Poetry | Fred Aiken Writing

November 25, 2022

A Missing Piece (or Peace)

barely 24hrs without you
and I can somehow barely function despite
going all these years without your help

without your reasoning without the comfort of your ideas without the contour of your presence
the reassurance that I might one day know the confines of your knowledge

somehow makes things worst
because it makes it seem like I’ve come to depend on you rely on you melt into your thoughts
on a warm blistering frigid humid fine and raining day

that times passes itself off like a completely normal thing
tragically removes the ions of stenciled microorganisms standing
in my way

fighting through the desert of despair that’s left
without your scent impression physical sound bending
to the rhythm of a wondrous pocket watch constantly
ticking through the catalog of space and time in between now and when I will see you again

November 23, 2022

The Forbidden Valley Silence

waterfalls gathering stones in the wreckage of homes built
on the precipice of of far away horizons
blazing purple gems glistening in the suffocating toxicity built

on a heroic journey; traversing deep within the worst conditions known
to man, mammal, Marmaduke,
lying willfully ignorant of facts laid bare to the bone and picked apart

in orderly fashion-show-forbidden-lakes-burning fires on marshmallow’s
dreams, with ruinous fossils developing acidic tones to tell a nonexistent future
what’s what;
what’s that;
where’s your hardhat, there’s beware signs all over