Beware the bitter idiot--
That fellow with the sour
    Mind,
Cankered by disillusion,
And feelings of
Left behind.

So life may not be everything
As planned--
It does, after all, arrive in
Installments called the day.
One of these is enough to try
    To understand,
One enough for this thin
Vessel of stardust clay.

His voice is but a drone,
Nothing but rancor and filth
    Ride upon his tongue.
Complaint the engine of his
    Tone,
The wormwood ballad of
Pitiful woe he sings and has
    Ever sung.

He will not be mistaken,
For the street tough is at his
    Very core.
He will not allow to awaken
The malleable man of his
    Youth and yore.

And so this fellow who has
Shut his soul off,
Stands in front of his mirror and cries.
He's too proud to unhand the
Lance of the scoff--
Boldness is his favorite lie.

Life is way too short to worry about Lengthening it.

Oft times I wonder what I should do with myself.
I look off in all four directions at any given time
And there is no direction.

I find myself wandering--in a period of wandering.
What does a man say to himself during such times?
It’ll be okay, things will work themselves out in the end?

There would seem to be little solace in this axiom.
Life is strange.
Like the sickening loop-de-loops on our best roller-coasters.

I type this out on a digital tablet with virtual keyboard
In utter perplexity.
An old soul in fast times…

Tense times,
Shallow times.

My neighbors amidst this age haven’t the patience to see how
Events birthed from hollow promises and hasty decision will work
Themselves out.

Promises from leadership whose god is the U.S. dollar.

We get a logjam of hurried consumerist theoretical practices,
Ruthlessly implemented as some kind of workable
Reality among a conditioned populace.

In the end, the only beneficiary to this manufactured bliss
Is the savvy and rich manure shoveler--that neighbor
Among us who throughout each and every day shovels

The materialistic dung into our throats and fully expects
His fellow neighbors to swallow this **** in expectancy
Of the utopic times to come.

And so the tail teases.

I put the eggs in the water,
I am alone.
I cook them for myself,
I am by myself.

Folks may want to feel a bit sorry for me.
I always wonder why.
There is stark difference in being alone
And being lonely.

I know many know this difference,
These folks know that alone is alone.
I don’t understand the need for
Constant companionship.

I don’t understand the
Always-Needing-to-Be-Married--
I don’t understand their sneers and jeers.
Freedom is a fine mistress.

I’ve been in the relationship,
I’ve felt the benefits of the companion.
But there’s something to be said for alone.
Solitude asks for nothing.

Hello Smoke Woman.
O ye of beauty unrecognized.
Winsome vapor roaming lonely night,
Seductive puff dust-deviling in my corner sight.

Barely perceptible.
You have a texture,
A scent,
A glint of your wafting dance,
Of your healing haze,
Of your silvery lips enameling my ear...

Whispering, ever whispering,
That your love is constant near.

O Smoke Woman!
Ye etheric vagabond
Who drifts in and out of my dreams,
Who in my nightly cosmic time speaks
With voice so rakish husky,
Ratt'ling off daring poetry
Plucked wet from Eden's streams.

I am the strong wind.
Whispering from cold cradle--
Autumn leaf maestro

Whirling symphonic drum taps,
And conducting the falcon.

I move like a whisper among my neighbors.
The lasso grips tight--
I cannot seem to loosen its grip.

My **** makes sounds like a banjo
As it hits the bowlwater.
My mind ever drifts.

So restless my soul since
Once again I maintain the solitary man,
Coming back to what has always been known.

The lasso wants to mercilessly hang on
To memories. I have to move on!
This stallion must find good, green pasture!

I fight the bitterroot of jilt.
I fight the saltiness of heartbreak.
Love has such a powerful lasso…

Love is such a powerful wrangler.