“Paradise”

Stardust
Lost in translation
Doomed to let the
Sun go down
Upon our grievances

Endless skins
Without men
A remedy
In avalanche
Rolling
With a gun street
Girl

The best performance
The original animation
Institutionalized
With the devil
In a room full
Of flowers

Space oddity religions
And pity party nightmares
The consequence of inaction

Paradise
On fire in the rain
A simple song
Screaming of wild love
Forgotten futures
And alternate Edens

Horizons
Seasons
Spinning
Falling
Throughout
The infinite galaxy
Doomed
Yet forgiven

©James Dennis Casey IV

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“Upon Their Wrists”

Lying there
In the rain
With skin
Defiled
In slumber
Creeping
Like colors
Never seen

Bodies
In morbid wonder
Hand in hand
Entwined
In rigor mortis

Dried blood words
Upon their wrists
That once flowed
From their lips
With forlorn sentiment
Washed away
By the water
From above
Lining the ground
With tangent
From behind
Sunken eyes

The future lost
And found again
Doomed and hidden
To be dug up
Long from now
From long ago

A story
To be told
Crawling up
Inside and out
From the mouths
Of rain soaked
Corpses
Festered with worms
And forbidden love

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Order or Chaos”

My day doesn't always
Start with coffee 
Watching early morning
Sunrises
Sometimes it begins
At 2:30 in the afternoon 
With whiskey
Cigarettes 
And midget porn
Not necessarily in that
Order
Or chaos 
Whichever you prefer
To tag it as

©James Dennis Casey IV

“A Junkie’s Christmas”

A junkie's Christmas
Lasts all year
And it comes
In many forms

A full bag in his pocket
Full needle
Full prescription
Full pipe
Full bottle of booze

Like full stockings
Over the fireplace
Just waiting to be emptied
Or presents under the tree
Beautifully wrapped
Begging to be ripped apart

Some know all the hustles
Different angles and charms
To keep their days
Full of gifts
Or most of them
Anyway

Sometimes
You end up with nothing
Or a lump of coal
And the sickness
Kicks in
No matter how
Naughty or nice
You've been

That's just how
The cookie crumbles
Into the milk
Left for the Santas
In dealer suits
When you live
Like it's Christmas
Every single day

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Once Upon a Time”

Eating fried cheese curds
With the three stooges
In a greasy
Shameful
Whorehouse orgy
Drinking cigarettes
Smoking rum
Listening to the cats
Hiss
And piss
All over the damn place
I had a moment
Of clarity
Everything made sense
Until I lost it
When I came in the mouth
Of an old 
Wrinkly butterface
Lady of the night
Sometimes the meaning
Of it all
Can be found
And lost
In the blink of an eye
Or the shooting
Of a load
I guess
The world
Will never know
But I did
Once upon a time

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Pain Fades Away”

A bloated pig sentient
With intellectual aspirations
My guts hate me
And I hate my guts
Poisoning myself
Again and again
Because there are things
In me
That need to die

Heaven and home
Hard to reach
Angels held my hand
Walking through the fire
For so long
Only to fall
To the flame

Still I stand
Still alive
Watching time
And people die
Battles won
Battles lost
My skin an open book

Crossover memories
Tried and true
Raised by fire
Under the son

Eyes burnt
Pain fades away
Hold on
Move on
Forget
Remember
Live

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Broken Dream Gumbo”

I'm upside down
Flip me over
No wait
Again
I liked it better
The other way
Around
Upside down and
Inside out
In the lost
And found box

All mixed up
Time and time
Again stirring 
My own pot
Of broken dream
Gumbo
With someone else's 
Spoon
And vice versa
While talking 
To the bird
That lives in
My beard

Passing time
Building wings
Of twigs and leaves
Held together
By the ear wax
Of Ballybogs
That always seem
To fail
In one way
Or another

The guardian angel
And little devil
Sitting on my shoulders
Pass a bottle
Back and forth
Laughing 
At my shortcomings
So the clown in me
Steals it
And we all end up
Drunk and naked
Dancing around 
A bonfire
Adding ingredients
To the gumbo

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Weep No More”

Riding on a cloud
High above the world
So beautiful

Flowing along the line 
Of her back

The one
Who taught me how to write

She passes in the sky
In rooted tangle

Only to give me
At last
When I am dead
Hope to return

I have seen her constellation
Dressed in green
Tailed like a rat
And then fall away
Here
With me

Burning in secrets
Of nothing whatsoever
I shall see her again

Ended is what I have begun
Only to begin again
Show me
Weep no more

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Using Its Own Parts”

Our true self is a voice
In the form of energy
Living in our heads
Driving our bodies
Like a temporary
Meat spaceship

Every breath we take
Is like the tic-toc of our own
Biological self destruction clock
Working towards releasing it

We're like the gears 
Of a larger structure
Spiraling into itself
Before reaching the last
Apex curve within
Only to be launched back
To the beginning

Simple yet deliberately 
Over engineered
Like a Rube Goldberg machine
Built by the universe itself
Using its own parts
And it's beautiful
And it's terrifying
To think about
At the same time

©James Dennis Casey IV

“Old Friends”

I see a darkness
Hiding in the light
Taking a sip of my coffee
And a drag of my cigarette
I give it a nonchalant nod
Just so it doesn't 
Feel alone

My mind tends to slip 
Between fantasy and reality
Yet the darkness is always there
Sometimes seeming surprised 
To see me

We're old friends you see
Even roommates for a while
Those were the days
Lost but never alone

©James Dennis Casey IV