Hotel Paradiso

The darkness within

Seeps out through the pores

Oozing to the surface

Cooling, hardening into

An impenetrable armor

I’m a butterfly in the making

In a dark den of vipers

And worms and death

The coming new man

Part plant, part animal

Part human, part unknown

Life is a continuous peeling

Shredding, and leaving behind

Old caves to seek out new ones

Where we revel in our newfound

Blindness and a brand new loneliness

That soon begins to taste familiar

We are a race of hopeful geologists

Sampling, surveying the land

Seeking the rich humus of

Adam and Eve and their garden

To plant our seed in the dark

Soil of their sin hoping to

Harvest a newborn innocence

To grind, knead, bake and

Mix holiness with our saliva

To swallow, to cannibalize Time

We are the second coming

The third, fourth, the billionth in a

Somnambulist search for love

Missing her though she’s everywhere

There in a tree perched like a vulture

There slithering at our feet hissing

“A taste of this fruit, and

You shall know the truth!”

        Oh, I gorged on that sweet fruit

And now, among red roses I lie

Under shady trees I slumber

In the humid silence of Paradise

Six feet under

Reviews

[Lorry]

The farther we seem to reach into the future of ever-connectedness, the more people see our reliance on technology and power consumption as the way forward, while others wonder what was wrong with living from the earth and getting back to our deepest roots.
Why, I hear no one ask, but I'll answer, other people! We escaped the food chain and had to put our energy somewhere, so we started criticising the size of a neighbours club and fast forward to today and even without Covid, man's mortal enemy be man.
People have forgotten to communicate without the likes of Siri and Alexa, who may as well be the new Eve's as they are fast becoming the only voices we talk to.
That cave that once sounded so primitive is no doubt where those who survive will make their last stand, where they will gladly entomb themselves by rolling the stone against the entrance, cutting off the last weak signal with our modern reality.
I don't know if you can tell by my words, but I read a lot of dystopian novels 😀

[Amber Stone]

Seems an obscure prose, but a worthy one to follow (to read). It reminds me to Edgar Allan Poe, obscure poet but also capable to love and embrace life his very own way. Thank U L.K. being so sincere.

[Laz K.]

Thank you for your comments. I was literally afraid of reading Poe as a youngster. Now, I appreciate the depths of despair, passion, and beauty he could descend/rise to, and the way he could capture and express the experience.

[emmajoy]

' We are a race of hopeful geologists.. Sampling, surveying the land.. Seeking the rich humus of.. Adam and Eve and their garden.. To plant our seed in the dark.. Soil of their sin hoping to.. Harvest a.. '

And so it was supposed to be for Mankind: to use the brain, to adventure forth and find.. wonders. So, what happens, excess removes the natural, the All About that was there before. What, over millenia, was chopped into borders distorting reality. Little left but disenchantment, greed and then - an unexpected, desperate need for Life.. not mere existence. Debris scoured, nothing to offer, no point in looking for choice because there's little to choose from. Choice has fed on choice Happens. Life's dwindled from obsession that's near drained away. Chance has dined on chance And will go on until ..

[Laz K.]

A belated thanks for your thoughts - better late than never, right?

[Dave Brown]

A engrossing piece of work very effectively done as usual
I'm not sure any of my thoughts have ever reached this level and it is gratifying to read what competent writing can achieve