Poems: 180222 - February 18th, 2022

[Robert Morpheal]

080222A
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The simplest answers
are usually lies
told in the same tone
as supermarket prices
and the toll paid
at the gas pumps.

You blame yourself
for the varieties of pain
and pleasure
continually falling short
from being interesting
or satisfying.

Leaves you wanting
for something
in the very middle
among the uncertainty
coming from everything
you cannot have.

Life as a series
that someone made up
from short duration bits
and random pieces
stuck to each other
in various ways
only to be broken apart.

Mostly it is wasted
in that abyss of difference
coming between
what you can look for
and what you can find
keeps you looking.

That is the gaze
that looks out
into early morning air
feeling a deep sense
of total devastation
but nothing changed.

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080222B
-------------

All that glitter
that was never toxic
beautiful jewels
that everyone could have
if they wanted.

Lucy was in the sky
with her diamonds
and as imperfect as it was
it was so much better
than perfection.

We incessantly mourn
what we could have done
in another time
when so much less
was actually forbidden.

We are sealed in
to a growing certainty
surrounding together
the way glass surrounds
preserves in jars.

Immersed in something
the labels tell us
is pure blend
happiness immersion
into which we weep.

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

090222A
------------

In dark times
as always seem
darkened up
your blank surfaces
where every brush thrives
as a brush with death
some way or other
and every one has
a particular tooth
with characteristic bite
being used and using
rending and tearing
at the colour flesh
of whatever was
that you were not
thinking but then
something being
used anyway.

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

090222B
-----------

I had wanted you
to really exist
the way sweetness exists
in a coffee cup.

For a little while
interrupting the bitter
dark tastes
that we consume.

There is a despair
comes from everything
and sweet that is kept
away from our each.

I tried to imagine
differing worlds
where there is sweetness
conquers the bitter.

Interruption came
quick as a thought
sent news of sweetness
been taken.

The cup looked full
but now emptied
left bitter strains
stained memories.

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

090222C
-----------

We gutter dregs
sometimes stare emptied
into symbolic gloss
vacant skies.

Push up to imagining
someone looks down on
as we hallucinate
mythic bird flights.

Reminded perpetually
our gratuitous existence
being expensive
and barely tolerated.

Made no longer able
to afford ourselves
and no one investing
in marginal skill sets.

If there was a trial
there was no defence
for cherishing
the wrong convictions.

We read histories
as improbable fictions
that we would have loved
to have lived in.

I dare a look at you
across barbed wire fence
coiled separations
invisibly keeping apart.

A richly adorned scene
of self appointed
playground monitors
blowing their whistles.

Great care is taken
to fully assure
we never dare inhabit
the same spaces.

Our parades continue
in opposite directions
along with clowns
lions, tigers and bears.

No one would give us
half a fighting chance
at having a good time
anywhere interesting.

Do you know anyone
who can get us in
and I no longer know
anyone goes that way.

The slashed at feel
of a vast rift
never heals across
tens of millions of years.

Digging something up
wherever it fell
after a dance number
the band played.

You came to me
from the same lies
you told others
so I sent you back.

That made me nostalgic
for what it feels like
to cross over
strands of barbed wire.

It could make us believe
that we can find love
instead of class structure
dividing up the meat.

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

120222A
-----------

Those of us
who still are
and in the resistance
movements gone
end up to
being and changed
out nothingness.

Attendees
at drinking academies
joined brotherhoods
the holy orders
of sacred bottles
then graduate
to knowing no one.

Some got married
as a popular means
inclusive of absolution
for various pleasures
disguised as sins
repeated treadmill days
ancestral litanies.

Some became vague
turning relic
saints of memory
seems larger than life
amid uncertainties
as to how they were
and became martyred.

Over and over
crimson and clover
ghosts out
from dead jukeboxes
trying to rolf
the world back
to a bygone era.

We don't really like
being here and now
doing nothing really
interesting and done
crammed into stagnant
nooks of spacetime
repeatedly prodded.

We are clearly told
the healthy people
all like it well enough
without complaints
craving their paleo
porn scenes in white
washed bedrooms.

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

140222A
-----------------

Social street theatre
grabs meanings
from a grab bag life
taking the wraps off
from disappointments.

Exposing the insides
as unappealing as is
visceral shots
striking their hard
on contentions.

You still believe
prizes to be won
but hell is cheap
as to prizes
and heaven is worse.

Much worse
to be expected
from crowds formed
to tear off
and to condemn.

Trash spouts
overflow the gutter
mind trapped
in current affair
rapid effluence.

We are seeps
through the cracks
pressed crumble
suffering along
damp feelings.

Wipe the tears
before you are wiped
being identified
by counter measures
to emotional insurgency.

They gave sackcloth
when I was longings
for perfect silk
because they knew
what I really wanted.

What we play
is complicated games
on multiple levels
taking us deep in
to perfect unhappiness.

I never liked
the company
so I sleep alone
covered by illusions
that chant freedom.

The protests
opposing violations
against any label
personal taste
and candied preference.

Pleasantries exchanged
unpleasant times
in unpleasant ways
some hopeful to get
out of dilly dally.

Shattered
is the newest style
turned pop love
life categories
of delivered rush.

The crush of it
and the rush of it
into a tumble
past the point of into
free fall conditions.

We are going down
and no telling
how far that goes
but whatever comes up
is hollow and empty.

I thought I found you
somewhere deep
but I was far too late
so I continue
collecting spent shells.

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

170222A
------------

Never looked
into the telephone book
in a dozen years
for anyone personal.

The yellow covers
urging cautious dialing
and paranoia always
listening in.

They don't deliver
here anymore
to old notes
and deleted lines.

The sort of corpse
that bought it
a long time ago
on verge of ivories.

Easy to be ghosted
being a vacancy
never filled
but always looking.

Let your fingers
do the walking
with nowhere to go
but gone too far.

No way to get back
but you knew that
in every try
many years ago.

I remember chasing
each illusion
on a dial up
to someone special.

I am still all alone
as a worn out finger
hits a key
that open no doors.

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