Empty wine glass
Stale pizza
Cold naked toes
Sun left me lightless

Fridge is road-trip distance
Further to the sock drawer
Light switch is moons away
Remote earns its name

Where is my alacrity,
my willingness,
my zeal?

I’ve misplaced all my fervour,
ardour,
gusto,
warmth,
and spark

My promptness
and avidity
are now in
blue lividity

No relish,
bright celerity,
or genial rapidity

Just me
and stale pizza
--lamenting

Gone too soon
My lost sparkle

Of all my travails
Tryouts, dry runs, and run-ins
This one changed my path

Tension, danger, tears
escapes, hijinks, burns, and blood
Love in there somewhere

Detailed and hazy
True and unreliable
Funny and awful

My event record
Muddy origin story
Memory-flashed tale

Told and re-told to others
To learn more about myself

You, yes you
The one always seeking my validation
I deny your application with a simple snide smile
And let you know with snark reverence
That you think that you’re relevant
But you mistake not giving a **** for passiveness
Truth be told, I bide my time,
One sunshine at a time in my backyard with my pup,
Just us and my peace of mind.

So if being pugnacious makes you validated
Let you forever fire salvos over my iron dome
And know that when you come a knocking’
There’s nobody left at home,
Because I’ve already moved on and into the next frame
Where life for me is but a shade of happiness you could never afford in shade,
I leave you here with pittance, rot, and shame
Argue with ghosts that haunt you, but the mirror holds the truth to blame.

I write with uninhibited passion,
Drawing inspiration from the depths of my wounded soul.
The scars etched upon my chest,
Like riverbeds carved by a relentless force,
Serve as a constant reminder of my struggles.
My heart races like a war drum,
Creating a rhythmic cadence that resonates through the pages,
And reaching the very eardrums of those who dare to read the scriptures.

I write with the grace of a healer,
Smoking sage and smudging against the ramparts of my own mind. In this act of purification,
I strive to cleanse the filth from the membrane of my thoughts, allowing them to flow cyclically like filtered air—
Clean, pure, and easy on the chest.
I take deeper breaths, allowing my spirit to soar.

However, when praise is bestowed upon my efforts,
And the inkwell dries, I become chary of their accolades.
To captivate you in awe, I must bleed upon the page,
Pouring my heart and soul into every word.

So many more blue eyes in the world
Scrolling through their rolodex
Consuming dopamine one thumb up at a time
The slang is commonplace, replacing native tongues
The hair is the same on every dumb limbering drone
Conversations sound like e-speak read aloud in an open mic
Except that the audience participates in every false interaction
As plastic as the shoreline after spring break.

Thoughts are collective in a hive mind
Crowdsourced down to their brow line
Manufactured obedience in obediently serving for that last drip
Dopamine drips in the form of a click.

Awkward silence on the subway,
If it’s not on TikTok, they can’t say
Words shift into a balloon animal display
Twisted in knots, unable to hear clarity
But can walk the dog like a yo-yo trick if it bottled sincerity
Because these blue eyes are strained and strange
Locked into a perpetual gaze into the bottomless aether
Searching for the next fix.
Dopamine drips in the form of a click.

Cliques of cliches
And Temu personaliites
A carbon copy of a copy copying copies of something copied.
And the beat goes on like an arrhythmic heart
No worry for when the pressure rises
They’d rather have a stroke than see the OH in Cheerios
Because it’s not sweet enough to find the ordinary
When you can dine on lucky charms and chase rainbow fairies
See they’re stuck, them, and they, ze or zur -
Needing that dopamine drip from the clicks

And as I watch devolution
These zombies are tethered to their thought pollution
Parasitic in their dissolution
Walking these streets with their strings tugged by the beat of filters
I know I could never be a screen ****** apparatchik.

I’d cut you out
Toss you to the starving wolves
Let them pick apart your lumbering mass
But even under your mask
You’re insignificant at best.

Leave you to your own
Let you fester despite your growth
Because no matter what you do,
In eyes that stare back at you
In all that you stir and stew
With propaganda songs,
And protesting vigils;
Assembly halls full of sycophants.
When the lights go out,
You’re all alone.

No you see the truth is:

All that you are,
And could ever be,
Is benign.

No one mourns the wicked,
Not a single lachrymose face in the crowd,
No rainfall from the heavens,
No priest to eulogize or ask forgiveness.

Even the monotone wreaths seem brighter,
The sun shines proudly with its radiant warmth
There is no chill in the zephyrs,
Not even a murmur this morning,
They’re not even wearing black or a shawl.

No, no one mourns the wicked,
There is candor among the many,
Huddled ‘round the casket,
Casting their stones instead of roses
Take into the earth with fleeting retribution.

No one mourns the wicked -
As the ground trembles and trees shake
From the effusive cheers create percussion
A symphony of lost sympathy
As the tombstone reads.

“No one mourns the wicked”

It does not follow
that I am weak
or timid,
shy,
or small

Your logic’s amiss
I’m not swallowing this

It does not follow
that I am cracked
or broken,
rough,
or torn

It’s flawed generation
from any foundation

It does not follow
that I am less
or nether,
base,
or low

I don’t care where we were
-what you try to infer
I prefer
You’d concur
These are non sequitur


©2025