People who are happy all the time
Are a pain in my butt
I relate to moody and irritable specimens like myself
Who have to create out of despair towards the middle
Maybe that’s why I wear so much black
It matches my monochromatic moods
Looks smashing cool and keeps those shiny people in check
I love being me, brooding sulky and beautiful
I don’t want wisdom.
I don’t want truth.
I don’t want love.
I don’t want peace.
I don’t want revolution.
I don’t want sex.
I don’t want God.
I don’t want fame.
I don’t want power.
I don’t want faith.
I don’t want hope.
I don’t want passion.
I just want one more clever thing to say
on social media.
More at http://17numa.wordpress.com/.
—Shifting, Shifting, Shifting—
Shifting worlds separated by but one
Endlessly running parallel
Destined to never meet
Half way yet never complete
Shifting, Shifting, Shifting
Crash, Collide
All destroyed
—Shifting, Shifting, Shifting—
Don’t tell me of happiness to be.
Don’t tell me of love everlasting.
Don’t make me wait for you, my dear,
Don’t make me keep on fasting.
Don’t wait for days, and days passed by,
That slip through fingers casting…
Spells of fairy tales which dwell
In moments quickly passing.
More at http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/Products/SKU-000650259/The-Sky-and-the-Sea.aspx.
_____
This poem is part of a collection of poetry and prose titled “The Sky and the Sea” which is available in both soft cover and Kindle formats from Author House, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and others.
A lack of curiosity
regarding the world outside your window
(or worse—the world within you)
is a great sin. It is unforgivable.
No virtue can redeem the loss of wonder.
Unexamined certainties not pondered
lead only to unbelievable rigor mortis:
the mind turns turtle/the heart an armored tortoise.
If you find yourself captive in a room
where all the uncaptivated agree
there is nothing left to learn-
get out as soon as you can!
To wage war against all doubt
is an act of murder-understand?
It’s as bad as killing a child
with your bare and blind-boned hands.
I’ve been listening to this song on repeat
all day
because it reminds me of you
and the first time we heard it together.
I don’t want to do this
and it’s killing me inside
because I know this can’t possibly work
and it hurts like hell to know what’s coming.
I was fine before we met.
I wasn’t lonely until we started seeing each other.
Now my work has been affected,
my mood has been affected,
my emotions have been affected…
Damn it,
just hit repeat again
and let this whole thing play out
as it must.
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It was all good
Until it wasn’t
It’s better now
But the excitement level is lower
Had to choose
Between
Manic and mania
Ultimately, I chose goodness
Goodness was never on the radar
But it ate up the disease of obsession
It’s better
Just a tad boring, hmmmm
I came to study the language of trees,
an ancient tongue assumed extinct,
like the Laysan honeycreeper or
shave-ice shacks on
Like-Like Highway, where Aloha Gas now sits.
I came to study koas and palms.
I found an old brick wall with a
golden plover standing motionless
beside it, though he flies
1,600 miles from Alaska without rest.
Like the plover, I came expecting more.
He’s dragged a barstool
in front of the quiz machine
and neglected his pint,
has worn for this last half hour
the look of a tennis umpire
who hates both players.
A forefinger taps morse
on a knee jolting out of time
to the jukebox. The other hand
flexes, rises, hovers –
two fingers shaped like a pistol
shoot forward at a known answer,
bang off the touch-screen.
Half a century since he played
the fruit machines as a lad,
oranges, apples and limes
clacking into place, nudge and hold
making a smidgin of difference
if you were sharp enough,
but really all down to luck
and how much loose change
was an acceptable loss. Pinball
was better: the silver ball,
the buzzers and bells, the slam
of the hip against the machine,
a shop-floor nobody locked
into a fantasy of leather jacket
and Route 66, motorcycle
parked on a dusty strip, Chevys
and Peterbilts and neon signs.
There is always something better
but never quite anything perfect
There is always more to do
but never enough time or the right path to reach the end
There was no beginning
and there shall be no ultimate conclusion
There will come a fire
with unquenchable flames
that no flood, no miracle, no public service department
will be able to extinguish
There is always a yawning grave
waiting with stoic patience for its body
There will always be existential questions
but never will there come an answer
There will always be hope
but so seldom does there arrive a reward
More at http://17numa.wordpress.com/.