Poétique

Ambigram

I tried to draw an ambigram
With my mind in my dreams
And otherwise to paint a picture
That could be seen and understood
From all sides day and night
Conscious and unconsciously
Below the moon above the sun
Upside down and right side up
I found the liquid in my cup
Travelling sideways every time
I wanted to create something to
Believe the writing on the walls
Would not lead me to deceive
Myself again hot or cold
Spicy or plain the whole engagement
Left me saying to myself,
“My heart couldn’t take it again.”

But in the mornings as I showered
Your memory gleaned and glowered
Like a fantasy or a fairytale
One of my elders read to me in
A library somewhere or in a bed
Before I lay me down to get some rest
And inevitably comes the morn’
And breaks the dawn and so the
Wanting and the longing and the warnings

Beware you cost yourself a lifetime of
Unloving for one occasional drop of honey
And the wet pillows that you left behind
Tear soaked should stand to be reminded
Of the sadder times you’d never quite
Caught on to realize would be the precedent
The winning factor the pine cones kicked around
Frozen fingers to the bone
Underneath one hundred blankets
Just to keep warm for all you wanted
Was to be loved

And when it ebbs and flows
It comes and goes it leaves you
With the worst of what recovering
From what you wanted
Then you had
Now it’s gone

That’s the way it is unwritten
In the song of our delusion

Crushing

When you look to smile
And you want different things
You want a kiss
To be close
But they are reminded of
Something special about this
Nothing romantic
But the smiles meet each other
Perfectly in the same way
For different reasons
No one is shy
Because both are
Smiling sincerely
For their own reasons
But also for different ones
Or not thinking of embracing
The other at all though
A feeling of warmth is mutual
The intentions are unclear
But the love is similarly
Evident even if for different
Circumstances puzzling
Reasons golden retriever vibes
But no clear explanation
If the other is feeling the same way
Or smiling for the same reason
But they are both sweetly coherent
Of the other

What kind of love is this?

Graveyard Drunk

Yellow trees are all around
On my knees fall to the ground
He left and when he exited
I gave it all up to the heavens
Like an angel walking round in dread
Halo cracked upon his head
Burning letters in the yard
Every attempt to make it was hard
Broken bottles in a bag
Carrying the weight of them
Nothing left to drink inside
Can’t sit up; open wide
His friend walks on a rescue path then
Went to a church around the bend
Not though because it was
Ever her chosen religion
Conveniently placed a street light ahead
It’s the thought that counts in the end

And nothing had moved much
Since he was born trying to grow
Up in a town that was torn and
He could feel that it was slipping away
Bottle after bottle everyday
Where he ended up in a graveyard
At the foot of a man he had never met
And his t-shirt read Grandpa
And so it went as he balled his eyes out
In the lawn and the man said a prayer
To hold him on and lingering he did
Again and fell asleep at his granddads
Headstone which he found finally
Not too far from the prophet
Everybody loved it was death and
Living sanctified rolled into stone

The leaves collapsed over his face and
Crunched that time of year it was
Not quite cold yet but things were falling
And the voice of his grandmother
Was steadily calling and he pulled himself
Up from the sanctuary of remembering
And drug his feet further to her
Rosy steps where he managed to
Knock on the door with what was left
And he found her arms and smile
Awaiting as he contemplated
In conversation her eyes like pools
Of blue across the gloom
Sitting in her living room she
Gave him words that he was embarrassed
To seek for to be coherent and
Perfect was better than weak

“Stop drinking!” she said,
“Why’d you do that?”
He couldn’t come up with a good reason
Instead he knew that his time with her
Would soon be up as the earth
Only gives us so many grades
And she kissed his face
And she kissed his lips
And she pet his head
And no longer than did
He weep in the way he would before
But he couldn’t unfreeze himself
In certain moments now
Because everything was
Still processing from before
And his tongue was tied
And his mouth was sore
And his heart was hungry
Begging for more
But he remained
And sustained the memory of
Her doorway and the moment
That she gave him words
Even after she was gone
Her voice could be heard

Time is fleeting in front of our eyes however,
He still remembered how to laugh out loud

Drubbing

Most people don’t understand my intensity
To be a fly on the wall where two people
Talk about you privately so you can
Discover your own truth
Away from the things that they
Are unwilling to say to your face
To protect your feelings
Or keep you from benefiting
From yourself; tell me

The message today is don’t give up
Choked up by the strains
It’s harder in your brain than it is in real life
Drubbing along without awareness
For the future blunders
Because how can we know
And you wake up and there’s
Another smack down
And what seems insurmountable
Is the next thing that you accomplish
That’s the turnaround

Even people that don’t move out of place
Can find tragedy knocking
On their doors blind or otherwise
Inhibited in some way

Poor underbrush burning
Like a campfire in the spring
Throw some self resentment
Onto the flames and turn the volume up
Perhaps there is a way to figure
It all out before the final clock ticks

Verdant green branches
Holding out for the lesser things
Are also supporting the cryptic rhapsody’s
That tug away at our heartstrings
And beg forgiveness for simply being

I can’t remember exactly what she said
Only that there’s more to life than this!

Aftertaste

The difference is you want to kiss
That feeling of wanting this
Arousal and desires being met
Maybe something you would grasp
Onto and hold for only a minute
Like a stolen moment but the energy
Is what you feel internally
The decent into a smell
An aroma that fills the well of your soul
Knit to the fabric of the other person
As skin to skin draws you in
Hands holding fingers running through
Pulling slightly at the back of your neck
Into a tension that is right and the heat
Like the wet is exciting
It didn’t get here by any plan
Somehow arriving in the heart
In the fire of your lowest parts
Or the salt of this neck and sweat
And the light is cast down through a window
In the street where you found
A quiet second away from
Everything where no one was watching
And the taste of the inside of things
A swarming of tongues
The sensation is hard to explain
Perhaps never to return again
Except for in some fantasy in
Your mind that will live with you
For all time and the recall
Of this flavor that we somehow
Managed to create together
That we can always count on
To remember even if we
Never touch it again

Money$ick

She made herself sick
Thinking about it
“Get me a towel,” she said.
She was handing out money
But having trouble recovering it
Her honesty was in her tears
And her hesitation
Mostly she just needed a friend
She was wearing glasses that
Had dragons on them poking out
Her house was big but
She was missing some things
No doubt she was an
Imposter to herself
A syndromatic cast about

It’s sad to be buying your friends
And at what cost
To be honest is the waver
When she crawled to me on the floor
To show me that she was wrong
Also that she didn’t mean to be
I knew she was sincere

I was ready to make deposits
Into those accounts for her
But she stopped me which
Made the whole thing believable
And although the signatures
Were legitimate it still appeared
To me that something was
Totally off

I wanted to help her out
In every way that I could
Still to hesitate was showing
Mischief on the horizon
Like a naughty comet
Shooting off to burn through
The skyline of affairs
What would be the consequences
Later to beware of

Losing balance comes with age
So did appreciation for the
Capability to make decisions
Even when the bitter winds
Ripped through your warmest garments
Felt like we were trespassing
In some forbidden land

The best move at this point
Was to draw her a bath
She would come around when
The tide turned and those
Questionable deposits could be
Another conversation burned
Into a different hour
An easier day

If time allows

Choice

Grab a random hat
On your way out the door
Can we be happy in the momentary
Bliss of anythingness

Untreasured acceptance of
Being someone’s number one
Proud to be there for them
And one day wake up startlingly
To their absence without any
Why for explanation; gone

Choices were made for you
Who we become is exactly that
Even before we are exiting the womb
Of transitive existence
Thoughts on who you are to become
What great things you will do
Born into the disability
To disappoint the expectations
Of the choices designed for you

As he contemplated the coldness
Of it all there was more than
An empty reminder beating
At the core of his agenda

This is your opportunity to jump
This is how you choose
Not for someone else
But for you

A tale told of folks long ago
Saying,
‘You can choose the life you want.’
In many ways we do
And in many ways he did
Of the available options
To his character

Where was the warning?
That there will be many opposing forces
When will the playbook arrive
Condoning the unrelenting
Unrequested actions happening
Upon us as we eschew them into
Gifts for our benefit
Twisting scripts

One mentor said,
‘You will have everything you need,
to get through the life you will lead.’
And believing he was capable
He made the choice to believe

Another guide said,
‘It’s going to be really good.’
And in his head that was enough
To look forward to
To get him out of bed

Again choices would be made
And how frigid could we all stand it
How many nicks at our chins
Could we take
How many knocks at the door
Till we break
How many smiles would be left
For us to fake

Is there a number for that?

As the light dressed the day
And the night went to sleep
He stood up from his slumber
Of counting tie dyed sheep
In the movie theater of his mind
And chose to breathe again
Another day involuntarily

Contemplating the fantasy
Of the life he’d one day leave
To begin the choice of such a life
He’d yet conceived

Targeteer

Itty bitty moments for breathing
I reject my skin to be one of those
The terror of being hurt again
Was the beginning of the end
For caring to expose the epidermis
To the hateful words that were
Buried there from before by
Loved ones who only apologized
Afterwords never thinking
Their mouths turned into
Blood red volcanoes
What was he trying so hard to
Shut up for being outspoken
Like a broken cello
He was just writing down what
His eyes told him to
After that he couldn’t stop

It’s as if every gun on the planet was pointing
At him while in the barracks asking the Gods
To protect his spirit from it
Crass bureaucracy of red lines
Inspections and duties
« I never volunteered for this
And they keep giving me more shit! » he said.

Learning how to keep
Away from it personally
Being berated by the rules
Constantly thrusted
Ridiculously exhausting
Uncontrollably annoying city!

You can hear the echoes
Of laughter in the back seat
Almost as cruel as the telekinetic
Dreams that pretended to show up
Proclaiming that someone really cares
When they’re only a phone call away
But they’re manifesting cheap talk instead

It’s tragic to say but true
With all of it coming down
Like cats and dogs from the sky. Ouch!
It doesn’t mean that you’re going to die
So there’s that.

Jaguar spirit jumps out of the way

Bras De Rouges

Having to balance so many
Obligations in the brain
Takes a toll on the gut
Attempting to sustain
Astral projection strains

She looked like a goose
Standing there in her boots
They matched the feathers of her coat
And the wind was blowing
Her hair around as the line
Continued to grow
For whatever she was waiting for

Bank traffic and compassion
For inanimate things that no one
Has feelings for that’s me
Branches turning red after
All the leaves fall off
Persistently

Now it was all about patience
Enjoying the way the light
Travelled through the back window
How the cat was engaging
Speeding quickly past your feet
Loud noises that will be missed
When the house is empty
But peaceful and still

Purging everything could be the move
It was hard to hold onto everyone
Especially in a town for being so sensitive
He might have lost a bit of it and
Broke through onto the other side
Equilibrium was a gift and a curse
Standards are so individual
A loss for context is the culprit
Return to what you know
That’s the reality

Aspire to create a new hardihood
Nothing is fixed
It just feels that way

Flan

What you have to offer
Is really special
Like you, sometimes also
Brutally unaware
O how we are blatantly if the
Effect on others is
As impactful as what
An ornery child would do/be
Retaliate if their candy had been
Ripped away
Hello good-bye too soon

Shock to the system
Hits the shoulders and the chest
Then down to the knees and toes
Rug burn on the face
Instantly an immeasurable wave
Bodywork to jerk you in a state
Of whiplash left with your
Recuperating loneliness
When all he wanted was
To connect

The sound of seagulls traveling
With ears both on the beach
Now in the streets
Two very different locations
Incomparable temperatures
Similar sensations
Opposite situations
Shadows cast higher
Even at fifty-four people were
Resiliently skipping along
Capable of being childlike
That’s a wake up call
Another jolt to the system

Not at crying status yet
Parked but still running
Icy the cold had almost frozen
His right hand so the tears
Wouldn’t have been wipeable
Most likely they would freeze
On their way down his cheeks
But still not forlorn enough
To feel completely empty
Even though he had picked himself
Up off the floor for saying
Too much once on the farm
Isolation could prevent physical pain

Not having a consistent peace
Seeking comfort in the arms
Of second and third worlds
Made up families where his
Wasn’t always available
Typically running from the
Argumentative states of being

No one knew where the marks
Came from thankfully
The flan still came out pretty good
Attending school the next day
That was his assignment
It was comforting to know that
Some things were still passing