TENEMENT WORLD

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--d'Verse Poets Pub

Poets and lovers

what did we learn

in rooms filled with smoke

inside

this ugly tenement of a world?

Raging against heaven

why do we exist

and

can any singular purpose

be pursued

when all about is duality?

Trying to rewind time

return to Sherwood

or the old woman

who lived in a shoe

where the sounds of

grunting and moaning

could be heard at all times

of the day and night

as her laces came undone

Boning our brains out

with assumed names

under an ashamed moon

your eggs unprotected

and my brain fried

(You're catching on

to how it works--

let's spend some time

with grandma Esperanza)

These masters

these devils

The desperate wannabes

at the karaoke bar

All is self-interest

just as I told you

by the riverbank

when we were seventeen

revealing too much

of a universe

already transparent

to my eyes

giving too much away

spoiling the game

And yet we play on
looking at the world
through rose wine-
colored glasses
raising them high

one more time

just to honor a memory

not totally forgotten

ATTACHMENTS

Friday Poetry Fest

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poetry Pub

Not the kind that come

with your sewing machine

or your vacuum cleaner

but the ones that keep us coming

back to this dubious place

for another merry chase...

love

hate

money

sex

power

food

fame

shame

the love of the game

gambling

rambling

murder

(like a cattle herder)

booze

dope

greed

people

iPads

(EGADS!)

words

perversion

any old diversion

Hypnotized like sleepwalkers

we follow our nose

see how it goes

take off our clothes

any way the wind blows

gleefully ignoring the spectre of karma

So simple

the way Wernher Von Braun put it

For every action

there is an equal but opposite

reaction

Don't need to be a rocket scientist

to get that one

You don't learn to share

what the hell do you care

but you think you're immune

let's go to the ball

and pretend that midnight's pumpkin

isn't waiting down the hall

the unmitigated balls

to think you'll get away with it scot free

now you're hanging from a tree

If the definition of insanity

is doing the same shit repeatedly

while expecting a different outcome

(I'm as guilty of that as any

not like the few

just like the many)

then we are all crazy

to be coming back here and thinking

THIS time

it will be a cakewalk

You know

Fonzie

duality guarantees

that there will always be

heartache

along with happy daze

the more we cling and grasp

the more our grasp is exceeded

Taken away

taken away

To the land of Nevermore

So quick

find a replacement

a sub

a stand-in

a hero coming off the bench

to save the day

isn't that the way

it's always going to go

until finally

at long last

(have you no shame)

we get tired of this game?