Month: June 2011

  • Come again?

    Mortality

    Where is my courage now
    when I need it more than ever
    I know I can’t keep up this act
    I’m really not that clever
    and reality is relentless
    because it’s now or never

    I have to be someone
    to qualify my existence
    I’ve fooled everyone up to now
    despite all their insistence
    and my will is surely fading fast
    for I have no more resistance

    I think, therefore, I must be
    no matter how hard I try
    to fade away to nothingness
    and, more or less, to die
    for most of my friends have passed away
    and I wonder, why haven’t I

    I am somewhat ashamed

    I don’t really care
    people talk, that’s what they do
    I tire of listening,
    it’s always something new
    or something old,
    borrowed or blue
    I can only focus on one
    maybe two… and you
    make the storm go away
    and keep my course true

    but then…

    you and your babies, your lovers and kin
    are all to compare with my own
    discover if everything I’ve gathered within
    is anything like I was shown
    so much more than a place to begin
    prevail, then apologize and atone
    for the absence of effort, no real need to win
    I miss what I’ve never truly known

    the better to trust you with

    a flashlight, torch or moonbeam…
    or just a candle is enough
    the darkness hides many wonderful things
    as well as some pretty bad stuff

    and I know it is there, my eyes take my word
    still they fret what they can’t prove
    but I’m sure enough to just let my eyes close
    and anticipate your next move

    Life is not a fantasy
    unless you don’t believe
    that people full of vanity
    are trying to deceive
    and break your concentration
    on focusing your lens
    to see the sublimation
    of their purely human sins
    for God hath writ this fairy tale
    “The Human Being Myth”
    and it isn’t if you pass or fail
    it’s who you do it with

    Mortified Heaven

    In the time it would take to enunciate
    all my petty worries and woes
    I could probably die and be born again
    and then see how that life goes

    But I’ve become attached to this plot I’ve hatched
    and it’s far from over yet
    there’s adequate time left to get it done right
    or at least decide what to forget

    Because all my mistakes have had what it takes
    to go off with a boom or a bust
    but nobody knows what I’m truly made of
    so there’s nobody I can trust

    I’ll pin all my hopes on how destiny copes
    with my manicured foibles and quirks
    and have faith in my fate to negotiate
    until I figure out how it all works

    I’m doing okay in a modest sort of way
    considering how I’ve abstained
    from doing any more than what needs to be done
    and make use of the freedom I’ve gained

    Now has come the time to let reason and rhyme
    substitute for ambition and schemes
    to enjoy my egress from undue duress
    and explore all the sundries of my dreams

  • All My Excuses

    Wet Space

    In a relationship lost at sea
    such a wonderful place to be
    since I never could stand
    being stuck on dry land
    that is planning to bury me

    But I cannot deny it’s a thrill
    when cresting the top of a hill
    and I see a new view
    that just wouldn’t be true
    if it wasn’t for my own will

    Still the water makes everything cool
    and the ship is my home and my school
    where my goal is a shore
    I can roam and explore
    finding everything there has some rule

    And I know I could never feel free
    ’til I’m back making waves in the sea
    where the stars realize
    were it not for my eyes
    they could never mean anything to me

    On the Diversity of Nutrition

    I had a vision at school one day
    inside a book, yet far away
    beyond alive, below the living
    unborn, an omen of Thanksgiving

    The leaves were dead in spite of joy
    with swirling winds in their employ
    the cool air seeping right through the glass
    interrupting my sacrifice to algebra class

    With so many reasons to be alive
    I wondered why so many people strive
    to attain perfection or relative success
    even suffer for it, take abuse, no less

    And I suddenly felt my malaise slip away
    it’s a cycle to ride, just an ordinary day
    so I ate my algebra and washed the dirty plate
    I knew the leaves and the wind would wait

    waking up at convenient times

    when I was young and god was new
    and life was green and red and blue
    I would sing the songs from the radio
    never lacking for anything to do
    with thoughts of death and fantasy
    and hearts forever true

    the mornings felt like progress
    the evenings felt like dreams
    until one day I awoke in protest
    and nothing was what it seems

    except love, even with all the corn
    and giggling when new thoughts are born
    and loneliness in introspection
    and pain when oaths are sworn

    when I grow up and god is close
    and fear is selfish and morose
    I will dance the steps of the world-wide-web
    not afraid of stepping on toes
    to dream of love with smileys and prose
    and hearts like nobody knows

    A Bohemian Yearnal

    I long for a ramshackle hole in a wall
    with insects and mildew, uncomfortably small
    surrounded by refuse, recyclables and all
    and a candle that smells of anything but pine

    I would go there to think and reflect on my life
    and the women I’ve known who could have been a wife
    and I’d be sure to bring my lucky pocket-knife
    to carve a sort of memorial sign

    I’d write ‘this is the life you warned me about
    with no real desirable qualities to tout
    but it’s mine, you can’t have it,
    you’ll have to live without’

    because I know I am doing just fine
    and nothing can ever really be mine

  • More from before

    A Product of Butchery

    (going bad in the freezer)

    I feel comfortable on a platter
    being served up fresh and hot
    but, to me, it doesn’t matter
    if I satisfy you or not

    because all I have to do most times
    is just my standard shtick
    without worrying when I get done
    or if I make you sick

    I am proud to be a commodity,
    a savory piece of meat,
    a tempting culinary delicacy,
    most importantly, a treat

    and knowing I am sought-after
    without previously being tried
    esteem for me is flattering
    but chokes me on my pride

    I feel the same way most foods feel
    when, left-over from indulgence,
    being dealt with like a daily meal
    with small thanks for grand performance

    I am more than happy to satisfy you
    if you promise to relish me
    but the same old flavors will never do
    unless one thing is all you want to be

    I’m meat… it doesn’t  matter to me

    left again, right?

    I was left too
    on a doorstep, piss drunk
    and dishevelled
    out of hand

    and a proper lady told me
    how her husband
    made a living… and then dying

    wish for her a fond forgetting
    wish for me a jealous smile
    as the heart may wear a badge
    inside an overcoat

    Screwing

    With a continual twisting effort
    ever deepening in assertion
    like a spiral or a coil
    into a hole..
    a helix, one could say
    inhaled like haze in hell
    but not exactly that way,
    it’s sucked into the soul
    with all the geometry
    that begins to like tooling around
    with a dimension it doesn’t grasp too well

    It attaches things to things
    and tightens and holds
    and strips and breaks
    works loose, lets go
    a little slip is all it takes
    for the weight to become
    too tenuous to uphold,
    it’s nothing but physics
    extending logic beyond the wheel
    as a favorite way of keeping stuff in place
    and with some consternation
    like when information boggles
    it’s the way one, often stupidly
    might rearrange one’s face