Poems 260721 - July 26th, 2021

190721A
------------=20

Don't know why=20
we never met=20
but that is how it goes
in passing=20
and we all go on=20
until we don't anymore.=20

I was always waiting
for a signal=20
coming from you=20
or the heavens above=20
sounding the all clear
where we come out.=20

Out from the pitch=20
concerning never know
and never knowing=20
anything that we betray=20
in the imagining=20
an end to that darkness.=20

Throwing off=20
all those stipulations=20
and no longer ignorant
about happiness
being carved out=20
from raw bits of gods.=20

The way it used to be=20
in some of those places
that aren't anymore
and always too late=20
to be remembering=20
what many didn't know

The sirens are wailing
on random streets=20
and there are warnings=20
as to look both ways
indicating what stops=20
and what doesn't stop.=20

The start and stopped=20
clutter of what possesses=20
with endless possibilities=20
never sufficiently realized=20
in the terms and conditions
that define real satisfaction.=20

All that some ever know
are interrupted plans=20
right from the get go=20
hoping for something=20
of a right interruption=20
changing the way it goes.=20

We were never=20
and never that lucky=20
in any never before=20
but I noticed something
I might have adored=20
gone in the passing.=20

When is it any different=20
than what we imagine=20
being gone in the passing=20
while pretending=20
that there is a long list=20
of greater importance.=20

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

190721B
-----------=20

It was all by arrangement=20
but that doesn't mean=20
it was something good.=20

The stars are always wrong
and guesses don't count=20
when playing with the truth.=20

No one ever lives=20
after gazing into the eyes=20
of the real truth.=20

The truth that we toy with
in the marginalia=20
hoping to add some gain.=20

Dirty things need cleaning
broken things need fixing=20
in a tedious time of life.=20

It can keep one busied=20
with nothing much=20
for too much of the time.=20

Mourning all the dreams=20
that ended at someone
who never showed up.=20

Could write a great fiction
that one would want to live
with the likes of some other.=20

Someone one doesn't know=20
from those bulging catalogues=20
filling a mind with unknowns.=20

There are the lucky=20
who sold out properly=20
at the right time.=20

The no longer available=20
leaving blurbs and images
ghosts of dead marketing.=20

Though as it happens=20
they don't like the story=20
and write their own.=20

Adding to the confusion=20
concerning one's kidnappers
and their escalating demands.=20

Times having changed=20
for obsolescent products
from discontinued lines.=20

Resistance to all one's plots=20
editing out one's characters=20
changing one's settings.=20

The go, no go, tool=20
does not go anywhere=20
all the gaps having changed.=20

Too hard to really live=20
an ad lib live life =20
between official lines.=20

A dictator always lurking=20
behind every scene=20
and under every bed.=20

Doesn't like the stories=20
where we tried to write=20
someone else in.=20

It becomes a monologue=20
no one wants to hear=20
but that was the given.=20

The big huge world=20
seems too far away
from where one hangs on.=20

Against being shaken off
the way dinner is grabbed
and shaken in wild jaws.=20

Hanging on to fractured=20
threads of fiction
baited with promise.=20

I don't know yours=20
in a billion names=20
and you never called mine.=20

Shuffle identities
rearrange the faces=20
to make porcelain armies.=20

There is a hardened glaze
over the clay surfaces=20
of anything nowadays.=20

Seems a step away
to becoming shards=20
of what once was.=20

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

190721C
------------=20

Those days are gone=20
and they won't be coming=20
back ever after and again=20
past that leaving of us
to ghosts of once was
in the lost of everything=20
that seemed to save us=20
from so much less.=20

No one comes around=20
so I guess it was a dream=20
and now we don't know=20
the living from the dead=20
but what we still know=20
is some of the best=20
are always long gone=20
by the time we get there.=20

No one ever told us
it would go like that
in the rise and the fall=20
of everything that rises=20
and everything that falls=20
up along the upbeat=20
and down a downbeat=20
immensity of it all.=20
=20
Some of us never get=20
to where others have gone
so we don't really know=20
where they were headed to
or where it came from
past the same sad stories=20
of easy to get nothing
for paying all those dues.=20

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

210721A
------------=20

Haphazard feelings=20
doing the look around=20
then dash out=20
to other appointments
on an imaginary calendar.=20

Crowds of bee buzz=20
pollinating plastic flowers
become wilt away=20
at slightest touch gropes
from blindly straying hands.=20

All the goings on that go
into pointless regions=20
common cerebral traps=20
clogged drain pipes=20
behind the eye plugs. =20

Not much on the table=20
that is allowed anymore=20
except the usual contraband=20
of a few too common tastes=20
deadening pleasure zones.=20

Visions of comedians=20
picking through garbage
looking for dead jokes=20
to sanitize and sell=20
at weekend market stalls. =20

Everyone is at the races=20
where no one ever wins=20
more than their drop dead=20
come around the hurry
of the crowded far stretch.=20

Saying the right words
is supposed to work magic
if you say them often=20
in exactly the right ways
after the wishing well closes. =20

That is if you really want
the same surprise package
that all the others got=20
when standing in that line
of grinning strangely.=20

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

240721A
------------

Where would I go=20
in here, out there=20
round and about=20
the pain of being=20
nothing that special=20
as to being noticed.=20

There is no gleam=20
beneath all my tarnish=20
and only wearing away=20
under polish and rub=20
until embrittled=20
age lines of corrosion.=20

Must be noticed=20
to find anyone there
out in that dismal=20
stretch of making=20
and breaking bits=20
of the self same.=20

I have disappeared=20
from your sight=20
cracking the surface=20
in a going under way
down between wakes
and other losses.=20

Don't have the answer=20
to where=20
there are answers
to the old or new
sorted out questions
and no way to advertise.=20

They sell tickets
but it is too late=20
for any of that now=20
reading the fine print=20
that covers the back
of those possibilities.=20

We are the broken up
and the broken down=20
to no more from it all
than a purchase history=20
defining risk levels=20
and character types.=20

We are what we buy
and that takes us=20
to suffering judgments=20
about where we fell short
from estimated conformity=20
to designer expectations.

Fathers are never proud=20
having expected much more
of what they knew best=20
kicked around=20
in too familiar fields
between whistle blows.=20

Fractured stick figures
takes up various poses=20
no longer identified=20
with definite meanings
stripped of substance=20
by market changes.=20

Could make believe
that what we put in=20
actually meant more
than it ever really did
before passed over=20
by another shock wave.=20

If you are of the lucky
you come out of it=20
part of a brain intact=20
but most of the program=20
you used to rely on=20
having been erased.=20

You started again=20
until forced to realize
that you couldn't=20
then drifting into shock=20
wondering if there are nerves
in your jiggling Jello.=20

We spent ourselves=20
on our belief in hope=20
and only time will tell=20
until it all times out=20
with no score=20
up on the scoreboard.=20

Not all of us can love
the same things=20
in the same ways=20
but why is it so hard=20
to really be free=20
from all that hate.=20

----------------------
=20
240721B
-----------=20

There is that resistance=20
to being arm twisted=20
into joining the oblivious=20
as if oblivion washes away
all of your troubles.

Can it dissolve away=20
all the traces of boredom=20
that stain the appearance
and maintain the distance=20
resembling most anyone.=20

Can it make you love
what you dislike=20
and despise=20
your pleasures
for oblivion's sake.=20

Taking you up on it=20
from nothing to offer=20
to popular affirmation=20
of being something special=20
among the oblivious.=20

Oblivion in a refined form
used to wash away
all the sins of the world=20
and in some places=20
they say it still does.=20

They were telling you=20
all you needed was oblivion
so that you could find love=20
ending decades of loneliness=20
at being singled out.=20

Our tiny tot lifetimes=20
with our inflated longings
becoming balloon animals
with twisted appendages=20
tied up in endless knots.=20

See through needs=20
arguing with varied wants
and no matter what we do
we still have them all
begging for something.=20

The endless restrictions=20
against what is harmless=20
destroying any cherishing=20
and various illusions=20
that could pass as freedoms.=20

No one joins in=20
to your favourite games=20
and you don't want=20
any more to do with
their routine game plans.=20

The huddle at centre field
has begun to disgust you=20
and you hate the coach
so you walk out=20
on the whole team.=20

You tuned out long ago
exiting the commentary=20
on endless replays=20
and having no idea=20
who was which number.=20

They don't invite you=20
so it makes no difference=20
what you would do
or what you would not do=20
in the midst of it all.=20

There is nothing left=20
that you can talk about=20
in that sort of company=20
and no one you could want
is imagining you naked.=20

You do not want it
in one way or the other
the way it was detailed
in locker room talk
and that narrows it down.=20

There were no starbursts=20
to be spurted out=20
into a conceptual void=20
where making out=20
becomes astronomical porn.=20

The cruel universe=20
a numb and brutal place=20
that fails to understand=20
the cravings of touch
shared by prettier things.=20

A rebellion of star dust=20
against its maker
trying to find a way out=20
even if for a little while
from all of that oblivion.=20

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


A part of me is becoming as revolted and revolting as Arthur Rimbaud was, b=
ut entirely unable to share his particular predilections as to how he sough=
t his particular type of cure to that.  Each to their own, we might say, bu=
t in essence the existential factors end up being too much the same.=20