Let me tell you what once was
and what has come to pass,
We skip over the names
of chemicals ingested
otherwise we might be here
forever, boring you
with the finer details of our sorcery.

Some psychoactives were ingested
and they had great effect, but
as that garrulous fiend
lost himself to/in guileless babbling
about some concomitant companion,
A friend, an event, special he felt
in the company of a human
who made him feel like an adult,
Selfish octopus
what you must think of me, but
why should I care/does it matter?
I do because it's what humans do
and there's some human left in me
yet (hopefully.) Tell me what occurred
on the banks of the Lethe?
Don't answer that.
"Not what but why" was actually asked.
My, this has been
a most meandering
experience said the
author who promptly
resigned and fell asleep
doubtful how anyone who
actually bothered to read this
most prosaic mess should have
managed. It does have a fine name
if nothing else, and undertones
of narcissism always help in
the casting of a fair spell.

Floating down this
preserved memory,
Way down on
the banks of
the Lethe
where
memory
dares not
ordinarily
stir (up whatever
does occur), therein

we find ourselves asking
why

Spring to Summer;
Degrees went by
as he remembered
how we lay there
some hazy days
ago, down by the Shire
in a place in the Wesht
near a canal,
A cathedral's
oxygenated copper dome
poking out, rising above
trees taller than streetlamps.

Winter from Fall;
Degrees went by
in memoriam of
a park, occluded by mist
breathed in to form the fog of
Aetherius, patron of our territory.

Other gods fought for these lands
we'd otherwise have forgotten
but for they were sacred

and us, abandoned.


Degrees went by
Degrees of memory/days,
Degrees of amnesia/haze;

Contemporary democracy is a flawed system we cling to
because we've nothing better with which to build consensus.
Perhaps the resurfacing of fascism was heralded by excessive
neoliberal efforts towards political correctness and as it became
too much to behold the people began to throw stones. Or perhaps
it is due to inescapable socio-economic concerns. Ultimately I think
we have to ask three things:
1. Is libertarianism right, (surely its left but) is it fair, cui bono?
2. Is democracy good, is it viable, is the oligarchic disguised?
3. Is representation really all we can offer, does it work or
does pretense to transparency conspire to fail politics?

All I can conclude is that we don't know how to govern ourselves because we don't know ourselves very well.

Thirsty bunch of dogs
baying at the stars,
Let loose and Come Find Yourself
down by the reservoir.

Shadows Of Ourselves
been walking insofar.
Heaven's Gonna Burn Your Eyes
down by the reservoir.

You know what they say,
Every dawg has its day
so we'll Smoke 'Em
down by the reservoir.

I haven't been able to shake this
most recalcitrant feeling that the
best of my poetry lies behind me,
I know it's silly, still I feel it's true.

I don't know how to write anymore,
It is not composition to which I refer;
I do not have the will to express anger,
I do not have an interest in any treatise.

Even the depressive laments I transcribe
most ruminatorily do not appear to be of
any significant worth. Everything that I go
to transcribe I feel ashamed of. I lost interest
and have forgone my soul and all its contents.
Gone are the bashful stories
from my mischievous youth,
Gone are the great pondering
pieces I'd craft of the universe.
The poetry stalled, I am no use;
There's no meaning

It's not that I haven't got something to say
it's more that I don't have the will to utter it.

Where even do I start? I mean:
**** girl, I like you, it's just
I'm not so keen on myself. So
it's hard for me to see exactly
what you see in me without
a postscript to my thought
which reads 'you sure know how to pick them'.

I might be handsome but you are beyond beautiful,
You're hilarious, you're intelligent, you're my kind
of girl.
I apologise if I've not been
all there
because I like you, I swear.

I am still finding my feet
after kicking down
The Doors.

I did not forget
nor did I lose myself
in remembering, Hallow's Eve
and all the memories by which we once
swore. It's Autumn, and the trees are wavering
as the sky darkens.

"Here come the rain."
The downpour put out
my foolishness, a fire's longing.


The embers' may be quenched yet
the ashes of nostalgia still yearn,
X marks the spot where love burned.