Only to those who truly seek
rest
is a glimpse of the truth even
possible
It’s never really over

Ian Barkley
I write prose about the future and poetry about the present.
And Yet the Cage Remains
The walls and the sickness
and the deathless persistence of disability
and the screens
and the porn
and the life struck by terror
as it searches in all directions
unable to find the sea.
The Great American Nothing
From the feeder corn that made this all possible
The crops worth much less than the land
The beating heart of the nation
pumping syrup
through the veins of the tribes
Out of many one- you die with no heart
But life’s hard when you don’t got a brain.
Still, having no mind is a boon to your courage.
Waiting for the Fever to Break
Cruising deadass plague campus at night
The Peasant’s Golden Arches
The power’s still out and all-night walmarts are closed
The Corvid
“Let’s send out some spies!”
“They’re plotting against us fosho!”
venerable and wise.
Crow chatter is an omen, pure neutral. Same with magpies.
Quoth the Corvid
“BwaHBwaHBwaHBwaHBwaH”
Don’t Twist Snap
Fail more fail better
F
Electric Ghosts of a Lost Era
Water from the sky,
Deflation
the landlords bombed so much
that oil should be free
pinching continents
so tight they turn to USD
bribing our kids
with mcdonalds and caffeine
to keep shivering fingers
tapping on the screen
cut you off from your doctors
‘you should get used to the pain’
dying from their fentanyl
cause you can’t even afford cocaine
rent went up this month
but it’s 10 bucks for some jeans
if you don’t work hard enough
you’re replaced by a machine
spit the gasoline to the sky
until the sun sublimates the tar
while they pinch our pennies so tight
they collapse into a star
How High Does the Sky Go?
The sky is the highway forever and the world below is flat
and the dream of flight fills the air with dust
and coats the seas in gasoline.
Every child who isn’t hungry
goes to disneyland
to question the concept of the state.
We’re no more than a day away
from our brothers and sisters
all around,
and the rich try to escape to space
before it’s all too late.