Category: Poetry

Choix Mortel

My old life doesn’t recognize me it knows of me no more.
I’ve tread water for years in the center of the river ‘tween Stix’s narrow shores.
Between the shore of the old life & the shores along the new.
I’ve been stuck in decision in the middle waters…such a black shade of blue.

My hesitance traversing along to the banks of my new life; across from where I was just alive…
I can’t take anything or anyone but those who understand a life dying, while, only the self survives.

Try as I may to let go & swim naked with naught but character, soul & skin.
Th Stix’s water’s thick as quicksand & I’m at risk of drowning if I don’t just fucking swim.

Hades has been patient with me while I learn to embrace the new life awaiting me…
See, He has no claim on me for the world of my life only died but the soul is still ‘en vie’.
Yet, He notes my weighty grief for what is dead & gone-& if I drown, I’ll be claimed gladly.

So, I must decide while my head’s above “water” & I’ve established, just barely, I live.
Now, I must paddle to shore, clothe my skin in its sand & see what a “New Life” can give.
I’ve got my character, skin, my soul & good friends; if “New Life” can just lend me a voice.
If happiness is earned & what I’ve to say is truly heard, I can deal with my mortal choice.

I can choose to move on from a dead world…
As long as I find my voice & as long as my voice will be heard.

Ajar

Please take me, oh please take me far away from this place.
Save me from this catacomb & its indeterminable pace.
Carry me while you can to somewhere open somewhere wide.
Someplace where windows aren’t just things I see from the inside.
Release me from this distant place, this lavish gilded cage.
Help me find escape outside & not just on this page.
Pry me from my chair for it has rusted where it sits.
Bring magic oil for my poor joints to lose their coltish fits.
Someone stand beside me…be my walking, talking cane.
Teach me how to walk again & share some of my pain.
Shield me from this constant storm. Let me hold you in the sun.
Let me lean against your sturdy frame. Hold me up so I can run.
Help me pass this shallow breath that ticks the box which says I live.
Take me where I’ll huff & heave to catch the air you give.
Show me what it is to laugh for I’ve forgotten how.
Tell me I can do it all. Tell me I can leave right now.
But this is all a fantasy for you do not exist.
You’re a relished figment standing firm in reality’s crushing midst.
I cannot do a single thing that I’ve listed here thus far.
My life ceased to tick & lies broken with its workings all ajar.
This is who I am now & oh how I wish it were true.
That I could unlock this wretched door & walk right through with you.
This fantasy & reality are pressed full flush & in between’s just mesh.
Each will leak into the other but you will never be made flesh.

Salty Black Lies

The blackened tears of a made up face
A lie expected by the viewer
For the wearer knows as these things go
Time marches & truths grow fewer
As the laugh lines grow & gather close
A woman must make up her mind
Take the ravages of age with steely grace
Or wear a lie that’s felt so kind
But lies breed lies & the mask grows thick
Revealing truth for anyone to see
The lies of the mask make it heavy & fragile
It cracks & crumbles without dignity
Lies weaken exactly where believed in the most
The forehead, the eyes and the smile
And two black lines as the spell finally breaks
As a woman cries truth for a mile
Once she was hiding & hadn’t the bravery to stop
She relied more & more on the lie
But the weight to make & break a mask everyday
Brings all painted ladies to cry
A cracked foundation slapped on cracked foundation
Not judgement but empathy should lend
For the spell she fell under was for rape & for plunder
He convinced her that age was the end
She can’t be blamed for fearing a man’s expectations
When threats of loneliness loom so large
When you see her true face through the stripes & the flakes
Her lie revealed should carry no charge
You know who to blame because they make the game
Few see wisdom in fighting the grain
So when you see the blackened tears of her made up face
Know in defiance you have grace to gain
For if more women embraced their waltzes with Time
They’d discover their own source of power
Men can strut & fret all they want on the stages they built
But brevity’s the beauty & strength of a flower
The honest journey from bud to beauty & bravely fallen petals
It’s forgotten that next comes nectar & fruit
But most of all as we reach the flowers wilting in Fall
They carry seed for the next flowers in suit
So don’t cut them down to seal in wax or in glass
Don’t buy the falsehood of eternal youth
A confidence trick that grows ever more grotesque
Keeping flowers from living their truth
Let your tears run clear with pride & with joy
Smash your masks for emotional highs
See experience & wisdom instead of weakness & failings
Never tell those two salty black lies

PP Figures

Joan of Ark & Oscar Wilde they walked into a bar.
Freud & Jung were serving pure cocaine & moonshine by the jar.

They named their dive The Pleasure Principle for those seeking a Collective Unconscious.
PP’s had a special cocktail called “Dimensional Emotion” it made the clientele obnoxious.

Sat at the piano were Socrates & Bowie singing “Oh You Pretty Things”.
David played whilst Socrates used his “method” coaxing all but him to sing.

A meditating Zombie Bhudda in the corner proclaimed “We’re all already dead”.
The fat and happy deity literally found Nirvana inside Lizzie Borden’s head.

At a table for one sat Madame Curie bathing all in her radiating absinthe glow.
A pig named Picasso hit on this FoxFire Lady while inviting her to his picture show.

Miss Arc sat sweating by the hearth lost in conversation with lapping tongues of fire.
Wilde perched himself atop a barstool cracking jokes at Sigmund’s “phallus desire”.

General Patton & Gloria Steinem played strip poker to prove equality’s point.
In the end she wore her signature shades as a naked Patton rolled & passed her a joint.

Daylight crept up through the window…the PP’s version of sounding last call.
History was a rent boy loitering outside swinging saloon doors ready to be made by all.