Mumblings / Poetry, Mid 2025

Like mentioned on other other poetry pages, it's James Dickey-inspired poetry. Not sure why all these ended up on yet another separate page. It seemed necessary to break up the uploads of dazzling, brilliant prose. (heh, heh)

NOTE: None of these are repeated in the very-not-new-anymore digital poetry book, Brief Tales of Compromised Solutions

The Old Washed Romantics

Broken faces and crooked smiles

Sunken cheeks and bloody eyes

Are lies or truth found in ugliness or beauty

Or is a head at all the rooted problem

Why lay a finger on your foes

When you can lay an entire false reality

Even just feeling this way

Is enough to demand imperceptible justice

Talking pretty will help someone

At just the right time

But at every other moment

They may as well be deaf

Wave your hands

Wash the screen

It’s all a senseless act

Of raw victimless violence

Hiding in fingerprint grooves

The dry winter steps the cracks

A wind that thrusts the snows

Find a fire beyond the flat

Let’s live with this lie

For another sun or two

What we birth into this world

Will always be bigger than me and you

A moment of silence for this stanza

It buckled under the stress

Leave it for the uninterested living

Because

He Tried to Dream

He Tried to Dream

But the eyes would have none of it

Shutting closed and letting the blackness lead to blisters

He Tried to Dream

But the ears would not be bothered

Bending the wrong way and hearing backwards whispers

He tried to Dream

But the tongue would not stay still

Forcing out lies that earned their place in detention

He Tried to Dream

But the hands would only tremble

Running over sallow skin walls and a stone face demanding attention

He Tried to Dream

But the nose would clog and drip

Missing all reminders that run up against the cracked windowsill

He tried to Dream

But everyone has five years that can’t burn out

As the world naturally bends to your second guessed will

So Say the Prophets

I take what I can get

And I get what I can take

Just because it’s memorable doesn’t mean it’s helpful

The gunshots reinforced that notion as I saw my brethren fall to the ground with brand new holes

Yes to these poor word choices and clap back upon the notions that an expanded vocabulary can save us all right now

The difference is the difference is the difference

And the  third bell is rung in a place where the locals had all gone deaf by the end of the first bong

Hits like nothing else and that includes the ancestors with the thick fingers from work we’ll never understand

Times have changed and you’ve held onto space

Well that’s no way to get ahead or afoot in this mangy whirl

Health and wellness

Done for profits

Is a sin

So say the prophets

And they are the sort of people who run for the flooded valleys when the music swells because they invested to the gills

The important things I slightly ignored

That time I pulled back on a key embrace

When you remember how the rising moon is getting to you in a way it didn't before

Because there's just so many new names nowadays

I was enough in the sun

Burned out in the righteous heat

Always guessing how deep the tan went

We would have to take stock in the dull cricket nights

The slightly cooler air offered the important deeper breath

Look but don’t touch

Is fine for the children

But grow up

So say the prophets

And that means you have to let the old hands guide the young into the maws and knives of whatever was dreamed up too quickly to make deadlines

Well the frame had everything we needed

And so auntie unclasped her purse

And slipped the frayed bill under the glass

Only to find with curt iron nod that this will not do and has never been done

Hang your paintings elsewhere

Your art has no place on these walls

Ideas of man and god and law

Will not bear the proper load

Until you put everything down and down and down

You are still flying high

Without a plan

So say the prophets

And they are the sort of people who build statues of heroes with the material that could save millions over and over

Cul-De-Sac Table Read

Caught inside the cul-de-sac

Crucified upon the curl

All roads lead here

To the judgment of the world

So much more zen-like yesterday

When the weather didn’t turn so fast

Paid for inner peace with outer pain

No wonder the good times wouldn’t last

Fists full of dust and dollars

Won’t help for what you’ve have been through

Better line up those prayers

‘Cause you need god a lot more than he needs you

Caught inside the table read

With your best lines blacked out

All eyes upon you

And nothing good to talk about

So much more simpler yesterday

When you finally stopped the kneel

Got so much further and much faster

With your own hands upon the wheel

Pockets full of hope and change

A sunrise that no longer costs a limb

The holy words reach the deafest ears

Cause god needs you a lot more than you need him

The Best is Silence

Reach across the aisles and the adjacent supermarkets and the roads that cut through lovers’ houses

Make a point of feeding the hungry whether it is food or love that they long for in the cold morning

Hold that respect with care because if it’s ripped away from your tight grasp it will never come back

The best is silence

Because it gives me the chance to fucking think

Desperately stuck on the product when buying something was once a sacred exchange of goods and cultural values

I don’t need to have the sun to fade off my label just let me breathe I don’t need to have the fastest hand under the table just let me breathe

The air is thick before the throat and saying I do is the new loan the old bankruptcy and the morals ain’t free

The Best is Silence

Because it keeps me off the fucking brink

Looking for your name on the tags of labels of all the things I wear and use but never getting the pronunciation right

We run the risk of screaming ourselves hoarse for the next week sales as if that is going to keep us together

I overthought your funeral while your heart was still beating in the only aisle of the garden variety store

The Best is silence

Because without it I can’t sleep a fucking wink

When your head and hands are heavy

I've raised a glass in a burning flame

I've spent time as a widow's crutch

And all I know besides my name

Is honesty’s lightest touch

When your head and hands are heavy

You will likely seek me out

But I am a quickly rising levee

Bringing chaos and a rout

Given the task of more with less

Might be a sin but not a crime

They think I'm making progress

but you know I'm just taking time

When your head and hands are heavy

Stay away from the roaring fire

The smoke is full of envy

And the heat will melt our wire

It was not a true connection

Plenty of lying on the side

And I would be remiss to mention

How you supported every tide

When your head and hands are heavy

The future is not assured

The threats are each and every

So keep close your final word

The Ugly Hand of History

It’s the ugly hand of history

And you’re stuck upon the palm

God is a Cop

God is a cop

Because the power is fitting

God is a cop

Because we’re all submitting

God is a cop

With a rise in the tension

God is a cop

With an eye on their pension

God is a cop

Who doesn’t have to bear witness

God is a cop

Who is into everyone’s business

God is a cop

And she knows where to put the truncheon

God is a cop

And he attends the president’s luncheon