Poems: 070323 - March 7th, 2023

030323A
----------- 

Was not looking up
and was not looking down 
but only looking straight at
whatever was appearing there
on that visible horizon. 

Show me something else
on that visible horizon 
and I will look straight at 
whatever I can see 
in seeing that far. 

Cannot see anything more
and cannot see anything less 
than whatever there is to see 
to look straight at 
on that visible horizon.

Do not blame me 
for looking down or up 
when all there is to see 
is whatever I look straight at
on that visible horizon. 

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030323B
----------- 

Machinery works
the way we used to work
before being damaged
and made obsolete. 

Becoming curiosities 
that are less marketable 
than random old bones 
feeding a gnawing hunger. 

We were caught up 
in the machine jaws 
holding us in that crunch 
of mechanized progress. 

Leaving us as neither 
strange enough 
for the strange nor 
pleasing to the ordinary. 

We sit as would the birds
on that thin fence line
of parcelled out existence
already wrapped up and tied. 

The day comes quickly 
when they gather the sacks
that stand and wait in line
along the boulevard. 

The battlefield is strewn 
with the remains of giants
and of dwarfs 
fighting for some space. 

Only inner space is left 
for the progeny of serfs 
to explore as they in and out 
of aluminum and glass towers. 

A crowd becomes bored
with an orgy of blood gush 
from broken skin bags 
spurting exclamations. 

They move on to a peep show
trying to catch a small glimpse 
of forbidden sex acts clipped 
from reruns of Wild Kingdom. 

What they really want 
is to suck on a dart 
that comes straight 
from a tranquilizer gun.

Rumour is that feels better 
than being enslaved 
to the humourless machines 
that count your key strokes. 

Before being returned 
to the same cages 
that were crawled out of 
early in the morning. 

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

040323A
------------ 

Looking back  
at the dribble 
that you wrote 
in the beginning 
of history
gives a new value. 

Watching the worm 
word crawl across
the scribble page 
turning to limp smear
spilled ink blots
of reinterpretation. 

It needs preserving 
because it is history
and proves belonging 
to a specious intent 
sharing much the same
as to typographical errors. 

Another sample 
to store in formaldehyde
another little worm 
that was saved 
from the sharp beak 
of the early bird. 

The wrong code 
inserted somewhere 
into a genetic alphabet
as a scrambled encryption
of egg and sperm
cooked in heat. 

What came of that 
being nothing much 
and even less of any
that any would want
to let worm its way 
in to the feeding frenzy. 

Taking off the costumes
the shark is human 
and the human is a shark
but it always bites you 
when you enter the pool. 

There are little worms 
that take the living 
sharks and men 
turning them soft 
as a dead worm. 

The crush ends under 
another heavy foot 
grinding down 
into the squish burst 
that is nothing but 
primordial sausage. 

There was a time when
you tried to follow
any of the chosen 
out into the woods 
in hopes of being tied
to a tree of your own. 

Your limbs gathered 
into a tight bundle 
that they intend to use
for some kindling 
believing in no more 
than your warmth. 

Left to being no more 
than a twig carried off
by a clever bird 
for constructing a bower
from false memories
of future architecture. 

An ancient manuscript 
gone dry and brittle
crumbling parchment
rolled up as bone 
to hide the marrow
from forever hunger. 

There are lasting marks
on the pavement 
where the worm squirmed 
in final throes 
of a last supper of stale
flesh and rancid blood. 

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

040323A
------------ 

You believed in a future 
when you started out 
counting things 
and reciting the alphabet.

You always thought 
there was a future 
in everything 
they gave you to do. 

You learned to keep silent
and to believe in them 
without sound or question 
in between punishments. 

Where was that future 
in anything you came to
and in anything 
they gave you to do ?

There was nothing in it 
nothing in it for you 
but keep on counting things
and reciting the alphabet. 

Seems you never got it 
never really got it right 
stringing together numbers
and bits of the alphabet.  

It was a secret combination
and you never really could
ever open that tough lock 
that lets the future in. 

They kept telling you 
the  future was out there 
waiting for that lock to open 
that lets your future in. 

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

040323B
-----------

Nothing to win 
but it is all about winning
and what did you win
in have to win something 
at that is the way 
the game is always played. 

So there is no prize 
for any of that and what 
is there to win at 
when you have to win 
at something, anything
in everyone's game. 

Something to show for it
that you can sell or trade
for something that is not
really anything for sale
but it only goes to winners
so you have to win something. 

So you go to the carnival 
where everyone always goes 
listening to the yelling 
from the carney barkers 
promising to make 
winners from losers. 

So you get to try to climb
that well greased pole 
because there is a prize up high
where almost no one goes 
past the slip slide down side
of clinging to up. 

The carneys get a laugh 
at those who hit the bottom
and some try it again 
because they have to win 
they have to win something 
to get something else. 

Spend your whole life 
trying to win something 
that you never really win 
and it is a slip slidey down 
common style of life 
where you never really win. 

But you always have to win
you have to win something 
to get something else 
and so you are always trying 
to win something 
at every new carnival show. 

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

040323C
------------ 

There are lots of mistakes 
that you can make 
but no one will tell you 
what those are 
until you have made them. 

Trying to avoid the mistakes
that happen to be fatal 
will take your energy and time
and that means getting hurt
in so many other ways. 

The subject is always closed
and you will never win 
no matter how right you are
because that is the way 
the powerful rigged their game. 

You are the unfortunate player
who is being played 
mostly you get to watch 
how some others get to play
but you cannot join in. 

You failed to do it right
as to doing the bad things 
that all of them did 
and that puts you at risk 
of being executed. 

More ways to die 
than there are ways to live 
as beads on a long string
comprised of terminations
not making the cut. 

The worst sorts of death 
are those you do not die at
left to lingering outside 
the doors to those parties 
where you lacked any invites. 

No one called your number 
and no one wrote 
your forbidden name 
outside a bulging dossier 
outlining your failures. 

You do not have the means
and besides that fact 
it is all so very rusty 
you will never open it up
past the obstacle course 

If nothing else stops you 
the red tape monkeys will 
stop you dead in your tracks
but the bet is on you never will
ever get that far. 

Your life line cut shorter 
than the red tape is stretched 
and your pockets emptied 
more times than black holes
swallowed up the stars. 

You never want to give up 
but everyone gave up on you 
a very long time ago 
and there never really was
anyone in your corner. 

They never did understand 
and fact is they never would
and never really want to
lying that it does not matter
there was no one on your side. 

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

070323A
------------ 

Could never find any 
personally pleasant dreams 
to actually set me free 
by tangling pleasantly up 
in ways that I could desire. 

They used to tell me 
that it was all available 
to those who want some 
but that too was another lie 
that I used to go for. 

It does not really matter 
it would have done some good
and would have done no harm
because all they really want 
is another way to hurt you. 

Everything is available 
but it is never anything for you 
and that way they can hurt you 
in infinitely more ways 
than there are letters in alphabets. 

You can read the manuals 
but you can never really practice 
anything that creative or strange 
left to pretending at normal 
in all those boring normal ways. 

Even the witch gave you 
nothing but a poison candy 
left to believing you could find
something bright and sweet 
among those attractive offerings. 

Love potion number nine 
plays out on cosmic radio
but the doctor left it off 
any of your prescriptions 
so that left you deprived. 

You do not get any here 
and you did not get any there 
not knowing where 
any of them actually meet
in a secret handshake club. 

Could never make it as far 
as affording any of those dues 
knowing the price of anything 
is forever and ever rising 
keeping cookie jars out of reach. 

Tangled up in yesterdays 
could never afford any tomorrows 
you are left off the rosters 
and no longer listed to anyone 
for any alien sorts of contacts. 

Anything is available 
to someone somewhere 
but all you really found or got
was a roll of the loaded dice 
that took you out of the game. 

You were no one's candy 
that they wanted to wrap up 
in any more pleasant ways 
leaving you tangled up tight 
on the other side of reality. 

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

070323B
----------- 

The stuffing knocked out 
of your teddy bear life 
you want to pin it together 
from bits and pieces of false
furs and skins. 

No one to patch you up 
and no threads left 
to sew anything together 
despite all that needling.

Rubber bands and wires 
with fully adult intent 
could perhaps hold together
what is all falling apart
along your broken seams. 

You feel it is time to be
that other doll that ends up
in the doll hospital 
of collected cracks 
and peeling away paint.  

If only you had a nurse 
who straps you in 
to that metal and leather 
propping you up 
in among your memories. 

The fragile soft parts contained 
inside a stiff celluloid skin
has that turtle shell look 
from the hips to the collar
made to look totally upright. 

Your paralysis grows
sitting in the corner
a hobbled pile of broken 
connections and randomized 
social neuropathies. 

No one seems to care or want
a broken doll teddy bear 
once the stuffing is out 
to take it around to anywhere 
where she could show it off. 

If she really cared she could
serve as another sort of crutch
wheeling around your barrow 
of accumulated memorabilia
as she plays with body parts. 

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