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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The sun shone on her for so long
That her absence is drawn on my walls.
A silhouette of where she once stood
Is painted there while her scent still lingers.
I’m left to resume dinner reservations for one
And attend the parties of my single-serving friends
While listening to them talk of the glories of
Being single or married or dulled by alcohol to not care.
Coleman Hawkins and his saxophone blow “Don’t Love Me”
And the echo of the loving monikers I was once called
Are hatefully marked out with red crayon or her blood, I’m not sure.
For now I’m just another single so and so.
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.
Fire fire, burning bright
Windy windy, lost my light
Sequins sequins, she tucks it in
Sprays her scent and does a spin
Water water, quench my thirst
Love me back, make me first
Comet vomit into space
I want to kiss you on your face
Loving loving, why’s it hard?
I rehearsed my lines and know my parts
These shoes behoove though second-hand
Not good enough, more reprimand
Steady steady, start again
I’m sure I’ll get this in the end
Ponder wander, her face I see
And my mind goes again, just up and leaves…
Ahh… to be her pillow.
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
No, I don’t want to be slow moving and white (cue laugh track) but I DO want to be as full of life and laughter as these three dudes aged 72, 77, and 81. It takes them a while to get started but once they get into the crotch grabbing homage to Michael Jackson, they do it with such vigor that you can’t help but LOL.
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.
“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” – Tenneva Jordan*
* Unfortunately, I was not able to confirm who Tenneva Jordan is when I discovered this amazing quote.
He slides his tongue along the inside of his bloodied bottom lip as his mouth fills with the salty realization that the truth was there before him all the while, in soft focus on the periphery of his vision.
I’m living in the here and now that is today,
While the hope of tomorrow urges me forward.
Yesterday is SO… yesterday.
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.