Your insincere sincerities
Are so much akin to cake
Whereas the eating of and having it
Conveys your deeds as fake
Your insincere sincerities
Are as a window cooling pie
While an ugly truth is better
Than the most beautiful of lies
Your insincere sincerities
Bring sincerities to shame
Cut and paste some random sentiment
And fill in the blank some random interest’s name.
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No edits and no regrets
No foundations on which to forget.
No third parties or loose backdoors
No hidden compartments under floor boards
No skeletons unburied baring the stench
If so, we’ll inhume for recompense
No tears without purchase
No fears with proof
No empty containers
Nor dignity aloof
No fatherless daughter
No motherless son
No sunset forgotten
Nor moonlit sun
No touch is contingent
Mere embrace unreserved
Every thought bring you honor
Every action to serve
No vain repetitions
Nor bulletproof vests
To null this intimate promise,
This constant caress.
Remember anticipating Spring and the life it would avail
The baby birds, innocent words, and how clouds could grow a tail
Remember the smell of honeysuckle while the earth was dark and moist
And the ice cream truck peddling its wares reminded us we had a choice
Remember the rain and smells that came and frogs and earthworms too
And the robins were in a candy store because of the evening dew
Remember the jar with ants inside to see them build a maze
And feeling exhausted at the sight of it all unlike our lazy days read more
Anathemas and shadows and veins coursing lead
He’s looming and lurking and nigh-inspiring dread
Duplicitous and suspicious, I wish that he were dead
He’s like some matured fictional monster come from under my bed
Mondays find me restless and these days ask for peace
Wednesdays leave me torn while next days find my knees
And Saturdays ramblings to God and His returned calls to me
Despite my incapacity of articulating barring eloquence of speech
Mirrors are mere reflections while perspective is above par
I am my only devil, I am my only scar.
Cast him down in the hole and cover him in tar
Still wherever I go, there also is my bête noire.
….
*bête noire is referring to one that is particularly disliked or that is to be avoided.
Embryos with a bloodied nose
Paraplegics with painted toes
Diaspora with no where to go
And stranger fruits have yet to be exposed
History books’ lies and conflicting refrains
Exaggerated heroism amidst talks of change
White slave traders while Africa is to blame
Calling for justice yet a prideful disdain
Shackles of iron and a kum ba ya repose
Chains of metal while concrete spawns a rose
Cords of rope and no longer borrowed clothes
Why all the alarm when you just keep hitting “doze?”
kenn.
What is this prickly, cold to the touch
That rejects my beloved and protesteth too much?
The all that I am or was or would be
Is cast out with ashes by the buoy out to sea
Is it me that is crackling and barren to seed?
Or is it her that is starving, refusing to feed?
Reckless abandon towards horizons I ran
Now crippled and depleted, unable to stand.
Once proud of the cactus in deserts before
Who needed no one, alone forever he swore
Yet a flower so stray and soon this cactus would swell
To water said flower as the archives do tell
And flower soon flourished and vines she evoked
To embrace and caress then for no reason to choke
But the Sun was too much and the flower was effaced
And heartbroken cactus lived to water another day.
Some have walls while others have moats
Manned by alligators and cannonball boats
Mermaids and snowmen, if destined to court,
How would they thrive and how doth love twixt report?
Out of water she suffocates and freezes to peril
While of ice and of snow, he is as loving as feral
This never-ending heartbreak won’t relinquish or cease
Flower’s vines are constricting and won’t give release.
But… what is this melting? My ice loses mass
That my mermaid may swim in me and together at last.
kenn.
Abundance brings me thankfulness
While famine brings me shame
Or abundance makes me forget that
I ever called on God by name.
Three months old in a haystack
Hope for more than just a hunch
The proof is in the pudding
While the pudding is in my lunch.
Jesus makes me happy
Mohammad makes me think
Agnostics keep me searching
While death just makes me stink.
Inconsolable at the outcome
What a reflection can become
Stress, duress, and excess
In remembrance of a son?
Affluent ever reaching
“Infant weeps” for no cause
Maybe something’s in his eggnog
And lactose has given him pause.
kenn.
I’m repulsed at the chimera* and how it all was mend
Scoffing at the scoffers and how they got the bends
Eggshells are so fragile, can’t depend on king’s own men
Solomon lived about it and Chinua wrote it in
Glory to my God and glory to the nighest
Can my life give praises even though I’m not my finest?
Grace sufficient covers me but what about the pious?
Acting as hypocrites and sold-out shows despite this.
This chimera stitched and sewn, my reflection much afraid
Do I believe the prose that claims that I’m wonderfully made?
Faithless to walk on water but for religion I’ll safely wade
My cloak and crown has disappeared, can’t remember where it’s laid
“Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, also in me,”
Jesus said as John recorded and for czars a King’s heart bleeds
Both presidents and paupers will soon day all give a knee
And the revulsion of my being will yield beauty for all to see.
*In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a monstrous creature made of the parts of multiple animals. The term chimera is often used to describe things that have combined attributes from different sources. I use it as an allegory to how God forms us from our different tragedies and experiences.
This passenger-side driving
Alludes that I’m not so in control
The floorboards won’t slow my descent
And the dashboard won’t steer my fold
While my sanity is bleeding
And injustice is on the walk
I try hard not to feel
I try hard not to talk
This passenger-side driving
Has me impatient to make my mark
But it’s all about the journey I hear
Not where you stop or start
So stops and yields and showoff peels
And drive thru meals and an influx of steel
To the tune of white noise and legislative frills
Remind me to be still. Just be still. Be still. Still.
My fingers have become more articulate
At the idea that you they may touch
My nostrils flair and filter out random flavorings
For your scent and zephyr is near
My tongue had suffered that which was insipid
While the advent of you was pending
Colors I have not known for many seasons
And your foliage, they startle me into an awakened state
I want to disturb your pile of leaves
And heed the chorus that my entry provokes
My imagination, now amplified by your brisk touch,
Seeks a covering or a blanket but not for the sake of isolation
Instead for the sake of insulation
Protecting, loving, comforting, reminding
With your unprecedented, familiar unfamiliar
I have learned to Fall
In new ways.
kenn.
Engine engine number nine
You can do it, don’t fall behind
But as life shoves and inculcates
You got passed by number eight
I think I can, I think I’m kenn
Though I’m not too sure where I begin
Or where I end and I pretended
Treads run deep as I’m suspended
Should I compare or share despair
Can I do me and does non-me care?
Is anyone there to help me pull this hill?
If the hill is too much, do I just swallow nine pills?
Not that I would kill for isn’t killing one of those sins
And while open caskets are all the rage, I would have to suck my gut in
Or pull the rug in, no visitors, closed for the season
“This engine is due for repairs” or some ambiguous reason
The plot thickens and is teasing, the plot congeals and just let the breeze in
But I digress as I got off the subject for no apparent reason…
Kenn son kenn, don’t lose your mind
You can do it, don’t fall behind
I think I can, I think I kenn
And if I can’t, I’ll call on friends.
end.
Sometimes I flaunt in the skins of an intellectual while all the while I’m just repeating the words and sentiment of my much smarter friends.
One of those much smarter friends, Tiff, brought to my attention this amazing article on what makes us happy. It’s worth the read. You may even be able to feign “intellectual” amongst your smarter friends.
In sharing, Tiff punctuated the article with a quote from the lead researcher, Dr. George Vaillant. He says, “Positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.”
Thank you for sharing, Tiff.
This is in NO way an endorsement of Taco Smell but I think this is such the hilarious commercial.
I love the part where the dude sings in falsetto, “if you hate filling out your timesheets.”
I feel your pain, brother. I feel your pain.
These dreams, these fiends, these tweens and cut scenes
Expectations of mere titles and necessities of a spleen
These winter Monday’s in June are reminiscent of a fifth quarter
Should I slay myself again or ask a bigger God to expand my borders?
These sorrowed nights and broken glass and drafts from underneath
Give greater cause to perpetuate and greater cause to do more than be
These falls, these stalls, these empty halls and caterwauls
Apprehension’s got me hopeful while my bladder has the gall.
“Never regret. If it’s good – it’s wonderful. If it’s bad – it’s experience.”