I’m pounding these keys
Trying to create a landmark
Something to last through time
A rhyme to set off a sudden spark
I’m vain in ways I won’t admit
A schedule of words upon the page
Formulas/equations for me to disconnect
Memories for after I’ve withered into age
Alone with my thoughts
Shut up in this temporary, two room apartment
Thinking through imagination
Rack my brain to conjure anything Heaven sent
Ink spilled, but nothing to write home about
Languished notions in an attempt at creation
Yet a vision of satire is all that I am
Craving a spark; anything to produce elation
It was a one-eyed kind of morn
With evening’s festivities going awry
I scrawled out all I could remember
Once a gentleman, turned drunken guy
Slight images of a lovely form
Olfactory sparks upon my brain
Sketching the party’s guest list
But no new faces could remain
Racking my skull for a proper memory
Writing down every & each detail
Compiling a list to rediscover
I’m trying to think, but it’s to no avail
A faceless gown with affectionate gloves
Somehow my mind is able to recall
Cognitive fragments begin to linger
Clouded out by last night’s alcohol
Scenes slowly begin to return
I believe we’re out on the dance floor
An embrace of smoldering desire
Yet I couldn’t figure out any more
Scraps of notes spread before me
No identity to place upon the truth
Scant reason to be shy in my search
Basking in honesty of my lapsed youth
Cobwebs have been sparsely lifted
Won’t think of her in the past tense
Her ghostly touch encourages me yet
We shall meet again, I firmly sense
To hold her with determined spirit
Seems fantastical at this sad rate
Yet she’s left fingerprints upon me
Remaining until I succumb to my fate
She wore white to the hanging
Fingers smudged from setting the patriarchy to burn
She wore a guilty smile
For they would never ever seem to learn
By her beauty, they were always distracted
But her brains they never could comprehend
Once the fire went viral
They wished they could call her a friend
They picked such an angelic foe
Yet kept her bound by tradition & canon & law
But you can never chain ideas down
Imprudence by the state was the final straw
Continual pandering as a cultural trait
Overwrought force; their idea as the solution
The spark still smoldering in her eyes
Never again the victim, she’s the whole damn revolution
*This is a reaction to rewatching the movie Cat Ballou with modern eyes.
You speak of the boatman
But you’ve never been down
To where the river meets the sea
We seek out a forgotten spark
But you never cared for others
The blinding discord of tranquility
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
The voices come calling
Like shattered visitors in the night
Darkness expunged within thought
Auditioning words; trying to get it right
Vapid orations coming from the podium
Stacks of the wrong books & loose leaf notes
The dumbing down makes a tedious existence
But ideas are the traditional spark of an antidote
Captain Q 