They took away
the last places
anyone could hide
leaving expensive
normal stares
spending normal
time and money.
Fake stars
studded leather
skies of united
strapped in
school days tight
sanitary scene
at pulpit pictures.
Lolita never
grows up
because it pays
to be thirteen
forever
learned the ropes
at twelve.
It doesn't fit
proves fragile
China porcelain
complexion
fade out
to nothing delivers
that far out.
Crowd drools
knee jerks
consensual patterns
cheap exchange
bought into
new realities
to avoid deletion.
Life is prime
asking anyone
known to them
where to get
good drugs
to crystallize
abstract concepts.
Fear factor
more often
home grown
in deep
personals soil
word mulched
old patterns.
No good now
remembering
nothing new
players play
their rerun starts
every first time
the same tune.
No one is
who they were
and few admit
to the crime
of want to be
failing to realize
they can't afford.
We talk
while waiting
on saboteurs
leaked out
as comic book
black cars
and dark glasses.
Super heroes
safety margined
by facts
not in any files
keep everyone
more distant
at cocktail parties.
Rummage sale
rags of trying
to discover what
there is to say
by studying
fine print
on labels.
Leaves armies
of the desperate
blind groping
the void grasp
at anything
might prove out
as interesting.
How to impress
your friends
without pushing
cookie cutters
into faces
avoiding mention
of any dying arts.
Conversation
never improves
past nightly news
and what it was
cat dragged out
then savaged
in the alley.
--------------
250821A
------------
Held in between
the want
and the loss
gatherings
with ghosted
make believe
plotted friends
were once upon
a good time
way back
children's books
begin in a place
always long ago
and far away
getting visited.
Illusionist scam
where it happens
old friends visit
and you feel
the good bye
parties for those
who are leaving
more than skulls
left behind
watering holes
gone bone making
dry lips crack
fried away
the old cement
of undertakings.
It feels too late
to make up
new endings
for fictional lives
only to go on
all the same
not really
a member being
who is remembered
for anything
change orders
keep coming in
piling up
unprocessed
mostly rejected.
Black tempestuous
seas the souls
turbulent under
current pulls
at wear surfaces
surface calmed
vain beliefs
treasure moments
anticipated hauls
along dredge
ploughs the murky
deep thought
creeping of abyss
opens and closes
swallowing up.
If you had arrived
a million
years and earlier
that too might not
have been soon
or soon enough
avoidant of any
the usual torn
apart feathery
and scaly things
before beginning
at intensive studies
on what it means
to be chained
to a rock.
------------
260821A
------------
Literal effect
making killings
uncounted
backwards digits
undoing of fists
braced wrist
hand falls off
counter's edge
having separated
from reality.
Gone under
not coming up
another down
long slide push
paddling a broken
shell canoe
through midlands
of nowhere
turning a bed
made soft earth.
Previously occupied
at a common form
of burial
feeling the worms
burrowing in
all those places
that had not died
to feeling touched
by feral desires
and madness.
Letters mailed
to nobody
reveal casual state
lost minds
resident cornered
the other side
at really down
those rabbit holes
being several sizes
too small.
Answers never
come out
from crowd dotted
crossed avid
readers absorbed
in what they think
what they were told
right things amongst
given selections
keep changing.
Push a button
win a prize
in the everyone
winners game
feeling more alone
than the last
living freak
in the last tent
last freak show
closed carnival.
-------------------
Nothing at all to say. You have to figure it all out for yourself, even though I know that might prove far too hard, and you might give up trying. That is what you always do. You give up trying.