THE MERCY SEAT

 by Shaun Lawton 

deep inside the scarred heart a viper

    strikes from where the wooly mammoths 

of memory nest in turbulent germination 

  to reach a paroxysm of equilibrium 

the whipping star's fulcrum 

   opens its incandescent kernel 

  to set alight the pilot furnace 

   deep within our abominable dream

while nothing remains as it's seen

  even as the chimera stares back at us

 from the ubiquitous mirror spanning 

the works from vitreous matter to every pupil

  awake in the maelstrom of this sanctuary 

where our mirror neurons collide 

  across the habitat of the vacuum 

under the hypnotic pedipalps  

 the spinnerets of reverie have woven

    splicing together the panopticon

 of our daily ordinary weather 

   stitched in tandem by lightning storms

so lower your eyelids and rest

  while you still can since after that

this gift we have been granted will 

  be replaced by the incessant tempest

    

 

  

iCON

  by Shaun Lawton 

Apple itself is a bite

 taken out of the sky 

     behind the wave
  its outline a mirror

 in which you can see 

  your own pupil
the stem is in the shape 

of an eye canted 

  at an angle
 like a chromatic accent mark

   on some forbidden icon
 with its camera pointed

 double barreled straight 

at you rendering 

  your virtual doppelgänger 

image in reverse
 stored in the cloud 

  for future downloading 

into the matrix
 of the fusion on our 

   post-human streets 

 where we’ll fail

  to remember that it’s really

just ourselves haunting 

these alleyways
with the fading impressions 

of ghosts shuttling  

  by in our cells 

     while a poison moonrise 

    eclipses our long frozen 

  vision to develop 

 our immunity 

to having our dreams 

  turn into hells

THE HUMAN HEART A POLISHED MINERAL

 by Shaun Lawton 

Foraging in the weeds for acorns

uncovered a sword whose stolen length spanned
a limb for which it was taken;
costing an arm to the one

to whom it was handed down,
while denying triumph to
the keepers of both hands.


I think I understand your point well sir just don't forget that 

in the legend the pure of heart are given credit in the moonlight.

 

Better get moving.
See that pretty city scape.
Encroaching from the horizon.
Getting closer every time you look.


Just let it all go.
What do you smell down this alleyway.
Now that its late.
As the stars burn and scream into the atmosphere.

Of darkness let the rays
cast down be reminders
illumination may also
come from the damned.

Neptune
(13 moons: Triton, Nereid, Larissa, 

Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, 

Proteus, Halimede, Sao, Psamathe, 

Laomedeia, Neso)

Centaurs.

You may pass through my woodlot, but be warned. 

This is my domain, and I may exact retribution if you fail to respect it.

He was on a journey to the well of sadness
for there he'd heard an echo of a tale which
whispered on the unfamiliar wind of a clearing
a deadbeat trance on the railroad tracks singing
in that shrill metal scream diminishing

Anise water
if the weather's
nice otherwise
freeze a frown
in a bucket of ice.

Alabaster swarms nestled under. 

Head full of sea kelp starring lights.

A bundle of tree roots bled in the dark. 

One bloody femur shaped like a foot.

There's evidence to suggest this singularity keeps repeating 

its programming in a never ending loop of such gradually 

decaying simulation that the differentials spawned grow 

not into yet more shed ghosts of future developments 

but rather constantly shape and mold the singular 

only possible existence here frozen in eternity 

and possessed by the illusion 

of constant movement 

to the point that even 

in our resting state 

of deep sleep 

every night 

occurring with

metronomic 

persistence 

we are unable 

to really wake up 

from our conditioning 

to realize this motion just

conducts us into dreaming.

Who benefits besides corporations.
We must ask ourselves these questions.
Can a building be hijacked.
Can a dark meme of humanity go viral.
Can a species go extinct.
It all depends on what you think.

Words are the new pet rocks. 

 You don't even have to paint eyes on them. 

 And they appear veritably, virtually, visibly on all of our d-Vices. 

 I'm going fishing in the real world now. 

My words and poems are just the shiny bait. 

 Just you wait. Set your iWatch on it. 

To be hooked and reeled in. 

 Bookworms of the world, take note.

We're going fishing...

THE MINERAL'S DREAM

by Shaun Lawton 

When a tree falls in the forest

Is it mourned by the standing survivors

The sound it made as distinct 

As their memory of a thunderclap?

The question then becomes 
Not whether a tree makes a sound
If it falls without anyone around
To hear it, but rather, is there even such
a thing as the ground when that appears
to be forged from our perception?

Not even the forest suspects this much,

Least of all the trees, each one of whom, 
For instance, may believe they are the king 
Of all existence. In whose dream, then
May a leaf be heard to fall, again? 

Listen up.  Without you,
There can be no story.  

A very old tree totters over 
Into the wildwood far away
With a sound approaching 
The memorial of thunder
To its standing survivors
Outspread in their foothold
Through funereal compost
Melding with mossy fungus 
Under the loam of bedrock
Adding another microtone 
To the growing forest song

TO PROXIMA CENTAURI

by Shaun Lawton 

A superfluous flower
  churns up in the waves
 the dunes and troughs
in the solar wind of the vacuole

At once a blossom
  of long scattered petals
 a swarm of barren, icy rocks
tracing the hologram of a bird's skull

Lit by our one single candle
  revealing the dark like a lantern
 leaving traces behind in the fog
rolling in from the nearby wild 

Here alive in our system
  all I see are blue skies
 sometimes with clouds and showers
building our pride with towers

~From a present dreaming Centurion 

FLUENT COMMAND

 by Shaun Lawton 

Cursive rules, its loops and curlicues 

reveal a lot about us.
 Perhaps its best we lay it to rest, 

buried along with the worst

 of our secrets and plotting and lies; 

a nice clean typography
 will better keep us in line. 

It's fine, don't worry, the quatrains

 will be running on time, everything 

kept under strict control
 while the sinuous, inveterate signature 

of our blossoming

 gets rectified by autocorrection 

with machine-like precision:
 Farewell to our sensuous rhythm. 

Welcome the fascist rule.

CORONA SIDESHOW

by shaun lawton

Photing. Voting by phone
Dreeming. To dream by emergency management
Syncing. Corresponding with a deeper order
Afloat. Feet upon the ground
Firmament. The measure of a domain
Kingdom. The hallways of memory
Castle. Cast by Iron Laboratories
A lure. A Decoy. A mascot
Garrote. A rotting garden
To be fed. Everything you've got
Our Tardigrades. Exalted progenitors
Too late. The definition of now
Collapsing. Circus lung