Boring

I use to look at pornography and drink alcohol on my days off.

Smoke weed, listen to loud music, drive too fast and stay out too late.

Now I read heat treating protocols and books on metallurgy.

Ginger beer and charcoal tablets for the stomach and the shakes.

And plans for things to build.

Even if nobody ever sees them.

Postern Temporal Egress

whirlwind humming
blacksnake writhing
fog stripe twisting
4-jaw turning
knuckle grinding
sandblast hissing

time's nomadic asphalt helix
evaporates in the rearview mirror

Cognitive dissonance

furnace forged contempt
soul's cleansing fire
ice quenched brittle
beaten by life
tempered by age
impelled by antipathy



Love is the lie we tell ourselves
to excuse our weakness.