Through a tunnel I walk.
Stumbling upon the demons I stalk.
Straining to understand their words.
Yet afraid of what their message may hold.
The walls and path are all ablur.
As further along I do blunder.
Stumbling and falling,
To rise once more.
Searching for a magical door.
To release me from this caliginous gambit.
Then the goblins and trepidation omit,
To deliver me anew to the suns bright glare.
And release me once more from the captivity of despair

I've always been the lucky one
My life was never changed for the worse by fate
Only for the better

I was not the one in the boat when it hit the rock amongst the rapids

I was not the forest floor being burned by the flames

I was not the one who fell from my grace during the cool mornings

I was not the one whose clothes were covered in ***** and mind ablur

But my fate is no longer in my hands,
And I don't know what I would do
If I could never again have the opportunity
to make those mistakes

Honestly, I don't know what you're on about.
I watch your mouth move as though in a race.
I hear the words, nod an assent or two,
Then work out how to arrange my face.

Sixteen years on, I can bet my life
It's any of issues one to five
Perhaps disguised as new and bold
But countless times we've jived this jive.

It's either mother/sister/father in law
You don't spend enough time with me
I washed up last, it's your turn now
Money just doesn't grow on trees.

That's four, oh wait and last not least
It's the cherry atop our well known list:
Are you happy in our life right now,
If I was gone of sudden would I be missed?

Interrupted of course by the offspring two
Never a chance to talk about
The things that make us fight and kiss
Talking in code that's fraught with doubt.

Your voice sinks further from my conscious realm
Where the blurry words blur and blur some more
And somehow we arrive at this day's end
As a melody stuck on a repeating score.

I crawl to bed a respectful time after you
Touch your arm, cold, betrayed by sheet
I encircle your chest as it fills and droops
The familiar curve of your back I meet.

I know not what all of this is finally about
And that 'morrow brings with it new words ablur
The only thing I know is about you, my love
Without you I would not want tomorrow to occur.

Deep beneath a pillowed sky, there
A restful restlessness abides
Nestled in a perennial hill
Whose sentinel trees raised their hands,
White with subtle deference,
They do not usher the world flowing ‘hind,
But show me an islet high above time.
I sat there in ponderance at the stagnation of clouds
Holding on one end a gold string of a kite
My thoughts tethered to those ghosts,
Those wights, sitting amongst me, those by-gone eras
And down, on me, some vague horror weighted
To them it was the Stones that made them feel dated
I thought I could feel slippage, some loss of traction
They? They bore a whole lifetime without
Satisfaction.
The breeze smells of gossip and Jaeger on their lips;
Everything is on point: dances, romances, localist quips.
Whoever would have guessed
Memories ablur could be the most vivid?
Such, I suppose, is an art form insipid.
I had to step away from this field of time
It had overtaken, that shadow of mine
All the trees now, bow and they bend
Prostrate, like a weeping willow.
When they step out into the world,
A bath of gold in the dusk of their lives
Shall fall before their feet, denude from their shadows
To run on ahead.

Wandering words, evasive prose
Removed from my clutching mind
Incredulous laugh, they dodge and hide
Tiptoeing through my daily grind
Enters but briefly an image so clear
Rippling through my hungry thoughts
'twixt eager fingers awaits my pen
Shamelessly nebulous, I follow the dots

Bumbling through, I falter and fall
Lying face down in a pool of nouns
Organising verse to paint image ablur
Clumsily in finished verse I drown
Kindling gone, die these embers of rhyme...
...for prose to revisit, I await my time.

Weeping sonatas haunt the patio
Underlined with your twisting fingertips
Once ablur and tracing Beethoven Debussy
Mozart and Bach and it's all gone now—
I still recall your grey eyes as clearly as the rusted
and snagged red wood that forms the old arbour
Where we use to sit and trade stories.
Still here and seeming
A relic that should have been forgotten.—
I  watch the sun turn the wood white
Then crackle crisply into night, I can still
Hear your spectral steps from the day you
Left us.

I slept in the bed that used to be yours wondering
   why.

Why am I still unable to connect the dots,
Why do I have depressing thoughts,
Why must the ego cause the mind to go ablur,
Why do I always genuinely care for her,
Why won't I ever get drunk or ever get high,
Why, when I know it won't work, I continue to try,
Why do I lie in my poems about stupid ****,
Why won't I get a **** job or get a permit,
Why do I deal with a dumb step-dad and brother,
Why can I drop some things but then cling to others,
Why can't I find happiness in any passing day,
Why can't people say what they mean and mean what they say.

"Myopic Tunnel"

Through a myopic tunnel I walk.
Stumbling upon the demons i stalk
Straining to understand their words
Yet afraid of what their message may hold
The walls and path are all ablur
As further along i do blunder
Stumbling and falling
To rise once more
Searching for a magical door
To release me from this caliginous gambit
Then the goblins and trepidation omit
To deliver me anew to the suns bright glare
And release me once more from the captivity of despair

                                                             coleman

disfunctioned and disfigured
the vision of my brain
making all my senses triggered

i stare in the mirror and ask,
"should i go numb?
should i come up with a mask?"

the vehemence at war
ripping and shredding
at my dignity now ablur

i add a bit of hope at the end
in hopes that it will spread its wings
and let its heart extend