Poem: Deep Under

 

Deep Under

 

chrysalis

of the underview,

eels for nerves,

murk of shadows,

arena

of the unseen sly stark,

ripples of passions

and inventions and

new enemies.

 

they will not dance

on surfacy lips

which glisten glib and

loudly preen like

the proscenium of your

stolen stage.

 

all so beautiful up there.

too ugly, too much fail,

squiddish arms and dim

fey pips which glow from camouflage

down here.

 

down in this mansion of cellars

within moods of spectacle,

a waltz of dust devils

in watery dizzy dresses

of sway and flow.

 

a little too much thigh and fang

to go back up into the glisteny gloss

and ignore

what you dream.

=========================

 

 

Quote, Evil mistaken for rationality ...

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When self-interest becomes the basis of reason, evil no longer needs to justify itself.  It’s already been mistaken for rationality.

    

        Susan Neiman, Call It Evil:  Understanding the Trump Era

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Poem: Juliet Reads Herself

 

Juliet Reads Herself

 

blurs of crushed ants,

black bodies arranged

in rows, she’s dizzy

from the jumble

of their mandibles,

wants to leave

this puny cemetery,

 

but her eyes settle

on the corpses

as they resolve into slivers

of what she shouldn’t grasp

but does—

 

fancy sentences

that inject ache

then melt away,

like syringes of ice—

 

page after page

until the poison between the periods

no longer torments,

 

becomes cold water

she has swam—

the more she reads the closer she gets

to tragedy,

 

but it makes her young

to share the plight of a hero

or the hero’s lover—

 

it seems he loves her too,

that she is what’s written

for him to praise.

 

maybe the words

are what she is, and he, too,

 

a product of genius

that wrote this play then left,

 

leaving the characters

to love and die

forever.

 

 

 

==============================

Poem: Romeo Reads Himself

 

Romeo Reads Himself

 

blurs of crushed ants,

black bodies arranged

in rows, he’s dizzy

from the jumble

of their mandibles,

wants to leave

this puny cemetery,

 

but his eyes settle

on the corpses

as they resolve into slivers

of what he shouldn’t grasp

but does—

 

fancy sentences

that inject ache

then melt away,

like syringes of ice—

 

page after page

until the poison between the periods

no longer torments,

 

becomes cold water

he has swam—

the more he reads the closer he gets

to tragedy,

 

but it makes him young

to share the plight of a hero

or the hero’s lover—

 

it seems she loves him too,

that he is what’s written

for her to praise.

 

maybe the words

are what he is, and she, too,

 

a product of genius

that wrote this play then left,

 

leaving the characters

to love and die

forever.

 

 

 

==============================

This poem was originally published in Merge Poetry in 2006.  I have started republishing poems on this blog due to a sense of reaching my end.  It could be WW3, it could be lack of healthcare, it could be AI's apparent threat to take over the internet itself, and so on.  That said, I am trying to live each day fully and have had a rich and full life.  Despite much travail and confusion, I kept being honest while seeking answers, especially continuing to 'Know Myself' in the sense of the ancient oracles.  It led me down a path.  And I would do it again.  

When a psychotic leader ...

 ====

When a psychotic, such as a malignant narcissist, rises to become the leader of society, it establishes a verdict of psychosis for society itself. 

            --Khyrina Vyyrheart, Soulful Solutions

====

(fictional quote related to my novel, A Future of Angels (unpublished) 

Poem: Trying To Be Dead

 

Trying To Be Dead

 

who wasn’t dead or trying to be dead?

the load was easier.  less heavier.

no tears like in crystal balls

which foretold the many ways you

would fail to try.

 

you could be a lot of things

in the quest for decomposure.

 

you could be harsh, fast and erotic,

or sedative and trinket-played. 

you could be apron-dutiful

or march to the gun.

you could blow servile in the castle

which forced the original split

while standing erect

over those who serve you.

 

you could pray

to the god of gone nomads who

wandered deserts like sheep and goats.

and you could choose which side

of the flag to worship--fake white, black-and-

blue or carpet red.  but

 

it wouldn’t be the first time

 

you wanted to be exorcised,

the numerical sacrifice

of your identification card:

how it stored your computed behavioral soul

in various assimilated, acculturated

games. 

 

 

=====================

9/12/26 ... added "fake," changed last word to "games" and subbed "played" with "trinket"

9/10/26 ... "blow was a typo (freudian slip?) ... I am going to keep it in for now (forever?)

decomposure = play on decompose (death), breaking out of conformist composure, etc.

less heavier  = always oppressive no matter what

Quote by Eva Umlauf, Auschwitz survivor

 

=====

Eva Umlauf, a survivor of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp and president of the International Auschwitz Committee, was dismayed.

"As Holocaust survivors, we never would have thought it possible that a far-right party would once again take its place as ​the largest parliamentary group in a German state legislature," she said. "This election result frightens us!"

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/far-right-afd-courts-conservative-support-after-historic-german-state-election-2026-09-07/

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Poem: Quest

 

Quest

 

day one

 

every fray of rot a tress.

the afterlife is here, right here,

this understory of vestiges.

life itself is entombed.

and yet they all continue to feed,

from sprig to trunk.

still, everyone knows

the dead lurk in the humus.

 

day two

 

more terrible than ghosts,

i could peel noses or pare lips,

ignoring the pleas

of the faces in birch bark,

or a toadstool’s lament.

it’s far too lucullan,

too awful what is demanded of us.

i ... 

i am Saturn.

day three

 

the spruce are vicious gossips,

passive-aggressive of hiss and creak.

and yet they are not the damned.

 

day four

 

to rule the damned

is to be what they have been,

what they hate still

and yet also now envy--

and will serve if only for the chance

at a sprinkle, a fleet moment  

of dawnish light.

 

day five

 

i could walk forever here,

among the corpses of moss

which lack all flesh,

far under the callous towers

of a few overlording oaks

and never seek

to return to this place, if i left,

‘in a while.’

 

 

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Poem: Midnight On the Bridge

 

Midnight On the Bridge

 

near a dunce-cap cone of light

an occasional car

slingshots down bottomless

highway,

 

the drivers not urgent

to find out how roofs

fell to populate the earth:

how some noble ideal had crowded itself

and shattered.

 

a mind is a molecule,

the city thick with them.  so many swarm

that only collective purpose

combines to matter.

 

the chemical pulls

that bond us in grids

are also the traps that encase us

alone.

 

you can write about it on paper, on your arm,

in blood, or into the ghost-ocean of a screen.

god did this for a reason,

you could state. 

 

but the ekg

that the angels watch,

while listening to prayers,

is the New York Stock Exchange.

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This poem was originally published in Halfway Down the Stairs in 2014.  I am republishing past poems for I feel it could all end soon.  I am old. I am experiencing grief at the steep decline of the USA.  My heart literally twangs, now and then.  And I have no money or insurance to see a doctor.  

 

Regarding the poems

 

I have a love/hate relationship with my poems.  My lover is in there, somewhere, and she’s probably the only one I am ever going to have, and she remains as satisfying as she is elusive.