Poems: 060821 - August 6th, 2021

300721A
----------- 

Connectivity is sham 
tangle web 
connections unmade 
and unmakeable 
at frayed loose ends
coming apart 
into too difficult times.

Nothing is perfect 
and what you could do 
was never enough 
to fill a leaky cup 
or mend owned wounds 
leaving stigmata 
shorted any sainthood.  

Missing out
for wrong reasons
and any hard tries
at something better 
craving a listing 
in someone's wants 
but looking foolish 
at the regular drop.  

Those drop and bounce
run around courses 
being dread routines
between walked out 
for strange reasons
and cover up realities
under a usual whitewash.  

White as a ghost dancer
in a reign of terror 
cause of growth fears
lurks bill collector 
and fail dating sites 
between wade through 
of worse advice. 

We were urged 
to await miracles
believing good things
to those who stand
forever waiting
eventual realization
it all passed them by. 

Quiet says the sign
on entering
another laughter zone 
where the passing leave
the remaining choked  
with laughter dust 
rising around that stop. 

Stopped midway 
so many times to ever 
and begin at over 
to add up to something
that they care about
after the inspection
reveals too many flaws. 

That unpleasant gotcha
and then you wake up
long after too late 
left nothing 
but stabbing pains
covered over
with laughter dust. 

How to get boxed in
for a last time 
tight under a lid 
which never comes off
nailed down tight
onto nothing but you
and four more walls. 

What you don't know
what you can't say
comes down on you  
a hostile takeover 
tearing out the love
you once felt 
caught in your throat. 

There is nowhere now
that you can think of 
inviting the going 
and no one is there 
even if you went 
into a crowded space
between random cruelty. 

The infinite possibilities
were the same nothing 
coming to nothing 
but ask forever why
that pound at incessant
echoing the silence
under hob nail boots. 

The ghost march 
bones getting covered
with ancestral blood 
not being anything 
you really wanted
while trying to interpret
the runes of denial. 

If any once had
those have long fled 
soul search places
to more comfortable 
and better designed 
suitably provisioned
for making impressions. 

Not quite dead yet 
but it doesn't take much
to be turned over 
left face up 
covered with laughter dust
at tried to find 
those better times. 

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

010821A
------------ 

Sometimes it isn't words
but only wild sounds 
howling at stray moons.

Beams of sanity 
cutting their laser light 
across eyeball slices. 

What you chance to see
is never what you get 
but it makes you wanting. 

Wanting what they tell you 
you do not really want
and would not like. 

Arguments notwithstanding 
you want some 
but you never get any. 

Someone else has it all
and whatever it is
makes a peep show from it.

It isn't on billboards 
or in any of the pop up ads 
cluttering up your vision. 

It is the exceptions 
that stimulate the appetites 
of your slaughtered tastes. 

The completely bored mind 
wanting for everything 
that it cannot ever find. 

The rest of it goes
in the junk folder
marked quick deletion.

You become afraid
that they have marked you
for deletion. 

Threats have been uttered
but there is no proof
that anyone uttered them. 

There is so very much 
that you want to try 
before you buy it.  

Samples made you crave
products not offered
and nothing ever settles. 

Cultural indigestion 
heaves its sick feelings 
in the dirty insides. 

The surface scrubbed
rubbing off bad words
in typical wrong ways. 

You sometimes watch
others play the games
they won't let you play 

That makes you special
in all those ways 
you never wanted to be. 

You wanted to be special
to someone 
but not just anyone. 

Erasing your footsteps 
you wish you could go
the other way.

Maybe it was there 
you would find whatever
wasn't anywhere for you. 

They drummed at you 
that something was for you
but you never got any. 

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

030821A
------------ 

Following fence lines
with nowhere to go
past gated and closed
locked countryside
parcelled and divided.  

A road trip 
among the visual beauty
of these dismal lands
between repeat exclamations
of no stopping.

There was a time 
when you could stop 
and stops were taken 
entirely for granted
as what everyone does. 

Past private lanes 
that are rumoured 
other world portals
into the unknown 
but try to imagine. 

Someone is selling off 
heaps of old invites 
to collectors of nostalgia
along with party favours 
and empty chocolate boxes.  

Past the line up 
outside the liquor store 
right in the middle 
of the small minded 
one radio station town. 

A crowded little park
monkey cage
litter of bad habits 
brought outside 
for the weather change. 

Roadside picnic area
latrine stench drift
overflowing garbage cans
with barbecue smoke
choking crowded tables. 

These are lonely times 
in lonelier places 
where enemies advance
always victorious  
against our resistance. 

There are observers
counting the casualties 
that heard happy voices
where there were none
celebrating anything. 

Try another turn 
down a side road 
in the vain hope 
it will change your luck
but it never does
before it dead ends.

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

030821B
----------- 

When we were in the desert
we came to wells 
that were all poisoned. 

We pulled up bucket fulls 
of ancient history 
along with some hymnals. 

A skeletal organist 
played Red Army tunes 
in our collective hallucinations.

The sands of time 
sought to cover over everything 
with relentless argument. 

Individual sand grains
needing to be strung as beads
on superstring filaments.

This was exacting work 
as to placements and numbers
forming coded myths. 

A universe can be made
from such creative expulsions
of petrified phlegm and venom. 

The toxic dust then ingested
created a false sense 
of intense well being. 

Fossilized remains appeared
revealing past lunch meetings
encased in strata of concrete. 

Nothing was ever sustained
in those gatherings of grit
wearing away soft tissue. 

Skinned knees of childhood
joining up with elbows 
reminiscent of holy days. 

There was a playground 
no one plays in anymore
where the gods hang out. 

We had to learn to climb up
long evolutionary ladders 
while pushing others off. 

It was all going one at a time 
and take nothing with you 
in the efforts to hold on. 

Fall off rates being marked
by the decaying particles 
worn as native jewellery. 

It was all about lost tribes
and forgotten mating rituals
emptying your living room. 

A handful of insects dropped 
out of a vending machine 
after it swallowed a quarter. 

They all had human faces
and you could collect
a complete set of expressions. 

They dissolved slowly 
after forming images 
of the immanent future. 

Sometimes images remained
that you could not wash off
from your thin skin.  

You would carry them 
until the time came 
for them to go free. 

They would leave you 
a new feeling of emptiness 
that you could never fill. 

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


And so it goes.... not even beginning to note all of the awful things that we actually chance to have been given to notice. After all it would do no good at all, even if we did say so.