The Poetry Marathon

Can we lift the veil before it’s too late?
Methane buildup
Microplastics
Mass extractions

Tragic…

Humanity to profit
Is like rigid beliefs to a ten strip
We claim we’re living green but we’re all slipping

Temperatures rise with the tides
And instead of moving inland, we just build higher seawalls
Gaia cries

We deny

More species die off
But we’re too fixated on screens to look up at darkening skies

The veil enchants
Intricate distraction
Clouding society’s eyes
Try to look beyond the narrative of lies

We’re way too short on time

Dear 19-year old nutjob,

As per our previous discussion that one time when you were candyflipping at a rave and mistakenly identified your future self as god…

It’s important to remember that while these weekends of hedonism and debautchery may seem trivial, they do have an impact on me. Well, on you, but later.

My liver hurts dude, and that time you got wasted and decided it would be a good idea to jump out of a moving car and broke your collarbone?

Well, it never healed right, and now it aches when it rains. Asshole, what were you thinking?

Anyway, good news is, you survived

Barely

I mean, you escaped with your sanity,or so the little aliens living underneath your doormat want you to believe

Point is, go easy

There’s a long time to go, and the physical form is finite

Pace yourself

-Your Future Self

P.S. Brush your teeth, dental work is expensive

Sip coffee

Early morning breeze rippling through fir trees

Scent of evergreen wafting through lifting fog
Fresh cut logs piled high aside cabin wall

A lakeside view Thoreau would envy
Sip again from steaming mug,
Watching last moonbeams fade into pink sunrise
Birdsong punctuating the pre-dawn hush

It’s not much
But then again, what do we really need?
A roof over our heads, food to eat,
Perhaps a book or two to read?

Nothing more satisfying than simplicity
Watching sun pour across the horizon,
Birdsong crescendos to a cacophony

The concrete jungle long forgotten,
Modern luxuries of civilization suffocating

Just let me breathe

Had a thought
Then I got tired and I forgot it
Tried to snatch it from the muse but she laughed and flew away

I chased her for a while
But after running several miles
I had to stop to catch my breath
I really don’t know what to say

The thought is gone now, taken by the muse unto the Great Beyond
Perhaps some other lucky soul will catch it
Perhaps I’ll think about some other cleverness to say
But will it compare to the thought that got away?

I highly doubt it

Pretzeled into knots
Not as complex as they seem
Thought quality like a lingering lucid dream
So many schemes
So many avenues of deception both to others and to self
Inspiration at the sacrifice of health

So fucking mental

The trick to bend around society’s rigidity
Tranquility in blending with the artificial mass
So act an ass and watch the TV dictate manufactured dreams
This cultural monotany cannot last

Caught my eyes from across the room and left me transfixed

Heart skipped, soul sucked into your presence for a nanosecond, then released

Gave me a hint of the depths beyond those curious brown irises,
A lingering taste of those mysteries beneath

It left me insatiable,
Barely able to breathe, palms sweaty
Completely disarmed by a glance, a smile, Batted your eyes and brought me to my knees

Everything I need contained within that moment
That held gaze across a room the only necessary component for my existence, everything else now inconsequential and mundane…

Until you wave to the guy standing behind me and call his name

What a shame

Sizzle sweet beatnik,
Sentences translucent
Triptamine-influenced mindset more fluid

Techno-druidic architecture intersecting grey matter
Sip a cup of tea poured by the mad hatter and splatter random

Hail Eris and piss on centralized power,
We going off-grid lyrical Jackson Pollock here for hour seven

Seven chakras
Seven colors in the rainbow
Seven continents used to be Pangea, so the theory goes
But no one really knows, we’re all just pissing in the wind
We tear it down to build it up again

Lose it all so you can win
Shift the baseline
Shift spine to the bass line
Sizzle beatnik, sizzle
Slip along toroidal-shaped fabric of spacetime
Let go of mind and just glide
Reach the infinite inside
Ply secrets from obsideon tessaracts transdimentional
The consequences are inconsequential

Words cast in liquid metal,
Meddling fragments of fleeting insight recognized and tossed aside
Nothing can humiliate like pride

Why?

I used to pretend that I don’t give a fuck

But I do

(Sometimes a little too much)

Thoughts drift to that first cloud of sulphur-smelling tear gas
The defiant linking of arms against gas-masked riot line
Sneering at disperal orders
Black bandana dancing to pounding bucket drums

Giving a fuck can fuck you

Sitting in a bus full of mass arrestees
Makes you wonder
Wonder if it’s worth it

If this is having any impact at all,
These protests and rallies,
These awareness campaigns,
The shutdowns and occupations

We testify,
Watch the state deny and it’s back to the streets, march, chant, demand, repeat
Until Justice is reached
There will be no peace
But so many still sleep…

Can’t we all just give a little fuck?

Just a little?

It’ll ease the burden of those of us who do give a fuck
(Sometimes a little too much)

There’s only so much fuck one person can give,
And giving too much sucks

Sucks the energy, saps the soul
It’s a heavy price for empathy,
For giving a fuck about things outside of your control

I can’t pretend to not give a fuck

Because I do

Sometimes a little too much

The lights flash
Dull red flares of a dying sun
One last power surge before it all shuts down
Acid tears flow, eroding structures of the past,
Etching rivulets in cracked, graffiti-stained concrete
Cold desolation under blackened clouds

These are after-images when I blink my eyes
The insomniac hallucinations at 5 a.m.
These are visions…

Abandoned freeways littered with rusty metal skeletons
Broken storefront windows howl through jagged glass teeth
Fiber optic cables snake their way through cracked blacktop
Electric lines coiled on shattered sidewalk like cobras, waiting to strike
Waiting on a dead grid
A decaying city
A dying sun

A newspaper, yellowed with age, dances through the streets
A solo post-apocalyptic tango until the end of time
It catches a thermal and rises, climbs to disappear into smoggy black

These are after-images when I blink my eyes
These are the fozen stares of abandoned tech plants
These are documents in briefcases of war profiteers
These are the corroded stainless steel memories of a not-so-distant place and time
These the shadows of a world over-civilized
These are the bombs dropped on my subconscious
These are visions, arrested in early morning word form,
Before the sun starts to rise

He sits,feeling the physical
Hands once callused now soft and scarred
Strong arms weakened, joints arthritic
The youthful drive throttled back by time

Body deteriorating, he retreats back into the mind
Sits on crossed shaky legs
Back aching
But despite body’s entropy, he smiles, satisfied

Each scar on those once callused hands a testament to his sacrifice
His willingness to pit muscle against stone
To set brick and build foundations
To fell trees and mill lumber
To build shelter for those caught up in the storm

The legacy he’s left behind
A reminder of a life well lived
He closes his eyes, smile widens
Reflecting on every fortunate moment granted
Every goal accomplished
Every heart touched
Every mind expanded
Every being loved

He sighs

The work in this realm finished,
Without saying goodbye,
He drifts back to Source
And begins to build again