You’re trying to be Alternative
But you didn’t know Alternative was a thing
Concepts from days long past
So what, you’re awkward & like to sing
Angst from deep before you were born
Grungy flannels stolen from brothers backs
Unironically strutting to messy riffs
The beauty’s in what the structure lacks
Friends & family are pleading with you
Please return to the organized norm
But you can’t rebel from your soul
& you’ll never forgive yourself if you conform
Small movements while sorting absent thought
Surrealist painting hanging over the bedframe
Remaining warm with past subscriptions of the Dial
Shunning the past, but somehow still the same
I cannot make myself extroverted
I’ve never been a joiner; not very verbose
An overactive imagination & searching mind
Yet, outwardly I appear sullen & morose
I’m trying to crawl out of my own way
I’ve been a misogynist & a cynic; it’s all in the file
Shedding the weight of pessimistic sin
Yet some days I still wear a curmudgeon’s smile
Re-spooling sun-faded mixtapes
Dropping clues of an intervening soul
Complex mechanisms of a hindered heart
Beating too full for this jaded world
Wounds from yesteryear still to raw
Let us not discuss the past
Cavernous depression falling down without truth
Wet streets refracting the bitter twilight of the moon
Trenches & overcoats pulled tight to repel the world
A need for answers that cannot wait past this noon
Try to place everything perfectly into its correct box
Finding out the little control we have while we’re here
Knowing the results we wish to see once the sun rises
No need to stay dry when you’re drowning in this fear
Jagged edges to familiar love
The slow moving version of time
Transgressing over our past sins
Rehashing the ancient flavors of grime
Stayed up all night trying to write
I still can’t get you out of my head
Sleep didn’t come easy this night
Giving anything to only go to bed
The clock ticks past two & three
Knowing there’s nothing I’m going to find
Off dreaming of nothing, where I want to be
Another scotch to still my racing mind
Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay
Delirium induced by broken memories
Shudders left lacking in female attention
Visions remain long after waking
Thus resulting in fragile retention
Those ministrations forever known
Dusting off the scarred, forbidden plot
When did the journey cease to please
Chained to the past with defective thoughts
You can keep your digital playgrounds
I care not for a Kindle nor a Nook
There’s no time for your technology
At the end of the day, just give me a book
The old fashioned kind, maybe a paperback
Anything without a power source
I don’t need your highbrow radiation
I’ll stick with tangible pages of course
I may hail from generations past
Perhaps I’m boorish, perhaps I’m a lout
But I’m pretty damn basic when the day is done
I’ll still have my pages when the lights go out
Intense.
Uncontrollably shake your foot
Another morning wide awake
Experience as black as soot
We can only be who we are
No sense living in the past tense
These are the ramifications
Blinded to your own suspense
I know who we once were
Though they are now gone
Not victim to anything
Excuses made you the pawn
Shed these moments of hate
Bringing you down another level
Dreams of agony by default
Embraced, but slightly disheveled
Regroup at the breakfast table
Another chance to forever adjust
Calming thoughts to carry through
After all, we’re merely cosmic dust
I’m not a joiner
I’m deliberately choosing not to join your group
Breaking free of these inconsistencies
Past sins & missteps on an endless loop
I inherently distrust any gathering of people
Seeing we’re doomed to live out the follies of youth
We lost our way & never came back
Now spurned forward by the allure of truth
Transactionally stealing poetry from her diary
Thinking pretty thoughts, my lady crooner
Shedding our shared idealized past
Ravishingly disheveled from another nooner
These things are seldom spoken aloud
Angels sing out; no longer so distant
Breached actions distorting our thoughts
Heartbroken; leaving you feeling resistant
I’m out here worshipping my secular goddess
Looking for quiet now & avoiding unsolicited advice
Passion not always akin to pleasure
Focused to ensure my kisses are nice & precise
Love & heartbreak do little to assuage the guilt
Where we were sullen & hoping to save our souls
Marooned far past the realms of sanity
Peeling the plastered propaganda on Bikini Atoll
Surrounding myself with ancient friends
Wisdom & experiences laid upon my shelf
Bare for all to quietly consume
Providing a chance for a better version of self
Absorbing past lives without pause
Silhouettes of women from long ago
Angst from existential rights in time
Visions of dreams I wish to forgo
These books are mere placeholders
For the contents of my heart upon hardwood
Gentle reminders of our former intellect
& the hope we might return to being good
Picking out tunes from a lost childhood
Icons from an isolated life; memories fleeting
Can’t keep track of my overblown tragedies
My own imagination responsible for these beatings
My past is a weight, tugging at my fragile soul
Written missives, but she flew off to Ontario
Shunning my offerings for a comprehensive life
I speak of love, but she merely turns up the stereo
Knowing the bottom of the depths
Untold theories where passion lies
Encased all in a delicate French lace
The truth that logic & gravity defies
Earthbound creatures can’t be understood
It’s simply not in our fallible DNA
Attempted in conversational tones
But we’ve lost connection anyway
Trying to find a way back to the meaning
Reason doesn’t apply to moments like this
Disregard the pressures of our past
That we might create our own sustainable bliss
Image by Dayron Villaverde from Pixabay
Sitting at the windowsill
Fingers stained by my ink
Face red & tranquilly humbled
Cold & tumbled; too frozen to think
The nights are dropping temps
I’ll need to do everything to keep warm
Though I’m unwrapping each layer
Eagerly embracing your gracious form
Life is a fine chance to love you
Trading kisses as I adjust your weary crown
Telling stories of our younger days
& the magic that happened in a little Arizona town
Image by Lou Blazquez from Pixabay
Oh, where does our journey end
Or begin, as it so often might seem
Futile attempts to erase the past
The unknown details of our dreams
The open road panders to a false escape
The mere opportunity to rewrite a sojourn
Jesus perambulating with Uncle Walt
Debating the path; perchance to learn
Shaky prospects in apportioned time
Manifest destiny teases Ginsburg & Kerouac
Further roads leading to ornate wisdom
& we keep it concealed out in the back
Thoreau mocking society with his solitude
Knowing alone is the greatest we could ever be
Thoughts come to us in gentle waves
That perhaps our visions should become the sea
A reinterpretation of westward expansion
Route 66 cross-contaminating Highway 61
All roads have never led us home
Emily tempting Death with her life left undone
The growing wisdom of our consumed space
Emerson’s penning pre-revolutionary blues
Introducing our souls to unrefined grace
The Good Lord providing Her unfiltered muse
Feeble humanity; lost across the tracks
Original sin that we’ve taken on the chin
Sifting thought; we might be welcomed again
But knock off the Devil’s dust before you come in
Lounging early in the morning
She wore an animal print I couldn’t recall
I poured another cup to erase the cobwebs
A chilly morning; slipping past Fall
She was sleek & beautiful, a deadly shade
Overly dramatic in the best possible sense
Passion in abundance for my sole benefit
Edging to a climax at our soul’s expense
I’m so happy, I’ll dance you a jig
With my eyes open, these dreams so big
Still living this life with childhood eyes
Truth always revealed as the tears dried
Sailing ships, battered by wind & storm
Ignoring reason, logic & the accepted norm
Life gets hectic, it’s often a terrible mess
Never grow up, push past into happiness
Fairy influence & the magic it might behold
Let us go now & create a story that’s yet untold
Where love & insanity will always meet
The freedom within our wild heartbeats
Close your eyes, finding something lost
Your favorite memory forever embossed
Tossed into slumbering pages of a book
Captive audiences held by Captain Hook
The golden cutlass, the prize of his plunder
Sharp, but wit marks our Boy Wonder
The best things in life are never planned
Without remorse, we return to Neverland
Typing, hacking, thinking – Smokin’ hot
Typing your best to empty all thought
Pouring your soul into force upon the keys
Your woman walks past with a dress above the knees
Now you can’t think or type or stammer straight
The hell with with deadlines – this one’s gonna be late
You pray to the spirits of procastrination or whatever you think of
Burn this project right now, sacrifice it in the name of love
I won’t judge you for your past
I don’t care how your body looks
Inward – we all contain equal souls
We can all absorb the beauty of books
Go read! Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Twain
Emerson, Rand, Tolstoy, Hemingway
Thoreau, Dostoyevsky, Neruda, Yeats
Great words are forever here to stay
It is solely up to you
To build up your literary wealth
But I will constantly judge you
For the contents of your bookshelf
Smelling coffee long before
These tired eyes were ever meant to open
Dreading wakin’ and meetin’ people
No time like now, so here’s to hopin’
The day started & it’s past time to rise
One foot out & eventually the other leg
I’m going to need more of this magic juice
I feel society comin’ at me like the damn plague
Now that I’m old, there’s no chance to be cool
I’m that creepy lurker passing the delicates isle
Finding myself lost in nebulous thought
Youth dropping their eyes while I try to smile
You can’t be friendly when you’re a certain age
Somewhere along the line, I missed my cue
Oblivious to the graffiti on the decaying walls
I’m slowly dying, more with each day that’s through
Stuck before I can be the wisened old fellow
Conversations with alter egos as I deliberate
Taunting life with my aggressive apathy
Father Time impatiently waiting for my cryptic fate
A litmus test for fragile character upon my days
Emerging from adulthood with wisdom in my head
Never again a victim to society’s whims
Pushing past expectations; my own hero instead
Rising higher than their own trite requirements
Still not accepted & still the silly old fool
Sketchy, weird & perpetually the outcast
Damn, there went my last chance to finally be cool
The cool breeze under your dress
Hiking the hem well past your knees
Hoping for the glories held within
Knowing you’ll tease me any way you please
Our dreams hold us hostage
Chained to our high ideals
Lost to our intemperate youth
The past reaches out & steals
Time lost to us; never again
What’s forgotten can’t be regained
Our lives are our creation
Figments we’ll never fully explain
Green mermaid lady
I’m still in love with you
Always been good to me
My affections are overdue
Dimly lit stages for hire
Writing out these feelings
Jittered & confused tonight
Staggered & now kneeling
Inspiration to keep on going
Confidence in my finer words
Blocked out memories past
Forgetting what was heard
Know where you want to be
So I’ve come back to you
Capitalism be damned!
Pour me something new
Image by marvette critney from Pixabay
Chasing time down a rabbit’s hole
Knowing there’s no way to go on back
Don’t look that way, it’s a mirage
Ghosts aren’t known to be tracked
But we seldom heed our own advice
Reason vanished into our past decisions
Demons try to cling, but they don’t exist
For these antiquated memories are mere apparitions
Captain Q 