Still… I sit
Against the wind
And I wish I could
Sit against it all
Water off a ducks back
Withstand every fall
Without falling to the black
But the whispers of the dark
Always beckon me back
And I know her well
So I’m always one word away
From being under her spell
I’ve tried meditation
All the fucking medication
Tried to find my philosophy
But I always come back
To the lady in the black
A blade on the skin
Feels better than the happiness
That never seems to sink in
Or the confidence
That never existed from within
Shedding skin
Till I’m nothing
It’s the only thing
That I find comforting
When the lady in black
Finds me running back
Poetry
Bull in a china shop
I’ll let the bull out of his cage
But you won’t like what’s been contained
All this time pacing between this space
And the time that’s accumulated all this rage
Little bombs waiting to be engaged
Trying to be a better man
Wearing the face of calm
A monstrosity
Contorting inside
With years of screams
Creasing the faces
Pulling lips open by the seams
When am I gonna learn
That keeping bulls in cages
Makes it worse
And like a porcelain doll
I am broken….
I am done.
Infestation
My body is a casket
for breath
Another breath in
And out
Emptiness encroaching
Like cockroaches
Always surviving
through the momentary fulfillment
meant to demolish
sadness
My body a casket
awaiting death.
Life. We mourn.
Life.
A catalyst for loss.
All said
We’re trinkets of absences
Trying to remember
Those we mourn
Birds.
The way they run
Then hop
Screech
Then quark
Between the trees
Peering between the leaves
Going back in time
In the glint in their eyes
Reaching out
To time gone by
A flash of a dinosaur
in the blink of an eye.
We’re all sheep
Follow who you may
But don’t tell us you’re the ones wide awake
You’re still following what another shepherd says
Underneath we’re all the fucking same
Smiling under skin
That bears our shame
We’re all sheep
That the androids dream of
In their sleep
An accumulation of things
I‘m standing in the hallway
I forget why
Looking between the doors
At the walls that try to contain
This accumulation
Of thought
And all bought
A place that can’t contain me
Yet still stands.
Sadness enveloped in each room
Permeating an existence
Empty and cruel
With screens to look into
And forget this hell on earth
We all bought into
No room left for rebirth
Tattoos & Scars
We tattoo and mark or shame
Hoping symbols
Will communicate
The things we cannot say.
Another one on Absence
Your absence rings
In my ears
As if
Every voice
Not yours
Is a gunshot
Reverberating
In my skull
Your absence lingers
In every musical interval
As if
Every note
Sustains your existence
Behind my eyes
Yet my mind’s eye
Continues to blur you
As if you’re fading, still
Not quite a ghost, but not quite true
A shadow
I must hold onto.
Reflections
Photograph by Matt Johnson AKA Silverbackgorillapoetry
Freedom is an illusion
We’re all imprisoned
By something or other
Tethered by a thought or dream
Or perhaps a nightmare
Or something else somewhere
Maybe someone or nowhere
Imprisoned in our individual encounters
With ourselves in the mirror
Reminding us we’re not who we envisioned
Smiling underneath our emotional contortions
This rag of flesh
A world for life
Microscopic critters
Replicating themselves
As we duplicate ourselves
Simulating one another
Looking into mirrors, looking into reflections
Looking into ourselves
Studying the world
And in the world we are reflected back
And hoping no one noticed
We don our masks.
