Have you ever done something
and then could not believe
it could possibly have been you?

Have you ever said something
and then cringed when you heard it
exiting your mouth?

That would be me, sometimes . . .

Or, while mentally calculating
your accumulating grocery bill,
have you run into a friend
only to completely lose count?

I have stood in front of the door to my home
trying to lock or unlock the door
using the keyless entry fob from my car.

I have done this --- more than once.

I have, months after getting rid of that car,
searched for its keyless entry fob
on my keychain.

I have spent hours and days
searching for glasses on my head,
for keys that I was holding,
for the purse on my shoulder,
and have managed to miss them completely.

I have called information for a number,
written it down,
and then had to call them back
because I misplaced the number before I could redial the phone.

I have neglected friends and family,
duties and responsibilities,
not from lack of love
or sound intention,
but merely by allowing myself to be distracted.

If I had followed up
on what I knew at seventeen
whales, sharks, mankind ---
might already be saved.

Who knows what my focused mind might have accomplished?

But instead
I put myself to sleep
because the real world
was far too much to bear,
and living in books and dreams
so very much safer
than all the dysfunction awaiting outside.

I met my soulmate at twenty
and then left him behind
marrying one man,
and then another,
who never got me -
instead of the one and only man who truly did.

There's a reason that God protects children and Fools.
There's a purity of heart,
an innocence of spirit,
and . . . occasional lapses in intellect.

So, for all of the lessons I've learned and I've lost,
There are worse things than being a Fool.

Which I remind myself again
as I accidentally call my own cell phone
and then hang up my land line to answer the call.

In parting, I offer what I finally learned, which is

This above all:
To thine own Fool be true.

Cori MacNaughton
6Apr2005

I'll be waiting
By the locked keyless backdoor
I'll linger
No matter how many times the moon greets the day
I'll stand by
Or how many times the sun kisses the night
I'll still be here
By the locked keyless backdoor
That you had no idea existed
Always.

Even though there are a million locked keyless backdoors
I'll break them all down
Once I'm tired, and I am
I'll wait.

How we dance when there is no one looking
Whispering marmalade cream as we watch boats of steam
Drift towards a not so distant infinity
Praise the one your with, even when they've gone away

I think the question where there are no straight answers
Are the one's that I seem to be better at
At least there are questions still to be had
For if there wasn't, we would all go mad

I have these hats
Some brown, some polka-dotted, some grey
You have those eyes that stare at me
In a musical genius that are present
But secretly say they wish to go away

Oh', you know were broke down
We got not style to call our own
And I'm lonely here without you
This night I'm in doesn't seem to be ending
And I'm too tired to invent a beginning

Movement of a heart don't mean its beating
Love's absence still holds a fragrance
I got life, some days more than others
Don't worry about where I'll be
There will always be another

Let me whisper in your ear
Let me dare you to get near

What I want
Isn't me with you
Or you with me

What I want

Is for the sun to rise
The snow to melt
And for the door to open

Without key

There was a saviour
          Rarer than radium,
     Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
          Children kept from the sun
          Assembled at his tongue
     To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.

          The voice of children says
          From a lost wilderness
     There was calm to be done in his safe unrest,
          When hindering man hurt
          Man, animal, or bird
     We hid our fears in that murdering breath,
Silence, silence to do, when earth grew loud,
In lairs and asylums of the tremendous shout.

          There was glory to hear
          In the churches of his tears,
     Under his downy arm you sighed as he struck,
          O you who could not cry
          On to the ground when a man died
     Put a tear for joy in the unearthly flood
And laid your cheek against a cloud-formed shell:
Now in the dark there is only yourself and myself.

          Two proud, blacked brothers cry,
          Winter-locked side by side,
     To this inhospitable hollow year,
          O we who could not stir
          One lean sigh when we heard
     Greed on man beating near and fire neighbour
       But wailed and nested in the sky-blue wall
Now break a giant tear for the little known fall,

          For the drooping of homes
          That did not nurse our bones,
     Brave deaths of only ones but never found,
          Now see, alone in us,
          Our own true strangers' dust
     Ride through the doors of our unentered house.
Exiled in us we arouse the soft,
Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks.

Failure is a haunting fear
but fear itself is worse.
A deceitful ghost
like the closed door

keyless

now a wall.

One? Two? Three?
Or is it Four?

All of them wide open, infinite doors.

Some ahead call me, some already
chose.

Though past their light still shimmers,  
never really close.

Victims of self discovery
Burdened by unwanted embraces
Searching for a release
Creeping into pools watched and gazed
Adjusting their lives as they unknowingly perform
Twisting structures and sparking atoms
Fling and hitting the walls
Trying to run for it
Attempted escapism and keyless doors
Clouded entryways with a dim glow
Beckoning to be explored
Unknowingly opening Pandora’s Box again
Magnets in the air to collect the scrap metal
Scratches and deep cuts on the interior
Nowhere to dispose of it
Folding and storing again in the grand drawer
Dresser pressed against the door to keep it shut

my critique of
them
when I am of
them...

with no keys for
them
to drive from
them
to
us

thickens the line between
them
and
me

and these  divided social seas
on which we sail
shall ever
be...

~ P (#Pablo#TKC)
(8/12/2013)

503

Better—than Music! For I—who heard it—
I was used—to the Birds—before—
This—was different—’Twas Translation—
Of all tunes I knew—and more—

’Twasn’t contained—like other stanza—
No one could play it—the second time—
But the Composer—perfect Mozart—
Perish with him—that Keyless Rhyme!

So—Children—told how Brooks in Eden—
Bubbled a better—Melody—
Quaintly infer—Eve’s great surrender—
Urging the feet—that would—not—fly—

Children—matured—are wiser—mostly—
Eden—a legend—dimly told—
Eve—and the Anguish—Grandame’s story—
But—I was telling a tune—I heard—

Not such a strain—the Church—baptizes—
When the last Saint—goes up the Aisles—
Not such a stanza splits the silence—
When the Redemption strikes her Bells—

Let me not spill—its smallest cadence—
Humming—for promise—when alone—
Humming—until my faint Rehearsal—
Drop into tune—around the Throne—

Falling fast down hovelled stairs,
digesting wealth to ransom cares,
grotesque men who soil and harrow
suspend my dreams from thinning rope.

As discharge weeps from places raw
and blisters burn a molten core,
another phallus, soiled and poisoned
wants for smack and *****’d ******.

I bleed from wounds so deep within
of pain so stark and crude and raw
that pins me ‘neath the brine of sin
like drowning prey in ***** and ****.

I fail to dim the moving shadows:
those twisting jerks of spewed release –
but coming soon will silent growls
of dripping fat and blistered guilts.

Voiced within me, vague and distant,
something cries, yet tears withdraw.
Copious unheard pleas are buried;
here lay I, unknown, destroyed.

To burrow past unhuman men
(to further seal a keyless lock)
would ‘splay me in the public eye,
exampled, maimed, defeated; lost.

Phlegm and fur may line my mouth;
engorged, my lips, a ***** for more.
But somewhere deep inside myself
I’ve walked away from Brothel Shore.