Life As A Chessboard

I added to this piece with some interesting wordplay. I hope you enjoy it.

Losing my grip on reality

 

Falling into a deep dream

 

The rabbit hole grave a

 

Drowning river in the holy waters

 

A house of cards offering room and board

 

For the off chance of a lifetime’s end

 

Cruising deck hands follow suit and tie tongues bleed for the seagulls

 

As the world shuffles through its pages

 

Drawing blanks taking chances

 

Photo shooting craps with stars

 

With loaded dice, the odds stacked against me

 

Wanting to get even with every floor

 

I hold my ground, I built my foundation on false promises

 

Take my word for it and offer the world a poem full of them

 

My last stand are the cross-legged oaks that are lying down to die for the forest

 

Giving my word is like every story that towers over the foundation of God

 

Over the basement of empty pages that has betrayed its author

 

Did I not by birth write

 

Use my children to keep the legacy of words on heir with their face-downfall from grace

 

Bargaining chips away at gambling stars as we grow brittle and gnarled

 

My snake eyes wandering the maze zigzagging unravelling

 

I bargained for a six-string heart and lost my mind drinking high spirits

 

The method to madness is a tall order

 

It’s easy to lose your way

 

But much more difficult

 

To drift back to sleep, and never dream

 

Blind to the light at the end of the tunnel

 

The dark past leading to a bright future

 

Opening the present in all its gray lactescent pitch

 

The rabbit hole monochrome

 

With the dreams of colours fading into an impotent night

 

Photosynthesize Christ

 

The branches of my body taking in the glare of an angry sun

 

And I can’t help but feel I’m on a chessboard

 

White and black thinking, grey skies

 

And another pawn to madness sweeps across the board like a hurricane’s church bell yelling

 

Like a plague of unanswered questions speaking in one voice together

 

And I’ll take your black and white kings and subject them to serve time

 

The master of their white and black uniforms

 

Each a zebra in a lion’s den

 

Each a shadow casting light

 

Each doubting their own truths until they gray into the same colour as me

 

And bleed into obscurity like a spiritless scythe

 

Reaping sown up smiles until their mouths forget to scream words

 

And the dreamers can finally unhinge the doorframe

 

Walk the halls, the jaws of madness

 

And wake from reality back into sleep

 

Another empty peace of the puzzled

 

Jailed in a halos' mosaic, a frail rainbows oasis

 

Spray-painted dis-figureheads faceless

 

Staccato Molotov dominos sonata vibrato ensambles envelope

 

Stamped to a trampoline’s amputee answering machine

 

Dampening the sound of raincloud hallows

 

The flower gallows malleable soundboard unicorns

 

Yet to be reborn orange rigour Mortis intercoursing through the sky

 

A lullaby I’ve yet to find, serpentine, stars aligned, redefine, live to die

 

Crucify the lucid mind poltergeist feisty as the lightning of a stray kite

 

Flocking glossina of apocrypha’s opera, sonic trombones unknown radios

 

Fill the stadiums radiant entertainment glazing over the polaroid’s

 

Of a lone voice rejoicing comatose varicose with hope

 

Scarecrow heralds bearing werewolf pheromones symposium of chromosomes

 

Cobblestone ponies and halftone phonies psychosis ocean wide in homicide

 

Live to die, your smiles cry

 

I am an island made of rhinestone

 

I am a silo and a maelstrom, I am a braille holy grail the gale behind the veil

 

I am a poem in crayon, a railroad and a sailboat

 

Stuck in the throat

 

Just a Velcro mouthful

 

South Pole or hellhole

 

A velvet balcony of lost melodies

 

Amidst shellfish eclipse belting Valkyries fist

 

Against the aether graveyard of a matriarch’s departure

 

Amalgams fallacies valiantly rallying gatherings of sanguine stargazing guillotines

 

In the haze of yesterday

 

I’ll find another place to play

 

And waste my mind away

 

Maybe find another way

 

To say goodbye to you all

 

Today   

 

Put a piece of me into the puzzle,

 

While I scuttle down the sun’s gutter, an ex-lover

 

Smother the tundra of brotherhood with the driftwood hallucinogens

 

Imprisoning limbo’s cynical thimble of lymph node ventriloquism

 

Prisms schism the remains of barren planes

 

Fly through the skyline of a summer day ablaze in shady everglades labelled a fable

 

Chrome Babylonian aluminum blooming plumerias hara-kiri arrogantly

 

I ain’t no Kryptonian but this is no hail mary

 

I haunt fields of marigold

 

I write only fairytales

Graffitiing double-helixes with a martyr's heartbeat

 

A garrison of vicarious Farris wheels

 

Lariat the stars gone cinnabar into vinegar scimitars

 

Balsamic almond clouds choral villanelles as a Cinderella delicacy

 

Murals of sulfuric spirits mirror veneer pirouette

 

Tempestuous empresses meshing apparitions into (tapestries of) non-fiction

 

Rhythm glistens arithmetic renditions

 

Blending remedies envisioned in symmetries inquisition  

 

My father’s 70

His burgundy words blur the furnace of a hurricane in the grains of my mind

 

I don’t want to leave my roots behind and tumble through time

 

Youth’s wine intertwined binding cyphers of disciples

 

To the Cyprus branches like windshield wipers

 

I too will branch out and travel the horizon

 

Until I leave a hulking shell growing inside out, lifeless

Always keeping the world in check

A shackled atlas of tapestries, destiny terpsichorean

Harpsichordist metamorphosis

Ever-shifting photosynthesis of Stygian oblivion 

Holding up continents polyphonic monolithic umbilical visionaries, the gospel of apothecary

(Piano chandelier lyrics of the spiritual ethereal medium)

(Helium ceilings called to the frolicking diabolical Elysium)

(In circulatory metamorphosis)

(Orchids of divorcing orchards remorseless ghosts that forfeit rigour mortis orphans chorus)

Moonshine sliding a sunrise off a diving board

(Like a tightrope of lifeboats floating osmosis)

Falling upon the sun-settling early in the night

But for now, my will to live is stronger than my need to die

Now ain't that black and white?

Ethereal murals of alphabetical residue resonate adrenaline inelegant and malcontent

Calypso eclipsed on the bliss of chapped lips

(I no longer exist)

People smile on this

My mother never raised a fist

My hands shaking dust devils

Outstretched towards the horizon

Like a (petrified) tree

(Unheard by God)

(In a forest of voices)

Still

(As a picture frame)

Author's Note

I promise I read every single review, and I generally will reply to them. I look forward to my next review, because it helps me learn. Even if it's just one word, I promise, I will be happy to hear anything you feel needs sharing. Whenever you write on my shortcomings or breakthroughs, or the themes of my poems, or share ideas and friendly criticism, it decides my next poem to an extent. I will listen, learn and be thankful. And 99% of the time, you'll get a reply unless you're trolling me.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

Love this one! I found a large proportion of this writing to be more relatable to everyday life, as compared to being a tangle of introspective puzzles spilling forth (altho some of these tangles, here & there -- your signature cerebral analytical wanderings). I love your catchy title & I felt the trajectory of your rambling supported this premise with an interesting sinewave flow, modulating your intensity nicely, thru-out (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

Thank you for your viewpoints on the poem, this is generally how I figure out what my poems are like, since often it is hard to put myself into the shoes of the reader. Through the people who read them my work, I learn to improve. As always, happy to share a poem with you Margie!

[barleygirl]

I forgot to mention, great artwork, especially since I'm in the Halloween spirit all month. Also, you crafted some zingers, like this: "A house of cards offering room and board" where you twist a well-known idiom with your characteristic wit.

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

I love writing these poems, and I'll definitely more zingers in the next one too! :)

[Pete]

quite the chess game - i'm afraid to make the next move. this is one of my favorites of yours. so many gems in the strong imagery that you so deeply paint with emotion. you''re like the artist van gogh with a keyboard instead of a paintbrush. you have the most unusual, disturbing pics to accompany your writes. too many great lines to mention. really loved the ending -

Ethereal murals of alphabetical residue resonate adrenaline inelegant and malcontent

Calypso eclipsed on the bliss of chapped lips

(I no longer exist)


People smile on this


My mother never raised a fist


My hands shaking dust devils


Outstretched towards the horizon


Like a (petrified) tree


(Unheard by God)


(In a forest of voices)


Still


(As a picture frame)


bravo ... :)

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

Thank you for reading, you're kind words really give me that extra dose of excitement for the next write. Always happy to share poetry with you Pete!

[Kari Rakitan]

These poems always take me on a journey. Intriguing as always!

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

Glad you liked it, thanks for reading. :)