Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
~~~*

this old man's tiddlywink, land-locked words,
runted, blunted instruments,
needy for release, the balm of salvation,
woods, neither silvered or exacting,
more a spit stain polish for a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon,
smoothed 'cept for the brute brunted bunting
of christ-crossing railroad tie lines,
all across his roughened terrain'd face,
a black and a white Degas
pen and ink etched illustration
of howling agitation.

the concrete moonscape
racked upon his soul and face,
mapped remembrances of variegated Judas kisses
each left in a pockmarked hidey place,
tired principles bent, bent from sacrificing oneself,
a rockstar burnt offering,
to any deity that promises illusions that time,
can be healed, all its cursed residues & sins sealed,
in locked antechambers, fully furnished rooms,
rentable for perpetuity if so desired,
but irony dictums diktat says you've locked yourself in,
in circular spaces where every angle stab-states:

yo, there are no unpainted corners for escape,
no day of atonement on your petite universe's calendar,
nor a host of worthy words that can e're suffice,
so howling makes perfect sense

inventory the wasted errors accumulated, accentuated,
uncovered by the howling of only "I'd known better,"
his accountants all jolly rip roar laugh,
when you beg them to ******~reduce jail time of
ancient leaden bulletpoints from the taxes future payable,
they profess there is no statue of limitation from any authority's press
for dues owed arising from your own imitations,
they mock me by howling in poe-ing unison,
"nevermore, nevermore...forevermore"

the contradiction of those criss#crossed fine lines,
each pointing in no direction, a trap of inaction,
fie, fie, on the double dealing hand you have dealt yourself
in the game of liar's poker, where all the face cards curse with smiles,
pretend portents portrait paintings of only rosy outcomes,
each a one way sign,  each pointing to a different,
magnetic compass course in a world
where all polarity confused, reversed,
so wayward, the only direction home

before Rembrandt's self-portrait @  Met Musée, he worships,
the painter's hipster jaunty hat pouty-pointy stating,
"what me worry,"
but the cracked crevices, whisper even louder,
"nothing left to lose,"
in the gallery, all stare, misunderstanding why,
why you weep profuse in perfect recognition at the
mirroring witness testifying, from whose pixels you cannot be protected,
each agitated paint pore shouts words of 
"j'accuse, j'accuse"
in a dulcet howling harmony

words lip locked, no exit, traffic jammed inside squirrelly cheeks,
scabs form, mortar and pestle a pus paste of
jumbled sounds and tongued blood,
a delicacy of swoosh and swish spit,
ugly kept behind prison bars of yellowed teeth,
a vile concoction of glorious bile of new combinations,
destined to die unuttered,
the howling all internal, becomes silence,
and yet, here,
here lies buried proof positive,
"even silence finds a tongue,"^
even words, unspoken,
yet, mind-reader read quietly,
permits the howling agitation exorcise and surcease,
rein to escape
inspired by David Hare's  play about Oscar Wilde,
The Judas Kiss

^John Clare (English Poet, 1793 - 1864)

composed April 30 ~ May 15, 2016

this will likely be my last poem for awhile
The painful truth is
  (undeniable / dawning)
that
  (most / many)
young people won't
  own their own house,
  have a stable job
  or raise a family.
They've been brought up
  (expecting / taught)
by generations that lived
lives that were
much more similar
to their own parents'.
The future, now
  (bleaker, / reality,)
looks like it can't keep
its promises.
What
  (anger / shame)
will fill the void?
Gen X, so slightly in the middle, watching this unfold.
Our inheritance
is loss

I don't care
about liberation

Freedom is
the ignis fatuus

Everyone's a slave
to something
Your words don't have any letters,
Put the letters back, please.
Even asleep
it's in the eyes that haunt my dream,
the sights that they have seen

and where are you going to
when I wake and want you?

these are
just discs that spin on the deck
of a sunken ship,
pay them no heed.
Telling me nothing
tells me everything
I need to know.
Next page