antithetical

Resolutions

1) try to do the things I ought
2) don't fret about what I've not got
3) eat my greens
4) call my mother
5) stop sexting with that old lover
6) forgive myself my faults some more
7) kick bad habits out the door
8) stop behavior antithetical to what I want
9) go on sabbatical
10) always, always say "i love you"
11) pay my bills before they're past due
12) be kind
13) be grateful
14) don't be a doormat
15) laugh loud and often
16) get treats for cat

spiel

exhaustion overcomes
from swiping to and fro
reading little spiels
of what you "ought to know"
pictures of people petting tigers
and bathroom shirtless selfies
the brain ceases function
grey matter screaming "HELP ME"
and worse than this; the knowing
that you yourself no better
parsing all your profile
down to every single letter
perhaps the days in bars
drinking with blurry strangers
weren't all that bad
despite obvious danger
of ending up no more
than a head in someone's freezer
because you trusted wrongly,
you stupid people-pleaser

pooh-bah

world expands but we contract
so tiny and confined
pooh-bahs of our little fiefdoms
to little lives resigned
biggest fish in shrinking ponds
as sun burns up the sky
we have to look beyond our ken
or else we all shall die

debilitate

remember as your rage
rises up like an alien
to burst through rib cage
and throttle the smug face across
that their loss will also be your loss
the anger will debilitate you so
it will choke you to death
and as you first will go
you won't live long enough
to witness their demise
better to smile and pass the sides

hortative

a year foreclosed like dilapidated buildings
and we sad squatters forcefully removed
the joie de vivre of revolution mislaid
as we crack & crumble & tumble into tomorrow
looking back on broken yesterdays
wrapped like a present in hortative police tape
to keep the condemned from caving in and
in collapse becoming trapped in lang syne
forever consigned to extricate instead of expand

abeyance

given freely
too oft to those
that squandered
or frittered on
some other
while she left
on meager rations
as now we find
she holds her love
in abeyance for
one who spends
it with her
invests it in her
and not in spite

conciliate

forgiving
I wish to be
to answer to
the angels within
and knowing
that I'm soon to see
the one who lied
so thoroughly
who still tries
to conciliate me
while evading truth
I find it harder
to absolve him
than I'd like
but no less
than deserved

nativity

under the overpass 

huddled in a pile 

of squalid blankets

tired and dirty and low

through the desert they came

fleeing the ones who would

murder their children

and so here they are 

on a cold December night

with no where else to go

no wise men to aid them

no gifts at their feet laid

this nativity different 

but somehow the same 

unless men grow kinder

the ending also different

but also unchanged

flamboyant

my love
like a garden
was arrayed in set rows
now decayed into chaos
still lovelier grows
into fountain of roses
overflowing the walls
into daises and mums
and trellises falling from the weight
of blooms and birds nesting
and honeysuckle creeping
and wisteria weeping
and sunflowers leaping
in flamboyant displays
beckoning the bees
to keep gloom at bay
awaiting a gardener
to spread yet more seeds
but leave my love wildish
and pluck out the weeds

vespertine

the veritas of vino in the vespertine gloaming
conversation sparkling like the stars up above
and intimacy sped by the tilt of her head
as he leans in slightly for a kiss good night
and she closes her eyes to better surmise
if the sparks she thought she felt
were real or hope's little white lies

boniface

she craves the safety of the light
thought here it's just a little too bright
like summer hangover mornings
a mouse symphony plays naugahyde etudes
as she shifts in the booth
to wrap her hands in coffee mug mittens
while a cold rain pounds the windows
louder than the malevolent lover she left
and she hides in the corner behind
formica and cynicism
like the boniface of an all-night diner
in a Tom Waits song
surveying the cast of hackneyed strangers
anonymous but familiar
as she sips coffee and courage
and waits for the dawn

recumbent

begin by having to dig out
from indignities blizzard
heaped upon while recumbent
lulling asleep the avalanche
of a million minuscule coldnesses
whispering to surrender 

stultify

after all the years I spent
listening to the Nos
reverberate in my head
the Maybes that never
came to fruition
the Yeses that were lies
and filled me with dread
these echoes would stultify
leave me breathless & dumb
unable to move on
and now so long fought
and so hard won
perspective like a picture framed
in optimism self-taught
instead of being told
I am too cynical or jaded
too cheerful is now the cry
ah well, I am persuaded
that some people
one can never satisfy

permeable

"you have toughen up," they say
"if you ever want to win"
and, god knows, i'd likely be better off
with somewhat thicker skin
a delicate balance to figure out
a fine line to walk within
impervious enough to keep derision out
but permeable, still, to let love in

Lothario

hindsight instructs
what hope oft obstructs
oh, I have fallen for them all
one Lothario to the next
taken in by easy charm
and a kind of smile
too practiced and smooth
that naught but desire
and loneliness can ignore
no more, NO MORE
now give me the awkward grin
the bashful and chagrined
sans half promises hinted
love only implied or inferred
lest joy be yet further deferred

terpsichorean

wild abandon

on the dance floor

flail and gyrate

and limbs in

semaphore waving

messages back to 

the empty shore

in terpsichorean tempo

as the beat below

throngs through you

and sweat rolls off you

as your body remembers

though you may not

exuberant youth

you thought forgot

fructify

it may take an age
in barren soil sown
but winds and rain
and tempest thrown
flotsam here landed
to fertilize and fortify
and little plans
now fructify from
schemes and dreams
into perhaps and maybe
for though this tree
may not bear fruit
in this year or the next
the roots dig in
and so begin to grow
from simple to complex

gravamen

that you blame me
for not knowing you
for not seeing through
the lies you used to synthesize
the facade you built to self-aggrandize
and you demonized me
for believing your deceiving
as though the fault in me lay
for naively trusting the things you'd say
the gravamen of my grudge is this
you cannot chide a girl for falling
when you created the abyss

diaphanous

some days
one must
content oneself
with content
when happiness
as diaphanous
as a mirage
above the asphalt
of a summers day
leads one astray
we must find
another way
and remember
we are promised
the pursuit but
not the prize

sustain

this wretched space wherein
the walls come closing in
and nevermore has grace appeared
since first the door did close behind
combining tedium with terror
torture in equal measure
and tempered with disdain
such a place cannot sustain
and yet, I know not why,
I remain

Orphic

as in the dark of night
I blunder and fumble 
grasping for a light
scan my tea leaves
read my cards to no avail
for never yet have
soggy weeds or cardboard
told me aught I ought to know
no Orphic hint to guide me so
I stumble on and
blindly find some way
tripping through the shadows
and longing for the day

cachinnate

raise a glass to the nights that last forever

the first dates that start at five and end at four

wherein you and they speak as if 

no one had ever spoken before

wherein the silence flees as you cachinnate 

like the kookaburras of song

wherein your face hurts from smiling

and eleven hours doesn't seem so very long

raise your glass to those nights;

the ones to come & ones that went before 

and hope that of first dates, at least,

there aren't very many more

zoomorphic

down winding path
the crunching tread
of foot in snow and ahead
a light post on park path
beneath the festooned trees
gives way to expectation
that the next to pass can only be
some zoomorphic fellow
leading you into a Narnian dream

wend

up the hill past the back of beyond
they wend their way through
the cockeyed gravestones
and one hand rests in another
as easy as the promise of "someday"
while they pause their wander
to wonder in the shadow
of ancient architecture laid bare
by time and an ages decline
how fleeting the days
of which their own lives composed
she leans against the sturdier structure
of his chest as she his arms enclose
beneath the vaulting sky
in a sanctuary more sacred
than promontory relics
and forgotten bones

maieutic

once the seed of empathy planted
finally taken root
so it grows in maieutic succession
twig from branch the recognition
that we are all leaves on the very same tree
and though one may get more light
should the tree grow sick
we are all subject to the blight

candor

motes dance in sunshine as the curtains pulled
like butterfly wings fluttering
like stars in sleepy eyes
like a dandelion puff dissipating in the wind
contrary to the sepia filters that cover the world with lies
the candor of life unvarnished dusty and bedraggled in the light
shines with the beauty of broken things
the aching triumph of flight with broken wings
the authenticity from which love springs

encapsulate

if brevity be wit's soul
then my wit is soulless
though I hope my soul not witless
I am quite unable to bind my thoughts
and encapsulate the whole in just a snippet
the entirety seems to come at once
all or nothing and ramble on
straight to the end from the incipit
so pith beyond me yet
Dickens perhaps a better fit

maudlin

no more is the juniper my friend
time was once when
in her fragrant fumes
my sorrows oft I drowned
but a man in black behind the bar
told me he would serve me no more
if I insisted on drinking gin
for it made me too maudlin

pillory

a time of reckoning
at long last
has finally come
at least for some
and those that dodge, I hope
will stop or still
in some other place or time
themselves upon the pillory find
to pay for sins in dark
no longer hid
to beg forgivness
for the wrongs they did

intersperse

conversation
like music
and the quiet
we intersperse
amidst the notes
of daily consequence
and the inconsequential
in seemingly random sequence
as single melody 
swells to harmony
and then symphony
rest and recitative
adagio and crescendo
so we write the score of us
with which to play
out our years

anachronism

an anachronism
in her skin
kept her
from fitting in
so she learned to hide
her steampunk side
and now you'd never know
the cylon below
the skin job
you see
but there's an it
beneath the she