Universe of Lies
The universe is dissolving into
silken skeins of fire dripping
glistening threads of protons
and neutrons that dissipate into
an echo of atomic waste leaving
behind a soft electron whisper
if there are survivors do they
remember when the world was
tokenized do they recall the years
of stripping meaning discarding
all we once had known in favour of
the romance of our corporate dreaming
working men and working women
gathered in a human river flooding
through the central demarcations as
a wavelength of forgetting carrying
their hand-made flags that still
proclaimed the truth of lies
true believers of the myths
and legends that evaporated
in the cold hard morning of the end
of time when the structures
we had long imagined were
finally revealed as emptiness.
Religious Rightness
Bodies filled the undergrowth
as religion swamped the land
your citizenship merely
a pattern of crosses punched
into cards and misplaced in
a cupboard at the Pentagon
your birth was accidental
vomited out like volcano steam
erupting as clouds of tear gas
the shelves of your market creaked
under the weight of ammunition
I used carrots in my cabbage
soup to add the extra sweetness
but damn and if it wasn’t
time to start our engines.
The Meaning of Survival
Morning begins with carnage
the heat-glaze of an exterminating sun
exploding as gasoline
organic chemistry reaching
its limit as the safety fails to trip
the sky filling
with a diamond glare
light tightening its grip
from red to blue and finally
to a blistering whiteness
the smell of meat and burning rubber
as a necklace melts into the purity
of flesh and thought leaving behind
little except sharded bone
heat death of a city
the broken facades of crumbling homes
phased and zoned into map-written
territories beneath the still white sky
smudged and cindered by
smoldering remnants the air
adrift with wave and particle
fighting for survival
the shattering
of so many lives as the future is destroyed
by inarticulate sloganeering
every banner laid to waste
the last survivors lingering by a river
breathing in the beauty of the silence
Smokeless Noir
We’re lacking something
now that even the bad guys
no longer smoke
where is the shadowed room
the blatant chiaroscuro
the curl of blue smoke
the carefully illuminated profile
what we have gained in health
and cleanliness
we have lost in the purity of art
but where is the forgotten actor
the one whose name we never knew
cigarette clutched
between brown-stained fingers
and in his throat
or the deepness of his lungs
the first tender stirrings
of the tumour.
Paul Ilechko is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Pain Sections (Alien Buddha Press). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Rogue Agent, January Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Book of Matches and Pithead Chapel. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.