Poet13's Blog

Given what we know I cannot forget our circumstances
We know we are on a rock hurtling around fire at a million miles an hour
Such velocity cannot rightly be comprehended

If you want to be understood you must explain yourself
Gaze turned inward the writer at a loss for words do these thoughts go anywhere?
I shut down my feelings and withheld my understanding

Love? It was as if I had murdered you it was an act of self-defense
A primal urge to protect my heart bloody wounds attract predators
And we know with certainty the fallen perish

I don’t want to be the future I have envisioned
I don’t want to turn gray and squint to see the words
strain to hear the voices.

I don’t want to feel that I have had too much
I don’t want to need more anymore
I don’t want to lose my voice.

I want the clarity the energy the courage to speak the words
they touch when enfeebled flesh cannot.

I don’t want to need your understanding
I make no demands for the unattainable.

I will listen say what I can try not to let my ineptitude show through
try to use my aching crooked back to carry what should be borne.

If I am then better it would be in service to how you saw me.

Out of the night comes your plight
a hunger from within!

Slips under the door settles in the cracks
all new adjustable sin!

Right past the mind
straight through the heart
love comes for you again!

Unknowable phantom shredding the program
poltergeists in the play!

Love comes back
like the lines you forgot
to haunt your house of solitude.

Hard to look on the bright side
when you keep showing me your dark side
stop spitting venom in my direction.

You’re like a cobra
or an ape locked in a cage
hurling your own shit at everybody.

You trapped yourself in that cage
drop that handful of feces and pick up a key
grab a clue while you’re down on all fours.

Traps you set for everyone else ensnared only you
the rest of us limped away
a little worse for wear a little wiser.

I don’t know how to explain the obvious but I keep trying
it’s like I have something to prove.

No reason to get up nowhere to go it feels like freedom
in the rain in this solitude I need not raise my voice
need offer no explanations no analyses no keen insights
need not be witty or clever.

Is this sanctuary or selfishness
how long may we take to heal?

If my message goes unheeded
then the fault is my own
the only proof I can offer
is a burning heart scorching my scarred palms.

This is no stigmata
my only delusion was thinking I could change anything.

Black holes are how the universe commits suicide
every galaxy is like an unstable individual.

No wonder we melt down fly apart crash and burn
when we look to the sky these are the designs we discern
we were formed from stellar violence.

Animated clay run amuck pulling itself to pieces
with or without the force of gravity.

It is the nature of matter to disintegrate
and though the human heart burns bright
it is a fragile thing barely a spark in the dark cosmos.

Fight the reflex stifle the impulse
phantoms of pleasure within a mirage of contentment
avoidance is no escape.

The portrait of my life was painted on a mirror
there’s a bit of Dorian Gray in everyone
these unexpressed thoughts will be the death of us.

That said they have their value
for some the only way is silent combat.

In my dreams i revisit old haunts
walk the streets of my boyhood
sensing i have lived too long

I feel

I review my life with acceptance
and a kind of peace

Things were different of course
they always are in dreams
crazy how the present
rearranges the architecture of the past

I am

And so this is how it looks now
this is the world your life has made
this is how you tell yourself the truth

Even asleep you sense how real it is
these images these memories ignite longing

ready

I can feel the sun’s heat on my skin now
i felt it then
the light was always available
though the warmth was subject to seasonal changes

to go

Conducting imaginary arguments with distant friends
quiet sorrow for the family no words for the reality of it
deaf and dumb when the pain comes.

The nearsighted are more often blindsided
no alternative but to be present and accounted for
nothing for it when outside forces fuck with you.

Someone wants to see what you’ve got
see if you can overcome your fear of being needed
wait for the late night phone call wonder if you’ll pick up.

I can’t ever get what I want when I want it
leaves me edgy and frustrated erodes my sense of humor
gloom grinds down.

Anger and frustration coalesce like red pearls inside a bloated bivalve
I collect them with care to cast before colorblind swine
all clever and sardonic left in the cold arms of anger.

Keeping the one unbroken date with disappointment and discontent
self-analysis can’t salvage this muddled mess
understanding is cold comfort when your future’s been foretold.

You planned things perfectly at the beginning
painstakingly printed precise instructions and followed them step by step
knew before you got here exactly how this would end.

I need to stage an intervention with myself
I need to avoid difficult people
I need to remove myself from stressful situations
I need to radically recalibrate how I perceive the world
I need an attitude adjustment of the first order

Like a religious awakening or a psychotic break
A psychic earthquake that reduces preconceived notions to rubble
When the walls come down around you it improves the view
You can see further in every direction
Still not quite a limitless horizon

But it’s clean it’s simple it’s quiet

I wake up every morning to another day of stunted aspirations and vague regrets
trying to remember something of value that yesterday I knew

My curdled skin stretches against emerging muscle
I sag and I creek my girders grind my sockets pop
but somehow the skeletal structure maintains integrity
the foundation never sure ever shaky supports it
the mind looking down on it all complains.

I feel faint I feel fine I feel sad beholding my fissured features
the mirror is no longer my friend fashion mocks me
I’m in an arid desert hidden within a tropical paradise
the path through the jungle that led here is laden with fruit
the sweet taste lingers on these parched lips.

Having conversations with myself
taking toys down off the shelf
I look across the room to the mirror
and you’re not there
anymore.

I pick up all the things we dropped before
try to pick myself up off the floor
look across my life to the stories I’ve told
and no one listened.

Letting bygones go again
put myself back on the shelf
I look across the whole wide world
and you’re not there
anywhere.

By Friday you’ll be an anecdote.

She explains things you already know
tells you the truth regardless
still the homemade soup and the fresh baked bread are welcome.

So you tell her you see as gently as you can
light another cigar stare off toward the sun-dappled mountains
remove your glasses let it all become a beautiful blur.

Ask which herbs she has infused into the tea
track the last hummingbirds of summer droning into autumn
swept on wings of air drenched in rain and dried in sunlight.

The fog rolls in like manifest civic amnesia shrouding awareness
lulling the populace into a drowsy state of compliance.

Gives rise to Indian summer blues
the sun seems preoccupied.

Fumes from made-in-China shower curtain infiltrate the house
who knows what they put in them I think they’re trying to poison us.

We languish China thrives
another example of objective history.

It’s only summer winding down a hint of early frost coming
we hold on to the heat are sad to see it go.

This is how we make melancholy music
the cycles are beyond us and the world is too big.

I put no faith in my feelings
they do not tell me the truth
clarity is lost in color
the picture they paint is an impressionist work
a high point in the art of fooling myself.

Feelings are a baby seal that must be clubbed
a puppy that must be left by the side of the road
how that makes you feel cannot be trusted
it’s a Judas kiss before dying
the maternal embrace of a Venus flytrap.

Sadness is quicksand hate is a lightning storm
love is a fog
if you seek clarity rip out your heart
but make pains to leave your brain intact
you will need wits to see your way clear.

It’s just a little sweat it won’t kill you try telling it to a germaphobe
They can’t hear you their natural order of things distorted through fear
There are reasons to be afraid seen and unseen distant and under your skin
Sooner or later you’ll succumb to something something is inevitable
There’s always a catch in the fine print spelled out in mitochondrial DNA

Look how much of ourselves we exchange we call it sharing even the taking
It’s a merger a combining of systems learning new consequences
We long to touch one way or another intended or not it poses risks
We are givers and we are takers after a while we develop immunities
The trusting heart depends on the body’s involuntary will to verify

Do not mistake my affability for acquiescence
as if good times are forgotten.

Only the details fall away
I retain the gist.

Within the laughter and the tension there is release
I do not forget the good times that’s my problem.

Let’s go again
where did everybody go?

I guess we were all a bit smug thinking we had answers
we had all the answers but could not share the truth.

I reset everything in my memory what I said to what you said
how it all played out the things I did wrong
how much hurt I felt how much pain I gave.

I failed to give as good as I got
certainty pales and wilts in the shadow of memory
sometimes I summon the cold courage to look truth in the eye.

Tear away the rosy recollections see clearly how things were
I prefer the warmth but the cold is bracing
an astringent kiss from the past.

There’s no heat in your fire you’re like a painted flame
pasteurized jazz making music safe for white people
assuming correct postures feeling nothing
missing mindfulness in the moment.

I draw a deep breath arrest the impulse to please
I’m too eager for your approval you’re too willing to withhold
this repetitive cycle builds frustration
never mind.

The wounds I inflict with the weapons I wield
I am angry at myself
I willed myself to forget
red is your favorite color.

When I saw scarlet lines of ruby beads welling from slit skin
it all came back
but I was no longer lame
I could walk away.

he presents himself as a lean object a thing to be adored
no harm intended we all caress mirrors
seeking a reflection of ourselves in others
we find no comfort there no understanding
the fault is in the truth that eludes us

stunned by the silver light we fail to see clearly
rely on affect try to feel our way navigating by touch
quickened by the shape of our immanence
we embrace the graven images we have become
he holds tight presses against the dampened radiance within

I’ve made some stupid choices in my life
could make like old blue eyes and sing about regret
my eyes are brown they see clearly
what I have done not done and undone
I spread fault evenly over the surface of these images
try to smooth out the rough edge of blame.

Analyzing cause and effect objectifies the heart
I chose you chose wrong you chose me to similar effect
stumbling into one another’s arms with bruising tenderness
damage done with best intentions
I’m sorry if I hurt you
I feel worse about my own pain.

the father figure the stranger one in the same
never sworn to duty never embraced by purpose
no armor bequeathed no wisdom imparted
a warrior of the tribe by virtue of gender only
going through the motions of empty ritual

the cutting and the pain must be born
no flinching no crying in our fathers’ lodge
we are frightened and must be brave
willing to slay any foe sever any tie

we know the price others may pay
we can show them no mercy
lest our own weakness will out
and we ourselves fall dishonored
unworthy of a father’s name

time is a secondary consequence of space mass momentum
the universe expands it takes time it makes time
so many distant points of reference from there to here
we squeeze out life through the spaces between clock ticks

existence just keeps flowing time never stops
you can feel it when you know how long it takes to see a star
yesterday’s light casting shadows over today
it’s only real right now

I’m tired of being crippled by a cruel universe
my suffering helps no one my inability to justify a prayer
calling God on the carpet for His neglect.

If Hell is other people’s indifference
then understanding is a kind of Heaven
but there is no purity in it.

We make our own music sculpt our own beauty
no father in the sky to bless us no heavenly chorus caroling
no angel on our shoulder to keep us from harm.

If you want to be saved save yourself
better yet save someone else
if you’re expecting miracles you’re useless.

What’ll I do if I don’t do you?
What happens left to my own devices?

When you finally stop there you are
it’s laughable and it’s frightening.

Noise in my head floods the silence
thick atmosphere sealing shut a vacuum.

Unable to seek out new distraction
nature hobbles us to preempt experience.

Denying the truth takes too much effort
weakness and old age prep us for acceptance.

Never is not an option where eternity is concerned
if we are late we can only offer our apology.

The more things change the more precious the past
this lifelong life loses luster as the story evolves
characters come and go there is no plot
there is no safety take it as it comes
or take it in the rear.

The present unfolds in time-lapse images
every minute is fraught with possibility
everything can come crashing down
everything can get better
nothing will remain this way beyond today.

It all just keeps moving
and motion is risky in a finite world
there are consequences to velocity
casualties may ensue
imagination may get us through.

Say it out loud reprimand yourself
get your shit together
if you don’t do it who will it’s up to you
it’s always been up to you
     so it all comes down to me
     we is just a bunch of me’s

The system was supposed to support us
there were supposed to be safeguards
but there were never guarantees
no such thing we signed on anyway
     I was confident
     I thought we had a better solution
     a truer truth

The more we knew the more there was to question
answers are slippery and subjective things
truths few and far between
facts get in the way
     too many to count too many to know
     but truth … that’s when you step outside the circle
     walk off into the dark open your arms
     unlock your heart and put your mind in neutral

Pain always takes center stage
steps right up head of the line
elbows aside the nice stuff
plops itself down refuses to budge.

Try to overcome pain with kindness
try hard to remember the good things
some things you don’t forget
cracked vases tottering on shelves.

Stop trying to take inventory
better just to burn down the house
anoint yourself with ash dance round the fire
now the same center of another place.

I deploy delusions to keep the fear away
Yet I can see clearly what I’ve become
It fills me with neither despair nor satisfaction
My heartbeat fading like fleeing footfalls

Yet I remain calm and stationary
And I do not cry out

If pain is coming let it come
It has followed me down these rutted roads
The rearview mirror does not lie but the view is limited
Clarity comes when you stop

I just wanted to have a good time
I didn’t want anything to hurt

She became stranger and stranger
She became a stranger

A recipient a victim of referred tenderness
The kind that has its roots in pain

An embrace was like slow suffocation
A collision of skeletal and muscular infrastructure

Tender nerve endings trying to avoid one another
Too much touch too much toxicity

Red heart mottled with purple bruises
Hence the tears of blood

We dried one another’s

She thrives on dysfunction it’s in her blood
She was nourished on it it affirms her
The chaos she creates insulates
A toxic brew in which to stew
A flavor all its own a bitter blend
An acquired taste like pain or pleasure

Like finding a comfortable position on a bed of nails
Or affirmation in the arms of a stranger
Such thirst is only quenched with tears
The familiarity and the unhappiness
Become a kind of refuge become the family way
It’s a legacy she did not refuse

no voices in my head
no cries no whispers
no grim imprecations
no altruistic exhortations

only fearful fantasies
of pain and loss
the suffering of loved ones
become objects of cruel intention

        and i am powerless to save them

i feel little responsibility to those who are gone
nothing but sorrow for the ones closest
i seek solace in the flesh grateful for a lack of meaning

there’s no point to this it doesn’t matter who said what first

empty arms heart full of ache
angels were not meant to be hermits
when the light goes out our time is up

repetitive impulses of cascading pleasure
old habits reminding us why we hooked up at alpha
one good thing deserving another and so on

satisfaction guarantees demand we remain loyal consumers
evolution requires social intercourse
biology craves nourishment

these bodies and their appetites were imposed on us
it’s this way or no way
and no easy way out

it’s a system of our own devising
we dreamt it up while we were sleeping
now we cannot wake up until we redesign ourselves

         we can do it from memory