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Bryan Dahl Jan 1
And so I put my dreams to bed
To rest and dream their own
Upon a stiffened, twin-sized mattress
Loosely sewn with pillow worn.
My dreams are forced by every sleep
To stretch the bed diagonal, or else
Force their feet to dangle
Over the edge that could not hold them.
Bryan Dahl Jul 2020
Please let me die.
Please don’t make me wake up again.
Please let it be over.
Please let this be the last time I have to ask.
Please just let my heart
Stop.
If Jesus isn’t listening I know
Google and the NSA and the CCP still are.
Please let pop up in my feed an ad
For something I can take to make my heart
Stop.
You can spare one consumer can’t you?
Maybe I should just claim to have developed a breakthrough cancer treatment or zero-point energy device.
I’m sure within a day I’d shoot myself
In the head
Twice.
The big liability suicides never fail.
But would a snarky little poem get me wet?
Please don’t make me
Listen to one more ***** say it-
What an exciting time to be alive.
Please spare me.
Bryan Dahl Jun 2020
Did the Germans revere beauty as it was
Revered by the Russians.

Did the Italians savor beauty as it was
Savored by the French.

Who could cherish beauty as it is
Still after five thousand years
Cherished in India.

What do we offer up to beauty today
With an offer not expiring tomorrow.

The pyramids, temples, tombs, tunnels
Left for us to doubt
Atlantis sits far out in the desert
Wretched ring by ring.

If we are to witness our own extinction,
What can we preserve
For those five thousand years from now
To revere, savor, cherish, offer
Beyond all wretched doubt.

Our digital legacy deleted
With the same convenience it provided.

Can we hope to move a stone
Heavy enough to matter.

Can a Russian chorus sing of Krishna,
If Mayan legends sing of Atlan.

Can we leave behind a song
And hope tomorrow’s people still sing.

There will be unspeakable horrors
Quickly forgotten.

What beauty can we create
Withstanding propaganda absolute-
******* proof.

Straying far enough beyond
The Georgia Guidestones,

Vedas not so hard to comprehend.

Something beautiful enough to promise
Women never again suffer this insane
Inferred and feigned inferiority.

Never again this amnesia.

Can we not all agree
We’ve all been fooled,

And instead of starting over,
Write our song in words of stone.

Stone heavy enough to matter.
Bryan Dahl Jun 2020
There are two lessons taught here:
Remain oblivious to privilege,
Be empowered by poverty.
Dismiss the insinuations,
Laws and promises of economic pop culture.
Embrace the demoralization of each decade,
But remain oblivious to a year aligned,
A year designed to destabilize.

The coming event is no small production, but
Few can be bothered to see it coming.

He is nothing.
No matter how bad his hair,
How unnatural his tone,
How tall is towers,
How crimson his throne,
How fake his news
How loud his tweets
How racist his farts
How fascist his feast.
He is nothing
Compared to the banks.
He is nothing
Compared to their ranks
In the complex equation
Of the root of all evil.
He is nothing
Compared to those already assassinated.

But we embrace his scripted destruction,
Oblivious to the Man
Juicing the orange.
Bryan Dahl Jun 2020
Are we all slaves on a ball in a cage
In this unbelievable moonlight?
Hurricanes with minds of their own,
Wildfires spare trees and eat homes.
Always sunny in Philadelphia,
Always raining in Tarkovsky,
Never enough to make a change,
A soul too old too late.
Fallen angel down on the street
Remembering just enough to suffer.
Watching the history burn
In this unbelievable moonlight.
Bryan Dahl Jun 2020
Sat upon the novelty of the dance studio floor,
Surveying all the talent judging me like none before.
Suddenly, a brilliant flash through dull fluorescent light-
With thunderbolt’s perfection timing
Twin flame at first sight.

Long, deep, dark, hair, eyes,
Glowing skin.
Crystal resting at her heart-
Mine taken in,
When all the inner voices
Sing a single melody-
The Beethoveenian chorus
Racing, soaring,“Who is she!?”

Walking past the theater’s long awaited double doors,
The thunderbolt struck twice
Bid I coincidence ignore.
Two classes for two passions,
Twice a week for all of spring.
Rising from the lightning
Grew a twin flames’ smoking ring.

Helás!

Married and with mother’s eyes
How could I trust my heart?
But I being naive spread only
Patience ‘neath the part.

The church would have its way uplifting
Long-winded psalms,
But fewer thanks to Constantine’s
Nicean cherry-picked palms.

Where on earth would then unveil
To unsuspecting she
By high tide’s moonlit poised indifferent
Unassuming sea,
The moment she would come into my Vulnerable praying arms,
The sky would dilate all her silver
Lining sinning charms.

She would soon regret the pictures
Burned into my sensor,
And never speak to me again.
Bryan Dahl Jun 2020
Any singular thing of genius
Taken by force, repurposed for evil,
Should be by force reclaimed for good
And complete its cyclical ring.

Naivety dwarfed by beautiful gold
Out-shadows not a joyful ode.
Music destroyed for the good of the party-
The diva’s backstage beauty behold:
Dust off her autobiography.

Constantly changing the bible
From reincarnation to Darwin’s claim,
Quantum physics quotes the soul
“I told you so...” laughing in pain.

A singularity in spring-
Green’s golden gray,
Ascending with the lark and strings,
Prevailing genius, come what may,

Be reclaimed
For good.
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