New Recaps for a old September

September update- Shameless self-promotion. Selections from Retread Rubbereden 2020- Stop me if you heard this one

Report From The Dysfunctional World

 

Everyone keep their distance

until you get your reply

Soft eye soak in fear and gutless inaction.

Lost in the dessert of simple desert.

Too much sand bag dune fake out lost in translation

 

But make an effort

so all your best intentions can be invalidated.

By our inattention and opulence in absentia,

and judged reason for huge jury, clear perfect perjury or

otherwise the ineffectual loose bowls of being under oath.

 

She sauntered in the bar;

sure of herself, as far as it went

suggesting, “I am a whirlwind of dysfunction

and you are my emotional pack mule.”

 

Everyone looked in different neutral corners

finding no beast of Bourbon

searched for frame of reference,

and critical precedent for general easement.

 

Chemical dependence would be a sort of preferred

problem solving technique in lieu of that hard core

asshole that insisted upon being difficult and displaying

perplexing facial expressions and tone of voice in some

vague way suggested that they had actually lived to some end

How annoying!

Let my world shrink into a hard round ball of my

own limited sphere.

Bounce me.

But only so far.

And be done with it.

 

                                                                                  -1991 Retread RE 2020

*

Behind your Mask 2020

In Dragon Speak

These days

We look at others

Through ugly eyes

And hear each other

In dirty ears.

And terrible now

We seldom see anybody’s face

Anymore just the same ole

Adverted glance and distance

Social prophylactics protocol

Six feet apart above or under the grave.

 

Back in those days of wine and roses, you thinking going

creating custom voice commands for text and graphics

editor to flawed expectations based on

Larynx Malapropism

to be able to work on certain angles

the collection of memory

wild intangibles sowed past seeds

1918- 1945-2001-2020

 

A Plague on their own-

-for Virginia Wolfe & Emily Dickerson

 

Emily preferred to stay home anyway

While Virginia driven besides herself

To the Shelters in the underground

As the bombs fell.

 

How quickly the moment passes

As the pendulum swings in a few

people that should be lightning bolts

like they swing by you

when you least expect it to strike the minute

with those that return to you hopefully banking hours

ignoring thunder future

 

Transformation

 

East 7^th street

Quarantined

Deserted

No beer at the Coal Yard/International Bar

No Pizza at Iggy’s

That blessed Cheeseburger

At Paul’s on the corner of St. Marks ?

Not a chance.

Gone with Wind

Like it was axed from HBO canceled culture

 

So who was that person who took you once

to where you always wanted to be  ?

on the page

on the sidewalk

like so much unbridled heart gift

with a mind that has a voice of its own

A rented room in your heat

 

So is it ?

polarized time

polarized time pulverized after the fact

every third word repeats the code

as a virus for Iris- my daughter

 

when here in this terrible now

we measure our days

in coffee spoons like Prufrock

We started this March in place

Treading water

Into mud

Wishing for fins

Or at least gills

 

While all the terra forma of the earth

Fails to support us as so much top soil

Until the finish

When we return to a long dirt nap

With the worms in a polystyrene submarine

 

So just maybe he is reminding you slowly still in the terrible now

not making much sense in Newspeak

 

Grief is done

barking up the wrong tree

We have a new tree now

We are reaping the harvest of Stark Reality

 

We  have done our time

paid pretty good respectively

 

I still think we getting off

rather mercifully. This Time

 

But there is cosmic sucker punch on deck

Next time we get both barrels at once

We will stand and take it

At that time being both strong and weak

as the flesh and spirit are bound to be

 

Yes the sails shredded

Rutter shattered

the tide came and went

leaving us

thinking of that day

when we were extinguished

like red flames in the rain.

 

When we never had the guts or heart

To say it to each other

face to face to end our dance

without the mask

when we still had the chance.

 

Retread Rubbereden 2020

July 2020