Poems: 140721 - July 14th, 2021

080721D
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That fallen through 
but not knowing what 
saddest of the sad 
don't know why 
or how we got there
sort of feeling it
coming down 
a foot gone through 
that seemed solid 
bit of floor
to don't know how
and why it all ended 
being so out of it
and must have 
been something more
beyond that feeling
brought down
to pleading guilty 
of feeling low 
and offering 
no explanation. 

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

090721A
------------ 

We were looking 
in catalogues 
for something to do 
with the time 
on our hands. 

Replacing one boredom
with another
after being stopped
and forbidden 
from anything else. 

What else there was 
was never very good
but it was a bit better
than nothing
or an ace of spades. 

For the healthy enough
there was getting drunk
and getting stoned 
to make it though 
stretches of pass time. 

We sat around 
in the middle of laughter
believing we knew
what it really was 
we were laughing about. 

Wanting more than that
was a mortal sin 
and you could be stricken
with excommunication
and rendered unforgiven. 

Trying to learn 
from the best experts 
how to stop caring 
about whatever it was
you used to care about. 

Not successful enough
to graduate 
into the next level 
lingering in the cheap seats
and thinking too much. 

When you have to leave
you leave 
the same way you came 
and with the same nothing 
that you came with. 

No one calls you
and no one looks you up
after your termination 
once word gets around 
as it always does. 

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

110721A
------------ 

When we cannot be 
what we want to be 
and don't want to be 
anything that we were. 

A condition of given up
on everyone 
whom we used to suffer 
for one reason or another. 

Measures of who was who
in the doesn't like what 
was or wasn't and won't
really like what would be. 

No matter what it was
they did not want yours 
but they wanted 
for someone else's. 

The have to please everyone 
cannot please anyone
and always having to beg
in order to differ. 

The ones we backed 
who never backed us 
and moving on 
from that wretched state. 

Where we spent ourselves
squandering our money
on vain beliefs 
about what seemed becoming. 

What did we chance upon
that we could become 
and whatever happened 
to any of our want to be. 

Left exchanging pleasantries 
with random strangers 
knowing it all adds up 
to the same nothing. 

Life is like that 
and if you don't like it 
you can leave 
is the stock answer. 

You can always quit 
and no one is forcing you 
to keep going at it 
in some vain belief. 

They kept you dreaming 
about success 
reinvented, redefined 
as a sort of endless rework 
of the same rejections. 

Given any shape 
that it can be beaten to
it is the same garbage can 
others throw things into. 

Their technique 
is the thing to watch for 
because that differs 
according to what they want. 

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

120721A
------------ 

There are those who believe
in the next lifetime 
and there are those who don't 
really believe anything at all. 

It is in the newspapers 
it is on the radio 
and sometimes you can find it
talked about on TV spots. 

Sublimated sex 
and all that setting loose 
of pent up aggression 
for coach Sigmund Freud. 

It fills up the time slots 
between what you did 
and what you shouldn't do
on your impulse spend. 

Some know how 
to talk the talk 
even walk the walk 
believing that they have to. 

You won't ever be anyone
if you fail to find the answer
while playing Jeopardy 
and Truth or Consequences. 

Some claim they can
do it all again 
because they got it wrong 
the first time around. 

It really does depend 
on what you get to afford 
and everyone isn't 
created equal in any sport. 

Maybe that next lifetime 
will turn out better 
getting carbon copied 
in a mimeograph machine.

Clunkety, clunkety clunk 
putting out the same ink blots
to be puzzled over 
by perturbed analysts. 

Star clusters 
riding in those limousines 
ferries of the unobtainable
along happy trails. 

The one and the many 
hiding in plastic forests 
pretending to be the trees
all get felled the same. 

You might not know 
any of the real differences
because you are so inattentive
to the fine details. 

One good blot 
deserves another 
as it gets smeared out
as a wet paint smile. 

Don't do this
and don't say that 
is the new learning program
can fill an entire life. 

The audience doesn't know
what they are watching 
but they believe it
in one way or another. 

Don't take it personally 
because it was only a rumour 
that everyone else believed 
meant to ruin your day. 

Have to believe something
when the salesman calls 
trying to sell you a future 
you never thought you wanted. 

He gets a cut 
for every sale he makes 
and to get rid of him 
you have to buy in. 

Somewhere down stream 
from a boy meets girl crush
along that solitaire turnpike 
of no one but yourself. 

Some go shopping 
for matching sex organs
as if those are refrigerators
or automobiles. 

Their appliances come 
with decorator features 
and various options 
to impress the guests. 

Their lives begin and end
with who gives a fuck 
and they take it as literally 
as the meat in sandwiches. 

Rub a dub dub 
you came too late 
to get past the drunks 
and no one wants sincere. 

Window dressing 
on a clothes horse frame 
can't find your shoes
to actually get away. 

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

140721A
----------- 

The symptoms subsided
in the course of two days
letting me come back 
to the same mess I was. 

Just another diagnosis 
for which there is no cure 
failing to bargain it down
to a simple case of  blues. 

Been stuck on the island
in some other's storm
always throwing it out 
at what isn't really there. 

Thought it would be better
than it ever really was
and once it has gone wrong
it is never right again. 

Nothing ever does 
really straighten out 
once it is bent that far 
and it can never go back. 

Don't have the strength 
for that much effort 
and no one is coming 
to meet me half way. 

Perfect isn't very special
but it didn't find me
in that misdirected sequence
of a strung along life. 

If I saw you on the street
I wouldn't know your name
and I would be afraid
of being nothing you want. 

So it tends to go  
no matter how it goes 
down different ways 
of hiding the lonely. 

We are hiding the lonely 
in endless different ways 
just hiding the lonely between
a beginning and an end. 

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

140721B
------------ 

The Sun is out 
and I can blame that too 
for a flagrant condition 
of persistent denial. 

I deny me 
and you deny you 
as part of the process 
of denying each other. 

What we need 
and what we don't need
is a perpetual argument 
about light and shade. 

Never found out 
any easy way 
that disappears into 
what the light brings. 

It plays on things 
all about wanting 
that world you live in 
past a wall and fence. 

Guess I am the shade 
you cannot handle 
gone to dark in a corner
of a shunned world. 

My eyes see you 
but you are blind to me
nothing bright and shiny
to trap a wandering gaze. 

The Sun is out 
and I am behind a cloud
a darker shade 
than I was before. 

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

Maybe a bit of the blues rubbed off on me, that time around. Just a bit somewhere in there and whatever it was I cannot seem to wash or scrub it off. It just simply won't come off.