Poems: 270223 - February 27th, 2023

070123A
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Comes slam down hard 
as a dog eared cliche
yellowed pages 
well thumbed
copy of those games 
people play.

Playing cards 
stained with body fluids 
spelling out permissions
given specific moves 
and bumping off 
any maybe competition. 

People play games 
making carnal wagers 
gambling money 
and various body parts 
feathering gaming rooms
gilt with desire. 

Objects of lust 
and lust for objects 
throwing themselves 
across wide sprawls
between the bar stools 
and inked in arms.  

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110223A
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Editing and revising 
those regretted words 
ought to be retitled 
Book of Common Mistakes 
a definitive guidebook 
for the romantically inclined 
leading to do it yourself 
versions of disaster
that you can never untangle.

Those misguided knots 
that most people end up tying 
that needed to be cut 
because they do not untie 
same as ruined shoelaces 
that would not come undone 
loose ends taking up time
and no other way to spend it
within the tight constraints. 

You cannot know 
what you do not know 
and worse yet 
when you most need 
to know it 
because the truth really is 
that what you need to know
is entirely irrational 
and entirely absurd. 

You could never guess 
even half that much 
before it was too late 
when all you have done
is to make more mistakes 
concerning all the mistakes 
you never knew you made
and never really knowing 
what the truth is. 

It is that sort of place 
and I know 
you will disregard this 
and every other warning 
because it feels right 
and it seems reasonable 
feeling it right down deep
in your misleading skin bag 
of rattle and laugh bones. 

You did not have a prayer
of any real chance 
because no one told you 
but they let you think 
that you really knew 
and there are always fools
who really believe 
you will figure it out 
for yourself, given time. 

You never did 
and you never will 
and that is what living it
down is all about 
while learning to pretend 
in convincing ways 
you have really discovered 
your true satisfaction 
in nothing of the sort. 

Eventually realizing 
if only you had been 
so much better informed 
as to the real options 
that you knew nothing of
before it was too late 
and only after thoughts
making no real difference 
in terms of losses and gains. 

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130223A
----------- 

Cannot put spilled milk 
back into the bottle 
to make it good as new
after it hits the floor.  

The snow on the ground 
reminds you 
of the spilled kindness 
that no one wanted. 

You will live it down 
as it melts away 
into the same old mud 
you crawled out from. 

You had no real right 
to be anything 
other than selfish 
but you made the mistake. 

It all goes sour 
due to immediate lashings
curdled by acid tongues 
deep as blood and marrow. 

You had no right 
to try to save anyone else
except to realize 
you could not save yourself. 

Your white flag 
signifying total surrender 
appeared far too late 
spilling across the floor. 

That too going sour 
torn into yellowed strips 
to bind up the allegations 
of our cowardice. 

No one living or dead
really cares anymore
and you can join them 
when you are ready. 

------------------------- 

130223B
----------- 

It is not those we held 
within the prisons of our lives 
that were loved most 
but those we chose to release
to some other different fate
that were whom we really loved. 

Love ends up that way 
though that is not a sort of love 
that we ever really wanted 
as though shooting ourselves 
so someone else can get away
from nothing to offer. 

Those instances that pass 
as rare self cognizance 
knowing who, what and where
we really are in relation 
to the blind side of our wanting 
no matter harm or damage done. 

Love is such a contrary matter
defiant of what is common 
as to what we were taught 
and what trended to be learned 
in contexts of ordinary desires 
and common fears of loss. 

As long as it was very ordinary 
and nothing exceptional 
that we feared to lose 
we might have been condemned 
to suffering it 
rather than losing it. 

We were once beautiful losers
in our fear of losing 
letting go of the wrong things
and holding on similarly 
to lost causes and lost flesh
making saints of our devils. 

Love being the saddest thing 
we ever came to know of 
and the most misunderstood 
among all ideas and reasons 
for every love is a wanting 
loved at some other's expense. 

Even the wealthiest impose 
their cost of love on whatever 
thus seeking to possess 
falsifying any generosity 
in bad bargains made
on false and vain pretense. 


Footnote :

As I was editing, amending, various old writings, from the early 1990s, there were some thoughts in mind. So I penned that little bit of verse based on those thoughts in mind. As to how wrong everything so often is, even if we truly believe it is mostly right, at various mostly wasted portions of earlier life. Only to realize too late that we had it mostly wrong, rather than right, along with everyone else that we once knew, who also had it as wrong as we ourselves tended to have it. No one having taught us any better, even though definitely ought to have. How we ever got any of it right at some later time, if we did get it right as some of us did, is a mystery and a miracle of sorts. We would never have guessed how to do that based on what we were taught, nor based on what we were inculcated with on the basis of "peer pressures". Quite the contrary. Quite amazing really how utterly insane our society is from that sort of standard. It simply keeps promoting and perpetuating its same old mistakes as if they are the actual truth. 


-------------------------------- 

1302223C
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These times of blood 
and seething crisis 
stirred in to thicken 
vices and corruptions. 

We once dreamt 
such beautiful dreams 
but those too are turned
into too rich a feast. 

Left neither the time 
nor the means 
for the raising up 
of better monuments. 

We are the cancelled 
left tangled up in the red
tape, flags and banners
that ended our ambitions. 

Too late to start again 
with new red tape
waving flags and banners
of our personal revolutions. 

It would take years to try 
to resolve the little details 
thus it would cost far too much 
and we no longer have the time. 

Left to challenged to keeping
our mementos and bodies
in mock semblances to order
as if it really matters. 

Our defects are too many
for any further marketing 
to the sell out crowd 
that sold itself out long ago. 

The audience has gone 
on its quest for sex and death
leaving our bones rattling 
subsequent to a usual gnawing 

Reminded of the threats 
promising constant hunger pangs
leaving you chewing 
on bits of competition. 

There are so many more
ways that lead to dying 
that we can longer really find 
any of the ways to live. 

Feeling lucky if we can pay 
the price for failed attempts 
at the few remaining 
parlours of common amusements. 

They are there to pass time 
but offer nothing interesting 
and no one really wants 
what now counts as leftovers. 

Knowing we were closed down
as soon as we ever learned 
how to try to open up 
even if to the wrong people. 

We wanted to be freed 
to choosing something 
that would be more interesting 
but that was a fatal mistake. 

A few ghosts congregate 
less and less often in relation 
to official national holidays
celebrating consumer products. 

Nothing strange or different 
can be permitted into the midst
of the failing conspiracies 
that pass as friendships. 

Some still make things 
if they get money for them 
but nothing they make 
is really that interesting. 

More are practising 
wearing their boredom 
as if it is a badge of courage
and a necessary  identity card. 

Sentenced to a die out 
 bang and whimper 
obsessively pulling at straws
from their stuffed heads. 

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240223A
------------

You deploy your love
to fight against anti-love 
in a valiant battle 
that you always lose. 

It is not anything much
better than shooting 
yourself in the foot 
as far as that goes. 

A little more 
and it would kill you 
leaving a stain 
where you had a life. 

You can join up 
with the resistance 
but then you will lose 
for not taking sides. 

Never really mattered
what or who it was 
that led to new wounds 
bleeding all the same. 

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270223A
----------- 

We were mostly tricked 
to pursuing freedoms 
that we did not really have
and could not really get. 

When we realized the truth,
that it was to set us up 
for severe disappointments, 
it was far too late. 

You cannot really miss out 
on opportunities 
that you never really had 
on that long road around. 

Your imagination stimulated 
to various flights of fancy 
that someone else gave you 
as if travel brochures. 

Pick a destination in life 
that you will not be going to
wasting time and money 
on nonredeemable tokens. 

Collect the entire set 
and pretend that satisfies 
whatever deeper cravings 
the sales department stimulated. 

They always want you 
wanting what you cannot have 
where and with whomever 
you cannot have any. 

Left you wanting for something 
that you can never have 
in generic or particular terms 
within a confined reality. 

You are a monkey in a cage 
that cannot ever get out 
from being a that cage 
that you would never choose. 

Such a hard lesson to learn 
in the shuffle and grind 
always raw deal of your life 
being redirected too late. 

The other now obsolete options 
racked up as carnival prizes
that you could never win
and cannot win anymore. 

Maybe it really was 
the time limited 
skill testing question 
where you actually failed. 

Maybe you simply were not
what anyone really wanted 
turned into a freak
the freak show rejected. 

Merely another contestant 
for a prize you cannot claim 
and then they always tell you 
you did not really want it. 

Should have joined something
but having no idea what it was
and there were no actual offers
worth any real consideration. 

You thought you were free
but it is not like that 
and it never really was 
that sort of trade off. 

You would have done alright
as someone's favourite clown
or their pet monkey 
if you had been a bit luckier. 

You got to watch long distance
how others were making it 
in all the various ways 
you were not permitted to. 

Stimulating your imagination 
with further equations 
in algebras of need 
that defy any possible solutions. 

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