Mumblings / Poetry, Mid 2026

Like mentioned on other other poetry pages, it is James Dickey-inspired poetry. No idea why 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 definitely-not-new-anymore digital poetry book, Brief Tales of Compromised Solutions (which exists in a rather theoretical space at this point)

Stupid Little Fingers

Stupid little fingers

Messing up the pie

Every second lingers

But you’re not gonna die

Stupid little hands

Breaking on the wheel

Committed to commands

No matter what you feel

Stupid little arms

Reaching for the worst

Across the burning farms

And into pockets first

Stupid little smiles

Lying across the face

Spreads for broken miles

Ruining every race

Dear Reverse

Dear Reverse,

Where were you pissing when it stopped being voluntary?

I hope you made it to the sidewalk and were able to clean yourself off in time

The towns around here got so cheap so quickly

I found nothing worth stealing as I oozed into the fresh broken windows

Tess was asking about a curdling friend of yours 

Who could have been my father

Or just another hotshot dealer

Revealed on uncomfortable studio chairs meant to get a rise out of all of us

Laughing with an ever warming drink stuck to the wrist when the cameras cry off

The party is refreshed with familiar guests

But all we did was get lost in the hallways

Using the floor to steady our wits and our walk

Changing our methods to

Staring out the window

Fiddling with the dial

Refreshing the page

There was always a way to get comfortably caught in the always slightly different

Everything you ever wanted 

Was put on someone else’s tab

But it’s never the same when you’re living for free

And Tess is putting up some sort of emotional barrier that financial instruments cannot penetrate

Daring to cherish

Something that won’t make it to sunset

The pale green wallpaper and the cold frames filled with long face hang upon it

The always family gallows

Whether you are holding the nose or mouth

Don’t fall into the temptation to hold both

I turned around and just kept turning

You told me we’d meet again if I stayed like this

Waiting twice as long for half a kiss

Staring up at the old grey rooftops holding onto one thin wish

The one sentence I couldn’t be bothered to actually

With the terrible fate of

Ending up in the background of your own life

Fit like a leather glove

And removed with the grace of a twice dulled knife

Still talking

I’m still talking

I’m making the matter my own

Storming through another home

An argument around the family knife 

Always making the finest points

Always counting on the same two cuts

Because even the scars can be covered up

It works like a hammer

Sailing upright in a sea of nails

Ready to get felled by a tempestuous wind

And of your sickness there’s a solution

Not a cure but a pregnant pause

Touched by the cock of god

And you can’t tell anybody

Yours without love,

Forward

The People Upon The People

Sometimes they are in the bag

Sometimes they beg at the door

Sometimes there is love in the air

Sometimes there is blood on the floor

The People upon the People

Are getting unruly and smart

So much skin and paper money

You can’t tell the two apart

Some are felled by a bullet

Some are betrayed by a kiss

Some are stoking riot fires

Some are putting them out with piss

The People upon the People

Slipped right through the cracks

So much pain and patience

Are breaking all their backs

Times are turning sideways

Times are getting lost

Times are out of sand

Times are rising costs

The People upon the People

Deciding the time was now

So much effort and encroachment

Upon their mistaken brow

Misremembering the face of the foul

Misremembering the face of the foul

And the words didn't stop because they are the finest weapons

The lady in white was hoping no one saw her scars

Going for the safe bet across the aisle

Everyone paying attention to the hair and the flick o the confident wrist

Inside the lungs are already demanding another breath

But who has time who has space who has the gavel

And these questions are fleeting 

Just getting in the way of misplaced certainty

The feeling you cling to when everything else gets cold and void

Drunker on a fine summer night

Inner spirits caged by the outer matters

Sputtering sadly that

-chance is not ready for its close up

They hoped I trimmed the fat

They asked for it on the rafters

Because by then the sun was gruelling bright

The patience of a thousand saints

And their post-living silence

Could not plan for the spiritual disappointment

To wit or to the rubbish tip

All roads lead to home

But how many times can you eat that memory

Until the warm air comes?

Until the skin stretches like the truth?

Until the breaks just break for others?

You can always keep playing

But you’ll have to stop working

I don’t make the rules

And that’s how I make time

 Here Come the Wheels

Here come the wheels

They love the sound of your cracking bones

I’m looking for a quick exit

A ramp to put the straight white lines behind me

A winding side road to call my own

Here comes the wheels

They laugh at dust in your tired lungs

You’re gasping on the shoulder

Separated from all the common sense traffic

Grinding teeth on choicest gravel

Here come the wheels

They forget they even passed you by

We’re holding our bare memories

Divided by cruel pylons and foolish curbs

Wishing in thin pools of thickened oil

Here comes the wheels

They’re back again before they know it

I’ve got nothing but the road to kill

Wounded by the breaks in time

Waiting to drive the last point back home

Different? 

I can give you different with a turn of the neck

No blood on the back

And that’s where it counts

In days and millilitres

Everyone brings forks and no one brings the pie

Getting beaten at getting beaten worse than everyone else

Running aground

At the speed of conversation

Desert dry thoughts

From tide that has turned one too many times

Different is a switch to a sound in the chair

That drills through the weather and the world away news

Absolutely shrapnel 

Not a single thing whole or smooth

Jagged in thought and form

Playing for keeps before your even started playing

Staring at the hands that wrinkle in the sun

Waiting for the ancient signs of yore to peel up to the nail