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Jeff Spate Sep 2016
Thoughts of the father
Are in the son
Expanding and shrinking
Like a paper lantern
A longing of imagination
And the question of where
The heart really lies

His wisdom blows in the window
Ageless and changeless
Posing in the mirror
The autistic gaze of a dog
Cutting against everything wrong
In my childhood exploits
That's it folks, show's over.  Nothing to see here.  Move it along...
Jeff Spate Sep 2016
Internet *******
Some things you get for free
With hints of bums and holes
And bunches of lovely language

A mental spelunker
I am mad when I see people
Inflexible in matters of casual lust
Who blink back in boredom
Jeff Spate Aug 2016
Leave that baggage where you stand
Let go of that weight
Sidestep the shadow of memories
Family dramas, private nightmares

Take a lesson from the world
Storm with one you love
And live forever
Amongst the almonds
For my crazy friend, Maria
Oh yes, she’s nuts
Jeff Spate Aug 2016
Along grey roads of asphalt
It feels like I'm stealing
From one ocean to another

Divining with a bottle
Under cover of darkness
Good versus bad

Strong smells of sage & whisky
There are, in the end,
No honest answers
Jeff Spate Aug 2016
Answering to animist impulses
He was certainly alert and receptive
With his mathematics of love
An urbane tribute song to transience
That echoes the color of nothing
Just a metaphor for memory

Near-sighted and tone-deaf
His steady gaze before him
He says in his language that he’s lost
Going on and on about desiring things
Until the whiff of strangers breaks his spell
And just like that it’s over
Jeff Spate Aug 2016
A comic opera with an unlikely plot
Starts out like a dead weight
Ends in thin air
Peaceful and a little psychedelic
As though nothing had ever happened

The tale reads like a primer on love:
He returns to the women on the porch
A dagger between his legs
One thought colliding with the next
“So much for a safe word, my sister’s coming over”  

He has an idea that more is at stake
Saw the fires of eternal damnation burning
“Sons of *******, international ******,
One day I’ll crush them”
And the deep river runs on

The fatal tarnish of the everyday had driven her
Like a disease from the city
A charismatic and secure young player
She claimed to be a psychic
Who could find any missing child

She stiffened for a moment, then went on talking
Sometimes lush and moody, sometimes sharp and witty
Touching on inchworms and electrons
And the dramas and rivalries they bring with them
As though nothing had ever happened

— The End —