Life on rails

To spend your life moving inexorably in a given direction and, to come there by pains slow and steady, is no trivial thing. Our anxieties define themselves silently along these paths and give birth to paralyzing fears when the destination is upon us. The choice of a life on rails is not “what will I do?” but rather, “what will I do when I get there?”

I unmask myself in the face of fear
through the simple act of removing my
glasses.  
My vision gives shape to the world but
It also animates my anxieties, rendering
Them with a permanence and livelihood
That’s ugly to me.
It’s not a shameful act, but it has a perverse
Incongruity –
Freedom through a degrading sense.
Breadth at the expense of focus.

If ever there were a theme of my life, 
This is it.

Projections

Single file, like in the native's way
to hide numbers and mourn in a slow peace.

The leftover and forward
once again make sign to a favorite son.

They pause and worship a clay idol,
as much contrite as devoted.

Forgive me friend their eyes say,
"I was not there".

Or, forget me friend,
"There was more than I could handle".

The idol responds to the
deep wishes of their heart,

projecting back upon the somber
all that they desire.

They will carry now a piece,
each a piece of the pain

and nurture a wound in proportion
to what their projection's demand.

Indebted

When once I approach a bridge
I mount my fear by extending my hand,
as I did with my father years ago.
We approached a grated expanse

and I implored he catch me should I fall.
Safely then on the other side,
he having held me the entire way,
I knew I was forever indebted.

I still don't like bridges
and I don't like admitting
that something scares me,
but I hate that debt most of all.

Raise eyes

To raise eyes,
maiming ageless weight
and expectation.
It is the inevitable rebellion
of appreciation.

It is worth it...
To curse the eye and
to press the light.

And when the 
wanton nothing
bristles as 
boldness refuses the lash...
Oppression?...
He remains the liar 
we despise.

Resignation to a certain fact

It's intrepidity,
is resignation to a certain fact.
But it's haunting, too.

A countenance negated,
when for once a blank stare lives
as the mind in that moment,
with all blood let
and costly service rendered.

There is no roadmap for spells
concluding enduring sagas,
and the intrepid know that.

I'll admire from afar
and wonder on the strength of
those survivors as they quarter
amid the spent minefield.

They might say there is
no strength in tattered ends,
	all life is a process
	of will and action.

They might say that standing still
in the face of the unmitigated
is an admission of human frailty.

Respectively, I say:
	Let me admire.
	Let me reflect.

Stillness is strength

especially in the hour of the unmitigated.

Flirty bird

I fought this poem the entire way and, as usual, the poem won:

The chirp of the flirty bird curls lightly on the flesh--
and they who hear 
absorb the vibrant end
of the birdy's sonic thread.
Apart from the howl
and hoot,
in a parcel of ample space,
the sweet bird embraces
a rhythmic tufted bop
and binds the living race.

Sinful suplex

Please enjoy my humble attempt at verse:

When wilted, wills collide
and flesh tones sound unceasingly
in love's great unknown.
Sinful suplex, where harm's slayed,
caught enraptured
with limp limbs splayed.

Post riders and chariots of desire
bed down.
Ceasing shame
prior to well-earned rest,
wilted now only in name.

daily constitution

Embrace the body's natural longing for a happy norm.
It's the way a step takes place, a collected pacing
that is alluring and energized...
And all resistance against the untimely death of a
leisure lap.

I've sworn an oath to uphold in subjective tones,
but the worthy object is the daily one.
It is the one that mends in cascades of introspection,
and owes itself to itself as pride would without
the taint of sin.

The happy norm is
the utopian sense of bounding unobstructed
and it moves on and on in this sullen world.

My friend

     Yes he saw him
     and knew his intentions.
     Yes,
     Yes, of course there 
     is an anxious flush.
     Handsome faces force
     their way into
     memories with a
     blinding speed.

Sweats breed
themselves
like fruit flies
across the faint 
worry lines of
his face.

     He steps on 
     high achievement
     like a laden stone,
     pronouncing something
     unintelligible,
     like it's 
     history's forgotten
     place mat.

All these indiscretions
and distractions 
that agitate him
to no end.
To no end.
That's the puzzling
part of it all.

     Sitting and hoping
     on some,
     while others he bare
     wrestles and bleeds
     dry.


Is this a coherent
picture of a man?
Is this a man who
prizes a coherent
picture of himself?

This man is my friend
and these words are
all the best I can do.

Truth, poor truth

There's no reward in the unadorned truth.
It stuns the nerves, levels pillars,
and suffers manipulations.

Truth, poor truth.
-the unfortunate recompense of the aesthete.
-a bane to cozy pleasantries.

Point your light plain truth, 
toward the fog of human folly.
Be the agent of our salvation.

the Vapors

We'd get so high,
project the foolish
and let the vapors
run us ragged.
Our incantatory 
howling an
extension of
iridescent smoke
plumes.
Parched and
pining, we'd
sip sublimonade
from circus spouts
and own up to
the awful,
as our tempers 
would allow.

The act of
incinerating
barriers
lovers never
broach is wild
work.
Those days are
of a kind
safer minds 
may never know. 

Wishing when

I spent my life
wishing when,
that spell whistling
at my heart.
A tug,
a tear,
and all the frosty drag it holds.

That bitter cold
a balm that numbs,
and reflecting
that a feeling
is more than
some quiet alone.

I accept that
ever after is
nevermore;
these things ourselves
tell us
that then shed
rhythmically asunder.

Each beat is a probe.
Our heart,
it's faithful prole.

And tomorrow,
as well as
all to follow,
will the frigid
beg for friction
and I beg alike?

Unearned burden

Let no being carry the unearned burden, 
rife with the compaction of endless wrongs.
Hoisted on hollow and growing bones,
forcing their shape into something hideous.

This hellish load,
wrought of all those wrongs.

To be

To be, to be,
that poor weakness,
to be.
Starting each day anew seeking to be,
but starting with deficits.
And so,
being only harshly.
Farther down that road will they travel
until being is defined by the detestable. 

To be devoid of fear or never to be at all.

That curious she

That curious she, lithe and in peace.
Wielder of favor --
        her influence one with the power of fitful beauty.

She's afore me now.
And through her will bound in supposition,
enchanting on wings of fortnight fancy.
While intensely convulsive during her
paternal rituals;
I, the target of her amorous charge,
am infected.

With her shadowy gaze she states:

Dispense with your grace dear,
for sweet speed owns this union.
Tomorrow, as yesterday, brings new light and love.

Stay regret, however, and stay passion.
Brevity and honesty will the heart to
a calm repose.

Starting line wonders

So I stopped and sat still 
as I saw the prime commence,
And wondered on the possession
of so serious a fact.

     the act presupposes an end.

See, 
the mighty legs of 
the many runners 
fatigue upon the chase.
The object lesson for all concerned?

     they run awfully hard in place.

Envy her

Envy her,
     seated quiet comfort?
The rigid
     fixed in fashion
          to extend meaning.
At pains, conspiring,
     but bent on appreciation
          for all things them (us?).
Would that work
     and worry were
          beneficent bonds.
A recourse to rigidity
     would arouse such hope.
As is, all days
     tar quiet comfort
          an ungrateful lot.

Tiny jealousies?

I wrote this piece in the spirit of fun, however, the more I read it the more it rings true.

Crab!, Shakespeare, faceless man.
He is not a hero, but an ideal.
The reservoir of all our dreams.
The dream of the pen wielder
and key striker and notator
and all others who observe and record.

Lazy Sunday

We would cuddle often
together in mutual admiration,
each inspired by the other.
Plastered off our desire
and nuzzling comfort to
avoid the day.

Well, what of places to go
and things to see?

We break once or twice
but a cold vacuum stills
the air and harms the void.
No, no, no..we won't leave
this; there's none other.
What a picture of the future,
this present, an idea
I'd put into song.

I hope that we might sing
this song together,
and let it echo through 
the chambers of our hearts.

Hearty hammer

Stripped bare before life's gentle cadence,
sucked dry and laid limp in deference to silent rigor
lives a shell of a man;
a hearty hammer brought to heel.
Once pronouncing distant dreams,
folly's seeker floats unencumbered swiftly
to a sleep.
The proving ground of plenty
and giving ground to those who purchase pardon.
These battles having spent themselves
upon the concourse of the day,
a man may rest
delightful in his stunning vulnerability.