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Jeremy Betts Dec 2023
What you get is not always what you're gonna see
There's a me I choose to let no one see
If you see that me let me be the first to offer up an apology
That's my B side, that's the stranger I gave a ride and once inside it destroyed my family
And quickly
I find myself beyond a solitary sorry
The fix is never near as easy as you plea for it to be
Always aware that my grip on reality was secured by the same guy who's loosing it mentally, the workmanship is shotty
I do know the motions to take though and I go through them awkwardly
Robotically emote what I think is expected, a real time commentary
Going live is scary, that's just reality
I've rehearsed my lines so when I do I blend in seamlessly
Neither are an ability I use to be a mystery, well, not completely
I'd rather no one see behind the privacy shrubbery
It's private property but I never enforced it properly
Good 'ol hindsight, always 20/20
No control on this disorder, examples are aplenty, it'll eventually break free then consume what's left of me
No one believes when I say this is not me
Honestly, I don't put up much proof of the contrary
I do try, but these copy/paste repairs are undone too easily
Woe is me

©2023
irinia Dec 2023
your trainers full of dirt
next to a Christmas decoration,
the woodpacker self-absorbed on a branch,
a pigeon floating on a current of mystery
I emptied of an I in the tenderness
of this fleeting moment
Jeremy Betts May 2022
I'm an open book with the tendency to get mistook and overlooked now more than ever cause the binding and the cover are extraordinarily ordinary
The frail, mousey lead character labeled fragilé and plagued with insecurity lacks any measurable or substantial substance, no originality, even the unremarkably troubled back story is unapologetically void of creativity
Absolutely zero structure to the flimsy plot lines leaving the majority unfinished and frustratingly empty, holes in the Swiss cheese history are aplenty, no matter the number it's always one too many, never held any water to begin with but regardless they surface constantly, scattered with no purpose throughout condemned property
The gaps in the sketchy timeline and the untimely flashbacks make it extremely difficult to follow, subsequently leaving the reader feeling uneasy, maybe even queasy
Couple that with the fact that the blood, sweat and tears that poor from me onto every page render every letter a blurry mystery
Ink rapidly bleeding beyond any point of legibility so I scurry into obscurity like the first bit of graffiti to hit the walls of a lost city
Or unlit cave dwelling residency that sheltered the beginnings of humanity, I don't say that metaphorically, this is all factually documented as actually happenin' to me
Completely being brushed over, over and over, leaves little to no room for closure, how could it be there is no retail value either even though I'm the soul owner of the one and only lonely copy
I must confess that honestly it's in rough shape visually, no secrecy, anyone and everyone can easily see, so it's insincerely looked over briefly with contempt and downgraded accordingly but unfairly
While momentarily left in dormancy to see if the monetary value to society rises any or will it be one to continually trend downwardly, accepting mortality
At this point breathing is just a formality, I know tomorrows not a guarantee so I scribble away feverishly, going at it tirelessly, throwing words around recklessly
Pointless? Quite possibly. Meaningless? Most definitely. Worthless? Well, how could it not be? I'd quickly place a bet on all three being casually mentioned in the book review, or what some of you might call my obituary
It could be and seems most likely to me to be revealed that it belongs in it's own category or at the very least a separate offshoot subcategory
OR, or, it could be disrespectfully decided to never even ever let it be represented digitally or physically in any online or city library across the entirety of this comically hypersensitive and ridiculously touchy country
They be watching over me shoulder every day as I dot every i perfectly and diligently cross every t, proofreading religiously so they take me seriously and can't use it against me
It's limited edition but surely nothin' special, hopefully still worthy of somethin', but here in reality it's realistically nothin' more than knockoff Gucci or black market Versace
Sounds fishy, I know, but what else could it possibly be when I have the answer key, it's literally my story, I not only wrote but lived every word you see and it still doesn't even hold any significance or importance to me
Every chapter awkwardly forced upon me, it'll clearly end horribly but I'm no visionary, not even close actually, would never catch me even trying or claiming to be
I just precisely record the facts on the spot as they happened to me no matter how bizarrely scary some happen to be, it's important to me that you see what I see
See, you'll see the cruelty in the issue that taunts me as it haunts me. The hot seat question then becomes can you possibly understand the conundrum that is me or even slightly comprehend my cursed duality?
A comedy turned tragedy then unfortunately forced to take the back seat immediately as people barbaricly laugh mockingly at said tragedy, the jokes on me apparently and I've never found it to be very funny
Notice that it both plagues my future and tarnished my history and I'm presently left with presumably only a falsely and improperly placed memory of happy
Remembered as nothing but the worst of me, my eulogy will most certainly read like a roast minus any dose of comedy
If you choose to take this journey and walk the path along side me you're more than likely to come to the same conclusion as me that the powers to be are stingy with the good karma while the bad energy is unnaturally loaded on all *****-nilly in spite of me with little concern for safety
OSHA be ****** apparently, all it takes is the thought of me being a presence in the vicinity of you and your family to make you question both your safety and my sanity at any given moment, occasionally I'll switch it up randomly to avoid the monotony
A painfully pitiful joke that seemingly seems to be getting worse optically, a ****** B movie parody of Steven Kings Misery, all pain, no joy, no money, I mean no interest, I mean no possibility of a remedy
A mocumentary if you will, but the pain is real still and it's going steady, a run on sentence dragged out endlessly through a raging sea of emotionally charged assault and self battery that continually thrash relentlessly all around me
The weight of my world has always been too heavy since all the way back in my infancy, flip to the first couple pages to jog your memory if need be, then take and make a mental note that today I'm pushing 40

******* that's a long time to knowingly be held in captivity,  I've already been through it and the recap still surprisingly hits me hard with a backing of PTSD

Your cross is just a fashion accessory, my cross drags in the dirt behind me and wasn't set properly, shoulders barely able support it and I couldn't transfer the load any
So I grab a penny for each eye, yet another money based payment ritual for the ferry man to finish the last chapter the best he can with mixed in commentary from the peanut gallery that'll ultimately reveal my true identity and destiny hidden in the smoke screen of my twisted personality
The one predicted by the aforementioned conflicting and confusing history, though obviously if you've been following closely at all you've seen the rate of my fall and calculated it's trajectory down to the nth degree
It has always been and will continue to be aimed directly at the fiery lake for all eternity, not much different than where I reside currently so really I'm in no hurry if its more or less going to be the same scenery
I guess if you want to be a **** about it you could probably make the argument that my life played out accordingly, regardless, I'm getting what's owed to me cause I bucked conformity and normality, spit in the face of misplaced authority
Whoa is me? Yeah no, whoa is you buddy, you should worry because the last page doesn't mean end of story necessarily, I'll live on in your thoughts as something far more scary
See, I wouldn't be able hurt you or even touch you physically but I'll guarantee to use my literacy platform to completely destroy your psyche like what was so savagely and aggressively done to me, looking back that's all I see
I've sighted every atrocity three pages from the back glossary if you ever have the need to fact check me, again, feel free but know that my story board is messy, I'm not use to entertaining company
The facts get a little bit more hazy every day and where slapped together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason to what I have too say, not a thread of continuity, and you can go on and forget about decency, that word isn't even in my dictionary
I want to take this opportunity to openly welcome anybody that can hear me to read my diary, I've made it easy and removed the lock and key, humor me and start with my autobiography
Get to know your enemy, you'll find what to use against me personally but also what I'll do to wipe you from my minds eye permanently before you grace the pages of my memory
Take this as a priority mail special delivery type promise inside a threat spread widely through a reputable distribution company
And now, since having the rare opportunity to slowly but fully get to know me just a wee better, you must know then that to doubt me is stupid risky, just facts here, no theory of relativity
May I suggest you completely drop expectations and turn each page carefully, it's not for the faint of heart obviously, don't approach this carelessly or it could consume you entirely, but that's not my responsibility
Erie from the start, so it'd be smart to get ready, it's about to get heavy, prepare yourself mentally, this is the type of gory, all guts no glory underdog revenge ****** mystery story that wouldn't even make late night cable tv
Though it'd truly be funny to slap a PG rating on the first copy just to watch them fully lose their **** and collectively scramble to get said copy pulled indefinitely
Anyway, no movie adaptation in the works, no straight to DVD release party and that's all fine by me, I ain't even angry about it really, okay, maybe I am a little grumpy but that comes with the contemporary territory
Read it, don't read it, buy it legitimately or steal a copy, it's all the same to me, everything you need to know, and some **** you wish you didn't, is right here in the typography
From living righteously to becoming a bully to getting lost in my own hypocrisy, it's all laid out lazily for every single truth seeker and neigh sayer to see
There's nothing left to say anyway so pretty please, once free from the pages, can you finally, quietly but quickly, leave and just let me be me? I'd appreciate it emencly

Alrighty, let's begin shall we.

-Chapter one-

      Our story both begins and ends in the same fashion in that neither needed to happen and the fact that they both did changed nothin', a breath of life wasted on a nobody with nothin' left to offer but what's left of the shattered dignity and pride, otherwise emptiness resides and we'll be taking a look back through pain filled eyes, recounting the rise and fall, the crippling journey and what ultimately triggered this poor man's untimely demise...

©2022
Jeremy Betts Apr 2018
I abuse words verbally like my voice is Bobby and the dictionary Whitney/
Like a literary hyperbole properly arranged to explain this deranged brutality perfectly/
Force the English language to work for me like a particularly dark time in history/
Optimistically take the tongue twister trickery and aggressively attack a vocabulary vocally and personally/
Not physically but a barrage on your psyche, almost psychedelically/
Use words medically, like a surgeon I expertly plant thoughts whispered softly but assertively/
Moving letters like chess pawns to express thoughts masterfully and creatively/
Gruesomely grotesque but gorgeous thoughts written down beautifully/
You can't help but hear the perplexity of mythoticly placed words with comradery/
An oddity with the audacity to raise the bar and up the capacity/
Because what comes out of me has to be exactly what you see because it is me/                
Not just a part of me but all of me/
I'm not a fallen tree sitting in the forest silently, quietly all by my lonely/
It's just the opposite actually and factually/
I will attack with a dialect so violent you violently retract causing you to react cowardly automatically/
I don't even have to lift a pinky, leave it stinky/
Let my words linger there in the air like **** smoke, thick and sticky/  
Periodically come back to peek and see if you've figured out the mystery and found the key/
One that'll decipher decisively what it is that I've let out of me and spread to all humanity/
I could never have planned it, see, it had to happen naturally, organically if you will/
And not to build it up falsely but I honestly, back then, didn't have the ***** to let it out of me and it cost me considerably/
So now this mastery I hold of word delivery bestowed to me gets jotted down feverishly/
With an intensity equal to none inside of this ******* century, can't censor me/
Got a consistency that forces me to constantly cross the border of insanity repeatedly/
Time only to watch my talents as they literally wither away for all of eternity/
Such a tragedy to see such agony but please, no apology brought on by sympathy/
Just let me be as I drift farther out to sea to a place you'll never see/
To let these works mold me into someone you could never be/

©2018
Max Neumann Sep 2023
How the lights are straying inside
Watching, floating, seeking
In the gaps of inner walls
There the ghost lights are glowing

They are from the red shores
Where I used to bury child's photos
Among the waves of wishes
Ghost lights within my pupil

I swore that I am gonna come
You swore you would stay
An ancient man was our witness
Our oath turned into ghost lights

Welcome to the frantic train of life
The stops are our souls
What is the soul? What is the soul?
Are our souls ghost lights?

I trapped a chimpanzee
To tend it within my chest
For decades it has been waiting
In the thicket of seeking ghost lights
Ghost Lights
Ken Pepiton Sep 2023
Made your reservation fifty years ago,
we waited 'til today,
at the time,
it was so far away,
now we go,
long, long ago, back to when we guessed

this was where we'd seem today.

So far away, grinning still, happy as
the fool on the hill,
sees the story unfold, a thousand voice
choir of messengers going up and down
and back… this continuity in perifery,
ifery were, and ifery was, and ifery at all

times, songs we listened to high,
in the winter of '67, long before
the Eggman died.

When the band was so young,
when the world was younger,
but not much
we kinda
lost touch, after the scariest part.

It was a trip.
Not everyone found their way,
nobody had GPS back then, few knew
what the Grateful Dead were happy about

and nobody had coordinates…
for Blue Jay Way…
seems, we've been too long coming,
Yesterday is with us for constant review.

Critics believe it all leads here.

A hit before your mama was old,
a long, long time ago…

The tune inspired, da-did-dada, she
should call it all art, and we are
all together
after all these ****** Tuesdays,
assure us now that Fridays come.

Ordering chaos to line us all up,
getting reverb in return for echoes
after all's said now another way,
we laugh along with
jokers who do laugh at you,
to push you through the portal,
taking all your time apart in instants.

Noise of others, noise from then,
puke into this mic.
Black hole of best intentions.
Good bye and hello, across the decades,
did we not meet once on the street?
I caught your eye, you smiled,
a long, long time ago…
remember?

I smiled, yes, as I passed,
you did not notice, I passed, it happened.

I smiled. hey, la, ha-hahaha, and took
Kesey's invitation, goodnight, Irene.

I did do the dive into the sea,
with drowning on my mind, going down
beyond the buoyancy, of anyone in my tree.

Realizing nothing since we lost touch,
I thought you all realer than me,
as my shape lost its original intention,
time distorts from
formative decades conforming
affirmational automation, to corporate
clean machines, still a source of pride.
Meanwhile,

we find it easy recalling toe tapping
impulses, now that you know who you are,
have you traveled
very far… further than any magic school bus?

How does if feel to be,
after all this time, to find today, the same old songs.

Never got rich beyond the satisfied mind
I found in a sack behind the opera house.

Nothing you can do that can't be done, it's easy,
say it true, believe it true, prove it makes long term

sense, after fifty freaking years, the laughing trombones
continue laughing at the simplicity past essentials.

Love needs a better definition,
all together now,
everybody, repeat the mantra,

or grow old and never get famous, rich and miserable,
live on with the will to grow older
still, knowing better and worse, at once...
one more time.

Made your reservation fifty years ago,
we waited until today,
at the time,
it was so far away,
now we go,
long, long ago, back to when we guessed

this was where we'd seem today.

So far away, grinning still, happy as
the fool on the hill, and nowhere man
see the story unfold, a thousand voice
choir of messengers going up and down
and back… this continuity in perifery,
ifery were, and ifery was, and ifery at all

times, songs we listened to high,
in the winter of '67, long before
the Eggman died.

When the band was so young,
when the world was younger,
but not much,
we kinda
lost touch, after the scariest part.

It was a trip.
Not everyone found their way,
nobody had GPS back then, few knew
what the Grateful Dead were grateful for

and nobody had coordinates…
for Blue Jay Way… or Penny Lane it
seems, we' were too long coming,
Yesterday is with us for constant review.

Critics believe it all leads here.

A hit before your mama was old,
a long, long time ago…

The tune inspired, da-did-dada, she
should call it all art, and we are
all together
after all these ****** Tuesdays,
assure us now that Fridays come.

Ordering chaos to line us all up,
getting reverb in return for echoes
after all's said now another way,
we laugh along with
jokers who do laugh at you,
to push you through the portal,
taking all your time apart in instants.

Noise of others, noise from then,
puke into this mic.
Black hole of best intentions.
Good bye and hello, across the decades,
did we not meet once on the street?
I caught your eye, you smiled,
a long, long time ago…
remember?

I smiled, yes, as I passed,
you did not notice, I passed, it happened.

I smiled. hey, la, ha-hahaha, and took
Kesey's invitation, goodnight, Irene.

I did do the dive into the sea,
with drowning on my mind, going down
beyond the buoyancy, of anyone in my tree.

Realizing nothing since we lost touch,
I thought you all realer than me,
as my shape lost its original intention,
time distorts from
formative decades conforming
affirmational automation, to encorporate
clean machines, still a source of pride.
Meanwhile,

we find it easy recalling toe tapping
impulses, now that you know who you are,
have you traveled
very far… further than any magic school bus?

How does if feel to be,
after all this time, to find today, the same old songs.
Knowing I'm a rich man, who never cashed out.
Never got rich beyond the satisfied mind
I found in a sack
behind the grand old opera house.

Nothing you can do that can't be done, it's easy,
say it true, believe it true, prove it makes long term

sense, after fifty freaking years, the laughing trombones
continue laughing at the simplicity past essentials.

Love needs a better definition,
all together now,
everybody, repeat the mantra,
The peace you make is equal to the peace you find...
living longer than children can really imagine,
growing old, never famous, not too rich and miserable,
to live on with the will to grow older
still, knowing better and worse, at once

-------- who are you to ask of me a reason to be?

Run the numbers, inquire costs and benefits.
Rest in peace today,

every child knows tomorrow and yesterday
are not simply more of the same aimless instant.

-------- who are you to ask of me a reason to be?

Run the numbers, inquire costs and benefits.
Rest in peace today,

every child knows tomorrow and yesterday
are not simply more of the same aimless instant.
During a first time in fifty years binge of Beatles after Rubber Soul, this developed when I got to Magical Mystery tour and recalled the fact that Kesey called his place strawberry fields, because of strawberries. Sublimely simple.
Tiana Aug 2023
satin black robe, maroon nails,
my cold palms on a colder marble balustrade,
the moon soaked rose garden,
and crying angels of that medieval fountain;

Beethoven creeping in the background
but still my heart didn't strung a sound;

All I did to find inspiration
still I'm going blank for years
words won't splendidly fill my unfinished fiction;

But still I'm here
grasping onto the midnight smoke
trying to give colours to my drunk imaginations;

My tired sighs now wished
that it'd be easy
to come up with words,
a missing lover
or a ballroom ******
or a heartbroken maiden
with empty goblets filling her scars;
anything would do now;

As long as this melancholic sonata goes on,
And before this cooing midnight
disappears into a blinding dawn,
You would find my impassive face
and desperate gaze
capturing floating words
to give a meaning to this new found romanticism;
heavily inspired by Beethoven's moonlight sonata first movemnt
irinia Aug 2023
time has a savage chemistry
it flows in silence in the depth of life
stolen or borrowed, hidden & fluent
and I am this space for time
to learn how to love itself &
the transparency of mystery
irinia Aug 2023
his words have the beauty of sirens
his eyes the depth of a flame
the dawn is unsustainable sometimes
his fingers are looking for the edge of darkness
fragile as a new born thought
his dreams are characters in a play with the invisible
hidden in the stones of the sky, in unwritten books
and unfollowed dialogues is the voice of his time
he struggles with the unseen rule of the world
like a priest without a church
the darkness inside kept in mutable particles

he will unlock one day, all of a sudden, the mistery
of light inside the deepest darkness cause
his feet carry the craft of wisdom
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