Into The Subjunctive

Adjectively speaking;
Your place or mine?
Eyes careening in depth—
I line your profile into the divine.

Verbing strives insistent;
Efforting to the new day:
P’haps time for some laundry.
He coughs, I think, we say.

Nouns are overwrought;
Clasp this aging hand.
Child graduates and works,
Writing promises in the sand.

Present so imperfect:
Get your damn shot!
Why bleach your mask?
Nicole gives it all she’s got.

Is the past really simple?
Comment-allez vous?
The earthling hopes for answers,
But priest, poets, and politicians never ever speak true.

Grammatically challenged
While Logic Impaired.
The World spins on axistically.
If you ask me, we’re all scared.

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Running Away (No One Knows)

Running away
Running hard
Getting away is not in the cards
FAILURE looms
Failure grows
My loss is mine
In verse or prose
Hunger for release
Hunger for the answer
The way out
Any way to get away
Not enough burgundy
Not enough merlot
Can’t find the reason
Can’t find the door
What’s to become
Of the knowing heart now so old
In a recumbent species no longer bold
The problem’s all sewed up by ten o’clock
And the problem tarries not for sand or rock
Where to go
When the tears end
where to hug when no one turns a face
Who am I and why am I here
Dying in the cold and the dark is just one thing I fear
The scars from the bars with their jars of disdain
Who gives a damn about the yarn rotting in the falling rain
So small the plans I plan to ply
Given half a chance ten times I’ll try
Make proud the child who still grows
Despite the warning No One Knows

Shouldna (c’est la vie)

Shouldna kissed her fast
Shouldna thrown that glass
Shouldna taken the road less traveled
Shouldna known to let it all pass
Shouldna went along
Shouldna stayed up all night
Shouldna trusted to chance
Shouldna let her pass from all sight
Shouldna made my point
Shouldna made it hard stick
Shouldna thought it’d all work out
Shouldna been quite so dammed thick
Shouldna trusted to luck
Shouldna gone to ground
Shouldna flown to LA
Shouldna left the lost and found
Shouldna quit my job
Shouldna ever let her go
Shouldna mustered out
Shouldna did so much blow
Shouldna listened to the gods
Shouldna listen to the Oh So Wise
Shouldna left New Orleans
Shouldna slammed shut both my eyes
Shouldna been born when I was
Shouldna believed in the mardi gras
Shouldna drown in the sorrow
Shouldna disbelieve in the power of tomorrow

A Different Truth

False leads, false steps,
False love
Leading to devastating effects

Round about now
I haven’t a clue
Round about know
I really miss you
Round about now
The sky is growing dim
Round about now
I’d bet you’re dancing with him

Happy times, happy days
Happy pills
Rewriting how this all plays

Round about now
Things begin to rhyme
Round about now
I’ve forgotten the time
Round about now
I’d take a second glass
Round about now
Sanity takes a pass

Rock stars, rock songs
Rocky relations
Yielding a space that prolongs

Round about now
The page is full
Round about now
It’s all a buncha bull
Round about now
The whole world is getting high
Round about now
Time to type goodbye

False leads, false steps,
False love
Sowing old devastating effects

Another Monday

Blossoming Southern belles—
Plastic as far as you can see.
Sooner or later the truth
Makes itself plain,
More or less eventually.

Travel over the old road,
Hope against hope for happiness new,
But find you’ve returned home
Spitting at the gods—
Chagrined through and through.

Gambling for a maybe,
Hopelessly hoping we young
At heart, we’re quite hopeful.
Why climb the campanile
Seeking a bell yet unrung?

Two storms amangling,
A third fluffs in the wings.
Furbabies tied to trees;
O soft fear strangles us all.
How Stupidity wretchedly stings!

Another Monday looms,
We will all try to do our best.
Be happy and healthy,
Be safe and remain free.
In the end we will all pass this Zen test.

Just Wanna Go Home

Dead sons of Abraham
3 by 3 in the ground
Take me home
Unloved furbabies
Unclaimed in the pound
Take me home
White House shake up
Wiped the slate clean
Get me home
Peninsula missiles aiming
Making for an aloha obscene
Get me home
It’s the Age of Incompetence—
No one’s in charge
The media will surely report
With Veracity, by-and-large
Just wanna go home

Answer True

My lady asks
Have any fairy wings?
My lady asks
For the most strangest of things
How is your breathing?
Have you any pain?
My lady makes such inquiries
Again and again and again
My lady walks
Toward sunrises and sunsets
My lady talks
About lost causes and yesterday’s sure bets
Have you made your plans?
Have you made your peace with goodbye?
My lady bravely faces a future
When it will be her turn to let herself cry
My lady asks
Have you any fairy wings?
My lady asks
For the most wondrous of things
How are you?
How are things going?
My lady shares her heart
With a love that’s flowing and flowing and flowing

Across Audubon Park

Now I’ve become old
Time has passed and taken hold
Down to the plain nitty gritty
From now on things won’t be so pretty
At least that’s what I’m told

Now I’m taken ill
The future promises a different thrill
Taken to bed feeling low
No one speaks about how this’ll go
Where did I file that Living Will?

Now the days have grown dark
What once was passion is the barest spark
Take my things I need them no more
I’ve deeper mysteries ahead to explore
Sprinkle the remains across Audubon Park

Now I lay me down to slee….

Go On

The guilty aren’t all punished,
The guilty aren’t all caught,
And life goes on,
Like as not.

The innocent aren’t all saved,
The innocent aren’t all freed,
And life goes on,
Ponderous, without heed.

Chords round, all in a tumble.
Broken bass lines oft fumble;
And life goes on,
All Nature in a jumble.

The deserving aren’t all rewarded,
The deserving aren’t all relieved,
And life goes on,
If such is to be believed.

The worthless aren’t all discarded,
The worthless aren’t all reprieved,
Life goes ever on,
Howsoever we are aggrieved.

Music can find the immaterial,
Poems can manifest the ethereal,
Life’s symphony then finds the coda :||
And we all go on, whether true or venal.

Gratitude

Somewhere between the pain and the passion,
And the lies we tell ourself,
From “Hey, let’s go for it” on the way to
“Leave it on the shelf;”
When at last we lay me down to sleep
Did you take time to savor the flowers?
Did all your efforts lead to the Good?
Were less taken paths worth the long lost hours?
Meanwhile, Grandma floats in hospice,
She can’t hold onto your name,
But her late smile traces the eternal-
She’s always glad you came.