The Trope of Life
Man, I really hate
to vituperate
I can't recuperate
nor can I ennumerate
All the mistakes
and the many aches
I'm a disgrace
An affront to be effaced
I try, I fail
I seek to no avail
I cry, I wail
I continue to flail
But...
I will awake
and I will not quake
I will undertake
All for Your sake
I'll try some more
I'll fight the war
This life's a chore
That I must explore
You give me hope
That I may cope
I walk the tightrope
Not knowing the full scope
Ghostwriter in the Sky
I see flowers scattered in an unkempt garden
A beautiful mess, I must beg your pardon
How do I identify with this, Lord and Master?
This evocative catastrophe, this gorgeous disaster
There is much I know I don't know
Life is as such in the ebb and flow
So many things I know nothing about
Yet so little I disbelieve or totally doubt
As I gaze into the empty abyss
I see flutters of color and moments of bliss
As the abyss stares back into me
I wonder what it thinks it sees
My crystal ball says "signs point to no"
I have shaken it many times and it's always so
My magnum opus will be my swan song
and the onus is on me to not do it wrong
My autobiography was written by a ghost writer
My calligraphy written by the hand of a pale rider
Not worrying, not wondering, and not losing heart
Not scurrying, not blundering, and doing my part
Pondering the cosmos and contemplating fate
Re-working my ethos and embracing the wait
Trying to Get Ahead in the Clouds
How are you, are you under the weather?
I hope no one has stolen your thunder
Don't face the day with a white feather
Don't let this life rip you asunder
Come rain or shine, it'll be a breeze
Cloud nine always has a silver lining
Life can be harder than math in Chinese
While the stars take their time aligning
Take a breath, throw caution to the wind
And soon you'll be right as rain
This storm in a teacup will quickly end
It's just a gust and not a hurricane
Oneirodynia
As I lay sleeping, I dreamed of a caravan
Chased by a hydra and a ten foot bogeyman
As I slumbered, I saw a desert moon descending
Monster lumbered as my arms were extending
In my quiescent state, I murmured inaudibly
Then I defended the procession most laudably
In my night fantasy, my strikes had no strength
My fists had no speed and my reach had no length
My nocturnal imagination had surely run amok
I lay awe struck like a sitting duck with bad luck
Was it something I ate? The residue of the day?
Was it guilt of past mistakes or something I didn't say?
As my nightmare unraveled and I awoke
I ruminated on all the feelings it evoked
As I shook loose the cobwebs and gathered my wits
I raised a middle finger to my internal abyss
Tight Genes
Long have I thought
"Where am I really from?"
And long was I taught
That I was just one of some
My genes make me a mutt
but my source gives me pedigree
The cloth from which I'm cut
Was sewn amidst the heavenly
Irish, Spanish, and Welsh
Are just descriptions
Of this rented thing I call my "self"
At times, they're even encryptions
Winter in The Fifth Dimension
The sparkling hoar frost on the twigs
Appear as silver in the waning light
Miniature icicles form on the sprigs
As I delight in the hidden and recondite
The great imponderables to the erudite
glisten like gold just out of reach
Dancing like snowflakes just before midnight
With arcane insights to teach
As I freeze in the vast and dark breach
Great snow drifts begin to form
I plead with the heavens, nay, I beseech
"Give me the wisdom that makes one warm"
Right in front of me appeared a storm
And out of it dropped shovels and spades
"Go forth, dig yourself out and reform
Enough with your tired masquerade."
So said the Mattatron of all it surveyed
As I dug through the snow into the earth
What it meant to me was conveyed
That within us is all our death and rebirth
Somnambulatory Amnesiac
Standing but stumbling, mumbling and grumbling
Looking for meaning in the stars
Weeping but leaping, reaping while sleeping
Screening ghostwriters for my memoirs
I was wondering about the seed and the sprout
While watering my alkanet plants
Torn asunder by seething self-doubt
While observing a colony of ants
Then it came to me all at once like a lightening bolt
It's time to change, time to dissent, it's time to revolt
After the Apocalypse, Please Water My Plant
This morning I looked up at the sky
and it was abruptly rent in twain
So I casually watered my new bonsai
and cast away all my pointless frets
I sat back in my seat and lit a cigarette
I sang a hymn and hummed its refrain
I felt like a dangling marionette
And all at once, life was simplified