Poems: 181120 - November 18th, 2020

161120A
-----------=20

Cloud gusts=20
break concentration=20
into mind scatter=20
dread of time=20
and fear of place.=20

A misguided search
across wastelands=20
encountered no more
than a few dead=20
around watering holes.=20

Iconic gestures=20
that remained frozen=20
having been affected=20
by the poison=20
making clocks melt.=20

Herds grazing=20
on fields of music=20
stripped it bare=20
and then migrated
as the climate changed. =20

A few notes dropped
in gnawed away fashion
down into the middle=20
of empty talk=20
giving some indication.=20

Awareness of nerves
threaded tightly=20
through bone orifices=20
rattle and creak=20
along back roads.=20

Arriving again=20
at the very same=20
where one left off=20
but never ever=20
at a real beginning.=20

If only one had=20
a modest wisdom=20
among ruminations
turning to fear=20
of the unendurable.=20

Pick up the pieces=20
and carry on=20
leaving indications=20
along the trail
for the trackers.=20

An endless hunt=20
for somewhere=20
that seems safer=20
even if an illusion =20
of less than lonely.=20

They were strangers=20
passing through=20
and there is the trouble
of never enough=20
for any liking.=20

The big sell out=20
that most find=20
that they can choose=20
from a long list=20
of discard options.=20

Thin red lines=20
drawn through
various items
that no longer belong=20
on any current lists.=20

That narrow squeeze
but never getting=20
through anything=20
beyond usual rumours=20
of lost sunlight.=20

-------------------=20

161120B
-----------=20

In the future=20
your dreams=20
might end up televised
to a critical circle=20
of your friends.=20

They would be bored=20
and would ask =20
for something=20
more entertaining =20
than failed escapes.=20

Knowing full well=20
you are trying hard
to get away=20
from all of them=20
to something sexier.=20

You dread the roles
they make you play
in their own reels=20
of dream footage
if they include you.=20

You want to erase=20
their tapes=20
where you appear=20
in your nightmares
of their making.=20

A vain hope=20
that you can avoid=20
those reruns
but knowing=20
that is all they are.=20

----------------------=20

161120C
-----------=20

It blows into one ear
and then out the other
becoming a game=20
that keeps getting played=20
by the hollow men.=20

My out of place mind=20
wandering in=20
the OUT door again
counting damage points=20
to my role play character.=20

Tried to get fixed up
but all of that broke down=20
into  a too common sort
usual of conditions=20
taking it out again.=20

Take a break position
and never know what
it is you really got=20
that will make you gone=20
out the IN door.=20

Going round a habit=20
to dull times
in another grudge match=20
of loose pocket changed=20
between hard wagers.=20

Assemble the pick at
along side the choose=20
bits of Rube Goldberg=20
streams of unconscious=20
into automatic talking. =20

Nothingness to say=20
into the dim lyric
of could mean anything=20
the way your body is=20
a vague silhouette.=20

It never gets better=20
than a coat hanger=20
removing a metaphor=20
from a raw text=20
about to be polished off.=20

There were better ideas=20
but the system kicked in=20
to run it all down
as if it was an insult=20
to the big machine.=20

It is too late now=20
to fix what is gone=20
amid large doses=20
of gets nowhere=20
past pushed over. =20

Over and over=20
in the tumble downs=20
all the Jacks and Jills=20
chasing the bone=20
on a string from Heaven.=20

-------------------------------=20

171120A
-----------=20

There was a time=20
when it was impossible=20
to avoid being =20
the then unimaginable=20
varieties of pain.=20

Youth is simple minded=20
and far too confident=20
then having to figure it out
as to why it isn't at all=20
anything like the movies.=20

Not a mark or bruise
upon what felt as emptied
as all of death is emptied
to other movements=20
and symphonies of mind.=20

A thousand times I would
have reached across=20
that forever divide=20
if there was even a hint
of permission to touch.=20

I was always polite=20
but those who were not=20
were typically victorious
but besides that fact=20
they owned the right things.=20

In the end it is all about
keeping it all to one's self
and not flinching=20
when the same is again=20
purely chanced same.=20

Something to learn=20
as to savouring pain=20
while it lasts=20
what seems a forever=20
but not that long.=20

Joining all of the ancient=20
primal strands of want
and wishing=20
until one is one's own=20
version of exorcisms.=20

The need for silver bullets
shot into one's self
to kill the werewolf=20
of abnegation=20
as to responsibilities.

What ought to have been=20
given strayed attention =20
but never was=20
and still somehow slid=20
through life's crevices.=20

Wanting knotted never=20
to be tied as tight=20
as then desire
of would have been
never to sunder.=20

The not ready=20
and not yet=20
failures of realizations=20
became the never was=20
more than self affliction.=20

The not real=20
but once upon a time=20
drift of loving fantasies=20
made worst of us
still seeming idyllic.=20

A concussive making=20
of a broken away=20
sense of unrealities=20
driven to wander lust=20
headed out to nowhere.=20

Estranged streets=20
turned otherness city=20
in hyper lucid moments=20
of would have been=20
imagined pleasant dreams.=20

Knowing even then=20
youthful passions=20
need always a becoming=20
to being more fickle=20
than unreal origins.=20

We never made it=20
or anything else=20
that would have broken
perpetual patterns=20
of departure ways.=20

Perhaps it is that=20
which then prepares some
to undertakings=20
as to physical wounds=20
skimming surfaces.=20

Nothing ever again=20
seems to hurt that much
but deep down inside
was the nudge of a desire=20
longing for it to last.=20

Long ago passed away=20
and I never visited=20
with any of the monuments=20
to any of that early history
where I died to something.=20

Umpteen dozen reasons=20
why it would never ever
actually have worked out=20
within any of the contexts
of situational arguments.=20

Now it is easy to reminisce
what it might have been like
if that object of desire did=20
take a few steps down=20
to on the level with me.=20

More matured minds=20
never really ruin it=20
that badly=20
for the competition=20
set up to winning.=20

The facts being=20
we do not live that way
nor do we die that way=20
to nothing more=20
than memories of feelings.=20

If it had been different=20
I would never have known=20
it was the essence of pain=20
which was my survival=20
in my here after.=20

There is little choice=20
as to which of our lessons=20
someone teaches us=20
but one remains thankful=20
never the same.=20

------------------------------=20

The latter one of those is an attempt at describing the youthful, long ago,=
 experience of what it felt like to suffer what one's self believed was one=
's first true love. Of course it was a fail, as it had to be, but for so ma=
ny reasons that one could not have even begun to understand or know.  I had=
 no one to actually explain it, back then, in my formative years, and being=
 headed toward "young adult". I do not doubt that that made it so much more=
 difficult.  I doubt that I really figured it out, at that point in life, a=
s to why it was as it was, and as contrary as it was to any of my then ever=
 optimistic hopes and anticipations.  In hindsight certainly the fool, as a=
ll youths tend to be fools, until they learn hard lessons.