Poems: 080721 - July 8th, 2021

[Robert Morpheal]

260621A
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Whatever it was
it was just a dream
that you won't be living
this time around.

The only time around
but you can dream
your next time around
will be different.

We go in circles
until they get broken
and then we circle
around the remains.

The big wheels
keep us turning
dragged us along
their circles.

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070721A
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It isn't as it used to be
but then again
it never really was.

If there was a body
it was decomposed
in a forest of lies.

The animals came
and picked at the bones
pretending high finance.

Friday night spirits
in frequented haunts
practising going numb.

Touched is a condition
no one wants to suffer
fearing touch and go.

Could linger that way
for a long time
trying to be useful.

Passing the time
in that endless line ups
at invisible doors.

Never quite believing
nothing opened up
for the likes of you.

No one wants that rot
and says right on the label
it is the wrong type.

You could have been helped
by orthodontists
and plastic surgeons.

If you had ever known
awakening to the alarm
sounding in a deaf aid.

It is good to remember
things about famous people
and forget everyone else.

Inflated childhood confidence
becomes burst balloons
of adult realities.

Falling like a stone
we never really were
anything they said we were.

Shaken out of our tree
and sent down the line
to pressed and bottled.

It ends at corked
or perished
in the continual ferment.

The bottled up
rank almost as highly now
as do dead soldiers.

All those pretty things
life seemed to promise
end up too expensive.

Your personal puzzles
that can all be solved
if you have the money.

Time is of the essence
but you cannot speed up
what you don't control.

The whole mess redefined
as a process of growth
and hoping it is benign.

Going from Teddy Bears
to Ted talks
as the same run aways.

We went on like that
because we had to believe
in something.

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080721A
------------

At the end of love
we are all on one way streets
going in different directions
and it never works out.

Works out
means only some gym rat
in perpetual pointless motion
headed for a cold shower.

If that is too extreme
you can hide away somewhere
in any world of dead others
and continue to dream.

You know she won't be there
but you keep going back
night after night looking
for what you never had.

It is never really as if
you can really join anything
that you wanted to join
as if belonging elsewhere.

You weren't the chosen
but they made you believe
that you still had a chance
until you ran out of something.

It might be time or money
and it might be both
and then some more than that
that you ran out of.

When you start to look
at both sugar and salt
being something dangerous
that lurks around at funerals.

Never bothering to learn
what a portion really is
you try to tease and tantalize
your inner zombie.

Something is eating your brain
and you neither remember
nor are you remembered
by anyone of significance.

You were already buried
by friends you used to have
and get sent on expeditions
exploring to try to find some.

Knowing that you really should
throw it all out again
and get everything new
before anyone pays attention.

Those days are all over
and you have to run around
all over the social map
trying to place yourself there.

Your social diary
reads like a Grimoire
containing all your demons
with no forwarding addresses.

The words you used to use
have been robbed of meaning
and everything is as empty
as a stack of promissory notes.

You can keep working at it
but it is not what you wanted
to ever really have to do
as part of being disposed of.

They do not let you near
anything that you could be
and could be passionate about
beyond some nostalgia.

----------------------------

080721B
-----------

We are the disconnects
from someone's crowd scene
full of extras
that no one really wants.

Going among gatherings
being segregated and relegated
to those other subjects
we don't want to talk about.

Membership is an annual fee
that gives you a place on a list
of strangers' names and numbers
for administrative purposes.

Eventually taking hints
that we should not go anymore
and it isn't there for us
the way we hoped it would be.

We used to read all about it
as to the openings
advertised in the newspapers
before the stampedes started.

Now we are the trampled
every time the herd makes a move
toward a slaughterhouse gate
where nothing comes out of it.

Consider it lucky
not being able
to go all the way
to being written off.

We were buffaloed
with empty sunshine promises
hardly noticing the gold rush
never panned out.

It was another Titanic mission
being tossed overboard
at a usual sinking
into wave pool seas.

Interference patterns
rippling across the brain
as it tries to avoid pursuit
by one or another Terminator.

We invested in ourselves
finding new ways to bankruptcy
because everything we came to
was another sort of insider trade.

We of the outer party
never really got to know
any of those of the inner party
and thus were never invited.

Once you learn to drown yourself
the process is easier to take
trying to build your own lifeboats
from remnants of old anchors.

Cut yourself loose
from your shores
but never go adrift
into strange vague ideas.

No point in coming home
to someone you don't like
and don't want to know
so you live in isolation.

As if you have a disease
that someone else could catch
if they come too close
lacking protective equipment.

You go street side bubble
through a foreign crowd
trying to avoid the stench
sex and death makes.

Entire conversations occur
that are built on those facts
but only with the same people
that you don't want to talk to.

Your telescopic eyes
are speaking volumes
about being pinned down
under enemy fire.

You almost made it in
but failed to get out
before the shit house blew
wrecking your memories.

What to do next
is the persistent dilemma
and no one accountable
to actually tell you that.

So you roll yourself over
checking for vital signs
as broken as a thunderstorm
on another aching day.

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080721C
-----------

It is the many
that always deny the one
as if you can make love
with a crowd.

Whatever it is
that making love means
to any of the sick
or any of the healthy.

Those who keep secrets
are far too few
and the others tied up
with ropes and hair.

They thought they were free
when they got permission
for shopping on Sundays
between hot dogs and ice creams.

Was headed out that way
but the way was closed
by the tally man
tallying up the accidents.

The list of players
taken off the playing board
and then there are those
that get bumped off.

It was a sort of blessing
for which no one gives thanks
being sometimes given
to the select few.

No one really wants
to ever go that high
or to fall that low
from a picnic basket.

Sometimes I reminisce
about the great picnics
of long ago yesterday
and no more.

Birthday balloons
signalled to other planets
as they disappeared
past birds and airplanes.

We sent out ships
that were never to return
from unknown ports
charting our future routes.

They were as lost
as we were to become
in tangles of sentences
trying to find meaning.

I am still prone to wander
the tragic landscapes
that reflect all the seasons
of so many desires.

It all goes past
in that distance that comes
between forgotten names
and a momentary notice.

It is the secret meaning
of those who were asked
and those who were not
on any of the guest lists.

It all belonged to those
of the secret handshakes
and it largely still does
to those who belong.

I never really belonged
and I guess I never shall
really belong anywhere
after the try outs ended.

I do not even go out
to where talent scouts go
because I don't play
that sort of game.

I know they are recruiting
pleasure machines
for various boudoirs
and bedrooms.

I keep going over
all of every left field
where I might have lost
what I might have needed.

That is not what I wanted
and I keep rejecting
all of their programming
in an effort to be free.

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