scurrilous

after benefit of the doubt was given
and rumor, for too long, dismissed as scurrilous
now the bile rises as the scuttlebutt turns out true
from another and another and it all returns to you
and someday you may, indeed, forgiven be
but I hope it will never be forgot
this devastation that you slyly wrought
and the reckoning in which you're finally caught

bludge

why is it on the days
that i most want to bludge
the work comes thick and heavy
flowing over me like sludge

harbinger

a young falcon has alighted
on my office windowsill
and there he sits still
more than an hour gone
as if to grace me with goodwill
preening his baby feathers
he puffs up fluffed by breeze
as beady eye upon me turns
and nods his head
in a sort of recognition
of one also on a precipice
for I have of late felt so low and lost
and cheerful grin to grimace turned
but this moment's magic
harbinger, perhaps, of better days to come
has brought me near to weeping
yet through a smile
that such a rare gift
to me was given

anneal

would that I could
like steel anneal
when temper flares
to cool into strength
instead I burn away
or cool too quick
and shatter at the first

illustrious

i remember all the promise
that i held like a firefly
caught in childish hands
set free again
believing it would fly
but perhaps i gripped too hard
for i fear that youthful prospects
now have died
or flit but limpingly and low
the illustrious future once i dreamed
somehow unfulfilled and full of woe
and in such thoughts
i cannot see the sky
the world is cloaked
in fog of dread
i struggle with the weight
of forging on ahead knowing not
where next to set each step
and measure out my tread
bewildered by a path i cannot see
but still the onward march
and trust that somewhere
further down the road
the light will grow
and winds will blow away
the smog surrounding me

non sequitur

it's been a while since one of those nights
you know the nights, the nights that last till dawn
where the conversation just goes on and on
from one non sequitur to the next, to the next
the nights where inside jokes are born
where laughter flows like wine
and all the world adorned with a certain glow
where you already know someone
you've no reason to already know
where the banter never seems to end
and you find a new love or a new old friend
I miss those nights and the promise that they bring
but the best thing about those nights
is you know somehow they'll always come again

mucilaginous

there's nothing like a dive bar
a good old gritty joint
the walls painted
in long forgotten smoke
and heartaches unspoken
stools that wobble with
a precarious creak
yet never seem to break
lighting reminiscent
of clandestine kisses
from squalid affairs
and in the air the ghosts
of a million spilled beers
the floor mucilaginous
on the bottom of your shoes
bartender gruff but grinning
as he listens to old news
no, there's nothing like a dive bar
a home away from home
where they know your name
and know your drink
and you're never all alone

viand

the table set 

with grateful grace 

on paper plates

and all around 

the cheerful faces

of family made 

from friendship grown

of years and laughter sown

the viands laid abundantly 

and scents redolent of home

obliterate

that i could scrub my brain
eternal sunshine all the pain
that lingered long
after a thing was done
i wonder if i would
given the chance remove
the memories of times
i was my worst
cruel things said
cowardly acts
petty crimes
would i obliterate
that or this
or are we made as much
of shame and guilt
as love
and which marks us more
and who were we before

wifty

in the inner workings of my mind
far beyond my better judgment placed
the id knows more than what she will relate
and in her weird determinations
oft she steers me right
at least more right
than what my sense dictates
and so i find that when i contravene
my wifty whims is when i most distraught become
intuition disregarded humbles me and leaves me dumb

bombinate

as though a kitten's purr
susurrating satisfaction
wells within and bombinates
luxuriates and stretches out
in drowsing delectation
like the moment before waking
from a lackadaisical lazing
and comforts permeates
as yawning chest inflates

fervid

the passion
once I felt
now matched
though changed
with fervid disdain
and regret
that I let
myself
so burn
for one
so cold

belaud

had I all the winds that blow
still beyond my breath
the breadth of beauty
so profound that tears would well
were it not for the buffeting gusts
that nearly knock me down
against the rough hewn majesty
of stony cliffs and muddy track
to lead me there and back
through granite sky above
the crashing sea below
that churns like new found love
yet I cannot belaud the grace
beyond what place itself bestows
for words are wind as well
upon the gale overwhelmed

jalousie

i want a castle
it is true
but i don't need a castle
not if i have you
if i have you
a cottage would do me just fine
jalousies instead of windows
for the breeze in summertime
or a hut upon the beach
made of a palm frond weave
if you were there with me
i'd never want to leave
a trailer or a mansion
a penthouse or a shed
home is where the heart is
and my heart to you has led

lollygag

strength of purpose
never quite my SOP
instead I oft meander
towards whom I hope to be
lollygag at the good parts
to forge ahead with bruised
but still unbroken hearts
with kindnesses caressed
forgiving and forgiven
by transgressors
and transgressed
never apologizing
for sweet rose smelling
ambition is laudable
but I find joy
more compelling

proximity

a case of mistaken identity
confused proximity for intimacy
in the micrometre between skin
a million kilometres hidden

stellar

on the edge
of hearing
as her eyes
close to make
a midnight sky
on moonless night
a murmur undefined
of stellar whisperings
tells her that she's loved
before she falls asleep

roué

i reflect

a thousand pages full
a tome, a towering tonnage
of verbiage and time devoted

in memory of those departed
of loves lost or never started

of a cad, a roué, a ruffian
charmers all
who left me sad, or blue, or suffering
as i'd fall

but writ in blood beyond the pain
the knowledge
i would do it all again
and yet again and again

for all the woe was born in hope
and hope ineffable and perpetual
within each cell of me is scrawled
as convict calendar etched into the wall

so i with ink or on this screen
so etch my heart and contravene my sense
in search of solidarity as my recompense

shilly-shally 12/11/17

weigh it all
the pros
the cons
the cost
of moving up
and moving on
and shilly-shally
back and forth
dilly-dally to decide
whether to better to hide
or boldly face w/ brazen smile
the pain we have inside
and ride out in defiance
of those who've broken faith
alliance lost but not forgot
and though we can forgive a lot
not all

doughty 11/11/17

though buffeted by
a tempest raging
far beyond our ken
still we suit up
and set forth
doughty and determined
to make and mold our future
into something better

pathos 10/11/17

the wall I build
around myself
most formidable
may seem
and yet of
painted canvas
a scrim of solidity
no thicker
than a thumbnail
and with but little
pathos overpushed

cotton 9/11/17

for one as bright

as I purport to be

and in mind 

that ego not inflated

I still simpleminded seem

I cannot cotton on to all 

the intricacies of how

one gets to be the one

instead for some

odd reason I reside

penultimate in line

and beside myself

though to my fate resigned

mandarin 8/11/17

i've eked out the story
in drips and drabs
winkled out an axiom
coaxing a shy truth
from the mandarin morass
of your half veiled eyes
and purple prose lies
in the beautiful fiction
of created confection
i let go of my faith
in you and reflection

archetype 7/11/17

made up of fluff and fairy tales
the archetype created
till expectation all inflated
by a fiction once so planted
and the measure that we make
when against the truth is taken
the disparity so great that
we can forget the life we've led
so much better than imagined
for it's tangible instead

esemplastic - 6/11/17

a Goya in a gallery
a castle on the green
a smile over beers
hints of a might have been
fragments scattered over years
by time's esemplastic power
shaped into reminiscence
with which to while away an hour
as the fire turns to embers
and the future turns to past
and in laughter and in tears
we return to dust and ash

parable - 5/11/17

scrawled on sand
as the turning of the tide
parables and paradoxes
read like the sides
of cereal boxes and
all our midnight philosophies
repeated in refrains
leave you humming
as the world exhales
and the waves return
chalkboard beach
wiped clean again
with the new moon

clew - 2/11/17

down alleys and hidden corridors
we whisper the names
posted above shop windows
and as we pass the yarn shop
with clews and skeins draped
like tinsel around the window panes
I smile and take your arm
against the cold and in camaraderie
and knit the memory in grey matter
to wear another day

stridulate - 4/11/17

he walks the floor
sex in flannel
and corduroy
and with each step
he stridulates
among the girls
frenzied lip gloss kisses
and long hair tosses
in time to the tune
his pants creates

tin-pot - 3/11/17

threadbare satchel leaking
tin-pot trinkets
of market stall tat
affectation
bought wholesale
and marked up
beyond recall
before falling
along the wayside
to litter the gutter
with the crumpled
facsimiles of affection

apodictic - 1/11/17

expounding and propounding 

with apodictic certainty that

what you say is
what you mean to say

despite malapropisms
abounding

in measure
astounding

werewolf

the changes could not

have been more  great

were he afflicted 

as with a gothic malaise

from kindest kind to villain 

as though a switching moon 

might make of man a werewolf 

inner beast released 

and I knew not the lunar calendar 

by which to make my moves

lest rendered into nothing 

more than feast