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 7th 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
