Poems: 250621 - June 25th, 2021

[Robert Morpheal]

130621A

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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

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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

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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. 

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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.