.........................................................................
They say you are only
As old as you feel.
And that age is no Achilles heel.
But I ought to confess,
I've stumbled in my distress,
And I believe that this age thing
Is real!
My oldness just seems older today,
Much older than ever before.
With new gray,
And wrinkles,
And cobwebs,
And every singular
Muscle sore.
'How unfair! '
In my selfish,
Vain thinking,
To be ever
So taxed and overdone.
Why do all the gears freeze up,
Then stop working?
Why is youth wasted
On the young?
I tried to tweak the gray
Out from my eyebrows,
I tried to tweak them gently,
With tender care,
It isn't easy to explain
How well I noted all the pain,
And now I doubt I even
Had an eyebrow there.
Arthur Ritis has been
Hanging 'round too often.
And Ben Gay's been creeping
'Round the door.
I've been haunted by Bursitis,
And annoyed with this Bronchitis,
Which goes to show
I do not want it
Anymore.
I sense dark tidings
Up along that
Feared horizon.
I hear that banshee
Telling me I ought
To run.
But when I run
I sort of hobble,
And then I whoop
And start to wobble,
And that really
Does not sound like
Any fun.
Copyright © 2012 Richard D. Remler
On our last day, I said that it wasn't goodbye.
I realize now that it was a futile attempt to retain hope...
The hope I'd see your smile again,
The way it lights up your face
And I can't help but return the gift.
The hope I'd hear your voice again,
The voice that makes my heart want to melt,
It puts me both at ease and sets my pulse racing.
The hope I'd be able to gaze
Into those mysterious blue orbs
And not be afraid of the future.
The hope I'd call you darling,
Just as I have in all my dreams.
The hope I'd finally confess the words
That have swirled in both my mind and heart
Since we first met.
The hope you'd hold me in your arms,
Making up for all tears and lost time.
......................................................................
Mr. Coffee, who just today
Sent Margaret Thompson a bouquet
Of Birthday Lilies, green as tea,
Just shared a bit of news with me.
How odd he seems when he is near.
So daft at times, and very queer.
He told me just today a grim
And spectral spirit is haunting him.
He told me how it steals the light,
And how it keeps him up at night.
And then he said, "But I don't know
If it is friend, or it is foe."
Mr. Coffee's Ghost, says he,
Fancies his Cranberry Tea.
For he's spied it, quiet as can be,
Pour itself a cup, or three.
He suspects it fiddles with the Loo.
He's heard it flush a time, or two.
Though he figures it just wants to play
In its ectoplasmic way.
I fear, I do, our gentle friend,
May have finally met his bitter end.
That he may not see the here and now.
That he's lost touch with us somehow.
I fear his mind perhaps is spent.
And no one knows just where it went.
As though it packed its bags one shifty day
And lumbered off to Paraguay.
I fear our dear and troubled friend,
Has slipped right off the deepest end.
As though he's lost his crackers and his cheese
In tons and tons of black-eyed peas.
Or, perhaps it's but a jest? A way
To put us to the test today?
To find if we can fairly see
His little play at comedy?
He said he asked his Ghost one day
If it would kindly move away.
And it spluttered out, quite unrehearsed,
"But, truth be told, I was here first!"
Mr. Coffee says he has a Ghost
That likes to steal his raisin toast.
And when he leaves the living room,
He hears it toying with the broom,
Shaking corner cobwebs fair,
Dusting things from here to there,
And sweeping clean the Parlor screen.
Aye, it's heard, it's just not seen!
The oddish way he looked today,
He seemed just a wee bit gray .
Asking if he'll ever comprehend
If his Ghost be foe, or it be friend.
He says, "Of course the floorboards creek."
He hears the murky darkness speak.
He feels the curtains move and sigh,
As evening slowly tip-toes by.
He says, "The place is rather drafty, yes.
And it's a madhouse, I confess.
The sounds this house makes in the rain
Is never easy to explain"
This Ghost will turn the heater so far down
All it gets is cold.
And then tap tap tap the attic wall
Whenever it feels extra bold.
It will shadow every little room
With a phantasmic potpourri
This spooky little specter
Mr. Coffee cannot see.
This spiteful spook, it flickers lights,
To express it's ectoplasmic rights!
It rings the doorbell in a way each day
That scares the neighbor kids away
He'll spot a restless shadow dance,
Whenever he nods half a glance.
And Mr. Coffee feels he's in the right to stay,
And does not want to move away.
So, Mr. Coffee has a Ghost
A fair bit ghoulish of a Host,
Who thinks itself a China Rose,
And keeps poor Coffee on his toes.
Reminding him most every day,
His Ghost will never move away.
And in this Peculiar Poltergeist's parlay,
His Spectral Specter's here to say.
Copyright © 2012 Richard D. Remler
................................................................................
"The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill
crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses
and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house,
full of gloom and haunted by ghosts."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfello
.................................................................................
One day
we will pick up the angels
that have fallen down
and we will pick them up
to get them where they
must belong.
One day
our aching hearts will stop
and we will regret
every little thing that
we have not yet done.
One day
we will confess our love
for everyone that has
never expected such a thing.
One day
we will realize just
how much we deserve
to be happy.
g.k
I tried to find the lock of hair,
That helped you learn to love me.
For days and night I've seemed to stare,
But lock I’d never see.
“Why” You ask in full invest.
“Are you so stuck on retreating?”
For lovers feed the newest test,
To inform, but be misleading.
To be honest love, I can confess.
Retreat is never what I expect.
My love is pure, I do regress,
But constant alone, the end, direct.
My god I found the lock I need,
But alas, refused to speak to me.
To never perform my dying deed,
In hopes with me, she’d always be.
The words I can not say,
The feelings I can't express..
The demons that are playing,
The sins I can't confess..
I try, I've Tried! Countless times!
But their all hidden in my rhymes..
And only to strangers do I ever share,
My raw centre, naked and bare..
And I simply.... don't....know....why.
I am in the brink of life
in margins. I want to travel,
traverse into infinite time
I will send love letters
to every man and woman
who have cried over
their lover's hand prints
they've tattooed on their heart
who have closed the doors,
built higher walls so no other
can crack open locks
When I walk down
Times Square or 7th Avenue,
I will smile at everyone so
their hands won't clasp
so tight
I will sing with the lonesome
singers, on the subway
at the weary 1 am
I will confess a secret, loudly
at a fainted, book full
library
just so all the glasses will
tip over noses and glare
at me
I will write poems on
San Francisco walls
I will kiss the scars and cuts
and say "you are beautiful"
to every sad human alive.
I will write lovely
words on arms of strangers
I will write a poem about
the things I loved in my old
lovers, and set them all on
fire at midnight
I will take photographs
of Chicago strangers on the streets
and tell them how
beautiful they look
I will drive with a loud
speaker of The Smiths
and smirk at other drivers
I will quote wise lyrics
from dead singers, poets
and say them to scared,
depressed teenagers.
I will wrap my arms
into seas of their
confusion,
I will constellate the flaws
like stars
of every human, to let them
know how ravishing
I think they are.
I will finally learn how not
to be so
uptight.
-Annisa
Vincent
It's like I'm writing you into existence, but you're already out there-
walking this very earth, imprinting your life on this planet, like you do to the canvas on my heart,
but boy, oh what art you are.
Hate to sound obsessed, but your name just sounds so blessed, and I must confess that I do detest this love,
but don't make the fatal mistake and confuse my passion for lust
I'm not dumb-
I know the potency of drugs
and the struggle of loving someone who doesn't love you back
I've never touched a pipe, but I know how it feels to battle yourself during sleepless nights, begging yourself not to touch the crack
And I know you're like that too
You know, I don't like you for your "six pack" or your perfectly shaped lips, forget that
I love you for how you make maps out of your body and
the way you get lost in your thoughts of quick sand
and the way you grip the words you speak in hand,
you take me to forbidden lands
And boy, to explore your mind would be a dream
a ritual of fate- like destiny
you know what I mean?
And I know you don't know yourself
and hell, neither do I
but I wouldn't mind trying to sneak into the depths of your mind
and trying to circumcise your thoughts into revelations of mine
And I know not if you believe in this whole love thing,
but trust me
I know you feel misunderstood and lost sometimes,
but everything lost can be uncovered when remedied with love and revived by time.
What if the world is ending
and our future's not for long
what if we're merely bending
what's been broken all along
How long can we be silent
to our fellow passers-by
wondering where our time went
living, dying to know why
Where oh where can love be found?
in this twisted human race
kill the West, then march Eastbound
we're no doubt nature's disgrace
And what's to say about dismay?
that somehow we've not yet gotten
money is all they take for pay
to confess our sins, forgotten
The searing flame, I've learned to tame
to appease those in fear of fire
you fool yourselves in search of fame
honesty creates the liar
And who's to blame behind the shame?
the king, or we, the lowly pawns
to us of course it's all the same
oh well, long live we kings of cons
But what if we're just lonely?
what is right becomes all wrong
what happens when "if only"
means "i've waited much too long"
As I inhale the last
Painful breath I
Look back on my
Life and realised
Its always been
A mess close my
Eyes and try confess
Every sin im still
Making daily lord
How long you going
To brake me in two
Or keep this vendetta
Between me and you
Its been hard walking
Through broken
Dreams haunted by
The same screams living
Similar Sceans
Again and again
It feels like im
Cought in a web full
Of lies and decite
All I wish is to be
Dropped in the sea
With concrete tied
To my feet so the water busts in my lungs least
It will stop them Problems ive caused
To every one.
Now I know the reasson
Mum called me the devils son constently
Fucking up peoples
Lives all my life
Ive searched for the
Who.
What.
When.
Whys.
But when I asked the
Questions all I heard
Was more lies
I looked up to the
Heavenly skies
Wipe the them tears leaving my eyes
Lord cant we compremise and work
Together because
I dont want to be
Hurting forever .....
