I came of age on a cusp, staid or hippie.
I stood with a foot on each side as my
whole world cracked in 2 and I with it;
Down a rabbit hole, into a looking glass.
The world was at odds. Beer or ****? Acid?
Martini lunch? Suit or bell bottoms? Free
love? Married with kids? Free spirit?
Obligations? The hall of mirrors.
Head shrink. Find me in shattered glass.
Discover myself. Survive the in between.

My draft card 1A they call
all lined up like dominoes
sent to Vietnam to crawl
invisible in war's throes.
My love writes less and less.
The jungle is wet green hell.
Dear, John note more distress.
I will die here just as well.
We die one by one 'til gone
war's body count completed
for the week finally done.
Insane it's always repeated.

If I could play guitar
I'd write a song
instead of poetry
poems are deaf lyrics
heard only by poets
and you and me.

Christ don't live in churches.    
    He lives in the slums and prisons,
    grungy dive bars and crack houses.
    He offers hope to the hopeless
    and direction to the lost souls.  
    Christ doesn't sleep in church pews
    he sleeps on park benches and grates.
    his blood is cheap wine communion
    on city streets his body stale bread
    from the soup kitchens for the poor.
    He lives where he's most needed;
    then and there and here and now.

I was conceived in the wrong womb.
  That's my life in a nutshell.
  It was one I never wore well.
  Greenhills, OH. Suburbia writ large.
  Lovely family and all but Bumpkinville
  so boring I took up smoking 8th grade.
  A swimming pool but I craved an ocean.
  I wanted a boardwalk and carneys and girls
  bold enough to kiss me like I needed.
  I wanted canyons of skyscrapers to wander
  and junkies and perverts and hookers who
  knew the price of meat. I wanted a library
  with every book ever writ held out for me
  to devour and digest so I'd be smarter than
  my father and teachers and the *******
  Parish priests who loved their altar boys.

To be or not to be?
   I paint a black halo around
   your blond hair at midnight
   while you hide the moon from
   me and I wonder at your games.
   It's all intense; music, acid,
   *******, the beautiful things
   I've known, but  not seen lately
   We wait naked in the dark for
   dawn's first vague glimpse of
   love in our eyes. We stare blind
   and reach into the dark for lovers.

.
Tomorrow.

Tomorrow it will be better.

You'll see.

You'll see.


© Pagan Paul (14/02/21)