Poems: 270623 - June 27th, 2023

140623A
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We invent end games 
to rival our beginnings 
in the undergrowth 
that becomes overgrowth
to conceal the darkness. 

We conceal more and more
with whatever we reveal 
trying to hide away 
the burden of our revelations
as to growth of our discontent. 

Few have the imagination 
as to practical alternatives 
all proving equally impossible 
but leaving a parade mustered
and marching through. 

They do not know where 
they are going or came from
but it is a concerted action 
that fills the emptiness 
in incomprehensible ways. 

The way sex sometimes fills 
an otherwise empty place 
in that private compartment 
along the rattle and bump 
defining of common journeys. 

You wanted much more 
but they always gave you less 
than what you needed to make
to buy your way out 
from another slow kind of death. 

Putting nothing back in 
where they take it out of you
and take it out on you 
until you cannot look forward 
and there is nothing behind you.

There is no way to stop 
the turn over and over 
when you are on that roll 
over and over and over again
as a Jack or a Jill going down. 

Take your broken crown 
knowing there is no mending 
of those fractured trinkets
once seemed wisdom's gems 
but only mocked the sparkle. 

What to actually do 
with life's trash filled bowers 
when the dance has ended 
as a maze of pointless steps 
never discovering any destiny. 

Destiny that is something more
than the same steps reproduced 
in a faith filled and faithful way 
that never questions any such 
belief in gametes of meaning. 

We hold on to whatever it is 
the winds would blow away 
from a stunted too short reach
becoming as crumpled up 
as is yesterday's news. 

We are folded completely up 
into our own wrinkles 
our paper thin skins stamped
with various processing marks
as to what we have been through. 

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140623B
----------- 

Those were the days back then
when it seemed there really was
somewhere to be gone to
gave an illusion of difference 
in a context of all possible worlds. 

Then taken and gone away 
there is that variant of purgatory 
past a bluff and dragged down 
where every gesture is a vague flail 
toward  impossible haunts. 

Joined to no more than ghosts 
dweller in death's dream kingdoms
offered vain solace to closed eyes 
tormented by lack of substance 
that slices everything away. 

Oh, what would have been done 
if apportioned means and ways 
for the sake of plans and doings 
before the light was snuffed out 
or boredom made its imbeciles. 

Having no business with any 
plague ridden festering ideas 
burst as infected shudders 
in perpetually fevered conditions 
that are neither dead nor alive. 

The brain being eaten at 
by a pressing sense of emptiness 
where the passing have thrown in
their discards and trash 
toward a gradual decomposition. 

Trying to fill in fragments of time 
with many a worthless salve 
invariably fails as curative 
physicians ignorant of answers 
and perceiving no actual malady. 

The normal condition being worse
than the various exceptions 
that they say can all be treated 
and sometimes actually cured 
back into the normal condition. 

What malingering state 
brings such profound discontent 
cleaving whatever soul might be
from any possibilities of moorings 
as if lost to all sense of harbouring. 

A stranded sense of being 
that finds itself on no actual map 
as to anywhere or any-when 
but left to that sort of wandering 
that knows of nowhere left to go. 

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140623C
-----------

Sugar drips of syrup sun  
into pools of hungry blue 
bounce of sky feathers 
on the touch and go waters. 

A blush on the dimple pool 
blazes in a bright of eye 
along the chatterbox stream 
meanders in merriment. 

A rustle among brittle reeds
announces a solitude 
causes a flutter of cries 
turned to scatter winged. 

Dropping their burdens 
in spates of hurry  down
necks of pillow cases 
adrift on verge of blankets. 

Feather dust fronds waving
watery edge of morning 
slippery in the wind chimes
whispering wild flowers. 

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140623D
----------- 

That faded out worn away 
look that gazes out 
into an expanse of nothing 
that would break the monotony. 

We have no actual business 
to enliven the bland repast 
creates the strained void 
cluttered with trivial afflictions.

A merely affected thing 
bereft of true foundation 
too poorly built for any stand 
that offers any real defence. 

Everything being defended 
in various trivial absurd ways 
from both the imaginary and real 
threats announced and announcing. 

Romance is not what it seems
but only for the curious 
and someone's passing fancy 
outside any deeper meanings. 

Mere vagrant tastings 
then spoil delicate fare 
of morsels that are nothing there 
but whispers of failed dreamings. 

Perhaps for the successful 
haunts of hallowed halls 
but not for one always outside 
all those mighty bolted doors. 

A world for the winners 
and not anything for fools 
who only know the jest 
but never any truer substance. 

With nothing to open up 
and nothing to do with any
beyond trivial comments
about the most trivial things. 

Silence takes hold 
as though a scold upon lips
bridling remnants of empty
hopes and other futile schemes. 

What point to speak anymore 
concerning the impossible 
and nothing else worth saying 
concerning truth in meaning. 

Truly nothing to be done 
related to worth that matters
makes all a foolish show 
rivals the ado about nothing.  

Movers and shakers know
what one knows naught
and there is no pilot to be found 
to navigate perpetual dark.

There is nothing sublime 
in feeling so outside solace
while the victors celebrate
their ways to the spoils.  

Leaves nothing to occupy 
and even less to absorb 
cruel passages of squalid time
ravaging remains. 

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140623E
----------- 

Life makes its demands 
and I cannot give answer 
in what remains unknown 
as to all the tallies up 
and all the various measures. 

Knowing no deep truths 
about any such grave matters 
as what is given up on 
in not even a prayer's chance 
beyond a shovel full of dirt. 

Nothing was ever fixed up 
nor was it ever arranged 
as anything more than grieving 
estrangements and changes 
provident of illusory futures. 

We prefer to believe differently 
and particularly about each other 
beguiling ourselves with inferences
to pure chance being kindness 
somehow directed and orchestrated. 

One builds private monuments 
to those sorts of tragedies 
knowing no recompense 
and bereft of opportunities 
to evade the too empty. 

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150623A
----------- 

Puttering with insignificance
as though it can be repaired 
in some make shift crude way. 

The make do sort of rigging 
that prevails in rough edged
renderings of crippled times. 

Tie yourself up and rope in 
for the inevitable rough ride 
that is taking you nowhere. 

Knowing no one will take you 
that you can stand a presence of
if you cannot take yourself. 

For the sake of getting there 
on an inevitable Rube Goldberg 
trying to imitate creation. 

Between the crude and the vulgar
try to make a bit of space 
finding no pull or push that way. 

Being somewhere in the middle 
but what they give you is the same
painted into corners of  short ends. 

Your constantly fierce incentive 
to attempt and do the impossible 
seeing that as a way out of suffering. 

An unshakable up against it feeling 
in the thick and thin of what takes
whatever you do not really have.

Everything is always borrowed 
and if you do not wear it out 
someone else will make use of it.  

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150623B
----------- 

Do not know if it means anything 
more than a jumble of patterns 
rearranged and read into 
because we want something 
and we demand it from them. 

How often do we really know 
what we really want 
in the not having any of it yet 
and knowing it is there 
hiding beneath the surface. 

There is the animal inside 
that wants to dig it out 
the way we dig splinters out 
from under the skin 
easing that persistent irritation. 

The way dogs dig holes 
throughout the entire yard 
mysteriously uncovering 
and variously burying 
instances of acquired meaning.

We bury those who have died
along with some of the living 
covering over with the dirt 
passes as a type of soil 
where existence is rooted. 

History is a mound of dirt 
where we imagine we can keep 
something we fear to lose 
that is mostly lost to us already
between cruel pitches.

Try to wash the dirt off hands
entirely stained with it 
while trying to uncover something
in a sifting out of values 
among  various valuables. 

A persistence in the need 
that needs to find something 
deeply buried somewhere 
and sometimes that takes it 
from the clutches of the dead. 

We are the grave robbers 
who are scratching and clawing 
at the reluctant ground 
in our unrelenting efforts 
to try to dig up a future. 

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160623A
----------- 

Being a victim of the voices 
that are in other people's heads
it really does not matter 
what you choose to say or do.

It becomes nothing more 
than the absolute futility 
of a carefully phrased question 
or a well considered argument. 

Latest spin dry version 
of a severely pressed and folded
laundromat brain 
tossed in to a clothes basket. 

Thought you could iron it out 
as to whatever it was 
before they bit into you 
in a mad dog sort of way. 

You become their chew toy 
carrying the impressions that say
that you were friends once 
or at least it seemed that way. 

Knowing they would crack you 
open right down to the bones 
to get any marrow out 
from what you thought secure. 

They do not leave anything 
beyond that tragic realization 
that you came to the wrong door 
for anything you came for. 

It does not matter to them 
that there were no other doors 
that you could actually come to
along that particular way. 

You have to stop somewhere 
but that will never take you 
anywhere you wanted to go
and the other lines are down. 

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160623B
----------- 

Never hear from anyone anymore
who lives in my little town 
but truth is I have been there before
and it is the same as returning
after having been away a long time. 

It makes one so much more aware
concerning all of the many changes 
that have chanced their intercession 
between any then and any now 
dangles from that thinnest thread. 

As if the ownership has changed 
away from anyone I used to know of 
and what was once made familiar 
has somehow passed away 
leaving conditions of estrangement. 

The points and ports of entry 
have all been closed long since 
and no effort or means to open them
would make any actual difference
as to long lost kitchen parties. 

Whatever was once there 
having long since been emptied out 
in all the various and many ways 
that contrive to create emptiness
then turning it to unaffordable. 

A vague feeling of discomfort
that accompanies the unfamiliar 
knowing the signs are wrong 
and the map is inadequate 
as to being any sort of actual guide. 

An uneasy feeling of having lingered
far too long in some particular place 
where a stranger is never welcome 
and you are less and less familiar
despite being kept waiting. 

That was never the planned visit 
but it is where the journey took you 
and if I had known of that 
I would have refused to go near
to that sort of shuttered place. 

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260623A
----------- 

They will keep you waiting 
until you run entirely short and out
the way an idled engine runs out 
from whatever fuels its enthusiasm. 

Sometimes there are appended parts
that remain in some type of motion
despite the  break down 
that has seized up any purpose. 

It is that sort of restraint 
becomes the customary condition 
ruins vain hopes of any progress 
beyond a perpetual exhaustion. 

A throttle of drive until worn out 
and having only gods to blame
if keeping a civil and polite tongue 
concerning any manner of adversity. 

That sort of lingering pass over 
and a persistent illusion of something 
more than merely to pass on 
in the passages of failed anticipations. 

There never was anything there 
but that too takes too long to prove 
the way consumption gradually proves 
the condition of its victim. 

Ample opportunities to waste away 
 being doctored into maladies 
that are common and preferred 
so as to not die quite so totally lonely. 

The continually and hopelessly ill 
gather together to share their malingering 
in their conditions of unrelenting need 
as a palliative for any other desires. 

It being the desire for the exceptional 
that proves so very problematic 
where it leaves one  strapped in 
to a totally shunned and grave state.

No matter what that might be 
we cannot allow any of that to get loose
into a well ordered  and predictable chaos 
with its defined streaks of regulated evils. 

The psyche then held straitjacketed 
so it cannot do anything at all 
that might actually satisfy or please 
any unusual and thus abnormal urges. 

The father who did not succeed 
determining the son who must not 
and thus sacrificing a whole world 
to maintain a few scant lies. 

That destiny which derives from the loins
that you forever try to shake loose 
the way prey tries to shake loose predator
before something vital is severed. 

Realizing it always comes too late 
and one might never chance to be afflicted 
with the right sort of illness 
despite the facts pertaining to ancestry. 

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260623B
----------- 

There is always the one that is gone
into the no longer knowing 
what was not really ever known 
in the ways one might wish to know 
whatever might be known. 

We live on the cusp of that 
and forever on the verge of that  
sort of socially acceptable 
but utterly pointless type of condition 
in the peculiar belief that it is right. 

That way there is always something 
that seems to have gone missing 
either before or sometimes after 
whatever we chance to gather as facts 
pertaining to acceptable illusions. 

We eventually stop saying anything 
because nothing that we ever said 
actually made any real difference 
concerning the direction it all went 
and as if none of it really mattered. 

We easily  blame the clumsiness 
representing presumably wrong choices 
made at presumably wrong times 
then wishing we had done it differently 
in the false belief in an alternate effect. 

What a sad and tragic thing we are 
regarding what we never really have 
among the having of what there is 
that the having is confined to being about
with all of its symbols and allusions.

That does not make it any easier 
and in fact makes it much more difficult 
as to the weather, menus and other details
that glue together bits of fractured time 
into the usual runaway babbling streams. 

We become so easily dissolved away
merely sugar cubes into tea cups
wondering where the sweetness went 
along with the time being spent 
finding suggestions among tea leaves. 

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260623C
----------- 

In the time of strawberries 
when the fields cry bird song 
along tree lined breezeways 
we search for hidden meanings
beneath tufts of green leaf. 

There is very little to say 
that a bright gleam has not said
between tree limb movements 
swaying near a deep rooted pond
bubbling skittish excitements. 

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260623D
----------- 

We really must not pretend 
that we can be more than strangers
and much less that we are 
of real interest to each other. 

You tell parts of y our story 
and I avoid telling you mine 
in the frustrated attempts 
to produce some disinterest. 

Perhaps one learns to ignore 
in the manner of being ignored 
then becoming a teacher of it
having mastered the same ignorance. 

The years have silenced me 
in the realization I do not enjoy
the ceaseless banal drivel 
comprising small talk conversation. 

Finding myself entirely disabled 
from continuing to do the necessary 
and feeling shunned by the shadow 
that incessantly follows after me. 

It makes me want to move on 
to something of a true romance 
the way life appeared to be in novels
but never in the doldrums of reality. 

A sort of action figure 
made for a different twist of fate 
and playing piece in a vintage game
that has entirely different rules. 

Wishing that I could dress up 
to engage in play and pretend 
proving more true to my reality 
than the usual daily pantomimes. 

An obsolete thing been put aside 
gone along the street side 
in a vague cloud of reminiscence
about what some used to find.  

Just want to get away 
from the smell of smoke and beer 
mingled with other hard things 
looking for what is never there. 

Makes me wonder where 
they found any of those movie sets
appeared in black and white
intense scenes of anxious flesh. 

At least they were well dressed 
and the advertising was mostly honest
giving clear enough suggestions 
as to where anything might be heading. 

Too many places now locker rooms
stale with the talk and odours 
arrives in an influx of footballers 
intermingled with  boxing matches. 

And the girls in the bar down the street
are from the bordello next door 
doing their tricks with the regulars 
while playing the naive for drinks. 

Some never go out anymore 
because it makes it too hard to dream 
and the high price of disappointment 
is getting pushed up beyond reach. 

How many pointless words 
are contained in a twelve dollar drink
all about irrelevant Internet subjects 
and what went on in the office. 

Do not know any way around 
this brave new world desolation
becoming so hair split divided out 
into countless sorts of dead tease. 

Does not seem to be really human
but maybe the species died out 
somewhere sometime long ago 
and something else was ghosted in. 

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270623A
----------- 

Lingering in the throes of doing
our usual presumed instances 
might be exchange of value
and then when it ends 
we return to estrangement. 

A commodified condition 
that is an expanding spectrum
includes our interactions 
until we are never really friends 
but we often behave as if we are. 

That is the shallow of it all 
and if we had known 
we might have been all business
in the cutting it short 
and engaging in cost reductions. 

Moving on to next, next, and next
developing no attachments 
having the same feelings for anyone
which means no feelings at all 
beyond the work at hand. 

Knowing nothing to be gained 
in the shallows of pass through 
reduced down to the coin 
for something we do not need 
all that very much of. 

The frugality of the competition 
laughs at our spates of excesses 
knowing the future is a wrap 
at the end of whatever production 
where it all goes away. 

We never hear from anyone again 
when the gig is over and done 
and all we get is a change of scene
where there are new estrangements 
to be temporarily cultivated. 

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270623B
----------- 

I see you
and you see me 
going round the brambles
that threaten to scar up 
the wayward gesture. 

All the holding back 
that is the flesh and blood
until no blossoms of thought
remaining to be seen 
beyond crowned with thorns. 

I hear you 
and you hear me 
in the gulf of our silences
where we hunt for the words 
that comprise acceptable statements.

Caught somewhere in between 
the fact and the immediacy 
trying to avoid the finality 
that comes with any revelations 
deemed far too intimate an ending. 

I end you 
and you end me 
in the social maelstrom 
that invariably takes us away 
from whatever seemed special. 

And if we might have loved 
it only means someone else 
will conduct a usual intercession 
the way a fresh bullet enters 
through the same familiar breach. 

I bury you 
and you bury me 
in the out of sight and mind game
as to the forgotten and forgetting 
all that once never was. 

What could have been 
in such a precise and divisive way
that is the all encompassing system 
determining all giving and taking
that creates and ends the living. 

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

270623C
----------- 

We would never get along 
in all the too early and too late 
inevitable failures of the mesh 
that comprises time and place. 

If there was any option 
it was of the never was sort
that is never actually found 
but consists merely of searching. 

Perhaps the doors that chanced 
were doors we should have closed
while never wanting to remain 
as merely something on the way. 

Torn by that sort of sentiment
we attempt to crudely mend 
whatever there is of ourselves 
that has not fallen entirely aside. 

It was about getting there
even if it never came to arrivals 
before the usual departures 
from any of the might have had. 

We might have had 
but no idea how or what it was
and being treated as lost luggage 
that no one wants to claim. 

There is always something in it
that is entirely necessary 
that we do not have any of 
and cannot seem to get anywhere. 

A tragic condition that changes 
with the seasons and situations 
knowing no reasonable remedies
on the way to somewhere else. 

Nothing is ever really settled 
at any of those stations 
filled with usual ritual habits 
as to being in and on the way. 

A feeling that keeps saying 
that one simply does not have it 
and having no idea where it is 
outside the bounds of constant need. 

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

270623D
----------- 

It is what we do not know 
either how to find or get 
that gradually destroys us 
in all of its innumerable ways. 

Having put down roots 
into the emptied dead soil 
purely on the basis of our faith
from which nothing grows. 

Then there is a science 
that teaches us something 
that we cannot put into effect 
but it is full of great ideas. 

So disappointed and diverted
until we ourselves begin to claim 
we could never really want it
and blaspheme spirit and name.

There is always something more 
we cannot have and cannot get
that would take the attention 
away from what we have not got. 

A new algebra of need 
more devious than prior equations
as to incalculable damage 
that is a wasting and withering. 

Eat of the great feast until full 
to the weeping with what it brings 
that leaves one feeling emptier 
in its lingering consequence. 

There are no humble beginnings 
where nothing begins that way at all
in the wasteland that feeds neither 
any sorts of ambitions nor any dreams. 

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270623E
----------- 

They would only trade something
for what one does not have 
and some still name that as love 
within the cruel terms and conditions 
as to what some call endearments. 

They do not want what you have got
because that too is feared as only 
another sort of infection 
that might make them too sick 
and in need of regular doses. 

Particularly if it is not to be found 
in any of the usual commercials 
and maybe only in rare instances 
of obscure pulp fictions
written by demented geniuses. 

Knowing Quasimodo is no trouble 
but you might be too much trouble 
whenever you cannot or will not 
whatever it is that you cannot or won't
no matter the cause or the reason. 

The market has steadily shrunk 
concerning that type of thing 
in lands of insipid tea and fake honey
past the boom box sounds 
knuckle scraping the throughways. 

It is surely a very desperate world 
would deprive so severely 
that it removes so much eye candy 
from any public marketplaces 
so that loose ends no longer meet.  

A future proved to be more cruel 
than the past that threatened it 
into its abject present condition 
concerning dots the i and crosses t
within the letraset alphabet. 

We were told we could be free 
but we were denied the experience 
outside the restrictions imposed 
by those boundless arguments
that destroy both the pro and con. 

Thus ends every proposition 
keeping each instance sequestered 
within its own bad judgments
and the jury is always out 
squandering itself on the town. 

We can still choose beer brands
from an ever wider selection 
but that too is a temporary trend 
and the kids no longer play 
any of the games we grew up with. 

Everyone is trying to look normal
hiding away their inner cripples
from any sort of public view 
avoiding guilt by association 
as to those sorts of people. 

They all seem to want something 
more of whatever it is 
someone else has in theirs 
that the commercials are saying
everyone now wants. 

Take your rejections and go 
to some other playing field 
where they might let you play 
a game that you do not want to
in ways that you really cannot. 

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