Lighthouses (Or Something About A Man From Nantucket)...

Ancient lights from far away did shine
and lighthouses did warn of woeful shores
while surveying sailors would blindly opine
that this was no cause to reverse the oars

The pirate-captain saw the tower
Light found his unpatched-eye and struck it
Then silver-tongued, he spoke hour after hour
musing his crew with jokes of how that tower
had reminded him of a man from Nantucket...

A shipwreck-saloon
now stands on the sands
where survivors are marooned

Monotonous dub-step
washes over the stranded shore
drowning-out the warning-waves
as strobe-lights pulse from vacant towers
blinding the dark and stagnant-sea

These shipwrecked-sounds
just as the siren-songs of lore
urge mariners in mass toward graves
with lyrics lamenting their murky powers
to obscure what knights could see

Sea-legs stumble upon a dance-floor/shore
as raiders scavenge for whatever booty
they can sneak out the tavern doors
while others give their last gold nugget
to be entertained by the local who-ares
that knew something about a man from Nantucket...

In a lighthouse made dim forevermore
performs a clown with this cheap old puppet
that makes castaway crowds below him roar
He drinks and the dummy sings a sordid score
or something about a man from Nantucket...

Time's Gone By...

Time's gone by, and it's sung again
as times continue leaving still
Where in these times have I've been,
and in those left to me where will...

Yesterday's one greedy shadow
and Tomorrow is anorexia today
They shred and starve times that go,
and ruin the feast of present day

There were those devoured darkly,
and there are those still starving yet
While some starkly seem so sparkly
when time's gone-by eyes will forget

Time's gone by, and it's sung again
as times continue leaving still
Where in these times have I've been,
and in those left to me where will...

The sun it rises on an on
and street-lights shine as well
illuminating more than dusk-to-dawn
like fires burning-away at hell

I suppose each raging inner-fire
is but a distant glint in times gone by
though every spark of strong desire
ignites new powder-kegs of "why"

Time's gone by, and it's sung again
as times continue leaving still
Where in these times have I've been,
and in those left to me where will...

As I Sit Through These Impatient Hours...

This chair here doesn't belong to me
& these impatient hours I sit through
don't seem much like mine at all

The chair was made to be comforting
so that I might sink into it quite easily
and so there would be no need to add
any ligature-straps or electric currencies
to hold me here or render my heart still
But somehow the chair seems more like
it has been wedged up my keystare
blocking my bowels from going with my gut
and purging myself of all the emptiness
that these impatient hours force-feed me

I could push the chair away
or take time off or out of this
but I'd have to stand on my own
and answer these impatient hours
& others that never cease to ask
questions I can't readily satisfy

As I sit through these impatient hours
they keep urging me to more than answer
as these hours are stuck here with me
and they can't stand stagnation either
But my legs have long-ago gone numb
under the weight of my stagnant keystare
so that walking away seems harder than
soaring above some storm-stained sky

As I sit through these impatient hours
I wonder through fixed/fragmentary frames
of pseudo-conscious commercial breaks
how patiently I've become so impatient
or how impatiently I can sit here patiently
while these impatient hours keep leaving me
as I continue failing to escape them all this time

Eventually what is left or no longer left of me
may be removed from this wretched recliner
as these impatient hours cease to move me
and I can no longer stand to sit through them

Bloody-Hell...

It was between an ad for tampons touted as more than twice as absorbent as other brands and an infomercial for an all-natural wonder-drug that had been scientifically proven as more effective in treating depression than the leading placebo that eye-rolling syllables materialized from this obfuscated dimension of existence which rests tangentially removed from the realm of such ad-things.

"Bloody-Hell"

The interlocutor shifted in an ergonomically designed recliner while searching for the device which had been imbued with the gawd-like power to teleport viewing consciousness from one reality TV-show to another. After having retrieved the magic-wand/remote-control from the forgotten and obscured abyss approximately located between memory-foam cushions and a too-casual-for-company clothed arse more focus-group type feedback was transmitted.

"Why don't they just cram all this pschyt up their ahss?"

The mute button was depressed and channels blinked into and out of perceived existence as I sat silenced and bewildered with my consciousness skipping through un-televised thoughts. -Who\what were these they---Why would they---Don't tampons go---Was that drug-thing supposed to be a suppository---

Even though I've left the room I still feel as if I have been unable to remove my head from---, but more importantly I fear I may be unable to ever truly leave this remote realm. It's as if--- Oh wait, my show's about to start! Maybe I should call that 1-800 number to order those anti-depression suppositories they were selling. They're supposed to be better than placebos.

Languished Lingo...

I keep hearing things

that hold less weight
than ghost flatulence

Two trust-funded students
argue over political ideals
with no mass behind their
appendix acquired terms
to convey the same weight
words seem to hold when
they've been long lived
before having been spoken

A professor of history
blathers about a past
that died long before
any story was written
and ages before this
expert's astute assessments
of unaccountable accounts

I keep hearing things
in this languished lingo

A single/divorced mother
describes virtuous true love
to her devoted daughter
in a popular TV drama
before briefing her about
the importance of prophylactics

An androgynous amphibian
gives anthropomorphized advice
about staying true to one's self
in the same sort of stilted soliloquy
that an automotive automaton
uses to advise a target audience
about accident insurance options

I can't be too concerned
by all these things I've heard
in this languished lingo
but the things I no longer hear
make the vacuum of silenced space
seem like a soul-sucking abyss

Somewhere beyond the wastelands
of all this languished lingo
the resounding reveries of reality
must still be sung in solipsistic serenity
as individual voices idiosyncratically intone
the words that become more than words alone
when they're declared as words of their own

...and the wind just blows and blows
as words from voices fade in its flow
and even sturdy sounds cease to echo
above a silence no ears will know

Above that other silence all ears hear
comes the screams of an honest fear
as shrieks of some beast moves near
yet some inner voice remains so clear

I'd sooner be insulted and offended
than hear hollowed hearts contented
and lavished in the languished lingo
of some banal or baneful bellow

So speak and sing
the singular sentiments
and solitary statements
vital to your virile voice
and let limp lips lavish
their languished lingo
and lament in limbo

Time IS Money...

I'll never understand why there are no dollar-signs

on sundials, calendars, or clocks
Or why money isn't counted
in terms of hours, days, or years
Or why moments are seldom valued
like funds, or bonds, or stocks

What is all this time worth
if it isn't time we cherish
What would we trade it for
that wouldn't with it perish

In times of my poorest despair
I'd pinch pennies & hope to wake
from the impending fearful nightmare
where I've nothing left for death to take
But I've lived long enough
to have considered myself wealthy
even as times have been rough
and I've been so far from healthy

Time is money
Trade one for the other
Time is money
Each affords the other
It has only ever been what time
we spend, share, save, or squander
that has afforded our hearts to crave
and endowed our minds with wonder

Having earned a chance
a lifetime will be spent
and in death's romance
its fortune will have came & went
and so it goes
as it goes on

Lo and Behold...

Lo and Behold
Said a traveler on his way
as he traversed the ancient sands
of some hourglass gone stray
and those gathered with him did lo and behold
admiring another place they'd never stay
at a loss to long lost lands
in their beauty and decay

Lo and Behold
Said a scientist today
as he elevated triumphant hands
over his head so shocked and gray
and those gathered with him did lo and behold
astonished beyond what old words could say
so they twisted fractured strands
into what they'd not convey

Lo and Behold
Said a prophet rapt with rage
as he relayed his gawd's demands
and foreshadowed a mighty war to wage
and those gathered with him did lo and behold
adamantly rattling from some existential cage
they echoed back their own commands
each one as their own sage

Lo and Behold
Said a pamphlet's cover-page
as the salesman shook new hands
and promised what many products could assuage
and those gathered with him did lo and behold
adoring the inventions of a new space-age
as they salivated from all their possessive glands
for advances on their wage

Lo and Behold
Said the jester from a stage
as he stood in front of no band
and displayed no vocal range
and those gathered with him did lo and behold
amused by the indignance of a faux-thoughtful exchange
as each tired joke went on as planned
in the mockery of change