Regrets

He’s so forgetful, angry and hated
dementia is unsubstantiated.
Days are a confusing spuddle and nights
a muddle of regrets and haunted frights.

In your distance, you deem me petty, spurn
my insight’s assistance and now you’ll learn
losing keys is not an anomaly
uproar and chaos now normality

demanding patient presence addressing
small clues before they worsen, distressing
in an avalanche irreversible
sealing off a land once transversible

where we could have met for a quiet word
instead of calling me absurd, you’d heard
perhaps a semblance of sanity might
have slowed this sorrowed precipitous flight.

Inspired by: Unsubstantiated, Spuddle, Forgetful and Anomaly.

Complicit No More

You’re under the spell of the ultimate psyop in modern human history.~Sol Luckman

My head is filled with a painting, chasing
words away as I create. Embracing
my vision, studies assist. I start small,
to untwist the gnarl taught by the cabal

which granted no leeway: color inside
the lines! squirming under the teacher chide
I had no pride in my endeavors. Smart,
I chose to shine with poetry, not art.

The parent-teacher conferences agreed
some practicality is what I need.
Left-handed dreamer learned to surf the screed
until at last, sovereign, I intercede

on my behalf. The joy as I splatter
vivid colors on to canvas. Matter
drips and splashes. Daubs and splotches cohere
sun birthing into ocean now appears.

Inspired by: Assist, Conference, Gnarl and Leeway, reimagining my own past as a spin on OctPoWriMo Day 22, and the joy welling in my heart as I stand and live in my sovereign power.

Featured image: Taken on the east coast of Florida, the inspiration for today’s painting.

Mist-ified

Foggy consecutive dawns on the lake
an insistent melody I partake
all present urge me to wake. Past mistakes
encapsulate my fate. Like ghostly wraiths

who haunt the surface, manipulate air,
pushed by the sun away. Still I am snared.
Nebulous traps of my own devising
sing me to sleep without analyzing.

The narrative perpetual sedates
hypnotically effectual mandates
like senseless nursery rhymes reveal crimes
hazy and obscure til consciousness chimes.

The infiltrated group-mind lulls to sleep
with promises and lies intertwined keep
me like a servant giving energy
to the dark forces feeding frenziedly.

Inspired by: Consecutive, Melody, Encapsulate, Effectual and the OctPoWriMo Day 20 theme of community.

Featured image: These consecutive cool predawn mornings are foggy and eerie until the sun chases all the illusions away.

I Can See Clearly

I’m the cautionary tale, canary
in the mine. If there’s a toxin buried
even layered in the air, the fumes scorch
sensitivities, a five-alarm scourge

If you see me melt or swinge, apprehend
cast not for blame. Break hypnotic trance. Wend
your way to cleanse. Hug a tree. Breathe fresh air.
Ground, earthing, center. Sound electric prayer.

Aiming for high trajectory, I burn
illusions. With respect for me, I yearn
to model what I’ve learned. Disintegrate
past’s chains, the patterned prate repudiate.

Inspired by: Hypnotic, Scorch, Cautionary and Blame.

Featured image: The lake is exceptionally beautiful today; I’m counting down the days to departure.

Clearly Illusions

The vibrant red cardinal is an uplifting, happy sign that those we have lost will live forever, so long as we keep their memory alive in our hearts.~Lori Vanover

Call me balmy, huddled in fleece, at peace
on this porch. Intent. I carry a torch
for a lake. Morning calm, daily release
the last vestige of a vintage deceased.

I create a new life. Intuition
rife so I can’t be bamboozled. One
robin slams into the newly cleaned glass.
I gasp. Feathers stick and float. Now a bass

splashes, crashes into mirror-smooth mere,
reaches me here with a repugnant jeer.
I’m not immune to tricks. The fine print bores
in language of new leases and the tours

a whirlwind of doors slamming. Not the space
of sanctuary I seek to replace.
A bright red cardinal flutters in vain
to pierce pristine windows. I do the same.

Inspired by: Repugnant, Vestige, Bamboozle and Balmy.

If I Move

You come and pour yourself on me.~David Gates, If.

If I move to Montana’s star-spangled
nights, resolve all these dissonance-tangled
overcast skies, will you come, harmonize
with wildlife we espy? I realize

the brutal winters’ temperature extremes
will affect our dreams in ways unforeseen.
That’s the way of ifs. We, unknowing, leap
into the falls above icy streams. Keep

our heads above water until we’re thrust
into the consequences of blind trust.
You say we must discuss this, we’re too old,
believe there’s safety staying in the fold

crumbling mementos, breathing in their dust.
If everything is falling, then we must
imagine new, journey alone, return
the monstrous swindle group-think fraud unlearn.

I’ll write, I promise, every single day.
Present inspired intuitive arrays
outside the mainstream’s fear-mongering byplay
my derring-do and brave new world display.

Inspired by: Resolve, Star-spangled, Swindle, Espy and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt to start with if.

Featured image: Another foggy Indiana fall morning.

Duck Tales

The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers are wonderful things.

The three-legged one-eared cat’s eying ducks
from the cold wet shore, grisly spying. Clucks
and quacks but no alarm. She cannot harm
them, so it seems, from my table of dreams.

Kingfisher’s arrival and the rain drive
awkward limping. Foiled again. The ducks dive
bottoms up, intent on feeding, unware
and unheeding, just like me. I take care

to be here now, dismiss the puerile fears
and danger bleats from unenlightened peers.
Each step reveals. I hold my lantern bright.
Aware, aimed at the highest path of life.

Inspired by: Table, Cold, Grisly and Puerile.

Featured image: Tigger, my neighbor’s once feral cat, hunting in the rain this morning and revealing the lesson I most need in this exact moment. (Sorry it’s so blurry; it was dark!)

The Key of Life

Intuition guides me through this current.
Light-cords through the aether twinkle. I’ve learnt
harmony, tinkling piano keys
since I was three, sound and grounded, at ease

splashing in rain, mud slurp-squishing through toes.
Playing outside my heart’s desire. The throes
of now steerable from that innocence
which chose concordance through the peril. Hence

in my grief, watching as three ducks emerge
into the subtle lightening, dawn’s verge
reveals the hidden clues to loving eyes.
Coherence in stillness lets music rise.

The sky is an outrageous symphony.
The high notes white and gold and shot with pink.
Dark rumbles from the west betoken rain.
The sun’s slow burst of colors in free rein.

Inspired by: Piano, Current, Betoken and OctPoWriMo Day 14 Rain.

Featured image: I went out in the dawn to take photos of the ducks when the sun swept over the horizon.

Lifting The Fog

At sunrise air is wet and thick like smoke.
Muting the sounds and colors, grayness pokes
and strokes my rigid places. I am free
from hardening my heart. Although I see

the brute squad bungle love–they just don’t know.
Insensitive, they surf love’s current flow,
building empires, letting the details go
to hardworking unpaid servants laid low.

The fissure growing deeper, the rich buy
as properties skyrocket. By and by
they’re all alone, lamenting labor’s dearth.
Nobody wants to work a dollar’s worth.

Their conversation vacuous, matching
the sense they’re superior, so snatching
the last remnants of this crumbling culture.
As I write the fog lifts, and a vulture

lands upon the chimney. The sky slow clears
though ghostly wraiths still dance. Lake’s reappeared.
And everything is nebulous and new.
Substantial now invisible’s in view.

Inspired by: Fissure, Conversation, Matching and Bungle.

I’m Still Standing

You’ll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use.~Elton John

I cannot accept, reject your basic
premise. Remiss not to say you’ll stay sick
in this new normal, heavy metals plunge
past natural defense, your health expunge

willingly. Confused by equivocal
spin, the state you’re in choosing imbecile
to follow the crowd, loud, over the cliff.
Indeed, you sneer at my logic. The stiffs

who lead the parade mechanical toys.
I blow the lid off their obnoxious noise.
And still you march to the dead beat. Too late,
they drone. It’s play. Just breathe and you’ll think straight.

Inspired by: Indeed, Equivocal in Stream of Consciousness Saturday style using Lid.

Featured image: This great white heron loves to visit in the early morning fog.