A naked woman upon the figurehead
Standing proud in the breeze
Calling to the Sirens & wenches
Knowing the truth of these seas
Her beauty remaining firm & intact
The ship around her orange with rust
The sailors with splinters in their palms
For she has a wooden bust
The infinity of love
The entirety of a single breath
Odd footnotes to a shapely evening
After kissing the feet of Sister MaryBeth
The important ones are those you forgot
Distant notes too unbelievable to remember
But there’s a gravity to these infatuations
Still wearing Fair Isle, though it no longer December
Our dreams aren’t always tangible by birth
Effort & perseverance required, but you can’t relate
You won’t know it, but it’s worth the heartache
We’re doomed to live our days as humans & it’s called fate
Delayed motion of her hand
Lost in thought; unable to translate
The slippery notion of time
Within the energy of a tangible fate
Let us remain discrete in our words
She tries to focus as I obnoxiously flirt
Concentrating on writing proper forms
Caught her unaware as I reached up her skirt
Please don’t question my reality
You’re pandering to a common goal
I’m eradicating acute boredom
Freeing another fractured soul
Redefining fantasy on a personal level
The subtle witness under the veil
Finding happiness outside expectation
Wishing our dreams weren’t so frail
Our solemn tales of passion & woe
My life is to slyly denote
Vigor sizzles quietly away
We try any which way but by rote
Always there to circumvent
Employing a nudist typist
But you get the gist eventually
You know, he was there to assist
You rushed out of my life & into the library
I still lust for you in that black dress
Never ashamed of how I feel
Surprised you expected any less
Shipwrecked.
Isolated on foreign shores since then
Surrounded by predators
Judgement & leers by creepy men
Can only do her best to survive
Keeping quiet in their midst
Don’t want to provoke the beast
Won’t fade to obscurity she insists
It’s complicated to remain equal
These days one must be agile
She keeps them at bay with a grin
While remaining firm but not fragile
Life should have more dancing
More twirls, laughs, dips, lifts & general glee
We can make anything happen
Once she comes home with me
A dream can be a reality if she believes
I know the passionate way I would hold her
My own heart pumping infinite love
Visions of slipping that dress off her shoulders
I wish to caress her by candlelight
Looking into my eyes, asking for more
Whispering all the things she wants
Dancing close until our bodies are sore
Ringing the doorbell at the campus bookstore
A vintage, pull chain contraption
Antiquated, yet still rather expensive
A lot of fine print within the caption
Education is a self-fulfilling myth
When the public library is free
Pay your tuition into the system
It all depends from what lens you wish to see
It’s not too much to ask for
Cold chilling to our bones
When we’re together forevermore
Wrap yourself tightly, I implore
Through love, we must atone
It’s not too much to ask for
Briskness recalls days of yore
Nostalgia to which we’re prone
When we’re together forevermore
Battered ships upon the same shore
Knowing we’re never alone
It’s not too much to ask for
Feeling the true price of this war
Pages of guilt written in stone
When we’re together forevermore
Tossed in the bottom drawer
Realities remaining unknown
It’s not too much to ask for
When we’re together forevermore
I may be an eccentric lover
Quirks, kinks & otherwise secrets of sensual scale
The deliberate & passionate engagement
Though a mere man; my love will never fail
The rest of the world is frozen
Placed under Elsa’s frigid spell
But down here on the beaches
We’re out watching the swells
Sand dusted upon our tanned skin
With the sun hanging over us, high
Palm trees strung with Christmas lights
A warm day called winter, passes us by
Standing wobbly-legged
Spread stance, with a mock salute
Whispering; describing her desires
Soon, I hope she won’t be so mute
Passion of an fantastical nature
Possibly seeming like it’s unreal
Motioning me to come forth
Promises of a love I can feel
Building to a palpable potency
A tangible form of bemused intrigue
Charmed to dizzying arousal
Winding to a whirlwind fatigue
With which note to thoroughly enchant
Steps so sure that time cannot lapse
A smirk; mouthing words to erupt
But knowing I’ll finally leave her unclasped
I want to write
But I don’t have the words
So I watch the ink seep silently
I know you’re thinking I’m absurd
So many empty notebooks
To fill with small little doodles & swirls
Intimidated by the stark whiteness
I don’t know how to create lasting worlds
Pondering & delving into thought
Present in my feelings with offerings to burn
Slowly churning my fickle imagination
In the hopes a bit of creativity might return
Sitting here dissenting all forms of gov’t
Looking for answers in these coffee grounds
Uncovering more & more hatred, with less hope
These political ovations do nothing but compound
Society has gone astray, Jesus take the wheel
We’re all being watched by a perched black bird
Incoherent shrieks & mumbles of “Nevermore”
Universities stacked with all the quotes they misheard
Where are the heroes to protect democracy of the republic
In the wake of fraudulent saints & a presidential pretender
We must devise a prophecy to overtake our future
Lady Liberty’s hem is ablaze; with no elder statesmen to defend her
We’re led by fools, fractures & frauds
Finding ourselves at crossroads armed like Checkpoint Charlie
History won’t be kind to the weak or evil all the same
Needing a guardian like Justice Ginsburg on a Harley
I’m raising a small army of Lost Girls
Feminist soldiers marching – in all but the name
Seeking love, peace & equality for all the people
Hindering harmony will leave you squarely to blame
We all have our differing loyalties
But truth will prevail when time comes to an end
Our trials will be but mere footnotes to antiquity
Faceless angels guiding youth; they shall forever be a friend
I do not have the weight of fading beauty
I was never handed that cross to bear
I will dissipate into the darkness
With few knowing I’m no longer there
But she feels the pain of time
Thinking a curse as we continue to age
The anguish of remaining alive
Yet each new dawn is another blank page
Standing in line for a morning cup
After a pot or two, I’ll be content
But you’re holding up progress
Your specialty is causing me to resent
My anger is slow to rise
But the barista is soaking in your beauty
The rest of us are dying of fatigue & thirst
All the while methinks you’re a bit too snooty
Feigning the glamorous life
Proof of the shiny being a mirage
Charlatan; promising a false idol
Arbiter of a fictional montage
The veil covering honest intentions
Quiet manipulation of time
Epiphanies with truth in reality
But I now know, I’d rather be in the grime
It’s difficult to be unhappy
When you’re chewing gum
So strap on your Chucks
Dance & get you some
Awake early in the naked, teal morning
Still wet from dancing in the rain
My subconscious kissing her femininity
But the memories remain love-stained
Her fingers gripping my shoulders
Our souls constantly trying to absorb
Soft, low moans quietly evident
I’m enchanted by her fleshy orbs
We’re exposed in the light of dawn
A realness that won’t be concealed
We have a glow of our own
No words exist, but a truth she can feel
There’s war out here in these streets
The physical city pulses & seethes
Tamped down by hate of denizens
Facts challenging all that we believe
All of society calling for our attention
While our infrastructure remains unstable
Tragedy & crisis revealed every morning
But I still need to put food on the table
The glories of a sunny morning
Smiling into my coffee; subtle credo
Trying to create my masterpiece
But, I’m distracted by my libido
Looking for my stunning bride
Maybe get a little taste under her skirt
A surefire way to get artistic juices flowing
Interest shifted; she can only help, never hurt
Watching the condensation seep into the desk
I think of the glories that have gone away
The ice melting/mixing into my single malt
I’ve been nervous, but I’m okay by the end of the day
These days weren’t the ones we’ve been dreaming of
Idealistic thoughts when we were on foreign shores
Imagining celebrities dancing in their formalwear
Fancy & festive role models displayed forevermore
Upon the big screen & locked into our minds
Americana lost & the golden age of Hollywood
Stoking the passion of our fervid imaginations
Inspiring our dreams like nothing else ever could
Our hopes & desires abandoned & hung out to dry
March realizations our fantasies are mere celluloid
The cold night, withering on the streets alone
Upon the credits, leaving the theater broke & into the void
Sheets & reams of the nonsensical
Literary blood lost in the shadow of ink
The lifeforce of a simmering soul
Marginal hearts writing love against the kitchen sink
Leaving behind the caricature of an artist
Contributions to society felt in these empty sheets
Fingersmudges marking pages not so white
Starkly exposed with revolutionary words in the streets
Traces of hereditary ideals eroding away
Igniting pages shall still be a stilted sin
Yet we rise again from our desert floor
Eternally grateful our finite letters aren’t porcelain
I know what you’re thinking
I’m clearly uneducated
Immature & mundane
Yeah, but under the surface
Is anything but bland
Drinking with the Harbormaster
Regurgitating things only the ocean knows
Freedom can’t be created any faster
Beauty survives rarely as wild as the rose
Have we forgotten that we’re a rebellious people
Cashing checks under a drifter’s pseudonym
But together, we race across time, surviving
Embracing the unity of singing outlawed hymns
Lately, crying about a falsified history
Disillusioned, disappointed, disingenuous
I have no faith in movements and isms
They’re tinged with the superfluous
I believe in honor & service to the people
Treat each as an individual, never a group
Freedom & liberty distilled down to purest forms
Or else, we’ll see this hatred played out in an endless loop
*Here’s another older one that I think we could all use the message in these trying times.
Too many punks
But only in the aesthetically pleasing sense
Bought their shirts at the 5 & Dime
Along with safety pins
& commercially foraged tattoos
(Can we discuss how punk’s not supposed to be safe?)
Where’s the independence?
Where’s the penchant to damn the man?
Find your sovereign spirit
For no one’s really punk
Until everyone thinks they’re uncool
She’s alone
In spite of all the adoring eyes
Propped firmly on the pedestal
A solitary witness when lust dies
She’s been up there in isolation
The heroine of the bell tower
A slight teeter in her stance
Still defying gravity on the hour
Her alabaster skin shines at night
A chance to quietly & decidedly atone
The decadence of her marble bust
Fingerprints on her heart of stone
Another teary-eyed princess
With a vintage, tarnished crown
Yet, I cannot stop worshipping her
For who’ll catch us, when we all fall down
But from this distance
I cannot properly love her
Lost in the silhouette of a shadow
Emerging as the heat begins to recede
We cannot know what the day holds
Only the way our imagination feeds
Getting outside while the city still sleeps
Early, but I need to get air into these lungs
Darkness illuminates my quiet solitude
Exposing the songs we need to be sung
I feel lost & ineffectual most days
But I haven’t given up living yet
Stretching this old body once more
Finding answers once I’ve sweat
Too many loud souls/When silence will do
Fools too busy collecting trophies & stickers
Not focused on truth of what matters
Sneaking glimpses of soul-revealing knickers
But they’re plastic; not of a proper diet
A mere aesthetic for the internet’s sake
The superficial appetites of modern times
I long for days when passions weren’t fake
Somewhere there is something incorruptible
Something pure that we might know
To purge our lives of superfluous antics
To feel a little more real & a little less faux
On a clear day you can see Fuji
I think that’s what Streisand said
Riding trains toward Shinjuku
Existence hanging by a thread
Bundled in these foreign streets
So simple we often tend to forget
Life-changing inertia rolling along
A tempered life without mixed regret
Captain Q 