Month: June 2020

I don’t have answers. I only have questions.

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The truest wish I could ever state is this: I wish I were independently wealthy. Not so I could live it up and party. But so I could take care of the people I love in the manner they should be taken care of while not having to grind away at a job.

Because, honestly, after working for the last 30 years with little beyond continued life and some material possessions as a result, I am just tired of it.
And there is no end to it, without some massive upheaval of circumstance. There is only the maintenance of this or a devolution resulting in worse circumstances.

Arguably, I have a good job. But really, it pays just enough to keep my head and the heads of my loved ones above water. Which I know is amazing, seen from outside. And isn’t that sad? To aspire to just getting by.

What have we become? When the hope of something better is fiction. When the now is an endless slog to an uncertain future.

I’m weary beyond bone. So tired that my body spontaneously creates wounds. Aches, pains. In deep response to a continued existence. What is the answer? I don’t know.

Each breathe feeds, each day grows

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The sea seethes
Rages against the earth
Beating itself against its ramparts
Wearing it down to sand

The storm watches

The earth burns
Slow molten rock
Destroy itself to build bridges
Dragonglass dreams

The storm builds

The flames dance
Racing through life
Extinguish to extinguish
Consuming life creates life

The storm endures

Getting lost on the way to the exit

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With each passing post I lose a little self
A little will to keep going
I build up walls
Which cannot stand
For they are built on the rubble of walls which came before
Never again
Never lose myself so thoroughly that it’s a fight to get back
But I can’t stop scrolling
Reposting
Hope and anger
With apathy winning
Anger can’t sustain
Hope dwindles
Here’s a cat
Here’s something cute
Bulwarks against the tide
Drowning in truth
Step away
Have to
Must
There is only so much pain
Even I can sustain
Before it’s too much
This is why the sleepers sleep
Not because they want to
Not because it’s better
Simply because while asleep
They can pretend they are not powerless
Not meat for the beast
This is how nihilist cults form
Because why not
Because nothing changes
Because for all the heights of greatness that humanity has the seeds of
They sit mired in the muck
Playing with mud
Pretending to be kings

Tired outpaces cells cross hatched on hands

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Watch the dappling leaves
Bright green
Waxy
Reflecting light
Mirrors with depth
With life

Watch through windows
Set to filter out life
Filter out smells
Filter out the chaos
The order of passing

Cold inside while the world bakes
Trapped inside
Hamster on the wheel

Shuffle out
Get in my truck
Baking
Heat burns into bones
Quiet and rattle
These the only moments of silence
Instead of music

Let the panic rush past
Through
Once more into poison
Just a quick dip
Then through

Long enough to sleep
To feel safe
Behind locked doors
Which sit behind locked doors
Which sit behind locked doors

Too tired to write

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What can I say? I have almost no energy for anything like normal things. Ideas are sluggish and inspiration has relocated to another town. I feel as abandoned by poetry as poetry must feel abandoned by me.

I’m tired. Humanity seems caught in this endless cycle of thoughtless evil. And there doesn’t seem a way to stop that. Knowledge and knowing are different things. We seem to have embraced annihilation. Where the only thin hope comes from destruction. Which isn’t to say other ways weren’t tried. They were. And derision and deafness were how they were received.

If I’m tired, I can only imagine….

I get the rage. I support the movement. I wish I could be fired up. But we’ve been here before. And humanity continues to fail these basic tests.

Dangerous empathy turns away from blindness

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Luxury of the unknown
Wake up
Not wondering
Some stranger, some ‘friend’, some coworker
False praise of unwanted innuendo
Condescension dressed up as aid
Hurt feelings for being my friend
Danger from those you like
You love
Normal

Broken world
Simulation left to bored sadists
Ponder the ways
To break again
A world so shattered
Will it even notice

White lies, Black lives

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Noise drowns out rhetoric in the next room
Headphones cranked up
Drowning out voices repeating
Lies as revelation
Reinforcing
Until the only truth is the lie

Closed doors and silent
Opinions asked anguish
Traps to pounce

They believe only facts which reinforce their hypocrisy
So no facts at all
Just profitable lies
Slung by earnest white faces
And fear cowering in a bunker
Plotting betrayal

Arguments
Hurt looks when told harsh truths
How their hatred effects the relationships with those around them

Dams burst
Thugs in blue uniforms
Armed to the teeth
Seething with hatred
Told they have authority
And no repercussions
Demonstrate in real time

Cameras raised
Shouting to be heard
Nothing new
But now seen
Again and again

That old experiment
The worst humans aggregate to the place they can exert the most brutality
The best intentions stay silent
And the truest few quit rather than be a part
Rather than be complicit
In this river of blood
We can no longer unsee