You seem to be in an awful temper
I didn’t mean to ruffle your petticoat
Just trying to assuage discomfort
Ma’am, I must return to the boat
Incidents may have occurred
Darkness cloaks many a stumble
I bid you remember me fondly
For you leave me broken & humble
Taking time to reside in detail
Coaxing ghosts off the Sunshine Coast
A temper & a crooked smile
The truth when we needed it most
Knowing differences of our secrets
Diligent with passing the changes
I’m fluid in these manipulations
But for her I am, keeping me strange
Reading cracked-spine paperbacks
Wandering by; gently grabbing her waist
Creating space & sending archaic signals
Standing proud, knowing silence accustomed to taste
Transparent dresses hanging in the mud room
Saran-Wrapped for mild protection
Eyes closed to foreign tales
Tempered thoughts of stifled affection
Painted prose with regurgitated eyes
Our dreams left choking on the floor
Scribbling beliefs with thick gouges
Manufactured truth with cries of Nevermore
Redundant weight of classical heroes
Forcing us into bastardized Groupthink
Yet my mind still wanders to her opaque passion
Chasing her dragon with endless ink
Rigormortis of the soul
Dejected along emotional failings
Tempered seas begin to roll
White knuckles; hold fast to the railings
Sorting feelings like a rolodex
Trampled yearning from Jaguar years
Unprepared for survival
Causing the most elaborate of your fears
Processing out foreign memories
But the answers just get in the way
Undisciplined in self-diagnosis
A sturdy smile in the face of the seaspray
But the machine will keep on rolling
Until we end the tolerance of systematic lies
This is the only chance we have here
Life is not lived if it ends in a tempered sigh
Captain Q 