Friday, January 31, 2020

20200131.0430

Sweating under the mortarboard
Wobbling legs stumbling under jiggling bloat
Inner ear shot to shit for all its functions
Blithely bumbling forward for a bit longer
Seeing nothing in its path because
It does not bother to look and so
Marks not the pitfall
Just ahead
Let it fall

Thursday, January 30, 2020

20200130.0430

The threadbare curtain falls to a sound like applause
Whistling and thundering
With louder claps sounding out at odd intervals
The players hide behind it, and
Sad technical workers still have to
Bend to their tasks
Yet in the wake of the performance ended
There is new life and pleasure to be found
Even if a flood outpoured worked first to sadness
But it is ever thus

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

20200129.0430

That I stand as Janus
Does not mean that I see well with
Four eyes uncorrected
And two pairs of spectacles
Would attract attention I
Can little bear

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

20200128.0430

A foggy morning gave way to
Balmy temperatures under blue, clear skies, and
While I am glad of easy weather in itself, I
Worry for what it promises of the
Coming months, and I
Wonder if the Hill Country will follow the Outback when
Next Aestas dances here, or
If she will flee instead before
The wrath of an older goddess returned to
Find her home infested by place and wriggling parasites
Will the virgin's flow continue,
Promising life to come,
Or will its source and ours be shut against
The ire of some sun god
My tongue cannot name?

Monday, January 27, 2020

20200127.0430

O, praise the black brew
For what it can do
For me and for you!
It carries us through
What all we must do
In joy or with rue
Alone or with crew!

Sunday, January 26, 2020

20200126.0430

The team of oxen struggles
Yoked tightly together and to a
Wagon laden with the detritus of years and
Passengers who should have disembarked decades since
But cling on to some semblance of relevance
As they strip out other seats and cast them aside
For the promise of coin
Unfulfilled
The lowing castrated cattle
Slowly sink into the mire of their own ordure
But I have slipped my tethers
And even if it is a struggle to free myself from
That muck
And even if I will always have the stains of it on my skin
The stink of it in my nostrils
The taste of it in my mouth
Because being surrounded so makes a coprophage of anyone
Whether they open their mouths or not
Finding firmer ground is good.

Saturday, January 25, 2020

20200125.0430 "Inspired by a Box"

A pail perched perilously above a door
A chair pulled out from under a descending ass
Cellophane stretched across
A cubicle door, holding back balloons
Or across toilet bowls
Cans filled with springs
Have been the delight of a
God less stupid
Less malevolent
Than bored and venial
But far more now does that god find praise
In texted-out duck-yous

Friday, January 24, 2020

20200124.0430

Shall I be Ouranos to your Gaea
Pour out what life-giving fluid I have upon
Your fertile fields and rolling hills
Whence it drips down into valleys
Gathers into streams
And ends up salty, filled with things
That swim?

Thursday, January 23, 2020

20200123.0430

A thudding drum
Not resonant though seeming sometimes hollow
Echoes with words long since spoken
Their sibilants and stops still sounding
A fundamental too often dissonant
Augmented fourth or diminished fifth
From the chords I seek to strike
The melody I ineptly play

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

20200122.0430 "Inspired by One Hussar"

He said
"Let the water god eat away the material realm
Or something"
And I searched out that something
Some other destruction than the flexing, gaping maw
Blood rising and falling with the work of the moon
Swallowing untold ages of people's works
Beasts that never saw the light of day
Sand and stone and stranger things
That may lie drowned, dead, dreaming
I found much
In presence and in absence
As the Antipodes attest
Like any god, the water god
Is not one to pray to for solace and succor
For in its absence is death
But when it returns
It returns in force
And its return is death, too
Raging in a risen river
Or in the slow and steady dripping of
A pipe poorly placed
The smaller part of the mouth of Jormungandr
Girdling the world to swallow it again

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

20200121.0430

Looking over a list of names
Looking at the corpses that lie under
No work of worm or wind and rain upon them
No moldering as they linger
Never made whole
Their open bodies and faces never finished
Gaping, staring eyeless
Left where they were cast aside
Never to be tended
Abandoned to the pursuit of others
Ragged, ruined, rejected lives
Never begun
Oh, well.
I have other work to which to tend.

Monday, January 20, 2020

20200120.0430

The time approaches.
It can be seen.
In but a year,
If we are here,
We'll get to see
If we should flee
Across the sea
And seek new land.
We understand
That the command
May well demand
We take a stand,
But we well know
That what we show
Can stand few blows
That others throw,
Not with fists, no.
We can scarce go
Against that flow;
We'd feed the crow.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

20200119.0430

Much yet needs mending that has been broken
And much needs to be discarded that is broken and
Cannot or will not be repaired
Such things can still injure
Feet can catch in holes where
Structures that should support have
Fallen away
Hands can be cut upon
Ragged edges unattended
And there remain many who will seek to do harm
Who will seek to elevate themselves by
Cutting others down like trees and
Standing upon the scaffolds built from that lumber
Grinning
Perhaps
As they place the noose
Thinking it the ribbon of a medal
Some honor
I can hope to see such coming and
Harden my bark against the bite
Blunt the blade that would else sink deeply

Saturday, January 18, 2020

20200118.0430

We exhumed him
The professor I had once envisioned
Confirmed that he is dead
He was not stillborn
He drew a few breaths
Screamed
Defiance and
Outrage and
Shock and
Fear
But lapsed into a coma before he could walk
And I was long in the process of
Pulling from his cooling corpse the
Tubes and
Needles that
Kept his heart beating
Feebly
Blood sluggishly oozing through his veins
Going through the boxes that had been
Gathered for him
Showed some things we had thought lost
Cookbooks with recipes
Particularly fondly recalled
Old methods books for saxophones played
Ineptly then as now
Tchotchkes and bookmarks
Bringing smiles to faces among
The grimaces of old dust
And the occasional dead roach
We keep a few mementos of him
Things chosen to retain
Not kept anymore from the inertia of
Nearly twenty years of
Life often spent badly
And we are happier for it

Friday, January 17, 2020

20200117.0430

A miner, I
Drilled down a bit
Seeking treasure
I buried mine
Instead and left
Another approached where
I had sunk in from
Another way
Opened the chamber
Retrieved the treasure I had
Unknowingly buried
But come to treasure later
I have held that treasure
Close since, but I
Will let it go
Someday

Thursday, January 16, 2020

20200116.0430

I used to try to ride for the brand
Even though I hadn't a stake in it
But them as own it
Have a blast on the bang for their buck
And if they can buck a rider
And still move the herd
They'll do it in a hurry
And leave 'em choking on the dust

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

20200115.0430

To serve the Stupid God unknowing can,
For those who seek atonement, be forgiven,
But all too many serve it as their plan
And would see others to that worship driven,
See them from a fairer prayer be riven
And in their tears and screams take their delight.
To such, no mercy should ever be given,
For kindness and compassion are not rights.
It is not fear that bids us take from sight
The putrid mess, to cast ordure away.
It is not fear alone that bids us fight,
But also hope to find a better way,
And knowing that it will not be through play
That we may Stupid God’s effects allay.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

20200114.0430

I have stood outside where I grew up
Seen across the fence and through the window
Watched as what would have been a bough grown strong
And heavy with sweet fruit, abundant seed
Bent and broken and bared of its bark
Become a bludgeon to leave bruises that never heal
Should I look to my own hand
Would I find it clasps a cudgel
Its grain darkened from the oil of a grip long held on it
And grime not shared with Ellen Terry's Sargent role
But no more subject to being scrubbed away
The line where once the branch grew straight and true
Marred and dented from where it has swung
And where its swings have stopped too suddenly?
What marks have I left on flesh
As yet otherwise unblemished
Whether with purpose to cause pain or
Idly waving about, not bothering to check my backswing
Or, indeed, what lies before me,
Seen no more than empty air?

Monday, January 13, 2020

20200113.0430

That those who serve the Stupid God will fail
To recognize the price of their travail--
Its kind, its reach, its grasp, its scope and scale--
Is no surprise. They are the sort who heed
Stupid God's lies, who think they do not need
To think about where thoughts and actions lead,
And so they are surprised when their desire
Returns and burns their hearts as searing fire,
Casts their wants upon a raging pyre
And eats the ash. Who evil's root will eat
Should not much start that others take that treat
From those they claim themselves to love, or bleat,
Like goats, they find themselves to be betrayed,
Since they but suffer that which they have made.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

20200112.0430

The quiet seems to have returned at last.
As celebrations fade into the past,
We are into the normal rhythms cast
Of life, and we can play again in time,
In common meters, old patterns of rhyme
That shape our thoughts that touch not the sublime,
But in the daily drudge again us mire.
Even now, though some may still aspire
To lofty goals, they towards them climb no higher
Than they already are, and many fall,
Demanded answer to quotidian call,
And such will be the fate of nearly all,
Though some few will succeed in their intent.
But more of us are otherwise long bent.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

20200111.0430

Too much of me bleeds over onto her.
She should not have to bind my wounds;
I am supposed to be the medic of her heart,
Holding her together until
She can find her own healing
And better.
Yet I see the stains already that
I have left upon her;
They sink in and set,
And I cannot scrub her enough to
Rid her of them without
Rending her worse.
That it is ever thus,
I am certain;
My own skin shows the marks upon it of
Such scouring,
Such discoloration from the hurts of others
Overflowing.

Friday, January 10, 2020

20200110.0430

People flatter themselves that
They lived lives before
Enjoyed exalted station in lands far away
In times far gone
And perhaps some did
But if they did
They also did
And far more besides
Live lives of toil and torment
Backs bent to burdens others imposed
Not so different from now
But who will look back in later years
To now for the noble?

Thursday, January 9, 2020

20200109.0430

Today marks a decade of marital bliss
And I love you, dear wife, no less now than then.
What else I can say, I know not, than this:
I'm glad that we wedded; I'd do it again.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

20200108.0430

Rise to the occasion when
Exploring hills and valleys
But do not rush in
Because hastening to explore a cave
Means missing the glories of what surrounds
And leaving a partner behind
Who might otherwise come again

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

20200107.0430

Whining in the lobby
Confusedly filling out forms for a class
She should but will not take
And it seems to be Tuesday again

Monday, January 6, 2020

20200106.0430

Put into prison to pay for his folly
Festered in filth and fought against cleaning
Doer of deeds in the dark across years
His brother's the bad one, bane of house-peace.
Akin to Cain, and cursed therefore,
Wandered once through wetlands to plains,
Home to the hills in hard times returned,
An arm to be offered on no altar
Though sacrificed, spent, for songs to endure.
A mother, a mere-wife, a monster still waits
A sword standing by, awaiting its stroke.
Whose is the hand that will take up that handle
Bring blade to bear?

Sunday, January 5, 2020

20200105.0430 "Sibilants"

Stands the staid and stolid man
Solid often silent sentinel
Seeing others seek to soar above the
Sinking, stinking, sneaking world around them
Surety for their search and its success

Saturday, January 4, 2020

20200104.0430

They say that this, too, shall pass
As if it were merely a bit of gas
Released from and rattling the cheeks of an ass
Echoing briefly and stinking a bit
But it is instead a pile of shit
That lingers and festers and makes decrepit
The floor where it sits and it stains

Friday, January 3, 2020

20200103.0430

With pants dropped down around his knees
And little dangling in the breeze
He stumbles awkwardly to seize
His people by the throat
But if he jumped up from the head
Those who would pilot instead
He still much seems to have misread
The sinking of his boat

Thursday, January 2, 2020

20200102.0430

If they would fuck themselves alone
I'd gladly say "to each their own"
And go about my day
But they decide to fuck me, too
Despite that I don't want to do
Things in quite that way
I try to push back, try to fight
But that just adds to their delight
And helps not, anyway

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

20200101.0000

And so, we've reached another year.
Despite desires, we're still here
And look ahead with little cheer
And little hope that we'll get clear
Who paid attention, recall last year.
We'll fight again, anew, oh, yes,
Slog on through the rising cess
That some would drink and think them blessed,
And even if we fail that test,
We'll not give up; we'll fight, oh, yes.