phantasm

from nightmare
extricate i beg
awake and find
this phantasm
as ephemeral
as the fallen leaf
soon to decay
and nourish
the earth anew

respite

all the words in my head
repeat without surcease and
yet in the space between the
ache of a day filled with
constant regret for potential
unfulfilled and the moment
before sleep overtakes me
I find a moment of respite
in the cradle of your arms

lackadaisical

world marred
by whistles
by bells
alarming alarms jarring
soul from slumber
to wakeful worry
how precious then
a lackadaisical day
when sleep surpasses
its allotment
when tired turns
to spoons and
snuggles deep
into quiet content

undulate

i close my eyes
and cease to see
this cubicle
but see a sea
instead
where sand sifts
between my toes
and water washes
off my woes
my muscles stop
their clenching
and i float
upon the waves
my long hair
undulating like algae
tension dissolves
and dissipating
until
the phone rings
and the song
my heart sings
subsides
as i open
up my eyes

pedagogical

deny the truth
or whatever
ignore the facts
the pedagogical
no more lauded
when ignorance
pedestaled for
convenience sake
disregard the quake
and quality of
research in your
search to besmirch
reality if it means
you can continue
without the work
of not being a jerk

aerie

unfledged we flutter
our featherless wings
atop the cliff in an aerie
perched precariously
and pray for prey
procured by talons
not our own lest we
starve and plummet

coruscate

water whooshes
through the tap
in a pulsing thrum
morning knuckles
rub heavy-lidded eyes
floaters coruscate
past cornea
as all the world
through sparkler seen
body fireworks
to wake this weary flesh

Noachian

the greybeards
tell tales of a time
before the sea rose
to Noachian heights
(or is it depths)
of a time before the shore
was miles from where
it was the year before
before the sky
unceasing wept
the greybeards
mythologize and say
that once the ancients
called the rise a lie
before the polar bears
and leopards and eagles
and bees all died

spoonerism

it’s early days still
pet names are tried
on for size
and cast aside
inside jokes are gestating
awaiting a quiet birth
and spoonerisms
made of mangled joy
deployed in giddy glee
as we accept that
pobody’s nerfect
neither you nor me
but together
we just might be

fiduciary

toddler truths:
when a little
walks up
and whispers
you their secret -
you have
a fiduciary
obligation
to keep it.

comprise

what building materials are these
snippets and scraps and smidgens
of songs and poems in verse or
tunes played in backroom memory
a hum of what may be a truth
or may be a figment or false
twisted by hope and laughter
and time and tears into a shining
diamond of a heart in a coal chest
comprised of all my worst and best
this is my yesterday and today
and part of my tomorrows
these my joys and sorrows

knackered

when days are long
stretched like
old rubber bands
friable and apt
to snap and leave me
knackered and
bound to break into
brittle ends
love amends
restoring elasticity
gift from you to me

deke

my heart a puck
dropped into
a frozen world
slapped around
racing from one
place to another
flying in space
deked by the defender
serial offender
render my end better
into the goal

hobbyhorse

my current hope most fervent
ambition set, attempt begun:
to climb upon my hobbyhorse -
ride off into the setting sun,
to leave behind this drudgery,
to make my life anew.
believe me, if you lived it...
you would want that too

maunder

her thoughts a jumble
her stories tangle
her mouth maunders on
as her listeners try
to follow along

genial

the wonder is not
your blue eyes
your kind smile
your warm heart
your genial demeanor
your silly giggle
your contented sigh
the wonder is not you
the wonder is I
get to share in them
how rare a gem

belfry

echolocation
shows my destination
ahead and above
the belfry, my home
and each night I wake
and each night I roam
the moths make my dinner
in summer
in winter I dream
of lost seraphim
bells that once rang
like the church choir sang
a priest was deployed
pews well employed
now my siblings and I
the sole congregation
immune to temptation
or indoctrination

exoteric

what means a joy if gone unrecorded
experienced solely by the one there
in the moment full to bursting
for none but themselves
the quiet giddiness
of a secret shared
an inside joke

what means love

unbroadcast in some
instatwitted So-Me sense
untethered to the internet yoke
made not for exoteric recompense
in clicks and hearts and thumbs up-raised
what good the goal achieved but left unpraised

triskaidekaphobia

hall as black as pitch
in perfect dark
each creak whines
as though the house
in pain and pause
you stop your feet
in fear of being eaten
by the shaky timbers
you hear behind a door
the tick of time
the ancient chime
tolls thirteen and
your heart screams
a fear being born
triskaidekaphobia
yours forevermore

wheedle

precious commodity
hoarded like gold
still with patience
wheedle out the truth
rare and shiny
make of it treasure
to buy your freedom

idée fixe

compulsion
overrules
convention

the mind's attic
is haunted
by an idée fixe

ghostly visitations
howling in psyche's dark
and rattling your chains

blandish

i could stand no more bare
as naked as grace upon
the stage for sale as i am
in the face of your kind
words blandishing me
along sweeter than the
gentle tug of your hand
eager to move towards
tomorrow together and
naked here my blemishes
by you ignored i am found
i am whole i am adoring
and adored

scapegoat

He'd make himself a martyr,
but neither sacrificial lamb
nor scapegoat, he.
He made his own misery.
His persecution nowhere
but his mind, to truth
ever blind. He cannot discern
the difference between
privilege revoked and oppression.
What others have that
he does not is his obsession.
Not recognizing what he truly lacks
is empathy. He begs for sympathy;
pandering to the worst - he
provokes and promotes mobocracy.

caustic

booze
and caustic wit
she brought
and never
did the things
she ought
but perish
the thought
that you're like her
you think yourself
Mrs. Parker
instead a sepia
shadow of
don't begrudge
you just nudge
where she
would shove

redound

the willing would
were it so requested
pluck out their eyes
so as not to see 
the ignominy redounding
off the one
for whom they
parrot public praise
but privately deride
they have no side
but his backside
they tiger ride
and hope they will not fall
before his reeking,
rotting, gaping maw
devours them all

amaranthine

lake reflected sky
painted with
amaranthine glow
before the gloaming
as is my roseate cheek
in the brisk autumn air
season of change
reflected in dusk

divulge

like a flower
all my secrets
I will divulge

petals unfolding
with morning dew
in the morning sun

buried treasure too
to the busy bee
who waits to delight in me

futhark

the heart writes in runes
hieroglyphs and chicken scratch
it jots notes in the margins
in sanskrit and futhark
latin and old english
in logograms and cyrillic
the heart writes all the words
and jumbles them up
in a neverending dadaesque poem
that none read the same
but if you would read
you would then see
my heart writes these
and also, your name

pursy

a gift given
unkindly received
still kindly given
but the giver
given a pursy mouth
as gift becomes
less likely to give again

sawbones

there is no Sherlock greater
no eager student more intent
no future sawbones bent
over foetal pig in science class
desperate their AP test to pass
more dissecting and discerning
with youthful pride in learning
more cautious and tenacious
to discover truth in the autopsy -
than me
standing over the corpse
of what was and will never be

mitigate

time has done
what youth could not

the creaks of age remind me
in sharp retort upon rising
every day of my decades

earthbound where
once I thought to fly

instead laborious
I clamber and climb
to stand upon a precipice

sorrow at the might-have-beens
mitigated by perspective

hard won and from
a height but half imagined
as impossible

I see the world as Icarus
before the fall
yet still standing
standing still