• 

Turncoat, awaken, time to leave.
Suit up in black on Mournday,
Although you have no right to grieve.
And change to white on Truthsday,
In remembrance of his shroud.
And gray for Whose- and Whensday,
To blend into the faceless crowd.
Slip into red on Thirstday,
Anguish in parakeet disguise.
Blue, perhaps, on Fryday,
Incinerate your childhood lies.
Coffin brown on Satinday,
When laid to rest we both shall be.
In ashes dress on Someday,
When, Turncoat, you will have found peace.

April 26th, 2019 by Passenger B ©

Painting via the Seven Ponds WordPress blog

• 

What’s this most indistinct of sounds?
The sigh of the lost and never found?
A trapped jayhawk’s despondent cry?
A predator’s most vulnerable lie?
The rhythmic hum inside the hive?
A murderer’s campfire lullaby?
The anguished yelp of a fawn shot?
Whatever could it be, just what?!

Across the land, and time and space,
No border law could impair my chase,
No matter, though, how far I go,
How intently listen in my woe,
I can’t detect from whence it came,
Surprisingly, due to my shame,
I turned within and found…and found,
It was my own soul which made the sound.

Oh, how exquisitely I rage!
And neatly furnished this homemade cage.
Was that love once? That trampled rug?
The heartstring curtains and skull cap mug?
The house Ted built, our legacy,
And far from reach, a finger bone key.
The house Ted built, what, what have we done.
And what’s left now…to do and to become.


April 26th, 2019 by Passenger B ©

Artwork by Samantha Shipman

• 

My home, my only home,
Swallowed now, by Sand and by sea.
A comfortable, homely cave was he,
Made out of word shells, prettily.

My home, my only home,
Dismantled now, and silently.
Did you forget so easily?
That my true name is Emily.

I’m About Rage, I’m last June’s lust,
I am repose, I am disgust.
You cannot run, you spirit whore,
Not outcrawl me at Ocean Shore.

My home, the man you slew,
A tiny crab shell I outgrew.
But in the sky waits my forlorn,
My murder twin, a Capricorn.

April 6, 2019 by Passenger B ©

Artwork via the Elore Webpage

• 

She’s my savior, my perdition.
My pursuits without fruition.
A luminous goddess, a slut.
Butterflies, a knife in my gut.

Perish shall I dare I beguile.
Still…probe will I and know not why.
Another credo penned in vain.
Unwavering, she yet remains.

I am the cap that crowns this fool.
The risen son on every Yule.
A manifesto of regret.
Success in loss my epithet.

She is my possession, most prized.
A squalid secret glamorized.
My heroine in every sense.
The spike upon my picket fence.

Perish shall I dare I deceive.
Still…will she truly never leave?
Another promise made in vain.
Though staggering, she yet remains.

I vanish unless I repent.
Am worthless but for her lament.
Stray I must to remind myself
She is the one, unparalleled.

February 20th, 2019 by Passenger B ©

Artwork: “Borderline Personality Disorder” from Facebook, artist unknown; contact me for credit

• 

They echo inside, these words most tender.
Ricocheting off the enclosure’s walls,
Dancing, spiraling through the empty halls.
Seeking that high from when I surrendered.

But I still, I still remember!
And do you, do you miss me sometimes?

Confined to memory ever shrinking.
Lost in quicksand of a presence most bleak,
And a future past that had reached its peak.
Into the passenger I am sinking.

But I still, I still remember!
And do you, do you miss me sometimes?

Just one more dose, one sip, that I may rest.
Sleep off the ache of another missed call,
I’m a monster dreaming it were a doll.
Any affection was but human jest.

But I still, I still remember!
And do you, do you miss me sometimes?

Autumn I am, without a September.
A poet’s worst work to practice his rhyme,
Each verse carefully metered to pass the time.
It is with shame that I now remember.

February 18th, 2019 by Passenger B ©

Photo: Unsplash

He wrapped himself inside my words.
A dusty opus, shy at first,
The writing frayed, in truth and jest,
An open book at his behest.

Absentminded, he broke my spine.
He wept then, worshipped at my shrine,
In rage my pages deeply cut,
His open palm til we forgot.

Always. In doubt, in faith, in need and hate.
Forever and a day, in choice and fate,
Oh take me, take me off that shelf again,
And let my pages soothe that blood-stained hand.

It is what any story fears,
Her sentiments might be in vain,
After all, there are no more tears
In oblivion’s somberlane.

Please… let my words help bridge that wide ravine.
Oh get up off that old armchair again,
Forever, you and me, my love, my friend,
Always. From chapter one until the end.

January 20th, 2019 by Passenger B ©

• 

I am not a patient woman, and I have never been.
I scrape the ice off of my tongue,
Emit the embers from my lungs,
And toss the mud off of my prongs.

I am not a good woman, I am but a wasted whore.
The queen of scum without a throne,
Spit your contempt into my soul,
And take a hammer to your bones.

She is still my dripstone cave, she could never comprehend.
The self-inflicted runes I bear,
Entrust your will into my care,
You can’t miss what was never there.

She is the barren dirt on which I tread, and I her plow.
Call me ye ole Silver Tongue’s kin,
Clandestineness my second skin,
I am a man, the first born twin.

September 5th, 2018 by Passenger B ©

Artwork via Pinterest, artist unknown; contact me for credit

• 

Violence, come out to play,
And sweat our sheets to a tired gray.
Haul towards the pit our strangled need,
Perpetual fire’s fever dream.
Violence, come take him now,
In sickness and health as you once vowed.
Down our dismal soul, that famished den,
Pour his ashes, heal, heal us again.
Violence, our anthem play,
And the impassioned memories slay,
All empty promises ground to dust,
Holy wrath, replace all earthly lust.
Violence, our instrument,
My brother in arms, my only friend.
Short of beauty, a shorter temper,
From the cradle, just like Ed Kemper.

August 5^th, 2018 by Passenger B ©

Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1617