but the science bears out
my catastrophic thinking
Fixate
lobotomy by sparrow beak
brain pecked full of dread
brimful society syrupy sweet
carelessness killing us dead
memoryvines creeping through
sockets of wasteland dreams
a humming vibration of stasis
stuck lid on boiling progress
jammed gears of regression—
a spinning orbiting rotation
would be movement at least
incessant click click click
of the going nowhere echoes
like fading robotic heartbeats
a constant why? why? why?
the most important question
that never even mattered
answerless, unanswerable
speedbumps of psychological
queries emerging like stones
in the body — stuck motion
mind eternally trying, failing
to write its story, click clack
bones, ligaments, thoughts
stutter sputter twitch to death
choking on ink overflowing
poems destined for somewhere
turned inward flooding nowhere
release my brain to infancy
for it is smothered with age
That social fellow
Where once I loved my flesh,
That social fellow,
Now I want security of bone
And cherish the silence of my skeleton…
—Thomas McGrath, from “The Progress of the Soul,” Figures of the Double World, 1955
June — boom!
In Phoenix, summer is a heat bomb that explodes in late June.
Fractal
shards of memory
jagged-edged
broken emotions —
wholeness
is the fossil
of childhood —
growing up
fractures
many things —
Keys to happiness
“The key to happiness is pretty much the same as the key to worry and anxiety — you must learn to make a big deal out of nothing.”
“The key to happiness? Simple really. You don’t let short-term concerns ruin your life, and you don’t let long-term concerns ruin your day.”
—Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Jettison
Middle age is a heap of abandoned ideals.
My heart
God completed my heart
then you finished it —
mortal combat style
Sugar shock
my willpower has become
a fraction of what it was—
my sweet tooth is now
much greater than my resolve—
and the laboratory reports
that my blood glucose
no longer measures in
milligrams per deciliter—
but in sugar cubes squared
Fell swoop
Birds in the springtime —
daredevilish in their quest
songful in their survival —
weightless wings — heavy risk
Agreed!
“I don’t know of any writer who doesn’t look back at their earlier books and think: can we just shred them? You know, can we go door to door and collect them and shred them?”
—David Sedaris, to Bill Maher, on Real Time, HBO, 2023 March 24th
Awake’ish
my brain —
desiccating
deprived
of sleep
pulsating
too much
life today —
is
as i lay
here in bed
becoming its
own creature
trying to crawl
out of my head —
it throbs away
seconds ticking
memory flashes
of today tocking —
twelve o-three
twelve twenty
one eleven
two seventeen
three something —
fickle
in my mind
restless
the thoughts
runaway
hobos
on a train
down the tracks
to four o’clock —
how did Byron
how the F
did Shelley
write masterpieces
at such young ages
when it has taken
me 36 years
just to get out
three good poems
and entire reams
of bad ones —
how is it that
i wrote better
in my teens
in my early 20s
than i ever have
in middle age
and why won’t that
come back to me? —
oh my brain!
is it purring
or is that the cat?
these thoughts! —
why does
the inevitable creep
ever closer to me?
not crawl
but threaten
overpower
reach over me
horrific shadows
surrounding me
hovering
swallowing
with immensity
of darkness —
insomnia is
a sickness
and i am so sick —
in waking hours
of sunlight
the inevitable
is invisible
but during
wakeful nights
it suffocates
still invisible
but it is all
that i can see —
oh comfort please
i beg of you
curl up with me —
brain throbbing
wanting throbbing
future throbbing —
pink, rubbery, firm
pressing against
my thoughts —
all it takes
is one big fear
to sit on my mind
for all the air
of the future
to explode
with a bang
and seep out
with a muffle
leaving me
empty —
isn’t it interesting
that we can die
from too much of something
that we can die
from lack of something
for want of something
i could die
of lacking sleep
i could die
from too much
passion for life
they are intertwined
within me, destiny —
images or omens
flash through my mind
a watercolor painting
all the colors shades of black —
i have no regrets
in my past
all my regrets
are in the future —
the tree outside my window
is rapidly growing leaves
from bare winter
to verdant spring
but all shades of green
are the same with
night’s eyes closed —
i may as well
bring the typewriter
into bed with me
and let it sing
me a lullaby:
clack click clack
once upon a time
happily ever after
that is all she wrote
springtime mayday
brain overboard —
the cold chatters
in my teeth
warmth boils over
in my brain
and it helps me
feel better to say
the same over and
over in every refrain —
i cannot sleep
the loudness
of springtime
awakening
is deafening
even in the middle
of the night —
oh! it is two a.m.
oh two hundred
oh two oh oh
oh please
let me sleep tonight —
as i turn over
flip-flopping sides
my brain is turned
from black to white
it tosses a ball
playing ping pong
bouncing, falling
flailing seconds
minutes hours ticking
water dripping
from the faucet
into the sink
time drips out of
my leaky head
please let me sleep —
written while teetering on the brink of sleep, from 00:57 to 02:13, and unedited excepting dashes
Juggernautical chaos
do not even need
to write poem about life
title says it all