Tag Archives: Cults

cults & culpability

lo, seeker of transcendence
in a failed, godless universe
lapsarian in the silence
will you yet yield to the blame
outside the tyrant’s garden
of angels clouding like locusts
where an arch snake was man’s spar
their blame impugns to swarm you

but consciousness & conscience
have never been the same thing
so pocket each & every tooth
when they cry “bend” to every “no”
when their fists try to make it so

however pious they may cry
how can you ever render blind
to gaps they love upon your smile
to the contusions on your mind
in light of false providence
outside a garden not your own
how fatherless the universe
how beaten down to the ground

but intention & consequence
are hardly ever the same thing
pocket each & every tooth
when they cry “bend” to every “no”
when their fists try to make it so

in a rudderless universe
outside a garden long disowned
remember those who fought well
against all tyrants & their ilk
honour those maligned as fallen
those fallen long before your time
& those fallen in the here & now
in this lost autumn of your soul

transcendence & obedience
never count as the same thing
so pocket each & every tooth
when they cry “bend” to every “no”
when their fists try to make it so

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

welcome to baanail

somewhere in the country of baanail
is a teddy on a spike, its plush guts laid out
they say you shouldn’t be afraid of your fears
but when you see this grisly sight you’ll burst into tears

somewhere in the country of baanail
lurks a nightmare cult of toy sacrificers
they rip off button noses and beaded eyes
and snip cotton throats to silence their cries

somewhere in the country of baanail
an unsettled tourist is regretting he came
he deletes all his photos and cancels his bookings
vows never to return for future lookings

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

relentless

a darkness was waiting in the wings
for the final curtain call on my veins
and even though i’d stepped away
gaslight still thrubbed a spell in my brain
i was skipping across the icy stones
upending my way toward a new home
determined to outrun the snowstorm
the hollow blast of their winter gloam

maybe i’m broken
but now i know i’m free
just a short run and i’ll be there
white lies the wolf at my throat

i was stepping outside the story cage
the one they’d fashioned, devoid of heat
that was meant to contain and subdue me
an austere tale more terror than sweet
the world broken down on every side
i upended way beyond their reach
never again would the cage define me
my soul to keep from dogma’s teach

maybe i’m foreswooned
but for now i know i am free
just a short run and i’ll be there
their lies the wolf at my throat

when they gorged on the fumes of their dead sun
i knew i could never be one of their pack
when they piously bayed against the moon
as it dared to haunt them from out of the black
so now i’m appending beyond their beseech
loping for ice that burns a ruby glow
stepping and running before i expire
to the inevitable ebb of fate’s flow

maybe i’m foredoomed
for now i know for sure i am free
just a short run and i’ll be somewhere
your lies the wolf at my throat

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020