The blazing summer sun
Attacking my pigment
White thighs
Gonna need aloe vera treatment
Tender pink meat exposed
Another bout of the Irish curse
Naked flesh so easily burnt
Need to be saved by a smokin’ hot nurse
Can’t speak like that in 2022
I assure you, I truly understand
But my perverted tendencies
The truth remains; always the dirty old man
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
The gentle fog of last night’s revelry
Walking the streets before the sun
Overcorrecting the crooked events
Getting myself right before the day’s begun
Dreamscapes fading in these early hours
Scars to tell tales of an alternate narrative
Truth impedes the recital of our union
Clinging to our bodies not always so imperative
Setting the scene amidst several libations
Resulting in sloppy notes from the underground
These aren’t mundane epitaphs from stone
Rather just trinkets for creation to remain unbound
Jesus was a rouge agent
Calling out institutions woefully unjust
Up-ending currents & the status quo
Powers that be & reigning corporate trusts
Holding fast in the face of arbitrary traditions
We won’t look to long at your offbeat proclivities
Unnerved authenticity & outspoken truth
But they’ll chalk it up as additional incivility
Looking again to God, but knowing She won’t talk
Red-lettered honesty; realism against expectation
Unvarnished tales of the meekest souls
Rapt against our most quietly brave ministrations
They don’t have men
Down at the newspaper anymore
Dusty ages disagree
They’ve forever closed the door
They’re hiding the truth
In the time of an information superhighway
Where they locked away Dignity
They’re not telling, they won’t say
We’re on our own out here alone
You think we’re lost & have much to fear
Stranded under this desert sky
Be still thy soul, for I was born out here
It is not a sin, no matter what they say
For love triumph over all — beyond how we explain
For truth is greater than words
Thus loyalty & devotion shall forever remain
I’m not worried what the preacher says
For he doesn’t understand our match
Too ancient to grasp our harmonization
He has his own itch he can’t scratch
All that matters is how we feel inside
True love is not a notion they can reject
Our bodies & souls eternally intertwined
Upon a higher calling our passion connects
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
Unlocking inspiration in the night
Emerging from the shadows & dark places
Rising from a migrant slumber
New life without any of the fragile traces
A travesty banished to the past
Along with all heartache & fear
Endless scribbles upon discarded paper
The truth within ink stains & pencil smears
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
Thought it to be an easy read
Yet the words were hard to digest
Meaning dancing slowly in my mind
Subtly creeping past the singular rest
Retracing lines to navigate ritual
Where do we reform elegant words
Removed from obvious transparency
Heaped among the notorious & absurd
But we can still be returned to normal
Reassembled without any scars of the war
Truth absolved of the fictions we wrote
Back to the pages I quietly implore
I don’t have pretty eyes to attract
Nor a beautiful body to distract
A middle aged, middle class white dude
with no street cred
With charm & gentlemanly conduct
instead
I’ll have to choose the proper words
To prevent from being misheard
Where did our youthful exuberance go
Closed off from a litany of feelings of truth
But I don’t want to be like them
Not worried about a bent halo or tarnished tiara
Angst of foregone conclusions
I want something of substance
Never tamed by society’s expectations
A slow, smoldering strangeness
Embracing the stature of being a little weird
Impervious to judgements of being bland
For through and through, I can only be me
Never standing for someone else’s brand
I hope to always be wild enough to be free
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
Riding the cooler winds back east
Someday my simple dreams will prevail
Spent too many nights frozen & cold
Once again lost, I know he’s on my trail
Speak to me, for I’ll know if you tell the truth
Look at me, so I’ll know we’ll make it through
This soul damaged in these distant years
Wanting to be pure & return back to you
I need to shine down a path for your life
I want to be an example for you as you grow
May you always have shelter to weather a storm
I contain a perfect love you’ll come to know
You don’t know it yet, but you’re going to save me
A lifetime of joy just waiting for us to find
Adventures & endless discoveries ours to share
A new life, released from that which binds
*written many moons ago before the birth of my first child
Where do we leave our footprints
Do we even want to remember this
Slow mornings on the Intercoastal
With our hearts set to reminisce
Warm weather again on the rise
Let us both be proper & civil
Though still demanding the truth
For it’s out there in spite of this drivel
Cold coffee & a stash of lost dreams
A distant memory of those rail yards
But we weren’t ourselves with honesty
Not the renegades or anything that hard
Images of what we might yet become
Grabbing self-regard before it fades
Destroying their notions of modernism
Returning to polka dotted shirts & dark shades
We all have our morbid skeletons
The vague semblance of a broken soul
But somewhere are the clues to the truth
Somewhere when lightning meets a weary, old skull
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
Speak up, stand up; announce to the world
Spread the news of truth’s availability
Don’t be shy; we’re all in this together
Easy now, no need to hate on my virility
I honestly distrust anything popular or sacred
Passing them by & allow them to hide
I have to figure it out 20 years later
Force-filtered through life & time & tide
Opposing magnetic poles claiming Orwell
Both deluding themselves he’s their saint
But he was human & all the related flaws
His divinity seems a little too quaint
We need people with a firm, decisive choice
No interest in your ineffectual, intellectual porn
There’s no time for pussyfooting around
We must find the truth & feed it to the bullhorn
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
Listening to Wollstonecraft on the radio
“Don’t turn that dial!”, that’s what the DJ said
Not tied to any system; I’m still analog
I’m dangerous; so the advertisers pled
Hereditary responsibility to the common good
Therefore I don’t believe what I’ve been taught
I see y’all got opinions, from your suburban thrones
& these school systems regurgitating corporate rot
Criminal malpractice leaves us with poor examples
But we’ve seen far worse on both sides of the aisle
Bribing the lowest common denominator for votes
Rewrite history, but perhaps that’s not in your files
I’ve been cast off, labeled a subversive heretic
But I’m easy – so I’m doing my best to unlearn
To unwind these falsehoods they tried to entrench
The slow burn; time to take candor for a turn
Rash choices based upon juvenile aesthetics
The understanding that we all might partake
Though one must know speaking the truth too loud
Turns into testimony & they might burn us all at the stake
I’ve traveled the world
& I keep returning to the same notion
I’ve seen interesting places
But I never again want to sail the ocean
My simple truth is that I’m content
I’ve found a good life; that should be clear
The grass is never greener anywhere else
We’re on an amazing course; we shouldn’t veer
There are so many opportunities
I would never close any of those doors
I don’t ever want to let go of your hand
Now that I have & forevermore come ashore
Treading lightly on the soft highway
Searching onward for the Earthbound divinity
Through the desert with the primal scream
Broken decibels ring out, yet amount to infinity
Silver pistol tucked in drawer of hosiery
Known to man only by a chintzy nom de plume
I always preferred a thick bottomed almanac
Slowed, but we have big energy to exhume
Dawn rises, yet the Truth still silently sleeps
Looking for prophets in the glittering sun
Too bright for our modern, mortal myopia
Be still; be patient as time is not yet overrun
Junky little notes
Throwaway lines on the postmodern stage
Cultural fragmentation in empty streets
Truth whittled away on an evaporating page
The disillusionment of an appropriated life
While the world’s on fire; downright ablaze
The American Dream sold off to the lowest bidder
Feeling dissociative in these recent raucous days
Our dishonest & unaccountable government
Are trying to sell you their uninspired vision
Trying to sway your vote by gripping your throat
But their cockamamy pleas will be met with only derision
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
Acknowledge these peaceable arts
Boring affairs these days, if truth be told
The proper staffing present & accounted for
I flirt with the notion that fortune still favors the bold
Reeking of this polite society
These standard fare sisters & brothers
But I’d be out there before the mast
Swilling shanties & rum; if I had my druthers
While we were off sleeping
The rains whipped themselves up in a squall
The flowers rose from their dormant stature
We were left to discover what never was at all
Stripped away our delinquent delusions
Forced to find the truth of this precipitation
Life is a fragile balance of our dreams
Love draws us close while fusing our imaginations
Celestial bodies writhe
She may not be an answer
But perhaps she’s the key
At the end of the Earth
You’ll find no more ground
Dust falling off the coast
Sail around for awhile
Nurture love & freedom
Return to find me here
Within her, I find truth
A value to be upheld
Know the stark secret
There’s so much talk of being wild
Like there’s a constant harness holding us back
But its just an illusion for others to see
You’re choosing to embrace all that you lack
These false pretenses are keeping you low
Images of a manicured life on your social media feed
Spending your days adjusting other’s perceptions
When these aren’t the actions a happy life really needs
It’s difficult to perceive any truth as you focus the camera
The projection of crazy as you manipulate your reputation
Here’s a secret, the honest people don’t really care &
The real wild ones don’t bother with perfect punctuation
Image by Anatoliy Morozz from Pixabay
One must be a seeker
To discover unique truth amongst the thorns
Head down, hiding that grime I feel inside
I’m intelligent, yet not enough to forewarn
Trying to eek out a stable existence
With all these storms heading my way
But you have to want to be something more
Never content at the beginning of the day
We’re bordering on anarchy
With the streets continuing to seethe
This communal madness
Fighting for our shared right to breathe
But I have a long forgotten confession
Which will leave you confused & aghast
Tacked to the back of a soul’s liberty
Forever within the defense of our contrasts
Unfolding broken dreams
The distant & diluted flow
Our hopeless choices astound
The truth? We still don’t know
But we can never give up
Clinging to the last of our visions
Memories cultivated on dark nights
Leaving us exposed with obvious incisions
How do you translate a morning
When your soul bears undiagnosed pain
Scars from a life well lived
For in the end, disillusioned cannot remain
Disquieted moments in the afternoon
These Springtime rays have a golden hour
Reflecting youth into my weary eyes
The reassuring notion of dreampower
Yet gone are the mornings we woke afresh
Our mortal flesh reeling down on Earth
Life; the thorn in the side of this existence
Internal fire requires our souls a wider berth
The slings & arrows shall never fully hinder
For love always eventually finds a way
Darkness cannot extinguish the sun
This truth discovered by the piercing light of day
Overcast Navy sailing away
Pull up your trousers (black silk)
Your stay here has been cut short
Prominent sundresses & of that ilk
Humid weather slowing me down
Manicured hands releasing winds to blow
Settle into your newly structured mind
We never asked you to row so slow
Not listening to rumors on the deckplates
There’s a truth down there you can’t feel
Displacement registered in the silence
Absolutism shook along the keel
I still know you in spite of your success
For I knew you when you were poor
Beauty does not replace kindness
It merely opens up another door
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
The world is burning around us
So much hate & confusion in the crowd
Misdirection & a body of lies
Truth has no relation to just how loud
Don’t know if you can trust anyone these days
But I refuse to remain ignorant anymore
Shutting out all their aggressions
Returning to peace with the click of my door
A study in inexact notions
Differences upon the prospective scene
Our unruly burdens confound us
Nothing to save us when life turns mean
Yet we can never let apathy rule the day
In these times, we must be all the more aware
Knowing truth can be unpopular
Yet compassion is the way to genuinely care
Ghosts in the library – off the rack
Where truth far outweighs the prose
Tender voices of passed miracles
Remembering eventually that’s how life goes
I am a seeker of truth
In the darker moments of existence
When our souls are hurt
& freedom is at an unfathomable distance
Broken frameworks & deep mistrust
Will you take me home after I’ve done my bit
Honesty is the only way we’ll survive
Open & earnest with the unblemished truth of it
Incomplete rants are broken thoughts
Antique shutters dangle in the breeze
Vaccinated by expired truth serums
Eye twitches; our hostess is ill at ease
Yet remaining upright on the page
Our fate wrapped in a trickster’s charm
Subtle strokes without remorse
Only dried ink leaves us disarmed
Subverting all the easy answers
Sacred is our fundamental right to choose
However your speculations drift
Cut the devil’s throat and wrap him in Winter’s hues
I put my faith in a baby child
& He will lead me
I will follow in His path
Being shown what I need to see
I give Him my whole life
I will seek His truth
In my soul He does dwell
Guiding me through days of youth
His love will lift me up
Through the life He gave
I have faith in my Lord
& I know that i am saved
Lost in a deteriorating moment
What more can we do to be free
Close our eyes to the darkness
Tiptoeing quietly, down to the sea
Searching franticly for the answer
But the obvious truth is often a ghost
False memories are unruly traipses
Inclinations leading me, down the coast
Is there a way to be clean again
To bathe in the ocean’s gentle roar
Hope against hope; possibly a way
To find sunshine that might restore
I’m seeking a truth within these fragmented words
My thoughts won’t cooperate with how my fingers move
Typing on this old handmedown machine to transform
My mundane existence into a magical, deliberate groove
I am not afraid to expose the flesh of a wilted soul
There are no heroes in these parts, just broken misanthropes
Internalizing the segmented society & all the villains
Returning to coffee so black the void regains precious hope
If you met me in person
You’d think I was an uninteresting guy
That I had no personality
But the truth is I can be painfully shy
But if you let my words speak
I can flourish & blossom before your eyes
There might be something worthy
If only you can wait for the surprise
Just because you’re the inspiration
Doesn’t mean you’re the intended
Taking what life gives us
Even those not comprehended
Just because you’re the muse
Doesn’t mean you’re the truth
Finding open sores upon the soul
Lingering there since early youth
Just because you’re the source
Doesn’t mean you’re all that real
Gone once my fingers close
You’re merely a ghost my heart can feel
The world is full of villains & misguided souls
Trying to drag us down to where they forever dwell
They take advantage & find ways to get elected on lies
Summoning their teams of bureaucrats to send us to hell
They have money, power & zero regard for the truth
You’d have to be deaf, dumb & blind to not know what’s amiss
But I don’t want to give them anymore of our time
I solely want to focus on our next kiss
Sheep in wolves’ clothing
Alone in the natural spirals
A delicate peace teetering
In a time when hate’s gone viral
A profound wilderness
With the Shepherd long forsaken
Truth & reason at risk
With Faith’s foundations shaken
Does compassion still exist
Love faltering/dreams now monochrome
The Devil removing his mask
Once he’s comfortably at home
Love letters to myself
A hug written upon a notecard
Scribbles for no one else
Sometimes life is just too hard
Taking moment away from the herd
Break off from all that I know
Losing myself in nature’s glory
Words can slow the overflow
Breathe – just letting it happen
Soon, I’ll be able to take some more
Reflecting my small truths
It’s easier to recover upon the shore
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
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
Answers lurking in the shadows
Though sometimes never found
We may have loved & lost
& our hearts forced underground
There is always some eternal truth
Traipsing back from your forgotten youth
Such a beautiful specimen
As I’m sailing through a mirage
Blue waters falling into crystal eyes
More interested in her décolletage
Aspirations following the deep night
Knowing the truth of a certain fashion
Toe to toe & inequality reigns
My only hope lies in enthusiastic passion
I’m driving down by the beach
Radio tuned to Lana Del Rey
Trying to turn back the clock
Warm, salty air to celebrate the day
Looking for a moment to feel alive
To relive the trappings of youth
Ignoring the aches of aging
To deny the inescapable truth
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
*previously posted, but I think we need to come together and stop fighting amongst ourselves.
You didn’t sell out, you bought in
At least that’s what you regurgitate
But you, yourself, are a cog in the machine
Grinding out this state sponsored hate
You speak of crying in the streets
Heartbroken your flavor of evil didn’t win
But it’s a system of corruption throughout
With each career politician speaking the sin
Where did all our heroes & leaders go
Driven out as the bureaucracy multiplies
Buried the truth in all that paperwork
We’re doomed unless the people rise
Against these manufactured lies
The sultan of suntan
Smelling like oils & lotions
Sand clinging to your soul
Cleansed by the water’s motion
Purged of evaporating dreams
We can focus on existence
Wringing it all out
At love’s steadfast insistence
All secrets illuminated
Nothing remains within
Cover of cheap shades
Truth permeates the skin
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
Closing my hand around her concept
The starkness of her blonde aspiration
Seeing the truth behind her veil
My ministrations lead to her liberation
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 were 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 passed 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
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
You’re holding expectations
Needing me to be a better guy
Wishing I was more successful
Hating my truth; you’d prefer a lie
So I wander within my own skin
To become what you want in a man
Each day, I’m ever more the pirate
Soon, they’re be no more Peter Pan
“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the alter of language and purity and tolerance.” – Stephen Fry
Tracing toes to thighs
Knowing how the game is played
& the truth I’ll never deny
Everything I do, I do to get laid
“If you’re in the middle of the ocean, with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.” – Tom Waits
“Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.”
― Joss Whedon
Captain Q 