Under the Influence

 

Color blooms all so slowly
in this foggy existence
though if you believe 
the myriad of excuses
from the bot influencers
they will tell you
the grayish hue 
is all an illusion 
crafted by monochrome fools
of relentless dimness

and hard ass persistence

Nothing says we have to listen

Though too often we do

A flaw unique to our species

Head Bangers Ball

 

Here in Frustration
we've got serious complications

Our issues now roll
totally self sustaining
and immune to viable solutions

Of course there's no filter
or volume restrictions
on those who bring the whine

So to appease
the increasingly uppity
Complaint Department
those in charge have created
the illusion of action
with numerous
half ass programs being applied
to the blips now deeply ingrained
in our soul less defective machine

Like everything else

in this soon to be closed

performative production

it's all an ass covering veneer

Cause any realistic chance of a fix
would be like slapping an infected band aid
on this oozing pus filled wound
we let fester too long

Best to take a bite
of our collective
Mea Culpa sandwich
and wash it down
with toxic consequence

Knock Knock

 

When the call goes forth
to crack some skulls
under that ancient guise
of national security
be damn well sure
you see through
their propaganda lies

Cause history
over and over again
has shown 
this much to be true:

Today when you rationalize
and look away
while denying
what your eyes
have already seen
it's a fool's dream
the storm we let in
will blow on by

That uneasy sense
when tomorrow breaks
your door is destined to be
blown down
by the big bad wolf
and its infamous
Homeland Security crew
who when the winds shift
will come
knock knock
knocking
for your now designated
subversive Enemy of the People door

Silence is a blank check 

The Empty Wall

 

Like an unfinished painting
frozen in time
I could not love her fully
the way she deserved

No artist could ever do justice

to her exquisite beauty 

nor ever complete
her complex countenance

of beautiful sadness

There was just no connection

with those elusive lines

Leaving this chapter

an unfinished masterpiece
forever ingrained

in the extensive gallery

of my "what could have been"

imagined relationships

Find the Light

 

With every passing day
Truth has its way
with critical mass certainty

Burrowing through the lies
one deception at a time
as the masters of said bullshit
desperately try to bail
the rising factual tide
from their rapidly sinking ship

One by one the sheep
will be liberated
as we welcome these lost souls
back to the fold
with a great sense of relief

Not damnation
or bitter condemnation
toward our brothers and sisters
who were duped to stray

Let the verdict of history
have the final say
and let the Law
have its way
with the architects
of today's national nightmare

Label this as a lesson learned

as we move forward

toward the dream

we were meant to be

Peep Show Revue

 

Bumping and grinding
to a naughty symphony
playing just for us
on a buffet table top

Now tap dancing on the dessert tray
much to the outraged chagrin
of the owners of this snooty establishment

We should have stopped
and probably would have
if not for the spectator enablers
cheering us exhibitionists on

Dancing outside the boundaries
of proper moral propriety
in forbidden free zones
these repressed drones
can only dream of
as they for a moment lived through
us now incarcerated freaks vicariously

They will all run back
to their staid cookie cutter existence
and regale their zombie tribe
with the tale about the night
the circus came to town

Pulp Subtraction

 

The final bookshelf
has been removed

The fire sale is complete

Time for the illiterate state
to bulldoze the last library standing
to make way
for yet another
butt ugly wifi tower

The scenic busting trade off

so he can now stream our porn

without jack off inhibiting buffering

Wrath of Virginia

 

Our cathedral monuments

celebrating legends we revere

evolve into supernatural myth

Time will erode

and dissolve eventually
the certainty which once defined
core truths we once cheered
and even worshiped
as we gullible pilgrims
too often do
in our soon to be

disillusioned zealotry

Bitterness of course will ensue

along with the usual accusations

begetting pointless recriminations

because blame just gotta be super glued

to the usual scapegoat suspects

when our best intentioned fallacies

get exposed as ignorant lunacy

Never underestimate the power

of a pissed off populace

on a pay back rampage

destined to self consume

all these embarrassed fools

forever too easily duped

In the Interim

 

Exit ramp dead ahead
as I am starting to envision
my life after this endless
disjointed employment

Slow fade to retirement
and welcome obsolescence
away from the bored chorus
of clock punching drones
themselves counting the days
til one by one
the calendar says they are done
to be replaced
by the next wave
of temporary worker bees
hauling the honey
to feed the ravenous system

The waltz of interchangeable parts

The Theory of Legacy

 

The pain does fluctuate with increasing frequency but with no consistency No set schedule for these bursts of agony sapping my will to go on You will miss me when I'm gone In theory

Last Call Prisoner

 

On the open market
my value on any given day
is at the mercies of the vagaries
of supply and demand

Since my self worth
pinballs constantly
between these pillars
of abundance and scarcity
I am currently relegated 

as the cypher outcast
wearing this cheap plastic mask
of arrested development
crying softly

behind my cloak

of forced invisibility

Only to ever be seen

late at night

when the lights flicker

dancing in concert

with darkness

for a microsecond

before you oblivious patrons

get ejected

into the cold street

where I reside

Crumbled Assumptions

 

It was purely a rhetorical question

Not designed to elicit 
any kind of measured response
since this was never designed to be
an info seeking interrogative

Since the range of answers varied

at a volume not anticipated
the power of our core assumptions

weakened and crumbled
as an insidious cloud of uncertainty

was permanently created
undercutting the potency

of our now discredited

no longer absolute narrative

Captain Chaos

 

Captain Chaos
owes its very existence
to constant friction

A creature of turmoil
spawned from disunity

Can not exist in serenity

Peace is its kryptonite

So it pokes the hornet's nest
whenever its powers wane
and ravenously feeds
off the negative energy
supplied by
the growing legions
of both allies and enemies

A perilous game the beast plays
inciting tension's double edged domain
but since conflict is all it knows
hatred remains the premium rocket fuel
which propelled the gargoyle to the top

Now bolstered by the authority

and power of institutional legitimacy

the forces of hatred are emboldened

to creep out of the shadows

Of course the poison spewed
will splatter the fiend
impotent eventually 
as it has throughout history
on all rabid dog demagogues

This comforting assumption
is based on the calculation
our dangerously deranged captain
does not annihilate us first

Survival of the Quitters

 

Nine out of ten physicians

state unequivocally

that excessive
"social" media engagement
is hazardous 
to the human nervous system

"Social" is in quotes
cause it's such a damn oxymoron

The internet village

can be such an abyss

of abject isolation

A click bait

troll laced

bottomless pit

of endless frustration

The modern day

tech opiate of the masses

A pit so easy to get lost in
if you neglect
common sense moderation
and never endeavor to disconnect
from your hand held

soul sapping

ball and chains

Waylaid Out

 

My final 

training session

before I went live

was a course summary

of what to expect

when events became real

All my best preparations

and theoretical expectations

went totally

and unexpectedly south

when the hammer fist

that is real life reality

punched me in the mouth

Now I gotta shake off the shock

of tasting my own blood

Get my ass up off the mat

Improvise as best I can

Take my pummeling like a man

Bleed all over my best laid plans

Only one thing is certain:

Ain't gonna be no frickin rematch

Reverse Curse

 

The Ghost from Yesterday

hates the world today

and all the supposed upgrades

pushed through

by the hated leftist evolutionists

He's a 1950's refugee

pining for the monochrome past

where social roles

were clearly defined

and locked tight

Back when the sneakers were white,

the censors were vigilant,

and Caucasion men

of a heterosexual bent

reigned supreme

Of course

his "good old days"

really weren't all that

if you rolled different

from the standard deviation

In fact deviants of any kind

were institutionally suppressed

The whole "out of sight, out of mind" thing

was the mantra of this repressed age

Today these like small minded retro beasts

have organized and escaped their cages

Seeking to rewind social progress

with the power of rose colored

power washed nostalgia

as the "get back" solution

to the mass frustrations

of our turbulent times

These rampaging reprobates

need to be returned

to the shadows

from whence they came

post haste

Fate's Little Darling

 

Here in this ping pong existence
I languished in anonymity
with the many median non entities

drowning in mundane mediocrity

Just assigned numbers congregating

in the mass jumble

of bland forgettable humanity

where nothingness is the norm

Suddenly

Chaos was activated

Panic ensued

As the cyclone

bounced us terrified citizens

violently all around

Was this the biblical Apocalypse

long ago preordained?

Up the chute
toward Heaven I flew
to be possessed by you

You gave my life meaning

My angel to the rescue

My lovely Lottery girl savior

who made me a star

The chosen one plucked from the many

I'm never going back to the pack

How could I?

Please, please don't drop me

and return me to the abyss

I like being special

Marked House of Cards

 

You do know of course that this life game we all play is totally rigged but we gotta compete anyway to fight over the scraps that trickle down into this massive pit where we have been consigned with the rest of the ballast Maybe struggle is our destiny as we settle for comfortable mediocrity while playing the daily lottery just in case Lady Luck drops by Keep the faith my fellow dreamers

Never Finished Product

 

We know what we have to do

So let’s get this thing done

Just a matter of execution

The solution exceeds the sum

Of course we respect the unexpected
       
These anomalies currently unseen

    
Protect ourselves from trouble    
behind the shield of contingency
with a viable Plan B
powered schematically

And when the task is complete   
we analyze the whole trip
from A to Z in its entirety

Always seeking to tweak
and improve upon
this process we worship
in our quest
of endless evolution

Circus Minimus

 

He was just a clown
before he became a man
of such powerful renown

Twas not the jester who had changed

He certainly was not an upgrade

or any kind of evolutionary advancement

It was the world that became strange

as humor got clouded by bitterness

and hatred became the norm

This should have been an expected

disastrous revelation
which led to our destruction
as the clownish pissed off monster
was crowned Supreme Leader
by unpopular acclamation

The joke my friends

is now on us 

The Homonymic Man

 

Communication challenged me

Forever screwing up phonetically

Jumbling

Our and are

Where and wear

There and their

Scrambled nightmares

Messing with my message

as I crash threw

the spell check safety net

into the crowded abyss

of social media irrelevance 

Masterpiece Street

 

After the unexpected evening shower
the boulevard glistens like diamonds 
       
Giving back the street lights glow
like a placid asphalt lake

You can find art in the most mundane places

given the right visual conditions

The serene scene will soon evaporate
and all will be hard and barren again

Proof positive nothing lasts forever
though this need not apply to memories

Death to US

 

Us Against Them Man

Staunch defender
of the 2nd Amendment

Hero of the Back to the Past movement

Takes an ironic bullet to the head

All hope for coexistence
now exhausted and dead
as the death to all opposition mob
goes ballistic
demanding revenge

The spark is ignited
as the payback pretext is set

Blame is quickly fixed
with zero Due Process

That antiquated roadblock don't play
in the current scorched Earth environment

The Thems gonna pay

We're way past mere censorship

The storm troopers roll in

Retribution is swift and merciless

The opposition is erased
like an ugly blemish
on the Body Politic 

My country tis of thee

Sour swirl of violent anarchy

Soon they wielding the PC Hammer
will be coming for me
for a post I scribed
way back in 2003
back during the antiquated
First Amendment days 

More Confiteor

 

I came here

to this stained glass palace

seeking repentance
for my litany of vices

Sins of the flesh

and shameless excess
has always been my weakness

So off to confession I went
like the good Catholic boy I am

for the clean soul protocol

My blind priest prescribed
the same old 

blanket penitence
to absolve we usual suspects

Two Hail Fathers
and Three Our Marys later
I was good to go
to sin some more

I will drop some coin

in the collection plate tomorrow

to monetize my contrived sorrow

The Freelancer

 

All hail the freelance dancer
putting down
moves on the floor
never seen before

This improvising performer
with the creative feet
has been known to fall
on his face occasionally 
but that's OK

No harm done
cause the thrill
and possibility
of humiliating disaster
tis all part
of the freelance charm
to we wallflowers in awe 
of such unrestrained bravery

Connected Impediments

 

My grandfather's walking stick
from the Old Country
made of the finest mahogany
has been passed down
through the generations

I hear the sounds of yesterday
when he tip taps down the long hall

huffing and puffing all the way

A comforting reminder of my past
and the hobbled legacy that awaits me

Dredge Toast

 

After I got busted
for my latest indiscretion
the self mea culpa's gushed
in a flood of confessions
emptying a river of tears
into the muddied delta
of guilt long suppressed

The clean up reclamation project
of my tarnished reputation
will be quite extensive
and costly post crash

dredge event

Down the Shaft

 

The theory of verticality
in permanent alignment
with the force of gravity
made our fall from the summit
a crashing inevitability
and since the rocks below
provide no cushion
our destruction was a given
from the moment we ascended
this slippery peak
of a purely physical relationship

Me Equals Displaced Square

 

My eyes glazed over
as my sexy mathematician
bitch of an ex
girlsplained the complex formula
that proved our relationship
no longer added up

to meet her minimum

requirements of emotional satisfaction

Seems the delta
between her material expectations
and the sum of my net income

currently on the table
exceeded her personal affections
for soon to be deducted me

The proof of her relationship 

addition by subtraction equation

would later achieve verification

when she hooked up

with a wealthy professor emeritus from MIT

who while older than her times three

easily had the means

to buy the zero sum game

money grubbing hussy

a baby blue Ferrari

DAMN I DO SO HATE MATH!!!

Happiness is a Warm Rerun

 

When self soothing failed
and it became quite obvious
that I could not stop the pain
I turned to my trusted friends
who love and guide me
from their flat screen scripted reality

My handsome companions 
always know
what to say and do

They know what it will take
to make my sad ass happy

Now it seems I'm sick
from over consumption
of all the numerous
over the counter
joy inducing medicines
as pitched on TV
by my well meaning 
guardian angels

I am duly advised
by the distinguished looking
white smock clad actor guy
playing the part
of a calming presence
who is also very smart
that I must first
consult with my real physician
to get the miracle medication
as seen on TV

This will numb
not only my new 
consumer fueled addictions
but the teleprescription
comes with plenty
of whispered disclaimer
side effects attached
that can only be remedied
by the same Big Pharma chemists
who made me sick in the first place

Strung out me has gotta admit
this chemical death cycle is pretty grim
but with just another quick shot
of purchase power numbness
these twinges of depression
can be readily suppressed
with channel hopping quickness