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Worth a Shot?

It’s not about who
predicted it (because
no one did), it’s
about who was
prepared for it (not
who wasn’t),
and that is:

the doom ’n gloomers,
           the poets,
the singers ’n seers,
the downtrodden ’n
           forgotten,
the manic ’n the depressive,
           the anti-socialites ’n
contra-non-believers—

who never forgot
that things were already
fucked—we’ve been
fleeced from the jump,
the genesis founded
upon unbounded
generational swindling;
the cornerstone since
time immemorial—(in
rough shape, battered ’n
bruised beyond
recognition—as if there
ever was a point of
reference anyhow)
and that they had to get
worse, before they
had the slim, shimmery
silver shot
           of getting better.

Pages from the Netherrealm that Nevermiss (III.)

A series of poems conjured from the minds of J. Evan Rogers + Bailey Gaus

To seek Truth—if She still breathes—follow
the Vermilion Kittens, their eyes aflame
with candor, through Sincerity Alley
to the Wall that Reasons Back—lest the Pendulum
of Morality defers to its own direction: back-to-
forth rather than side-to-side.

The Contrarian arrives barefoot, aghast
with vagrancy, pockets full of static, claiming
resurrection by tessellation, offering a celadon serum
that hums like a neon Eucharist, insisting it will
transmute your spiritual dampening
into an onslaught of joy.

The Forgettable Saint has warned against
this for centuries, wounded with immortality—
unheard beneath the Symphony of Creation,
unnoticed amidst the Divine Cosmic Waltz.

Emerging from the Oracle’s Closet, the Underaged Alchemist
promises the Promiscuous Prodigy—with maps drawn
on their wrists—that to reach the Dungeons of Abundance,
one must resist the gleam of the Gold-Plated Gallows,
decipher the Infirmary of Mysteries, and avoid at all costs
the Parlor of Perpetual First Impressions—unless one wishes to
unknowingly begin again back at the beginning,
never to speak to Him, trailed for all eternity by
the infinite ellipsis in an everlasting glow of gloom.

Enough with riddle and scripture—the illusion and reality of it all.

Step through.

It’s time to experience the Netherrealm from the inside out.

(Back to Pt II.)

Pages from the Netherrealm that Nevermiss (II.)

A series of poems conjured from the minds of J. Evan Rogers + Bailey Gaus

Further in, a flicker stirs
like an inverted firework—
not of Hope, but Remembrance—
a brittle pulse in the Belly of Dusk
where remorse coils like smoke in lungs.

The Whistling Spectacle frolics
hand-in-hand with the Anticlimactic Angel—
on the tip of thought atop the Tower of Certainty—
mocking Time and Truth with their
slow, decaying tongues.

A ceaseless fever dream, the so-swollen
crimson soil weeps with every footfall, soaking-in
silhouettes of the Parade of Regret, as if
Penance was a place, not a plea.

Still, the Tease awaits—languid, laughing;
seething, searching—beneath the haunted
hush of what was heretofore.

The darkest part is a fact of art:
the Heart of the Artifact is hard to find.

(Forth to Pt III.)

(Back to Pt I.)

“God’s Got Nothin on Gasman”

            An effluvium of tortoise-tone smoke rose all around him. He stood in the dustydark boarded-up building with no regrets.

            The space was abandoned, but far from empty. It held: a dilapidated counter as the only level ’n elevated surface that once served as a service desk now used for a multitude of other erroneous inactivities; pallets jutting out at all angles, left stacked or standing every which way like a failed attempt at a giant game of Jenga, rusted antique automobile ’n oil signs barely clinging to the walls like lizards ’n silverfish or something else unidentified ’n strange that slipped its cocoon and flung itself free into the frenzy… among other things.
            Think of something, Dear Reader. The rundown gas station he stood in held everything except that thing you just thought of. (Now what are the odds of that?)

            His mind was made mostly of kerosene—and he was still for the moment, smoking slow and convincingly, while the noxious wave patterns leveled out in his skull.

           It’s not hard to pump gas, he thought, you just always have to be sure to get your fill.
           That, and: God’s got nothin on Gasman.

            [*cutscene omitted*]

           His thoughts didn’t come out as clean as they once did. Still, they were invaluable when translated (which, as of yet, there was not a single known translator of such “language” on this planet, or any other). And, now, they emanated audibly.
           Glibglibglibbbb, came one. Urshaurshaaa, went another. And so on and so forth. Et cetera, et cetera.

           The world zoomed on outside the decaying walls. Time ticked endlessly toward nowhere in particular. He was an anachronistic artifact, a sullied statue in his greasy jumpsuit and beat-up boots.
           It mattered not how dark it got, how cold or bleak. He remained, mostly unmoving, in a tuckered-out tomb of concrete blocks and ethanol.

           He heard there were places where gas stations still exploded. The knowledge of these kinds of occurrences was useless to him—it simply did not compute. A moth faltered in its flight, swirled and twirled, crashing down belly-up under the faint glow of a pulsating “EXIT” sign.

           There was only one rule in the rundown abandoned gas station: No Smoking.

           He lit another smoke in his mind, which gurgled graciously for the chance to do so. It was a volatile yet conscious decision. Although the one rule did not specify, he knew why it existed, and although extrapolating with assumptions in gray areas and murky waters was one of his pet peeves (in the top ten on his list of lifelong no-nos, in fact), he felt it more than fair to take those two words literally, not figuratively. If we were to take every rule to pertain to the imagination as well, he thought (which came out flifffliffflifffliffffff), we’re in deeper shit than I imagined. (Shunnashunnnnshun)
            Plus, the therapeutic encapsulation a mental tobacco toke granted him was one of the main exercises keeping him alive.

Pages from the Netherrealm that Nevermiss (I.)

A series of poems conjured from the minds of J. Evan Rogers + Bailey Gaus

The Burmese Tease hides beneath
swollen shadows of featherweights,
hymns turn to Him to relinquish
what is left of their unbound souls.

Wind sits still, laden with mercurial secrets
long since foretold and forgotten,
relearned once more, entrapped in fleeting moments
where the horror of the Minotaur
steps forth in pitch black, unmasked.

Silence is not quite as quiet as it seems—
it echoes on in endlessness, etched in the ancient
onyx walls of a mirrored, cyclical Elysium.

Sinister whispers purr in the Garden of Amnesia
where Salvation is dancing unseen
on the outer edge of the palisade,
stuck in the esoteric recesses
a mere apple’s toss away.

The only way out, is to go further in:
this is always how it begins.

(Forth to Pt II.)

(it’s) rather vampiric

the way you slip ’n slide through the night
keeping clear of crosses,
cross your toes and hope to die

you’re rather tarnished
the way you reflect stains
(cuts and tears, smears and blemishes)
and how green you gleam
where you once shone copper

you’re the buoy that sank
and washed up on another shore
unsure of the consequences
yet firm on the stakes

you’re the glass bottle still floating
the message already scribed inside you

yet you’ll never know this
until you smash to pieces
on the hull of a ship
carrying the one true recipient
for whom it was written

six centuries ago.

Life’s Calling

On windy nights
it always feels like
someone’s coming
or someone’s going

it doesn’t matter where
you are, or who you’re
with—and if you’re alone,
it’s even better:
that shudder, that chill—
you’re alive now, baby
and nothing’s holding you back!
that, except you: yourself!

yet, it beckons:

“come here, my child—
only you and I, you and I”

and do you listen?
do you follow?

of course you do…

how else did you wind up here?

Phantobeins 17:9–12

when it came full circle
it did not matter much
you never seemed to notice
under the twirl of your touch

but they bent over backward
only for you
and out in the backyard
they unfurl as they do

learning to count
is as easy as it seems
as long as the amount
is laughed about in dreams

faucets still run
for as long as they have to
while moss is the softest
in the dark of the bathroom