191022A
-----------

Between news of wars
and the corpse cold ground
there are only the shadows.

All of our false beliefs
to whom it concerns
and better times arranged.

Carefully arranging things
as means to a pretense
that we are still in control.

It includes the furniture
and the placement of objects
wherever it seems right to us.

Settling for a familiar feeling
that unsettles everything
in the forthcoming days.

Something collected together
sidelines of the fast
and gone by into neglect.

A falsetto toned address
to the designated unwanted
pullers at short straws.

Whatever the mission was
it was long ago scrubbed
and no one was debriefed.

Coming from the supermarket
carrying the weekly specials
while counting other scores.

You have mail it says
and you remain hopeful
at trying to sell old lies.

That is all they left for you
that remained marketable
in the light of changing trends.

-------------------------------------

261022A
------------

Only the darkest angels
know any of the truth
because meaning is given
only in the shadows.

You called me up
from where I was sleeping
as if you had a use for me
but I am still waiting.

I can only serve you
if I feel that much desire
as comes from what it is
you always leave out.

Such is the infernal game
we keep playing
chasing each other around
margins of predicaments.

Never quite into it
but submitting as beggars
for the sake of scraps
from foreign experiences.

It could be much more
if you were a brave
little raindrop challenge
to parched ground.

You have made us
no more than vapours
clouding a hazed vision
of a thin version of Earth.

-------------------------------

261022B
------------

Taking our cues
from harsh weather
everything is torn off
and broken apart.

There are so many
possible explanations
though none of them is
what anything is about.

We could enjoy
the times in between
any then and any this
but that would ruin it all.

What would we really be
if we weren't each other's
individual sufferings
followed by the blame.

What is once ruined
is forever ruined again
in all the different ways
that make for ruin.

There are those above us
sure to prevent any good
could ever come about
from our own passions.

Hammer in the stakes
and drive in the nails
holding everything down
until it is too late.

Everything is in flight
from everything else
until gravitational collapse
into a common idea.

Ruined becomes a habit
readily turned customary
to be taken up by strangers
who fail to understand.

I don't understand you
and you don't understand me
but why would you even try to
if there is no profit in it.

------------------------------

311022A
-----------

I became the longing
you did not care to have
so you sought to be rid
of that same feeling.

How stories end
in official annals
editing out portions
of hard core reality.

Forced round identical
sorts of ragged circles
always forbidden
entry into the midst.

The swamp of emotions
that pulls someone in
to a moment of terror
as to never out of it again.

Belittled is the normative
to be accepted and sought
the way bargain items are
at the sale counters.

A living tombstone
grave marker highlights
filling in of detailed
joys and ambitions.

There won't be enough
what it all boils down to
to buy the antidote
for that much frustration.

Those cold hand holds
along a twilight line
where it all goes dark
into a dizzy headless spin.

Our jack-o-lantern faces
gaze across wasteland
payroll days carved
routine expressions.

Ghosts and ghouls
comprised various bit
parts of former selves
ratchet strain of memories.

You can hear it snap
when something breaks
at the conclusion of a rag
doll animation.

We are the demonized
proselytized and chained
hunched bell ringers
in toil's cathedrals.

Scratching at revulsion
to claw a way out
from going under into
the drowned out drift.

Can't scratch a way out
from where they force you
to continue to kill time
and pay for that privilege.

------------------------------

011122A
------------

Being just another bore
you thought nothing of
I put aside whatever it was
that I once believed
someone else would want.

Maybe it was what I lost
so carelessly along the way
or maybe it was what I have
collected up to put aside
while made and unmade.

It feels like nothing now
same as when I began
at neither remembered
nor anything to recognize
and only passing through.

I do not know what it was
but I know I do not have it
having looked for it
in secret and forgotten places
as if to really find something.

They took away the spaces
that I used to like to fill
and I no longer know
where it is anymore
that anyone can find anything.

It isn't what you think
and it isn't what you wanted
but it felt like something
that really never was
past hunted and haunted.

Each of us a forever look
for our special something
never there for having
until the end goes down
to pull apart and away.

Best to forget it all
once seemed memorable
leads to nothing but away
it goes and knowing
all the wrong reasons.

------------------------

011122B
-----------

There was a world
that I wanted to be in on
but it is all gone now.

I didn't catch it
and it fell entirely apart
into a million pieces.

Maybe we imagined
then shared our stories
trying to prove it real.

It has been many years
since I have met anyone
whom I believe was there.

No one leaves a message
in the old mailbox
about how it used to be.

The replicas come and go
being vaguely familiar
to what we thought we knew.

There are fragments of film
that we are being told
are the real documents.

It is too unbelievable
the world so cruel
as to become that different.

---------------------------------

011122C
-----------

I woke up unexpectedly
in the wrong dream
wanting to find a way
to get out of it again.

I thought I had chosen
a different scene
where something happens
the way I really wanted.

It isn't really mine
and I have no real idea
as to who left it here
for me to suffer.

Tired of never knowing
what to actually do next
outside an always long list
of essential but futile acts.

I am still waiting
for someone to find me
whom I do not feel a need
to keep hiding from.

I can imagine in my mind
what that feels like
but I am no longer certain
that it is actually possible.

-------------------------------

011122D
-----------

I have no idea today
about how it really is
knowing nothing
is as it seems.

Turning off the news
as its punishment
for being misleading
and the weather obscure.

We have lost touch
what seems eons ago
in a primordial mash up
of distorted segments.

It was a mosh pit
crowded with random
ideas and feelings
all getting carried away.

Nothing in common
beyond an ingestion
of common facts
mixed with neutral filler.

Something that passes
for polite conversation
in midst the receiverships
of social bankruptcies.

There isn't any interest
remains to be shared
beyond poking at death
with sharpened sticks.

Going it alone
being far too expensive
a fatal proposition
but it is all we have got.

I cannot stand you
and you cannot stand me
but we are no longer forced
into a 9 to 5 get along.

I thought I could be freed
to someone else differently
but I am not there yet
and my clock is running out.

----------------------------------

011122E
-----------

Sky blue and bright light
means I could wander
the far lengths and breadths
of a same isolation.

Pacing lengths and breadths
of whatever defined space
pushing up against its walls
in any here and now.

Following fence lines
marked off boundaries
concerning what goes on
over on some far side.

Here that is nowhere
other than familiar
sheltering of arrangements
turned into rejected invites.

They never came through
so we shuttered it all
realizing something cruel
about all such boundaries.

It does not really matter
who invites or who responds
in the finality of outcomes
leading to abandonment.

Some might put blame
on some dereliction of duty
and any other sorts of shame
but it is never that simple.