Poetry!

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.