Tennessee Krud

I got the Krud Blues

I won't be in today

just gonna stay outa the way

let every body know

that I am gonna be a no show

hope I get to feelin' better

as chipper as a irish setter

so staying home for a fews

cuase I gots the Tennessee blues.

All I wanted for Christmas...

All that I wanted was to be able to fall into sweet slumber some sleep
all that I wished for was to drift down deep and dream of sheep.
All that I found was the oppressive bleakness the sky so very gray
that Christmas came tromping by without a heyho or much else
to say.

All that I had hoped for was the love of family and those of friends
all that I got was the well wishing that this season always portends.
All that I received was my own mistaken perceptions of endless guilt
carefully laid brick by brick upon the house that misery has built.

All that I found was a morbid roaming sense of wakeful despair
Not that I really knew what I wanted, not that I should really care.
No snow has fallen on this last and all too silent of holy nights,
so many tears, so many fears, so many ways to sink to new heights.

This is when miracles can happen, when all hope seems lost, 
when the truth comes into the light, when you understand the cost.
If you are willing to face your own demons, admit your weakness, atone
All I wanted for Christmas was to feel less then all alone.

Aftermath

After the war, I went home except there was no house left.
When I asked about it, they shook their heads and said
"Where were you? If you had been here- this wouldn't
have happened."
I smell the ash, the looks of misunderstanding, not that
they would know why I couldn't have stayed nor why
now I know I shouldn't have come back home.
After the war, I went back to walk the roads of my youth
hoping to find something I had thought I lost but only to
find I had abandoned it as surely as I had given up any
hope that the loves and passions that consumed my
childhood would could remain as the winds blew away
what little is left of those memories.
After the war, I returned to what I had only believed that
I had known but discovered instead that I had always been
a stranger among the people who I would have called family
neighbors or friends. I feel the scorn of their collective pain
as I walk away without the answers that I had longed for
from my past.
After the war, just walk away from all that you thought you were
fighting and dying for, the future is not littered with the bodies of
past regret.
There are no winners in war, only the losers who have died,
those that survived, there are no solutions just the resolution
that we probably forgot what all the fighting was for.

Dalliance

A familiar sense of boredom permeates the afternoon laze from sunlight
filtering down through the blinds reaching out with dust moted strands
to tickle at my subconscience. Did I forget what I came in here for or
was there something more? More than whatever I came looking for.
Nonchalance, I pretend to not have dropped into a braindead state of
mindlessness followed by the ghosts of regret, neglect, hardly as
satisfying as anything that substantially sufficient I suspect.

Was I worth the trouble- for all the reasons that made him choose to
become absent from this picture that I hold now close to my heart
or maybe my soul, the echoes of outliving those who fill the spaces
between the furniture and plants, chances of collision coagulating like
my scattered thoughts trying to seperate the memories from the clot
that has become my past torn asunder from the agony that comes from
the silence filling the room, suffering in my self-imposed sense of doom.

Something niggles at the back of my thoughts like a strand of gray hair
turning silver in the breeze that causes a rush through the hall as if to
remind me to stop and then to recall that the feeling of loss drives me
to break from the melancholic daze that pushed me to my beleaguered
feet, now I have returned here in the warm delusions that surround me
with the visions promising the idea that the dreams that were once so
very sweet, like the touch of his hand on my cheek, I am again complete.

Senseless

Knocked out of the blue, out of the catatonic state of slumber like the
tearing of fabric from peaceful places into shreds of pieces of dismantled
ideas or conceptions of what was at war with what is or what will be
because there is no safety in this storm of cacophony clamoring to get
out of my brain onto my page as if the would be ink could explode out
to capture the emotions that rage under the pens strokes scrapping grooves
into the paper that comes apart like so many tatters from a raggedy man
in the hostile wind.
Dazed then confused like the seventies, so overrated so over used, a cliched
remark commentary so crazy so blase might as well speak another language
that no one understands nor wishes to hear since admitting to the absurdity
that fills our lives like swimming with sharks fearing that it will be the
tuna that will do us in.
Sleepless nights without anywhere to lie down, nothing softer than rocky
roads, unmappable tarmac wandering all hairy scary like the cracks across
the concrete playgrounds in the building sprawls of the construction jungles
that crowd through the wastes of modern civilizations devoid of the living
walking among the dead going forth to ambition-less minions shuffling
along the paths amidst the standing stones of a forgotten future leaving
the promises of the past, I am the relic of my own mysterious sense of
dramatic irony.

Wasteland

It started with the fear, the fear came before the fire that burned away all that we
had known- ever known. Hell, the fire burned away all we had ever hoped to know.
The world was ash, the shadows of people flashed into walls and doors, onto chairs
and beds before the fires came to sweep away humanity like the refuse riding before
the janitor's broom in some forgotten school building with it's worn brick exteriors.

The roads and deserts were turned to glass, smooth to the touch yet non-reflective
under the merciless sun, which once had warmed us thanks to the atmosphere's
ability to shield us from the solar radiation that now sears away the desire to sit
out in the sun. Yes, even the very idea of sunbathing seems like a wild idea
that is more a myth now than the memory of nearly naked people on the sands.

The skyscrapers stand out like skeletons on some undead army trapped alone
in the cities that are more like cavernous ravines of crumpled civilization
mocking all that had been considered modern and new rusting in the infrequent
rains that still come when enough moisture can permeate the air to rise and
fall like the ghosts of those friends and families that wanders this silent earth.

We used to be God's chosen people left to mind this once green world, but now
those of us who survive are only the fugitives running from the sins of our
father's who squandered their stewardship choosing to deny that whether a God
told us to take care of our home or some evolutionary sense of reason would
reveal to us this basic truth that we are all one before the fires would come.

The wasteland stretches out before me, so close that I can almost smell the acrid
harvest of scorched grasses once amber now gray swaying in the wind,
The seas rose to swallow the land before they boiled away into the scattered
rains that still come to kiss the scarred surface that lies even now beneath my feet.
I will walk away into the past since that is all that's left- this world that we have made.

 

Stacking the Deck

What is this existence where what we accept is not what there actually is?
Can there be a science nay a truth that is beyond our own senses, beyond
the edge of our imagination, that surpasses all our knowledge, all our
philosophy, magic, religion, perception that explodes into being not in
chaos but order like the formation of the smallest insignificant beauty
that occurs when water turns to moisture then freezes into a whisper
of being. Creating snowflakes is like stacking the deck.
What is life but a series of meetings, one moment from the next
like the collisions of leaves falling from the trees in wide swaths
only to be swept away in the universe's wind some of us clinging
for a time to another before spinning away in the happenstance
of dance, like some many twirlers spinning in and out of existence
until our journey is done, fading away into the rot of mulch
transforming ourselves into the food for trees.
Why does it matter so much that we are one way or another
that we find someone else to cling to, that what really matters
is each other, that love is not a lie, that truth is written only in books
that if you can see the light or feel the rain than you will
understand, you will comprehend that we should accept
the cards that we are dealt,
but not me, I am stacking the deck.

In the Cloud

I wake to find myself under the shroud
wet, rain, mist mixed with dense fog
soaked I stand midst the moisture, sog
I am aware, I am in the cloud.
As in a dream, feelings of isolation
wandering never finding prevails
I walk, I run, I stumble, I fall
against the odds, swept away by fate
I will scream, my latest complaint
I will not give in, I will note hate
The unfeeling unknowing sleeping giant
stirs around me deaf to all my cries
the unfeeling computations this is
the satirical equivalency, the web of lies
I reach out with artificial hands
I grasp towards the apathetic stars
the universe remains distant unseen
far away from the earthbound crowd
like some forgotten god unfettered, lost
while I dwell far below water bound
standing in place, I am in the cloud.

Seemingly Impossible

You cannot do it unless you do it

or at very least, try to do it.

You cannot live it, unless, of course, you discover

you are already living it.

You cannot say that you won't go there

unless you have tried and failed,

then can you say that and actually mean it.

You can say that you don't want to go,

but without a reason, it won't mean

a thing to anyone you tell save that

they should go there instead.

Some of this is true,

some of this is possible

none of this is a lie,

unless,

you tell me it's impossible.

Cutting Stone

for Charlie

My hands caress the smooth surface

feeling for the shape locked therein,

my fingers are the keys to its secrets

to uncover with chisel and wits alone,

as long as the pain does not betray
for this is the day I am cutting stone.

My age tries to define me in aches
criss-crossing my limbs like branches
of a wizened and ancient oak tree
I rest from my labor at the noontide
to consider what I have found within
the rock that resists the vision I seek
in this, as in all things, I shall abide.

Time again for day to chase the night
a body is born from the fragments 
falling away like leaves in the breeze
autumnal seasons, weathered bone
I bite back the hurt, I will remain
releasing my desire cutting stone.

Falling Forward

A casual sense of fumbling in forward momentum over the edge
a spastic plunge down or up or just out into the abyss, the nothing
the joy and sadness and ecstasy of weightless as well a easy dread
the music is around me, it's to my left, my right, then in your head.

The dead drop down down down down-falling into the deepness too
bottomless rhythm erupts like a box-beat blown out of my mouth
like a bass scream of ominous yet curious portent now resounding
now pleasantly violent though deliciousness amok chaos pounding.

Then like an explosion of light and colors and dust, now then Saturn
overturns Jupiter, thrumming in the absence of the sine waves crash
shattering like a thousand tears of glass all over the surface of Mars
such beautiful substance, such insane significance midst the stars.

I am the hammer of my own heartbeats, one, two, three now four
there is nothing but the fall, there is nothing here, no nothing at all.
there is no emotion, no fears, no tears, no laughter, wonder extreme
nothing is apparent, nothing is obvious, it is after all just a dream.

Life is weird

Life is not some water color painting
or a chess game from star trek that is
multi-tiered.
No, that's not what life is, it's harder
than that, it just that life is weird.

It is not like a box of chocolates
shared from the park bench wisdom
we could trust.
It is not like a zodiac wheel of stars
read in the paper on the road to
heaven on a bus.

It is not to be found in the quizzes
found on the Facebook page.
It is not to be learned from an actor
strutting and muttering on the stage.

It is not to be learned from a textbook
lost on a forgotten library shelf.
It is not to be heard in a barbershop chair
debating golf or the path to wealth.

It is hidden inside the secrets held
under the roots of the hanging tree.
It is not to be bargained for in turn
at the crossroads of absent irony.

It is not to be told through a myth
written in the films of youth.
No, my friend, that is not where
you are led to learn this final truth.

It is bled by men and women on
the fields of the living.
It is found being dropped into the
hands of the helpless, in giving.

It is sudden and wretched, wildly
unstable and rude.
It is the music I hear in the laughter
of undefeatable attitude.

It is all this insanity as the world
burns around us, angry red.
It is the fortunate loss, the tears
that come from surviving instead.

It is the understood in the midst of
the madness of the storm.
It is the moment I can grok it
I am my imagination reborn.

It is everything I never hoped for.
It is mostly what I have always feared.
It is like a prayer unanswered, unasked for.
what is more than this, is that life is just-
weird.

Three Things

Three things that occurred to me before I lied
to the only person who ever mattered to me.
Before she sat there and just cried and cried;
before that part of my soul just shriveled then died.
before I wished there was any other place to be.

One: I threw it all away like yesterday's trash,
I am a fool as anyone else can obviously see.
Without a moment's hesitation, gone in a flash,
without a thought, spent considering if it was rash;
without a minute lost, I blind myself to be free.

Two; I spoke words that cannot be taken back,
as if she wasn't there, her expression- a plea.
Besides, I hadn't considered tactlessness a knack
besides, I just plowed in to hew and to hack
through her emotions, the ax to her heart, the tree.

Three: The truth hurts more the words I chose to say
so I lie in order to spare the commentary.
Before, she can argue that there was another way,
before, her eyes can persuade me that I should stay,
before, I lose face, forget my place, to run, to flee.

Three things that occurred to me before I tried
to stop hurting the only woman who ever loved me.
Before she got up to leave, before my heart died.
Before hope went out like a flame denied,
because with her, there is no other place I would
rather be.

Ode to the Moon

Like a sun in the dark of night

the moon is full midst the cloud's ocean

illuminating the night with the brilliance

of light.

No stars shine, the blanket blocks all but 

this luminescent orb burning so bright that

it feels like day if you will allow the

paradox of sight.

I want to picture it perfectly but my camera eye

is not as good as my own biologic one

my mind frames it in the verse

of this page as if to 

say there is more inside

of my own imagination

than out there in the 

infinite universe

save the

concept

of 

vision.

Sometimes

Sometimes we choose to forget the horrors that surround us
sometimes I regret that I have forgotten the terrible events
that have happened within the span of my life,
that the evil men do can become so focused
that we forget that there was beauty there
before some tank came along crushing it
like a flower under the treads of hatred.
Sometimes we choose to stop looking back at the past
sometimes its too painful to do anything but nod in
the general direction of the destruction of the
innocent who did nothing to the aggressors
who will take it out on them instead of taking
the time to find those who actually provoked
them to take such extreme actions like a man
alone with a bomb wanting the world to share
his pain, his impotent anger, so he settles for
striking down anyone close enough to have
the misfortune to be on that city block that terrible day.
Sometimes the survivors can do little more than
shed a tear for the lost and almost forgotten
shed a fear for the children and loved ones
shed some care as if to say"Is it not enough that I cried"
Is it not enough that you lied when you told me
Time cures all wounds when in truth some wounds
won't heal as much as just scar over while we
hide them beneath layers of forgetfulness.

Eating Alone is like dating a daydream

Eating Alone is like dating a daydream
"Who are you talking to?"
Nobody but somebody should be sitting there opposite me
at the table for two, setting for one.
"We will have water without lemon."
I totally miss that I am talking as if she is ordering too.
The waiter looks at me with concern in her face
we both look at the empty chair as I shrug
"This is too weird."
It's weird and sadly tragic as embarrassment
wars with the discomfort that she will admit
the unseen presence by calling it what it is
"No lemon, water it is."
The moment is already to bitter to mix that
sad fruit into the mood of the table surrounded by
couples and family and groups of friends
and, and I just hate the whole thing
but I am hungry for company, for food
for companionship like a man alone in
the desert searching for water except I am drowning
in the ocean of people around me
"Here's your water, sir."
With lemon in it.

It's editing day

Due to my fortunate or unfortunate reading of my poetry to my parents (different occasions I promise), I realize that it's long time past due for some serious rewriting.
Anyone want to weigh in, let me know- except you Jake! you blew it with all those mariachi suggestions (seriously tacos was a little over the top dude) 

The Science of Loneliness

 There is a methodology of the mind that speaks to the silence of the heart,
as if the understanding of the mysteries- lie in the very things that drive us apart.
I want to go back in time- begin again from the moments leading up to the start
when your fears replaced your tears as our world unraveled then split then frayed, 
I would have stayed- I wanted to say,
I would have stayed- I should have prayed. I want to take back the seconds until
I have enough to fill the entirety of a single day, I want to recapture that 
last laugh, like the instant I knew it was slipping away through my fingers, down,
down into the sands as I recognized that my theory had failed to address
the empirical demands that comes from the science of loneliness. 

 If I could hypothesize how it felt as I watched you fading like mist into my past,
 the feelings would rival what I knew almost for certain that love could outlast. 
It cannot be quantified like a mathematical algorithm in order to recast
scenarios that played out in my head without answers, without contrast
 like an old daguerreotype photograph rusting away along the edge
the image blurring into streaks like tear tracts, as if the clarity of our pledge 
fails to escape the traps that I set to capture the framework of our memories
and all is gone for the lack of effort like unspoken words, requested on my knees.
Now just another page from the books I would have written in order to compress
my own fruitless desires down into the annals of the science of loneliness.

I want to know that there are facts to support this, that I have more than just some data 
from trials to reminisce, and that there are ways to record the details of each touch, each trace,
of each embrace, of each kiss- but what is worse, is that everything about you is what I really miss. I must go to the conclusion, I guess, as I beat myself up once again, in order to confess-
after all of these revelations- I know nothing of love nor the science of loneliness.

There must be you

There must be some way to forget-
you.
Some method to remind that I am behind
on believing that I should mind that I
should've, no would've or at very least
could've forgotten that I still miss you.

The problem is that everything makes
me think
of the way you smile with subtle style
without too much guile that makes me
want to go a mile out of my way- I know
it's just denial, like I am on trial trying
to forget you.

Sometimes I think I shall stop feeling blue
like the difference between mist and dew
as if our time together was not the glue
that kept us intact otherwise I'd be
forced to construe that there was more than
just love that drove me to distraction about
you. 

The Long Road

I have driven so many miles I cannot count
whatever distance was spent in whatever amounts
I went alone wherever it was that I really went.
The Long Road is gone, like the dust in the wind
casts its lot like coins on the throw of fate's dice
I want to question my decisions, not once but thrice
Was I right or wrong? Will an answer suffice?

The pages of my memories, like streams of sands
or dreams of trees, I have expectations and demands.
I should have waited for the rains to bring the green
I could have stood the test of time for the moments
in between. The Long Road stretches out across this
my lifelong map, The promise of tomorrows, ungifted
untapped.

I will take my burdens up onto my crooked back
I will walk away from all that I have known, upon the track,
I will find my keys, my wallet, and phone.
I will walk away, unnoticed and alone.
I will draw my own destination, unbidden I will leave the fold;
I will drive into the sunset, away into darkness unasked for,
untold.
We have all our stories, in our hearts heavy with load
These are my words for this the longest road.

Humansdorp.

As I remember it, it was late afternoon in a light drizzle when I came back to the place;
not much there to even remember it by other than the name, Humansdorp.
I stood by my car at the train stop looking at the sign trying to decided if it was
pronounced as Human's Dorp and if so what was a dorp and more importantly who
was this guy Human? Unless, it was human not Human than the dorp could be a
condition like a state of mind at the end of a long day when most men would go
do the main street in search of a drink. Unless there was another way to say it-
like in the dying language of the people who may have built it, it could be U-mans
Dor (p silent) then the connotation would take on a new meaning as Umans might
have a doorway to another place other than this dusty town nestled on the cape
coast looking out into the Indian Ocean without much complaint other than to say
Hey! What the big deal? Are you staying or not?
Silently, I get back into my rental car, driving away into the rain that turns this
town, this Humansdorp to mud in my memory.

note: just realized this is one of those poems you have to not read aloud.

Post Life

Life,
is bigger when it's not in constant motion
like the momentary pauses whenever the
guy with the remote takes the notion
as if some feminine hand reaches out
from beyond the interplanetary ocean.
You stop,
to notice that there were flowers back there
to remember her name, the cell numbers
the reason that you were going somewhere
a touch of his hand, the shuffle of her feet
Do I hope? Shall you finish? Do we dare?
Photograph,
like a selfie except that everyone you ever knew
is in on it, clustered together, forever or at least
long enough that stillness will make it feel new
I recall we stood apart yet close enough to feel
the pull on the heartstrings, unscientifically true.
Life,
is slower when the words push it along the page
like the scribble scrabble of this my digital pen
the smoothness of the LCDness of age
as if with one sentence I can sum up it all
like the Shakespearean actor upon the
darkened stage.

Are you Through?

Sometimes in the morning when I am still mostly asleep, but find
myself staring at my reflection in the mirror and not screaming at
this guy who does not look at all like the person I really am looking
back at me with mild surprise, I find myself asking
"Are you Through?'
Am I! Am I! I will tell you what I am! I am livid with outrage that
my life is not at all like that dream I was just having- the one where
I am in love and the woman of my dreams is sitting next to me on the
stoop outside her house and I am smiling at her as the sun rises over
the city streets of Boston, she looks at me, her loose brown hair on her
shoulders, her smiling eyes behind those tortoise shell rims, her lips
as red as the blush in her cheeks before pulling all that long hair back
into a tight ponytail before leaning in to kiss me. This is a good life
we have here in the city, I have her, I have a car, I have a dog, I have
a moment before I realize that she is no longer kissing me but saying
something to me. I stop listing to hear what she is saying.
"Are you through?"
I look up from the urinal in shock at the guy who is nearly jogging in
place while waiting his turn at the stall. I glance around, we are alone,
It is me that he's talking to, embarrassment and shame is what we share
together in that moment of awkwardness in this public bathroom. I
wonder what the odds are that this is the only working urinal in the
only unlocked bathroom in the subway where I have missed my train.
He looks at me and opens his mouth to speak but I sigh, shaking my
head because despite all this weirdness and solitude I cannot go anyway
also not wanting or liking the idea of conversations in bathrooms
with anyone but especially men like the guy in the toliet stall next to us
yelling into his cell phone at full blast.
ARE YOU THROUGH!
I wanted to tell them but how can I when they look like that sitting
on the couch together, arm in arm, so small and naive to what I
have just realized that I am already saying. I told them that he
had touched me when I had told him no, I told them that I was
confused and wanted him to go. I told them that I should have
listened to my friends when they told me I should go. Now
I know, now I know.
Am I Through?
I think I have pretty much covered it all and yet probably told
you nothing surprising, nothing new. I suspect that this will
change everything, words have other meanings, circumstances
construe. Now stand here in the aftermath, confusion with what
is true, I understand more, there is no me or I but only you.

Vituperance

I heard her go off while I was waiting somewhat patiently in the checkout line,
the vibrato of her tone like shattering glass from a hundred picture windows
came crashing across the aisle like a wave as her voice climbed from a
quiver to a howling whine.
She wasn't so short as to disappear despite what everyone probably desired,
She was not so tall as to tower above the cashier below her anger and pain
she was not so thin to dismiss as a waif, nor was she so fat that it excused
the situation in which we are quagmired.
The importance of made up words displaced only by the effects of  rage
at the impotence of the bagging clerk standing stock still in line of fire
ranting over the whole shmeal, the meat, the broken eggs, the unfairness
of looking or acting her age.
If it wasn't another matter of wasted time, If I weren't the way I am
If it wasn't so late in the day, it's just 20 bucks that's all I have to say,
If it wasn't just so stupid, dumb, and obscenely funny I would just
sit down where I am and then tell her that I don't really give a damn.

It was my words but his blood upon the crumpled page

Roxanne,

As I am sure you will know by now, we are both dead
gone to the dust, to the snow, down to the earth, all our
choices have led us to know that it was his last word
upon his lips that moved my pen that final time on this
crumbled bit of page.
Loss, and lost we both are to have come to these unfortunate
ends, ah the cruel jest that it was all for unrequited love that
made us become friends. As the sun sets upon the fields so
bright, so vibrant, so very green, I pause to recollect what all
of our loves and likes should really mean. I loved you almost
as much as he wanted to. You loved us both, but this is as they'd
say time passed, the ironic view. we have let death take our
last collective breath,
Judge me not, lest you judge him too, This is all we had to make
us have to choose, Now the ground grows cold, my dying becomes
old, I gave you my all, nothing left to lose, let this be my epitaph
to be engraved upon our stones. That we both loved, fought this
fate with all our collective rage. It is my words but now both our
blood upon the crumpled page. 

Prague

A thousand years of age marks the stones that surround the narrow streets,
a few hundred feet march in time to a drum beat under the crimson flags
of another mad dictator or over zealous savior as their reigns come and go
buildings rise up with buttresses and fall back down in the flames stoked
by the insane passions of an all too familiar sense of post modern warfare.
The Vltava crawls through the city green and blue, the waters old then new
as the myriads of saints face each other and cross in a graceful arch whilst
musicians and street performers ply their trades like marionettes at play
Was this the way it was in my memory? Was this the day I claim to see
the angels casting their flaming shadows down upon the cobblestones
while in the alleys the monsters rest, the shadows follow their stride.
Did I walk there in a dream?
Was I a man of elder smoke and sallow bone?
Was there a moment when the gaslights remembered the forgotten names
will the ghosts that walk the ways between the sinners and the shame
of a thousand days where history went awry. Was this where I saw
the girl with the dark blue hair, Was it her footprints I found there
in the snows covering the statues in Wenceslas Square?
When I walk in the old town in the noise, the urban confusion
 I find myself looking for fictional diners with goulash in bowls
hidden behind the shops, the underground catacombs of collusion
with revolutionaries marked by blood, the soft touch of velvet sublime
was this the same city or place that is lost yet not in the annuals of time?

Waiting for Sleep

When the darkness comes like a blanket being pulling over the daylight
and the star wink into the skies like a thousand dropped diamonds
filling the folds and wrinkles that spreads across the scope of my sight
I stop on my journey to pause and reflect on the words from Frost
the values of wisdom, the references to paths taken, the moments
where I should have stopped instead of plunging on regardless of cost.
Am I lost? Was it worth finding another was on a different road
than the one I wanted to to take but was hindered then blocked
I am alone there in this forest, the sun fading from the crimson sky
ever way I want to turn to is foreboding, or somehow locked
I want to stop, I want to weep, but I am into deep to not even try,
I have another reference that is stronger than the cliches of sleep
another week has passed, why did I think that the time would last
as I lie here in my bed waiting for sleep.

Rhyme and Reason

Reaching for the reason to forge the unforgettable something
Teaching myself the words to the song that I want to sing
Breaching the walls that surround my secrets and suffering
Each line forms in my mind as the keyboard clicks out the next
like a thousand experiments as I delve down into the subtext.

Hoping to find the patterns to the ideas that fly out of my head
Coping with the bursts of creativity, the challenge, the beachhead
Loping along the verse as if to rehearse the lines that I have just read.
Each Rhyme needs explanation if not just a simplistic reason
like the myriads of possibilities without committing basic treason
This is my crime, this is my time, and I want it to be
sublime.

It Went something like this...

I think I remembered that was what it was like and I would later say
that it happened something like this...
Was it just one kiss?
Who am I going to miss?
Was she real or just something - no wait that was a dream
I was having when I decided I really remembered that this
was something that I could reminisce.
I wanted to remind myself that it was like this relationship
that I had only wished that I had.
Was it really that bad?
was she as kind as I was mad?
was it all we really had?
Was it real or just folly? No- wait that was just a dream
something that was less of substance than steam
nothing is really what it seems
I sometimes feel that I am coming apart at the seams
that I cannot tell what happened from what I imagined
that it is just another illusion rather than just another
simile or metaphoric conclusion
Is it just the poetic collusions
that leads me to this ironic conclusion?
Still was it just one kiss?
or was there something I did miss?

PADM announcement

Basically Bad News.

I cannot keep this up. I feel like I am:
A. stagnating.
B. trying to hard. trying to keep writing good poetry everyday is suicidal- at least figuratively.
C. Crazy wrong.

Part of what makes me a good poet is the drive to compose, the willingness to share, the ability to recompose/rewrite what I written.
Doing a poem a day in May seemed like a good exercise for me, but the rest of my writing is suffering for it, nevermind that my life and time seems to be much more limited on availability than I had previously assumed it would be.
Also you forget, well- I forget the bunching up from the last 2 years where I could not write or would forget to write for a few days then try to make up for it which even now still feels like cheating.

I want to create unforgettable poetry. I don't want to end up with bland, banal poetry.
I am a perfectionist at best so when I write bad stuff it stresses me out.

SO
No more Poem A Day in May.
I had a good run but I want to do something else. something new.
I am kind of apologizing to you my readers but as Logan Nine Fingers would say
"you have to be realistic about these things."

Of course, I am not going to end up by jumping out a window down into a frozen river gorge.

PADM #14 To Do List

To Do List
1. Take out the trash, keep some cash
2. Fire the kid who mows you lawn
3. Get the weed eater out of pawn.
4. Don't forget your anniversary, she is after all your wife
6. If you're lucky, she'll stick around for the rest of your life.
7. Feed the pets if you have one or two.
8. If you don't, you should, it is your due.
9. Lock your doors, your windows and your car
10. Is there any wonder that our civilization got this far.

The things we list that we have to do.
this modern life spiraling out of view.

PADM #13 Sermonizing

Say the words or what you will
even from the pulpit, it can be a
bitter pill to swallow- if that's still
allowed, but whatever you do keep
speaking, unashamed, unbowed.
Just remember it's you who is above
the church crowd.

Tell a metaphor or analogy- or the like
one with a good moral, some good psych.
Stick with the script, mention the gospel verse
remember to take your time just as you rehearsed
if someone checks their watch, remind yourself
it could be worse.

Make your stories funny but also true
throw in an appropriate joke or two
reach out to as many of them as you can
keep telling yourself all is going according
to plan, maybe you get a laugh or so, holy man.

If someone falls asleep, drop your voice down deep
then yell out a Glory Hallelujah! and then weep.
If another is married to their new cellphone
announce repentance with a high pitched tone
Then wave your arms around in the air
do a two step, then an amen before
heading down the stair!

PADM #11 No More

No more fairy tales for me, no more adventures that defy
our persistent reality. No more flights of fancy out beyond
my bedroom door, no more dragons, just no more.
No more stories to keep me up until late in the night
no more lovers needing rescue, no more words that
even the princesses will rue,
No more pages that the books will make me turn, no more
unreasonable hopes, no more regrets to fire, no more pictures
to burn. No more mermaids asking for their turn, no more
heroes, no more villains to spurn. No more swords to find,
no more dreams of any kind, I don't want to learn what
it was to be an adult, I don't want to learn the lie behind
such an insult. I don't want something like all this to come
to an invariable end, I don't want to lose my fiction since it
is like having to bury a friend.
Some people would say that I must be feeling conflicted, but
I answer and say there are worse things to be addicted. Some
people would say that there are books that can help me, but I
say they are just nicer prisons to someone who is meant to be
free,

PADM #10: On Stein Time

If I were to travel back in Time
I would, of course, go back to find
that particular patron, Gertrude Stein.
If I were, that I would to travel
it would be more likely that I'd unravel
then finding find myself face down
like Hemingway upon the Parisian gravel.
If I should find another way to start
I would then take up Picasso-like art
what better way for my poetry to win her heart?

PADM #9 Requiem

Dare I dream of you when you are gone to the dust

as they lower your casket down out of view

I will not say farewell, for that would mean an end

to our days together, I will shed the tears for you, 

I will not allow my doubts lead us into regret

I will not weep and I will not forget.

Dare I dream of you when the winter's cold comes

when the snow lays upon the stones above your grave

instead I will hold onto the warmth that was your touch

the comfort and the hope that your presence gave.

I will choose to remember our last embrace

I will miss the easy smile light upon your face.

Dare I dream that you are dead and now gone

like the autumn leaves, orange, red and then gray

as if the seasons would cease to change at all,

Was there something else you could stop to say

or the way you would lean over for one more kiss

these are the moments about you I will miss.

PADM #8: Nerds

What is it about Nerds?
I mean that there is actually a lot about nerds that I like
BUT
there are also a lot that I don't like about how the Media 
and by Media I mean TV entertainment (BBT) defines nerds
and nerdism as.
Nerds are not just like other humans save that most of them are
mostly human with feelings and fears and doubts and sometimes
even hopes that they will be like other humans.
Nerds are really aware that they are different and that the awareness
is what makes them different from others because Nerds feel this
more strongly or rather acutely than others.
Ironically, I am not a nerd and maybe it is that others seek to define 
me as a nerd and thereby quantify Nerdism as a quantifiable category
in order to fit all those social outcasts and rejects and failures into a 
tidy box so that maybe by the definition of rejection they will become 
something like those other classifications that make the others feel
like the universe is actually explainable and thus safer from the very
anxiety that drives so many people like me to define ourselves by a 
formerly derogative name given to us by ignorant bullies when we 
were too young to realize that no one can define us other than 
ourselves although they will try,
So what is it about Nerds that makes me ask that question?
I am a nerd, at least by identification with the plights of 
social rejection and a distinct inability to conform to
this, the expected social norm.
Perhaps I am a nerd because I reject the idea that I must be a nerd?
unless I am a geek
which would be something else entirely.

PADM #7: Once

Once,
When will you be leaving? She asked as we stood on her stoop.
I sighed and scratched at an imagined itch as if to delay my
departure for one more moment before turning to look into her
eyes, replying: Sometime today.
Are you coming back? She asked me this several times.
I was packing my suitcase, sorting the socks and underwear,
avoiding the lie that threatened to escape my lips
Instead I choose to hug her thereby admitting
my guilt in emotional answer.
Do you love me? She asked as I walked with her to the train
What kind of question is that? I shot back then regretted
it instantly as we both knew it was yes, the strategy of pain
I am coming back I said to her there at the door, but I never
did, didn't even know why, her tears on my shirt, the
melancholic moments of her hurt, I am still not sure
what was worse, that I still loved her even when
I stood on the grass watching the hearse take away
all that I thought I had loved into the morning light
as I remembered her last words: Stay with me.
Once.

PADM #6: How Pleasant to know Mr. Van

How pleasant to know Mr. Van,
who has written such posts and blogs
a curmudgeon disguised like a man
he really truly has gone to the dogs.

His mind is precise and sardonic
his nose is sensitively aware.
His vision can be socially hedonic
his beard reminds one of a bear.

He has 2 ears, 2 eyes and 8 fingers
at knitting he is totally thumbs.
Once he was one of the web slingers
now he just searches for crumbs.

He likes to take tea in the coffee bars
some cream and sugar or honey
He avoids staring at the passing cars
but always tips with monopoly money.

He has more friends out there on the net.
Poor Yorick is the name of his cat;
His body is solidly and stoically set
his bathroom has a welcome home mat.

He likes to take long walks out into the night
the children call him Great Uncle Gum
He speaks in riddles with such peevish delight
he loves his wit as a pirate loves his rum.

He cries during particularly bad movie plots
he weeps at show of poor English use
He is completely hopeless when playing slots
he shouts at the inhumanity of the music abuse!

He claims to speak Klingon and computerese
He's cannot abide a two door blue sedan
His googling is exact, he's always ready to please
How pleasant, indeed, to know Mr. Van!

PADM #5: Glasses

World defined by two panes of glass
these are the limits of comprehension
the borders set lines on my ability focal
Everything within is to be considered
from this moment forward to be local.

With them I can paint in finite detail
without them all is Monet blurry splash
the brush strokes of blindness, the words
lost to murmurs and to mumblings,
the canvas a mess of raw feelings, attitudes
midst the distant hints of imagined rumblings

Within the frames that surround my eyes
the understanding that what I have seen
is often compromised by my own point
of view colored by my experience to date
the very definitions that create my life
I should clean them, remove the limitations
of hate.

PADM #4: Mom is the Word

Say haven't you heard
that Mom is the word
it's not all that absurd
it's not a plant or a bird
Mom is what you'd say
since it is afterall her Day.

PADM #3: This is a Wedding

First, there's this wonderful music that you only hear...at weddings.
Second, there's all this clothing, mostly worn once, then everyone is, well shedding.
Thirdly, some songs, a hymn or two, then a solo, a few readings almost always
the same.
This is the mishmash of western traditions we all do- but don't understand, a lot of
trouble so that we can share a name.
The couple say their vows, the priest calls, they respond, the words predetermined-
not much choice.
Then the blessings, the exchanging of rings, symbolic things, the nervous scared 
emotional voice.
A few prayers, one to thank, the other to bless, a moment in time, one more question 
to ask.
Will they make it, are they ready, can two people be able to undertake this formidable 
task?
Let them eat the holy food, let them drink from the sacred cup, seal the whole shebang
with one memorable kiss.
Let them remind the rest of us, that this, this is something none of us should want to miss.
Lastly a triumphant exit march, strolling hand in hand back down the aisle.
Wait, at least a dozen more pictures, everyone together, yes you too Granma, now stand still
and smile.
Then the dance is finished, the ritual performed, time to leave live in style or heart felt denial.

PADM 2: Saturn's Rings

There are such mysteries that drift with inertial unexplainble things
like stardust and cosmic glitter upon the imagination's wings
I imagine in the void silent the gentle plucking of the solar strings
my silver spacecraft is ready to depart the mind's orbital lining
I am gone to the stars, that is what they will say as they turn to each
other- shaking their collective heads, doubting that I will ever find
another way to convey the majesty or the solitude I feel each time
the sun goes out, I will wake, I will rise up to walk out into the night
look up to the stars- out to my imaginary flight as far as my naked
eyes can see, the words from my thought float away upon the
radio waves streaming out of my restless need for dreaming
that no matter what I am doing or how the universe still seems
with each moonrise I shall stop along my path to whatever
the future brings, is this my path? Or will I ever walk where no
man has tread out there midst Saturn's Rings.

PADM #1: Cubism Decubed using the Stein Deconstruction

I said that I would lie, I would lie to the liar that was lying but not laying although he was laying out what he would say
I said that I would not lie until I lied about lying though not laying this is what I was saying as if by this admission I was
admitting that by lying I was trying to state with clarification that I was- in fact just denying the fact that I am  eschewing
that he was chewing albeit more ruing as if I would stop my construing and admit that I was lying about this viewing as if
I would oppose that the art was lying on the wall not so much laying or really even saying that I was reaching for words
or rather, in other words, delaying the moment where as to avoid the moment when the artist would turn from her easel
as if to demand that I should be paying instead of preying on her soft touches of the brush rush thrust as one might want
to escape the crush-ing despair that I the buyer buying the piece, this work, this art of lying to the eye about the lying
without the makeshift moment where we are wont to say saying that she and by this I mean we, are saying without relying
on the fact she insist that it be call Napoleon the first or first that it has anything to do with Napoleon first, I see her ruse, 
I see the she rues that anyone would construe that the true is truth, such impetuousness of our youth, I swear upon this that
my lie is the truth and true as I am laying this lie like the dye used to color the work laying there before us as if to say that
I, moreover, will buy this piece, such a noble effort, such a valiant try.
I said that I would lie, that this is the truth
every word denied.
  

A Poem a Day in May

Well, It's May and I am now 6 days behind on the annual Poem a Day in May activity.
Will be trying to compose at least 2 poems a day until I catch up
Still traveling until tomorrow and do some proper cross posting.
and now we begin....

Casting Mountains into the Sea

The Mountains roll down the land out into the green sea.
the mists wrap the peaks as they slip by silently
the surf churns and crashes upon the rocks in white sprays
reflecting the sky hues in colorful rainbows refracting rays
I cast crags out like skipping stones out into the deep
as fish rise to the surface silver links, echoes of sleep
I have far to drive before I find my pillow and bed
another place where the images of this rugged land
fill my head.

Flight

The man waits in the belly of the great silver bird.
He sings to himself a familiar song, he sings this tune
Oh Mother Mother Earth release me so that
I can go see my Father Sky, so way up high
above you Mother Earth. Cast me forth into
the wind with all your might, then Father Sky
can catch me in this holy flight.
Oh Father Father Sky receive me into your
welcoming arms, hold me there so far away
from the world that harms. Take me away over
the clouds so high, upon the eagle's wings, let
me hear the angel's cry.
Then oh Father Father Sky let me go back down
to ground away from your bright face, Send me back
to Mother Earth's soft embrace, so that I might
find my sleep in the star filled night as from your
hands I shall end my flight.

Chasing Lions

Chasing Lions
First there is the vastness of the Bush
much more in my memory then what spreads out
before me as I sit here in the Land Rover roving
through the dirt roads, ever moving, jostling, bumping
thumping into and over rocks and puddles as the
gray skies drizzle down the soft rain down, down
onto the parched spaces inside my brain.
Then there are those lions ever ahead of me
their elusiveness as ghostlike as the reality
that I might not find them as they slide out of
view, the idea of them goes slightly askew, are
they even true or just some metaphor for me to
construe?
The almost sleepy look of the lion's eyes peers out
to me from the bush grasses as I sit in abject shock
that at last I have found the prey that I seek only find
that what is the lion and what I have believed to be is
not the same thing, it's the idea that takes wing, nothing
will bring back the truth that comes from the heart of this
hunt, this trek, this walk into the bush, just a journey to try
on like the fact that in all this I am still chasing lions.

Words, words, words and for the record, more words.

Words,
My words are weapons filled with pain and rage
as if I am a shakespearean actor shouting his lines
down the rake of the evening stage.
Your words stick to me like cobwebs and remain
as if there was nothing else to what you said,
nothing but the mindless refrain in my brain.
Words,
like all the things I ever wanted to tell you anyway,
like all the times I wanted to show you that you
mattered to me more than the words I had to say.
Paint, painting by the numbers 1 being blue
2, being the very essential color that I must 
define as you.
Art and craft, who I am and who I am with
as if to suggest that my portfolio will be determined
by one humongous vainglorious sieve?
My words fall down from my mind to this blog post
to lay there in full view of my own silence, all my
time, all of your sins, the machina in my ghost.
Words,
In the end, they will carry me through the day
in the end, they will marry and bury us together
as if our scene has run out, now bow, now stay.
Words are my own version of the truth
memories, passages, pages, all the present trouble
unkempt, chaotic, honest and uncouth
this is what I was like when I will grow old
or at very least, so I am told.

Bittersweet Moments of Kate

Whenever I close my eyes to dream away the hours that fill the spaces
in between the shadows and sun haze, I find myself deep within the
emerald essence held in her steady gaze, I want to blink but I won't
I want to hold her but I don't, It feels like a now or never, yet she is
unsubstantial as any ghost is ever, I want to kiss this phantom that
walks in my sleep, I want her to materialize out of my imagination's
deep. I want to reach out from where I lie upon the sheets, as if I can
grasp at the wisps of this vision to have, hold and keep.
She is after all, an illusion that haunts me in the dark of the night,
She is my desire made manifest, my subconscious reminder slipping
silently swift until the dream woman slides out of sight. Only her
mocking challenge remains asking me to follow, believe in everything
like hope on gossamer wings, floating like daffodils adrift in the
star reflections of this my moonlit stream, was it just a dream?
Is nothing at all what it seems but just the hint of some exotic sweet
perfume, the flash of feeling as if her presence still fills my empty
room, If I open my eyes, I am forced to admit defeat, I have to face
another life with only the memory of her kiss driving me on with
trepidation in order to meet the promise that she gives me each
mystic feathery night, Come find me, she teases as if this is just
the answer that each day I have steadily grown to love and to hate.
Such is the bittersweet moments of Kate.

Throwback Thursday

Punk hairdos Funky Monkeys total wipeout on clues
Imma Jeans like Levis and Jordans paying my dues
star spangled laces, trading places, nostalgia ensues
teenage dreams, was it all that it seems, it wasn't a lie
it was all true.

Gloss and glamor, chaos and clamor, wilder ways
back off the wall, listen to the siren call, sunrays
summer sliding, moonwalk gliding, watergun daze
kids in the yards, lovers in cars, it was life on mars
those bygone days.

I went crazy, mellencamp and daisy, silver spoons
cartoon afternoons, bugs and marvin looney tunes
video games, made up names, Cosmos over the moon
action figures toys, girls look like boys, tremendous
private joys, petty poetry ending all to soon.

These are the days, my friends, when we swore to
each other that we would never end no matter how
time and space bends, our illusions did lend to this
romantic idea that somehow it was ponderous high
I cannot go back there and I won't even try.

Facebook POV

It's always those damnable cats! It's like kids
hitting those balls with plastic bats, all at once
cute boring predictable and annoying, alright already
one more selfie of you in the bathroom or car
is long past the moment I was enjoying whatever
Takei has been posting as if my like ceased to be
anything more than the voyeurism I am ghosting
I will make a comment, I will edit it, I will rage
when I cannot overcome my autocorrect, what is
my age can I not embarrass myself again on my
favorite page?  It's as if there is nothing more to
my day than this scrolling and trolling that makes
me hate the couples happy, the family pictures sappy
the photography of everything so crappy, not
another word, not another link to some ad drenched
website I need to make this an early nite, one more
vertical video and I shall go stark raving mad, it's
what my life has come to sharing afv rejects with
everyone unlucky enough to be on his friends list
here's another ad for something you might have missed
It's just another Facebook day, I am not to bitter
look on the bright side though, at least I am not Twitter.


for Alan.

De-Motivational Morning

I am not a morning person,
a get up, get things done, eat things now person
not now probably not ever, ain't gonna even try
for the go motivational poster on my walls of
de-motivation that surround me.
I am not a outwardly happy person, my line
of sunshine is on only with the shades drawn
around this halo of glow as if to say, no I am
happy but it's not up for you to see. I don't
owe you an explanation unless, of course,
you are going to kiss me. I am going to miss
not being missed when I leave on that endless
quest to find the things I never had or even knew
I wanted, I won't win the prize or find a treasure
at the end of Heaven's rainbow but I expect a lot
less than perfect. I only wish that when I open
up my eyes in the morning that instead of
looking for some message that somehow is
meant for me that I just find the will to
go without pep or coffee or some nomenclature
like that. 

Poetryaccordingtomike.com

Just a general announcement
Poetryaccordingtomike.com is being held for $100 ransom by those decietful uncooperative jerks at Domain Central after they bungled my domain renewal and blocked me transferring the domain to another nameserver. So here's a royal "I will never endorse Domain Central to anyone even Glenn Beck" bird to DC for stealing my domain name.
In other news I will now have to see what dot extension I can get for Poetry According to Mike.
.net?
.biz?
.poetry?

It's a Cosmic Turnip

Squeaking the creaking hardly speaking

in time with squealing feeling unreeling 

all the time crime almost sublime

 running go off like a gun, just fun.

let the beat move your feet until you meet the street

flounce trounce then announce the bounce

jumping up down no frowns just take the crown

spinning over the din, no losers just win.

it's the rhythm section, like election vivisection

dance dance this is trance romance enhance

repeating the greeting heating momenting

 she shipping whipping frenzy tipping

Scream that you are hip

rhyme it's time to let it rip

motions notions like the oceans

it's cosmic turnip on the LP Flip.

March the Fourth

I guess it is safe to say that there would be no good poems if there weren't really bad poems even those that come from the best of intentions
hence, I pulled this stinker since there was no fixing it.
better luck next time poet!

We so Badass...

The million or so Gamers online
@ the Internet

We so Badass, We
hate hated class, we

spend our days teabagging
with 100 dollar controllers
we be fragging, we

talk trash, we
spend our parents cash, we
cuss and swear, we
hate and fear, we

stand tall, we
know all, we
are just fools, we
are above the rules, we

be proud cruel, we
tell each other we so cool, we
hurt people we never see, we
hide behind our anonymity. we

do nothing, we
are out of touch, we
don't leave our homes much.


(apologies and respects to Gwendolyn Brooks)

Looks like a Winter Wonderland...but it feels like a Gulag

*an apology to those who live/d in the real gulag, you know, I know sheesh, oh well.


There is almost nothing as cheerless as knowing that you are trapped by the
frozen feelings that pervade like the icicles that drop occasionally from my
roof like great falls of ancient ice down into the white miasma that covers
everything as I want to run away out into the gray and flounder as I find
myself lost out there in this winter wonderland.... but it feels like a gulag.

A conversation.

What happened next?
Well, there was a girl and by girl I mean woman and by woman I mean wow. She walks into
the men-filled room and you know that it was as silent as a-
Let me guess a Tomb?
Yes, She was stunningly beautiful in a way that gets men moving, which in this case was out of
her path as she strode right through and up to me.
I can see where this is going?
Well, it is all about the knowing and such knowledge is seldom missed, always complicated and
never free.
What did she want?
I was coming to that. Anyway, she walked up to me and then with a sudden burst of flair she
reared her arm back and while I saw it coming there was no dodging that slap.
So, in other words, another cliche moment-
Hey! This is my story and only I know where it went, I can assure that it was time well spent!
Sorry, please continue
No, you've upset me and no I leave you with this one thing on which your mind and chew. She wanted wanted to kiss me but that would have required admitting that would have taken more than
her heart to flutter, like the man that stood next to me to utter with a sudden stutter that she knocked
the words right out of me as anyone can see. She grabbed my by my shirt, I grabbed my flaming red cheek which I might say was beginning to hurt, pulling me close enough to inhale her breath, so sweet, so musky that I went hoarse and by hoarse, I mean husky.
What did she say? What did you do?
She said that she was sorry, that this wasn't going to be a good day, so many aren't you know, only a few.
That's what she said?
That what I said she said if only to remind me that I would soon have to listen to you.

My sense of snow

At first, it's like the soft tickling sensation that occurs somewhere between dawn and
the moment where I open my eyes from the waking dream thinking that I need to
remember this but soon forgetting where I put my pen and paper to record these
fleeting dreams. I wake to the crystals in my eyes and the hard reflection of sunlight
bullying its way into the room where I sleep now. I raise my arm, then wince from my
sense that the cold is still in the warmth of the bed where I have rested alone save for the
visions that share that space with my cat who looks at me and yawns his contempt of me
for forcing him from his comfortable spot in the crook of my armpit.
I want to blink away the white expanse in order to see the green fields of spring, to know
that I will escape the confines of my mother's house, to go where I want, even if it is only
to the prison of my job or the dull density of shopping for food I don't really want or even
like as with all things like vitamins and exercise- the things I must do when all I really want
is to stand in the shower for another hour, letting the drops of water steam away all sensation
but the sense of wet warmth running across the expanse of my skin until I must face another
day and then I remember that it has snowed in the night and that after all that effort I have no
where to really go, no escape but into the words and the virtual space in which I hope to fill it
with.

Hope is a slight and shadowed Thing.

Some days start with rain and storms- I want to stay in bed, cover my head and wail only as loud
as the noise outside my window pane, but I will abstain as I want to remain unnoticed by the dream that sleeps beside me. She is so beautiful that I want her to continue though the dawn erases her presence from my bed.
Instead, I gird up my loins, rising to meet the day and the stress, I will shower and dress, finding some food I will try to suppress all that would come down with this ever present rain, down to depress to remind me of the constant strain that each day brings down so hard on my brain.
Some days turn out to be sunny as if to say that it really would be funny to take that dread that stays clouding in my head as if to say here's so jam for your bread instead. Some days end with the most beautiful sunsets as if all the despair was worth that one moment that sings on my heart's frets like the strings that the night will bring and I can look forward once again to falling back into sleep, those promises that she said she would keep, the vow that shines and gleams as my lady returns to haunt me with sweet presence in my dreams.
Hope is a slight and shadowed thing that only the immersion of REM will bring.
Now my soul sings to the presence beside me as we slip away into memory on imaginations wings.

broken.

I am just broken.
There's nothing left to fix in me.
Sometimes I think that I have found the way out of me, sometimes I want to
believe that I have no more tears to cry, that somehow there still room to try.
That I can stand on my own and be, but that is just the lies I tell myself
because I am broken as anyone else can see.

I am like a broken toy,
that the parent is tired of gluing back together, that the child is bored with
pretending that these cracks are somehow better, that the glue will cover
the flaws that show through always and ever, that the stories I want to
tell will lessen those moments when I fail and fall back down to the
ground in pieces as the child cries, the parent sighs and I tell myself
once again that I am broken as another part of me dies.

no more, I cannot take it anymore
I am broken and I am okay with being
broken. Stop trying to fix it or me. Stop trying, shut the door
I want to stop doubting, crying, feeling lost, just no more.

It's untitled.

sometimes the words just won't flow and I find myself writing and erasing and rewriting looking for some feeling that will describe something more than just my desire to than what I want to imagine as the facsimile of emotion or love. I know nothing of the matter as I have yet to find this mysterious emotional state of being in it and no matter the amount of books and movies just cannot make it any more real than the emptiness that surrounds my space, this abyssal lonely spot in the universe where no one but my own heart occupies and the alienness of the ensuing silence is only shattered by another book or movie stream.
I only know of love in my dreams, I dream of being in love most every night and yet when I wake the poetry of the moment that I had just lived is as empty as the page where I want to share all that I am with someone else. The irony is that I no longer feel anything over the loss of something I have never even lost. so there are only so many words that can say that I want to be in love but I don't even know what that love is, at all.
It's like bad seventies joni mitchell songs that get stuck in your head and you want a carpenter song instead and all that you have gone and read might as well be dead like the poetry that you hope each time you write will make these sweet little lies come to life, stop and take note as the poet rhymes it to strife striven across the razor's edge like running your wits along a dulled knife as if to taunt you with more words like wife which has no relation to anything but the dulled desires that no longer nor linger amongst the smulder that was this passion's fires and the words drain away from the poem as the meanings that I am sharing push anyone beyond the caring that I wanted everyone to know.
That is to say that it's truly sad to be someone like me, just wait and see
when there is no one left to phone, when your bed is empty, dinner sits on the table
cold, as you grow old and then you will understand why it stucks to be alone.