Do you ever feel down
Painted face of a sad clown
You tell me in secret you do
But out in the streets you wear sunshine boots
Am I the only one who howls at the moon
Who curses the day I was born
(Of course not, they all curse that day, sweet child
They all throw their scorn your way
They all adorn their walls with your picture
They insert a crown of thorns
They would never mourn if you left
But don't look so forlorn)
What they don't tell you baby
Is that insanity is insanity
Insanity is (In)-sanity
You're in the deep realms now, baby
You're in the deep, dark night of the soul
But don't let them tell you you're crazy baby
You're just immersed in it All
What's in a name?
Oh, the locking away of it all
But who's running your country?
Who's building those pillars, babe?
Who's offering discounts of faith at
Five hundred & fifty-five feet of the world
They're just acting sane, babe
Oh, like everyone else
To be sane is to maim, babe
You're above all that now
It's just ol' Babylon, opening the gates
The devil's coupons give
Cheap entry
But don't lose hope, babe
Say "night" but not "good-night"
Cause buildings rise like phalluses
But you got your own sweet palaces
If you only look right, babe
No, look left
But look left the right way
Drink it all up in a golden cup
But don't raise your pinky to heaven
Lightning will strike on your grave, babe
Beware the cruel duel sevens
Oh, don't trust in mood rings or moon-beams of old
You've got the might of the brave
Don't let them lock you in dungeons so cold
Filled with white sterile walls and beds
But if so, remember that dragon
Oh, that sweet dragon in your head, babe
He'll knock down the walls
And if you just want to give up
Let out one last heavy sigh and succumb
Know that you're not under anyone's thumb
The pen can beat the sword, babe
But these days they got smart tools
They'll try to write on your mind, babe
They'll try to bend all the rules
Slay you with pin-sized compacts, babe
Inject blind Braille on your skin
Insert a button to trigger your fears
Try and teach you a lesson
Always gotta be on your guard
Always gotta prepare for attack
No longer playgrounds and nursery rhymes, babe
There's some forces out there that don't slack
Sinister ministers and diamond jacks
You're just a sheep among the wolves
But they'll be there in another life, babe
Looking for handouts and handshakes from you, babe
And inside you'll feel a yearning of vengeance
A strange, creeping feeling of righteousness
But if you don't want to deal with the weak, babe
Don't strike them down, just turn the other cheek
I say now,
Just get out, just get out, just get out
Smash all your mirrors and don't look back
You're no one's marionette
Good luck, babe
Good luck

bathtub overflowing, the kitchen sink a-running,
water water everywhere, everybody, getting a wordy
Saturday po-em, ahem, so only, lonely, love poetry,
high pitches, whimpering, like a three year old chillun,
why not me babe? why not me babe?

words uttered somewhere, everywhere, hourly,
maybe even screamed, sung, shouted outed,
with total justification, incredulous incomprehension,
my ticket unpunched, this fate, an indeterminate sentence,
if only I had a penny for every utterance, be a multi-billionaire
and still dissatisfied

the isolation au courant makes it a thousand times worse,
sometimes, I hold my own hand, remembering what is touch,
just not to forget, like a lazy eye, a missing limb needy for
scratching, a sensating, sustaining pleasure that sorely
disappoints, for the brilliance of it, is in its eclectic electric,
and a solitary spark fizzles, swallowed up, into disappointing reveries

my eyes wet themselves when I see letters airbone, floating, reforming,
why not me babe?
if mine eyes cannot catch another’s, no across-the-room thermometer saturating stare of farenheightened heat, what good this vision?
left with a single despicable desperate cri du to my conurbation,
why not me babe?

my banana bread aroma flies out the open window to meet
and be greeted across the street, with applause and affection,
but our nostrils cannot taste, our lips forbidden, in this hell,
why not me babe?

the quietude so great, I hear the rhythmic breathing of one who
could be my chosen, my one and only, my love poem, exhaling too,
why not me babe?

but the see-through curtain prohibits strangers exchanging ****** fluids, glances of possibility, and enraged, unengaged, smash all my mirrors, cause they don’t answer my question,
why not me babe?
it’s a reverberated echoing, a slap across my face, married to my cryout, a singular sensation of exasperated silence

pick up my brass decorative magnifying glass, with twisted ivory handle, examine my hands, my lips, my nose, my credit scores, my personal spaces, my declining weight and bank balance, each excuse, belief,
the white spots decorating my sticking out tongue, thinking there’s another sense I’m forgetting, but all I recall is,
why not me babe? why not me babe?

and that is why only love poetry did not get a love poem today...