Sympathy For The Ego

to proceed with suffering

maintain hostility towards ego 

the lacerating symptom 

or wait and watch

once the loathing is evinced or glimpsed 

position for unsentimental consolation 

going slightly childlike but wizened

gives comfort to the intimidated

Doomsaying At The End Times

arbitrary coppers buttons 

police in wool coats 

going through the waste papers 

masts of the ship straight gloat 

float roasts in the GOAT's throat

if a boot don’t crush it 

toasted boasting to cheers 

recourse absent spine and it’s

prison bars for the fairest of them all 

we again started gone again

and the right stuff makes its way 

to wet lips and throat of the featurette 

we’re bringing cheese to the party opiate 

of the masses right in the sliced package wreckage

flaccid mad grab-assed around haven’t found it yet

like a plane that never leaves the ground 

we cough and fight until the sun goes down 

feverish with too much energy to spare 

it feels like the sun 

a hair’s width away from blasting in 

making forests into toothpicks cinders 

the bark of one tree makes aspirin 

another heats a house another builds one

and the tithe we pay is 

not enough air to breathe 

pump that gas up into the sky 

why cry when we’ll all die at the same time 

everybody holding hands and singing songs 

to the masses the masses 

he passes horrified 

too long until the blonde moon sets 

on the graveyard passes

when everything passes for a graveyard

the trees bow low in the courtyard 

ready set go

Dreaming Of Eden

i don’t want the steady drip from corners 

of weary obtuse angles in my brain

nor pens of gridded squares on which to map 

my trajectory through space each dark day

hitching cars coughing and narrowly laned

a brief break for lunch a bored heavy nap

give me daylight brilliant windows

dancing green grasses breeze blown trees

wild blooms and a swift brook splashing

we’ll watch fireflies flashing at night

beneath prodigious domes with holes

for moon and stars to pour their light

then sleeping in your splendid arms

wrapt legs soft lips and shampooed hair

or unashamed sleepless and bare

and loved and full of care and warm

Unwinding The "Alpha Male" Construct

There’s this macho all-for-me type of energy I manifested in my youth, and in moments of my highest confidence, in which I felt unstoppable and that all probabilities were open but for my choosing. And I think sometimes that the self-ascribed “alpha males” of our current culture are high on that feeling, crave that feeling, and sense it’s been stolen from them somehow. They sense they can no longer run over people they see as resources to validate themselves without consequence.

The earlier confidence, and the mature recognition of the self-absorption from which it emerged, has resulted in a kind of self-loathing I struggle with from time to time. At my most vulnerable I’ve felt selfish, worthless, and almost vampiric. Crawling, reaching, scrabbling for purchase in a world I find quintessentially and necessarily uncertain. 

I have come to accept that uncertainty, and so find a kind of confidence in a search for authenticity of self within this chaotic maelstrom. The search for authenticity becomes itself a vehicle for confidence because I am trying to find my own resources, a sense of self-reliance, all while recognizing the human struggle in everyone.

I think the toxic masculinity that overruns the consciousness of so many young men, and their supporters in this culture, grows in part from an unwillingness to accept the responsibility of seeking an authentic self, avoiding accountability, and the ease of seeing people as things to exploit. 

But human beings aren’t resources, and thinking men are not automatons. 

So I hope we can all pull our heads out of our collective asses, and regardless of sex and gender identities, just try harder to be sympathetic to our fellow humans, and be good to each other.

Aurora

i watched Aurora tip toe through the trees

and lay down hair splayed on the fallen leaves

her gown soaked up the dew her breath made breeze

but then she rose and flew over the eaves

Sonnet To Uncensored Random Thought

before those books go missing from their shelves

and algorithms take the place of chance

let’s take a long last look within ourselves

to make some nonsense do a silly dance

once more to sing some tuneless melody

we heard in white noise standing in the shower

enjoy some silent unseen privacy

just staring out the window for an hour

think some illicit thoughts we’ll never share

and have ideas we never knew were there

Going

the grain bowl going upside down

across the field the placid beast

protects the forest door

through which the light goes gray and cold

the other side’s guardian snarls and frets

until the snowy heath’s high yellow grass

reveals the night heron’s red eye

it tilts its head the way away

from a tree full of crows

toward what i have sought all along

A Night Walk In Spring

there is nothing like a night walk

in early spring with blossom laden

branches shedding petals over

sidewalks children scrawled with chalk

filling the life-recycled air 

with million-year-old scents 

intermingled with the chemical clean

exhaust smell issuing from laundry vents

the streetlights sputter alive their cones

of light and mothers call their kids in to eat

and bathe and rest their play-weary bones

Taking The Weekend

Obviously there was no poem yesterday, nor will there be one today or tomorrow unless I feel so inclined. I have a very good friend and his family visiting from out of town so I am giving myself permission to take the weekend off ... unless the creative urge strikes.

Expect a poem (possibly more than one) on Monday at the latest.

Please be good to yourselves and to each other.

~MS

Mind Body Connection

paper clip hook in my brain

tightening torque in my chest

rubber band between

when storm winds blow

screaming weeping slamming doors

winding my head around

my heart follows

wrapping one way then back

until at last a snap or slack

Essential

the essential preface

says value definitions

as nebulous patterns

darkness shape of somewhere

tactile variations 

elements function regardless

broken-up surrounded played

relation maintains identity

Unwinding The Night

marginal gains wasting in my head

the dead spoke in the wheel

no one listened

only waited for their turn 

argosies and mutiny hand in hand 

the blessed peel coils the brother toils 

up the stairs grasps the rope and tolls 

the bell peals matins for the masses 

slowly unwinds the snake of night who 

slinks back over the curve of the earth 

shedding a thin skin with cells 

to catch the light in rainbows

there is no evil in the night only 

the fanged threat of superstitious poison 

the timid human alone 

in the wide darkness jumping 

at shadows darker than night 

but there’s nothing 

not there in the light

A Few Lines In Answer To The National Anthem*

yeah i saw the fucking flag flying

side of the Sunrise Highway

just over a bursting spray of new spring green

with the McDonald’s flag on mast just beneath

*I have plans for a longer version of this poem exploring how I am simultaneously grateful to live in this country, but also fiercely angry every time another freedom is curtailed or another group of people just trying to live their lives comes under threat of losing their rights because of some narrow minded bigots' stiflingly short-sighted interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

Anyway, this will likely be a long one and I will post it here with an update.

Bloom

what the spring bloom will

become depends on its roots

we can be our will

Patriarch

it’s fair to say my father dead over 

a year now scandalized my mother by

being unfaithful throughout their marriage

before having the gall to fall and die

after months in a convalescent home

though at least he lived long enough to make

apologies weeping in a rusted

wheelchair holding her hand his own shaking

after his ashes were stashed in the urn

she saw his cell phone and took back mercy

To Those Who Listen To Politicians

brandishing blandishments 

bluffing adulatory battlements

asinine inveiglement 

don’t be taken in

by a winning grin and something akin

to promises of a better tomorrow

when today is

a perfectly fine time

to begin

Knocking May

a beautiful stranger to my door

hawking wares i try to ignore

when May comes knocking

ostentatious smile too bright

that jejune steals sun from blooming April

to presume to compete with June light

no matter how gold and dappled

how sweet the berries peaches apples

or day’s scents of buds bursting into flowers

into warm nights of somber hours

trying to prove you’re not an unseasonable stray

pure aesthetic sensual hollow May

Home Of My Birth

emerged from my egg 

solid surface cracking back 

peeling reeling 

into the seelie world 

of light and fire 

lament and loss 

from womb home 

sheltering shell

i carry this longing 

wherever i dwell

Photon On Vegetable Porn

at the sucking mouth of spring

high sun’s hands warm caress and pet

arousing teasing out spring trees’

billowing green ejaculate

Pressures Of The Not Yet Defined

marred by sleeplessness

carelessly thrown restless 

into nets held together 

by tenuous threads

to the trenches beneath

the weight of the sinking sea

disinterested pressing

until sinking or swimming

we decide between the traps

and the shunned betweens

Easter Dreams & No Poem Today

No new poem today. Just going to enjoy the holiday with family and I hope you all get to do the same.

Last night I dreamed that a friend of mine decided that I should die to prove his theories about reincarnation. I was in the middle of telling him not to do it, when he pulled out a gun and shot me in the head.

Everything went dark. I felt like I was floating.

Then (still dreaming), I opened my eyes and saw I was laying in bed in a new body. I remembered being relieved that my friend was right, but the relief was short-lived. My friend had shot me after all, and the world I woke up in was not the one I'd left. I wondered if my wife and my sons were somewhere mourning my death and if they even existed in this new world. 

At the peak of my dream-self's crisis, I woke up for real.

Betrayed by a friend, and then born again. Seems appropriate for the holiday.

Be good to each other.

~MS

Heaven and Earth

encrusted shape of diamonds 

loose like light falls from heaven

the world pending for all time

have a sit down to break bread

the apples pressed to cider

ferment and reach firmament

sitting hillside before dawn

drunken asses wet with dew

bars of light rising from town

singing how the stars are set

World Song

the world’s sonorous songs

naïve still green and gold

runny as a fresh egg

growing somber with age

drifting alone longing

for some forgotten home

Light and Shadow

your bed a mattress and a quilt

pearlescent silk sheets tucked

against the wall just below 

the sheer curtained front window 

we dressed just after dusk

still smelling of our sex and left

into the air of April night warm too soon

out beneath the streetlights

under the two-faced moon 

that shone across the high shifting grass

shining in your hair 

while i felt the tree shadows

you said gave me an air of mystery

swallow me up completely

Betrayal's Garden

vile and sore as a creosote candle’s flame

assists in apprehending a few diffident deviants

shouted directions and verses of vigilant embers

celebrations in the rose garden attempted beauty

invented lore serves only to convey novelty

dousing your lips in diluted wine

the names you recite to the moon reel back revolted

beneficent votives in the immortal tongue

this too serious world has no pantomime without us

lesser men maintain the repose of mountains

invested you celebrate the occupation of your town

regrettably this love flowers into fiery disdain

viciously seminal crews attend to your domain

culling the adjourned hue of roses from war 

Aristocrats

the blood calls

for violence

automatons

blessedly couth

passion’s deserts languish

with single purposes

ostentatious suffocation

the quailing blemish

son do you hear

my servants

and yours

eaten with ancient pleasure

enjoy sweet jam of veins

watch skin mauve to pale blue

and the key thing i impart to you

decadent and delicate

the peril

and futility of life

Bat Boy Crosses A Line

remember the rubbish 

awaiting our wonder

when the warring world 

was waxing weary

and we latched onto fictions

unsolved mystery books 

in the elementary school library

with aliens and ghosts

thunderbird’s enormous shadow

but the roar the natives heard 

was no bird 

some plane passed through

a cloud over the Bermuda Triangle

and dropped off the radar

when i heard American Indians’ name for it

i knew sasquatch was real

some alternate hominin 

hiding in forests out west

and don’t get 

prepubescent me started

on Loch Ness

my 13th birthday gifts in hand

anger betrayal 

a supermarket tabloid

Bat Boy silently screaming

on the black and white cover

that too-close too-clear

obviously computer crafted snap

ended the illusions

a lie that was such a lie 

it poked a hole in all the lies and i

somehow sad i couldn't believe 

in lies anymore

Scavengers

messages in tar

bubbling up bones 

veins of black matter

greed circling 

waiting to swoop down 

on carrion failure 

round and round 

stinking swollen in the sun

bounty bursts forth

tearing through flesh

the veins the ocular pit 

filled with richness 

used in death 

poisons the ground

To Hephaestus At Etna's Base

pressure builds until

lava slides over the top 

sizzling whistling

singeing you 

singing you

somewhere always

someone rooting

you will give in

maybe at last 

but forge ahead keep on

through orange glow

red rock warping heat

listen for the song