Poems: 040313 - March 4th, 2013

[Robert Morpheal]

040313A
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In various conditions
of abandonment and disrepair.
The faces peeling away,
exposing the bones underneath.

Failures of reconstruction,
breaking open along multiple lines,
scabbed over with layers
of covering up surgical mistakes.

It is a long way
from the places we grew up in,
where everything seemed new,
or at least freshly painted.

One tends to feel the decay
deep inside one’s own rusting joints,
the way a tin man would feel it.
Beat up trash can left by the curbside.

It is much more difficult now
to get past the fences and the gates,
knowing most everyone disappears
the way shadows dodge sunlight.

Early spring mud splattered,
across varied conversations.
No substance and no depth,
on top of everything the same way.

Awaiting the raising of the undead,
breaking their crusts of frozen ground.
Season of sex organs and advertising,
challenging clamor of church bells.

I never discovered how to find you,
though I was always looking,
and those I found were never really you
though I still look at every pretty face.

Spring is a reminder of restless youth,
causing its clinging to fragments of sanity,
the way a lycanthrope clings to fragments
of humanity, tooth and claw.

Another solitary winter nearly at its end
always seems a miracle of survival.
Time nearly seeming to stand still
repeatedly resuscitated into slow motion.

The intermittent failures
of miscellanies of body parts,
covered up with various shades of grey,
keep threatening the scenery.

They all come out at this time of year,
as if the thaw has left them something
special to discover
as the dirty heaps melt away.

I think of all the parties we never had,
and all the sordid little affairs
that could so easily have been avoided
if you had helped me to escape.

It is the season of drinking to that,
as if another dose might kill the pain.
Taking the chill off the bones,
without melting anything away.

I used to think you were perfect for me,
before you became too much the same
as too many of the others,
causing failures of recognition.

You became the many,
and I became the few.
You became contented with the old,
and I kept searching for something new.

Everything has changed too much,
that there is no reason you would want me,
and that gives me more reasons
to want you more than I ever did.

Wanting you as you used to be,
and not at all as you became.
I keep looking for something gone wild
that reminds me of what was lost.

I am kept searching,
for what I never found,
knowing that perhaps everything is
as short lived as a flower.

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040313B
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The way a condemned building
is routinely disregarded.
Passed by,
avoiding the point of entry.

There is something evident
in the revolving door eyes,
that become the taking in,
and the sending out again.

The sound of heels,
becoming wrecker’s hammers.
The barrier expressions
covered with repeated indications.

The interaction gone stale,
and turned increasingly dark.
The long black gloves
used only for inspections.

The rigid foundation
with its patterns of admonishment,
starting to bend,
as if ridden too hard.

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040313C
------------

There are thousands of different types,
each with its own poison,
and I wish I could taste them all.


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040313D
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Amber of brandy,
trapping one’s self within it,
as though an insect spider,
locked inside,
where the bite lasts forever.

You were the one
who went away,
as if having enough of it all.
You went into the light,
while I remained in the dark.

Sometimes the stars go out,
leaving a velvet black sky
that we take as a cover
to wrap ourselves up in,
sharing doses of venom.

Not unlike a taste of lips,
and other forms of exploration,
searching for lost countries
and other worlds
in new quests for savagery.

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[Robert Morpheal]

040313A
------------

Listening to her
is the same as drinking wine.
The intoxication
makes it possible to forget
all of the usual constraints.

There is a necessity
to that type of escape,
playing Houdini
with the strait jacket,
unlocking and getting loose.

Something to take you somewhere
where you have never been
without having to step outside
into the night air,
fighting away shadows.

Decay is what goes soft,
and there is the desire to be buried
in a soft decay of flesh,
vaguely reminded of bones,
as though everything is melting.

Flowers are the scent of death,
as she opens herself up,
until you are trapped there
the way an insect might be trapped
gathering a sticky sweetness.

You pass several other planets
on the way around
a brightly lit expanse of universe.
The pounding drum of your blood
the only engine there and back.

She feels like life support,
making it seem inseparable,
The moment when you could hear
an angel drop
from the head of a pin.

You ask her to take away some more
of your remaining inhibitions,
and she says that she might,
as you brush away the silver star dust
from places that should be dark.

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040313B
-----------

Parts of the world
keep getting shock therapy,
for whatever ails them.
The prognosis is always poor,
and they will never get any better.

Blank faced stares,
and angry looks from strangers,
who seem to claim territories,
lacking flags and razor wire
for their border barricades.

The only words one hears said
are from the hopelessly insane.
They repeat what they hear
said by the clowns
in the dark of the fun house.

You watch the expressions
on the faces in cars
as they travel the expressway,
trying to guess which ones
want to live or die.

People talking relentlessly
to their tuned out devices,
making a pretense of sanity,
but afraid of dead air time,
and being kicked off for silence.

Something about the hallucinations
that you would never admit,
to anyone of any real significance.
You paint it over with white,
and begin again with fresh colors.

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040313C
-----------

Her red lips
always seem ready
to taste my wounds.
A type of palliative care
for what can never heal.

She likes to touch them
because she knows it hurts
and it is only enough
when she sees a twinge of pain
appear on my face.

There are blessings that come
after the blood letting ends.
The music that plays
from various pressure points.
The coming of unconsciousness.

It always falls in the same way
that a slain man tumbles down.
The pale ghost given up
as it abandons flesh.
It is all about uttering a word.

She offers a taste of vinegar,
making it seem so very sweet.
Time has no more meaning,
as the clock makes obscene faces
at the gestures of its paralytic hands.

Propped up in a corner, on crutches,
becomes another version
of a famous messianic scene.
We all fall down,
and can’t put the pieces together again.

She removes the bandages,
creating another exposure.
Seduced by scar tissue,
and soft pink underbellies,
they turn into worms.

The carefully chosen remedies
make the condition worse.
She planned it that way,
keeping the victim alive
to facilitate other experiments.

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