rest
like an old drunk waking up
in a ditch with a hangover
the size of a car tyre hosanna’d
round his neck, telling himself
that four days can un-roll
like a sleeping bag whenever
he needs rest - though I know
they’ll feel more like an engine
lugged round on my back
when the alarm kicks me out
on Tuesday morning: 

a four-day sentence
till Saturday breaks cover
and I imagine I’m free again.


Epiphany


I’ve flirted with God
for fifty years
but we’ve never gone steady
or even held hands,
just longed across the street
like hooker and john
wondering which one
needs the other the most,

finding with sadness
maybe relief
that we both need to walk away.


20mg


Pancaked today;
flat as a wind
that bends the grass
but doesn’t touch
the trees. They’re fine
up there, facing their green heads
into a camera
whose exposure is so long
only the absent camera-man

will see the final picture
and wonder at the tapeworm
worming its way
through the long grass
on 20mg a day.

 Herald

Herald back herald back--
come hither now my beauteous slithering children
let the calls of the bellsman resound throughout this airy day
do not fear or stop or languish
for in those moments is where you will indeed face despair
you will face the demons that have haunted you
that have always held back beneath your shadow waiting
waiting so that they can plague you again with their memories,
do not fear the things that come naturally to you, do  not fear to
                    speak your mind
for you have never stopped from living this life, and now it is
                    the time to express them-
for as the sun does waver in the sky, and the clouds of deceit
                    have strangled the moon,
ever forth more then now is the time that you have been called
                    to action
 
In this new age of humanimality we must call forth our aching
                    archetypes and gods
Herald the Woodsmen who has crafted these furnishings and
                    boats left for shiprot!
Herald the Ironman who has crafted these old and rusty
                    blades!
Herald forth the Gunsman to lay lead into the rifling bursts of
                    anger!
Herald forward the Philosopher in a time of war with an arrow
                    in chest!
Herald the Prince in flowing gown that as a babe must take to
                    rule!
Herald the Miller who has ground down the wheat for our
                    bread on this glorious day!
Herald the Brewer to lay the wine upon our thirsty and
                    glorious tongues!
whose whispers and hungry breaths are trampling on this well
                   manicured path of lies,
an army of men who have a purpose, and I among them
                   singing there songs of revolt,
Herald the Archer, whos missiles shall sail into the night, strait
                   and true!
Herald the Oarsmen with their backs into the movement of
                   waves around our flight!
Herald the Nigger whose chains have only served to
                   strengthen his bonds of hate!
Herald the Miner who down within the caverns of hell is
                   gaining us ore!
Herald the Reaper to come and clean this battlefield of your
                    children!
Herald back! Herald forth! HERALD BE HEARD
THROUGH THE STREETS OF ALL OF THIS!
 
Herald back the days in which men were men and their desires
                    were that of what they have made
 
its rotting, this sham of an existence, this comfort that you
                      imbibe, these reality shows,
these reality travelling wagons of sex and laughter,
                     materialism and gluttony,
reality for sale!   reality for sale!             buying and bottling,                  
                     churning and spawning
eat your reality this day with a bit of sand from the ocean
 
drink your reality with no threat that it will cease,
for this bottle, this hard tack of reality is endless, for are
                   realities are set to collide
 
and this is the big bang youve been teaching, this is the last
                    sound of a hanged mans descent,
this is the boom that will finally make a difference in your life,
                    boom boom boom, the loud
brilliant bursts of iron and gunpowder, the glorious rebirth of a
                    chaos in motion,
to let the sagging earth bury the dead                                       bury
                    their secrets and social contracts,
bury the ideas and notion that have brought us this horrible
                    facade, bury this complacency,
bury all of our ideologues, bury all of our riches and our
                    failings,
reimagine the map we inherit
from the bones of these lesser sanctioned, from the bones of
                    the fallen wrongs,
for if truth is power, then our messages shall kill millions,
                    our truth will bury your fathers,
your brothers, you closest known ideas, but do not stop, if you
                    stop then you will be buried as well
 
Tied to the millstone of acceptance, we have now finally
                    crystallized that acceptance will not come.
It does not matter whether you do nothing, it does not matter if
                    you have doubted yourself,
it will not matter in the hunt for something new, something
                    chaotic, a burst, boom boom boom!
Aim high to the heavens our orbs and guns, level this
                    terrestrial mess with your tongues of righteousness
call forth all of those that seek to conquer, that seek to find a
                    good within this earth,
for we will never gain anything from the bones of hindus, we
                   shall never attain buddha in cash,
a flower will never see the light of day in these dark times as a
                   flower is supposed to be enjoyed,
destroy your television controlled mind, destroy your internet
                    masturbation sessions, destroy these children,
for these children will learn to destroy us, they will be
                    instructed to do so when we are old and feeble.
 
The new generation of children will not save us. The new
                    generations of this filth will do nothing to solve.
We the last few broken and wicked, the last tie to the older
                   days of humans, must destroy to save ourselves.
 
You cannot sleep enough to be rested for this battle, for sleep
                  will only succumb you to the violence.
You cannot prepare yourself ready for this oncoming
                 onslaught, because they will be heavily prepared.
 
Herald forth ! Herald back oh children of Adam !
We cannot lose our appendages more ferverently, we cannot
                    lose our minds if they inhabit them!
Cut now, Cut often, Cut down those realities around you till
                    there is only but one, you, meagre in survival,
breathing barely, hungry, tired, and staring at it, looking
                    directly at what we have come to create.
And we have only but one option now to save our souls from
their planned destruction, we must fight! raise up now,
high minded, in great numbers, and fight them to they are no
                    longer sharing the same breath we take.
 
You are screaming over the airwaves, you are screaming at the
                  bars, you are screaming at your young ones,
you are from the bottom of your heart tired used up and
                 disgusted with all of this around you.
You are not an irreplaceable cog until they have buried you.
You are a human until you die.
 
I am with you my beautiful brethren of this earth, I am with
                   you in the streets, in the pulpits, in the pits,
I am with you in America, for I sat up all night and talked to
                    her about you, and she hopes that you will listen,
I am here with you now in the solitude, in the dark burdens of
                    uncertainty, I am hear with you aching.
I am here with you in the mountains with your songbirds and
                    cold nights, I am here with you in the riverbeds
snaking around the burdens of coast, I am here with you on
                    the roads ongoing mileage, I am here.
I am here with your mother who wishes with all of her
 omnipotent milk, I am here with your brother hand in hand.
I am here in the lies that you swallow, in the information they
                   spoon feed you,
I am here to take back the spoon.
 
They have taken from you, They have stolen out your heart
                   and cursed it with their evil sorcery.
They have pissed in your throat and told you that it
was ambrosia, they have manufactured your angst, your love.
They have handcuffed you to new economies and titles, They
have convinced     you this is the best way to go.
 
Humans we must converge! We must assemble now! We must
discuss all that has been stolen, and seek to          tear it back.
We must not be worried about kindness, for they have been
                     unkind to you, to all that you possess.
We must not be burdened by the guilt laid upon us by the
supposed sin of the less civilized, WE ARE UNCIVIL.
Civil disobedience has been locked away into a prison state.
Gandhi was left for dead on the railroad tracks.
We must dispose of these tyrants that seek to pigeonhole you,
We must bury their uncontrolled power with ours.
 We have the arms to give, We have the means to destroy. We
                     are the destroyers renewed.
 
We are the hungry nucleus of a blackhole to swallow this
                    bullshit around us.
 
Herald forth ! Herald on ! Scream from your anonymous soul
                    loud that they will no longer control us!
 
 
 
 
                          now! It is time for the murder of control