GONE

a painted hollow
beneath an eye
whose arc has ribboned
streaks into dawn's smudge

arrayed for my
stencilled programme
built from blood's
ceaseless river, dividing,

forking faces from ashes
sown by her hand and fingers
unfanned in a gesture uncannily
similar to a languid goodbye

catches my gaze and in the mixture
of contrasting lights, disappears,
death of a shadow,
revealing the tracks

of a phantom crow
long gone flown, having
willed a dark glint only
in the contracting pupil

headstone left,
a grave marker of memories
crushed to a pinpoint,
now blinded in the dark

it is drowning in,
now surging open to embrace
the last shreds of dream
fired back as final echo

CAPITOL AIRS

for Allen



We love the government where we live
We like to be ruled by the wealthy
We need to be reminded what to eat
We feel safe with the cops in the street

We want our manifestos regulated
Our dress codes keep us elated
They say discipline builds character
Besides you can take it home with you afterward

We enjoy being vested in a twelve ounce escape
So long as the leash is attached at the nape
So that multicorporate meltdown
Doesn't feel like such a letdown

We secretly think military prisons are keen
Wouldn't want those inmates dancing out in the street
If millions are killed by a secretary's error
Who needs revolution when the world's in a fever

We adore anarchists screaming hate sells
We're grateful a secret intelligence slit idealism's throat
Sensible tanks squat in Baghdad Square
Thank God someone paid that bill with blood spilled fair

Terror in Pennsylvania or DC Two Thousand One
We now depend upon a Right Wing Death Squad Democracy, Son
Police state Iraq North Korea Tomorrow
Please don't throw us in that briar patch, comrade;

We are Nationalist Supremacy, White and Black-
We know informants & mobsters scratch each other's back
The gameplayers dress snappy for their citizen's arrest
And the most fortunate son stacks his chips on the fields of unrest

We may not approve of 3rd World cops killing Jews
So we'll just turn our eyes from the central american news
As for Zionist troops in the unfolding storm
We resent the Nazi label, shoot first is the norm

God bless Homeland Security
We can smoke out the rats under Fealty
And teargas the radical dissenters
In San Francisco or Salt Lake City Heaven forbid

In the States its an X-box in the Mideast just a book
In some countries to find yourself you wouldn't know where to look
Sit back down and keep away from the window --
You dare talk back, wanna get slapped so everyone'll know?

Our economy is invested so get back to work
You think War grows on trees?
The Enemy's got just as much in tanks and planes
Another Fifty Billion & we can bring em to their knees

The Halls of Education stand proud as History has overseen
One by one we replace dictatorships with democracy
Sure its been proven communism works only on papers
Stuck together with the blood of war prisoners

Our President knows there is something worth fighting for
He didn't need to say it, he just started up a war
Desert Storm II, a box office success for sure
Not to mention a shoe-in at the Oscars allure

Herbert Walker and his clout bought some Saudi oil out
Then a tyrant threw a fit and burnt up a lot of it
Ten years later they were ready to invade her
Sure they took office by force someone had to, Damn Straight

George A. Romero directed Land Of The Dead
And our attentions away from the dying instead
Making our sons' and daughters' sacrifice in vain
Fuck a busload of dyke nuns we're talking here about our sons

Half the voting contingency may as well be on crack
They can't even make it to the polls and back
And if the trend continues in this fashion
We may need an Iron Fist, don't call it fascist

The road to truth is a hard thin line to walk
The pathway to rebellion is wide and easy
If you think this State is not by and for the People
Then you need to jump right back & get conditioned in the Steeple

If the systems of the world all end up being the same
Then if we regulate them who's to blame?
Besides, do you have any idea what they eat down there?
They could use a Subway and Atkins diet in Tiananmen Square

This is a holy war and God's on our side
And when everybody's dead we'll be Chosen for Heaven's ride
All except the terrorists & liberals raving in the street
Exchanging hugs & bullets everywhere they meet

No hope for the Infidels No hope for the Left
The godless are amongst us can I get an Amen
Because we are right our American Might
Will draw shut that bloody Iron Curtain again

Jesus Christ died for your sins
So that Law and Order could be maintained
Do you think for a heartbeat the same could be said
Of that son-of-a-bitch Sadam Hussein?

The moral of this story is that we stole all your glory
And we did it right in front of your face
Sure we patrol the streets internationally
It's no longer a secret, you're a slave, a disgrace

Terrorists just bought into our upperclass plan
Now they work for us, under our Reprimand
And if we confuse a longhair or tourist for one
Why that ain't no skin lost so long as business gets done

Calm down Calm down wherever you are No Cure
Trust in God and antidepressants for sure
Take a deep breath and a sedative you'll find
Will prepare you for the workforce tomorrow, Mankind





Salt Lake City
November 21, 2005
© by Shaun A. Lawton

LOVE STORY

1.

the fusion i
know untightens
presents itself
before
you.

in its
new spaces
freedom is
offered
us.

2.

our freedom
is everyone's.
in he stepped.
my fusion
grew

back together.
you must
know i
cannot come
apart

ALONE

rusty swing
bird creak
thunder coughs
from a cavern
a raven sets its
siren precedence
at the half grown
over intersection
of two paths
I sit on a buttress
of stone

WILDWORK

folding out into the black
that breathes open moth wings

drop into the jaws closing endlessly
on a tree standing still in twilight

whose shadow is thrown from a tooth,
a diagram of a hangman's stand

along the blurring and dimming light
silent gray creatures slip in unnoticed

from the transit system of shadows

PLASM

I want to throw my voice
through the sky's throat
pierce my gaze through the
pupil's moon pinch the skin off
the earth's crust and taste
the blood of the land,

I want to hurl my name
up where the rain is made
hook my talons in the mountain's face
pour my dreams into a cloud's palm
and smell the heat of a storm.

WAVELENGTH, PRINTOUT.

Germination reich,
corrective spike.

Chicken down,
spaghetti town.

Billboard clown,
cropdust dose.

Ribcage city,
rootcellar ghost.

Eastwood posse,
mirror cloned.

Termination hunter,
Saviour-drone.

General Sanders,
polished brass.

President Sheen,
world class.

IN THE ROAD

A distillate jam,
corporate scam,
head cram,
automatic
camera-scan.

Recording wire,
corporation's
cold fire, pressed
attire, a witness

for the firing doll,
a pincushion
prosecution,
trial beneath
the tire.

Caltrops underfoot,
troops rooting out
systemic shock in a
locked circuit loop.

Forming the peaks
of the icebergs
of power, the
crystallized tip
on a maiden ship.

The flowered voyage
of a towering toy,
a rib-caged wreckage
beached and exposed,
just out of reach
at the moment.

POEM FOUND

Beneath an overbitten sky
the wounded learn to sing.
Dismantling their prayers,
they lower themselves
into the dark.

EXPLORER

the mandible carapace
gleamed off the sun
light streaming in waves
rippled across the
hazy orange skies
of the seed pod
fleet invasion
centered behind
a slit across eyes
reflecting the terrain
of post apocalypse
passing underneath
in mute facades

SLC

I just drifted by here
hopped off a tumble weed
that blew right in
from Black Rock City...

that was 5 yrs ago.
Things have changed
& stayed the same-
all dull & pretty;

I'm less deranged
but more insane, see
I work for the state
& think its just great

See what i mean?
They eat jello here.
I blend right in,
Guess i'm just weird

SHADES

having flown
over stones lip
to slip down

a sprayed flume
in bright arc
overhead

funneling
a molten window
of a hood

to refract
a nearby
star's light

through the
glimmering
wood

to protect
a covenant
which suggests

the river ride
ends in a wide
opened eye

and also
the rest is
closed off tight

under a smiling
curtain's hushing
glare that

muting . . . knighted
inner . . . raining
stares . . . erase

AND THE DREAMER WROTE US FROM WHOLE CLOTH

What if . . . it is language itself
which is the real Life?

Then humanity would be the Light
and literature its shadow.

Inscribed in tomes a physical record
left behind for the next generation to find.

The process of translation, the very device
that perpetuates this constant motion
produces a race that mistakes its staining
of membranes for its own unfolding story.

Oblivious this storm is the real living glory
for this reason when you shut your eyes
you're closest to seeing the skies of the gods.

When thinking stops and minds are cleared
are the real living deities revealed.

Our familiar legacy of flesh and blood
is shown to be a warm garment and hood

We end up the dream misunderstood
to be all that appears as reality.

BANE DAY

a sinew worked its way through
advancing like a webwork plague
to undermine the surface of their skin

at first you didn't notice
the spidery lightning-like veins traced
here & there, up a neck or under a jaw

from inside an eyesocket, or the hollow
of an ear, the traceries of spreading
veins would appear, subliminal

at peripheries edge, peeking from the
shadowline of a collar, uncoiling from
a sleeve, flickering from a stranger's wrist

whose hand extends in greeting,
a parasite ivy entrenched in the heart
of any chance human meeting

MORTALITY'S FORGOTTEN GIFT

in a clearly recalled envelope
we diminishwalk, backs turned

clockwork marionettes
bound to fade

sipped from bottom up
by an earth's dark heart

drunk on the wine
of innocents

cursed with nothing
but memory,

blessed with everything
but eternity

ENTIRE

when he tried to picture it
each feature was too it
this confused him so that
he seized into indecision
did he see it, or part of it
or was it there at all
none of the parts knew
and neither did he

CASCTLE

brickworked its way up
stands there and to this face
the day's compass unfolds
slower than aspen unscrolling
their account of the silent
war on pages of virgin purity
written on by the wind

UNTITLED

for Steve Marchena


love is a highway
the heart is an empty room
i cannot sleep
when the headlights sweep the ceiling

STARCROSSED

From high above the earth I've seen
a shared view with the eagle's keen
sense of focus a darkened tower
of cloud bank shining, & beneath its bower
prosaic beams of sunlight engrave
an inscription of steam on the land underneath
unveiling a dream whose vision bequeathed
to mine eyes held aloft of the glorious scrying
the difference between those living & dying
though seemingly occupied on the same land
and on happenstance meetings intertwined by the hand
are in fact in a fleeting transition of fate
whereby sharing the meadow on each other's date
is entirely besides the point as of late
for each bending vista that reflects from their eyes
is a seperate world under differing skies
and the dream shared between them an illusory lie
as they whistle together hand in hand down the path
oblivious to the contact in defiance of the wrath
of the moment illumined by the sun, the inter-
galactic is over when clasped hands come undone.

MEMORIAL

One day,
they built their hut
on a flat plain of rock
along the winding banks
of the river sky.

Only the dried out husks
of their children's children
remained.

Elsewhere, the descendents
of their distant relatives
discovered traces of their imprints,

and at night,
around a bonfire,
they sung their story
up into the tumbling sparks
of the stars.

SELF PORTRAIT BY LOGICAL DEDUCTION

The implication of the design suggests an artifice,
and an artifice implies a Creator. The relationship that Creator ends up having with its creation could go many ways. By virtue of having described that a creator has produced a body of work, it is implicit that this Artisan operates within measurable limits. The truth can only be arrived at through an analogous algebraic equation, this is a fundamental condition of perception described by Kant.

It's where Faith meets Physics.

It is possible to begin imagining the shadings of the contours
of our celestial face upon the unspiralled deeps;
for there to be a Universe immediately
implies a Keep, a terraspatial aquarium,
a crystal ball in a vacuum in a sealed off pressurized chamber.

Imagination begins in trying to picture the Keepers.

It really begins to pick up when a route and itinerary
is outlined with the intent of tracing a path back to
our natural habitat. This would be like a goldfish
planning to escape and return to a koi pond in Japan.

Except for the fact we are not goldfish, but homo sapiens.
--Or are we?: Shading the profile of the jawline, to merge
into shadow, beneath twinkling pinpoints, in cavernous sockets.
Framed by a vast canvas of space.

MEMENTO

There is no other way to describe the sensation of
there is no other way to unscry
there is no other way,
there is no other,
there is no there.

There is nothing
there is nothing I can do
there is nothing I can do to understand
that there is no way for you to understand it
in the way that I do,

The way that I do
the way that I do this is
the way that I do this is by easing into it,
easing into inscribing the inexplicable for you
and your eyes to fathom
the light sinking from
the bottom

where our drifting away from it all
meets in a haloed crowning
passing on like a cloud
or any other dirty
memory saved,
any other memory
saved for another day.

no memory is the same twice
no memory is the same
no memory
none.

CLOSET FUEL

he was just a little kid and when he goggled
throught the park the tulips

something was wrong with them.
they seemed
clearer than everything else,
more focused.

he skipped on down the park and whistled around
the fountains to glance

they hummed noiselessly.

he dashed out through the gates and straight
home where his mother

her eyes were so bright