Poems: 080823 - August 8th, 2023

130723A
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Bizarre occurrences 
dotting and dashing content
in the context of spacetime. 

A hyphenation of intervals
indicating fictional relations 
as though pulling it together. 

Fractured bits of information 
bound up and splinted 
with  excessive reasoning. 

Broken words dangle helpless 
over distant horizon lines 
where things begin and end. 

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150723A
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When the Irish drink 
they expect far too much 
beyond the typical effects 
of their choice of beverage. 

The Irish seem to insist 
has to be at least one fairy 
in each bottle 
and she has to dance for them. 

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160723A
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Wondering what became of _____
insert the name or face 
into what has become a blank
in the on going record. 

Proving we were not in mind 
as anyone important enough 
in terms of any real significance
that would lead to being informed. 

There are no forwarding addresses
or any fossilized clues 
in the typical social sediments
that might hold traces of whereabouts. 

The chances of a feather falling
to leave a lasting impression 
in the common mud flats 
is always slim to none. 

We really do not have that much
that we can really count on 
and history is mostly footprints 
melting into the same old mud. 

Dinosaurs walked the Earth 
leaving footprints in primal ooze 
so we try to walk in those same  
following that same hard path. 

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160723B
------------ 

We do not want to lose the familiar
in a growing fear of nothing new
comes from having been that road 
to that very same place as before. 

Always trying to get out of there 
but never quite making it 
becomes a lifetime occupation 
and in between we dare to dream. 

It is that carefully planned getaway 
that does not getaway from anything 
taking habitual trips down memory lane 
mostly to the same places as before. 

The usual crowd is picking on whatever
should never really concern them
but incapable of dealing with anything
that they ought to be concerned about. 

Burial is a process that begins long before
whenever the funeral chances to happen
piling up a steady accumulation 
of trivial and other routine information.

You know it is nearly over and done
when none of the salesmen convince you
and every advertisement annoys you
while creating the same tense impatience. 

That is when you yourself lose value 
marginalizing you to the markets 
and the more you reduce your spend 
the less value becomes attributed. 

Taking a stroll through the local zoo 
you realize it is the middle of Main Street
in what could be in Anytown, Anywhere 
and you must not feed the animals. 

The only attention you are getting 
is when they want to be fed 
and you know that is happening 
because they chew at your heels. 

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230723A
-----------

Becoming one of the restless 
but not really young anymore 
realizing too much that goes on 
is at the soap opera level. 

The people who have it all 
including all the answers 
never really let you join them 
with so many questions. 

They do not like questions 
because it upsets their order 
where it is all neatly arranged 
similar to place settings. 

They do not really like you 
because you could not shop
for all those right things 
in all those right places.

You have turned to dark 
you have gone to silent 
finding nothing left to say 
and no one to say it to. 

You are a historian again 
from the peculiar viewpoint 
of a fictional sort of life 
belonging in comic books. 

Fools are always plentiful
so that they can rush in 
after which there is a belief 
angels gather up the carnage. 

As the vultures of any battle 
they come gracefully down 
in a sky  ballet of opportunity 
to where your guts are torn out. 

Not knowing where to go 
starting from lost touch 
and headed to lost direction
knowing slaved for nothing. 

You claim working hard
having to peel the onions 
to account for the high tide 
floods out remaining vision. 

There is a vague memory 
of seeing ahead clearly 
but that seems as long ago 
as any other lost yesterday. 

You get on with whatever it is
not knowing what it is anymore
among your ruined plans 
and various failed propositions. 

No ones goes your way anymore
and there is no turning back 
to nothing left to turn back to
as to those stations on the way. 

Waiting for an invitation 
that you would want to accept 
creates a more deafening silence
where you dump your thoughts. 

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240723A
------------ 

How many little worlds 
again being destroyed
by the destroyers of worlds 
and in one footprint 
whole universes perishing. 

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

260723A
----------- 

Those we wished to keep closer 
ending up the furthest away 
and those we sought to distance 
remaining far too close
being the usual consequences. 

We are lost in the constant shuffle
surrendering incapacitated attempts
meant to establish and build 
what is only broken down again 
adding evidence of our frailty. 

Routinely made to become
whatever we actually hate 
while being continually trained 
to give up whatever we love 
serves as valuable experience. 

Ultimately experience for nothing 
beyond the belief in experience 
teaches something of value 
even if entirely of no real use 
anywhere further down the line. 

Between the selected 
and those who are selecting 
stands that vast abyss 
representing the powerlessness 
to effect any chosen worlds.

We would dream about it 
if we could select that program 
from the library of possibilities 
but it is always out on loan 
to someone else made lucky. 

Despite what we were taught 
to fall into believing 
about our real situations 
as concerns who will drop in 
and who always keeps away. 

A game we would never play
remaining forever available 
while the moves we then make 
concerning possible amusements 
prove far too ineffectual. 

Thus confining imagination 
to deprive it of strength 
disabling actual dreams 
made of intent and satisfaction 
to being rim shots at boredom. 

Becoming the only point 
in a pointless scene 
crowded with pixel noise 
that continually blurs out 
what we thought we knew. 

Our pursuit is a happiness 
that is entirely dependent 
on what we do not have
which is what we never get
but life is always a hot pursuit. 

Somehow it got away
to made thankful that it did 
and that is the only story 
that anyone actually saved 
in defining what it entails. 

There is no stepping back 
on the wrong way we came 
to that pervasive condition 
that is our not belonging 
to anything right for us. 

Withdrawal to withdrawal 
is that dwindling feeling 
that we have been put out 
with the other inconveniences
that no one really wanted. 

We would be better off 
if we actually had permission 
to create our own personal hells 
rather than being locked up 
in someone else's ideas of heaven. 

It never works that way
and there are always those calls 
that we cannot possibly answer
which are scattered in among 
those calls that never come. 

Someone else knowing better
what is actually good for us 
in the throes of in death as in life 
and we are never to question 
that much official authority. 

That ends the saga of waiting 
having been a trial of patience 
for the sake of impossible rewards
the circumstances always wrong 
by means of typical arrangements. 

The constraints on the options 
are the constraints on connections 
wrong side of any barriers 
in the midst of incessant noise 
where only the silence answers. 

You always kept asking 
but you never received 
because it is all determined 
by what you might ask for 
being strictly on cue. 

On cue and not being listed
as part of an ever longer list
listing what is now forbidden
to you if not to someone else 
creating added complications. 

You simply do not know 
what choice you must make 
that you are free to make 
from among the options 
that you do not really have. 
 
It means a lot of guessing 
and you have to guess it right
even if it takes you away 
from anything you wanted 
and anything you might want. 

If someone were to tell you 
it would spoil the whole game
that is exactly the same 
as being able to see something 
so you can actually fight it. 

A  search strategy designed 
to take you to a new nowhere 
and whatever made you imagine 
it could really set you free 
from the ever growing opposition. 

You are going to regret it 
no matter what it is you get 
and you never would want
what you think you want
anywhere and in any way. 

Listen to what they say 
and you do not listen 
anywhere near to well enough
to what you are being told
they want you to do and be. 

There is always a price 
but you can never pay it 
so you never get to get away
from the endless demands 
demanding endless changes. 

Keep changing for its own sake
in the hopes of hitting it right 
but only card sharks ever play 
their cards in that way 
and you are no card shark. 

The only changes being dealt
being those you do not want 
or the ones you cannot make 
but that always accumulates
a wealth of contrary persistence.  

Do not know your way around
your closed doors community
and you are not welcome
past that other distant gate 
where they play different games. 

You  believed in advertising 
but you never got it right 
about the brand and the design 
that they insisted that you sell 
to entirely different markets. 

That was never a real impression
that you could ever hope to make 
so the only ticket they gave you 
was one to watch a carnival 
as an invisible in the cheap seats. 

Never had what it takes 
but it is what it gives 
that really gets to hurt you 
and they never really approve 
of anything to ease that pain. 

It is all about the seduction 
that takes away from you 
anything you found seductive 
and everyone is another junkie
looking for another different fix. 

The lucky ones get some 
while the others are left behind 
on the supply and demand curves
as concerns the rising prices 
of whatever gets you off. 

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280723A
------------ 

It is a total shame 
but then what really isn't
and you go on like that 
as to isn't it a shame. 

There isn't really much 
to not be ashamed of 
and isn't it a shame 
as to how that goes. 

Isn't it a shame 
what happened to him
a shame about them
and a shame about her. 

Isn't it a shame 
but that is how it goes
and isn't it a shame 
it happened again. 

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280723B
----------- 

Burying that sense of play 
under anything convenient 
trying to make it look the same
as most every other's dirt. 

You keep convincing yourself 
even if you do not have a chance
something will pan out 
past those streaks of bad luck. 

Arguing that nothing goes on 
for as long as any forever 
so there has to be a bright nugget
among all the death and taxes. 

Talk about what you would do 
and what you would have done 
if the playing field had been level
for a dream team to play on. 

Maybe that matched pair 
that you keep reinventing 
in various scenarios imagined 
as wanted to live in. 

Experience is not that rich 
and most is purely vicarious
seeing things that are not there 
in the hopes of making them real. 

You can linger that same way 
on that verge of death and decay 
for what seems a forever 
as though squirming under a heel. 

What it feels like to be the worm 
for whom there is no fair deal 
extruded under pressure 
as though another plastic string. 

You see that someone had it all 
so you think you can have some too
but that is your biggest mistake 
concerning scarce resources. 

If it becomes anything you want 
it will be scarcer and scarcer
until there is nothing at all 
even vaguely resembling any truth. 

You put your foot forward 
to where it is totally ignored 
until someone steps hard on it 
to tell you that you are in the way. 

There is no consideration left 
if you chance to step aside 
but someone else gets past you 
to where all the satisfaction is. 

You thought you knew the rules 
but that was to yesterday's game 
only after you lost your chance 
as to  any chance you never had. 

The mud flung into your eyes 
is what temporarily blinds you 
to everything that slips away 
from what it does behind you. 

You count up the many situations 
you would have preferred to be in
as being a part of your losses 
only to find nothing was left. 

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280723C
----------- 

Midday and you pour something 
into your deplorable self 
because water is an inadequate solvent
and you need to dissolve away 
some of those worthless portions. 

Trying to make a new breakthrough
ridding yourself of all the pretend
that masquerades as actual having 
anything you worked toward 
while the going for it seemed good. 

That is where the hard part begins 
after the fact that nothing came easy 
where you feel obliged to give it up 
been around the loop a few times 
ending tangled in the strings. 

That orchestra cannot play a note 
but it always makes a lot of noise 
in expectations of your  applause 
turning whatever you once valued 
into an outburst of percussion. 

You left it to the dealers and the pimps 
along with something abandoned 
to those who run the gaming tables 
but never found half a chance to take you 
anywhere more personal than that. 

The latex diva laughs at you 
in the throes of your own predicament 
being over invested in common lies 
ending up nothing much left 
that you could stake your life on. 

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300723A
------------ 

Suggestive deceptions 
that lead you nowhere special 
past the common implications 
coming from unavailability
and never half a poor chance 
at what it seemed to be about.

It is never actually about that 
and even if it was about anything 
it would never be about you 
no matter what it is about 
but sometimes you get to watch 
while sitting another one out. 

Deaths and destruction are real 
outside the boundary conditions  
that define your confinement 
to imagining you can be released
from spates of various incidents 
comprising perpetual tease. 

Must be a worst possible deal
made somewhere along your stretch  
comprising life's rutted histories
where you tried to turn aside 
from always forwarded the same 
to the same empty destinations. 

You are only given to imaginings 
that have no presence or substance 
inside the bounds of your tiny cage
defining your measured little doses
of various persistent realities 
that forever strain endurance. 

It is not what you will ever know
no matter what you wanted 
and no matter where it once was
that you chanced into seduced 
it always belongs to someone else
and none of it is actually yours. 

That is how it always ended up 
and that is how it always remains 
being stuck to the sticky threads 
that never quite connect 
to anything other than your own 
ever worsening paralysis. 

You can watch but never touch 
any of the actual merchandise 
flesh markets becoming the same
as those other sorts of markets 
where they sell trinkets and tokens 
that can serve to remind you

They constantly remind you 
of a deteriorating condition
that will become much worse 
given enough time and attention 
to the demands and costs 
that always accumulate.  

The asset you once believed in
was only another sort of liability
that you failed to see clearly 
through some other's eyes 
so the final verdict is always 
you must have been blind. 

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300723B
----------- 

Not feeling any strength 
that makes people run in circles 
and no desire to any vagrancy 
embarking on pointless journeys
along too familiar streets. 

Where does it all really go 
stripped of other motivations 
once came as belief in adventures 
concealed around random corners 
the way it happens in novels. 

That happens in various games 
where something is always lurking
setting up false expectations 
about the dark and the light 
harbouring both gifts and curses. 

Never having met anyone 
that you really wanted to know
going about it in that way 
but that was the way that opened 
at the thresholds of those doors. 

Eventually there is the regret 
that comes from opening them 
to send your alien probes out 
searching for signs of life 
that may be personally relevant. 

They returned discouraging data
confirming the wasteland 
that arises from random samples
being collected by sensors 
in vain hopes of greater validity. 

Realizing anything you wanted 
is always entirely hidden away 
where you cannot dig it out 
from where it is forever hiding 
from wandering mind and gaze. 

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300723C
----------- 

We struggle for the freedom 
to become the type of prisoner 
that we chanced to want to be 
in our own choice of prison
and then tragedy is to fail at that.

The mind in a cage fight 
goes from cage fight to cage fight
where to win is to survive 
merely to fight the next fight 
and there are never any prizes. 

Though given to beliefs
that too is only a distraction 
from the nothing if you make it
and the nothing if you do not
type of existential conundrum. 

Always ending up the same 
wanting for something 
and nothing you can get 
in a perpetual egging on 
to more emptied believing. 

Been chasing the shadows 
and they have caught you 
more than a few times 
so you assess your damages 
and then hopelessly try again. 

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010823A
----------- 

It is that empty spot 
that you cannot fill in 
that always gets you 
into being disadvantaged. 

You can see it clearly 
in a wilderness of mind 
but you cannot find a trace
of realized civilization. 

A problem of affordability
concerning what makes it
and every sort of advantage 
has its own price tag. 

Everyone seems satisfied 
with what you do not have 
most often with a sort of life
that you do not want. 

You know how it would be
if you were really there 
instead of wandering around
among pointless and  broke. 

There is the price of admission
and there is walking away 
toward what you do not want 
and what you do not want to do. 

Been down that road
but it always circles back 
to the same old start over again
doing the same old things. 

Nothing but more agonizing 
stuck at the toll booths 
unable to pay the actual toll 
and there is no turning back. 

Tally up the disillusion 
while counting the worry beads
living in a terror of red ink
and how that breaks promises. 

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010823B
------------ 

You stake your reputation 
out in the hot Summer sun 
where it can suffer the heat 
getting baked to a brittle crisp. 

Should never talk about 
what you will never get to do
because it alerts the opposition 
and they will punish you anyway. 

That one drop of blood falling
into the Piranha stocked pool 
would take the flesh off your bone
without your ever stepping in. 

Having an idea is plenty sufficient 
to make nests of insects angry 
enough to swarm under your skin
tearing off little bits of your soul. 

Your broken clock is melting 
making its dripping wax face stretch
from an atom to an hourglass 
counting the seconds to detonation. 

They want to make you explode 
at a safe distance away 
but all you do is fizzle out 
for a totally disappointed crowd. 

Those false rumours of fire-works 
dangled as a short terminus fuse 
detonating bones and black powder 
with a single stray spark. 

If they do not have to clean it up
they do not care a tinker's damn
what happens to the pieces 
or where any of it really goes. 

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020823A
----------- 

That special skill 
as to planning the details 
that then never happen
because reality is unkind 
and you never get to plan
for its cruel twists of fate. 

Think you figured it out 
as to how it could work 
but it does not work that way
much to your total surprise 
concerning unknown reasons
and alien contrivances. 

A flying saucer is hovering
outside a bedroom window 
with its millions of eyes 
gazing in on your private life
leaving the sorts of explanations
that no one then believes. 

Life can be more like a party 
that never actually happened 
rather than the one that did 
bore you to secret tears 
giving you the sole pleasure 
of fleeing out onto a street. 

In that peculiar state of mind 
you question why you did it 
and then want to break a rule 
as random release of  tensions 
chanced to build up inside 
while playing the acceptable fool. 

Having done hard social time 
without knowing any reason 
other than an anxious little bird
fluttering as a gut feeling 
makes you forever restless
for what is not really there. 

You read about what was fun 
but it was a hundred years ago
when they did it in style 
as their means of escape 
from crude and vulgar days 
that otherwise crowded them. 

So you ask yourself why
why did they ever stop 
and how did you ever get here
leaving all the good times behind 
in exchange for bits of progress 
meted out as disenchantment. 

Where to find friends like that
in these dulled and morbid times 
that fail to inspire at anything 
among strangled and mass confined 
who know no gallows humour 
but speak trivial and vain matters. 
 
The past was better at escape 
than most are capable of today
perhaps in fear of something 
including harsher sentences 
along with natural causes
making sudden appearances. 

Boredom now the leading cause
and symptom of most types 
of terminal conditions 
are producing   social attrition 
without funeral arrangements 
where time off work as another wake. 

There are those who hold dear
the idea that their death is life
and their lives are death 
more often dispensed by chemists
beyond the pale shades remains 
of once scriptures and  verses. 

Comes much to the same 
as to what is in the pews 
and what is in the gutters 
being two different entrances
to the very same place 
by means of different rituals. 

You fail to choose the right face
from the spectrum of choices 
as you try to play Kabuki parts
amid the ghosts and the demons
that invade your personal myths
to give you something to do. 

A desire for that great party 
that comes after the performance
but that too ends up cancelled 
because everyone was too busy 
playing with their take out food
from the local fast food grill. 

You are criticized for avoiding 
cultivating more usual habits 
made to swallow your pride down 
in exchange for a burger and fries
in between birth and death rattles
echoing each other at infinity. 

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050823A
----------- 

We thought it meant something 
but it never meant that 
or anything we thought it meant 
and then the time comes 
when that too is all over and done. 

Everything is the same broken line
missing that one important word 
which does not exist in any language
and might never be invented 
to fill in that same emptiest of places. 

I would have said something 
if there had been words to say it with 
making my silly animal sounds 
as if they could create different futures
other than the one that would happen. 

It was the romantics who believed 
words could actually create worlds 
if only they could find the right ones 
creating various presumptive objects 
that did not exist and never would. 

I regret those who became such things 
and I regret myself even more deeply 
for interludes of attempted being 
as something that we never really were
and that we could never really be. 

One can devote years to that condition 
exploring the nuances of nothingness  
while forever looking for something 
that can never actually be found 
but it seemed like a wonderful idea. 

Then there is the lack of talent 
for playing music on a cardboard violin
following in the footsteps of other failures
who were all better at it and worked harder 
perhaps proving made of stronger stuff. 

It always matters so very much more 
what someone believes you are made of 
and how they believe you were made 
realizing it is all a bunch of stray pieces 
that did not really fit in any good places. 

In fact they did not fit anywhere at all 
being a puzzle with no practical solutions 
even if the package implied otherwise 
and most people believe what is said 
on whatever seems to be the packaging. 

What was it that was always missing 
that condemned us to inevitable lost touch 
before we could ever reach that far out
across the little gaps of what was forever 
eventually forgetting the days and names.  

The universe writes us into its dear diary 
along with all of the possible reasons 
that anyone had in their minds 
the way votes are recorded at voting booths
in the usual matrix of endless excuses. 

The day came when everyone was gone 
that we ever imagined wanting to remember 
leaving only our own forgetting them 
but sometimes we are still foolish enough 
to wonder what happened to one or two. 

That too is what we do not need to know
considering how it makes no difference 
to how anything went or how it goes 
but sometimes we imagine our ancestors 
discussing where it all went wrong. 

Best that not to think of any of us 
to avoid adding meaningless excuses 
onto what is an ever growing pile 
knowing we are only each other's ghosts 
of what we are not and never were. 

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