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Jun 2020 · 128
Lack of you
801 Jun 2020
I’m almost numb sometimes.
So banal and standard
I could almost breathe or revive
but then I remain unmoved.
The world is just the lack of you.

The sun shines anew
or a gift presents
but then again I find
no way to give you all the treasures
of my days or nights.
And your absence eclipses
all my petty pains
or hard work stains.

Laughter and tears
have lost all import.
They come and go as freely
as a ship to port.
I slip between them
through these empty days;
put on a living face.

This makes the people sigh in relief
but I could just as easily
scream to the clouds, cut down a tree
or be still and vacant as a windless sea.
empty motions
pointless acts

My world was for your pleasure
and to love you was the joy
of my heart.
I can’t help but think
it won’t be much longer
till I join you in the dark.
Aug 2019 · 669
100% Mischief
801 Aug 2019
A cat is mischief incarnate
from claws to whiskered nose.
He spreads his form indiscriminately
whenever and wherever he goes.

19% in his tail;
the sweeping fluff of doom.
23% in the wailing cries
that wake you in nighttime gloom.

8% in the claws and teeth
which teach the unwise to take care.
31% in the legs; carrying him
from disasters- he caused- everywhere.

19% in the eyes that direct
these ongoing rebuffs of fate:
surveying all that smacks of horror
in the humans who are always too late.
Knocking things off surfaces, shredding toilette paper, sleeping on clean clothes, racing the hallways at night and the yowling. They are the best and worst roommates; without even considering the litter boxes.
Nov 2018 · 404
Anisotropy
801 Nov 2018
Just hours since I learned of the great fall
my childhood enemy has taken.
My heart is shaken in internal squall.
Yet still, there is joy which I partake in

Why feel guilt at such a time, so long sought?
When others still roam the alleys of night;
our nightmare meetings still frequent and fraught.
The terror still real in the broad daylight.

I have been, largely, where she has now stood.
I have ground teeth on the obloquy.
I can’t rejoice now, though I wish I could
**** this infernal anisotropy!

And yet anger smolders at the pylons;
burning bridges and lashing at icons.
A few still remain but I never believed even this much justice could be had. I've learned late of this but it is still hard to decide how I feel about it. I certainly never expected to feel anything but contempt for this person but I can't help but to remember much of what they probably experienced. It's almost like reliving it and impossible to enjoy without unease.
Jan 2017 · 891
The little things
801 Jan 2017
I heard a bird sing today
And stopped still along my way;
My churning thoughts forgotten
In the haunts of yesterday.

Merely for a moment then
I was that younger soul;
Worries gone and wonder found
Atop a snow-capped knoll.

But in another instant
Just the breeze was at my ears.
As I sank into the present
And lost again those stolen years.

Yet, my heart was lighter.
Those problems not so dire.
I just heard a little bird today
While slogging through the mire.
A great walk to a long day.
801 Jan 2017
Recall the warmth of love untold.
Once found in manure and rags at night
Outcast of men-yet gifted gold-
Now celebrated in smiles and lights

Recall the sweetness with each sip
The sweetness of his face,
As immortality faded away
To become the greatest gift of grace

Let peppermint sticks bring to mind
The innocence and blood
From birth to death he carried
Now, forevermore, his legacy of love

And on this night remember
the childhood wonder once known
When chocolate, presents and stories
with Christmas came into your home

But the marshmallows are for family
Who cushion life’s many blows
May your Christmas be sweet and merry
As your love for Christ and family grows
I don't really like this one so much but I wrote it for my dad and mom to go with gifts to his parishioners, their neighbors and my mom's workmates. I tried to create something within their sphere of beliefs and leave my own convictions out of it. The accompanying gift was hot chocolate packets, gingerbread mangers to sit on the rim of the cup, mini-candy canes and marshmallows. I confess, the gift was also my idea. Conceived primarily because it seems I spend more time baking cookies for the many gift boxes they give out every year than doing anything else. This way, I spent about three hours in the kitchen and, with a little help boxing, was free of baking for the rest of my short Christmas. It was a much more merry Christmas for it.
Jan 2017 · 1.6k
The Wedding Candle
801 Jan 2017
We’ll light the wedding candle
Each year upon this night.
Remembering why as years speed by
We first stood to make this light.

Not for a love that’s ever true
Or a smile that ever cheers.
Not for the sick or crummy days
Or to share and conquer fears.

It’s for the days we forget to love
and when aggravations start to weigh.
It’s for the times we’ve both ******* up
But have chosen to love again a new way.

The candle will burn and the wax melt.
Someday, the wick will sputter and gutter out.
But it’s just a reminder and can be replaced
As long as we remember what it’s all about.
It seems I'm writing more often for events or gifts than anything else lately. I wrote this to go with a wedding gift for a friend. She seemed alright with it so I'm calling it okay, for now.
Nov 2016 · 359
Just thinking
801 Nov 2016
Hope often dies in
lonely vanity when not
paired with wise action.
Mar 2016 · 600
Self-Apraisal
801 Mar 2016
My value is up in the air again.
“Be confident,” they say.
“Do your best!”
But what is my best?
When all my contributions are turned back,
when my best is thrown away,
I need to reassess.

Perhaps the value I've given
is not valuable.

When I am trapped in a single
uncomplimentary description,
when they smile
and turn away,
am I now worthless?

I may decide I am worth
a kings ransom
and my thoughts and actions
his right hand
but I cannot be confident in
the assessment
unless there is one
willing to buy.
On sticks and stones
censuring tones
and going home alone.
Feb 2016 · 863
Four Day Weekend
801 Feb 2016
Part 1
Pressed from all sides
'neath a mountain of gifts,
each blessing designed
to create yet more rifts.

Weighed from above
and compressed from all sides;
useless and helpless
and angry besides.

Defending forever;
with no give to take.
Now tired and broken,
just one decision to make.

Keep defending or not;
be compressed or fight.
claw my nose above water
or slip out of sight.

Still searching for reasons
to seek each new day
and continuing on is just
the most familiar way.

It's ever more appealing
to cease and be gone.
So tired of fighting,
of playing the pawn.

I ache for the stillness
I hope could be mine.
Yes, this lone hope is morbid
but it's serving just fine.

If hope springs eternal
there should be more around.
Perhaps they are waiting
within frozen ground.

Part 2
I've realized, I don't really want to die
I just want my world to die around me
the hypocrites circling to seek a cause
to be rid of unsuitable me
the family burdened by growing cost
clutching insurance in case I never succeed
the home I may lose- any time, many ways-
due to spite, envy and greed
the smile that I share, every day everywhere
despite what remains unseen
the pain ever there, never slack, always bare
finding new cause, in everything new, everywhere...
I don't really want to die
I just want my world to die around me
but in the absence of that, there is me
which could leave me similarly free
and that is well worth considering.

Part 3
Though I've realized this
no decision is yet made
I remain adrift

Part 4
Wrung out and still dripping,
these tears still slipping away,
under my skin;
Sallow thin skin.
A weekend lost to agonizing over
what is beyond my control
and always was
because I am still swayed by
those I care for and those I don't.
Shaken by each puff of breath
and screaming gale.
The thought of a mere ten minutes
has me terrified
and just for tonight
I would trade for almost any fight
that would allow me to run away.
One part written for each day of a long weekend spent stressed over a many circumstances in general and one pressing circumstance in particular.
Oct 2015 · 307
Untitled
801 Oct 2015
We are cloistered by stars so near from galaxies so far
The nearby planets wheel and tip among their beams and we are entranced
Such a small distance yet massively out of grasp
The magnitude boggles and we are routinely silenced
The world about seems all encompassing and it is
It encompasses time and death and hope
For these are concepts foreign to the rocks and ***** of fire without
Perhaps beings on similar spheres espouse similar ideals
Perhaps not, but yet we hope
The greatest steps are yet far too small
Trapped here on our dying ball
We cannot yet even leap from one stone to the next
And I fear, with growing certainty, that I will not live
To see the leaps from stone to stone and dance to dance
However much I may dream
procrastinating- - I saw a two minute video on the scale of the universe. It made it clear that all the stars we can see in the night sky are just a small portion of the milky way and how small a galaxy our milky way is to the other galaxies and galactic clusters and so on.
Oct 2015 · 262
Untitled
801 Oct 2015
No musings, complaints or sorrows
can carry their weight and depth so well
as those turned to poetic rhyme or pose.
For much else fails to swell
the heart of the listener in sympathetic plight;
words scraped in the meat
of meaning rather than the surface sight
of understanding. The hands and feet
don't tremble or still; the heart doesn't quaver;
until you learn to bear another's ache,
or from your views uncertainly waver.
I fear many of my generation lie unawake
to the joys, and what could be
if they could settle back to read
their hearts into another's chest;
and by sharing again, find inner rest.
Apr 2015 · 1.1k
Painful Desperation
801 Apr 2015
Trapped;
by the desperate logic of your own mind
and the fear of circumstances you find
yourself trapped in.

It is a circular state.
Painful as it cuts its way
like a razor-edged hoola hoop at play,
alone.

Isn't it always alone?
Despite the support of all
or lonely lacking pall
of being alone.

Life cannot be lived for you.
The pain and gut wrenching fear
preside ever strong and clear.
I am afraid.

Perhaps, love is not brightest.
Fear seems to shroud its beams;
striking from the in between
to **** hope, peace

Help! please!
but the cry cannot be answered
for it is my turn to be stalwart.
I'm crumbling.

Time, please wrap
your shriveled shroud
about the wounds
that keep care out.

Find it in you-
however deep-
to end this torment
plaguing me.

My heart may burst
(blessed relief?)
if no relief come
succor me.

Trapped...
I was awakened early in the morning to a nightmarish situation. All things pass away, I'm aware. Though I see no end in sight, it does exist. For now, I'm fighting the powerful unruly emotions that are based on little more than no sleep and a truly unpleasant situation.
Apr 2015 · 896
Ties that Bind
801 Apr 2015
Examining the tee from the game that you loved
I imagine your swing and thoughtfully rub
my thumb over imperfections made
of time, spent and gone;
now emptiness so. . . wrong.
I hold it for the ties to you.
Your nearness seeping in faint wisps
into my bones
but they are ghostly tethers.
Sitting in the home
you built. Amid the ruins of years
gladly spent in labor. Fears
gently assuaged and now forgotten
even as you fade.
As the time with you fades.
Your nearness pales,
After all, it is just a tee.
Now my panic fills the moment
as this tether fails
too.
After living with my grandparents for the majority of my life, grade school to grad school currently, they were killed this January. It has been a lonely time as I have to sift through their belongings and keep up this house on my own. Sometimes I pick something up and it just hits me. My grandfather loved golf.
Mar 2015 · 340
Death's Promise
801 Mar 2015
The greatest injustice of death
is that life moves ahead.
Every crowning moment tempered
by the next, when you are dead.

There is no way to 'matter most'
of hope to preserve your name,
when those who love you, too, pass on
and others rise to fame.

Some may matter longer
yet their essence hides in grey:
a subject for debating,
distorted household names.

Most of us find saddness
but a reminder of the lost:
a fleeting planned out process,
some psyche scars, the cost.

How many wear these scars for us?
How many lives were touched?
Though in the larger scheme it seems
not to matter, as such.

Per haps three generations, or
four if the dead possessed great age.
We slowly fade from memory
little more than notations on a page.

It is life's greatest injustice
perpetuated everyday;
for which outcry never matters
as it has always been this way.
.
product of recent experience
Mar 2015 · 1.4k
Forgiveness
801 Mar 2015
Forgiveness is a wild beast
of an exotic land.
I know it. Its shape,
color, texture and
particulars of its habitat,
yet it means nothing in my
day to day; at least nothing that
impacts the path I walk
or world I touch.

It is as distant as a polar icecap
and about as much
help as a glass shard
beneath my bare feet.
This wild beast makes noises
perhaps sour perhaps sweet
to the ear
but I do not know
nor can I name them.
Daily I set out and go
stalking after it in
my bare feet and soul ache
unable yet to find it for myself
or others, I make
my ****** way along this
un-exotic, piercing path.

It is a way I cannot abandon
but I must laugh
at the folly of my purpose
for I have long since washed
the picture of this creature
clean and thoroughly sloshed
it remains in my mind.
I am left to blame the blood
and curse its trail tracking
ever after me in the mud.
A product of frustration.

— The End —