food for the vulture.

human beings are vultures
waiting until you're beaten down
close to death
before they swoop
to eat away from you
the very shelter you so carefully constructed
picking you clean
leaving a meager pile
of blood and bones
ready for the next scavenger
to come along and consume what's left.

split screen.
as I glare at the face
that looks at me
thru this broken mirrored reality
I see the scars, the wrinkles
the grey haired fool with eyes dark
as shit.
I can't recall every single thing in life
but I remember the best of-
the movements that meant more-
the embarrassments, the emptiest
the incidents no one else could retrieve.
everything is clearer
the world for me hasn't changed a bit
but now I come to the result
that there is nothing to sweat about
the truth is I've forgotten how to care.

check the weather.

dead space
interwoven separation
of the imagination and fiction
driven forward-backward
and somehow in reverse.
let's take in this interaction
with the burning buffalo
let the storm take the living
and resurrect the dead.
my mind is irredeemably demented
and for some reason I can't curb
the enthusiasm of my hostility.

the perfect flower.

flawless.
faultless.
perfect
and sound.

beautiful.
appealing.
enticing
and delicate.

erotic.
sensual.
stimulating
and carnal.

a woman.
a truly revised and brilliant flower.
the best thing any man could acquire
and the only one who has energized me
carried me over to a new horizon
brought me back from the void
I'd been falling toward all my life.
all that remains: nothing.
it's like a stain
shaped into one of the gods
of past centuries
and as I stare at it
I begin to lose
every thought I once had.
while I stand here
melting into a giant puddle
of my mind's filth
I can't look to see
what went  horribly wrong
for nothing more exists.
I am a broken mirror
I have no vision
I have no reflection
all that was left of me
has gone to the dark side of the sun.

Keith Wesley Combs