Richard King Perkins II

Poetry

 

 

Zombies with Cellphones

 

In a land of gloom and snow

on a night of strange constellations,

we follow the action of inhuman struggle—

 

zombies with cellphones,

regressive incubators and pickled ice creatures

hurting each other from one direction or another.

 

Thundersnow lightning twists and spasms

crossing a glyph of moon

and vexation of rooks

 

as you create a harmful narrative trope

of saviorism

 

with me as your victim,

freeing me from my unmolested grove of impulses

in a ripple of lantern light,

 

pinked by its dying glow.

 

My thoughts are turning to translucent consolations,

the tongue within your terrible veil,

a filamentous, gauzy trail

 

informing me that I’m just a man

slightly more crazy, slightly less loyal

walker of highways in monochrome fog

 

a punctuation of corpses rising above.

 

Mingling hands through trees of silver crest;

touching meteors, swaths of living desert

in the dim grey sand of skewered dawn

absurdity glosses tomorrow awake.

 

I’m led by glances and tell-tale ripened glitter;

your anatomy of doeskin,

my fear of such velocity

 

led to limned peaks of wrack and shell

by subjective tethers—

the mirage-like voice I once thought was yours.

 

 

 

The Last Rays of the Sun

 

Pastel outcrops

dusted in macabre glow

 

and the lute

of a diabolical bird—

 

you were born

in a lascivious position

 

a consequence of your creation,

the original state of matter

 

and you’re my punishment

for lust and gluttony.

 

My kisses cause strawberries

to rise from your body

 

as light penetrates your pigment,

blending affections.

 

We’re attracted to the idea

of infinity—

 

the last rays of the sun,

a lurid rift

 

accentuated by the edge

of night’s profane—

 

a gilded chandelier,

irredeemably risen.

 

 

 

Pomegranate Explosion

 

Golden copper descends

from the latest sunset

 

indirectly upon you

lighting contours indescribably seen.

 

Someday,

we’ll dissociate like the forgotten tail

of a falling star

 

but tonight, our moisture circulates

without resistance, petals on pond water,

 

drawn together with the ease

of ghost attraction and subtle enchantments.

 

Smiles and your eyes begin so many things;

fingers curl to secure them

 

and then—

a pomegranate explosion luminesces

on the endless horizon

 

and a new sun appears beside us

 

or perhaps,

with the wish of a lover’s whisper,

we have made it suddenly appear.

 

 

 

Emergence

 

An age of cocoons

and canopic jars

reveals shouting acacias

 

and the return

of dead languages.

 

Great pyramids fall to earth

inviting

the scorn of felines,

 

an unexpected glint of prisms

spinning.

 

We reflect on light

as the first tragedy,

 

omniscient thought-crime,

 

a faith of low necessity

in the center of our existence.

 

The first utility;

an abstinence of reason,

is a ragged bloom, our cytospore.

 

Give full credit:

meaning is in the demi-pause;

 

the builder

retrieves her ingenuity

 

and something polyhedral appears—

 

the otherness

we are compelled to embrace.

 

 

 

Contraction of Sentience

 

Silence is sold in ounces but less—

 

you’ve made me a contraction of sentience

lacking external release,

horror in neverending circular motions

 

another’s smooth fingerpads withdrawing from sand

reinvigorating the vision of observer phenomenon

 

or lost colors returning

occasionally from atmospheric escape.

 

Yet you forget aspects of me in suspension

to occasion yourself toward taking the weight

from others

 

weight may be seen as synonymous with burden

 

sometimes your balance is sufficient

sometimes it is not.

 

 

 

Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best of the Web nominee whose work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.