"Cooking Chocolate Oatmeal" (P.o.t.D. 7/31/15, rev ???)

Just toss them off my brain,
Like so many fractured fragments from
The simmering coffee pot shattered...

Strange ideas percolate,
But now lay splattered
Across some cheap tile knock-off.

How does one arrange the ideas,
When the yarn is unravelling
And all the tender nerves are frayed
By long days at work, slaving away?

Am I in the quaint kitchen,
Cooking up ideas and schemes,
"Mincing words", if you will?

Stirring the sauce,
Sprinkling spices in,
I try to concoct a good story...

...but it feels like a recipe for disaster,
Like the wrong memories
Are getting jammed together,
Leaving me with a pickle of a poem -
Overcooked by leaning too heavily
On an extended meal metaphor.

"Give Us Room" (P.o.t.D. 7/25/15, rev 8/13/17)

We do not wish to be cast as unique,
Separated by perceived difference.
We do not like being afraid to speak,
Set off by those who think we make no sense.

It's just common ground, with you, that we seek;
'Fore we can shed our fears and our pretence.
'Tis fair treatment of the humble and meek
To be allowed room to "get off our fence"...?

"Two Bits" (P.o.t.D. 7/21/15, no rev)

Some two-bit poem hack:
Tries to be writer, he acts,
Tortured by mind wracked.

"Organize!" (P.o.t.D. 7/11/15, no rev)

Organize chaos...
Random thoughts, upon the page,
Gathered as the mind does rage.
Anarchy "rules" within the brain,
Never making it easy to train
Intellect's galumphing, dumb
Zoo of wandering, random
Emotions and thoughts.

"Cutting Cuts" (P.o.t.D. 6/22/15, no rev)

Cutting up in the kitchen
Cuts short my labored thoughts...

Cutting off his corn -
Cut to the chase -

Cutting hurts...
Cut deep,
Cuts.

"Feeling Fetal" (P.o.t.D. 6/13/15, no revs)

Huddled in my bed,
Hiding from some simple jobs –
Hindered by my mood.

"Times Unjust" (P.o.t.D. 6/12/16, rev 6/12/17)

Life has lost its luster,
Dulled by bickering fights,
Choosing from a menu
Chock full of bad diets.

Love tries finding its roots,
Cracking my stone-dead heart...
Bile rises instead
Choking on rocks apart...

This is a feeble piece -
Written, mindless, above -
Attempting to capture:
'Despair!' 'Ennui!' '...enough...'

Please, forgive, if you will -
Revile, if you must -
Poems written in anger
In these sad times unjust.

"Navigating Highs and Lows" (contest entry) (P.o.t.D. 6/2/15, no rev)

The summer that I just turned twenty-four,
A bipolar episode crossed my door...

Now that I have somehow turned forty-two,
I have learned tricks to appear sane to you.

Eighteen years of suffering strange mood swings
Has led to much pained wisdom that each brings.

"Obsession" (P.o.t.D. 5/29/15,no rev)

Wide awake with words
Swimming like subconscious sharks;
They make me mental.

"sleep beckons" (P.o.t.D. 5/22/15, no rev)

Sleep beckons me back
To bed, to dream, to feel warmth,
To hide in covers.

"Haikus to explain?" (P.o.t.D. 4/4/17)

As I dredge eight years
Of my Facebook feed, pulling
Poems poignant? Or Pouts?

Like pulling my teeth,
As I scramble with my time...
Left half-finished moons:

The delicate rib,
Or bowl upon horizon,
Or midnight madness...

Leaves left, ink long dry -
Beg for edits, telling why
So sad...? So depressed...?

No wine, let me whine,
Upon my shoddy sorrows,
I force you to dine!

I don't want to be
Trite, and yet, depression
Seems like all I write!!

Spring is upon us -
The plants are blooming flowers,
Leaves noses' sorrows..

"Over the Rainbow" (P.o.t.D. 3/25/15, rev ???)

Red -
For the blood, sweat and tears sacrificed,
Fighting the dark demons in those first days...

Orange -
Color that my blood turned
After a decade of Austin decadence,
Masquerading as an attempt at a degree...

Yellow -
Glad to be pissing clean and clear,
Despite severe damage done in that one year,
With much less toxins for organs to fear...

Green -
Always striving for more green,
I'm surprised it's not abundant
With far fewer drains that I've seen...

Blue -
Saddened, after another decade;
Because goals go unrealized,
And life still feels like a struggle...

Indigo -
I don't know?

Violet -
Feeling like royalty,
For that second decade
Still had unexpected promises fulfilled.

"Fueled by Frustrations, Suicide Sinks In"

I imagine myself twisting up my bed shifts into a make-shift rope, tying them to the guardrail on the Jones Road bridge, and hanging myself over the creek.

Other days, I feel this urge to jump in fount of the cars speeding down Manchaca Road.

Or... do I poison myself by taking all of the prescriptions simultaneously. What is it like to die on a month's worth of Lithium?

There's even a thought to go to the gun shop, ten minutes away, and buy a gun.

So far, that's the extent of the ideations.

They're not constant, but they're recurring. I suspect they're fueled by frustration and failures. The first time that I attempted suicide, it was not a cry for attention; I wanted to find oblivion, to be done with this circus, to make room for those who seem to be succeeding...

I hate the places my brain can take me.

I hate the expectations that our society imposes on me.

On second sight, I would seriously consider escaping by running away to a monastery (with or without notice, depending on my mood) - all the above suicides seem to have a bit of pain and suffering involved in them.

So, yes, I'm a bit frustrated right now. When I look at the outsides, though, I'm actually not bad off. Yet, like some crazed addict, I want more... more money, more toys, more games, more food, more sex, more attention.

Yet, hearing myself talk, these last couple of days, I'm not too sure that I'm very pleasant to be around. Will you still love me, when I stink?

Sooo... that's me, reaching out in a third/fourth Facebook thread. I'll probably call somebody in the next couple of hours, because I strongly suspect that no one will call me.
(maybe this is all the result of too much caffeine? )

"Accumulate" (P.o.t.D. 3/9/15)

It rains upon me:
Water falling, tasks undone -
Both pool into floods.

"Delusions" (P.o.t.D. 3/4/15, no rev)

Bubbling up from within my core,
Thoughts bounce around my head, in war.

From where do I draw my life's power,
When crisis looms upon the hour?

Is it through talking with my friends
Upon which "Solution" depends?

...Or praying to something above,
Source of unconditional love?

Maybe following set of rules
Is key for my base kit of tools...

Then, while walking back to my home,
Thoughts of undead did slyly come.

Am I a vampire, like disease,
Drawing life out, with fatal bites?

Or maybe a lich, living through
Arcane studies, learned in dark nights?

Could I be some sort of foul ghoul,
Feasting on flesh, in carnal rites?

'Tis not literal life effects,
But treats others as "things we fight"...

Then, the whisper comes, in my mind,
On the solitary night walk -
"How'd I survive, sixteen years past?
Am I embedded in matrix,
Or implanted with small machines?"
...So my mind wanders, in weird ways...

"Distracted: A Villanelle" (P.o.t.D. 2/25/15, no rev)

Too much interferes with my sight,
Pastimes by which my life is based
Leave me alone, that I might write.

Fox news is flooded by the Right,
Leaving in my mind, a bad taste;
Too much interferes with my sight.

Playing board games, many a night -
Some chide me, calling this a waste.
Leave me alone, that I might write.

Tugs 'tween work and play are my fight;
My mind, in pleasures, is encased.
Too much interferes with my sight.

That I could scribble through the night,
Awake, to books, when my mind raced.
Leave me alone, that I might write.

In poverty, do I, "Dude, abide!"
My debt, I wish would be erased -
Too much interferes with my sight.
Leave me alone, that I might write.

"Matrix Mash-up?" (P.o.t.D. 2/24/16 rev ???)

As I watch the map
Twirl and Swirl
Behind the forecaster,

A memory becomes dislodged
From decade distant days
Spent in hospitals of state:

"How much sunlight will we see?"
Like it's metered out for me,
And there's not enough energy

To fuel my madness,
To keep up the charade...
A la "The Truman Show"...

Are they trying to intrude
In my chaotic little world,
Spinning 24/7, with threads unfurled?

I wonder what is real,
What is fancy,
What lies behind the scene?

Sometimes, the surreal
Becomes so, so real,
That my mind does reel

And I find myself asking,
As events become taxing,
"Did I ever come out of the coma?"

"Emotional Roller-coaster" (P.o.t.D. 2/22/17)

Picking at my poems,
Hoping to find happiness:
In dismay, I rage...

"Bipolar blues" (P.o.t.D. 2/15/17)

My mind took a turn
At tearing apart my life...
Why won't I just sleep?

"Time Marches On" (P.o.t.D. 1/29/15 rev 1/29/17)

Time marches on, the second hand spinning -
Each moment gone, feels like I'm not winning...

Half-finished sentences are my symptoms
Of a disease that plagues all my rhythyms...

I'd like to write poems, play games, and relax!
Yet no cash crushes me, weight 'pon my back...

When worried where I shall find my next meal,
Retiring becomes a much smaller deal...

...I do not feel like finishing these lines,
Or sticking to meters and rhymes,
Or staying coupled in ideas and thoughts:

Playing thru poems is a hindrance, a block,
That prevents my mind's healthier unlock.

I still make feeble attempts to play within the lines,
But, it's so hard to keep at it...

Life is full of futile frustrations;
I question the help I've tapped into.
Memories of yesterday's poems,
Talking of failed expectations...

You'd think that I'm in some mid-life crisis;
I doubt I've lived even a smidgeon of living.
This feels like a Goth's dramatic whine,
"Drink deep the troubles in my blood!"

Honestly, as long as I'm not thinking
About how my life's events are linking,
Then I am fairly happy...
I do still play fun games, I do still write,
And I'm slowly, oh so slowly, trying to set my life right.

I wish that the seconds didn't tick so,
That life's candle didn't burn our wicks, lo...

...and the clock marches on, with its tickings,
and life proceeds, bringing me, my lickings.