I was there the day you died

And between the torn curtain

Shouted back defiant light

My tears slipstream balm

Murdering devils

And briar clawed chokeholds

In a defiant grapple

For your soul’s return.

I dreamed

About how I would

Die

Last night.

Hinging right,

Turned me

Towards

The towering hoofs

Of an unyielding bull,

His

Deep lethal charcoal

Storming my mortal gates,

Smothering me

Into a splat human accordion

While I prayed

To God

That He would

Take me to heaven

And that my underwear

Would remain clean

For all eventual

Investigating parties.

My smart Hemp-Gummies with Super-Keto are more powerful than your Shark Tank Dubai Escorts using Testosterfo and Bitcoin

September 19, 2024

Most of the crowd was utterly confused. Henry was one of the crowd and was utterly confused. His boss ordered him to attend the lecture as part of team building exercises designed to make him a better employee.

It didn’t.

And he was still confused.

Why be outside on an overcast day when I can be inside, at work, producing a product someone will buy making real money?

The speakers spoke of the required sacrifices, both in extra time at work and decreased production in desirable consumer goods. They spoke of a pie that could never grow. They insisted that it was natural for each person’s slice of that pie to shrink. It was better, according to his boss, if he just forgot any claim he had to that pie and let people smarter than himself decide who needs pie today and who does not.

Henry stood, daily, in the line for “just forgot.”

Why not go back to work and make things people actually want? Why not listen to the loud and ever present market forces and satisfy their demands instead of creating artificial ones?

Why not just expand the pie?

Henry put his hands in his pockets, feeling the holes preventing him from carrying anything in those pockets. Not that he had anything to carry. Not that he could locate anyone to fix the holes, let alone pay them for their services.

The applause signs required “polite” positive reinforcement. The secret police would remind those who didn’t understand. Henry clapped just enough to blend in with the masses who learned the advantages of the phrase, “just enough to blend in.”

Why create a narrative from a self-fulfilling prophecy that ensures an outcome of little or no value? Why not search for a reason to act and then create a product or service to assist in the act? Henry Ford raised minimum wages to get the best workers to build cars that the best worker (and then everyone else) demanded.

A baton brushed against his neck as Henry mumbled a bit too loud for comfort.

Life is too short for this nonsense.

And with that, Henry tried to return to his job.

But, the barbed wire and police checkpoints prevented him.

But, since he was first, he would be first to be branded. The inker made short work of his left arm, adorning Henry with his new bar code and ID number (A0025639B).

The new speaker was extolling the values of collaboration to make all, into one. It would be easier. It would be for the best.

It was a sacrifice that needed to be made.

I was ordered to make the sacrifice.

I made the sacrifice.

Somewhere, in some box, lies the information crystal proving A0025639B did.

Guilted reflectors

Stand face to face,

One salted with guile

One oiled in grace

Yet bearing each other

With the slightest of pace,

A stillborn empathy

Deposed from its place.

Each colored with

Obsequious aim

But bottoming out

In apathy grey,

With stilted tongues spilling

Raw words each can taste,

And each saving face,

Holdout egos

For the rainiest day.

Each like the rickety ship

Which bares

Her angular body

Of cracking groans,

An up stream fish

Once steady,

Now lost

Delivered to the inky rings

Whirling into nowhere.

Then-lost!

As it were

Captive again,

Chained to the sea

And lodged in its den.

To emptily glide,

On brackish water

And surging,

Swallow the screaming tides,

Twin heartbroken arrows

Aimless and shadowed

In darting pursuit,

To taste divine love

Not bittersweet fruit.

So love turns dead corners

Its beacon en route,

Its devil red wings,

Grown black

With death’s bruise.

But bandage the other

With Samaritan eyes

And in doing so,

The ship realigns,

Steadies her course

And now sails upright,

Guided towards glory

Graced with merciful might.

And we are the same

Far as I can tell,

For I can love you like heaven

Or hate you like hell.

And girded truth readies

Her halting heart whole

To mend all the broken

Bones of the soul.

The captor is captain

If each wants it to be,

And such lies the choice,

For love starved of need.

Forgive all their sins

And turn up cast down eyes,

And be still in the shelter;

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Captor or captain,

The wheel remains yours

And such is the choice

For each guides a course.

The ship ports at land

And tied to the mast

Is a tear written letter;

“I am home now at last”.

Once a young girl visited the local shop where the kind elderly man there made teddy bears with his own hands.

She was extremely excited as she walked inside the shopkeeper’s large workshop and was greeted by a seemingly endless sight of hundreds of beautifully crafted smiling teddy bears.

However, after excitedly peering around the shop in starry eyed admiration, she noticed one rather rough looking bear that stood quite conspicuously to her from amongst all the others.

This bear was stitched all over and wore rugged patches that were faded by the march of time.

She reached for him and then rather bluntly said to the shopkeeper;

''It looks like you've done a beautiful job of making your bears and taking care of them, but why is this bear so neglected?

He's been ripped all over and is covered with so many ugly patches!''.

The girl’s mother flushed with embarrassment and was taken aback by her little daughter’s rather terse words, but the tender hearted and kindly shopkeeper simply smiled.

Walking from behind his antiquated work bench with hobbled steps, he gently took the tattered bear from the young girl's hands and held the patch covered bear ever so closely to his chest.

In fact, with eyes closed, he took a few seconds of deeply reflective poise as tears rolled down the rough leather of his wizened cheeks.

He paused softly, head now bowed in an almost hushed reverence.

As hundreds of his bears seemed to look on at their creator, he finally broke the solemn silence and gently said;

“Why this bear knows my love greatest of all.

For every patch was put on him by my own hands many times.

You see, no other bear here has received such greater love and care, though advancing years has worn him down to what you fear to hold.

He is older than time but wears love over his scars.

This one is so very very special and I do believe he is ready for one such as you, for you are the only child who has ever even acknowledged his presence, as hundreds of other children have passed this one by.”

The little girl’s heart swelled to match her oversized eyes, as a smile grew wide upon her face.

She reached up for the patched up bear, and as she then hugged him dreamily, one could not help but think that the bear himself quickly smiled then fell asleep in her adoring arms.

The old shopkeeper’s words kept ringing through her excited thoughts as she walked out the door, head buried in the pillowed belly of her newfound furry friend;

“Older than time, but wears love over his scars”.

She smiled like the sun.

Night’s martyred dove

Opens exit wound eyes,

Decaying prey bird memorial

Offered to black December fire,

The powdered curtain drop

Unearthing Lazarus

Waxing poetic

To dust bunny skies.

God boldly downs

These bitter chasers

Raining wine and winter hymnals.

What once bared

goes back to bear

What bared teeth

closes its mouth tight

neither happy nor sad

not shocked or afraid

What bared heart

shuts itself up &

wipes fingerprints

on cabinets off...

What bared feeling

turns the sheets

down dog eared &

folds, lights out

What bared soul

loses it in sleep

2024 SEP 11

common words in common places

my car smells like sugar flowers

sweet as the sight of you through a doorway

ghosts wander through butterfly gardens

and the stone gods watch, larger than life

- the fantasy is us together -

pinned like insects against the wall

tea stained pages, double dip,

books that have touched a thousand eyes

i want every forest to know you,

every rock to feel the memories through my feet,

seep into the dark earth below and

grow tiny flowers or crisp leaves or rough bark

that remembers this love

and tells the stories to the wanderers

long after our time has passed

i still pick up calls from every unknown number that rings and

i still take the long route home to pass by your place and

i still take my coffee black, and my bread untoasted.

will it taste like you?

i work nights - slaving like a mule,

beaten and bruised and bereaved.

i drive till nowhere and make a point

of turning on the radio till it punctures my eardrums.

will it sound like you?

i cover every mirror in my flat

and make an effort not to look into someone’s eyes

because i’m this empty abyss of

your reflection;

this looking glass of absence and despair.

through it all, i’m wholly selfish because

who else but me can look upon your face?

to see me, they’ll have to sail through you,

so i always let the waves wash you ashore.

it is awful to be the one who waits;

this trepid lump of jitters and jolts.

so i dress down for work,

i spill food on my blouse,

i keep my door unlocked,

i leave my bed unmade

begging you to appear

to scold, shriek, shout, smack…

any semblance of intimacy will suffice.

i don’t know when to stop waiting.

when will the coffee taste less bitter?

when will i take a different path home?

when will you call if even to say goodbye again?