My words not yet upon the honorable shelf
Needing to be written before displayed
Returning to the beginner’s mind
Where a fresh outlook might be relayed
The quiet intent of seeking wisdom
But maybe we could apply it
Without toxic soapbox rhetoric
No use in deflecting nor to deny it
Navigating the rows of knowledge
The sheer beauty of words, staked by reams
Our hearts insulated from reality
By the rumination of our dreams
Feeling a great need to create
This is a crazy world today
When will we ever thrive when
We don’t remember what we say
Hidden slowly in your dreams
Reality hinders our solutions
Time tocks against us now
Feeling abstract absolution
We were brave to love that way
So young & so devastatingly free
Before we knew the harsh realities
Of how the world doesn’t want us to be
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
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
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
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
Days & time confuse themselves
The bending of the sun’s first rays
I don’t mean to bother you much
But I’m lost between a solar phase
The details of how we exist
When we peer before the day comes to be
Glimpsing the chance at happiness
Stretching our thoughts around reality
Not to keep returning the subject to myself
But there are certain truths I must understand
I’m no one special, a mere footnote
A history to be written, though not as planned
Dreams & hopes that never came to be
A rakish poet nor grizzled old typesetter
Through the years & false daily realities
It is inexplicable the mundane became better
So I find myself with a specific freedom
To be able to move without any sort of cosmic retort
For I have faith in love, fate & ultimate grace
Allowed to live without any innate need to stop short
It’s a sparse paradise these days
Feeling another season coming on
Not supposed to feel like this
At least that’s the way we’ve been drawn
She’s still the poor pretty rich girl
Never could get off the same page
Repeat struggles to survive
Tripping on my lines; a vapid stage
Reality is an emotion detached from my soul
You never needed everyone to love you
Instilled confidence to merely exist
Forethought is a luxury that might just be true
Transcripts of the past’s failures
We’ve learned, but not out of society’s grip
False starts & then some
Rising, but we’re still not quite hip
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
This is life. This is reality.
When the pretty words drip away
When the party’s over
You’ve still got to wake & face the day
Digital lovers lavish heaps of praise
Complimenting you on your magnificent blog
While you neglect the physical world
Always remember that pain & loneliness are analog
The beat making my Diesels sweat
This is beyond my usual scene
Usually I can’t dance without regret
Needing a lot more alcohol & caffeine
Glow sticks & the whole lot to lampoon
I can’t live life with digitized crap
Moving my body like an analog buffoon
I need to find a pretty lady to sit upon my lap
I spy one in my dizzied & frazzled state
I could definitely make her my new habit
She’s smiling at my attempt to communicate
My God, I see curves like Jessica Rabbit
I shake my head allowing reality to seep
Good fortune has shined down in this nightlife culture
I straighten my clothes; thinking ‘don’t be a creep’
& I flash the Cheshire grin of a hungry vulture
Snark doesn’t make you what you want to be
You’re infatuated with being cool throughout
Constantly proving your wit for all to see
Reality is you’re hiding & putting your soul in doubt
You don’t see me when you look my way
Like a ghost – I just don’t seem to appear
Faded into the background of life
Unable to compete with all you hold dear
My kind smile & open arms aren’t a reality
Merely static in your fashion-conscious day
I’m over here trying to catch your eye
Yet my shadow is not even in your way
What more can I do to attract you
The uncool of America
Not enough flash
Eagerly & quietly industrious
But we’re still short on cash
You’re out here ridin’ high on your horse
I’m down here with my heart broken
You’re clearly oblivious to my existence
I wonder if you’ll ever be woken
Simple words resembling a memory
Your mind fallen into disrepair
Unable to recall her by name
We were infamous, kinda debonair
Forgotten all those sudden steps
The dramatic part of the birthright
Taking intimate reasons to be
Reality hitting hard in hindsight
Knowing where she was needed
Removed from the precise location
Often life wasn’t part of the plan
Though beauty found in the motivation
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay
Disturbed themes & distant thrombosis
A hitch in your giddy-up when it’s time for tea
Transcendental visitations
From dreams may come answers to our makeshift reality
Pouring over the brackish tomes with devotion
Gentlemen & ladies of letters; luminaries of thought
But truth doesn’t cure our limited capacities
Bare harbingers of the illiterations we’ve wrought
We’ve taken ill in our posh-marked libraries
Leaving fingerprints on memories we loved the most
We maunder through our raging debates
Knowing full well they’re all books about ghosts
Darkness creeps in on our musty resolve
Syntax prescribed with an utmost surgical query
Descending by the light of our candelabra
If we survive, we’ll be counted amidst the weary
The grand rubbish
That we display here
Our soul’s bleeding
Harking back to fear
But we push ahead
& slowly expose
Our personal thoughts
Fighting the reality of those
Image by Khusen Rustamov from Pixabay

I’m not worried what you think is silly or weird
I’m not concerned with judgements nor opinionated chatter
The world exists outside any of my control
I refuse to change & become another useless natter
Let me continue on & be steadfast in being me
The strength of a persevering personality
Shining on with a decorous grin
Jaunting forth; shunning your beliefs in reality
Don’t pull myth out of the truth
Don’t strip me of a certain beauty
Reality is far too painful for reason
To ease the hurt, our fortuitous duty
The freedom to move is vastly underrated
The need to take refuge in the open air
Release yourself from these modern bonds
Get back out there if you still care
I reject their basic version of normalcy
Those rules don’t apply as formulated
Reality was never calibrated for us
Mere common folk to be granulated
Refusing to remain quiet is necessary
Return to nature – turn off that broadcast
Be elusive, for they’re coming for you
You’re necessary as long as you have a vote to cast
But the simple fact is grace is unearned
We live our lives as if we’re undeterred
Ignorant to sin & repercussions thereafter
Yet hoping for the winds to remain unstirred
Truth & love are bound to our dreams
The inconvenient reality of the harsh pain of day
Trudging through our irksome tasks
Bright light stuns us into a stuttering delay
Fall to your knees in complete repentance
Submit your soul to the warmth of His sunshine
Release the burden of mortal expectation
Forever embrace the perfect love of the Divine
Where are the heroes for our own time
The poets & warriors to lead the charge
I’m not the effigy of your incompetent apathy
Merely the pirate of record, by & large
Who will join me among these ranks
To beat back the mind-numbing attitudes
To hell with society & its reality television
Taking my crew to more temperate latitudes
Fates & folly everlasting
Without courage to proceed
A beautiful lady
Measuring thought & deed
But she just wanted my heart
No matter the complications
I couldn’t view the reality
Of her love without reservations
Perhaps I’m a bit more prudish
Than I ever expected myself to be
Shying away from their exhibitions
Folding my soul back into propriety
Maybe I’m not as cool as you thought
I’m more of a meandering old fellow
Writing out lines of cautious fantasy
Whereas reality reveals itself to be rather mellow
Meandering down an etched path
With vines & foliage on all sides
The overgrowth keeps secrets locked
& provides the perfect place to hide
I know where I always wish to be
A forgotten realm; a place no one thinks to look
Reality, hatred & cruelty forever expunged
I’m safe here – alone in nature – me & a book
I’m not going to forfeit this life
Grasping at reality along the way
Running headlong into risk
Finding out what the youth have to say
Nurturing growth & development
Truth remains after their neglected lie
Sweat falls from my brow – a start
We can’t let the dream of freedom die
Image by Tibor Janosi Mozes from Pixabay
Rubbing their fingers over the stereo knob
The frequencies distorted on the airwaves
Kings of the new world & thus apocalyptic
Searching for something more pragmatic to crave
These technocrats with no concept of reality
Tasking – without offering an alternate fate
Demanding citizens for homages to be digital
With no power to control – or else we attenuate
Words of peace have the chance to amplify
Even when we’re feeling out of time/out of sync
Don’t need their fiber optic lies to survive
A blind man loses all when forced to blink
Tapping into a passion without any circuits
Our transistors are live; we’re lovers thus discrete
There’s no stopping us when their signal’s weak
There’s nothing but fire & sparks when our wires meet
This life is forever altered now we’re here
Do not attempt to adjust the squelch
You’re listening to Radio Free America
Standing proud & robust like Raquel Welch
Pirate Prep
Slow reveal behind the mask
But there’s no dick pics
No matter how politely you ask
I’m gonna keep something for me
Reality to keep up with illusion
You’re drooling over my secrets
Obviously tainted by your delusion
Life rocks us silently
Rising & falling with the boat
Visions held most dear
Within these stories I wrote
Removed my choice of reality
But here I’ll take my stand
Firm between the swells
With gentle reminders of Neverland
Maybe those were the days
I wasn’t so perfect, structured or neat
Rebelling against all humanity
Couldn’t tell the difference in defeat
A crooked line to follow
A wrinkled brow upon the figurehead
Our dreams fractured when applied
Lost within reality’s pragmatism instead
Perhaps I appear confident in print
The paper expands arrogance’s pitch
I can hide behind my words for a stint
Though the return to reality can be a bitch
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo
Image by Jinali Parikh from Pixabay
Captain Q 