“Ink”

I’ll never know who I am;

opportunity at self-discovery thieved

by sheer weight of smiling through days

loudly wearing generosity on poorly-stitched sleeve

–

Slaving to imbalance of give and take

amounts to exhaustive counterfeit living;

The greatest performance is the one 

that one doesn’t realize they’re giving

–

Such indelible ink

erases one’s ability to think

A forever missing piece eludes

—capsizing ships need not sink

–

I’ll never know what could be; 

how can one proclaim all is fate

when opportunity is so withheld 

of all of one’s potentially positive traits

–

There is a drumming in one’s head

a pattern to patter one’s vagus nerve

Constant dismal reminders of feeling

the feeling that goodness isn’t deserved 

–

Such feelings are the truest disease

though never an affliction inborn;

all smothering and sadness is taught

nobody knowingly consents to being torn

–

Such ineradicable ink

pushes one to the brink

A forever missing piece eludes

—capsizing ships need not sink

–

I’ll never know why things are

and never know what could have been

they knew they were causing pain

malignant manipulation the ultimate sin

–

To know one is evil but to persist

is writing one’s fate in ink and fright

to continually cast such shadows on walls

one must always adjust the gaslight

–

Once the brain has charted a course

Chances are slim of escaping from hell

This the truth that defines the breath of many

underlying ethos of all emotionally unwell

–

Defined in ink and set to stay

Some helpless to possessive servitude

I’ll never know who I could be

in black oil is etched the solitude  

–

Ink, not erasable

Life, not replaceable

Cries for help, ignored and effaceable

Stop thrashing, become persuasible

–

Blank slate and original sin 

from inception did decline begin

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 08/31/2022

“Head of Noise”

it’s a brain of traffic

clogged avenues and bent disaster

gridlocked into cold submission 

screaming relief is quietly quested

–

avenues of agony and stilted sparks

firing away into empty nights

what is out of sight is out of mind

trees fall alone in a cavernous consciousness

–

would the wood pass untold

if the world paid no notice

to its ominous cries and creaks

as the gusts beat its brow

–

A boost to your self-image, you may

If you steal, cheat, and lie every day

–

the world is there for the taking

if your scruples permit you so

what an ugly place this can be

life bountiful for avaricious bastards

–

wildlife and domestic strife

oddly amphibious in our states

we ghost in and out of moments 

like waves breaking and returning

–

the years fly like streaks of light

fall to winter and back again

and our negotiations with time

have amounted to nothing

–

Hold me through this storm, if able.

Tell me not that I’m perfect, just stable.

–

the head of noise comes in with vigor

the neural impasse sharpens its stick

the head of noise comes with vengeance

the uncertainty plague gnashes its teeth

–

faces adorned with the panic’s blood 

feeling unseen in the noise’s flood

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 06/29 – 07/19/2022

“What I Deserve”

blank canvas, chewed and spat heads

where muscular notions have frail seams

sludgy thoughts escape through greasy pipe dreams

–

smiling through your unique aura and ache

your sanity impaled but committed to astound

everything forever out of reach with hands born bound 

–

can I rewire my brain to be deserving of good things?

the people who were supposed to empower me simply shoved me aside

they left no room for the fallible, made love to wounded pride

–

you’re treated like you’re stupid or don’t fucking exist

you’re undermined and taken in stride and sneers so snide

have reduced you to a pathetic puddle like your aura has cried 

–

I always apologize when I have done nothing wrong

I will always let someone else beat me to the finish line

(I bend over well for someone never given a spine)

–

failing is fine if brought by one’s own choices

the truly painful failure is when you were given no option

you were smothered and stuffed to the gills with dread’s ugly toxin 

–

that anxiety is the root of all inert behavior and wasted time

imagine life if you didn’t agonize over what could go wrong

those taught to have no worth will never feel they belong 

–

the stickiest struggle is feeling sick for no reason

the vacant and blank of mind are never sure why 

avenues of ennui and boredom they’re forced to abide by

–

so what do I—what do we—deserve?

succumb and reside within the lines of the program

I long ago lost any chance to see who I truly am

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 6/29 – 7/11/2022

“The Hook”

some souls in sunrise awaken, 

and yet only barely breathe;

people will dangle through days

without function for fear of feeling

–

such crippled consciousness

marred by deleterious self;

paradoxical ways of living,

one’s brain is their devil;

a fugue state for all eternity,

never done dissociating from reality;

people seldom realize how time crawls, 

locked in somnambulant perspective

–

—the hook is quiet but oh so effective.

–

The hook stabs and wields 

with emotional assault;

I wasn’t given what I needed 

and that’s not my fault.

Is it worse to be slaughtered 

or to not even care to fight? 

Is the presence of darkness 

worse than the absence of light?

–

Terrified you’ll get used if you 

show any kindness or vulnerability;

nothing violates self-preservation 

more than showing latent sensitivity.

I would always go above and beyond 

(plus an extra hour and mile),

I was always compassionate 

but never not anxious and volatile.

–

There’s a bountiful spring of kindness 

that lies within thine eyes;

is it truly generosity 

or a sea of guilt not realized?

The hook stirs, the hook dictates, 

the hook rules broken lives,

the hook repeatedly stabs 

like a series of furious knives.

–

Those trapped on the hook 

perhaps cannot free themselves,

they have to be both noticed 

and offered grace by someone else.

You can’t be in control 

unless perpetrators permit you,

but they don’t give a fuck 

what it is they’ve put you through.

–

Alone one is not resolute 

and one cannot be assured;

some lack self-esteem 

from the neglect they’ve endured.

They don’t understand or realize 

they can walk away from guilt;   

they can destroy the shrine of shame 

they’ve oh so reluctantly built.

–

I am exhausted and physically ill 

when I feel so much shame; 

I wish I could take jagged glass 

and cut out that part of my brain.

Can I thus remove myself

without anyone helping me?

Or will they perceive and know the hook

and know the sound of unspoken plea?

–

The hook is dangerous and controlling, 

but only so destructive on its own.

Time and gravity finish off a person

once the hook reaches beyond bone.

So don’t look at their smiles;

look beyond and see the soul.

Is this a person that’s truly ok?

Or is this a person losing control?

–

Do they have the strength

to figure it out on their own?

Maybe they don’t even see the problem;

they need love for it to be shown. 

Identify and talk before it’s too late.

Love those who can’t relate.

Ask people if they’re truly ok

when eyes and mouth have a diverging say.

–

Lift people and show them their value,

make them see worth and what they can do.  

Be mindful, be present and perceptive

–

—love is quiet but oh so effective.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 10/31/2021 – 01/09/2023

“Voices of Tradition”

The voices of tradition instruct—

pedagogy, debt inside me, guilty testimony;

so they taught me to quietly stew in my self

banquet and soiree inside myself

supper and solipsistic-flavored stew inside myself

–

to look nowhere else

to hide inside what’s already hidden;

Once bitten, twice shy,

so I’ll continue to hide

because it hurts too much to feel alive. 

–

Like a dozen smarmy voices of imperialist 

condescending carnage pummeling my soul

—these are moments of odiousness

clamoring at my right for breath

–

to tempt me with the dangle of death

to ride the deride ride of contempt inside that’s hidden;

Once bitten, thrice shy,

so I’ll continue to hide

because it’s easier to privately duck than publicly dive

–

Empty words and broken pacts

Absent looks and criss crossed tracks

Are the footprints of our stories

The essence of familial territories

–

I panicked so much my gray matter turned green

(I did more drugs than I had ever seen)

For I can no longer live under the heat

and it’s yet cold on the barren streets

–

People don’t understand the sheer weight

and how it compounds and come pounds

you in the brain till your skull splits

and the (green) gray matter falls in neglected bits

–

The voices of tradition cut you to size at the knees

Too do they clamp your elbows and infringe your right to breathe

They chill the back of my neck and as I scream from the inside

They lick those manipulative chops at the chance to chide

–

Festering how it feels to feel berated and useless

white-knuckling through life and leaving a slime trail in wake;

to feel you’re a fetid piece of rot and a soul amputee;

—the worst parts of them have become the truest parts of me.

–

I confine for comfort, 

rest from trial and toll.

I pray for strength, 

that my voice be in control.

Planted seeds suffocate, 

strap me to my bed;

the voices of tradition metastasize

—they’ll be my voice instead.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 05/09 – 05/30/2022 

“The House the Lord Built”

The child sits in the heart’s corner in stilted agony.

He is made to think about only his choices;

his introspection and room for growth

marred by the fury of a thousand angry voices.

–

He squeezes the sides of his head

as if his hands were vice grips.

He wishes putrescent guilt would ooze out

that the motherfuckers could slurp as it drips.

–

Father, I’m in so much pain.

Father, I’ve no words to explain

And is Mother insane?

She hasn’t left the couch in five whole days.

–

But oh, there are no queries permitted 

in the house the Lord built.

Of all the many discipline tools

they keep sharpened the weaponized guilt.

–

Every corner the child turns he is pulled right back;

every step forward is three in reverse.

Dehumanizing words and manipulative deeds

can make the worst pain somehow worse.

–

Mother, I’m in so much pain.

Mother, I’m tirelessly scrubbing at the stain.

And will Father remain?

I haven’t seen him in five whole days.

–

The people who should have taught me strength

taught me little other than to sit, shut up, and wait.

There is no greater depression than lack of feeling,

and no greater reality than when it morphs into hate.

–

I was never taught to feel or believed I mattered,

I never believed any thought of mine could possibly have merit.

I was enslaved on autopilot for thirty-odd years;

some aim to mend the past, some committed to tear it.

–

Doctor, I’m in so much pain.

Doctor, will the panic ever abstain?

The loneliness nightmare slices with disdain. 

I’ve been on your couch for five whole days.

–

I can no single happy image recall

from a dredging of memories guttered.

Little is pulled up but mud and rot

as your screams into the void are smothered.

–

I white-knuckle through my days

and always through the paralysis I smile.

The house the Lord built lives on in your heart

and in its chambers you remain in exile.

–

Trapped in a hole always alone, always afraid

—these are things from which nightmares are made.

Your sadness roars beyond rescue

—then it’s inside, and the hole is you.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 04/20/2022

“Crawl Back”

You crocked a bit and croaked some crap

as the begger begged to crawl, crawl back… 

mind the words in your head now and again;

settle never for now, settle back where you began.

–

Always, you gave your own esteem not a shred of pittance;

you put on a spectacle fighting depression but refused to sell tickets.

You worked so goddamn hard to keep your head above the surface;

you deserve a medal for smiling through a lifetime of sycophants and service.

–

How does one find themselves in a better present?

One pretends their past is simply real (and yet is still so).

Yesterday made you in your sedentary manner,

and yet there is not a place you would rather go.

–

Crawl, crawl, crawl back once again

—a luminous phoenix may prefer their pile of ashes.

–

You can chase—chase the pain away,

you can make it retreat.

You can stab revelations’ daggers all day

till agony admits defeat.

–

I could chase the dying dark days

right into their yawning graves.

I could pad the soil and mount the deed

(such virulent actions that rise from need).

–

For I want this day to end,

to wake up to what the past said.

I’ve assassinated the vacant years

to retreat into dreams of youthful tears.

–

I want to crawl belly back

to when there was the lack

of apathy and morose feelings,

when we lived and laughed and smashed artistic ceilings

–

—a time for grace and punctual prose, 

for fighting deeds of dismantling foes

—the rhythm and barbs of painful slashes

and the unyielding gutting, carving of lashes.

–

The arms of tomorrow bid you welcome 

(the ones of yesterday don’t exist).

Tomorrow promises to keep pain at bay

and yet still you’ll sprint towards yesterday.

–

Crawl, crawl, crawl back once again

—a dying star may prefer to stay dark.

–

You can chase—chase the pain away,

you can make it retreat.

You can stab revelations’ daggers all day

till it all admits defeat.

–

I could chase the dying dark days

right into their yawning graves.

I could pad the soil and mount the deed

(make anguish’s pulsating endeavors bleed).

–

Does anyone see me? 

Does anyone see me at all? 

I bellow while waving the white flag, 

I want to change but yet will still stall;

–

I’ve given all I have to give and then some more 

as I try to remain affable, giving, kind; 

I just want intimate contact with a single soul 

who says “I see all that you are” with their eyes.

–

Fear of the future and frightened 

of being a lone figure so alone.

May I instead crawl back to

when time’s limits were unknown?

–

Crawl, crawl, crawl back once again

—cosmic rotations might fight for reversal.

Crawl, crawl, crawl back to then

—the pain of now is universal.

–

Some will forever fight,

steadfastly stomaching the stay;

some would rather crawl back

and sleep forever in yesterday.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 02/09/2022

“Tranquility Garden”

Azure eyes for fables declare, for a consciousness colored with anguish. Discarded fragments plunge like broken glass and angry rain. Remnants of possibility swirl down beneath the folds. Morosely jubilant, silent screams. Do we persevere through mental winters? Do we slip so dismal into the sepulchre? Rain patters on the vacant infinity of a cerebral pine box. If only the garden climbed our existence lattice – the garden of infancy.

–

The demon crawls through a purple cauliflower

—teeth a sure vice, knuckles white.

He’s a smoke uncurling in my head,

icily sliding his tongue into the corners of my mind.

He straddles my chest and mocks me,

my breath languid and labored.

Vision foggy, face assuredly throbs

as temples birth an unassuming glisten. 

The mind a black hole void of time and space.

–

My lips crack apart like a disturbed fissure 

as the Earth of my soul harrowingly gasps.

The eyes pronounce and declare: this is a man

—one simply a stoic pillar of granite.

I respond to any cold agent of the world 

with an exhaustingly labored smile.

Cursed with displaced malice because I suppress the lie.

Joy to be birthed in the very place that it shall die.  

–

For I know a pain so dangerous of the perennial and ponderous;

more silently suffocating and unceasing than the rest,

the emotional equivalent of someone pushing hard on your chest.

–

Exists a different pain, too—always familiar but somehow new;

from the throat escapes the moans, so acute they slice like a knife;

I would die tomorrow to become a special person in any one person’s life.

–

Why, oh why must I feel in such ways that force me to asphyxiate and kneel?

I spill the ink in agony as the bedrock of my brain splits apart,

I sign in blood the bill to build the building around my heart.

–

I sometimes shake and cannot see—the bed a fortress when you cannot breathe.

On trial and my docket is dismayed from the weight of the guilt that I’m under.

My head cleaved for the cacophonous din of collected criticisms and brain thunder.

–

Guilt, guilt, guilt. From where do you come? Wherefore do you exist? Why must you be the fiber of so many dismal lives? Why are you the sullen sea on which critique and abuse proclaim their sails? Why are you the dirt into which our faces are forcibly committed? Why are you the boot heel on necks of those who kneel and suck out everything we have ever felt and do feel? Why the feeling of fault for deeds committed by another one? Why do I apologize for the crimes that I have never done?

–

There’s nothing really wrong with me! I am theatrics, a pity skit. 

You’re not truly a victim you fucking pussy, you’re so full of shit.

A forever fear to talk to the people, yet a need to purge,

I cannot open up because I do not believe I do deserve  

such compassion, empathetic reaction, a warm embrace,

I need loneliness because contact strains the stoicism of my poker face. 

–

God help me, this smothering feeling of anguish and guilt,

I’ll pay whatever the cost to alleviate the hell circumstance has built.

So to whom do I owe and what is the price?

I’ll give all right now to eradicate the devil’s vice.

–

Forever trapped, forever frightened, forever knowing nothing at all

—lost souls slowly decay, into their tomorrows they crawl. 

–

Why do the worthy feel worthless?

Why do the talented feel no purpose?

Why do the calm exteriors hide so much anger and hate

and why do those sufficiently liked feel the need to compensate?

Why do the kind feel odious and wicked?

Why do the creative feel disgustingly insipid?

Why do those who should be sure feel crippling doubt

and why do those so worthy of love feel without?

And thus the locked box of anger and confusion I call my head;

forever afraid in an eggshell graveyard trying not to disturb the dead.

–

Mire confined and deserving of naught. 

Forever marred us, those who cannot see. 

Chained from function, anchored too sure for aught.

Worthy of human love, never are we.

Guilt a certain and perennial plague.

Apologies spill sure in abundance.

Purpose recede to existence vague.

Dark and murky seas of mind reluctance.

Pains in cognitive engines fully cleaved.

Broken on bannisters, peace a distance.

Whence come demons who curse the pierced bereaved?

We of guilt, we of empty existence.

Always without purpose and self pardon. 

Crying for the tranquility garden.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 02/2014, 09/16/2017 – 12/11/2018

“Below”

Firmaments of holy eternally rendered rusted.

Bellow to the rogue vastness for rejoinders,

yet endowed with further cryptic inquiry.

Biting bequeathments belie.

 

Below bleakened empyreans do we wither and grieve.

The stars hungrily endeavor to condescend,

succeed and slice as our pensive midnights drip.

By and by, to crucify, for spiteful skies we calcify and die.

 

Calamitous crashing clouds of thunder:

dreams are flogged, shredded, torn asunder.

One resolves an escape to seas of tumult,

the truest pilgrims are born on beds of salt.

 

Hearken, the order of disorder; sailing seas with blank maps.

We wonder: wherefore must our heavens collapse?

 

Tony Blau Veldt, 06/06/2018

“My Head”

My head is a polished chest of drawers.

A warm chamber of lush dreams.

A subterranean cellar of loss and lamentation,

a squalid catacomb of fetid festering.

 

My head first accommodates then befuddles me

(my head is my friend and my enemy).

A shelter from the world’s storm.

And still as well at once a confined hurricane.

 

So fascinatingly simultaneously scintillating and dismal.

On occasion do I pine to get lost therein.

I implore my own self: “write if you dare enter.”

Might I pen an epic of my epicenter?

 

“I despise how much I love some!

Please don’t be long;

I’ll miss you when you’re gone.

I love how much I despise some!

Please don’t belong;

I’ll not miss you when you’re gone.”

 

Confoundingly of choler and compromise.

To know thyself is of chief concern.

What is yet left when you cannot read your own book?

God strikes one as a Babel to thy own self.

 

Tony Blau Veldt, 02/21/2018