Chess–poem

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The poet is a real son-of-a-bitch sometimes
choosing the oddest squares on which to take a stand
and demand that this play out this way.
The knight passed by, I wasn’t significant enough
for him to take notice of me, I guess.  The queen
looks around imperiously but wants far more
advantage than taking me would give her.
The bishops slide and glide and yet I abide
here safe for another move at least.
The rooks impose their will but I am
not on their line and can disregard them.
The king, hid safe behind his pawn wall,
passes the time in quiet contemplation
considering perhaps three moves in advance.
Consider this, when you play, no way
you can survive just playing here and now,
others are already two moves ahead of you,
do them one better and strive for three.

A greatness swells up in my soul
and a sense of rightness with
whatever cosmos I experience…
the realscape of time and space…
the cognitive wasteland of thought…
the deceitful inspirational expectation of what will be
when finally we shuffle off this mortal coil.

Monkey Business-poem

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The monkey dances, watch him prance around
because that will get him a banana,
long sloped delicious phallus of food
forged in the heat of the remembered jungle.
Recalling the lush lusty forest and the fine
babes waiting to catch another baby.
Those were the days my friends when we
would sit in a circle and reminisce.

Puny poetry, imagery flow, perhaps,
but no real continuity.  Professors puke
when having to evaluate such drivel.
Perhaps, dusk is coming, then dark,
and one day I too will go that way
and find myself at Judgment Day.
This life will end, I will transcend
and meet my ultimate destiny.

Contrived, this poem has gotten away
from me, I cast aside these idle thoughts
by forging them into marks on a page
and the force of my rage is bent
into stale and empty phrases, so sad
to consider just how far I have fallen.
My heart is bent, I will relent
and allow what will happen to happen.

Foundation–poem

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Sailing along, feeling the flow,
or rather trying to.
So many eyes, pins piercing
my pretense forcing me to face
the fact that I am old
and simple.  I breathe deep
and steel myself to be strong
but the tin of my will folds,
the foundation may be solid
but if the struts and beams
can’t face the storm, you’re doomed.
A house of straw will blow away,
just ask the first foolish piggy.
It kept out the heat of the day
and let a gentle breeze blow through
but the first storm blew it away.
The wolf didn’t have to exert himself.
The second piggy chose wood,
quite smart, and would have lasted
had not the storm been persistent
enough to become a tornado, oops, too bad.
Even the best materials may not be enough
so the third piggy chose stone
and build solid and sure against
anything short of the will of God.
And he survived.  Praise God.

Money Tree–poem

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Kendrick Lamar. Money Trees

The money tree doesn’t want to be
a money tree anymore.  It hurts
to think that the only reason I exist
is to feed your happiness.  I know
that no matter where you go
or what you choose to do you will
take what you can if you can.  I don’t
blame you, I would do the same,
I have before.  That’s why I know you.
You laugh behind my back thinking
this old man thinks I like him
when all he really is to me
is a f’ing money tree.

These words are bitter, have a nasty
aftertaste and make my stomach churn.
Especially when I consider how I look,
the way others around me see me.
Shed a useless dependency
is what the I Ching said to me
when  I asked how to face this day.

I do not fault you, no, my friend,
I knew what I was doing
when I allowed myself to love you.
It’s hard to face this bitter truth
about myself.  I always knew you,
just hoped that something magical
impossible might happen.  Stupid fool.

“Money trees are the perfect place for shade”
but the money tree has to deal with the sun
above bright hot and the earth below
and has to pray for rain sometimes
or else it’s leaves will all dry up
and the tree will die
and you will have to move along.
Find another money tree to settle under.

“and that’s just how I feel”

Rage–poem

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If you already know, then you cannot grow.

With kindness and compassion I accept
that I am looking into a twisted mirror.
Without judgment I know the image,
grotesque and unreliable, is really me
seen that way through that lens.  Alas,
I want to bring healing to this because
with healing will come growth and why
else would we do what we do?  The truth
is a holy grail, a relic that all search for
but never know what to do with when
we find it, the magic is beyond us.
I am willing, but will I’m sure is the problem.
Will refuses to consider, always demanding
that in the end he will have his win
even if I have to see it differently,
find another approach with a better view
for the sniper to find his shot and save
the world or at least democracy as we know it.
I cannot change the past and I cannot force the future,
all of that stands outside of here and now
diverting the attention of awareness converting
perception into conception, diluting experience.
I am still open even though I think
I have more than enough reason to shut down,
close off, reconsider my concessions
to your demands for total attention.
You are wounded, have been hurt,
I know and understand that but
you have to open yourself up, my friend,
and realize there are other people in the world
and the dance of life is communal
and though I don’t know why, God
put you and I together to do this.
So here we are, nail me to my car*.
You know I love you as you love me
and while I don’t have a problem
with it, you are totally freaked out.
You want to grow beyond it, I think,
and you can if you will, your strength
got you through so much, or so you say
although last night you admitted you lied
and filled my head with your story.
So now I go both this way and that.
I brought it all on myself?  Hard to take
unless my passive acceptance was the trigger
that targeted your rage on me.  You told me
this and that and I complied and then
you… No.  That is a place I will not go.
I do not know, I can only consider
that I am here and now and hurting.

Notes:
“nail me to my car” – David Bowie.  Joe The Lion.

This poem was framed by Chapter Three of Gary Craig’s EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Ghosts–poem

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Still avoiding.  But what if I am wrong?
Could well be, been wrong before.
But unlike him I have opened that door
while he still stands outside the house
looking in, wondering, are there ghosts?

Of course there are, not ectoplasm
or whatever the current word for aethyr is,
no, these ghosts are existential-isms
manifesting surreally.  Hopes and dreams,
terrors and fears, everyone has them
and none of them ever quite come true
(at least for the majority of us) and
they leave a trace on time and space.
My words, your words, language is a sharing,
the assumption that someone will read
these words and know that I was here
and now and this is how I express myself.
How I step outside of here and now
to see myself in time and space, to erase
the traces that are my environment
rather than anticipate these words
(although most of the time I do).

I sit here and now on my porch
listening to birdsong and traffic
letting my words flow as they will.
One day, I too will be a ghost.