Refracted Life

All my hand wringing

is completely chafing

these distorted dreams

once my private domain

now rapidly slipping away...

I may lay the blame

at a variety of clay feet

kicking me in my delusions

but the cracked mirror before me

is a relentless adversary

which hands out refracted reflections

of my decaying world

rapidly losing it's substance

and any hope of personal redemption

 

Soul Dilutions

Went back...

Deep into archives past

to review

the deleted versions of me

in all their unedited glory

Back before I became refined

and meticulously planned

like fine wine

polished eunuch I now am

An artificial caricature

compromised 

beyond all personal recognition

Care Package

I am
such
a flippant
rascal...

This really

which annoys
peeps
who feel
I need to be
more
respectfully
conventionally
packaged...

Too bad for them,
but fortunately for me
I don't give a damn
about what ''they" think

Nubbed Out

Sturdy and strong
when freed from the box
the noble pencil of yore
was immediately on point...

Such the productive tool...

Useful to it's very core...

Time advances...

Now the once proud cog

is tired and worn...

Not much of use anymore...

Past the point of functionality...

 
Wither the nub of the bunch...

Soon to be gone...

Smell Testing

Bit into a rancid concept...

Delicious to the eye
but thoroughly rotten inside...

As I spit the vile sandwich out
I vow henceforth
to ride shotgun with doubt
and always check
the expiration date
before blindly
consuming externally
every convenient theory
that just so happens to fit
my current slanted narrative...

The Path Traversed

The things you find

during the decluttering process...

Frozen in time...

This scrapbook now soothes

my fading mind..

Pics fully laminated...

Protection against the elements

and the ravages of today...

Locked in memories

where none of us age out...

Even death can not penetrate

this thick veneer of yesterday

where erosion is irrelevant

to these locked in moments of joy...

Arthritic fingers

painfully skimming

long neglected pages...

Liberating images

from a bygone existence

of youthful exuberance

and unbridled innocence 

where we still owned

all our tomorrows...

Curiosity Suicide

Dug deep
and went in depth
to bypass surface truths
that muddy perceptions

Got to the core finally
only to find
upon closer inspection
these well meant deceptions
were for my own protection

Wish I could go back
to my prettier blissful ignorance

Ride The Rise

Chronically cynical me
wants to believe desperately
in anything...

or anyone...

Cause it's not easy
lugging these chains of negativity
all around this grind of a life
that will bury you
if you can't manage

to rise above the bullshit
every once and awhile

Processed Life

Round and round...

Dizzy from the spin...

Chasing a tail

we will never catch...

Satisfaction rarely guaranteed...

Yet the fruitless pursuit proceeds...

Instead of keeping score

as we try to quantify
and desperately justify
our timeline quite finite
perhaps we'd be best served
if we graded ourselves on a curve...

Embrace life's variations...

Cut our stressed asses some slack...

Finally accept the obvious fact
that winning this game
is all in the playing

Pro

Blessed Be We Inepts

People anxiety
getting the best of me
as I put on ignore
the suffocating real life party
and the fake conversations all around...

The hum of a small talk symphony

like finger nails scraping a chalkboard

have always been pure torture

to my socially awkward species... 

 
Escaping to the shadows...

Seeking relief in isolation...

I take refuge in technology
with my head buried
in a hand held oasis...
 
Suckling on the bosom
of my flat screen
cyber sanctuary... 

Once again 

using this social media front

to be fully anti social...

Island of Misfit Selfies

99 abandoned selfies
that did not make
the posting cut...

Orphan victims
of flaws self perceived...

I'd rather see
these image outtakes...

Much prefer to view
the real you...

Flaws and all...

Instead of that one perfectly staged pic
plastered on your social media wall

Islan

Indecent Exposure

This entrenched position
I got myself locked into
without thinking things through
(which I too often tend to do)
is beginning to disintegrate...

My hard line intransigence
now blowing back in my face
as the relentless forces of truth
lay waste to played out arguments...

How to exit this pit gracefully

with even a shred of dignity

is going to be a challenge for humbled me

in this social media communications age

where every rant pronouncement

is recorded permanently...

Guess it's best to take the hit

and admit that I am full of shit

  

 

Bratty Zealots

 

Show me the creature
of absolute certainty
with rock hard steadfastness
buoyed by unwavering conviction
and swaggering confidence
mixed with a sense of arrogance
that doubt can never penetrate
and you will have found in your midst
a stubborn close minded zealot...

Show me the creature

from the Know It All tribe

who belittles and condescends

those who dare share contrary opinions

that challenge their core structure

and shake the very foundation

that supports past entitlement

and you will have found in your midst

your typical rigid ideologue...

Do not engage these foolish creatures in debate...

Best to let them pound their chests and bloviate...

Sure they can be incredibly annoying little girls and boys

but in the end they are just irritating background noise

who will fade into obscurity and bitter irrelevance

once the adults send them off to bed

  

 

Ode to the Outcasts

The mass text spoon fed
to satiate conventional wisdom
will never reach full saturation
so long as there exists free thinkers
who chafe against conventional interpretation...

They will of course be ostracized
and pushed off to the side 
for their lack of thought conformity...

As painful as their isolation may be

they can take solace in this certainty...

All progress throughout human history

was driven and advanced by such outcasts

who dared to venture outside the main stream 

Inter Gender Demolitions

Aging former beauty queen...

Perpetually battling gravity
and the catty whispers
of alleged friends...

Perhaps out of jealousy
or the residue of past envy...

Many of whom themselves have stealthily
had bodily parts enhanced surgically...

Perhaps they should focus their efforts
on uplifting each others spirits...

This quality of humility
and communal empathy
is a timeless reflection
of true and lasting beauty

And Read All Over

Zebra Zebra...

We dig your stripes
of black and white...

A metaphor perpetually
of racial harmony
and spiritual coexistence
which long ago
drifted into the domain
of lazy cliche...

Zebra Zebra...

Stay clear of predators
and desperate poet philosophers

In the End

My innuendos once so crisp

gradually began to slip...

Becoming so worn

and outside newly minted social norms

I became a social outcast...

Now wearing the label

sexist misogynist 

of a Boomer origin

the muzzle fitted snug

over these inappropriate lips..

Stripped of all sarcasm

by the very same forces

I use to mock and disparage

back when I was still relevant..

My dreams of a blue comedy Renaissance

now destined to perish with me

Detour Road

Those calamities
we bring
on ourselves
are the hardest knots to untie...

We have to unravel
not only threaded consequence
but also the stubborn core
of tightly wound ego
we arrogantly applied
when we let our emotions decide
the course of future events...

Now we need find
the required humility
to break down our deficiencies  
and extricate ourselves
from the morass we made...

   
Only then
once we have untangled
and the fix implemented
can we proceed 
to get back 
on the road to evolution

Seek and Find

 

I finally found happiness
when I stopped running away
and faced the liberating truth
that there is no escaping mortality...

Had to drop the pointless denials
and desperate deflections...

This self confession
led to my acceptance
that our existence is but a maze
with only one funnel exit
that will find us all 
upon completion of the game

Once Upon A Good Time

Pretty pink princess
with her poofy puffy dress
blowing in the glittery breeze...

Side saddle riding
her snow whiter unicorn
through strawberry fields
somewhere over the rainbow...

Rides past judgmental eyes

with nary a care in the world...

Deep inside her fairy tale bubble

that will one day go pop
and land her crashed ass in rehab

Crash Dummy

Flying blind
as I am prone to do
when I get too cocky
about my invulnerability

Post crash

I curse the gods of inevitability
for not properly warning me
that extreme arrogance
begets negative consequence

On The Vine

We are all in stock
for a limited time only...

So don't ignore
the opportunity to secure
this deal of a lifetime...

Sign up for happiness

Knot Today

We consume mass quantities
but never savor the flavor...

No time for reflection
inside our microwave lives...

Prisoners of fate...

We can no longer self regulate...

Our story gets revealed 
at it's own unstable pace...

Spinning threads
tangled in the knotted tapestry
of frayed human history

Ode To Have Nots

My self esteem
(for what it's worth)
will never be driven visually...

I don't have the genes...

Nor the discipline...

Nor the resources...

Or even at this point
the inclination
to be conventionally
attractive physically...

My self esteem
(for what it's worth)
is generated internally...

So deal with it bitches

Or not...

If you have not figured out by now

I am not here to appeal to you

or your snobby judgmental crew

of petty little gossip hounds

What a liberating feeling

not worrying about being appealing

to anyone but yourself...

Or not...

HA...HA...HA...

 

Old Truths

The human equation...

Scrawled on the wall
in a gibberish formula
only the ghosts who wrote it

can comprehend...

Time has moved on...

As have the spirits of the past...

  
So we must commit today

to whitewash current myths

long ago outmoded
and recycle our thought process

all over again

in order to make sense

of this perplexing paradigm

that needs to be revisited

Morning Necessities

Morning lung excavation
as the night's stagnant phlegm secretions
get power coughed up the chute
into manageable spit clumps
for easy evacuation...

The pools stubbornly hanging on
from the depths of A.M. congestion
are the last to be cleared...

Once the passageways

are opened up fully

and oxygen intake

is finally uninhibited

we can proceed

to perform

other necessary

wakeup bodily

emptying activities...

Contrary to popular myth...

Life ain't all glamour and glitz

 

 

Writer's Crock

If I be a writer
that nobody reads
do the words I spew
truly get through?

So why should I really care
if my wayward craft goes nowhere?

I'm just slaying time
trying to make rhymes
of minimal consequence
to this impervious Universe

Dream Team

The best distractions
are pliable commodities...

The stuff of impractical fantasies
that release us from the clutches
of our monstrous realities...

Even if only temporarily...

The best distractions
are the ones we can share...

For they can take us anywhere...

All the way to these dreams

we Earth bound beings

can craft together

Peace In Our Minds

Let's not debate
the color of the sky
or quibble about
the quantity of fish in the sea...

Don't wanna fight anymore
over topics totally lacking in relevance
to the challenges in life we face daily...

 
Our nonsensical arguments
have turned us into
social media caricatures
creating nothing but useless friction
that serves as contentious entertainment
for the bored Cyberverse masses

Hands On

Let's take a break
from our self centered race...

Take off those blinders
that serve to narrow our view
and take in the beauty
that exists on the periphery...

The glorious panorama of ALL humanity

with ALL the potential possibilities...

Now see the frayed edges of our quilt...

Seek out and savor every imperfection...

Find those souls in need of a boost...

Kindness provided so very easily
if we access our own memories
when we were feeling lonely
and in desperate need
of basic human inclusion