Poems: 060123 - January 6th, 2023

171222A
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Been set free 
devious ways 
into never want
being that free 
out whatever was 
whomever were 
ways of before. 

Maladjusted to free 
a never likely 
feelings never right
free from that much
freedom past sudden
endings into more
nothing going on. 

At the end again 
gathered fray  end
little bits got away
with every strange
feeling maybe no
no one actually cared 
the way I once did. 

Mistakes made 
crux of baseless 
false information 
peppers grey matters
the salted meat 
repeatedly repatriated 
to new exile. 

Learn to differently
but too difficult late
really know besides
that it always once
worked better for 
someone doing 
bad jobs of it. 

When it ends 
ends sadder leaving
nothing much nothing
sense of wonder
concerns anything  
left something missed 
on the dead inside. 

Maybe the plan
and just maybe 
the program 
explains scene drops 
player mementos 
as to varied parts 
and forgotten names. 

I sort of remember 
what it was like 
but they keep saying 
this is freedom 
though I disagree 
and maybe never did
want being that free. 

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

281222A
----------- 

Was a time when
the rich man gave
of his money
and the beggar 
gave of his prayers. 

Now the beggar 
does not have a prayer
chance in this place
because all of his gods 
are far too rich. 

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291222A
----------- 

In the lacrimatorium 
where they keep the tears 
have been cried 
there are rows of vessels. 

There are eyes drifting 
in the liquid 
no longer able to see 
beyond immediate glass. 

Dissolving faces 
gradually slip away 
from recognition 
melting into flesh soup. 

Ashes to ashes 
and tears to tears 
until an angel pours it 
back into a sea. 

That is an ink 
can write worlds 
in invisible letters 
punctuated by sounds. 

I wanted to say 
but there was no one 
who was really listening 
so I screamed at the sky. 

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

020123A
------------ 

Stuff of greetings cards
celebrating the know nothing 
amid realities of living 
in these dirtied up times 
spreads a casual ignorance
in between confetti litter. 

Some trying at facsimile  
stupid sorted version selves
confident as if living it
as the buy into no more
than continued expenditures
forever verging exhausted.  

On edge or over goes 
but never any step back
from getting a hang of it 
being regular routine concerns 
buying a place in the usual
suspect line ups. 

It does not get you 
where you wanted to be 
but it is the only game 
left in town and you
have to play at 
something or other. 

We send ourselves out
past arm twists of hopeful
about someone catching it
where it was thrown up
as another disease condition
we must keep to ourselves. 

Haunted by promised
answers we cannot get
at any truly affordable price
but always reassured 
everything is still for sale
to those who have money. 

Caught up in a confusion
that has no way in 
and no way out again 
from being dangled over 
mid line of fractured pinata 
sways of disaster.

You have it in you 
but that is only guts 
you have failed to spill 
parading your skin bag 
and trying to sell yourself
in some other's want ads.  
 
Last year's unsaleable 
fashions no one is buying 
know what was needed 
was everything new 
at every new turn down
along that winding road. 

The winding road 
never leads to your door
a long way down 
from all that trying 
to get up to it 
being spent for nothing 
and made obsolescent. 

They do not want 
whatever you did before
and they do not want 
what you were going to do
but there is no telling 
what they really wanted. 

It is not the real you 
that they want to fabricate
from whatever remains 
but they know you in ways
preventing anything
you ever wanted. 

Pick up your own bruises 
from that chew of floor 
been run over worn
out what never gets to be 
past common pipe dreams 
staining memory books. 

An open and shut case 
study of any life consumed
and any life eliminated 
in endless ways we tend to
being consumed 
and then eliminated. 

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

030123A
----------- 

The coldest times 
came electric tingle 
tips of finger stretch 
into the emptied of.

The body shows  
no actual mercy 
on any level of chaos
and persistent demand. 

There are the members
of what dissipated 
and subsequent dissolution 
past varieties of lost cause. 

It is too expensive 
to even try to open up 
about anything special 
might have been a plan. 

There is the move away 
from anything interesting 
into all the moans 
and related forfeitures. 

That is part of the design
afflicting a human universe 
where beauty and truth are
always its biggest lies. 

Forever seems too short
but the day too long 
trying to grasp at 
another fictitious meaning. 

We could make things up 
to meet typical expectations 
filling in endless spaces
created tooth and claw. 

If you write about it 
too many will know 
and it will not come true 
because of envy and spite. 

If you do not write about it
then they will accuse you 
as to a lack of vision 
and failures of imagination. 

Another part turns to chorus 
in a latest spate of ignored 
discomforts and complaints 
added to an outcast disregard. 

It was pieced together 
from the various things 
that were made to suffer 
and not much else involved. 

There are no indications 
anything can be done 
apart from the emptying out 
of failed possibilities. 

Even the available pain killers 
come up merely snake eyes 
in a vast rigged casino concern 
about conflicting wants. 

Everyone always wants  
something one does not have
and they do not ever settle 
for anything else or less. 

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

030123B
------------ 

Cannot afford the space 
knowing the devil took it all 
and the devil never gives back
the way the empty grows 
into a gulp and swallow what 
ever was thought might not
eat away and left overs 
marginal inside soft shelled 
sort of slow poke kinds of life
get left concrete shore prod
long line salted dove tails
straggle to falls behind. 

We are the stranded ones 
ghosts of our little ones 
counting up whatever we have 
left as the left out of where 
we don't know how any 
pulls out from nothing but
what has been taken way
together times being cut
off points a bam blam always
gone to bloodied up ends 
a contrived show
saying everything same.  

I only know I don't have it 
and I don't know any 
about where it went 
but what I know is it was
never never meant being 
anything and land a way 
but that is any goes if
they make it go their way
only devil knows what
that way really is to come
when it comes down to all
the ways it ends. 

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

030123C
----------- 

The goings on and going 
to don't know where it is 
going to be gone to 
and the steady drizzle drops 
accumulating countless sort
impossibilities formed
vague outline sketching
their cameo portraits 
in a disturbed blur 
of sidewalk puddles. 

We collect the reminders 
suggestive of romance 
belongings to various others 
the way purloined chords 
belong to an accordion 
plaintively teasing for coin 
sublimated repeat 
pump action lacks
any means to afford 
the luxury of a monkey. 

Sometimes even the sadness 
is something that is lucky
in between feeling a rise
contents under emotive pressure 
that cannot be released 
into polite society runs
circles round your head 
squealing their smiles
the way pigs sometimes do
when they become excited. 

You play the heavy  because
it is all you know how to do
even if it really is another 
out of character role leaving
an unfortunate trail of moments 
the way tomorrow's sweepings
are today's dropped crumbs 
remains unwanted bits 
that lacked the charisma 
to seduce other appetites. 

Pictures of gone worlds 
we can no longer explain 
by means of desiccants
and additions of preservatives
trying to keep them going 
as paralyzed moments 
passed off as recollections
past the cruel winding down
cataloguing all the species 
that are various types of loss. 

There is a piece of paper 
for each specific instance 
stashed in a file cabinet 
signifying everything 
somewhere in nowhere 
as to its sayings of nothing 
concerning real natures 
and any such misfortunes 
disguised as formalities
forgetting names. 

They want me to change 
my clothes, my car, my life
but it is too late for that 
and I could never change 
everything or near enough 
every time the cock crows 
or the bell tolls knowing 
you will not like what I have
and what I have had to become
on verge of an extinction. 

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

030123D
----------- 

I did what I had to do 
but fully knowing 
that it is never enough 
no matter what it is. 

Never enough to reach 
that far out into where 
there is anything 
I really craved. 

They do not provide
any such simple comfort
preferring complicated 
and futile diversion. 

Filling in the gaps 
the way one fills in spaces
against the wet and cold 
intrusions of sex and death. 

They never seem to let 
go to anywhere far enough
from any well rutted track 
channel of same old thing. 

Deemed reckless 
down ordinary mud holes 
that nothing comes out of
belching more disdain. 

I am tired of the way 
all such things go 
and would have preferred 
to live a Hollywood fiction. 

Wondering how they can 
act that way in front of us
as if their lovely shoes fit 
our ugly and deformed feet. 

Our forever looking for 
something that seems 
more truly our own instead 
of whatever, and there is.

All the styles of pretend 
and the ways of make believe 
that take up our time 
and make us so very poor. 

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

030123E
----------- 

There is that estrangement again
that seems to have crossed over 
among various other shades 
representing disconnections 
creating a torn loose dangled
something that once had purpose 
but is now defiant of use. 

That touch and go condition 
malingering on a stray phrase 
stripped down of any  real
motive or intention into 
meaningless acts that could
be most easily betrayed 
by nearly anyone.

We pretend we are completing 
some sort of puzzle 
that we are supposed to complete 
while convincing ourselves 
as to some type of justification 
and maybe there is a prize 
when, if ever, it is all done. 

Something to substitute 
in place of secret dreams 
that we feel forbidden 
to ever really live in 
being hidden away 
within the darker spaces 
of our censored minds. 

Why don't we want 
to live like other people 
and do the things 
that other people do 
but that reassures us 
of our incurable condition
as to a mental leprosy. 

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