Author name: Hayden Veil

In an earlier incarnation, Hayden Veil enjoyed a successful career in software engineering, writing late-night poetry in pursuit of sanity. On 2 February 2020, the world of Hayden Veil changed: Ghosts became real and with its soul laid bare there was no turning back from the perpetual path of poetry.

Planks strapped to bound feet
Glistening paths snake the trees
Winter wonderland

V for Victory

Odd some would say:
even under barren blue skies,
floating golden eyes,
I picture a life on the bum;
to bum about without purpose
without sight,
a vagrant once victorious
hugging tiny tree stumps
and licking bark for breakfast.

Though most fantasies fail to ignite
this forest will burn, the rage turn
from silent idleness
to idle silence.

A sunburned bum
licking the boils
of the mindless proliferation
of madness โ€” V for Victory

& woe.

Written In the Margin

I am marginal,
over a testy tundra
one mind of clouds linger.

I am marginal,
morally toxic thoughts
crack the egg of salvation.

I am marginal,
slithering across the melting ice
snakes progressing evolution.

I am marginal,
beyond the battleground of boredom
I wave at birds passing by.

I am marginal,
bowing to every whispering wind
and the caw of crows.

Turnip Thoughts

Vegetable mood: turnip thoughts,
deep pulsations in his trifling mind;
the untenanted scull
shelters no roving rumination,

no brown sauce to cover the spuds
part cooked, part fried, part covered

in lard, oh the lard, the drippings
from the godsโ€™ last bard
need a bitter brew to follow;

to swallow
all
is to swallow
the bitter and the sweet, the sour
and the creamed

the dreamed left
โ€“ to simmer.

Vegetable mood: turnip thoughts,
the last slice, the last dice
of carnivorous carnage
chained to the cage of history,
never again to become

โ€“ the story.

Barcode Barbies

Ich wohne ohne
Deinen Liebe,

but with every frequency I search &
every channel I scan
I get closer to finding
You.

Anrufen โ€ฆ Antworten โ€ฆ Bitte โ€ฆ

Boxed, tagged, and left to wither;
I scan the labels left behind:
You are all Mark III, selfless, strong,
fearless in your programmed minds
and relentless in your pursuits of truth.
Gott sei Dank!

Ich wohne ohne
Deinen Liebe,

but hopefully not for long:
I will carry on my search,

my journey far from done,
as the first snow falls
on the silent lands

Deinen Liebe
is all I have
in mind.

Cinnamon Crust

Cinnamon crust of days lost,
burnt buns embrace the faint echos
of some thing once resembling life

Broad brushstroke waves,
black on black,
delineate the life of night

Vibrations from a vivid world
far beyond the battlefield
fail to penetrate the void

Kisses from strawberry lips,
virgin desires spiral down
the abyss of the unimaginable

I am a clock without tick or tock,
an umbrella on cloudless days,
a shoemaker for a skylark soaring;

a cinnamon bun, black as black,
the unfinished painting
you never get to hang.

In Silence

He, she, it, or they
pronouns matter not
as sadness has no gender,
our scars, our burns, our
longing are painted in the same hues:
we suffer all โ€” in silence.

Forever Feline

Pen and paper
Thoughts that matter
Time and Space to scatter
โ€” words.

I suppose we are the lucky ones
having access to pen and paper,
having thoughts on all things that matter:
small or large, we put pen to paper
virtual or actual carries no matter
little or naught โ€“ six words short
or attempts of Milton impersonation
so long we keep the words flowing
the patterning going
the imagery moviโ€ฆ. No.

No. Pen and paper confines us.
Thoughts bind us.
Time and Space a mere illusion.
Our words though, in all confusion
โ€” forever our own.

Glue.

Slow motion, please.
Iโ€™d like my next life to run in slow motion;
no more races, no more running
towards an edge of a world
no longer โ€” wanting
no longer โ€“ needing
no longer
- caring.

Slow motion, please.
Iโ€™d like my next life to run
in slow

motion

where the traces left behind
become more than traces
of a single life abandoned
for the idea of a better life lived
โ€“ โ€ฆ alone.

Slow motion, please; in the next life
just add
โƒ glue.

Caged

Wishing is not enough.

A self protecting a self from itself
is unfair, any part of a self is,
or should be, uncaged
and the self itself free
to do all it desires: the harmless &
the harm it deems appropriate
should know no bounds; know
no limits.

Wishing is not enough; for a self
โ€” caged.

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