Come what may.
Wind in his face.
Ice in the rain.
Omega shelf.
Edge of the land.
The whole mass shifts.
It may as well be the edge of the galaxy.

These thoughts, roads, pathways: a fallacy
a carefully contrived anomaly.

Breeze of her passing above his grave.
The flowers hang in droves
while the dew bends them back down
to their beginnings.

Words by Riley Robinson

Come What May

There can't be two
put on your shoes.
You can't be sick
expose your wrist.
Watch the black slide.
See the enemy mild.
I can't sleep.
Put up the bricks to stick.
God damn the morning!

In the moments before the steam
bring it to me, and I will break everything.

I show you a flower
and you drop it down the sink.

Words by Riley Robinson

Hotel Styx

The ones in dark corners
I am with you.
I sense your hush.
The ones of smoke and needles and bruises
who found glory
and saw how far a fall it is back down. 
The ones who hang around
when Main Street closes down.

The outcasts, the insane, the altered.
Each with a piece missing.
Invisible scars and otherwise.

A pact, a cult of the underground.
Where each path has it's inverse.
Where each feeling goes obscure.
Smoldering still from the impact of the world.
Cloaked in the darkness of night.
The only time we see what's real.

Words by Riley Robinson

Void of Blood and Rust

Souls suspended on the breeze.
The rain rises up
to soak back to cloud and tree.
The well ripples with thunder
and the lightning lifts
to catch the sky aflame.
Jet black interstices 
between thoughts of thighs and interstates
between loves.
The desire
dark oil
black tar
the stars.
Sweet venoms and fangs
breaking through skin.
A death of delight.
A coming of eyes.
Curtains rise for the debut
of the end of the line
where the sandbags are tied
where the songbirds flutter 
beneath flowers to hide.
A somber droplet of dew slides
across a delicate blade of grass.

Words by Riley Robinson

Jet Black Interstices

Lay me down
upon the white table.
Administer your anesthesia.
Cut me open.
Dissect me.
Remove what no longer serves.

My inabilities mount.
My insecurities cloud.
Disassemble me.
Take me to the edge of the lake
and I will sink, numbly to the bottom
happy.

Kiss the mermaid.
The blood dilutes.
Eat my heart 
until I have no meaning.

They call my name.
The sound is distant.
I am not me.
I have ascended
to you.

Words by Riley Robinson

Disassembled

In a realm
that neither provides, nor repairs
one must cast his own symbol immutable.
Engrave the marking
some innovated alteration
of the paths
tread prior to leave
for the next
at the limits of the known.
That bittersweet twilight
shines in the eyes
of the ones who have turned
who have approached the lower edge
and survived 
to plateau, peacefully
ever-nearing silence 
indefinite as birth
in death.

Words by Riley Robinson

The Immutable Symbol

Broken-down well
in a valley broke.
What we encase
keeps us afloat.

There is no vaccine
for the rotten watermelon rind.
There is no angel
for the gas station attendant
shot at point-blank range.
There is no justice for the motive
on the roof, o'er the fence.

What is the soul motivation?
Is there a reason
to live
without freedom?
Besides what you are
remembered by when you leave.

There are no embarrassments
on the eve of the balcony
as gravity kicks in
at four in the morning.

Where were the stars
when the pills sprawled across the floor?
and blood ran down the mirror.

There is no director above you.
The hands reach into the void
for the thing not yet there.

Come up with hands of seaweed
with salt in the air.
Drive the high desert.
Fold in alone.

There is no mercy.
The land as dry as bone.
My body knows it's poisoned
as it drifts to the unknown.

Occupy some trailer.
Meld with the occult.
Let the devil take you down
the highways
with a leather case
and cigarette smoke.

Words by Riley Robinson

Faith Lost

Her feet hardly touched the ground
back then
back then buried.
Angel, dead, black.
Pale angel dead.

The beams creaked in sways.
Hot curse, fever coals.
Her mother, psychiatrist superior
right on her Baldwin ivory
abandon secret valley.

Memorial puddles reflecting
the tower of the trees.
Her satellite lingers on night breeze
over millionaires cemetery.

The pedestal tipped.
Blue policeman balloon.
Paid off.
The cellar keys.

Weary investigator 
in the rain.
What has the gutter blocked?
Wild and gutted.

Aftermath of madness.
Catch the last 
tornado siren
in the skullcap.
Walk alongside goodbye.

Said the sorries.
Heeded the warnings.
The chemistry is ajar.
Leave him to the magnolia flurries.

Black bounded calfs.
Hot leather exhaust.
August plateaus.
Orange pressed.
Inspiration juiced.
Blood follows gravity.

From within it's confines
when hearts give in.
Lips sewn.
I should have known
but away, it would have over taken me
not to gone alone.

Glass wrecked.
Totaled entirely.
Voided code.
Waiting on the rope
to taut.

Words by Riley Robinson

Convalesce

Doing it now is suicide
that's why I must have tried
but I want to tear it 
from my shoulders

this fucking misery contraption
that I'm mangled within.
Only then could I allow
such a joy in again.

Drowned by the pure.
Injected with grace.
Force my face.
Buried in the mud. 

To feel the flowers love
as it blooms through my ribcage
just so it can show me
what to do with the light.

Words by Riley Robinson

Misery Contraption

Black posies
round the fringes
of a memory untapped.

The same piano
that shadow now
a vampire bat.

A phantom dance
through cemetery smoke
in boots of kerosene
and glass.

Stop-sign under idle moon.
Riding to survive
beneath the dome light.
One to scar and it stayed
while the rest left.

Tar traces.
The pavement fissures.
Thin coat rise to neons.
The afterglow a mystery.

A round, a stage
an empty rink.
A drama of the ashes.
Air embedded with sweat
and leaking sinks
and snakes.

Underground unbound.
Unbolting each lock to soul.
Silent and slow 
but wrong it goes
until the fractured
break to fall

to the cellar
where all the lost ones let
the poets of the moon
ink the wall tattoos
for which to paint
their future
or their doom.

Words by Riley Robinson

Extinct Ignition

He stands in twilight
at the gates of the new city's walls.
A strange dawn stirs on the blade of the meridian.
The last city smolders in the distance. 
His footprints in their soft dust craters
trail behind him 
and alongside are the drops of blood
that let astride him.
He hears the distant hounds.
A breeze lifts and covers his tracks

but through the gate
he peers, for now.
The city begins to awaken and come to life.
The bakers, the artists, the carpenters
and the elite, merge into one citizen
smiling on their paths.
He looks upon the road
leading to the private houses
and figures silhouetted above the sills.
Laughter from within their walls. 

The sunrise catches the apex
of a pearled pagan statue, where paths converge
and his eyes divert upon it. 
He stands until the sunlight reaches her eyes of the East.

Hecate waits, standing in stone, without faltering
in three-form. One face by light.
Two others by shadow. In each hand a torch
and the others hold a serpent, a key.
He is entranced by a momentary paralysis

and he imagines the future, unraveling to the North
past the mountains, overlooking the new city.
Her reflection in his dark eyes reverberates between them infinitely.
Sage burns. A hex lifts. The ghosts like petals drift.
The gravity of the morning moon, still in the sky, lifts the dew.
The blades of grass bend toward the celestial.
He begins to cry, and his eyes are then clear.

Two guards near, and begin to call out.
He returns down the path and takes a new fork
up into the overgrowth and throngs of thorns.
Up the mountain, he wades, unflinching and finds a clearing.

He sets up a camp between the cities.
Overlooking the distant landscapes
the smoldering old, and the glow of the new.
He speaks to the night phantoms, and coyotes
who dare not near
and the black fountain to him, speaks of method and form 
like wine. A moth flutters into the light and heat
to invoke a change. 
Geese pass overhead, a transition
at the threshold of season.
He watches the fire, the night long, and the hounds bay.

He douses the embers, for the ashes to fractal
meet root, and rise again.
Broken and delirious, he sees a vision
of the frog at the well
at the edge of the underworld, aflame.
It clings in silence, to the scales unfair.
Tempting darkness to near. 
He reaches out, with hand weak
and it dives, escaping wet into the cosmos below.

Sending ripples through the stars.
He looks down at his reflection until the water stills
and in that moment, his mirror splits to twin.
He looks up, but no one is yet there beside him.
A premonition. A last black hope.
The mountain grows cold.
He cries out as he awakens.

Words by Riley Robinson

I. Venus in Pisces

The two await the unstruck sound
unconfronted.
Apart and stainless.
Impossible, yet apparent and whole.
Indestructible upon leaving
to the form between births
where the winds of the body dissolve
and enter the red and white drop.

The quartz hums in it's place
on the shelf
reflecting the roses.
Do not let the dust fall there.

There is a light on for you
where the solar plexus pulses
awaiting your radiating branches
and the evening redness on your skin.

Words by Riley Robinson

Anahata (Piano and Vocal Only)

Invert the tree
strung with tiny crosses and stars.
A wintery embrace.
All edges frozen.
Atmosphere in fear.
Molecules hesitant.
Roots reach to sky black.
Inhale the dream chemical.

Unstable ratio.
Awake still.

Sympathize the radio static.
Dig down the leaves.
Find the interference
down the herbicide path.

She hovers again, in memory.
Pale chin on the asphalt.
Breath ripples the reflections.
Follow the shambled row.

Hear them from open windows.
Still tadpoles evolving.

Unslept dawn of mockingbirds.
The light bleaches meaning
to blind headlights nocturnal.
Dissipate steam and silhouettes.

Disorient the crossroads
and return with the rain.
Step back to retrograde.
Some satellite prediction.

Return darkness' bloom
to the shelf with the cigarettes
and where death, so sweet
integrates
at the edge of creation.

Words by Riley Robinson

village of coello

What won't will us through this veil
against the tree's bark
along the crescent moon?
Pressed like leaves
entwined against eaves in the rain.
Voices speak but I cannot hear.
Sliced and dissected 
across tectonic astral tensions.

Over the airwaves
through the silvery stairway cafe
and up through the billows of smoke.
The only escape
through the hellish row
to the unknown.

Words by Riley Robinson

White Cloud

What dies becomes the mud
the lilies rise above.
The apparition still follows me.
Nightmare turns into eternity

and translucent goes the outer.
A black blood pulsing through the course.
Pink medallion and ceremonial marble
foretell the day's bone fall 
down to the fiery pit below.

The dark one smoked a blood pipe
over a coal belt diamond
on the day that I was born

and on and on it plays
this primordial sway.
No two are the same
and the avenue goes long
and it lays the sand it paves
and heat, it graves
the hands that slaved
and built to save
the one last thing you hadn't gave

and we rise like ammonia
sink like mercury
unearth the mystery
arise from the bed
live like the dead.

The thought charm poisons.
The anger roils in the street.
We are locked within chambers
in chase of the elusive pleasure.
They want to keep us in need.
They want to keep us apart.

Words by Riley Robinson

Anomaly

In all the waves of ice and lake
where all forage, the moon would break
the dark, and soon there was no dawn
and everyone is dust
that builds the trains and planes
the night and freight
the bombs the oil
the blood the toil.
We go forth
where the ropes break
where the earth quakes
where the mad reign in a sad game
where innocence is mutilated
but still a hope glows

and the stars only know what the future holds.
It's an old road back to new way around the bend
where the graceful graze
through the graves and bones
through the toys and phones
to a city of life.
Give it all up for me
and I'll give it back better to thee

and we'll dance through the night.

Words by Riley Robinson

The Dance of the Serpent

The world flows, windowed
this place is not my home.
I do not possess the requisites.
Am I not of the time?
We are visitors in this place
fiery in our paths.
Pastel or fevered rays commute
bristling before orbs of orange light appear
and near, like breezes through the drapes.
We are the universe speaking
alike, endeared, and mirrored.
Layered ash and oil leaves
sleep in fear of only dreams.
Caved in and eons spent
their life was enough
as we are here
of the ones that went.

A dark root spreads the cemetery night.
Embody the gatekeeper.
Employ only the light.

In the dissonance
cling to the fading away.
We all go up that hill
through the fog, to the end.
We all give in each night.
Vision acoustic.
Desire and reckoning.
Let us go to the place of the flames.
Run through the jungle
or barefoot on moondust.

Words by Riley Robinson

Hollow Plastic

The irony would kill
if not for the laughter and spite
it's in us: this fight
and they tempt us into barred night.

We're looking for something 
that can't be taken away
where life doesn't end 
with the trash in the gutter

where some kind of glory is served
to the first one to utter
"It's a fucking shame
that there is no such thing as peace
and that life is a war."

Words by Riley Robinson

Peaceful Gun

Zygote paralyzed wayward shy
and the escape velocity
is greater than the speed of light.

You can find inner peace
but you can't sustain it.
You could lock yourself alone
up in a room forever
but you wouldn't want it.
Still fighting the odds 
when you have a solution
because you're not bold enough
to embrace it.
All you have is your state of mind.
At least you never settled
for anything less than perfect.
Hard to find your way back home
without trouble sealing your fate.
They want to make me ill.
They want to see me die
from cardiac arrest
or a bullet through the chest.

It's all we do to keep our composure.
It's hard to say 
anything for definite.
The more you learn
the less you feel of worth.

You want to run away
and for life to be infinite.
It's hard to say, but it's true
and you burn from the exposure.
So much for what you thought you knew.

Black hole heart and soul.
Reap or sow deep down below.
White noise. Whispers 
and eyes in the shadows.
It's time to die.
The clock, it races.
Familiar with all the devil's faces.
Lightning strikes on sacred ground
proving what you found.

Words by Ryan Bulliner

Switchblade

The wind keeps time
gives golden death.
Read the rush of wells
and write whispers left.

Cherry lips tore soul from bone.
Now she keeps her stowed away
down past the waters, alone.
I turn and I see you
Translucent, beautiful, blameless.
You bring me out.
You break me free.
It's otherworldly.
You're good at what you do
and we see each other through.

(All distance is measured in dissonance
and rendered adjacent and diminished
in a loss of dimension
with a pocket of nails and glass.)

Seismic microns ripple the earth.
Ground spy on a dripping branch
animated earth.
Nature watches the range
and the rage laid upon it.
Leave the material world behind
to gain the ethereal insight.

Words by Riley Robinson

Charlie Charlswell

I can't believe how many times
the disappointment dissolved.
How we allow such abuse
of the other, until it's us
and perspective shifts the heavens
but it's twisted and it's tainted, a lie.

Mutating in time, with last dream
and you feel this is something obscene
to be placed with the blame
and they have no fucking shame.
Will the moons and the heavens
invite our futures
and pin them to our sins.
What we cannot mend again.
As long as this rock goes on spinning
before it becomes dust again.

Reach into growling log.
The rings fall in and tighten.
The tail multiplies.
The wind picks up
and the canopy wavers.
The invisible is here watching.
Choose like you can
and a new plate diverges.

This has always been the program
the evening at the theater of populist.
Entertainment for the wrangler's lot.

Craft the charms
to break the chasm.
Deliver us from below.
Let us remember.
Fix our fate.
Go tell the river.
Look for a sign.

Words by Riley Robinson

Canvas of the Snipe

My love is coming down now
to set me free.
She rides on the sun's rays
when she wants to visit me
and by the moon in the night
but she always seems to go away
before I've had enough of the dream.

Smile laugh and dance in the rain
from time to time.
The world will take 
everything you've got
and give it away.

Give me the facts
and proceed to collapse.
Summarize and discern and unlearn.
All I ever wanted was absurd.
All I never needed seemed to go 
without words

and it tears me apart
when I consider too much
but I obliterate the thought
because of the hex
upon everything I touch.
I try my best to stop it
but it seems like
I don't have the option
until I've learned my lesson.

Burning down the house tonight.
Don't go home until the morning comes.
The freaks and fiends are out tonight
and they're starving
for some of
everything you've got.
Watch your back
They'll never be caught
They can vanish in a blink.

Words by Ryan Bulliner


Creatures in the Dark

I can't believe how many times
the disappointment dissolved.
How we allow such abuse
of the other, until it's us
and perspective shifts the heavens
but it's twisted and it's tainted, a lie.

Mutating in time, with last dream
and you feel this is something obscene
to be placed with the blame
and they have no fucking shame.
Will the moons and the heavens
invite our futures
and pin them to our sins.
What we cannot mend again.
As long as this rock goes on spinning
before it becomes dust again. 

Words by Riley Robinson

I hear them singing underground
the rest are roaring toward.
Watch the sun roll back in line.
A new tower breaches cloud.

Bodies rot in low stasis shrouds.
Something strange ashore comes
gunpowder and blood.

Darkness, an unlocking.
The weight of the message lunges
unthreads the canvas cliff.

Find us in the grime and mud.
Creation careens when it's down.

Come down the alley of sound
an infraction upon our honored discreet.
Go mice cave.
Hive mind rave
on walls and airwaves.
If we gotta go
set it on the window.

Words by Riley Robinson

Kill Me All

Zygote paralyzed wayward shy
and the escape velocity
is greater than the speed of light.

You can find inner peace
but you can't sustain it.
You could lock yourself alone
up in a room forever
but you wouldn't want it.
Still fighting the odds 
when you have a solution
because you're not bold enough
to embrace it.
All you have is your state of mind.
At least you never settled
for anything less than perfect.
Hard to find your way back home
without trouble sealing your fate.
They want to make me ill.
They want to see me die
from cardiac arrest
or a bullet through the chest.

It's all we do to keep our composure.
It's hard to say 
anything for definite.
The more you learn
the less you feel of worth.

You want to run away
and for life to be infinite.
It's hard to say, but it's true
and you burn from the exposure.
So much for what you thought you knew.

Black hole heart and soul.
Reap or sow deep down below.
White noise. Whispers 
and eyes in the shadows.
It's time to die.
The clock, it races.
Familiar with all the devil's faces.
Lightning strikes on sacred ground
proving what you found.

Words by Ryan Bulliner


    Osatethe is a band name I created a few years ago. Opium Satan Death (deth) and the e on the end for flavor. I'm not super into the drug. I just did it once and it changed me drastically. And I was really into metal music at the time, Satan and Death... 
    
 I've been recording music for about 15 years, on laptops. Staying with friends and family. I get a job now and again, but I always lose all desire and hate everything and go back to the music. Can't keep it up forever. I guess, but that's the way it's been. Bad relationships and it's hard to be genuine among people just trying to get through the day. So I stay away from it all a lot. Most important to me that I hold on to my reality. 
   
  Riley is a good friend of mine,  and he writes these unique poems, and it's a great privelage to sing them. I can record music quick and easy but lyrics take me forever, and I feel like he says better what I want to say. Down with society. Up with originality. Take it to the bank. Live from the heart. 
    
 Peace and Love. 

Words by Riley Robinson
Music by Ryan Bulliner



Osatethe

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