An Elegant Suspicion

It's an elegant suspicion
That holds me back again
I feel like I'm being lied to
By the dearest of friends.

Maybe Sigmund had it right
Or maybe someone else
But how can I know you
When I don't even know myself?

It's an elegant suspicion
That undermines my dreams
I can see that the world is
Seldom what it seems.

It's an elegant suspicion
That finds weaknesses unseen
And topples the illusions
To fall down at your feet.

Maybe Mr. K was right
To be paranoid and scared
How can I be right here
When my mind's everywhere?

And I can't go back again.
No, I can't wear that mask.
Sometimes the world is changed,
By the questions you've asked.

So it's an elegant suspicion
That undermines my dreams
I can see that the world is
Seldom what it seems.

I can see everything
Is seldom as it seems.

Marv Albert

What was it that I was supposed to be thinking?

Was it one of these overlapping voices in my head?

Well I tried the differential calculus and could not

Find the derivative of sanity with respect to my mind.

And what is that feeling angry, bitter within my gut?

Like a fist clenched tightly around my insides.

Such shame. Like a stifled laugh from a belligerent joke,

Fermented among a long-delinquent sense of humor.  

What am I to make of this desperate self-indulgence?

These sad, shaking hands scribbling mindlessly…

Illegibly--

Indiscriminately--  

With no regard for human life.

Poem for Rachel

Love is a word,

And only a word

A stand-in for an idea

A reference to a feeling.

It could not possibly be

Adequate for us, for you...

A word could not hold

The energy to race my heart.

It couldn’t express the fracture

I feel when we’re apart.

It is a pale shadow,

And a distant echo,

Of the thousands of touches,

Kisses and stolen glances...

Or the hard-learned lessons

Of being one soul.

Yet the word “love”

Is the best that we have

While our two hearts

Author something better.

In Search of Laundry Room on Record Store Day

We searched in vain
For the prize of the day
But around every bend
Was another dead end

We tried different places
Asked many vacant faces
But each glimmer of hope
Was a mirage where we'd go

And at the end of failed plans
We finally washed our hands
And bitterly realized
There would be no prize.

Not today.

Subservient

Subservient to you
To all your vacant notions
Underneath your shoe
Without any commotion

And I'm feeling tread upon
My head is hot with fever
When I lift high my thoughts
Your gravity holds me here

Subservient to you
And your dangerous notions
The many and the few
That serve with sad devotion

That I feel so put upon
Put upon like clothes
My head here, my heart gone
Left a sense of bitter loathing

Subservient... subservient
With time enough to fall apart

Deep Down, You're Not Fooling Anyone

Misshapen angels
Wings without flight
Relieved by disbelief
Of this desperate insight.

And all the while laughing
For after all, why not?
These misshapen angels
Know they're all we've got.

Fall back on superstition
Anything will do
Like bedtime fairy tales
Or mathematical proofs.

We all need to believe
We all need an excuse
So we can hide our scars
Like misshapen angels do.

Ordinary Relativity

Moving frame of reference
With no view of space or time
Lost my way in the confusion
Unraveled as I unwind

Knowledge with respect
To all that we can see
Trying hard to be
Both man and machine

Watching light bend
And dilation of time
Everything is relative
The law is the crime

Planet Nothing Special
Species ill-conceived
Gravity never needed
For you to believe