Poems: 030521 - May 3rd, 2021

[Robert Morpheal]

290421A

----------- 

These are grim days 

of the occasional 

species of habit

that covers the bones. 

Our conversations rattle

the way old trains rattle

secretly wishing 

they could go off the rails. 

We tend to avoid 

making break throughs

in our careful respect

for fences and walls. 

Secrets made of wanting 

something wild open 

and being seized by forests

encroaching field paths. 

Looking down into history

it is harder to understand 

any of the freedoms 

held by past generations. 

The modern claims 

as to progressive privilege 

and belief in moving forward 

being a prevalent myth. 

We are travellers 

routinely hijacked 

to a different destination

and convinced it is better. 

The cattle car conveyances

crowded with humanity 

are loud with the sounds

speaking in Slogan. 

Eventually they all get off

on something 

that they are supposed to

get off on. 

A few of us keep going 

to different destinations 

a long way down 

beyond the last station. 

----------------------------  

290421B

----------- 

They are always breaking free

and we are on missions 

that take no prisoners. 

It is going nowhere 

but they say it is headed out 

to being on the run. 

It has been cold so long

we all fear decay

if there is a sign of thaw. 

Hearts are frozen 

until they are freezer burn

and throw away. 

A drumming goes on

beating litanies

of bones and skins. 

It will be explained 

in sealed orders 

saying all goes as planned.  

Nothing opened up 

when the troops went over

the top of that rise. 

Kept out of touch 

and stripped of feelings 

coming down that other side. 

They kick at the empties 

rattling spent rounds

and being staggered by shots. 

Someone might fall 

into seas of sudden laughter 

having been slowly drowned. 

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

300421A

------------ 

How do we know 

anything of what is 

shoved in between 

our collected beliefs

about before and after. 

We try to salvage 

something lasting 

by prying it free 

and trying to assure 

places of safety. 

Our wanting so much

to leave something 

somewhere behind 

that might be preserved

rather than destroyed. 

That something 

that might actually last 

longer than any traces 

left by what we were 

when passing through. 

Past all the leaving 

that time and place bring 

as if the shape of things

might banish forgetting 

for a few moments. 

The usual something 

that seemed unimportant 

in being a trinket 

bit of nearly trashed 

turned unlikely treasure. 

We wanted that 

but finding it forbidden 

tried to give it away 

to something else 

as if that might save us. 

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

010521A

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

Looking back 

is such a long way 

so full of cravings

and silent answers 

to lost questions. 

What then happens 

standing at the end 

of a long stretched line 

with no one behind you

and looking back. 

Solo performances

have become the rule

rather than the exception 

but one can pick a piece

and keep playing with it. 

There was no finding 

what one came for 

feeling what was inside

has long gone out 

into various extinctions. 

It was not wanted 

all that much 

and the mind is an ant

trying to move sand dunes

for the sake of uncovering. 

The candle wax drippings

suggestive of futures

that can never happen 

even if for no other reason 

than being foretold there. 

The social values 

of both art and food 

continually revised to being

whatever one does

while remaining alone. 

Either that or inclined

to unpleasant absolutes

and forced juxtapositions 

against what would satisfy 

the remains of the senses 

exiting brainwash stations. 

We cannot rule out 

anything that is unlikely 

being impossible 

in these heaved over lands

splattered with miracles. 

The examples of providence

being so exceptional 

in what is shown off 

by someone else chosen

to convince everyone else. 

There is the laughter

that typically greets 

any of the asking 

being something more 

that can be denied. 

So many different ways 

to becoming the same

and angry beggars 

who can never get 

what they really came for. 

It is a continual process 

emphatic of defeat 

that must keep secret 

everything that is wrong 

with how it all plays out. 

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

020521A

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

It becomes more difficult

to tease out the strands

that are our own mistakes 

from those of others 

where the past has changed

into no more 

than our own make believe. 

We believed that we knew

the various characters 

cartooned into history books

only to realize we did not

know them at all

and that they are redrawn 

to suit new audiences. 

The rough sketches 

of what passed as history 

scribbled over 

with rude comments 

being written in 

to fill up the white spaces 

in the blackening out. 

They and we are no longer

anything permissible 

and all of the processes 

as to how we were once made 

into who we seemed to be 

being made dissimilar 

to new definitions of making. 

They are no longer 

the people we thought of

as being who they were 

but have separated 

from being written up 

in old volumes

now continually revised. 

Nothing is made 

in the same way that it was

enabling the long dead 

to be reborn in long past lives

as someone different 

to how they used to be 

long talked about. 

Forget the prevailing rumours 

because they are replaced

by entirely new ones 

that need to be passed on 

in the persistent signalling 

between ivory towers

and those repainted too. 

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

020521B

-------------- 

The easiest thing 

is to sit down and cry

without knowing 

the slightest reason. 

You really know

a reason will be provided 

after the fact of knowing

the world is that way. 

There is the tiniest flower

concealed amid grasses 

and there are whole worlds

that are flowering. 

---------------------- 

020521C

------------ 

Early Spring is yellows

being various cautions

flagging down with warnings 

about heading off 

in different directions 

into new adventures. 

Imagining excitement 

into the swellings 

that burst exuberant 

somewhere in the nights 

of performing

countless routines.

Are we too only habits

that we cultivated 

and some being seasonal  

round robins 

at the same old games 

forever being played. 

A season playing out

lesser and greater urges

into common villainies 

in behind orchards

gone extreme with fragrant

colours of blossoming. 

 

Blessings of Sun kings 

upon maiden cheeks 

everything blushing 

at a portion of the year 

that mobilizes its legions

into their embarrassments. 

Time is a succession 

counting out 

lesser and greater things

sweeping shadow hands 

around shifting circuit 

chase of hedgerows. 

 

It is a time of earth 

soaking up sky

making up afflictions 

that are stray wildness 

into absent minded

and spirited imaginings. 

All that going forth 

takes the field

flooding across landscapes 

wind ripples of breaths

caressing shudders 

of every coming alive. 

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