Poems: 250922 - September 25th, 2022

[Robert Morpheal]

140922A
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The go around
that never comes around
leaving the wishful
and the rubber gun traces
betrayals of collusive
forms of vibrant
violins and violence.

It could be worse
but never better
picking up on it
getting picked at
coming unstrung
ripe for the picking
getting picked on.

Schooled out days
a never ending story
in the new sanitariums
between the doobies
and the alcohol
hazed memories
at collective stupor.

We laugh it off
if a subject comes up
touching upon
uncomfortable regions
joking back
from the empty places
that lurk inside.

We duck behind
the ghosts of pop
culture making up
what a time it was
even if it wasn't much
of anything but
something to hide.

No one really knows
who wasn't there
but we read the papers
between births and obits
something of the scores
filling in the gaps
composing experiences.

No one wants to confess
it was their parents
would not let them
escape living room sit
televised amusements
kept safe from scoring
anything but bench penalties.

When and what was it
having a first date
and who was it
had that crush on
between illicit acts
probed the alien worlds
for adult vices.

In the public view
there are no problems
and only good times
given meaningless gloss
fool stunts and exploits
into forbidden regions
among midnight minds.

Sake of the memories
mixing private fictions
with selective recollections
shows made by impresarios
paraded personal circuses
showcases of impressions
between our clown acts.

We were not much then
and most never would be
much of anything to know
our inflated egos always
found a million ways
to avoid the pin pricks
came with reality.

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200922A
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An absorption
is a one sort or another
water into ground thing
attempting saturation
to dissolve away days.

Something to do
always differs
from what we want
ending actually doing
but it fills the time.

It was all ahead of us
then it passed us by
leaving us out
somewhere behind
the looking forward.

Strangers forever
passing little notes
under school desks
counting up likes
same as valentines.

It goes no further
than giggles & whispers
behind our backs
discouraging anything
might become serious.

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200922B
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Occluded days stuffed
up nose tight and try
to blow it clear
stays clogged
choking up the calendar.

Every soiled tissue
another idea
gone all wet made
unattractive as soggy
stale breakfast cereal.

The morning feed
has the same taste
as a foot in your mouth
straight from the boot
with marching orders.

Suddenly realizing
none of the nicest thoughts
from any past weeks
will ever be any more
than what was not wanted.

They ruined your plans
but they were the wrong people
gone from the very start
soured milk and cold
spoils the last of the coffee.

You are your own boulder
so you keep rolling it
wearing away a little more
each and every time
but it never goes smooth.

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210922A
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There are new reminders
that the end comes suddenly
even if it crept in
while we were expectant
about other concerns.

We were expended
and we were disconnected
from any Liebestraum
and if there was any love
it simply failed to appear.

Earlier instances
coming as novelty items
leave no significant trace
other than the discontent
comes from all such things.

Awakened in the morning
to feeling more reluctant
and being something less
than half remembered
unimportant bits.

Left to decisions
of equal insignificance
about nothing better
than the night before
persisting as habits.

What we once wanted
we cannot want anymore
and it was never as good
as we imagined it was
before a caricature event.

Even the sketches
in an artist's notebook
leave less to be desired
than what really happens
short of expectations.

Something is missing
and there are signs
playing on that theme
concealing the claws
that reach for the money.

You won't get anything
that you would want
by going that way or any
similar cliched routine
along those back streets.

Only a wild animal
knows how to get away
and I could never agree
to that sort of life
given a thread of promise.

And if you really knew
about anything better
you might call someone
that I would never know
and leave me wondering.

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220922A
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I know I should revise
every one of my old words
terrifying every one
with approvals and denials
that banish and invite
from any turn of the page.

Conducting a final purge
that eliminates the false
from among the true
believers in my own version
of what the facts became
even if they maybe did not.

The various signatories
signing in invisible ink
next to that of the author
taking no real responsibility
for their editorial acts
but knowing they are guilty.

Meticulous putzing of bits
that then pass as the record
for any remaining purposes
concerns future discussions
the way the mysteries escape
prying eyes and curious minds.

A perpetual syllabus
symposia of nothing whatever
having anything to do with it
and the entrails of a goat
long decayed away and dried up
to dust between the pages.

Makes it intelligible
and stops people from asking
unanswerable silly questions
about impossible scenes
involving improbable people
with inappropriate feelings.

Should clean it all up
the way a stable gets cleared
away every bit of truth
fell from a horse's ass
in those persistent efforts
at attracting undue attentions.

New words for old
traded on word markets
but at least it is poetry
and that doesn't have to be
anything so respectable
in any larger scheme of things.

I used to try to be true
but found that it did no good
so I tried to make it up
but there are too many lies
stuck in too many throats
denying our make believe.

I want to live there too
if we could only make it up
for all those losses
disappeared between the lines
but you never called me
despite those many invitations.

It meant that I was never there
and no one really ever knew
that it meant anything
that I was or that I wasn't
so I tried to put it into words
but the words escaped me.

I still spend too much time
on the process of looking
for what the blind can see
without the endless effort
but I am still too lonely
and the words escape me.

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220922B
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They made me envy
the trees simply because
trees stand rooted
and display no envy.

You never know what
they tend to feeling
and most doubt they feel
anything at all.

When they are cut down
they never resist
and there is no complaint
in any final sound.

The hardest of us
is still more the worm
than the softest of trees
nor speaking as quietly.

There is language
in the whispering of leaves
before it becomes print
on pulped limbs.

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240922A
-----------

I remember you
and you remember me
the way we aren't anymore.

We can use that
in one way or another
as a sort of pretext.

An open or closed case
arranging various facts
into orderly presentations.

One of us is guilty
and perhaps both
in our different ways.

We could catch up
on a volume of history
we were never part of.

That would take some time
adding another evasion
to what anything is about.

Most often it ends there
in a cyclical repetition
of everything is the same.

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250922A
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Courage is a luxury now
that few can afford
fearing being ended
somewhere at something.

A flock of angry birds
squawking and scattering
over a few little crumbs
from an unknown source.

That quaint spectacle
comprised of envy and hate
threatening tooth and claw
bash and grab.

The benevolent deity
sits on a park bench
nothing to do but dispense
handfuls of stale bread.

That evolves quickly
into partisan shootings
and bread lines of men
with bloodied hands.

There will be burials
to prevent the dissolution
of flesh in the rain
leaving feathers and bones.

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

250922B
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There was a story
but none of it was true
as in all such instances
that destroy curiosity.

There was really no me
and really no you
among the ingredients
made up as a plot.

It makes no difference
to anything more
than the formal record
about became or didn't.

Realizing it matters
nothing to me
and that was the whole
that I needed to know.

Your parts being scattered
to everyone else
I have no need of them
for anything at all.

Perhaps because I avoided
imagining a scene
that far from reality
no matter how desirable.

The way that one dances
with shadows of strangers
necessarily pretending
that there is a future.

I let you read into it
depending on your viewpoint
comical or tragic
comes out all the same.

It is not what I wanted
but proves you never cared
what was on my mind
pointlessly eating away.

My perpetual mistake
always comes to any place
that I then have to leave
to being more alone.

That serves as routine
holding together a thin fabric
woven of other little habits
that make one recognizable.

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

250922C
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Drop it
right there
whatever it is
or they will shoot
their mouths off
to cut you up
and cut you down
right there
deader than dead
on that very spot.

The way it goes
as to anything
they don't want
standing out
or getting any
gone so far past
end of a line
from waiting
for usual sorts
of boredom.

Admit it
all that bravery
is illusion
and every hero
merely a myth
convinced to do
what others were
smart to avoid
being done to
and undoing them.

We are contrived
to entertaining
various monsters
know little more
than not having
friends in high places
and forever
on a look out
for bits of heaven
crashed down.

To be of dark age
in dark times
becoming worse
than an unfortunate
with no spoils
and no legions
mustered against
the cruel nights filled
with an emptiness
of dream.

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