mother

mother
walks but is dead
been dead many years
even before her eyesight started going
blaming blindness for her downfall

to her entire life from birth to a walking death of 97 years
she waits
nothing
no expectations
nothing to make her whole
and so it is with her children
two unformed worthless lives
i am one of them
nothing

i, the epitome of nothing
wish i was in the womb and aborted

     

no dog waiting

I always forget that there is no dog waiting at home. Always. And surprised, each time, then saddened, as my expectations vanish, as the air, or the ghosts of dogs past. What is wrong with me?
He is not here, not the last one, or the one before that, or the one before that…but they all hang around, tempting me to believe in their existence. And why not? How comforting, when the wind howls and the rain hits the roof so hard you keep a lookout for leaks, yes, as if they were here, to protect, to comfort. Each time, each and every time, I steep myself in delusions of comfort, safety, blissful ignorance, when there is none.

After the realization…

So you enter your house, put down your keys, head to the stereo, select a jazz CD, get a drink. Does it matter it’s only 2pm? No. Time and wine are independent of each other. Each time you indulge is a new experiment. The first drink you had when the bottle was brought home was sufficient. The second day, also, one drink was sufficient. After that it increased. Two on the third day, three on the fourth day. Today is the seventh day. Today I believe I have lost all hope of maintaining anything resembling a reasonable intake. Today I am about to finish my third glass. Today I have discarded caring, lost all empathy for myself, lost all reasonable connection to the outside. Today, this moment, I am going downstairs to refill my glass.
Heaven help me.

Flesh to Earth

#1
I weep for one who cannot hear
But nonetheless I weep
The tears seep through my hardened heart
Into my swollen breast
Shattering my mind apart
That I may still find rest.

Soldier, ride from battle, ride
Broken mind and soul
Ride until the heavens part
And swallow, one and all.

Weep, weep, weep and then
Turn into the wind
Till rain and tears are one, my love
And flesh to earth becomes.

#2
Loneliness dissolves to tears
Sickness eats my heart
Eyes that sorrow blinds
And the world slips apart.

In death are we not made whole?
For who can say this is not so
Can testify to life beyond
If there be one, then let us go
If there be none, let the dead rest
Free of pain and sorrow’s weariness.

Lament not the passing
Yours draws nearer each hour.

#3
Nearer is mine
So near your asking holds it
Mine, trivial to the world around
Yet
I would dissolve this union of flesh to bone
Could I hold to my resolve
But
Left with promises unfulfilled
Life continues
So seemingly even
Smiles correct
Heart drawn and quartered

Oh, had you not asked!

don’t jump…

political issues aside
there are some things I really can’t hide
though finances are rough
not having a dog
is getting real tough
and depressed is a new state of mind

Missing a Life

To say “miss” is to imply there once was, but I assure you there was not.
Growing up in a morass of mediocrity, accomplishments were relegated to others, and ours was a life marked by others’ needs, a turning of the lamp before dawn, a turning off at night. What happened between was of no consequence.
Nor did it provide satisfaction or mere contentment.
It was but a passing of time till sleep. Sleep, less and less each day, and time grows burdensome.
Fragments of contentment appear and disappear, so subtle that their remembrance lasts not long, insufficient to be recorded.
Which yesterday revealed a moment with the possibility of renewal, satisfaction, meaning, continuity? If there was, it is lost, intangible.

Dream/Wake

Pain

Last night I sent a bus careening, with people calmly going to their death
In my dream
Wrapped in plastic
But that was the second bus
The first hurtled out of control by itself
The first was a ghost
A foretelling of the second
And a third, split in two, suspended in air
And shrink wrapped
With damage control emblazoned on its side
Spun down the corridor after the two.

Then I woke.
Unscathed.

Later.

At 4 in the morning you wake, depressing yourself
At 6:11 it’s not the same.
Two pots of coffee, and you’re almost sane.

Sorrow

Insidious is this sorrow
So many tears to shed
Though laughter fills the air instead
And yet
This sorrow weighs against my chest
And yet
To live a life filled with regret
That tears can never stop the tide
Of sorrow walking by my side.

Underneath their nails and on their skin

Clouded brain
Tears welled and drowned this cheek
Live without life
Vanished and vanquished
Years of delusions
Awakening to nothing
A last knowledge of time wasted and wasting away.

Alcoholic stupor headaches vision blurred
Distasteful renderings of a former life
Senseless heartbreak of minds wasted
He stood above the rest
Reason to walk this ground, this earth, this gift of God
Until the end of days envelops and darkness wins.

Love gone, lone death, lost again

I turn and he is not here
Cannot remember
I stumble time, time and again, the memory jolts me awake
He is not here.

So why I, in pain, do I return home?
Is the bother of living worthwhile?
Cannot you see that all is misplaced?
If not for him, then why?
Myself, I am obscure, irrelevant.
Contributions to the face of man escape the scribe’s pen

Will time erase the pointlessness of days passed in dreary acquiescence?
Pain dulled by daily drink
Drunk by noon-day light
Slumbering till morning light
Pretending that day is night.

Why is existence so perverse that life cannot itself erase
stupidity of man’s footfalls
that deemed by others are acquired of gifts and glories
not deserved
And go beyond the grave
Imbued by all to be the virgin’s gift of glory everlasting?

Wronged, wronged, forever wronged!
Downed, screaming wronged!
Break my soul that I should live beyond this day, this time
Knowing misery creeping through life’s decay
of mind and spirit. Of rot and putrification.

Take kindly or not at all
In this, in that
Your mind it would collapse
But for the curtain drawn and closed
The daily play that would unfold
Is shuttered under hasp.

A thousand cuts

Death by a thousand cuts.
A sweet and gentle wish that you would soon reply
to worried inquiries about your health and happiness.
No one would write as you have done without a fearsome demon lapping at mind, souls’ edge.
Take care, and know that someone waits to wrest those demons, ease a heart constrained by hands unseen, by misconceptions of a life’s reward, of waiting for release from things you were always free from
And so you know I wish to hear your plaintive tones against the winds of nature spread so softly that I would even tread to heaven to release you.

Life, filled with discord

Oh Jane.
Your life, filled with discord, rolls by
A paranoia unprotected
Your life
So convoluted you cannot know
What pain is real and what is not.

Jane, you are a true and beauteous moment
Of god’s own glory and nature’s bliss
Of loves’ lost and loves’ awaiting mist
Of minds beliefs and minds believing grist

You can surrender, though you would not admit
What your own mind tricked to assist
The venomous regions
Of life’s beguiling twists
That you alone have seen the coming end
Of wife and husband
No love, I can assure.

Gone