In my heart, you are an asset
But in my mind, a liability
You are an entry I can't forget
That's slowly shaking my equity.

Loving you is an understatement
For a beauty's carrying value
And so I made an adjustment
Of the love that I must issue.

But your heart had a preference
For someone who's not me
Who can give you more dividends
Than a hopeful ordinary.

All my hope was expensed
For such unrecoverable loss
And the business I've commenced
Resulted in an opportunity cost.

And so you went depreciating
Ending this going concern
There's this pain accumulating
From a romance unearned.

Now I'm left here to close
All the journals I've made
Correct the errors I chose
For a love that I would trade.

Trying to find your lost soul is like chasing those final words from a dying man.

ACT I

Scene 1

Scene: A fleet of small boats on a open sea, carrying a flock of poets, actors, and musicians. They row into the distance, searching for land.

fool

Oh, the horror, the horror! The deadly locked eyes, the motionless limbs, the gray lips, telling me it is the end, no more, horror or else. I felt it too, at moments, though something else; what I felt was the sudden fear of death, what might come afterward, and the loneliness of this solitary journey. I had to escape.

Benedict

Yes, those lost half-lives of inevitable and unrecoverable tragedy, the guilt, unable to close in, and so moving away from the sorrow. Turning eyes away from the horror, no, get away from them entirely, let none of them escape with us. The tragedy, the grotesque demons.

FOOL

Yes, let them not chase us toward the end of the vast and endless voyage, and if we die so, let it be quick.

BENEDICT

Quick, by the thundering strike of heavenly signs, let us be at peace.

Virginia

Oh, no more, no more. Leave those thoughts behind, send them to exile as we have been for our refusal of "high tragedy."

Fool

So, it shall-(The Fool stands up, squinting to the distance.) Look! Is that a patch of dry land?

BENEDICT

Yes, our salvation of isolation, our comedic Garden of Eden!(A roar of cheers from all, though each voice distinct on its own.)

Scene 2

The troop have landed on the unnamed island.

Argorn

Here we shall be settled.

VIRGINIA

What a handsome little place!

Katty

Then we shall make it our home!

northworth

Home, yes, but home of what? A wild circus of cowards?

BENEDICT

No, cowards of tragedies but advocate of joy, happiness, and comedy.

Fool

Comedy! We are the Comedians!

NORTHWORTH

Very well, so we are.

VIRGINIA

Yes, laughter and happiness.

Argorn

We shall not only avoid tears, anguish, and sorrow, we shall make them crimes of criminals, we shall uphold only the Highest Order of Comedy!(In the distance, a ship carrying the mimes arrives.)

NORTHWORTH

Oh, look, so the mutes are here as well.

ARGORN

(To the mimes as they arrive.)

Wipe your black tears off your faces! Leave only the red smiles, we are a tribe of comedy not tragedy. (They do as they have been told.) There, better.

NORTHWORTH

Ah, here comes the musicians. (A band of cheerful flute, drums, and violin players arrived.)

Argorn

(To the Band)

Yes, very well, you shall never again play any sad little tune and lure me to anger!

VIRGINIA

Be gentle, Argorn, for only peace shall visit you.

NORTHWORTH

Yes, criminal, anguish, and sorrow, are the horror! They are criminal, criminal!

The band

We promise you only tunes of celebration will be heard on this lovely paradise!

argorn

Very well.

Scene 3

The band plays a cheerful little song while the mimes dances silent to the music. The actors and poets are reading poems of merry endings.

Fool

Oh, her tears, like blossom petals, have fallen and are gone forever.

ARGORN

The sun approves of our sanctum! Look, how the minions of clouds take flee!

NORTHWORTH

Yes, presently they do.

VIRGINIA

Only when morrow comes, shall we be certain of our well-being.

ARGORN

WE WILL BE WELL! FROM DAY TO THE NEXT, THE VILLAINOUS DARKNESS WILL NOT REACH US HERE, I WILL NOT ALLOW IT.

katty

Keep calm, keep calm.

NORTHWORTH

Yes, settle, joy will only come when you are unaware of its flaws and when you take no notice of the hidden misery.

ARGORN

No! Tragedy is horror, tragedy is criminal, it should only be fought, contained and send to exile.


Scene 4

The cheerful tune of the band have slowed with weary into a lingering sad tune, the mime have slowed their dance, and the drawn smiles drips down into a frown.

Argorn nails a notice to a tree. It says, Laws of Comedians.

Argorn

Stand up, you slothful infidels! You have once again turned what could have been joyous and merry into despair!

NORTHWORTH and Virginia

Argorn, you have burdened and slaved them with works of oppression, they are not happy!

The band and the Mimes

Yes, we beg you. Please let us rest, or the music will only be sadder.

ARGORN

No! Rest and what? Allow tragedy to intrude! No, be alarmed, be on guard. We will battle sorrow to the end.

fool

Argorn, only you are the advocate of pain and tragedy!!! You are fighting yourself!

Argorn

WHAT DID YOU DARE SAY?

fool

I dare say, you are what drowns us with slaving pain!

(Argorn advance toward The Fool with a hammer, and knocks him dead.)

Virginia

No, he is dead! Argorn have slain Fool.

ARGORN

Say more, and death or exile awaits you!

NORTHWORTH AND VIRGINIA

(In fear and deviance.)

No, we will send ourselves to exile.

Argorn

And the music!

(The band and mimes quickens their pace, the music and dance does not sound joyful however, but in a rushed mess, it rings of fear. )


Scene 5

The Band and Mimes are lying on the ground, being worked to death by extreme exhaustion trying to bring joy and music for Argorn.

Argorn

Play! Your fools! Why have you all stopped!

(Argorn rushes to where the bodies lay, and stops.)

Oh, are you dead already? Someone else, come and take their place! Don't let the little tune expire!

Katty

(In tears.)

No, I rather be dead to be mocked by your horror! You are a monster!

ARGORN

How dare you cry?

(Argorn kills Katty with the hammer.)

What do you say Benedict, keep the joy alive?

BENEDICT

No, you fool, what do you say is the most horrendous of a tragedy?

ARGORN

Death, I fear.

BENEDICT

Then, who is most foul of a tragedy?

ARGORN

The tyrant of a villain, champion of bloodshed, and one without conscience.

BENEDICT

Then, please, find your conscience, and see around you, the blood, and decaying bodies. What have you done?

ARGORN

NO! NO! I killed them for comedy!

BENEDICT

Yet, what you brought is tyranny, bloodshed, and death.

Argorn

Do you mean I am the villain? Then, please, in the Law of Comedian, execute my execution.

BENEDICT

No, I shall only take my exile now, and leave.

ARGORN

Then, I shall bring peace to this inferno once and for all. (Argorn kills himself, and falls. )

Curtain

I feel lost
the holes in my memory
are too numerous to count.
I become a green-eyed monster
when friends brag about vacation & trips
even though I have taken more trips
to superior locations.
I do not remember.

The minuscule fragments of
my childhood paint a depressing picture.
Abandonments, death after death after death,
Homelessness, loneliness, imperfectness.
My memories have collectively signed a DNR.
They are unrecoverable.
Lost forever in the holes my mind created
to prevent insanity.

Shook out your memories
Pennies from a piggy bank
Tucked in between couch cushions
From your first home

Old age has kissed your skin
Basked you in the gleam
Of the unknown

But tucked in your creases
Lie memories
To lead you home

Who you were
Is not unrecoverable
Forever preserved
In our hearts

The clarity rings,
Straight out from your heart.
You know it just,
This is your only calling.
Digging in deep,
Scavenging for the answer.
You lost all hints,
Seeking a treasure unrecoverable.
The roads get erased,
Sand storms final decision.
Random messages,
Sending you into frenzy and confusion.

my fingerprints are aching already,
with the unrecoverable concepts.
i want to kiss this moment,
taste the salts of passion pits upon
my swelling tongue.
it is all gone, and my eyelashes stick together
far too long.
arteries are filled with sugar and sad songs,
and i know i will never feel like this again.
hands to the clouds,
i’m alive for right now.

You know
That I'm here
But you
Don't look at me
Up above
Against blue sky
Brown skin silhouette
Board shorts
I want to
Avert my eyes
Even though I'm sure
You've done this before
I have not watched
because of
  the reality
    of a missed mark...
unrecoverable

I will not stop you
  But I hold my breath
      As you fly
Wingless bird
    Ocean fish
Emerging as white teeth smile
    Through bubbly froth
        Crawling dark sea spider
              Swims to rock
Shakes dark hair
   Glistening you ascend
       The cliff
              trail
                   disappearing

As do I

You've destroyed me in every
beautiful way possible.
Ripped me like your
torn up jeans and
shredded my heart
in to tiny bits.
You were a stubborn  
mess.
I tried so hard.
But you were
hopeless.
You entered like a tornado,
And I thought
you were a blessing.  
But little did I know
that you were meant
to be just a lesson
in my life.
Your love was like
water.
I drowned in it and
And couldn't live without it.
But what did you do?
Just flowed out of my
life like all of it never
happened.
Didn't know the flashbacks
and memories would
slowly creep in to my life
and bother me.
I know I shouldn't
be writing this.
But I wouldn't have
been where I am today
without all those heartbreaks.
At some point I wasn't
ready to accept the fact
that you weren't mine.
I agree I have acted
like an immature brat
but honestly I couldn't
have asked for a better
teacher.
I have learnt how to fake
a smile and deal with sorrow.
I have learnt to live with
the pain and the unrecoverable
breathless moments.
I have been done and dusted,
I know an old chapter,
I ain't the reason behind
your smile anymore.
You went teaching me
a lot of things.
I didn't realize until
I had completely
fallen.
Well, my mistake.
Stupid heart.
Now you know my
pumping machine, how
mordacious
falling in love could be.
Thank you for all the
damage and making
me wiser.

Tomorrow is your birthday, her birthday, his birthday.
It's thinning this suit of reddened skin. Boy-nails are never
As sharp as they need to be. Toxins don't work fast enough either.
5:00a.m. stop for premium unleaded just outside of Big Sur. Once you were in the devil in a Jaguar, leather biker jacket and a crown of gold.
Mused to be. The insides of the stomach must have claw marks by now.
Panting, misstepping, riddled with whys and whens.

Time is critical, yellow or black nail polish; signature colors. May minutes be returned and reused where aching poison ails but does not deliver. Tomorrow is your birthday and maybe you'll allow for the cleaning of ***** from your hair and the body crooked, lingering over your night-terrors with cool and wet cloths.

This is some tremendous furnace of unrecoverable agony. There is no use chasing the wheat. Into a bunker or hurrying the footsteps into the sea. Ghosts of humans trawl the flesh entombed in permanent suffering. And the men and women glue themselves to its familiarity and melancholy.
So many great hopes were **** into one hand and ******* into a folded over pillow. We are too old to have Fraggles living in our ears.
May my chest explode before tomorrow unless you would unvex the curse who devours language and desire and all these hours.

You made me crave the fall –
One so hard, so unrecoverable,
So permanent, that I could not avoid an end.
I want to jump from a twelve-story tower,
Shattering my head on the hard cement,
Or leap from the highest bridge in this city,
Detonating my body in the freezing river.
I want to take a nap on the railroad tracks,
Finding eternal rest on the slim metal rods,
Or starve my system clean of your toxins,
Carving frailty into my bones so they simply snap.
I want to sleep on the shore in the winter,
Being dragged out to sea to embrace its calm,
Or slice myself open, to let you slowly ebb out,
Draining my being free and erasing me of you.
Most of all, I just want to cry, cry, cry,
Drowning in tears and disappearing forever -
Making it clear that you pushed me down
And forced me into an abominable free fall.

Outside my window,
the leaves are in a frenzy~
twirling, shaking and flying about
the wind just sending them off
in a scattered dance...
so similar to the
thoughts
chaotic in my mind

Sleep comes around,
but the dreams do not.

Or do they?
And I've forgotten them yet again.

They are but fleeting wisps for me...
iridescent ribbons of subconsciousness
winding through me,
teasing,
then eluding me

When I try to touch them,
my fingers ripple through a smoky haze
So real to me, yet intangible

Sometimes I wonder
whether I could pour something
over these dreams,
Splash! And they crackle,
crystallizing them, finally captured
Smooth, sharp, tangible

and then I change my mind,
since it doesn't feel right...

Like caging something
to admire its beauty

Somehow, even the word dream
seems so ethereal to me,
they are but soft whispers
weaving through my slumbering self

My dreams,
they have a voice
so melodic, yet incomparable
so beautiful, yet unrecoverable

My dreams,
they come in color
so alive, yet muted
so alive, yet unreal

My head touches the pillow,
and I sink into slumber,
a myriad of thoughts finally settling down,
as undulating curls of dreams rise up around me

Come to think of it,
this creates for me such a
fascinating image...

Myself enveloped in darkness,
with wispy colorful ribbons
floating by all around me
as I dream on...
a quick reprieve from reality







08272011306p408

With a storm swirling in his chest,
he lights the day's first cigarette.
A fog of smoke on the path of his quest,
he breaths it like the pain he can't forget.

The world sees only the fire from his matchsticks,
but there's another flame soaring in his heart.
He closes himself inside walls made of bricks,
the guilt he puffed tasted like ****.

He quivers recalling his loss unrecoverable,
agitated on himslef and his love forgotten.
Like a wounded horse confined to it's stable,
his conscience seems to have rotten.

This story of "a smoker" woud have been a bit longer,
If he would have enjoyed playing a trumpet.
Dreaming about the love he never got from her,
he lights his last cigarette.

I just have to remember what I told myself~
Relationships are like glass. They break into a million pieces, seemingly unrecoverable. But if you collect them all together, with just the right amount of heat and love, you can watch it all melt back together, into a new piece of glass.

New to the eye, yet the feeling will never fade.

Vague,strange and confusing.
You are the unparalleled  spirit of
The unborn crystal child.

Mesmeric as the soft drizzle of
Rain against the lilies,you are the coffee
Stain on pages of poetry.

A hot lacerating choking sensation
That completely engulfed your heart
As a lump of sobs you refused to loose.
In a paradise filled with nothing but  
Unrecoverable things.

It was astounding how you still look up
For the divine rebirth of the redolent blurred  fake memories.
With all these pack of desperation to find something
Made you smile , something claimed your rapaging soul.


When the sunset put his hat on with a half dozen stars were kissing the sky you soothed by the jingles of heaven's grief alluring lullaby.
Echoes of lyre's melodies brought the insomnia's starry vision of
Your elusory dream , those who barely wish for a drip of sweet hope back to sleep .
Receiving the thunderous quietness that shattered your tranquility.

"WAKE UP !" said the universe

It was there again...
Yes, a greedy hunger for the unknown pumping into your veins
Hither and thither had a sinlessness white,ravishing beauty and
unbearable lightness.

Unfortunately, for you it was just a suffocating shade of stagnation.
It was just you there as a reflection on the adornment unholy mirror.
You felt that one irresistible desire to observe a sad musing gaze filled the sharp abyss in your eyes.

Something calling you!

What incarcerated there was just a pure perfection
craved the vitality disturbance and the chaotic imperfection.
A glimpse of storm waited for its rage long enough with a fire's fading spark
Fighted to find anything burned for it.
But,Nothing was burning around , nothing just the nothingness.


A terrifying chill run through those unawakened emotions like a screaming
siren dragged those sloths feet into the hiding game .wondering if there
was any passing miracle could hold you before you catch up by the nonentity
As a comforting usurpation hard to capture , a missing destiny wandered out of
Your uncompleted written dairy. Eagerness swallow all of your sanity.

"when the restlessness keeps you yearning like a victim to thinking
While the lilac sky shed its tears watering all these pale tiny cherry
Flowers standing along the hill of immortality , there you will find an entity,
Who inflamed by obsession , the desire for addiction emitted as an
Anesthetic fragrant aching your lungs with uncontrolable breathing
Dive in the lovely warmth , just a stare will made you succumb and tumple down with
shivering knees . Now you could say
"good bye" to safe and souund

This is the den of passion.....

Let it tampr the fear inside your mind, playing with your
Sleepy creativity.
You had possessed ,he put a fever inside of you ,tearing up thought's monotony ,drown you with wave of curiousty till you feel these silkin butterflies
Fluttering in your chest .Bones ache , crazy heart's beats with huge
Smile dancing on your mouth , don't resist it ,welcome that unique
Pother ,racous and loudly deafening your surrounding.
Let him devours the angelic purity sulling you with sin's thrill
Enchanted by love's delirium.
Be a passion's lover

Eternal
Fleeting
Rushing all of it
Most valuable yet wasted
Patient
Lost
Running out
Unrecoverable
Permanent
Unforgiving
Going to end and then there will be nothing what the **** am I doing?

I ain’t gonna recover from wanting you
It will always be there
I might wind up meeting somebody new
But if you came around
Asking for me
I would answer so hastily
Heads would spin
And everyone would see
There isn’t anyone else as perfect for me
As you seem to naturally be
Beautiful, man, beautiful mind
Beautiful soul, so **** fine
So I will stand here in line
Waving my arms and shouting my lines
Maybe one day, it will be the right time
And I’ll throw up just the right sign
To cause your attention to become mine

It’s hard to know how the country
Survived having to spend
A four-year term with 45.
I thought it would never end.

Four long years of scandals;
Fours years of anguish and grief;
Four long years of fatuous tweets,
With little if any relief.

Four long years of a slogan
To make America great.
And yet the president seemed much more
Preoccupied with hate.

Four long years of hearing
Constant words of praise
For Vladimir Putin and other strongmen
And their autocratic ways.

Four long years of watching
His sycophants kiss his rear
And be afraid to tell him what
He didn’t want to hear.

Four long years of lies.
The number hasn’t been topped.
And though he is out of the White House now,
His lying hasn’t stopped.

Four long years of observing
Extremists in his base
Become so extremely emboldened that
An insurrection took place.

Four long years of feeling
As though we were swimming with sharks,
For he loved tearing people apart
With his nasty remarks.

For four long years we heard
Constant “alternative facts,”
For one of his guiding principles is
Anything that distracts.

Four long years of our lives--
Unrecoverable time.
If voters decide to give him four more,
THAT will be a crime.

-by Bob B (8-3-21)

It's the end of another day.  Goodnight Moon.
The sun is gone now and it runs away
from me.  Hello long hours of Sturm
and Drang.  I don't sleep until, drugged,
I stumble into dreams.

I no longer dream of you.  I dream of
the deaths of friends.  I count them.
Some are pebbles, some are rocks.

I trip into my waking hours like a
Redwood falls in the forest.  I walk
forward with a limp.  

I no longer dream of you.
I save sleep
for unimportant things.

Tonight is a blank sky.
It is tears dammed by floats
of lost time.  Unrecoverable
time.

Are you still
softly singing

"Sweet Caroline"  

to the dark horizon.  🎼 🎶?



Caroline Shank

Love melts like chocolate on a face
on a hot Summer day.  You can't
capture it because it drains down
your lips to tomorrow.  

Love falls to the ground and colors
the grass a burnt orange.  The color
of my  heart when you left me
without sound.  

Words unsaid smear.  
Unrecoverable sounds of
midnight kisses elude.

Love remains in me,
before you ever left.

How do I say goodbye
to nothing in my hands?
The silence of
your leaving drips
as you
melt away.


Caroline Shank