Poems: 140422 - April 14th, 2022

060322A
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Dinosaur cloud
drifts across
a bird drench 
robin's egg sky.

We are survivors
emergent 
from mass destruction 
having been winterized. 

Brushed past 
the warm gone cold
carrying too early
and too late lies. 

Sudden rush 
threatens another
broken off 
failed at the bend. 

We had yielded 
and given way 
never enough 
to satisfy anyone. 

There are promises
that avoid leaving 
and fossils adrift 
in our stratosphere. 

Ballooned thoughts
the apparent rising 
above  cartoon images
implicit with desires. 

Tumbled nests 
and fracture shells
broken whites 
turn fallen eyes. 

Balloon burst 
shock and awe
random encounters
with any enemy. 

Pop go dreams
into ragged tumbles
turned refugee flights
from cruel lovers. 

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080322A 
------------

Bang bang 
clay pigeons 
on the lam 
broken up 
flock of pieces. 

Chocolate rabbits
implode down
rabbit holes 
done ear nibble 
candy eyed stares. 

When young
we really believed
in evading gun shots 
same as Superman
quicksilver in motion. 

Slip through 
spaced between 
shots fired
outbursts
at our get aways. 

The invincibles 
crowned by moms 
the breakfast lords
being served 
hand and foot. 

Spoiled kings 
of imaginary lands
with invisible subjects
whispering fantasies 
into stale classrooms. 

Hallways smelled 
vomit and chemistry 
swept away green 
as the keep off
precious lawn signs. 

Leprechauns danced
amid rain birds 
searching shamrock 
edged playgrounds
amid asphalt blarney. 

Some already knew
which were lucky
and which were not
when spitting 
into the green wind. 

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100322A
------------

Cookie cutter 
half baked
taste of dough 
tongue tipped.

Icing sugar snow 
clutching momentary 
frozen tales 
powder puffed 
pale winter skin. 

You look away
from all the death
I have become 
not even leafing through 
my collected tragedies.  

No one really would
want to lick at 
the drip pans 
beneath the engines 
of tawdry histories.

It was ended 
a long time ago 
fallen through 
between grade schools
and abandon. 

All that lingers 
in false hope
turned over cynical 
and everyone wanted 
more than one could give. 

They all got theirs
pieces of action
and I was covered 
with fallen feathers 
from dead birds. 

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100322B
-----------

Anything interesting 
rolled over round
and made forbidden 
long trails marked
habits of boredom. 

So much linger 
unable to reconcile
profit and cost available
selections at identical
random formed madness. 

Mazed paths 
created by people
sought to evade various
collection agents 
spirits of repo men. 

If anyone liked it
it was yesterday
there being nothing 
up for tomorrow 
but wilted stems. 

Dried out tubes 
for shooting stars
rushed through 
left trailing sensations
into perpetual loss. 

Flowering was cut
down in youth 
left to being used  
for something seedy 
then spat out. 

That worn out wad 
was thin chew 
until absorbent 
fragile knots
tied tight entrails. 

No one near enough
to hear the scream
follows a string 
into tin can forever 
leaving marks on walls. 

Waving goodbyes 
in wind swept 
dust hits watery 
eye blurs blink
each forever defeat.  

A flood of time 
bringing same 
trash canned round
vomit fragments
of lost childhoods.  

Flashed semaphore
mislead signals 
rake dead hulls 
sunk long ago 
into the downstream. 

See them drift 
sidewalk city 
dog faced vague
mutterings at things 
being conspiracies. 

Language wearied 
at own sharp lunges 
inflated in matters 
meant business hurl
of viral battles. 

You do not know me
I do not know you 
but there is everyone 
and being kept safe 
from true happiness. 

Crossed over long
way leaving 
bread crumb trail
blank valentines 
to forgotten names. 

You never called
and you never wrote 
which now seems wise
in the circumstance  
of crippled lives. 

Anything is a crutch 
to lean against 
when it all falls down  
from propped up
into tight corners. 

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260322A
----------- 

Peeling the onion 
to find empty
filled eyeball tears 
stains the pages 
of memory books. 

Invisible ink
an only means
left to writing 
the true stories 
which no one reads. 

What do we learn 
repeating ourselves
made up too familiar 
from cruel endings 
we tried to avoid. 

Avoided trying 
at grinding tongues 
into odd shapes 
fitting the openings
of ancient key slots. 

You avoid me 
and I avoid you 
having discrete feelings 
forever and never
to speak of such things.

Pain of learning 
whatever came along
seemed hard won 
serving common illusions 
once imagined goals. 

Counting gains 
the grieving losses 
nearly everyone practices
the same entry skills 
and similar withdrawals. 

Love was a mistake 
bad habits made
childhood acquisitions
making invisible friends
angry at you. 

Time is money
and never well spent 
midway provocation
nurtures another crowd 
composed of jealousies.

Crumpled notes 
never sent to any
become red faced  
suspects purloined 
by rat faced snickering. 

Every one of them
wanting something 
that they did not get 
and one does not have
for the for giving. 
 
Spill over brim 
sloppy weather times
tearing the hooks out 
of question marked skin
at another blood letting. 

Wounding always comes
at no extra cost 
and no need asking 
what remains in common
after too freely given. 

You failed to choose
what you don't ever choose 
for yourself friend 
and carefully enough 
sake of love or money. 

Little real difference 
between salutations 
and epitaphs 
graved into bleak 
and ugly outlooks. 

That peculiar violence 
strikes at a face
failed conformity to any
more usual moulds 
or hide away. 

It is whatever lies 
in confusion 
having been trashed 
several times at each
dared hopeful. 

Nothing to offer 
in a world of no more
than personal brands 
and recognition limited
to designer labels.

The eyes are always 
resented the most 
for their courage 
daring to look beyond
variable constraints. 

Furtive gazing 
looks for someone 
remaining unknown
and never actually there
wherever that really is. 

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060422A
------------ 

Paralyzing cold 
marking a long winter 
leaves the limbs 
only slowly 
thawing reluctance. 

We got through  
a softening land 
heaves winter burials
frozen emotion
prepared for display. 

Still want to colour
vast spaces between 
everyone's lines
where there is nothing 
but unbounded solitude. 

The old ways are no more
and no new ways for us
meeting anywhere 
amid perpetual discontent
and seasonal threats.  
 
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140422A
----------- 

Having been taken 
only as prisoners 
of a privacy culture
we are denied 
any existential validation 
of our loneliness. 

Loneliness is forbidden
to the lonely 
who are then punished 
for not hiding away 
their peculiar inadequacy 
from public view. 

Lonely is now unpopular 
and lonely is a threat 
to others 
who are comfortable 
in their own privacy 
not being disturbed. 

They are everywhere 
lost in their own thoughts
strung out tangles 
of themselves 
similar to the hairballs 
coughed out by cats.

They do not want you 
to know anything 
and they are terrified 
as to your whispering 
anything about yourself 
though the privacy barriers. 

Fenced off 
and no trespassing 
signs of do not disturb 
where fines are worse
than for violating 
parking spaces. 

Only the matter of who
and how 
they take it out of you 
and out on you 
for any alleged violations 
or any intent to violate. 

Neither your words
nor your body language 
must ever reveal 
anything of being guilty 
of being lonely 
when you are alone.

Someone will hate you 
if they suspect you 
being lonely 
and they won't want you 
anywhere around 
their private circles.  

There are strict rules 
about not letting anyone in
who appears to be alone
and looking lonely
meaning no way out
for the prisoners of privacy. 

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