Max Booth III

The December Editor's Pick Poet is

Max Booth III

Please feel free to email Max at: madd_maxxx3@yahoo.com

DEATH GAZE

Insects welcoming themselves
in and around her eyes,
rushing the universal act
known as decomposition,
but they will just have to wait,
for she is not yet ready
to experience the encore
of cruelty.

A veil to secure
her condemned health;
though there is no use
when she sees
little strings of blood
in her vomit.

Maggots drilling deep
into her wretched gut,
a pool of forsaken oil
pouring out between
ghost white fingers,
and staining feet
with its cancer.

Outcasted by those
still blessed by ignorance,
she continues to stumble
under these street lights,
forming puddles
in her death gaze.

LITTLE MATCH GIRL

Isolated in the shadows
kept away in storage
above his head.

Directed downtown
where the strangers
tended to hide.

Accompanied with
a pack of matches
and a money jar.

The jar was empty,
as was her stride;
a hollow center.

Nobody noticed,
save for the night ice
bullying her raw.

Tried to keep warm
by a cheap timid flame
ablaze in delusion.

Hallucinations kept
her sanity at bay
until the final fade.

The next morning
the matches were gone,
and so was her mind.

SURREAL SPINS REAL

There is a path ahead;
detours include wrath and dread.

Grotesque silhouettes
inhaling dismal cigarettes,
hitching along as we try to stay strong;
only purpose: spinning good deeds wrong.

Like malicious spiders trapping us
within webs of oppressed depression,
with options of staying here or slaying fear.

Charge forward, calamity no longer sticks;
time to smash through these enclosing bricks.

Reach out; fingers spread,
nearing the yearned path ahead;
hollowness filling, an embrace willing
to revolve around multitasked moons,
clenching the omniscient strings
of an infinity vermillion balloons.

Fighting toward the destination awaiting,
draining poison from tumors complicating.

Light fall winds carry the deflated away,
leaving us to stay and sway under and over
clouds and seas, surrealistic palm trees.

Thoughts difficult to explain,
yet I’m ascertain of destiny at its finest;
so let mania relinquish,
and allow the folded to unfold.

Fables we’ve told,
soon to be a font enlarged
by reality’s ink;
an endless snapshot
captured by spirituality’s blink.

Max Booth III is the editor-in-chief of Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing and the assistant editor of Dark Moon Digest. He is the author of They Might Be Demons, Toxicity, and The Mind is a Razorblade. He currently resides in San Antonio, TX, with his life partner and dachshund.

Follow him on Twitter @GiveMeYourTeeth or visit him on his website HERE