280623A
-----------

We are the prisoners
imprisoned in our best of times
and in our worst of times
to my not knowing you
and you not knowing me
though we would have liked to
if we had any real chance.

We are connected to all the means
that deprive us of connection
according to the usual patterns
knowing we will never actually meet
in any acceptable social situation
involving exchanges of value
that then facilitate communication.

We joined various things
in the hopes of a vague someday
sort of sunshine promise
following local weather reports
so that we could linger somewhere
making regular appearances
under one or another umbrella.

The opening lines are closed
and I do not know your cult
in the ways you do not know mine
even if the taboos are similar
concerning how it is done and said
in advertisements and commentaries
posted to all the common barriers.

You would have wanted me
and I would have wanted you
but that defines the problem
which then defies any solution
leaving various and sundry sorts
of the usual unwantedness
devised to keep us wanting.

Thou shalt not want
is simply the conspiracy
that defies any chance of getting
among high pressure sales pitches
that are pushing anything else
that is being bought and sold
on the ever growing mass markets.

You would have enjoyed me
and I would have enjoyed you
but there is no way to sell that
or to find it on a doorstep
in the in and out of everything else
that is contrived to chance
or to fail to chance the same.

Seems I will not know you
and you will not know me
but we might hear about that
in some of the stories being told
about what might seem possible
but is never actually to be lived
in the way that lives really go.

Seems story tellers know of you
the way story tellers know of me
even when we have no ideas
as to who is telling the stories
that can never really meet
to share in their own story
beyond a cruel chapter and verse.

We would have been better off
as the characters written in
to someone else's fiction
and that was probably the start
as to where we got the idea
that prisoners can actually escape
into alternate lives.

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

290623A
-----------

The only thing that you really know
is that you are not wanted
and all the posters have come down
as to that sort of dead or alive.

There is no vacancy at the top
and you cannot join the circus
leaves you wondering what to do
to actually soothe customary pain.

There is only the forever war
where everyone fights for something
but you are tired of the battles
that never win it for yourself.

You tried for the last exit
only to find it does not get you out
from deeper into the same old trap
when needing a change of venue.

You are the beast and the cage
stretched from the cradle to the grave
poked by cruel keepers
with what it is and what it is not.

There is no turning it around
on an always one way street
but you can follow the signs
to repeating the same old defeats.

A team of the best quacks
has reviewed your pitiful case
so now you are merely horse feathers
made forever out of place.

The needle is an empty prick
and you will never get relieved now
from what becomes your constant
dereliction of stereotypical duty.

You are the same as the leper
other lepers love to condemn
knowing you do not like the lifestyle
and you do not like them.

There are no awards awarded
for having tried to run away
from fundamental afflictions
that come of birth and decay.

You gather up your endless notes
concerning failed experiments
proving the theory is right
about how it all goes wrong.

There is only too strong to win
and too weak to actually lose
any more than a push through
those random cracks of doom.

-------------------------------------
290623B
-----------

Every idea that you ever had
is merely another cripple
pushed around on its wheelchair.

It cannot go anywhere
that someone else does not take it
in the real push and pull of things.

Afraid there will be no one pushing
when you cannot push yourself
the way you did during all those years.

Pushing and pushing to get somewhere
that you could not ever go
but you kept pushing anyway.

Made terrified it would be someone
you cannot stand pushing you around
and being behind you all the time.

Terrifies you of plunging in to anything
including marriage and relationships
that turn you into a displaced fidget.

You tie yourself to something
hoping that it will float
when the sea rushes back in.

You tried to drown yourself
in various and sundry ways
that chanced to become available.

Armies of ants carrying micro doses
parade across your outbreak of flesh
but none of them stops to share.

What you were reaching for
turns into a dead fish
with clocks melting in its blind eyes.

You keep looking for your crutch
but someone took that too
leaving you a lame concept.

The lack of a prop to lean on
to help you pretend that you belong
somewhere in a dismal scene.

Something no one looks at
with any sort of serious look
that might mean anything.

You keep getting beaten up
but you cannot beat anyone
as they throw another punch.

There are no winners circles
where they placed you
to become nothing but bored.

They have told you no one wants
an emptied out idea
in a land of so much substance.

The trash collectors grin at you
as if you are the next bin
on their routine list of pickups.

Someone has taken your soul
so that they could leave you there
to being something breathless.

They want to tear out the drum
from within your chest
knowing no one marches to it.

It is that sort of place
and nowadays every bad trip
is another trip you go alone.

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

290623C
-----------
You are too weak
means you have not chosen nothing
and you still want to put something
into your crummy little space.

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

290623D
-----------

I came down
came all the way down
to the place where you are
but when I came down
you only turned away
laughing at me.

That is what became of love
but it does not matter anymore
I will not come down again
as the ground falls away
from where you are standing
I will not come down again.

I came down
from where I was going
having heard you wanted me
but when I came down
you were never there
so I will not come down again.

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

300623A
-----------

The sky is broken this morning
having spilled itself out
during a disturbed night.

I do not know what to reach for
having caught too much rain
flooding down its ambitions.

Too much has washed away
leaving the roots too exposed
trying to hold on to something.

Life is always trying to hold on
to something that holds on to it
at a harshly tended edge of nothing.

If that is what leads to falling
I know that you will not want
whatever has fallen that way.

You wanted far too much
in wanting the strong and straight
that avoid every type of falling.

You wanted me to fall for you
but you never really wanted me
as you turned into a flame.

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

300623B
-------------

Postman brings the bills
and they get paid on time
but most of life stays the same
feeling that it is postage due
and gone to a dead letter office
as something undeliverable
sent out to an address unknown.

Mostly things get destroyed
having stopped a long way short
of their potential usefulness
and being continual reminders
about how it is with getting older
when you begin to realize the truth
about never getting over it.

You never really ever get over
all those lost opportunities
that you never really ever had
and never really ever have again
but it seemed really wonderful
at the time when it happened
and just before it proved lost.

There is nothing personal
being said in any of that
and I really no longer know
what there is to really say
not wanting to join in
in paraphrasing stray bits
of someone else's bland stories.

Various bits of paper tell me
I cannot afford to fix it
in any of the many ways
that I imagined I could fix it
and you are no real help in that
as I drag my sorry self around
the many adult playgrounds.

It is not worth the money
buying into a depersonalized version
and being titillated by the illicit
varieties of self damage that pretend
to make up for the loss of pleasure
being merely another available form
that contributes similar dissatisfaction.

Knowing that I only got that far
by dreaming of doing much more
as to doing something else seriously
but it never works that way
if anything ever works at all
before the shoddy thing breaks down
to be added to the pile of failures.