Sometimes it can be difficult to avoid
Playing fast and loose around the edges
As if time were bearing on you
Like the past you’ve tried to run from
Or your impending sense of mortality
As if time were just slipping away
Maybe it is
Maybe it isn’t
Maybe it doesn’t matter either way
So long as day to day you do what you are supposed to do
Get that? Supposed…
Not required nor coerced
But just assumed as in a natural cause of inaction
This lack of satisfaction in your circumstances
Can easily be allayed
By staying on your feet in front of your dismayed public
Who hoped silently to see you stumble
Lest your success cause them to lament their circumstances
Just by proving it can be done
Staying on your feet I mean
And playing fast and loose around the edges

Tired
Brain spits words in fits and starts
The internal running commentary misfiring badly
Ideas stuck in bottlenecks
Traffic backed up and down the on-ramps
Leading off the congested thoughtways
Tired
Stormwater overflow pours out of blocked drains
Sidling up the gutters of fallen leaves
And other assorted detritus of modern existence
Spewing out over footpaths and under cars
And over the tops of the boots of downtrodden dawn treaders
Tired
Mountain pass impassable under it’s mercurial precipitate mask
Features only glimpsed in snatches
Like looking through a white picket fence while running
Thought trees bunching up around the middle
Warping under the sun and the scrutiny of others
Tired
Collapsing under the weight of the wave function
Subatomic particles currently in a state of nonexistence
Abandoned altogether by the Higgs, thoughts vibrate and dissipate
In extraordinary frequency and noise
Drowned out by the audible hum of the big bang
Tired
As if running a marathon in treacle
Start with a whimper then dribble to a halt
Running barefoot on salt flats
Or over pillows in stilettos
More time spent on face than feet
Tired
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
The court jester prances for the Big Queen *****
And her merry King of Fools with his band of merry drunkards
Quickly losing the point of it all
As words start tumbling down in random order
Staccato signal messages like binary or Morse code
Information overload threatens to upend the boatload
Like the military dumping refugees into the harbour
Buckle up armour and wait for the onslaught
Of somnatic visions, twisted psychedelic impressions
Land mine concussions in the fevered dreams of veterans
Who witnessed limb torn from limb
In the name of something nobody remembers
Lose their tempers and start a war on home turf
Jungles petrified into concrete monstrosities that blot out the sun
From the flowers that feed in the cracks of the pavement
Everywhere bereavement and none shall take leave
From the cold, impassive logic of Death
Who comes knocking as you read this
Wired
No chance of sleep now
This is why one shouldn’t write poetry late at night

The weekend dead and buried, the week ahead looks hairy

Oh much to do in little time, here’s not the place to fall behind,

The marks that mark the passing of a much beloved dream,

With every hopeful falling to the dust so it would seem,

That life she twists and turns and pulls,

And in her midst she gathers fools,

And leaves a path of starry eyed idealists in her wake,

Lets hope she learns more gentle means for her reluctant sake…



*~ L. Alexander Carlé

We need to talk, she said at last

Her perched up high and holding fast

Like some towering iconoclast

And I bowed to her whim



She looked me up and down and then

She threw a fist under her chin

Cocked her head and to begin

She said “Well, I’ve been thinking”



I sat and let her thoughts collect

My silence somewhat circumspect

No words for fear they would inflect

And belie my position



A million possibilities

Of personal fragilities

A lack of sensibilities

An abject lack of tact



An endless scroll of mournful songs

The devil’s list of total wrongs

Small evils gather by the throngs

Just what is it I’ve done?



Or maybe that’s the problem here

It’s not mere acts that cause my fear

For the ills I own are not so clear

It’s the fault of willed omission



Have I not noticed something change

Or left things fester like a mange

Priorities to rearrange

Oh so much left undone



And in a moment she begins

To load upon me my grave sins

Just think of all the dreadful things

Resign me to my fate



And then her lips begin to move

Her voice a breathy open louvre

Her words of silk are just as smooth

“I think we need a cat”



*~ L. Alexander Carlé

10 hours, 2 hours, 4 hours, 9

Stop, start, wait, eat,

Can’t sleep

Fall in a heap

At the terminal



Feeling terminal

As time zones shift beneath me

Rearranging sequences on a metaphysical scale

Flight fail

Stuck here again now

Another 2 hours I’ll never get back



Meetings here and yonder

Time to ponder

Falls victim to jetlag

As I sag under the burden of my workstyle



A carousel of different faces

Fleeting encounters of disparate races

But it’s all worth it

When I can drop the charade

And wrap my arms around

My welcome home parade



*~ L. Alexander Carlé