Poems: 140421 - April 14th, 2021

[Robert Morpheal]

130421A

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They become afraid 

to refer to the heart

and afraid 

to imagine love. 

A word soup 

fearing too much sugar

too much salt 

between sweet and sour. 

It is that kind of place

they are the victims of

making bad bargains 

on the worst days. 

They are the losers 

by arrangement

in pastimes of nothing 

but the lessons learned. 

Time to break away 

past every end 

of dead end roads 

where the tracks stop. 

Whatever it was 

is always long gone 

by the time they get

there to the going. 

Going, going, gone

under the gavel crash

the sell out crowd

still getting hammered. 

Having no answers 

to their lost questions

about who was lifted up 

and who was faded out. 

Forgetting the names 

of things they once knew 

and knowing how

the meanings changed. 

It doesn't really say

anything it meant 

as everyone changed

into someone else. 

Traders at costumes

trying on new roles 

recite their old monologues 

on the newly built stage. 

Not much to see there

beyond the gallows 

hang of the tied tight

loops of mind. 

Note: Mind (intellect) = Greek word Nous, which is thus also the “noose”. 

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130421B

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We will be worn out 

before we get through

the thick of it. 

The welcome committees

introducing new miseries 

always top the old. 

You can join something 

you do not want

being any part of. 

Players no longer know

what games they play

and the rules have changed. 

Watch the small fry 

play at becoming sharks 

ready for the big pond. 

Popularity is a blood sport

that has gone extreme

favouring the well paid. 

There are the very drab 

and the very dismal

displays of the same. 

There are the punishments

for arriving too late 

from what you had to do. 

There are those things 

that you should not have 

among the ones you lack.  

There is being touched 

without anything touching 

ever really happening. 

For the survivors 

the ready made excuses 

as to where, when and why. 

Excerpts for memoirs 

that cause guests to leave 

the dinner table.  

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130421C

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Wish I had found a talent

for being musical 

but it seems anything else 

goes at that take away 

from any coming from. 

Some of us hear the sounds

the others are deaf to

but cannot find a way 

to make them come out 

sounding right. 

My ancestors made noises

pleased their lords

at settling the scores 

that brought discord 

to far and distant realms. 

Even the traffic noise 

sounds much better 

than my hum drum notes

played on any scale 

of large and small things. 

Banged the ivories 

when I was a child 

with fingers tangled up 

in strings and hammers 

until my ears hurt. 

Way it sometimes goes 

stepping out of tune 

in restless times 

trying to remember how 

one makes right moves. 

Perhaps it is envy 

for the harmony 

that music is all about 

and having something 

musicians rarely know.

I don't know 

what it really is 

that makes the music 

what it is 

that hurts so much. 

I heard the whisper 

of an old rumour 

that there was a music 

that once served the poets

but no more. 

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130421D

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They are made to feel 

that if life is not sad 

it would not exist.

Typical intercessions 

there to build up 

for common let downs. 

They learn to expect 

the monstrous birthing 

of the gestated usual. 

They wait at the exits 

for the show 

to come to an end. 

It is the double dare 

that gets to them 

as it plays on wishful. 

All about those risks 

of nothing to gamble 

but the stakes are high. 

A redefined passion 

that gets denied 

no matter the position. 

Getting nothing that way

but they can always try 

until it ends the same. 

Muddle ups of dreaming

something to remember 

inventing nothing at all. 

Fills up stretches of nights 

with something colder 

than aches of bones. 

Turned over and turning 

headed out to the far edge 

of what they never chose. 

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130421E

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The encyclopedia 

is never anything gentle 

and never anything tender. 

In time it becomes more true

that we lose the struggle 

to escape from between pages. 

We tried hard but always 

ending pressed last season's

flowers between the pages.

Everything goes dry 

turned to a fragile dust 

given the course of time. 

Poets as reflective

take downs of wanted posters

from cold glazed eyes. 

No one wants shadows 

that they cannot command 

as their very own. 

We spent decades 

dining on fresh data 

picked from digital vines. 

It all seemed ripe

but all fell apart 

soon as we got to it. 

Little we knew 

what was happening 

or where it all goes. 

We are made to lose 

the taste for everything 

on those menus. 

Cannot please anyone 

because they all changed 

their drifting minds. 

Signs of these times 

flickering flash cards 

demand instant response.

The young are angry 

about everything no matter 

which way it goes.  

They never knew 

how much time it took 

exchanging letters by post. 

Stamp collectors 

a dying breed 

becoming unhinged. 

Easy to choke on a pen

and swallow the ink

in between paper cuts. 

The mixers have changed

into those who know 

the others are mixed up. 

We used to like imagining 

it would all get much better 

but it never really did. 

Seems a missing out 

on really good donuts 

and the best chocolate milk. 

Tea with crumpets 

trying to be reasonable 

about colour theory. 

Spike up the coffee 

with something sharp

might set us loose. 

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130421F

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You have to believe 

in all the wrong people 

if you want something 

coming down on you 

from out of heaven.   

Living is at the far reaches

at the edges of myths

dancing on thin tightropes

strung out in defiance

of central control. 

What it means to sell

off various parts 

of whatever it is 

you once referenced 

as being your own soul.  

Making up inventories 

of what we once thought 

that we really had 

wondering who took what

to give to whom. 

Someone is listening 

but it is never anyone 

we wanted to let in 

on anything connected

to any  real feelings. 

The typical mistakes

that keep talking 

to the likes of ourselves 

singing in the shower 

in a bathroom voice. 

Emotions have gone 

completely out of style

having been left to those

grown old enough 

to reminisce about it. 

Cannot really ever relate

to all the dying out 

always keeps coming 

up among other demands 

that can never be met. 

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140421G 

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Those beautiful places 

where I used to go 

so I could miss someone 

that much more. 

Sometimes it was a drag 

fallen in to the same 

common rabbit holes 

of all that loneliness. 

With the first leaves 

that are being written 

right through 

to where they turn. 

And everything else 

that is in between 

the covers 

that never gets told. 

Hiding in and among

the flowers 

illuminating the borders

of harsh manuscripts. 

An impatient patience

wondering what it was 

that was missed 

on an exhausted map.  

Never knowing which 

side road they were on 

or what new door 

they might walk through. 

That sort of living 

where one knows people 

and always something 

never quite right. 

Take home the new names

embossed with new faces

added to careful collections 

kept in ordered sequences. 

It wasn't the past 

and it wasn't the future 

that got in the way 

in lands of misfit toys. 

Cannot really fix up 

that sort of thing 

but they wind it tight

to keep it going. 

So much is learned 

about nothing at all 

it seems like water 

brushing across sand. 

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Not quite satisfied with how these drafts of new poems have turned out, but then again I never am. Language is a continual battle with perpetual discontent. It never quite does what anyone really wants it to, so we try to find positions of compromise. Compromises that often seem too large, no matter how we try to negotiate what cannot be negotiated.