"Entropic Beings" (P.o.t.D. 12/31/16)

As the years add up,
The sun and tears carve wrinkles -
Momentos to be seen in the morning mirror.

The skin grows so thin
That a simple scratch draws blood,
And the heart grows weary
From the losses it carries...

Speeches fall apart
And the disconnect is so acute.
There may be wisdom, but it hidden
Under the chaos born
Of making sense of this world forlorn.

Yesterday is quickly forgotten,
When weaved into the tapestry
Of so many poignant moments gotten
Livng in the decades
Of this rat-race Modern Age.

not a very happy poem -
the physical aches and pains
are stark reminders
I'm not young again.
"I yearn for comforts,
As I march to oblivion..."

"3 a.m. and I scratch..." (P.o.t.D. 12/30/16)

How can I convey...?

Sensory input - visual cortex sparking..
sounds noted in passing..
language but a footnote?

could i draw the world i perceive
instead of beating my fingers
into bloody pulps
pounding on the keyboard
quoting this or that quote
sharing some inspiration
or maybe another dad joke?

i walk.. a lot..
really! quite a lot..
i see things,
and they rarely trigger
memories of yesterday
or plans for tomorrow...

just another house here,
maybe the same one
i've passed a thousand times...
and a bush here,
maybe a little bushier
or bedecked in christmas lights...

images flashing through my brain
rarely causing concern or blame -
memories now, of creeks followed
as a teen
in cow pastures, alone,
at the city limits

i realize this is rambling
i realize these are words,
so foreign, so not me...
my family knows me as the silent one -
though I doubt many would think that
who see me today...

so i pound at the keyboard
and wrack my brain
while taking solace
in foreign music keeping me sane?
oops - attempting to get poetic...

see, to borrow from Blade Runner,
"I see things..."
If it's not in my sight,
Then it's likely not in mind?
A curse of Facebook
Is that I see old friends and lost loves
Who I doubt I'll ever
Share a room with again -
Maybe that stirs up pesky memory,
Maybe that sharpens solitude's pains...

I was thinking how hard it can be
To give flight to my inner voice,
To speak without relying
Upon our possibly shared cultural contexts

Maybe that's why
writing components were such a bear for me -
i just had no clue
what i had in common
with these liberal arts professors

I like to share far and wide,
Not that I've bought the quotes
Hook, line, and sinker -
but because
I'm often a perturbed thinker...
I'd love to know what
my friends and neighbors
feel, support, or distrust

science tells me
i can interact with the world,
and usually get the same results
for the same interactions...
often born out
by my own experience -
you know, 2 + 2 = 4
(most of the time)
i'm still not sure
about g and 9.81
problems with physics at RLM...

so... I walk, I see things,
I add some music, too...
partly to withdraw,
partly to entertain -
thankfully I'm blessed
that most songs
don't get stuck in repeat
in the workings of my brain...

I do not obsess... much...
in third grade,
i dreamed of a grand life
with my then-current crush -
that faded with time,
but still would flare up later...
although, as a teen,
my mind crowded with crushes,
such is raging testosterone, eh?

as the years have piled on,
love, or lust, seems to be fading -
I'm thankful for that...
much easier to talk again?

i don't think it's self-centered,
because I usually care
quite a bit about who or what's around me -
but it is very localized
as it's so rare to think
about people i've never met

back to dreams
i hear i talk in my sleep
I think I've heard my talk in my sleep
it reminds me
Of late-stage Alzheimer's...

add to that
difficulties remembering
people's names,
and who really said what...
(and Grandma's illnesses)

and hope just pops,
my brain thinks not in speech
so my curse will be
to never be understood,
to share grunts and grumbles
and then be mistook
for another crazy man's mumbles

shuttered off
to die slowly
in some dark, dank closet.

meh. trying to get dramatic?
no clue if you "get this" -
ain't that the point? -

my strength and my weakness
is that I can not predict
what it is you want me to say...

Why use others' quotes?
Well, why reinvent the wheel?
If they work, use them...

I'm so single that I'm one letter away from a shocking experience...

I'm so single that I must be The One...

I'm so single that Kraft models their cheese after me...

3 mantra words for 2017

First thoughts on my 3 mantras, to focus on, while living in 2017:

1) Dependable
2) Nutrition
3) Play

"Dwindling down" (P.o.t.D. 12/29/16)

My poor eyelids feel oh so heavy
While these love songs are gently playing -
On my headphones, all through my phone -
By a good friend's quirky suggested lady
With a jazzy, Caribbean, or rhumba beat..?

My eyes are itchy and raw,
Craving comfort of a cool bed,
After a long sweltering Texas day
Running all around to get ahead...

My brain is so tired,
From a sugar induced coma
From eating too much food...

My mind is wired,
Always craving more, more...

My words falter...

"Whirlwinds of Your Passion" (P.o.t.D. 12/28/16)

There was this frightened whisper
That turned into a loud roar...

Winds lifted the defeated
While rain slashed in a downpour.

All hoped he'd be unseated
Yet chaos ran its mad course.

Now, beaten and burned crisper,
Our voices croak, like frogs, hoarse.

Gas pumps, glowing bright
At night, waiting to be used
Like cheap prostitutes?

"Today's Poems?" (P.o.t.D. 12/27/16)

I wrote a haiku.
I felt it was in poor taste.
So, then I hid it.

Words are weapons; wield them with awareness....

"Trust the television..." (P.o.t.D. 12/26/16)

As the TV blares in the background,
With no one there to watch it,
It feels so lonely
Because it used to give us
A false sense of company...

Now, it's all puffed-up nonsense
Spreading across the news,
Because our attention -
It does not want to lose...

The box plays on as we sleep,
Because we want to tune out
Our family fights, so deep...

Because it used to protect us
From being socially awkward...?

"Why fight?" (P.o.t.D. 12/26/16)

what do you do with a bully?

you ostracize them,
cast them out of the social circle...

and yet...

what if they redouble their violence?
what if they feel
the only way to get noticed again
is to harm themselves or others?

violence is bizarre -
some would hurt or kill their spouse,
and i don't understand why?

humans are beasts
with beast instincts
to fight
as well as to flight
not all of it is self-defence?

to be ignored
because you create dischord
in another's world view -

and I recall,
"Shake the dust from your sandals
and go to the next city"

and, yet...
the illusion of permanence
has me clinging to the past...

so i can see that a bully
cares somewhat for their glories,
and doesn't see how to change
so they'll fight and fight again.

(or twweet and tweet -
pardon the politics, please...)

or is it,
"I feel hurt,
so I'm going to hurt you"
retribution driving the violence?

or,
"No one respects me;
So I'm going to
force my will upon them?"

No idea, really...
violence is not something I enjoy.

Why do I want to understand anger?
self-defense, maybe?
to know how to diffuse it,
when it becomes directed at me,
or my friends and neighbors?

"broken pieces" (P.o.t.D. 12/25/16)

Broken pieces
Cloistered away
(Like monks?)
Deep inside
A rocky stone-face...

causing wrinkles to appear with their weight
causing the eyes to scan, scan, scan the ground
as i shuffle my way, ever walking, everywhere
everywhere around this "beautiful town"

the pieces come out, these nights,
as i try to write and write -
"Here! Let me show you a bit of my frights!"

when i'm around friends and family,
i feel much less of the pieces' pains,
only to be kept awake at night,
as they surface when i'm alone again.

it's so easy to delude myself,
to get sucked in -
thinking i'm a string of failures,
or disease wins...

but i'm not really broken,
i am not simply bipolar...
i am gifted and so much more.
I hope these broken pieces will soften
and my mind will be at ease,
I think I can win this war...

The hunger devours,
Like looking upon
Hastur unmasked...

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.”

― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists

"Weasels?" (P.o.t.D. 12/24/16)

Popping heads off of her Barbies
Like champagne corks on New Year's Eve,
She chortled softly to herself,
"Who are you trying to deceive?
We can't have thin bodies like these!"
...showing immeasurable wealth...

"scary changes" (P.o.t.D. 12/23/16)

Change is a challenge:

To give up old behaviors
And trudge forth through the unknown...

Let's walk away,
Slodging through valleys of fear,
leaving this humble hilltop
to try to climb mountains

we don't want to give up
simple, some times flawed
strategies of survival,
when the new paths
could be a stumble
as well as a soar...

I didn't stop drinking,
until it stopped working.

I couldn't stop smoking
until i got free
of its physical addiction barbs:
"I'll just have one more cigarette..."

some fear of failure, too -
"why apply to jobs,
just to get rejection letters?"

ah, yes... fear of failure -
the procrastinator's nightmare,
for i want to perfect
on the first attempt, every time...

true story - i attempted 10 writing components,
all failed or dropped -
i thought because of writer's block...
but perhaps because I was out of my depth -
"you see? because I wrote reams,
when the writing was tied to teaching
and i had been a tutor for seven years..."

this present focus on careers -
as i look at a bird's nest of jobs,
mostly entry-level clerical and retail...
because they're familiar

No baring of my breast
in forays of romance -
why rish the rejection, the possible unease?
the fear of my mind obsessing?
yet, i grow bitter
as ladies pass me by...

i write, and i write,
and some times face ridicule
because i'm being too vulnerable, too open
"yes, that could chase folks away,
thinking no secret is safe with me.."

i near the end
of this self-imposed challenge
to write every day...
A January more,
And then to sift the wheat from the chaffe,
to edit ruthlessly,
to assemble what I can

i'm tired,
yet, try as I may,
i can't sleep,
and my sane bits
scream in terror,
""No! Not that rabbit hole of chaos!"

I'm still wondering
how firm the job offer is,
that i received today...
moreover...
will i have to get a car, too?
do i want to make those changes?





what does "change" evoke in my mind, good and bad?
- three weeks gone by, unattended

So, I'm not working Christmas Eve or Christmas night. I currently have no firm plans to go anywhere formal; and yet I'd like to get out of my house.
Does anyone want to adopt me? I can bring some board and/or card games...
-------------------------------------------------
I was unable to get the time or ticket fares set aside to visit my family (in Dallas, Kansas, California, and a couple of other places around the world) for either Christmas or NYE, this year. Kind of bummed about that...

"Forget me not?" (P.o.t.D. 12/22/16)

I woke up, screaming,
"I don't want to die alone!"
Shaken, I turned
To hug my wife...

And I only saw her ashes,
Long perched there,
Upon her dressing table...

No sleep would return to me,
Upon that cold unfeeling night,
As I wondered
Why my children no longer called...

"Jar-head" (P.o.t.D. 12/21/16)

"If you let me die,
Then the stars crumble to dust..."
...so preached an ill brain...

"Puppet" (P.o.t.D. 12/20/16)

"Just play along, now,
Act as the Party tells you...
For assassins wait..."

"Ode to Wino" (P.o.t.D. 12/19/16)

Stripes, to hide in grass;
White paws that stalk human feet -
Cat's taken control?

Attempted meditation stream (P.o.t.D. 12/18/16)

searching for a beginning,
my mind drifts over
blinking icons... blinking lights...
returns to center with chants of Om.

thinking about breaking down
in Smithville
hours at the video store with Shawn
rescued by Donna and Mom
commenting all the way to Dallas
about Christmas lights guiding the sleigh
even though some were police

thinking about sundays
falling away from dharma punx
permanent illusion in my mind
that they'll still be there
"if my orbit returns me in kind"

politics again, rears up
seeing my eyes
turned away, so blind
assuming there's no oppression
to give me false peace of mind

a whole lot of fear
and unchained, galloping anxiety -

will they gather up the scientists
who try to warn them
against their doomsday energy plans?

will they decimate the protesters -
Standing Rock water cannons times a million?

will the women be corralled
into great, big breeding pens
forced to have babies
or bindings upon their feet?

Yeah, it may be overblown
and quite a bit irrational -
but, then, these new leaders are scary,
showing themselves to be quite irrational, too...

if my selfish, self-centered interests,
I think that I might survive,
So, Alfred E. Neuman,
"What? Me worry?"

but again - self-deception...
I am one of the liberals,
I am one of the protestors,
I am clinically insane...
and, for that, I may be on the first trains?

return to the Om,
chanting through my headset...
Did that clear my mind?
Can I let those thoughts drift by,
Like the clouds, hanging in the sky?

Not sure if journalling is fast enough
To capture ...

bell.

"Anxiety Reigns" (P.o.t.D.12/17/16)

The impulses have grown strong,
Blurting out strange turns of phrase
With aggressive tones
And lack of restraint...

Modern day fight or flight, I guess -
When staring at the abyss around me,
Afraid that my world will fall apart...

I laugh a frightened laugh,
Hoping the bare teeth

Scares away the mists, the beasts...

"Fearing Monday" (P.o.t.D. 12/16/16)

Stubborn electors
Gonna vote like they been told,
"Ain't 'Merica Great?!"

"Chaos stream" (P.o.t.D. 12/15/16)

can i control chaos?
capture collisions and energy loss,
just trying to...stumble...
time heating up
cracks across my eyes
mind falters
yet sleep? halted?
hell's bells! let's dart
at a dictionary
just to make random lines
but, no, my mind screams
for order, for rules, for laws!
and yet, i see trump -
not enough respect to capitalize -
sewing seeds of destruction
throughout his puppet play...
aigh! no will in me,
to call him out;
as the cloak of defeat
smothers and suffocates...
and i feel we all see
wide-grinning Death
with his scythe of Fear -
the mind-killer, remember? -
cutting large swaths across the land
and leaving me
wailing and gnashing
and bemoaning
the end of America.

but, maybe, I'm just unreasonably afraid?

Time, time, time...
So easy to lose,
So hard to recover.

"Tea" (P.o.t.D. 12/14/160

What future lies before me,
Patterns revealed by leaves of tea?

Why, now I realize, my cup is empty -
So, I must get another, you see

To drink deep of brews a plenty
And let my brain swim in ecstacy...

Caffeine, peppermint, hibiscus - all agree
That leaves are best found,
Simmering in water,
And not attached to a tree.

P.o.t.D. 12/13/16

Is my mind empty?
Or are the thoughts all tangled
Like old spaghetti?

P.o.t.D. 12/12/16

Christians are concerned:
"Christmas is under attack!"
Yet, Muslim hate spreads...

"Before the Melt..." (P.o.t.D. 12/11/16)

Blizzard in my brain:
So many thoughts colliding -
Buried by the drifts...

"speak the speech..." (P.o.t.D. 12/10/16)

will the words
stick in my throat,
caught up in anxieties
about how i look in societies?

or does my brain soar above
those turns of phrases,
hoping to scatter them about
with my manic phases?

so many questions,
so much that i doubt,
all leave me speechless,
while deep inside
I just need to shout..

"Freedom to Remain Silent" (P.o.t.D. 12/9/16)

Afraid of currents -
The whirlwinds of your passions
Blowing me down wells...

P.o.t.D. 12/8/16

Afraid to speak up,
Because they bully others
In daily flame wars.

"Create-Your-Own..." (P.o.t.D. 12/7/16)

Cracks appear in reality -
Synchrocity run rampant
Like a waistcoated rabbit...

You probably catch the Alice ref,
Like so many other meme-drops
Pulled from the pop fabric...

How do I uncover the real,
The truths like diamonds in the sky,
Hiding under so many layers of stories
Shoved upon our experience,
Coloring our glasses
And leaving us gasping for originality?

Is it an original twist,
If the story's taken out of context
Or if it happens to a new character?

Or is everything just a grand cosplay,
Where we're doomed to repeat history
Because we feel comfortable
Living former lives
Like the domesticated housewife
Or the workaholic father?

Some people get so wrapped up
In the soap operas and novellas...
Others just love the guns and violence...
And I probably quite favor the absurd.

Now, I just feel like I'm grinding again,
Writing because I don't want to sleep -
It's becoming harder
To distinguish
Dreams
From reality
Or nightmares.

This feeling in my gut that I am self-centered to the extreme... just blindly plowing through life without recognition of others.
So, forgive me, if I have not returned emails or calls, or sent surprise texts asking how you are. Perhaps 2017 will be an improvement for the better?
Life seems so filled with toil and tasks...

P.o.t.D. 12/6/16

Am I a shadow?
Draining the life out of all,
Like an undead shade?

Or a vampire..?
Born from sickness, sapping strength,
Afraid of sunlight...

Caught up in morbid reflection again,
Yearning for jovial times,
When youth's abandon
Had me playing games 'til sunrise...

Wishing for coffee and conversation
About the French House commons,
Or even cigarettes in the dark
After an AA meeting.

"Is it so hard to pick up a phone?"
When I've been sapped of strength
From long, hard hours at work,
Or I feel I'd be an imposition -
That phone feels more like a chore
Than like a chance to soar.

So, I pen poems in the witching hours,
Not sure if they make much sense,
Ever reminding myself,
"It's a challenge,
To see if you can write!"
Honestly, I don't think I can...

Heck, I'm not too sure I can talk -
Always left behind, in the group.

"Cause and effect?" (P.o.t.D. 12/5/16)

Why...?

Can we peek behind the curtain,
And see how these miracles
Are manufactured by the mundane?

Can we piece together
Across all the epochs
How man came from amoeba,
Or... better yet...
How amoeba came from stardust?

Or... are we to be left
Reeling from shock and awe,
Wondering what could twist a mind so,
To kill all those innocents
With guns or knives or hands -
The weapon is the person, not the tool.

So much is out there,
With some modeled quite well
By some excellent minds
While so much more, like those minds,
Is still baffling -
A marble holding a galaxy, held by..?

"For the Birds?" (P.o.t.D. 12/4/16)

Strutting around the yard,
A rooster crows and pecks the ground.
He would give up
His roost over all the hens
To be an eagle, high above,
Gliding upon the thermals
With eyes spotting innocent prey
Like himself.

Stimulus - Nothing.
Stimulate harder - Nothing.
Frustration wells up...

Stimulus - Response.
Stimulus - Response. Laughter.
...warm, fuzzy feelings...

"Skip, Skip, Slippity Slip" (P.o.t.D. 12/3/16)

Christmas lights flashing?
...or police speeding down the road?

My mind's falling apart,
Like a smacked down garlic clove...

Vogon poetry, I challenge thee!

Skip, skip, and slippity slip -
Grasping at memories,
Like holding water on your fingers.

I just want to be complete,
And I hate living, lacking...
Worried about my next meals,
Putting off getting clothes
From a second-hand store...

Skip, skip, slippity slip -
Life feels like a broken record,
"And all the king's men
Couldn't put him back together, again..."

Is my mind sparking and flashing?
Have my actions become labored,
With way too much of my brain?

Skip, skip, slippity slip -
I like how that phrase rolls
Off the tongue,
Like sweet hot caramel
Hugging an ice cream scoop....

Who are we,
To force our hands,
To help make this make sense?

A night with so little sleep
Leaves me hard-pressed to focus,
To not drift, or skip,
Or perhaps even shout...

I want to be done with today!
I want to sleep deep and dream wild!

But, alas... the hunger gnaws at my flesh,
As if a pound of that
Could satisfy this ravenous poem.

So, first, I write;
Then, I eat,
Then, Gods willing, I get to sleep...

"October 1998" (P.o.t.D. 12/2/16)

"Why not suicide?
If I feel like a failure,
Why keep sucking air?"

...a lucid moment,
as my mind reeled
from her harsh breakup
and hoping beyond hope
that she would visit once more...

"Why not suicide?
She no longer loves me, and
My bed is so cold..."

...the depression grew starker,
as i fell further behind on rent,
and i went hungry for lunch,
looking long at the cafe
next to the new professional job...

"Why not suicide?
I'm not cut out for this work,
And, one day, they'll know..."

...so, i played upon my arms
with a dull swiss army,
leaving scratches galore,
but afraid to draw blood and gore...

...i began to call in sick,
when i had just overslept,
because i hadn't slept all night...

...and then?

My plan changed like that,
And I guzzled Depakote -
One month's worth of pills.

Last I remember,
I was laying down to sleep
My life's final sleep...

...they tell me,
that they found me
sitting in my underwear,
against my bedroom wall...

...they tell me,
that they dragged me
to the shower,
turning it on,
full blast on hot...

...they tell me,
that i had 90% kidney failure,
and a body temperature of 84...

First came activated charcoal,
Then a feeding tube and a catheter -
A dash of dialysis, for fun?

Thankfully, I was deep in a coma,
Lying in a bed for three weeks,
Although I did get some nasty bed sores.

I came to, to The Simpsons
And their Halloween specials;
And to a Congressman
returning to space -
Although, now, I'm hazy on which one...

It was a bit of a recovery,
And I came to realize
That she was hardly worth all that...

But.. I was young and foolish,
And rather quite hopeless...
I had crossed a breaking point of stress.

Suicide is very selfish,
Causing all about you, much pain...

...and yet, I would consider it, once more,
If faced with a future full of my own pain,
Or feelings like I'm a failure, once again...

"Why not suicide?
If I feel like a failure,
Why keep sucking air?"

"Lizards" (P.o.t.D. 12/1/16)

Let's puff up our chests
And spit stinging words to wound
Others' characters...