Poems: 250621 - June 25th, 2021

[Robert Morpheal]

130621A
-----------

We can do whatever
we want to
knowing it is not
what they want us to do.

All that wanting to be
something else in the end
comes to nothing much
but no point going back.

It is that sort of place
that we have come to
in all that trying
to wander away.

It is a childhood ambition
cross over red rover
getting past the other side
to keep on going.

They tried to take us
down by the knees
knee capped
into a crunch of earth.

We can call ourselves now
and not have to wait
for anyone to call us
then get called out for that.

Another take down
to our knees again
wondering how to please
those lesser gods.

Finding a calling
was the worst sort of game
and everything finds you
but you cannot find it.

I feel dismal inside
but I am lying
the same lies as you
because those are the rule.

We follow the rules
while thinking up ways
we might break them
and not get caught.

That is all we learned
about romance
and the other silly games
that people play.

No one gets any
unless they break a rule
but they have to know how
and which rules to break.

No one gets any
by telling the truth
the whole truth
and nothing but the truth.

If daddy didn't say
and mommy didn't scold you
you would never know
the way to strip poker.

Find another game
that someone lets you play
but it is no fun
when you are losing out.

You were the conductor
of another beer hall putsch
in a no name local bar
looking for a change of mind.

Change your mind
the way a good person changes
underwear and styles
following the latest trends.

Out with the old
and in with the new
but some claim it is possible
to find recycled love.

You missed a cue
that you can no longer find
and it gives you bad dreams
that you cannot mend.

We are always on the mend
from lessons learned
about who gets and how
and who doesn't.

Those strapping lads
with blush bottom girls
up from behind to the take
you came too late for.

It isn't really going
but you know it never was
as you surfed illusions
trying to catch a new wave.

Borrowed some time
with no way to pay interest
knowing no one who does
or who really wants any.

Any of what you got
chasing your thin belief
that you could get
up on top.

It closes over you
and it takes you down
in a choke off too much
and much too serious.

We are the forever useless
always being used
in someone else's practice
at what we did not plan.

You know they don't want
anything you brought
including yourself
at the second hand market.

You ask anyway
but get no answer
so cross your heart
pushed for hope to die.

You won't be doing
whatever you thought of
with those reminders
that your approach is wrong.

You came in too low
you are flying too high
too fast and too slow
until you crashed yourself.

It goes like that
when it is not really going
but you know it never was
no matter how hard you tried.

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

130621B
-----------

It is what you don't own
that always matters most
compared to what you have
that you cannot really use.

You ask around
but no one has any
that they want to spare
but they would borrow yours.

They won't give it back
and you can ask the wind
a thousand times
for a thousand answers.

The times might change
but it is never for the better
and what you really want
is what you never knew.

You heard it being said
you can buy your way in
finding some sort of heaven
that you can never afford.

People say things
and some of that is true
but they never give you words
that change anything for good.

It is a temporary hook
tugging at a temporary skin
keeping you thrashing about
on an unreeled line.

A new species of moth
has eaten holes in the vocabulary
making you freeze
as a deer in the headlights.

A head on crash
where Bambi meets Society
which is something worse
than Bambi Meets Godzilla.

Wearing a hood ornament
seems better than being
softly run down
by the hard faced crowd.

The grit gives traction
on your slippery slopes
ending as a fast slide
amusement park ride.

You got around
or around got you
boxed around the ears
for being lonely.

Tired of alone
and alone at being tired
wishing someone cared
about those little treasures.

And bits of stories
that can be told
all sitting pretty
as what little was saved.

Saving is a big thing
even when giving up
on being saved by anyone
there is something left to save.

You can never save enough
and never save yourself
but you must keep looking
for ways to save.

The weak minded moments
become more frequent
and you have given up
wagering yourself.

You went dead broke
several turns ago
while everyone you knew
did winning streaks.

Life softens you up
no matter how you turn it
tenderizing by the beat
that presses you down.

Even a gender outlaw
sometimes wants for more
than being holed up flat
broke in a hideout.

You can no longer repair
the rips in your fabric
feeling teen passions
trapped in a park bench body.

Starting out was delayed
too many times to count
and the race was scrubbed
before it was run.

Building a home
for someone else to live in
after the lay off notice
sorry it didn't work out.

Just a pain in the neck
not carrying your weight
turned flat on your back
turtle in a ditch.

There was no intent
to let you into the gene pool
from where you dangled
spotted by life guards.

Hanging out in the closet
clinging to coat hangers
could have been the next
in line for strangulation.

If you put your information
into some sort of jacket
you can hide most of it
to evade embodied truth.

Speculations such as that
shape your reviews of life
making you see clearly
you were blind the whole time.

You did not have any pets
so you were that penis
someone took for a walk
end of a string along.

That wasn't really the dance
where you could lead
but it was make believe
everything is alright.

Feeling you should have
bought into a different face
along with miscellaneous bits
while there was a market.

Too late for that now
considering damage control
still filing endless reports
about what is broken or lost.

What you came with
was never any good
but no one taught you
how to shop for better.

Back in those days
you were taught make do
with the standard issue
from your factory.

It was all printed out
as though on a name plate
and if you took the label off
you were null and void.

It was unthinkable
you could get approval
to get anything engineered
to a different configuration.

The details all there
never seemed right
but nothing to do about it
and no point complaining.

You wore your body
same as ill fitting clothes
that kept declaring
who and what you are.

Sometimes wanting
to take it all off
to exchange it
for that mythical fit.

It was that clumsy thing
you learned to trip over
that never really did
what you told it to.

Sometimes it was that “girl”
boys wanted to torture
because “she” didn't like them
and wouldn't play their game.

Secretly trying on
your mother's clothes
but the mirror sneered
that you were too ugly.

Chasing after girls
who giggled at too girly
feeling heart broke
at went wrong love.

That is how you get
worse trouble
than someone gets
when they bang someone up.

Expensive dinner dates
were never really honest
but you made believe
you knew what you were doing.

You could mortgage that
then bury the whole idea
in any available money pit
that you could buy into.

You became less interesting
than a jumping jack
and those friends plotting
your immanent replacement.

It all goes in a box
then the box is closed up
and that is the end of it
as to any real meaning.

You were working too hard
fixing things
to ever fix yourself
so you ended at broken.

You get taken out back
exchanged for something
knowing the lease expired
without a buy out clause.

Eventually you move on
realizing you were too girly
for that salt of the earth type
that you unmarried.

You saved a life
at least three times
including the last time
when you left.

Never forwarded
your most precious things
and the stories still say
they were tortured to death.

There are no indications given
as to where they are buried
but the garden you built
has since been paved.

That becomes a pattern
perhaps a sort of habit
that others adopt
in place of identities.

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

130621B
-----------

We blame the sun
for shrivelling up
all those other possibilities
wasted away
best of seasons passed.

When I was a child
the sun licked at my skin
with its hot tongue
and I had no idea
that it was consuming me.

It seemed different
long slide of forever
into lingering now
pushed in too close
to some sort of forever.

That is a sum total
of all the discontent
that was ever imagined
in the too late
for any such fantasies.

We knew the tease
of the here and now
the ever after
the when and how
beaming down on us.

Wandering through
the parched brittle
turning hard baked
toss and turn
along the channel drift
of test pattern dreams.

The mad genius
lurking out of sight
behind that projector
mixing up yours
with mine.

The rain that falls
from our eyes
is for ourselves
as to all the futures
that could not be.

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

There is a bit of influence from Brecht in there somewhere. The deadpan recitation of what comes reasonably near to the truth. That then neglecting almost entirely any typical attempts to impress anyone, or to become in any way popular. Knowing that the latter require commonly accepted patterns of deceptions, if not outright lies. Perhaps one reaches a point in life, at a certain age, where it does not seem to matter anymore. It is not as if one is hopeful, and anticipatory, in some way or other. That perished long ago, and is no more than would be a dead roach dropped into a crumpled beer can. It becomes that void of any further depth. The life that one wanted to live is realized as no longer any sort of real possibility, and there are no remaining expectations as to anyone ever really rallying around your personal banner. In some ways that in itself becomes entirely and totally surreal.