Small Talk
A radiant ballerina gracefully
floats past my gaze, and I am
arrested with ice melting
thoughts.
Perhaps I mention the
whirlwind, a strong current of thoughts
flowing through my hard, sponge brain.
Like the Great Glass Elevator I may break
through that fragile mirror ceiling, but will
then travel up, across,
down,
backwards,
forwards, and
sideways, never actually moving anywhere.
Or maybe I discuss the calamity of parking,
trying to find a narrow stall
discovering fading, yellow lines
that may not count at all.
Isn’t that existing though?
we search and search
for that perfect fit
only to find we make the best
out of what we have.
Something more substantial is in order,
like a Titanic anchor forcing us to stay
And chat together. In
that case,
how bout the state of my stagnant soul,
that sorrow has pervaded me of late
because of the fact I have to say goodbye
but simply can’t. I
don’t know how.
Like fixing a typewriter
or writing in old lady cursive,
it is a lost art. At
least for me.
This is much too weighty,
the Titanic did sink sonorously after all.
Maybe that’s the key?
it doesn’t matter so much what I say
but how what I say sounds?
Life meanders on at a miraculous and mighty pace,
every minute is both miniscule and monumental,
and chance can take you to a tropical oasis
or frozen wasteland indiscriminantly.
Now that is just pretentious,
and this thought pause has
turned into a catacomb of
awkwardness; the deeper I go,
the more dead this all becomes.
What was supposed to be a quick,
elegant swan floating in a luxurious lake
has now turned into a gargantuan gaggle of hippopotami
trying to emerge from water without wetness,
all the while still springing more splashes
This Hippo must speak though.
I must let something escape my
mouth before she leaves.
I look
up confidently and hope to melt
in those chocolate chip eyes, but
she has escaped to the solace of
land while I meander in this
maelstrom of my mind.
Identity Crisis
The caramel sun beats down
on the decidedly dank forest floor
and a shrouding mist rises from
the ground like steam from a kettle.
Air is intoxicatingly alive;
each odor becoming a blend
of flora, condensation, and
draff, while leaves extend down
as living curtains. This is
my laboratory, and I act
as scientist and test-subject
morphing to every color
bright or dim, gaudy or plain,
citrus orange or oasis blue,
mudslide brown or tornado grey.
I may seem invincible,
invisibly impervious to danger.
But
what about the traps that move
unseen, the serpents slithering
within inauspicious skin?
For it is the predator
who smiles slyly or slinks silently
that must be feared most in the end.
And if the predator and experimenter
are one, what then? I must lose
myself to the blend
to escape the friendly foes
and the foe like friends,
until each falling drop becomes
a reflection of oblivion,
like some forlorn apparition seeing through
itself in a mirror, completely reliant on
my surroundings as a prompt for
transformation. I am at once
everything and nothing
dangerous and vulnerable;
protected from all
but myself.
Existing is impossible
when life is a perpetual act
of fitting in.
The Danger of Listening
It spoke to me.
Reinforcing that I
stand supreme and
can rule and abuse
with blunt instruments
or blind words in order
to make myself into
a God that stands above
but never high enough.
Did I listen?
It spoke to her.
Affirming that she
is subservient to
something sinister
and subjugated to
the gaze of men
whose intentions
are ignoble
and whose tools are
dangerous.
Did she listen?
It spoke to us.
Declaring that sex
is a mystery, and
blind love its
Agatha Chrstie:
The man in the brown suit
a perverted hero,
stalking its self-sabotaging
prey that remains
caught, in its own traps,
set in a world of depravity
and iceless attachment.
Did we listen?
A Tinder Feminist
Being “together” would mean
protection to think freely
and reason deeply;
devoid of pigeon holes
and prescribed expectations.
We would pursue each
other as a mollusk seeks
its shell, while still
existing interchangeably
as heart and shield.
Housewifery would not be
your sole realm, nor
would we divide home rule
in half based solely
on reserves of hormones.
Each calamity hurled at
us would be welcomed,
as a pebble seeks to be
smoothed by the rush
of a river’s breath.
My gaze would not
chain you prisoner, but
would catalyze your desires
and drive you toward
dinosaur sized dreams
Indeed dear, our love
would prompt odes both
Eternal and effulgent.
But your profile pic was
reminiscent of grimy golem,
and I swiped left.
Social Media Anxiety
Blazing pixels
of acceptance
seek entrance to
my frothing cauldron of a mind;
a processor guarded
by bugeyed witches,
dabblers of creation
that seek substance, but
are instead pillagers
of meaning as they
allow mix together
rat tail status updates,
moth wing profile pics,
and pig eared selfies
while preventing
confidence and solace
from gaining substance.
Does the electricity
of life seep inside,
or am I thrall to
this stinging toil and trouble
of an artificial existence
where the vainglory of a
plodding mind is
morphed into
a tattered screen that
inhibits life giving light
from shimmering
into a sense
of belonging.
West Bound
“My greatest
pain in life is that I will never get to see myself perform,”
says the
supposed “beatmaster” who wants people to agree
that his is
the voice of the day, a light amidst a darkening storm,
which
illuminates truths. His obviously
omnipotent decrees
on absolving
societal sins—mostly which artists are sublime,
cause a
chasm of hearty applause and palm in face motions
as fans
laude his courage and voice, his expertise prime,
while
detractors wonder why he has such strong devotion.
Do we
Swiftly listen his rants, and follow his Beck and call?
The question
and obsession with a self-absorbed “artist” is tragic;
in the midst
of rhythmically flowing poverty and war beaten nations
we infuse
his Kardashian sized ego and increase his treasure haul.
Is real
benevolence trending or just a kind of phantasmal magic?
Becomes the
true query as we placidly surf through gossiping stations.
The Gettysburg Redress
The July sun hung high overhead,
rays partially blocked from reaching
forlorn men below, sitting at attention
at sycamores whose branches reached out
like fingers hoping to hold a rocky
frame upright amidst a steep expanse
that seemed to extend into eternity.
Loose rock and fallen timbers
were allies not impediments
as soldiers shrouded in navy
awaited the grey storm cloud ascending
to overtake a fish-hook line, a cataclysm
that would leave a crumbling Union
collapsed in a heap; noble bodies and
and ideas enslaved to the call of the reaper.
The defenders of this “bottomless tub”,
Maine men that marked the end of the line,
sat ammo-less like Cowboy and Indian children
and a mustached, professor Commander
astonished with an order to assemble
sewing needles atop rifles—
“Charge!”
The soldiers descend into history,
and seven score an twelve years later,
their sacrifice is caricatured into partisan
prattle to propel careers into the future
without a sense of the past.
Heroism buried in posturing and blocked
by politicians whose own filibuster infused
charges resonate against the battle cries
once heard atop a little, rocky hill.
On Dying Slowly
Neil says, “it’s better to burn out than it is to rust,” and
the words penetrate
my mind with the force of an unharnessed racehorse galloping
gallantly towards
a distant horizon that is invisible to the outside
world. But was he right?
Or is this poet prophet a false one whose pretenses mask the
danger behind
partaking poison to placate pain when a gradual healing
would suffice.
And yet, time may really not be the salve for all hurt, and
existing within it
is remaining a willing hostage to its dastardly
machinations, a Stockholm Syndrome
situation that connects captive to captor like a sticky sap
from a tree encases
its unwitting victim in a callous shell that prevents it
both from every truly dying
and ever really living.
Maybe our Young prophet was right after all?
Still, ticks on the clock may not be a universal solvent,
but existing within its
confines remains better than a lemming-like escape. Better to “step back
from that ledge” and fight on towards a light that may not
ever arrive, but
is still worth looking for.
Hoping, even futilely, is more rewarding than eternal
sleep, in the way a child learns to crawl across hard, slick
tile, not because his
mother waits open armed across the expanse, but because he
glimpses the world beyond.
