Poems: 100723 - July 10th, 2023

280623A
----------- 

We are the prisoners 
imprisoned in our best of times
and in our worst of times 
to my not knowing you 
and you not knowing me 
though we would have liked to
if we had any real chance. 

We are connected to all the means
that deprive us of connection 
according to the usual patterns 
knowing we will never actually meet
in any acceptable social situation 
involving exchanges of value 
that then facilitate communication. 

We joined various things 
in the hopes of a vague someday 
sort of sunshine promise 
following local weather reports 
so that we could linger somewhere 
making regular appearances
under one or another umbrella. 

The opening lines are closed 
and I do not know your cult 
in the ways you do not know mine
even if the taboos are similar 
concerning how it is done and said
in advertisements and commentaries
posted to all the common barriers.  

You would have wanted me 
and I would have wanted you 
but that defines the problem 
which then defies any solution
leaving various and sundry sorts 
of the usual unwantedness 
devised to keep us wanting. 

Thou shalt not want 
is simply the conspiracy 
that defies any chance of getting
among high pressure sales pitches 
that are pushing anything else 
that is being bought and sold 
on the ever growing mass markets. 

You would have enjoyed me 
and I would have enjoyed you 
but there is no way to sell that 
or to find it on a doorstep 
in the in and out of everything else
that is contrived to chance 
or to fail to chance the same. 

Seems I will not know you 
and you will not know me 
but we might hear about that 
in some of the stories being told
about what might seem possible 
but is never actually to be lived 
in the way that lives really go. 

Seems story tellers know of you 
the way story tellers know of me 
even when we have no ideas 
as to who is telling the stories 
that can never really meet 
to share in their own story 
beyond a cruel chapter and verse. 

We would have been better off 
as the characters written in 
to someone else's fiction 
and that was probably the start 
as to where we got the idea 
that prisoners can actually escape
into alternate lives. 

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

290623A
----------- 

The only thing that you really know
is that you are not wanted 
and all the posters have come down 
as to that sort of dead or alive. 

There is no vacancy at the top 
and you cannot join the circus 
leaves you wondering what to do
to actually soothe customary pain. 

There is only the forever war 
where everyone fights for something
but you are tired of the battles 
that never win it for yourself. 

You tried for the last exit 
only to find it does not get you out 
from deeper into the same old trap 
when needing a change of venue. 

You are the beast and the cage 
stretched from the cradle to the grave
poked by cruel keepers 
with what it is and what it is not. 

There is no turning it around 
on an always one way street
but you can follow the signs 
to repeating the same old defeats. 

A team of the best quacks 
has reviewed your pitiful case 
so now you are merely horse feathers
made forever out of place. 

The needle is an empty prick
and you will never get relieved now
from what becomes your constant 
dereliction of stereotypical duty. 

You are the same as the leper 
other lepers love to condemn
knowing you do not like the lifestyle
and you do not like them. 

There are no awards awarded 
for having tried to run away 
from fundamental afflictions 
that come of birth and decay. 

You gather up your endless notes 
concerning failed experiments
proving the theory is right 
about how it all goes wrong. 

There is only too strong to win 
and too weak to actually lose 
any more than a push through  
those random cracks of doom.

------------------------------------- 
 
290623B
-----------

Every idea that you ever had 
is merely another cripple 
pushed around on its wheelchair. 

It cannot go anywhere 
that someone else does not take it
in the real push and pull of things. 

Afraid there will be no one pushing
when you cannot push yourself 
the way you did during all those years. 

Pushing and pushing to get somewhere
that you could not ever go 
but you kept pushing anyway. 

Made terrified it would be someone 
you cannot stand pushing you around
and being behind you all the time. 

Terrifies you of plunging in to anything
including marriage and relationships 
that turn you into a displaced fidget. 

You tie yourself to something 
hoping that it will float 
when the sea rushes back in. 

You tried to drown yourself 
in various and sundry ways 
that chanced to become available. 

Armies of ants carrying micro doses 
parade across your outbreak of flesh
but none of them stops to share. 

What you were reaching for 
turns into a dead fish 
with clocks melting in its blind eyes. 

You keep looking for your crutch
but someone took that too 
leaving you a lame concept. 

The lack of a prop to lean on 
to help you pretend that you  belong
somewhere in a dismal scene. 

Something no one looks at 
with any sort of serious look 
that might mean anything. 

You keep getting beaten up 
but you cannot beat anyone 
as they throw another punch. 

There are no winners circles 
where they placed you 
to  become nothing but bored. 

They have told you no one wants
an emptied out idea 
in a land of so much substance. 

The trash collectors grin at you 
as if you are the next bin 
on their routine list of pickups.

Someone has taken your soul
so that they could leave you there
to being something breathless. 

They want to tear out the drum 
from within your chest 
knowing no one marches to it. 

It is that sort of place 
and nowadays every bad trip 
is another trip you go alone. 

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290623C
-----------
 
You are too weak 
means you have not chosen nothing
and you still want to put something
into your crummy little space. 

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

290623D
-----------

I came down 
came all the way down 
to the place where you are 
but when I came down 
you only turned away 
laughing at me. 

That is what became of love
but it does not matter anymore 
I will not come down again 
as the ground falls away 
from where you are standing 
I will not come down again. 

I came down 
from where I was going 
having heard you wanted me
but when I came down 
you were never there 
so I will not come down again.  

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

300623A
----------- 

The sky is broken this morning 
having spilled itself out 
during a disturbed night. 

I do not know what to reach for 
having caught too much rain 
flooding down its ambitions. 

Too much has washed away
leaving the roots too exposed 
trying to hold on to something. 

Life is always trying to hold on 
to something that holds on to it 
at a harshly tended edge of nothing. 

If that is what leads to falling 
I know that you will not want 
whatever has fallen that way. 

You wanted far too much 
in wanting the strong and straight
that avoid every type of falling. 

You wanted me to fall for you 
but you never really wanted me
as you turned into a flame. 

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

300623B
------------- 

Postman brings the bills 
and they get paid on time 
but most of life stays the same 
feeling that it is postage due 
and gone to a dead letter office
as something undeliverable
sent out to an address unknown. 

Mostly things get destroyed 
having stopped a long way short
of their potential usefulness
and being continual reminders  
about how it is with getting older 
when you begin to realize the truth
about never getting over it. 

You never really ever get over
all those lost opportunities 
that you never really ever had 
and never really ever have again
but it seemed really wonderful
at the time when it happened 
and just before it proved lost. 

There is nothing personal 
being said in any of that 
and I really no longer know 
what there is to really say 
not wanting to join in 
in paraphrasing stray bits 
of someone else's bland stories. 

Various bits of paper tell me
I cannot afford to fix it 
in any of the many ways 
that I imagined I could fix it 
and you are no real help in that
as I drag my sorry self around 
the many adult playgrounds. 

It is not worth the money 
buying into a depersonalized version
and being titillated by the illicit 
varieties of self damage that pretend 
to make up for the loss of pleasure 
being merely another available form 
that contributes similar dissatisfaction. 

Knowing that I only got that far
by dreaming of doing much more
as to doing something else seriously
but it never works that way 
if anything ever works at all 
before the shoddy thing breaks down 
to be added to the pile of failures. 

They closed me down long ago 
in all the various ways and a few more
that they find can close someone down 
and I am feeling as down as it goes 
into cannot open it up to anyone 
not knowing a single soul anymore 
and having nothing to open up about. 

Where would one choose to go 
beyond hanging around in pretension
that it is far from the same boredom 
comes from getting no desired results
beyond that feeling of displacement 
and something terribly missing 
in any existing available formulas. 

The subjects we can actually discuss
are increasingly sparse and few 
having no business with each other 
and not wanting the available palliatives 
that make it all the more wasted 
imagining there might be a purpose
where there is nothing of the sort. 

If I was ever actually interesting 
that would have been long ago 
and even then for the wrong reasons 
that make it all come up empty 
from a fill up of too much imagination 
that makes believe you got around 
to anywhere you really needed to go. 

Feeling too dead for too long 
becoming accustomed to the morgue
having outlived your own wake 
where they let you completely down 
and then covered it all over 
thinking they had buried you 
along with your best and last chance.

You shook the dirt off yourself
but that says nothing at all
about coming out of it alive
searching for vital signs
on decaying social networks
in an after life of ghosts 
where no one is actually familiar. 

That was never the actual choice 
but it comes without implications 
concerning any choices being right 
or that there were choices to make 
that really would have mattered 
anymore than a zigzag route 
that ends up in the same damn place. 

Do it all by yourself for yourself 
but you could never make enough 
as to anything to make that possible
so you threw yourself to predators 
hoping for a lucky accident 
where it would all work out alright 
due to one or another popular myth. 

You never know who set you up 
to being put down in any way 
that anything can be put down 
but you know that you have lost 
when you have run out of lines 
and there is no one on the other end 
of where they left you hanging. 

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300623C
----------- 

The new claustrophobia 
concerning lack of affordable space
making you feel sardine canned in
into something remains slippery 
that is always trying to slip away 
along a greasy spoon argument 
that you have to argue fiercely
but arguing only with yourself.  

You wish you were in Switzerland 
in an early chapter of another century
so you could fake your neutrality 
staging various obscene acts 
that have the power to fill a room 
the way dampness can fill a space 
followed by an army of cockroaches. 

The occasional butterfly passes 
having emerged from a stomach
to continue its social journeying 
among the artificial flowers 
believing it is finding nectar 
and bathing in the light of dewdrops
while secretly hopeful of collection 
into a museum display case. 

The new technology you obtained 
will be entirely obsolete 
long before you can master its potential
and even before you can use it 
to become any sort of success 
so you watch the magician 
smash it with a hammer. 

Something entirely new will appear
after the rabbit is sawed into two 
coloured handkerchiefs then pulled
from its spewed plastic tube entrails 
while a pretty girl appears 
from out of the magician's hat 
as the magician becomes a deck of cards. 

She shuffles the deck and deals 
you a draw at Black Jack and lose 
then threatens to bite off your head 
as part of a primitive mating ritual
causing you to make your escape 
with the only thing you have left
being your head in your hands. 

The way some relationships terminate
after the magic is all gone
and you are left to rolling what is left
directly ahead of you 
to try to avoid attracting attention 
until a policeman stops you 
demanding to examine your brains. 

That is how you come to understand 
why your father always held his head
in his working man's hands 
muttering various strange incantations
somewhere under his cigarette breath 
and you though he was praying 
to the same gods he did not believe in. 

You do your best to comply 
with the policeman's request
all the time silently wondering 
if it will be illegal search and seizure
while he shakes and rattles contents 
spilling something out 
that becomes bouquets of flowers. 

He seems entirely satisfied 
and urges you to be on your way
telling you everything seems in order 
while standing directly in front of you
between you and the flowers 
so you back carefully away 
trying to avoid further collisions. 

The last you see of the flowers 
they are running down the street 
drunkenly singing the choruses 
from locally popular songs 
but you feel glad to be rid of them 
as they have taken all the lyrics 
that you never want to hear again. 

You struggle through a large crowd 
trying to keep your head about you
wondering when it will happen
that random shots will be fired 
by a resemblance to Andre Breton 
to create a final footprint manifesto 
written by the resulting stampede. 

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

010723A
----------- 

That collective madness 
that we refer to as being humanity
requires a firm belief in its sanity 
as men plow the blood soaked ground
believing there is a Lilith in every girl
that might lure them away to playing 
with very different demons. 

It creates the desire to be possessed 
or at least to have the experience 
on a distorted and very sexual level 
so as to remove the stiffeners 
the labels and see through packaging 
from an unaccessorized toy department
bare pink plastic self. 

You want to stock up on batteries 
as they are always extra 
and then there are the costumes 
along with the various accessories 
that you simply cannot do without 
but it makes you feel more powerful 
and you know that it is very popular. 

It can make you something of a magnet 
attracts an attractive magnet's attraction  
as long as the switch is turned on 
sending current through the coils 
as that feeling deep inside the gut 
sort of squirm and shudder 
crawling around beneath a thin skin. 

The increasing number of moments 
when you want an alluring demon 
to do unspeakable things to you 
because you really cannot live 
the way they keep telling you to live
as a simulated instance of processed 
emulating what you saw on television. 

The nightly news is reassuring you 
that you are really not so very strange 
compared to the collective happenings 
that are being played out on the big stage
crowded with famous high strung puppets 
twitching their lullaby speeches in tune
to the spasms of half asleep audiences. 

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

030723A
----------- 

All of life seems to be about delays
and the delays are to not know what
but you know you are kept waiting
for the might or might not happen 
sort of things that you have to wait for. 

Wait patiently for an invitation
wait to become recognized as something
wait to have your turn at it
wait for the others to finally leave 
wait for the unexpected and the outcome. 

When you were some years younger 
you would head out to know not where 
out into the restless night of impatience 
not knowing where or how it might be
that you might have something happen. 

Something had to happen somewhere 
but gradually you learned it never did 
and what happened was nothing good 
in terms of anything you wanted
that you really wanted to be happening.  

You do not feel any different being older
but you have given up on heading out 
into the restless nights of impatience 
while trying to keep more of it to yourself 
and not spread it around so very much. 

It is the same old road out there 
headed to where you do not want to be
never really takes you anywhere 
to anywhere you want to be going
so you do not go there anymore. 

You used to believe in finding someone
on that road that you chanced to be on
but you found nothing much more 
than what you needed to shake loose 
because it was chewing at you. 

It all still feels as if you are tinkering 
with some sort of defective mechanism
trying to make it work at something 
that it was never really made to do 
but you never have any actual options. 

You go through the motions 
of what was once upon a belief 
secretly knowing the truth 
that you do not believe it any more
but you need to keep doing something. 

You used to believe in getting results 
but not the kind of results that you got 
until everything seemed a waste of time
as to the up and up fat chance game
apparently trying to make the wrong score. 

It is not as if you can take your winnings
to make a splash anywhere 
not having won anything anywhere
and you stopped waiting around 
for someone to toss some lucky bones. 

Realizing how boring you actually are
to anyone who is not after something 
such as your body or money 
no matter if it is cash or substance 
traded for periods of intoxication. 

There are some who are simply happy 
playing with the various body parts 
that are themselves and others 
but you do not have that going for you
and the meat markets are too expensive. 

No one wants to play your games 
and you do not want to play their games
in a world gone far too professional 
catering to big ticket sales types 
and keeps telling you to give it all up 

You keep thinking must be somewhere 
but you do not know where that is 
so you keep sticking your head out 
from the same old hole you dwell in
hoping to see something coming. 

There seems to be nothing on the way
as far out as you can dare to see 
so you go back down into your hole 
fussing with what does not concern you 
as if it is more than none of your business.

Given the sort of available placebo 
that never cures anything at all 
but you can substitute it for meaning 
when you do not have any pieces 
to any of those better puzzles. 

You wanted to be doing something 
but what they gave you to do 
seems like it was nothing at all 
making you hate talking about it 
and unable to self identify. 

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

040723A
------------

Feeling squandered by your attempts 
to get in on it and to get to know 
but none of that came to anything 
and your life seems to be a cuckoo clock
announcing a too common regularity. 

A complicated variant on twiddling thumbs
and not quite yet into cat's cradle 
orderly tangles of strained stretched strings
in a vague string theory of relations 
that make you fear and avoid tying knots. 

You tied all the wrong knots before 
and it made you poorer and unhappier 
than anyone wanted anyone to be 
that they actually wanted to know 
getting any of anything anywhere. 

Becomes another form of paralysis 
quite beyond the usual failures of muscle 
as to breaking things down and breaking in
past the condemned peek a boo viewpoint 
and common rubber neck modes of existence. 

Not sure how to wrap something up 
you fall into the crumple of your bed 
as creased as an abused sheet of paper 
not knowing whether to cry or laugh 
at how obstructed everything becomes. 

Various relics locked inside yourself 
as to what no one wanted to barter for
within their typical economies of needs 
unless it was someone you despised 
causing you to seek a deeper isolation. 

Watching for the distant eye candy 
and drifting toward exotic appeal 
you have learned to hate the normal 
due to the way it imposes itself 
and seeks to eradicate any real interest. 

If you were still a teenager 
you could justify driving around at night
on a relentless wild spree for nothing 
still wondering if anything comes out 
from where it is usually hiding. 

The ultimate sort of bench penalty 
sitting it out from a game
that they will not let you play 
is all about making you want to erase
every good idea from inside your head. 

Not needing any of that anymore 
trying to reduce you to what you can get
if you can find the ugliest markets 
to sanitize away those upstart tendencies
out of your stupid skull bucket lists. 

If only what you actually could do 
could have counted for something 
but they tell you that you have not 
done anything that anyone wants 
and you have only wasted your money. 

The people you used to know 
apparently having spent it right
on those little doses of death 
that come in various containers 
facilitating brain splatter sessions. 

The exacting of a high price
in exchange for the efforts put in 
where everything ends levelled down
into a common and numbed stupor 
beyond a few manic displays. 

You were looking for a needle 
in what was an infinite haystack 
but not that particular needle 
that someone wants to stick you with
in the belief that it solves everything. 

You are supposed to like it 
and something said wrong about you 
if they find out that you do not like it 
more than anything else that you liked
before you let it all go. 

They would never let you in the door 
where you could really want to go
so you spent some of yourself 
lurking on the outside of anything 
as if it were another amendment. 

You tossed your remaining hopes 
same as a coin into a begging cup 
listening for bottom in the emptiness
where it all goes down rattling 
from one type of abyss into another. 

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

040723B
----------- 

Would be nice to recapture 
that old feeling of blind motivation 
based purely on a false belief 
that it all eventually gets there. 

Get to it and do something 
in the vain belief that it matters 
beyond impulses and glares 
that come at you if anything. 

Wherever there really is 
must be one of any number 
of entirely wonderful situations 
rising up from the dead lands. 

You have to believe in that 
while realizing belief is difficult 
and more difficult all the time 
faced with mortality of experience. 

One reckoning to another 
and still do not know of anyone
who has anything you need 
beyond mollified interludes. 

You know that it cannot last 
because there is a lack of addiction
and so the junkies are laughing 
at everything you are and own. 

The crack in the wall 
that tells you there is something
on the other side of this 
where the breeze shoots through. 

You already know 
the refined dirt is the same dirt
as you find in the pig pen 
having been prettied up. 

You are not ever really happy
not being in the running 
and strung along as something
below second fiddle. 

Stuck in behind somewhere 
in the heavy social traffic 
comprised of happy stragglers
and parishioners at church doors. 

Adopted into the lingering 
among those who find merit 
in being left on the steps 
at weddings and funerals. 

That you do not know anyone
is sometimes the only blessing 
and it comes exactly the same
from a devil or a good lord. 

There is only business 
but you are no one's business 
and they are none of yours 
in what has been left to you.  

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

050723A
----------- 

We do meaningless things 
in meaningless relationships 
as if that works off the deficit    
between the red and black ink
and the alone and the together 
along those conflict prone 
often turned radical divides 
that structure and organize. 

Life burrows in under the skin 
inflicting its twitches of desire 
turning us even more parasitic 
on pleasure stream shores
trying to catch on to something
that will take us all the way
past all the usual trinkets 
and the common diversions. 

That desire to dive into it 
to being carried away 
into a starry nightscape 
on those vast ebony wings 
that unfurl the entire sky 
where the real show begins
above the orchestra pit 
and behind that dark curtain. 

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

060723A
------------

There is a large convention 
of hot air salesmen 
drifting through the lobby 
cheeks puffed out red balloon
they wear medical apparel 
placing stethoscopes on windows
listening for traffic sounds 
wheezing along clogged arteries 
anticipating a sudden crash. 

The concierge scowls 
indicating too many things wrong
where fresh eyeballs gaze up
from bowls of melting ice cream
then calls for rainbow sprinkles 
to be liberally applied 
along the bare white slopes 
the colour of midwinter flesh 
heaps of limbs in banana boats. 

Only yesterday there was another
patron who fell from a high window
due to unfortunate circumstances 
only to be torn apart in the street 
by a carefully selected crowd 
performing random political acts
but despite a thorough search 
his eyeballs were never found
and so there were no witnesses. 

A clicking of insect tongues 
rising to a crescendo 
filling the public address system 
causes a chef to leave the kitchen
brandishing a bloody cleaver 
in response to incessant demands 
for something fresh and tender 
to fill rows of emptied plates 
beyond grey potatoes and gravy. 

He is headed to the theatre 
on the other side of the street 
that doubles as a slaughterhouse 
providing an endless supply 
of young, but failed, talent
suffering from over crowding 
in the meat locker conditions 
of the crowded dressing rooms
their meat regularly inspected. 

The soft and tender are culled 
from the stale of the herd 
while the latter will continue 
to establish their careers 
putting on a tough show 
as to actually enjoying it 
before committing suicide 
in one of the usual theatrical ways
stale actors typically do. 

The acts of butchery are staged
for regular paying audiences 
who never seem to get enough 
with critics writing glowing revues
describing the various highlights
as to new innovations in carnage 
promising genius productions 
for those who are lucky enough
to be able to obtain tickets. 

The director will be bronzed 
using the lost flesh process 
to evidence his immortality 
his replacement appearing 
to light another candle 
at the foot of the new shrine 
while prayers are answered
by the loudspeakers 
bellowing across public squares. 

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

100723A
----------- 

A blue sky day begins 
over the green of Summer 
obsessed with growth 
getting pushier and pushier. 

A usual over crowding 
between hostile take overs 
and regular invasions 
into available space. 

The eager to move right in 
watching for vacancies 
where something died down 
leaving its clean out debris. 

A need to feel cultivated
and try to attract something 
in a surge of inattention 
among the feeding frenzies. 

We try to persist to flowering
in the crevices of asphalt 
though not really knowing how
to reach up and touch the Sun. 

-------------------------------------   
100723B
----------- 

You knew I could never really be
your very ordinary invalid 
and you did not really want 
a borderline sort of cripple
in that pumped up world 
that is all muscles and money.

You would not want to be hobbled
by having to wheel me around 
if the system failed into crumples 
of blanket statement rubber legs 
propped up critical appraisals 
as to ultimatums of worth. 

No one introduced us 
at anyone's party 
and you never replied to me 
even though you probably knew
I was trying to make things
that I thought you might like. 

I should have gone from it all 
trying for the money and the fame
but it was all too badly broken 
and I was too broken  to know
how to reach that high and far
only to be broken coming down. 

Everything comes down it seems 
from wherever it chances to go
and I was always free fall 
without any sort of parachute 
taking on the next tumble 
from each limited sky. 

Why was I dreaming you would 
take all my broken pieces 
as a new collection of treasures 
but what was there to any envy 
in that sort of public display 
if it had been me that you saved. 

I was not the dirty thing 
that you actually came to want 
and I was not the sort of pain 
that you really wanted to soothe
knowing it sort of works sometimes
is nothing really impressive. 

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