Useless Thought

Just Once

I dreamed

I mattered

Price of Life

Death waits inside me

Showing

To remind me that for every breath

A toll:

A price for life

Is to feel worthless sometimes

——

It’s been a long time, WordPress. But I’m back and I’ve written a LOT since I last saw you. I’ve kept you a stranger for so long. It’s time to catch up. People, subscribe if you liked this poem or if you would like to read my newer styles of wordplay. I may also discuss my mental health and life experiences.

Reflection in Nature

Only in my dreams do I see the woman,
The one that never was, as she comes to be,
As she’s summoned from the sea, as she pauses,
Then walks on water to me, as I call her.

Only in my dreams does the wind give name,
To one that time forgot, as she flies.
A sun to fill my eyes, she pauses,
Then falls as dappled light, on a morning.

Only dreams, In a daze I see them wane,
Ones that grew, ensnared my brain,
Then sucked my mind like rain, then paused,
To scream discoloured pain, and rot.

The dreams fade, as only dreams do,
Once I’ve woke, and the day is new.
As I gather their shades of blue, I pause,
To find an earthen tomb, and in they drop.

I sit and play with sticks, they kindle, and I think,
Of shapes in the flame, lips in the flicker,
The smoke lingers, the smell sticks to my fingers,
And whispers smoulder, hints of hints,
The red shrinks, the yellow speaks,
Without pause its kiss burns and taunts,
Painful pleasure, coldest heat.
A fool to hope? Another dream?

Virus Content

“I’m destroying the bridge to the person
That has been destroying me,” were the words
She shared with ensnared Instagram followers,
Plucked from one of a million content providers,
The ones literally begging for shares and likes,
Analytics that taste nice but leave them hungrier.

I digress, my attention span, my focus on the here,
Has dropped dramatically the last five or so years,
As my addiction to social media took over,
Defining my worth by likes has made me colder,
Less empathetic and hyper self-aware,
All part of the package baby, the digital era’s here!
Feeling lonely, worthless, suicidal or lost?
There’s an app for that, download it at once!

I’ve Grown impatient with dated convention,
Almost as much as with people displaying
A lack of knowledge for convention at all,
Yet writing “Atypical” on their bio on their blogs,
And spitting snobbery at the labor of their peers,
Ah, typical, I suppose that’s me?
Typical Timmy needs to learn his place,
Give up the craft and worship your face?

But back to my story,
She shared that picture….
And I just stared,
And wondered if ever
I said or did
A thing to destroy,
In a simple case
of girl texts boy.
We’d met and kissed,
Flirted and laughed,
We said we’d meet
Again next chance,
We texted again,
Flirted some more,
But on the day to meet,
She ceased rapport.

No word for days from her phone or facebook,
But her twitter was active, so no deadly fate
Had befallen her, thankfully, and yes I was worried,
T’was that suddenly she’d ended our story.
But I left it there,when she shared the picture,
No good can come of this particular stranger
Pushing myself through blocks of text,
Demanding likes, love, respect.

Encounter With A Bot (Poem)

A bot bombed the scene. Dropping comments in comment sections. Saying “Look at me, I learned this lesson, now my funds have no recession.” Suspicious they were, as most would be. They rained upon it with mockery. Linking pics, memes of the season, poking jokes at “feeble” readers: “None have thread the spider’s web as adeptly as we three. The spam will offer hollow hopes, an hour for easy money. Promises snaring novices, obvious as trolling sprees. Let it lure them in, let them feel what its like be eaten.”

“How easily the victim’s blamed,” I thought as I watched them talk. As if they were gods of guile, never led on a walk by a weaves of code or a grand show. Be it here or far, someone’s charmed. It’s worked before, it’ll work some more. The Trojan horse of Troy rearranges the splinters of its mane, the colour of its hooves, engravings on its face. And searching new places, it lays the trap. Is welcomed in and sucks the sap.

But is this bot just typing a lie? Perhaps it’s a vision of life in that line of work. It might be spamming other sections, receiving comments from other jesters. How quick we are assume the worst. What if…. hmmm, you know what? I better stop. I think it’s working.

Keep Fishing

If boredom’s what ails ya, time for a cure,
By fishing the ocean from digital shores,
Sure it’s got sharks, and blowfish besides,
But every now and then a tide
Will bring a fish with purple scales,
Emerald hues on a humpback whale,

A Circle of Life

Brush the dust, release the thought,
Let it sink to the pit of the waters maw,
And the bones of meals that snag the fin,
May they fall to black for others to win.

If I drink the water, bring the blue in,
It will twist the mind to a slow ruin,
Tar the last of the prettier innards,
And all the will to swim will wither.

For another fish I sang a verse,
And the chorus slashed again my nerves;
The message of air, gliding to the surface,
Silent, but clear in its purpose,

It led my eyes to a hazy other,
The wind, the sky, the lights of summer,
Where birds must fly, free and at home
In their time, fleeing a lonely shore.

But back to the daily, back to the blues,
Where all that lives is a life to lose,
So eyes forward, watching for movement,
On to the next meal, and more music.

The Goodbye Wish

May friends you make on this and other days
Be worthy of that name, and more than I,
Be worthy of your time. I will bore you,
I will drag you down from all your virtues,
I’ll be the one who tells you not to laugh,
When I should learn to smile and nod and chant
With crowds. I am the talker, you’re the doer,
Together words become an empty nuisance,
We bear the lie with help of a common poison,
That surfs the blood to the mind, till a voice
Becomes but useless reason.

Anyway, may the ending harp to you,
May the past flow through you,
May new visions greet you,
May levels fall beneath you,
May honest Words surround you,
May laughing heal you,
And most of all, may others find you.

A Poem Written To A Girl on a Dating Website

What better way to distinguish yourself from the rabble than with an over-the-top artistic gesture.

This is definitely one of the stranger ways I’ve used my penchant for poetry.  I’ve been trying online dating and I got talking to a girl. We talked about poetry, I told her I wrote it, and that sometimes I write poems about/for the people in my life.  Without directly asking for a poem, she let me know she “wouldn’t mind” if I wrote one for her. So hey, why the hell not? It helps that this girl loves poetry herself. I wouldn’t recommend every guy on these sites with a love for verse lather on the Romeo with a Shakespearean iambic pent at the first sign of a shared interest in Breaking Bad. But I think in this instance it definitely raised the bar a bit in what was clearly a functioning chemistry between us.

The dating website was Plenty Of Fish or simply pof.com. This is important as much of the imagery is directly from or built on top of the idea of an ocean full of fish. I used that theme to describe my experience up to that point, and to describe how lovely she is. As the old saying goes, there’s plenty of fish in the sea – and this one is a real catch (and thus ends my awful joke quota for the day)! I also drew on vertebrate evolution as a metaphor, suggesting we leave the ocean -in this case the website – like some fish did eons ago, and evolve to take on new forms in a new environment – in this case for coffee. This may be the nerdiest way there is to ask a girl you like to meet up. #noshame

I STILL haven’t met her in person. Though that’s about to change later today when we finally go for that coffee. 😉

Enjoy!

A Poem Written To A Girl On Plenty Of Fish

Plummet the depths of the ocean, you’ll find
Plenty of fish to choose from. Besides
The odd pike, there’s carp the colour of fire,
Wild tuna that move together, hiding
From the ever present predators, lining
Their flanks with the flesh of eachother.

My friend caught a fugu in a coral reef,
No food but plenty of poison, he’d speak
of the fools and the lies, the sharks, the light
That filtered grey in the blue, the heat
That drained away with time in the tides,
and the pressure of the crushing water.

I too fished the swells for the prize.
But little did I find, Besides
An octopus that inked my eyes.
As I walked upon the seabed, a fish,
Revealed herself in the faint light,
And with a simple, graceful, “Hi”
She’d hooked my mind.

For her scales were multi-coloured, shiny,
Like the mermaid tails of a story, and a story
She told of hues she wore, the funny,
The epic, the sorry. I listened closely,
Her words were bubbles floating joyfully,
And the eyes, though still a distance,
Pushed me from my footing. For she
Had eyes that that sang soprano, vibrato
were my nerves. By and by, peacefully,
My mind just swam beside her.

A time will come to leave the water.
Like fish of old became the crawlers,
I’d leave the ocean, become a frog,
Become a lizard then a bird.
And then I’d chirp the words that say,
“So lovely it is to see you today,
So shiny and pretty your brand new feathers,
Like the lovely scales, but even better,
Cause now the only thing between,
With water gone, it’s just the weather.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done online as a gesture to someone you liked?