Poems: 250822 - August 25th, 2022

040822A
----------- 

You cannot cry anymore
once you have drowned
in your own tears. 

You float past 
a crowd of blinded eyes
all looking another way. 

Victims of drownings 
are commemorated 
where no one remembers. 

In such a crowded sea
plenty of  fish feeding 
on whatever falls in. 

People always fall in
until too late to get out
but most were pushed. 

They have long stopped
dredging the bottom 
for anything remained.

Lining up along a shore 
eagerly watching 
for the next drowning. 

Most are disinterested 
and do nothing but skim
across the surface. 

Whites of eyes become dry
then crumble away sudden
into outbursts of spores. 

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

050822A
------------ 

People give us things 
that fall like bird droppings
onto tarnished statues. 

A sort of white wash 
picket fence property line 
demarcation of relations. 

Playing statues as children
was the first lesson 
in status and statue symbols. 

We retain things a while
knowing full well 
they will require disposition. 

Some sought to indebt us
while others pretended 
to repay various debts. 

It is said everyone counts
for something
in any balance of payments.

Any commerce of things
is always very complicated 
and it can be very cruel. 

Sometimes nothing more
than a proxy substitute 
for paying attention. 

Sometimes an excuse 
meant as vain justification
for their deeper selfishness.

The thing on the shelf
lodged tightly in
to a convenient crevice. 

Temporary way stations 
everything stops at 
on its way to resting places. 

A funeral procession 
comprised of horse and cart
going to and from markets. 

We end up loading up 
in a wide variety of ways 
before realizing the burden. 

Another way some strive
to bury us alive in life
beneath their avalanches. 

If we wrap ourselves up 
those are the large packages
no one would want to open. 

There is that sarcophagus 
where we keep our wounds
wrapped in tar & bandages. 

Various offerings made
to the gods of the afterlife 
that they might enjoy them. 

After all and in conclusion
if you cannot enjoy it
then it must be for them. 

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

050822B
----------- 

Muggy heat seals in 
parts of your face 
into a preserving jar day 
of everything bottled up.

Voyeurs of others' lives 
we play all the games
where no one wins 
and no one admits losing. 

They don't like losers
and least of all honest ones
who sought to do better
because they might again. 

Many are kept hungry 
slavering sham commerce 
at no real meaning
pretenders at matters. 

Carried down the up 
bound by the slide away
crowds of well greased
along for a low life ride. 

No one really understands
what has become broken
having gone wrong being
pushed too hard right. 

You won't get any answers 
outside of the literal terms
of absolute agreements 
made with the common lies. 

Full speed ahead 
into the same crash scene
feeling a familiar crunch 
gone into fast forward. 

The quick want you dead 
outside their mercurial rise
in the tight embrace 
of Lady Amphetamine. 

World shudder shakes 
its economic engine heat
igniting the long road 
melted consistency of toffee. 

Sticky fiscal meltdowns 
amid violent global buildups 
as to food and money 
stockpiled insecurities. 

Plasticity intoxicates 
with the scent of malleable
road kill personalities 
litter of highways. 

Wanting to guzzle the night
becoming alien life forms 
glowing a neon ambient 
sensation of anything. 

Better than heaving out
contents of the day
over a toilet bowel 
retching with more disgust. 

What if it is true
about intelligent design
finding an entire universe 
the work of an evil clown. 

The other side of the coin
argues for committee work
despising individual efforts
having created any good. 

Grease paint in the mirror
doesn't seem to wash off 
from the Saturday night faces
that we greet on Sunday. 

Made too disagreeable 
in relation to the trend lines 
you take your sustenance
from remaining alone. 

The usual false claims 
asserting freedom of choice
becoming the hallmark 
argument for sanity. 

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

160822A
------------ 

Feeling a sense of exile 
to that tower 
far removed from sight 
and a ladder there 
no one who is welcomed
ever dares to climb. 

In a different life 
populated with more care
might be different words
rather than the many 
that have lost their common
and their meaning. 

Browsing the uncertain 
there is nothing there 
I could really want 
among too tenuous giving 
those vague expressions 
to what isn't really love. 

Mad dance antics 
around half crazed thickets
pretending dead coals 
the real hot stuff 
played out chimney sweep
into a dark and empty. 

They have it gulp down
something to drink to
in the abandonments
dwellings of habits
needs no real courage
in regards to same. 

I am gone out 
of context and place 
trying to put a finger on
something that could be
minded far more real 
than the jibber jabber. 

Can't find that circle 
that comes round 
in any my direction
left with a broken chair
where the music stops 
at rows of dead eyes. 

Crows feet and sparklies
never saw me leave 
to never coming back 
and if there ever was 
anything better stopped 
at a point of intoxication. 

Just another routine job
done in with no enthusiasm 
ending at done out when
the word gets around
among teeter totter crowds 
comprising ordinary lives. 

No good endings 
to any of those stories 
but we tell them anyway 
to have something to say 
in the perpetual break ups 
of impolite silences. 

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


180822A
------------ 

Which dream was that 
that someone came from
must have been one 
of those better dreams 
that I cannot remember 
making it all feel so unreal. 

Having seen party pictures 
that showed me how it was
and how it could be 
if one could find a way in
through anything as thin 
as a piece of paper. 

The world seems so unreal
existing as it actually does
between waking and sleeping 
the way solitude exists 
between others and self 
making both seem illusory. 

It only really matters 
or could really matter 
if it makes it seem unreal
as to the situation 
and the context 
arranging ordinary things. 

Everything we have at hand
is memento mori 
pertaining to lost lives 
could never be lived 
except as endless numbers
counting pointless deaths. 

Barbarous little hooks
getting under the skin 
in fish for something
gives all the pain 
associated to anything
held dear or precious. 

All would be nothing 
if it were not for that pain 
that differentiates 
continually stimulating 
diverse and futile searches 
for impossible cures. 

Whatever else happens 
there will be an awakening
and then it will all be over
the way it always is 
when anyone chances 
happenstance to dreaming. 

In the realization we could
never really have each other 
in any sort of dream 
but only our pitiful selves 
each driven to imagining 
something different. 

Same above as below 
any slice of the threshold 
whatever catches attention 
becomes come and go 
and go is gone forever 
thrust and parry to never. 

Never as to never again 
but not necessarily 
wanting it to be that way
at the blink of an eye 
speed of passage 
toward the next finality. 

Maybe we imagined 
there is something 
instead of the nothing 
usual menus every day 
garnished occurrences 
into detailed notebooks. 

Where there is no name 
no forwarding address 
and no connecting number 
written in between 
the lines of events 
annotated in the margins. 

The forbidden catch 
as to a stray eye 
becoming burst bubble 
signifying thin layer 
reflective disinterest 
momentary turn away. 

Timelines of incidents 
threatening intrusive 
countless afterlives 
cavorting a twilight 
comprised of tiny taunts
and big teases. 

I stand condemned 
as being lost 
for a transgression 
of trying to find you 
in everything I ever did 
everywhere I went.

The penalties are severe
and the entertainments 
always fail to satisfy 
though continually promise
much more than than causes
for a wandering attention. 

Interludes of imagining 
that they speak of us
in the gap between 
the guesses and the facts 
but it isn't really us 
because we stand alone. 
 
We don't really know 
where we are welcome 
made up as we are 
from all of the usual 
concealed parts 
and wrong intentions.

They want brilliance 
and they want angels 
but we are nothing 
that is that bright 
or even that pure  
under broken wings. 

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

250822A
----------- 

The taste for the flesh 
fails in the disappointments
concerning real intimacy 
leaving nothing much 
more than what is left of beasts
in the butcher shops. 

You can secretly wet yourself
with your tears and sweat 
bloody thrashing yourself 
with the impossibilities 
that left you your licking 
stale self sustained wounds. 

If that is what it takes 
to keep you going 
then that will have to do 
but there is an added toll 
exacted at the gate 
each instance of leaving. 

Nowadays public places 
are the parade grounds 
where sanity is a parade 
of the usual public lies 
closely observed by mobs 
by critical strangers. 

The style of criticism 
has changed again 
into new forms of silence 
where anyone can play 
at being the angel of death 
that passes over. 

Every form of sadness 
a feeling sorry for yourself 
in your pitiful state 
made typical needy greedy 
mouth waters its envy thirsts
for hallucinated salvation. 

You have to believe 
in buying what you require
and there is being let go
at every hour of need 
right to the bitter last 
better luck next time.

Entire lifetimes passing 
exactly that and away 
leaving a sense of dread 
that they will kill you 
if you want anything more
than the usual poisons. 

Blue sky reflects the meaning
of your social calendar 
displaced by long lists 
of vain attempts to do right 
to bolster failing belief 
that busier is happier.  

Seems no one really 
knows anyone 
and exposing yourself  
is increasingly unpopular
from under digital raincoats
into mental exhibitionism. 

Almost no one really cares 
what you happen to think 
and they care even less 
about what you think about
as they muscle in 
on nothing special.  

If you could only contrive 
to hide away a naked mind 
there is that vain hope 
you might yet succeed 
to be something popular 
to the public eye. 

If there were souls 
they were beaten to death 
in chin dribble exudations
comprising acts of philosophy
descended brutal variant 
genres of verbal porn. 

The great ideas don't sell 
so they aren't great anymore 
but you can find them 
in a curiosity shop 
in a vague far corner
behind the skulls and quills. 

If anything would suffice 
to make you happy 
it is either too expensive 
or it will be forbidden 
in your specific case 
leaving bits of voyeurism. 

You get to watch 
but you don't get to play
because they know 
that will hurt you more 
than all the other ways 
they hurt you before. 

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