The Sunday Dispatch 3.27.22

[lever pulled]

deep from dream
caught in a life outside

breaking days 
in missing pieces

constant flight 
in a near endless loop

treading all the ground 
that can be taken

boundaries secured

for an easy breath 
in the sinking depths
of nowhere.   
*
[a loner]

choice isn’t always an option
sometimes there’s just nothing else to do

so you stare at the wall
listen to sad songs
write a few poems

try not to think about her
or the one before
or the next one

if there will ever be a next one

start to wonder 
why it is how it is

picking the scab down to the bone

then you decide 
maybe it’s just easier this way

just your own ache
your own drama
your own rules

then you remember

that’s exactly why 
it is how it is

isn’t it?
*
[long into the night]

hard enough to fall
with light and timing 
shot to shit

now closed doors 
and imminent doom 
to contend with

sickness and division 
are nothing new

but this strange new current 
has a certain finality to it

that might just bring 
my heart to its knees 
for good.   
*
[wider than awake]

such expanse to take in
from all angles 
at all times

once you accept this
it gets bearable

not easier
not harder
not better

but different

you find that you 
get a bit stronger

a bit wiser
and a bit more at peace

with things being 
just as they are.   
*
[dust of wishes]

breaking our backs 
upon the bones of love

such the weight 
of this darkness

holding my heart 
tight to her breast

beneath the dying stars 
of a billion years

writhing in caress
we shed our skin and 
become our dreams. 
***
“To become spring,
means accepting the risk of winter.
To become presence,
means accepting the risk of absence.”
-	Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Sunday Dispatch 3.20.22

[war against war]

end games unravel
written across blood red skies

when the darkest power 
of soullessness 
is harnessed

civilization 
means nothing 
to the lust of smoke 
and mortar.
*
[outweighed]

down beyond reason
in the rubble of broken days

a pulling away 
from the stalemate of routine 
manifests in the aching undertow 
of this minor existence

an urgent removal 
from the pestering fray 
becomes necessary

to appropriately digest 
the forced anarchy of this
treacherous era.   
*
[prone]

so deep this ache
pulled from the spine of earth

upright to war with little choice
by greed and power-madness 

forced to fight for a life 
rightfully yours to live

how useless and sad and sickening
that it never seems to end

no matter 
the infinitely tolling bells
of our dying time.
*
[treasure, hope, and oblivion]

so much here that waits

as the heart slowly sinks 
to the end of its tether

reaching
falling

pushed and pulled

hovering 
in the smokey ether 
of beauty and sadness

as the seasons roll 
so swiftly past.
*
[down the narrows]

from one 
to nothing

into the wild 
of years and yearning

needing the long way home
the constancy of fault of blame

to break the barriers of condition

to die 
within the breadth of life
again and again

until the darkness 
leads back to the light

from nothing 
to one.
***
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
-	George Santayana

The Sunday Dispatch 3.13.22

[emerge and recoil]



constants removed 

from various equations



reserves impossibly diminished

with no sure way ahead



only our best guesses 

to retain the last vestiges 

of norm and comfort



until the mechanisms 

of our defense 

self-destruct.

*

[reaching oblivion]



strangers dance 

in lucid memory



down the dark and final staircase 

toward the end of my stay



holding the treasure 

of a tortured existence 



in the lock of their embrace.

*

[probably nothing]



ever the hope

brings the light 

every so often



a smiling heart 

to pry open my 

rusted arteries



too long it seems

for me to believe 

it’s anything more 

than temporary



but it’s fun 

to pretend.   

*

[unfinished suite]



curtains raised to reveal

broken walls of mind



endless circles

leading nowhere



heed the falling heart

still warm to the touch



let be the sadness

let go the reigns



let love be gone…   



let its scarlet ribbons flow 

thru the gutters of memory



until the pain 

is light enough 

to be swept away



by the slightest breeze of forgetting.

*

[turning in]



last light long gone



the room dark

the night done



but for these last few 

words of love and longing



be pure in your hope

patient in your heart



and trust in the belief 

you can find what you seek



on this side 

of forever.

*

“At times I’ve struggled to love life

and when a huge flock of blackbirds

roll across the sky

I wish I could go with them.”

-	Mark Lanegan

The Sunday Dispatch 3.6.22

[the quiet symphony of loneliness…]

is often felt 
more than heard

mostly 
on sunday mornings

slowly rising 
to an underwhelming crescendo
not long after waking

as my cold 
and tired bones 
softly rattle across 
the bedroom floor. 
*
[in this way]

a welcome returned
beyond the mends of fault

a trusting forward formed 
from the crumbled past

a path of progress restored
by the broken folly of trial and error

to be now 
what we are

in the wake 
of what we never 
could.
*
[start to finish]

once held
forever letting go

keep nothing 
so tightly grasped 
that pain prompts its departure

let it all come
let it all go

love when here
love when gone

nothing need change
but everything you fear.
* 
[optimal confusion]

fear not the onset 
of storm and disarray

for static necessitates
the finding of frequencies
beneath the dirge of this
dire existence

as strange variables direct focus 
toward understanding   

we can break the spell of chaos 
cast upon the soul

and,
with reasonable effort,
form vital strategies

to bring comfort and kindness
to the little time we have left. 
*
[signlessness]

by the end
all just ash 
and bone

the leavings of life 
left to the wolves of never

as ghosts set the vessel alight
to sail across the river

freed 
from the hourglass 
at last.
***
“Don’t let the breathing of flame
in the empty drawers of unconsciousness
please the demons you cannot satisfy.”
-	Dustin Pickering