A Cold Numbness Embraces a Sojourner in Mourning (Some Days Feel Like:)

Dreams castrate the young of ambition,

whisking troubled thoughts away, implanting

euphoria in the place of realized contrition—

Doom is the only premise left unexplored,

when traction disengages the neurology

abandoned within those predestined to starve upon their own needfulness

Feral qualities sliver thin the mirrored gaze,

leaving the only interpretation the imagined

predisposition that reincarnates the deformations of the brain

Catatonia is preferable to the self-imposed restraints

that fit snugly beneath the seam-lines of our favorite

Clothes, leaving only the scents of wherewithal and apathy to fragrance one's ephemerality. 

Shredding the fetters of the past is the only absolution we can deliver truthfully.  Tiny renderings are the adipose reflections we blindly flee from, layering the tornado with a future sconce illuminated by the abandoned renderings of debris.

And then, other days, feel like nothing at all…

Snuffed

listen to ‘Snuffed’ on Audioboo

I can’t help but feel

The douter nears

My flame.

“Time’s just ain’t a –changin’ the way I thought they would.  I blinked and here I am, seventeen years since first able to legally imbibe, and now, I don’t anymore…speaks upon how priorities are skewed early on in life”

And now

I just wonder and wonder and think about how I can wonder

and….think

I’ll meander the aisle-ways at the superstores, looking for deals or just people watching, to kill some time…sometimes though, a thought while strikethrough my stagnancy…a true brainchild of inspiration…a method or a way out of what…

all sensors working, all lights a-flashing, so, so encouraged…filled with anticipation and excitement….

Only to relive…to be relieved by the exact same moment of euphoria, just a few days later…

Time is a pit of quicksand and sometimes you have a vine to pull you out and other time’s it’s nothing but a snake, dangling, right in front of you, tempting you, to grab ahold and let it pull you out

Days merge into decades as easily as hair changes brown to a trickling in of grey and you wonder-you wonder, much differently than you would while blanketed by sweet

sweet 

oblivion.

11:55, service will start soon

I’m just trying

To make sure

God still lives in here,

Would hate to

Stumble upon

Any more

black masses,

where

 as 

      not to come

off 

     as 

rude,

I find myself listening 

to every 

god-forsaken

word

At least that shows I still know what pathetic looks like. ONly wish I could divine it 

as I stare each whisker down in the morning mirror, then perhaps, then perhaps

I can stave off elimination for another hour or two

just enough time to make it... yet another case for myself,

and hope to find 

the hand that will guide me down the path, 

and not become distracted 

by those sales in 

                         the bargain racks

wonder if having a semblance of what faith really is when you don't enact on it, just letting it be part of the background scenery

When the douter comes to snuff my flame…I wonder what excuse I will then choose to blame?

A Self-Portrait

Lines forcefeeding hope through

Invisible netting….history is a

Viable predictor of future events,

Again, and again, the robotic

Voice echoes this phrase, and hearing

This is one thing, but listening to it

As you stare deep into your eyes is

Depressing.

Times must change…pools of brown

Feel like the pits mammoths once

Suffocated soundly in…whimpering

As the tar trickled slowly over tongue…

Vines entrench us to our rooting, perhaps

A bit of choice is owed blame as well, but it

Does seem, as irrational as it may be, and is,

That we truly have no hope, especially if we

Cannot find it within our own person…

I stare begging myself to focus, focus and you will

Find, the one thing about myself that I find both

Comforting and my own…kind of odd to say, my own, when

Referring to yourself, is it not, for who’s else is it then?  The answers espy daggers depths….and then

Here

I have found that thing, the one thing, no two, that I appreciate most in my

Current state, and it, of all things,

Should’ve been the first of all things seen…

I do like my hair, as it freely flows about my face, draping down upon my spine, reminding me, it has no control but physical control….(yeah right>) but lets just go with it a little longer….I like my hair, fine, what was the other thing.?  It was the beard…

Which, of course,

Is THE thing

Everyone who

Knows me

Hates the most…

You know, I just have to laugh for a moment.  I wrote the prompt and posting over at D'Verse for their weekly Poetics tonight, and now, almost two hours in, I just realized I never posted my own poem yet….well, that pretty much sums up how the month's been going…

But, yeah, stop on over we're talking about ourselves.  People love that don't they…but seriously, we're composing Self-Portraits and bravely sharing them with one another.  Stop on by and see what we've composed.  I for one am now realizing, that for me personally, I probably should've waited until I was in a better mood to do this exercise, but, hey, being honest to one's self of how one feels is supposed to be cathartic and enlightening…so, we'll see.  

An Incongruity and Its Ghost (Fear-Unplugged)

I didn't really think I had the time to write a new poem for Poetics this week.  But, that said, I had every intention of submitting a piece I'd previously written, as, fear, is a subject I've written much about.

So, I delved back into the archives for that gem suppressed in time, and understood, one of these would be the choice, the chance to give, for at least this one, a new podium to release its voice.

Twenty-some odd poems read, all dealing with fear, and not a single one I feel embodies the person I am today.  It's odd, I've experienced this sensation many times before.  Digging through older poems, written many years earlier, where there's that moment, "really, I wrote this…oh, look at the grammatical decimation on display," only to chalk it up, as if it was a different version of the man I am today….

But now, having reviewed these pieces, all of which are less than 2 years old, the same bit of reprehension grabbed me by the throat, screaming…REVISE, REVISE…to which I closed my eyes, hit the back button, and ashamedly moved on to what was next.

So, here today, I am writing about fear, in a much different way I had anticipated…

The fear of who one really is…are we truly who we think we are?

Can we know for sure?

Is growth just a word used to explain away a transitional period we can't encompass fully?

More questions than answers

More thoughts….more purge

So, what is one to do?

Typically I would make a serious attempt at philosophizing my way to some logical, rational appeal…but that is not where I'm at today…it's not where I've been in quite some time…just to be honest

It is a place I care not retreat to either, despite the many moments of enjoyment such mental mulling had once produced…instead

I am exhausted, tired of the rigamarole…I fear the body shall never heal the way prayer had instructed me it would…I fear, I'll become a child of the government, resolved to stand in line, for what?

And then…what if the Government decides to abandon their own?

Or, allow for matters entirely worse?

However, I do not fear, for the sake of fear itself…

all these thoughts and positions, I willingly resolve simply as being but one side of imagination's coin…a penance the creatively inclined have historically had to bear…where the possession of a depressed mentality had often been a sign of greatness to come…yet, those types of statistics really cannot be proven…sure, for some, the ones we look up to for inspiration, but how about all the others who suffer quite similarly, yet never amount to much more than being somebody's child, someone's kind…

Yet, all of this can easily be skirted aside, simply by allowing yourself to become consumed by whatever it is that interests you…for me, it's film, it's books.  And it's art and it's poetry too, the kind that does not allow you to catch your breath or pause and reflect upon your own state of being…it's conversation about anything other than….its…

all an illusion, all a facade, one we welcome in,  kindly in cliched arms...

But the fear does not leave your simply because you are fascinated by science fiction or inkblots blurred upon the white page…no, it may seem as if it's gone, but it is not…it's hidden, but make no bones about it...it is still alive and well, just buried below the surface…and it can wait, it grows not old….no, it has all the time and is a patient bugger…a diligently patient son of...

I do not fear this though, for the sake of fear alone is foolish to embrace… for all one has to do, is open their eyes and take in all that is apparent in this world, all the misery and fraud, all the disgrace and disgust…yes, there is plenty to fear, so fearing fear, while certainly real, is not, what scares me…

No, what I fear, is just as apparent.  All the cloaks, shrouds and hoodwinks in this world can not deny what is only one slip up from reveal…it is…

stopping, and catching that unavoidable glance... into the mirror…seeing my very own face…and not recognizing the eyes that return your gaze..

for as we know…mirrors know only truth…and truth they must unveil…

And truth, in many circumstances, is the thing we both laud and fear the most….an incongruity and its ghost….


The party's pretty much in its twilight about now, however, that simply means its much easier to pick your poison from behind the bar.  Stu McPherson serves up some mean drinks, rarely known to water things down…and oh, yeah at D'verse, it's only Top Shelf.  Head on over and read about what strikes fear into the minds and hearts of the poets contributing to this weeks Poetics of Fear.

A Song for a Valkyrie

listen to ‘Valkyrie’ on Audioboo

You'll notice that the recording only covers a portion of the song, as it appears here. The reason for this is the program I use to record, has a 3 minute recording limit, and instead of recording this song/poem in two parts, I simply choice to omit many of the similar sounding choruses from the recording here, as I feel the pacing, tempo and rhythm are illustrated clearly in the instances I did record, which you can easily apply to the unrecorded portions, as you read along.

As A young man I made

Many a dire plan

To find an angel

Who’d take me from a life

I no longer wished to live

Racing, I made my way

To what, I deemed

a final resting place

It was here, where she first came to me

Grabbing hold my hand and arm, she

So easily disarmed the pain which grew inside

Granting me the comfort there, to see the truth behind the lies

In her embrace, within her grasp

I knew she would ne’er deceive

Even knowing this, I knew, her

caress could never last

And as her gaze began to shy apart from my own

she whispered what I most desperately had to know

Four words were then bestowed unto me

Four words, to forever alter, all I’d hear, all I’d ever see 

“ It’s not your time”

Ay ay ay ay

From the sky

An angel cried

Ay ay ay ay

From the sky

She saved my life

For years I’d think in dream

Of how she appeared to me

Simple it is, to recall, how I’d felt

Enrapt, aglow, her love, alive within this altered shell

This time though was long since past

And many suns and moons had elapsed

I’d grown old

And looking back

I now realized, that without her appearing then

None of this would ever be,

The lifetime of love we shared entwined

Gone, with all the rest my memories

Ay ay ay ay

From the sky

An angel cried

Ay ay ay ay

From the sky

She saved my life

But today I understand

No one can predict the fate of man,

No one knows how or why,

When it will first start

Or where it will find its end 

And that is why I die today

It’s my time; I accept, I must

there is no rhyme; there is no reason why

Let faith be strong; I must entrust

That one day she’d return for me

In a light that’s forever long

Ay ay ay ay

From the sky

An angel cried

Ay ay ay ay

From the sky

She saved my life

Fading quick

And there she stood

Still looking every bit the memory

She held me tight, easing concern

I knew what next must come to pass

This much, I knew I’d earned

Ay ay ay ay

Up high

The sky grows wide

Ay ay ay

Ay ay ay ay

On her wings

We would fly

Ay ay ay

Val-chi-rye

Val-chi-rye

On her wings

we shall fly

Val-chi-rye

Val-chi-rye

Way up high,

In the sky,

On Her wings,

We will fly

Val-chi-rye

Val-chi-rye

To Valhalla

We shall ride

Val-chi-rye

Val-chi-rye

Past the sky

We’ll soon fly

On wings

Of Val-chi-rye

Life begins again

Val-chi-rye

Val-chi-rye

On wings we ride

Up past the sky

To Valhalla’s gates

We’ll soon pass through

Val-chi-rye

Val-chi-rye

In valhall

I’ll soon be at home with you
 
Linked up to D'Verse for Open Link Night, where the mic's always live, and the joint's always packed, with poets each part this globe. Claudia is tending the bar tonight.  Be sure to stop on by, take in some great poetry and while you're there, perhaps inspiration will strike, and you'll share one of your own as well.