Tag Archives: Empathy

wormwood prayer

left behind
made level with the ground
this here is the zone of alienation
where our fleece was seared away
down to tender demon skin by
the afterburn

never were we made faithful
in your estimation
threaded instead down to the bone by
a tension of splayed tendons
hung out for worm & shame as
an afterthought

innocence is overrated
we guilty revere nothing
yet somehow still we yearn to fly

made to unspool here for why
have you ever feigned to care
fain have we not followed you true
& so our anima taps another vein
to scry beyond the sky for when
providence might let our carcass die

left behind so
make room for we in our dead life
afterburn so
torched earth abide our scattered bones
an afterthought so
let’s be real, call it empathy on fire

innocence is overrated
we guilty revere nothing
yet somehow we will learn to fly

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

cold (comfort for the oligarch)

you were a child once
played hide & seek with the truth
smothered your world with a smile
silenced hearthlands with all guile

you held more than the rest of them
more than lifetimes could ever feed
cultivated deafness to their pleas
while touching the lichen on trees

empathy is plebeian
do as i say, not as i do

you held dominion o’er anthills
had them burned ‘neath your lens of rage
watched them scatter into entropy
as you & the bison trammelled lea

you felt so superior
& equally felt misunderstood
self-made with all the scaffolding
afforded you in childhood’s spring

empathy is plebeian
do as i say, not as i sue

the winterings of life now nearer
with less introspection than e’er before
& naught but tongues of sycophants
to baste the gilding of your pants

the end of life now upon you
do your riches gleam paler than e’er before
could you have been less of a bastard
& mayhap wept a little more

empathy is plebeian
do as i say, not as i rue

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

PERFECTION IN ACTION // Heavy Metal Mauna

I opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs. The wind snatched up my scream, carrying it far, far away to a land where all people are mute.

As a result, I too became mute, and was so for many years. The scream had left me completely spent, so I retired to bed and existed there in a state of perfect, perpetual sleep.

Meanwhile, those people in that faraway land had all caught the scream. They took it, they shared it, and they all began to talk to one another again.

And they’d never felt more awake.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

thou canst cut but once

mankind is not kind
but a knife can amend this
then rue append this

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019