Poems: 140421 - April 14th, 2021

130421A
-----------=20

They become afraid=20
to refer to the heart
and afraid=20
to imagine love.=20

A word soup=20
fearing too much sugar
too much salt=20
between sweet and sour.=20

It is that kind of place
they are the victims of
making bad bargains=20
on the worst days.=20

They are the losers=20
by arrangement
in pastimes of nothing=20
but the lessons learned.=20

Time to break away=20
past every end=20
of dead end roads=20
where the tracks stop.=20

Whatever it was=20
is always long gone=20
by the time they get
there to the going.=20

Going, going, gone
under the gavel crash
the sell out crowd
still getting hammered.=20

Having no answers=20
to their lost questions
about who was lifted up=20
and who was faded out.=20

Forgetting the names=20
of things they once knew=20
and knowing how
the meanings changed.=20

It doesn't really say
anything it meant=20
as everyone changed
into someone else.=20

Traders at costumes
trying on new roles=20
recite their old monologues=20
on the newly built stage.=20

Not much to see there
beyond the gallows=20
hang of the tied tight
loops of mind.=20


Note: Mind (intellect) =3D Greek word Nous, which is thus also the =E2=80=
=9Cnoose=E2=80=9D.=20

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

130421B
-----------=20

We will be worn out=20
before we get through
the thick of it.=20

The welcome committees
introducing new miseries=20
always top the old.=20

You can join something=20
you do not want
being any part of.=20

Players no longer know
what games they play
and the rules have changed.=20

Watch the small fry=20
play at becoming sharks=20
ready for the big pond.=20

Popularity is a blood sport
that has gone extreme
favouring the well paid.=20

There are the very drab=20
and the very dismal
displays of the same.=20

There are the punishments
for arriving too late=20
from what you had to do.=20

There are those things=20
that you should not have=20
among the ones you lack. =20

There is being touched=20
without anything touching=20
ever really happening.=20

For the survivors=20
the ready made excuses=20
as to where, when and why.=20

Excerpts for memoirs=20
that cause guests to leave=20
the dinner table. =20

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

130421C
------------ =20

Wish I had found a talent
for being musical=20
but it seems anything else=20
goes at that take away=20
from any coming from.=20

Some of us hear the sounds
the others are deaf to
but cannot find a way=20
to make them come out=20
sounding right.=20

My ancestors made noises
pleased their lords
at settling the scores=20
that brought discord=20
to far and distant realms.=20

Even the traffic noise=20
sounds much better=20
than my hum drum notes
played on any scale=20
of large and small things.=20

Banged the ivories=20
when I was a child=20
with fingers tangled up=20
in strings and hammers=20
until my ears hurt.=20

Way it sometimes goes=20
stepping out of tune=20
in restless times=20
trying to remember how=20
one makes right moves.=20

Perhaps it is envy=20
for the harmony=20
that music is all about=20
and having something=20
musicians rarely know.

I don't know=20
what it really is=20
that makes the music=20
what it is=20
that hurts so much.=20

I heard the whisper=20
of an old rumour=20
that there was a music=20
that once served the poets
but no more.=20

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

130421D
------------=20

They are made to feel=20
that if life is not sad=20
it would not exist.

Typical intercessions=20
there to build up=20
for common let downs.=20

They learn to expect=20
the monstrous birthing=20
of the gestated usual.=20

They wait at the exits=20
for the show=20
to come to an end.=20

It is the double dare=20
that gets to them=20
as it plays on wishful.=20

All about those risks=20
of nothing to gamble=20
but the stakes are high.=20

A redefined passion=20
that gets denied=20
no matter the position.=20

Getting nothing that way
but they can always try=20
until it ends the same.=20

Muddle ups of dreaming
something to remember=20
inventing nothing at all.=20

Fills up stretches of nights=20
with something colder=20
than aches of bones.=20

Turned over and turning=20
headed out to the far edge=20
of what they never chose.=20

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

130421E
----------- =20

The encyclopedia=20
is never anything gentle=20
and never anything tender.=20

In time it becomes more true
that we lose the struggle=20
to escape from between pages.=20

We tried hard but always=20
ending pressed last season's
flowers between the pages.

Everything goes dry=20
turned to a fragile dust=20
given the course of time.=20

Poets as reflective
take downs of wanted posters
from cold glazed eyes.=20

No one wants shadows=20
that they cannot command=20
as their very own.=20

We spent decades=20
dining on fresh data=20
picked from digital vines.=20

It all seemed ripe
but all fell apart=20
soon as we got to it.=20

Little we knew=20
what was happening=20
or where it all goes.=20

We are made to lose=20
the taste for everything=20
on those menus.=20

Cannot please anyone=20
because they all changed=20
their drifting minds.=20

Signs of these times=20
flickering flash cards=20
demand instant response.

The young are angry=20
about everything no matter=20
which way it goes. =20

They never knew=20
how much time it took=20
exchanging letters by post.=20

Stamp collectors=20
a dying breed=20
becoming unhinged.=20

Easy to choke on a pen
and swallow the ink
in between paper cuts.=20

The mixers have changed
into those who know=20
the others are mixed up.=20

We used to like imagining=20
it would all get much better=20
but it never really did.=20

Seems a missing out=20
on really good donuts=20
and the best chocolate milk.=20

Tea with crumpets=20
trying to be reasonable=20
about colour theory.=20

Spike up the coffee=20
with something sharp
might set us loose.=20

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

130421F
-----------=20

You have to believe=20
in all the wrong people=20
if you want something=20
coming down on you=20
from out of heaven.  =20

Living is at the far reaches
at the edges of myths
dancing on thin tightropes
strung out in defiance
of central control.=20

What it means to sell
off various parts=20
of whatever it is=20
you once referenced=20
as being your own soul. =20

Making up inventories=20
of what we once thought=20
that we really had=20
wondering who took what
to give to whom.=20

Someone is listening=20
but it is never anyone=20
we wanted to let in=20
on anything connected
to any  real feelings.=20

The typical mistakes
that keep talking=20
to the likes of ourselves=20
singing in the shower=20
in a bathroom voice.=20

Emotions have gone=20
completely out of style
having been left to those
grown old enough=20
to reminisce about it.=20

Cannot really ever relate
to all the dying out=20
always keeps coming=20
up among other demands=20
that can never be met.=20

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

140421G=20
----------- =20

Those beautiful places=20
where I used to go=20
so I could miss someone=20
that much more.=20

Sometimes it was a drag=20
fallen in to the same=20
common rabbit holes=20
of all that loneliness.=20

With the first leaves=20
that are being written=20
right through=20
to where they turn.=20

And everything else=20
that is in between=20
the covers=20
that never gets told.=20

Hiding in and among
the flowers=20
illuminating the borders
of harsh manuscripts.=20

An impatient patience
wondering what it was=20
that was missed=20
on an exhausted map. =20

Never knowing which=20
side road they were on=20
or what new door=20
they might walk through.=20

That sort of living=20
where one knows people=20
and always something=20
never quite right.=20

Take home the new names
embossed with new faces
added to careful collections=20
kept in ordered sequences.=20

It wasn't the past=20
and it wasn't the future=20
that got in the way=20
in lands of misfit toys.=20

Cannot really fix up=20
that sort of thing=20
but they wind it tight
to keep it going.=20

So much is learned=20
about nothing at all=20
it seems like water=20
brushing across sand.=20

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

Not quite satisfied with how these drafts of new poems have turned out, but=
 then again I never am. Language is a continual battle with perpetual disco=
ntent. It never quite does what anyone really wants it to, so we try to fin=
d positions of compromise. Compromises that often seem too large, no matter=
 how we try to negotiate what cannot be negotiated.=20