Poems: 200523 - May 20th, 2023

030523A
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I cannot say 
and I cannot say it is
going particularly well
though it is going 
even if going nowhere
other than going around 
in dwindled circles.  

The crowd thinned 
to next to nothing left 
and the flock dying out 
due to unknown causes 
the making of plans 
rendered redundant 
becomes far too trivial.

We tell our usual lies 
self promoting 
our common deceptions
in between consigned 
to watching a few more 
tawdry little spectacles 
disguised as entertainment. 

No one does anything 
that used to be done 
in any satisfying ways 
and we are given our selves
to take all the blame 
for how it has all changed 
into less than truly pleasant. 

Seems interesting people 
no longer actually shop 
at the same outlets 
that we are given to frequent
creating serious doubts 
about their actual existence 
in these times have changed. 

Do nothings have taken control 
of the social slaughterhouse
stamping and signing 
those endless declarations 
that define what is unwanted 
outside of common and tedious
mass market produced things. 

We become witnesses 
to the death of the individual 
and that new epiphany 
that sanctifies and prepares 
for the artificial and robotic 
takeovers of action, reaction 
and of love and consciousness. 

It is no longer your choice 
and they tell you it never was 
so you keep tangling the strings
until the hand that jerks you around
threatens to not feed you 
for being too much trouble 
as it fingers your ugliness and faults. 

It is only your non conformity 
that then keeps you nearly alive 
even if everything falls short 
of being anything to be realized 
as anything that is truly living 
in terms of being experience 
that could escape the ordinary. 

It is the excess of ordinary 
that is really killing us slowly 
and some eventually decide 
to make their quick exits 
by the few remaining doors 
that let them out of the same old 
more, and more, of the same. 

Existence having been reduced 
down to being a revolving door 
at the entrance to a department store
where you are shown everything 
that you can possibly have 
but mostly cannot really afford 
for showing off to make friends. 

Why does it matter if it is going
and where it is going to 
or if it is going anywhere at all
and in a million years 
where has it all gone to 
so where is it all going to go 
in a million years from now. 

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130523A
----------- 

It is only to shoot you down 
as to what they are up to
while slathering what they think
is your ego and vanity 
in a fattening up for a kill. 

All that buttered up for nothing 
more than browning your roast 
while pretending to eat up 
everything that you say or do
while they sharpen their knives. 

They do not trust you at all 
because they know you 
having had the experience before
that makes it all more hollow
than a hollow sort of victory. 

No one really wins anything 
until the clown show ends
and even then it is nothing 
more than a booby prize 
that is really for the birds. 

It gets to that point 
where you no longer care 
what they happen to say 
because you no longer believe 
even one stale word of it. 

Then they cut you off 
and for them it is a slice 
that does not give a damn 
about the raw or the cooked 
side of any of your ideas. 

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170523A
----------- 

It is the various decisions
other people make 
that ruin it all for you 
but you take all the blame. 

That makes you feel real 
and it makes them into illusions
that you chanced to create
in your own sick imagination. 

They could never be like that
and what were you thinking 
in that sick mind of yours 
that thinks ill of any of them. 

You know there is no one 
who is ever really the way 
that you think that they are 
and you will never get it right. 

You disassociate yourself 
and you lock yourself in
to a mandatory privacy bubble 
with whatever you do not need. 

There you commune with the dead
immersed in what they left behind
then they packed it in 
at having had and lost too much. 

There is a war, there is a war
between anyone about anything 
that breaks out anywhere 
where you least expected it. 

You needed something different
but you never knew what it was
and if you ever do know anything
it is too late to make any difference. 

They do not want you to know
but they want to know 
anything you keep to yourself 
so they can talk about you. 

Whatever it is that they say 
that they never say to your face 
is deforming your future for you  
in sleazy back room discussions. 

Given the sort of mental deformity
that perfectly suits a bell ringer 
dangled from the clanger 
that clangs annoyingly on high. 

People still get rubbed out 
but rarely the old school way 
so most get to experience more 
of what is now called cancel culture. 

No need to even try 
because that is the trouble 
and it all begins right there
with trying to get somewhere. 

You notice the people who never try
all appear to be more popular 
and they seem to have the money 
that you can never find any of. 

Part of the disincentive system
that helps promote gambling and vice
along with other similar rackets 
as the more popular pastimes. 

Everyone else is terrified of you
because you failed to take that slide
that coasts down easy hill 
and they do not want to work at it.

You are not going anywhere 
that you could ever want to go
but that too is a choice 
someone said that you made. 

You thought you had the time
to somehow figure it all out 
counting up the knots 
and toying with the abacus. 

You once counted rosary beads
but it was nothing religious 
beyond another little episode 
of playing at another pop culture. 

You add up the sum of friends
that you could actually afford 
and then you realize the fact
you are still massaging debts. 

Whatever it really was 
it did not get you in 
any further than stale rumours 
of their fabulous parties. 

They decided your spend 
was nowhere near enough 
and word got around 
what a cheapskate you are. 

You thought you really could
make it all up to yourself 
to get on your feet forward
but that is not the way it works. 

Someone else got there first 
to make a complete mess of it all
so then they dirtied you up 
with all that futile clean up. 

You never found your luck
and there were no lucky breaks 
but in between attempts 
you could put up a pretense. 

You live on that borderline 
of condemned for pretending 
and not being taken for real 
no matter how you do it. 

They never want the reality 
so you feed them an illusion 
that you keep just for them 
knowing they expect that. 

Every path you were on 
you had to dance along 
to a different drummer 
but no one played your song. 

If you could play it yourself 
you know no one would listen 
as they hate any one man band 
as something too annoying. 

They will not dance to your tune
and you cannot dance to their's 
but even if you could go that far
they would never dance with you. 

Nowadays they refer to all that
in entirely different words
as the pursuit of happiness 
saying you have to be happy. 

There is no choice about that
that you have to be happy 
and if you are not totally happy
there is something wrong with you. 

Complaints department is closed
and the guarantees expired long ago
so there is no money back 
no matter how you beg or work for it. 

There is no place for discontent
among today's little mobs 
resembling animated emulations 
of officially catalogued influencers. 

You can wallow in the digital mud
covering yourself with it 
trying to not be recognized
as anything they hate you to be. 

Follow the bouncing tweets 
and talk like the characters 
that are seen on the screens 
of what now passes as culture.

What can you do now 
when doing is so unpopular 
and if you do anything 
you will be doing it alone. 

Particularly if it is anything 
that is not being done by the others
who all try to do the same things
to not upset factory production. 

You will never make it 
as to making anyone happy
because it is a sell out crowd 
where you can never belong. 

You never made the right choices 
whatever those actually were 
and it has been a very long time 
since you thought that you knew. 

You came from a gone world 
and your species was wiped out
or maybe you were wiped out
and they all moved on from there. 

You are that mutant thing 
that has no idea where it belongs 
having missed the last train 
that carried off all of the evolved. 

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180523A
------------

Thought that you would call
or show up somewhere 
at some far end of it all 
that amounts to the unexpected. 

I always really hoped 
you are someone I never knew
because that breaks the patterns
of casual and usual disappointments. 

And besides all of that 
there really is almost nothing left
as to anything that I used to be 
for someone to scrape up. 

There are too many mistakes 
that they gave me to making 
and the damage points 
have annihilated my character. 

Leaving me on the vague side 
of what was once flesh and blood
only really wanted by anyone
if it was entirely unavailable. 

The joystick is stuck 
and it fails to toggle properly 
so the lips fail to move 
the way they are supposed to do. 

No one ever really wanted 
what they could actually have 
unless it was for the sole purpose
of dragging it around to rejecting it. 

Cats and dogs do it that way 
bringing you something that is dead
as a special sort of present
and people do it in a similar way. 

Another less than subtle meditation
about the nature of power 
and how I never give them enough 
to make it worth their bother. 

Not having enough to give 
tends to play out that way 
and I never really learned 
how to hurt someone properly. 

If I were a kintsukuroi vase 
maybe you would still notice me 
out from among the better made
where I am only the damage. 

For years having tried so hard
to find a way to find you 
only to find it is never that way
that one can chance to be found. 

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180523B
----------- 

Not sitting on the clouds today
and cannot really escape 
that sudden free fall feeling 
where it all goes down again 
from carried up to nothing special. 

I wonder if anyone does it anymore
or if everyone is playing it safe 
as to maintaining strict boundaries 
of the most severe boredom 
disguised as predictable habits. 

Feels as if I have not met anyone 
at least anyone interesting and new
in what seems a thousand years 
that being the same duration 
they predicted for the Third Reich. 

And that lasted far too long 
the way some marriages tend to last
until those wars come to an end 
followed by long war crimes trials 
and the usual armistice agreements. 

Not saying it is always that way
and not making a blanket condemnation
as to what gets bundled up 
and what ends up getting thrown out 
in the course of making histories. 

Most people seem to like to pretend 
that there is no actual bomb
poised hanging above their heads
and that home means something more
than a potential ground zero.

We do not want to disturb them 
with anything that might seem serious
and that tends to limit the subjects 
to who died, who lived, and sexy sports
and wondering who is screwing who. 

You have to close your mind up tight 
to anything remotely resembling reality 
if you really want to live there 
in between the hidden debt loads 
and the lurking bill collectors. 

It passes as a sort of no man's zone
from where you hear shots being fired
because someone got pissed off 
about who got something or someone 
in all the getting that was going on. 

I would have rather have done cocktails
at the Hemingway in Paris 
but I am down to the dregs of a cheap beer
trying to convince myself by myself 
that that is actually a form of enjoyment. 

There is something screaming inside of me 
similar to that alien burst of birthing  
that says get me out of here
but there is no sign of any extrication 
from where I am pinned down. 

What does it really do when it comes
all crashing down again as it goes 
and all that you really wanted to do 
was to go to a really posh party 
to have what passes as a wild time. 

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180523C
----------- 

We used to get together somewhere 
which was somewhere that was 
before they screwed us out of it all 
and that becomes the routine outcome
of that and any other procedure. 

If I knew money the way some know it
there could have been something 
instead of being The Hermit who wanders
between the concrete and the stars 
looking for any more credible visions. 

Must have over reached myself 
and it all comes down 
to that falling backwards as a child
into some permanent condition 
of caught half way between worlds. 

Someone already burned The Lovers 
because they saw a devil in it 
and I am so tired of playing The Fool 
pulling my broken but heavy chains 
along that narrow edge of a drop. 

Why did I even bother to teeter 
and totter the brink of the abyss 
rather than simply leaping into it 
feet first in an act of total submission
as another easy way of letting go.  

Isn't that what most of them do 
not even caring anymore 
if there is anyone down there 
to catch them when they go down
on whatever they go down onto. 

Even the devils are now singing
those same old hallelujahs 
as if anyone can please the Lord 
if they engage in any sort of battle 
under their propped up battle kings. 

There was nothing on any papers 
so they rolled them up as scrolls 
dissipated into puffs of smoke 
becoming dark angel wings 
meant to carry someone off. 

That is how it sometimes goes 
as to a tiny little spark that is seen
between the death and life of it
between the afterbirth and the decay
that can take up a few moments. 

The Ace of Cups once overturned 
is nothing but an empty flagon
and all the placards now 
on other people's wailing walls 
in those far less pleasant temples. 

There is no one to give it back 
once it has gone that way 
but we are nothing much more
than the knives that are stuck 
in our backs at the end of our day. 

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180523D
----------- 

 Wishing there was somewhere to go
but there is nothing in the catalogue 
pertaining to various current events
that is in any way really interesting. 

We wanted something very different 
to playing those sorts of games 
and vainly claiming to everyone 
that any of it does us any real good. 

We could make false claims 
that we grew out of what there was
not needing or wanting it anymore 
so we freely gave it all up. 

For the sole purpose of regrets 
that then keep circulating 
the way canned music circulates
and never seems to die down. 

We are left pretending to lap up 
the replacements to all of that 
the way a cat laps up fresh milk 
even if we have no taste for it. 

At least that is something white 
and white is now all the latest rage
among those who are all pretending 
that they really are someone. 

Made as pure as a white out 
in the middle of a white out winter
that purges out the sky 
and covers everything else over. 

After all it can take up the time 
and we can always make believe 
that we were far less lonely to visit
any of those filling stations. 

Sniffing those heady vapours 
we can smash against bedtime 
pummelling a crush of pillow 
with more convincing arguments. 

We simply had the wrong ideas 
about what there would be to do 
somewhere at the start of it all 
until the accountants stepped in. 

They put meters on everything 
to monitor the prices we have to pay
for more desirable bits and pieces 
of what amounts to nothing. 

I tell you it was not always that way 
but you never believe what I say 
and you then refuse to actually look
at the Memento mori I have collected. 

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180523E
----------- 

That wild shot into the void 
of what is purely personal 
that no one wants to really share
as to finding it so disturbing.

Trying to avoid the so much more
as though avoiding forbidden 
on endless new revisions
added to lists of mortal sins. 

As though there is not much left 
that can remain guilt free 
and all that looking around 
to make sure others are doing it. 

All those who are worried sick 
about always being safe 
and keeping everything healthy 
until it is a full time obsession. 

There are healthy obsessions 
and there are various enjoyments 
which then create the conflicts 
that clutter up any mental spaces. 

All of that is really about work 
being redefined and redefining us 
as properly intellectual bulimics
vomiting what might get in the way.  

There are more things killing you 
than are intent on keeping you alive
and you never really learned 
to look after yourself. 

So you take your instructions 
from any number of sources 
telling you want you must always do 
and what you must never do. 

There is not much left 
beyond running in repetitive circles 
in an effort to rediscover sleep 
before the morning alarm goes off. 

It comes right down to where 
you choose to shop and to what 
you choose to buy there 
kept in fear of being left out. 

They only pay for the brand names
and not everyone can have one
but a lot of people are trying 
to brand themselves for sale. 

It is what you cannot afford 
that will end up killing you 
and the price is always sky high
grasping at a prayer of a chance. 

You used yourself up on the way 
until you got too worn out 
for anyone to really bother with
as to adding you in to their plan.

You paid the wrong price 
and it never bought any favours
no star on your door 
and nothing on the calendar. 

You get a dirty look 
in exchange for your trouble
and someone is telling you 
even the king is a fink. 

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

180523F
---------- 

No one looks after anything 
that you do not do yourself
but you never thought of that
and you realized it too late. 

You get to live with that 
but that is all that you get 
to actually live with 
leaving gaps you cannot fill. 

Feeling as though a slave
accused of running away 
creating breaks in your record 
even if it is a false accusation. 

There is no defence 
and you are always guilty 
no matter how you turn it 
and no matter what you say. 

No one is ever saved by work
but everyone is seeking salvation 
despite their denials of belief 
in anything or anyone. 

We fall through the holes 
in that or anything there is 
and the only thing it proves 
is that no one really cares. 

Forgotten or too late 
ends up being all there is 
and it fell through the holes 
that eat up bits of any life. 

There is the lost and the broken
that you cannot ever replace 
and nothing ever comes back 
when it is gone without a trace. 

They came and they went 
but none of them chose to stay
making you feel something then
but most of that feeling delayed. 

Worked too long and hard 
getting nothing for that 
while creating vape trails 
of dissipated memories.  

No one actually remembered
and no one ever came around
having better places to be gone to
and better things to be done to. 

Squandered the love 
and you know it scores nothing
where no one was anything 
more than dreamy eyed. 

Once had a dream and dreamt 
a dream of trying to live it
not knowing how not to  
that could make any difference.  

After that it recurs in the night 
coming up in various disguises 
that seem far less pleasant 
than what it was meant to be. 

Even in theory it is all closed 
as another forbidden subject 
crossing hard lines and fences
angers always angry fates. 

It is only another bad feeling 
to be made guilty about 
even if feelings do not last 
in the ways they come and go. 

It went to the better 
and it went to the worse 
but in between all of that 
it falls through holes. 

It will never be again 
but then it never really was 
and that is how holes are made 
where we thought we had choices. 

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180523G
----------- 

Used to go for all the reasons 
that there ever are for going 
but then that too ended 
the way too much ended before
and too much always ends. 

Seems nowhere left to go 
if you really want the sort of life
that I always really wanted 
knowing no one does any of that 
anywhere anymore. 

Between the rummage and junk
and between the coming and going 
from the nothing gets done 
there were the times we believed
it would all go differently. 

You find you are in confession 
not having the price of admission
having been stopped at the door 
where you tore up your entry 
lacking any pleas to deaf ears. 

The ticket you thought you had 
had  already exploded 
and that blows everyone away
even if it is the wrong people
and it is to the wrong destinations. 

That cliche metaphor was used before 
but the original authors failed 
to decipher some of the meanings 
so we have to exhume that corpse
and examine the same thing again. 

That report needing to be filed 
along with other contrary reports 
having no better use for words 
that have reached the outer limits 
of what passes as our known universe. 

Missa Solemnis continues to play 
coming from sharp sides of bird beaks 
rending at anything that is unfortunate
enough to have fallen in to steadily
growing plagues of the usual failures. 

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