Brian's Poetry

Do you suppose the Kim Kardassians of this world
ever read Jean Paul Sartre or struggle with the
meaning of life and dwell in states
of existential nausea or do they
just worry about their make up
and their next hot date or
husband or which hotel
room they will trash
next or lamborgini
they will crash
or which
world class
beach they will
frolic upon or which
twenty thousand dollar
hand bag they will buy next
while the dead spirits of Bijan,
Prada & Oscar De La Renta look
on, I see the homeless sleeping on our
sidewalks and the hungry begging food
outside the hamburger chains which have
sent 100 million cattle to their death and wonder just
what kind of a god we worship and who will remember us
after we are dead when our birthday rolls around again and
the trust fund we left our children is long gone to the last pawn

small wonder that we become ashes and dust
it is the result of bitterness
just as the ocean is
salted by all our
tears

For I have just become an old lion in winter
or an old hound of war who no longer
turns the heads of women walking
though the crowd except whores
but I have come to prefer
invisibility, my life has
become so much
simpler now not
stuck behind
the plow
of
other
peoples’
expectations
and desires, gone
are the flames from
my eyes and passion
for life as I somnambulate
from one bill to the next paying
them in my sleep…it’s not my turn
anyone more…I had a good long run
now it’s time to pass on the baton
as I walk down the long dark
hallway alone but for
my memories no
longer kissing
angels in my
dreams

how many women have I loved who no longer exist
or at least are no longer the people I fell in love
with who exist only in my own mind as
memories now; or they have died
or live on other continents too
far away to ever see again
or have married and born
children or remarried
once again forgetting me
and busied themselves
with other people and
obsessions and pay
not a second’s
thought to this
man they left
behind whom
they once
made love
to one hundred and one
times and swore our fidelity
and felicity would never
end because that
seems to be
what we
all claim
to want
it’s not that I expect the
fantasy brides of my youth
to stay the same forever
or never change or
grow but what
they invariably
grow into
is never
any longer
whom I fell in
love with nor do
they want to be
God bless them all…
I guess it’s something
wrong with me that our love
does not evolve together or ever
in the the same direction like two horses
saddled to the same cart but pulling in different
directions, I see these happily married couples for fifty
years or read their obituaries at least and I just sit there
dumbfounded wondering how in hell they did it…
my lovers are all ghosts or is it I
who am their incubus…
or was just their
gigolo only we
didn’t know it
at the time
what did
they
take
from me
which I can
no longer find
called feelings

I heard a bird singing somewhere beyond my sight
and took it upon faith that he was really there
just like I know the sun will rise tomorrow
and that in the life of a star our sun
is young and younger than my
soul I’m sure for I have been
around too long for my own
good and listening to
these strange words
it’s not my usual
muse who
puts
these
harsh words
upon this stark page
but some strange rambler
who has caught me off guard
and insists on being heard despite
my attempts to suppress them malcontent
now off with your head you wicked thoughts
for I have miles to go before I sleep and morning
comes early at this time of year; no time have I for
carousing and beer like in the mead halls of my ancestors
no time for berserking or twerking, no time for anything but working
in this strange land so many call home, the land of the Big PX we called it
fondly so long ago when we were all in the Emperor’s vast armed services

The past mocks me because it has no bearing
on the present; I was never a pretender
to any throne in this life however
I feel as if I have sustained
great loss; everyone in
my parents generation
is gone by now;
family friends
are only
memories
their children
are not friends
with my children
in fact I don’t even
know their names or
locations; we have no
continuity, no community
except virtual online; modern
life seems to be an endless series
of starting over and reinventing yourself
until the day you die, unless your mind gives
out first and then you live in the past while your
care taker explains patiently again and again that
your spouse is not coming home tonight because they
died 20 years ago to the day and so you may well live to 99
but what will be the quality of your mind and your old bag of bones
with more wrinkles than even God can count; I always believed that
love could conquer all until you finally showed me otherwise and even
the presumed innocense of children is belied by the cruelty and bullying
they are capable of right Peckinpaw; give me the darkness so I may know
the light, wizards and witches and poltergeists frighten the living day lights
out of me so I may know that altered state again where I can see inside
anyone’s mind and know the colors of their soul and where their
goodness hides, is it too much to ask of the universe to send
me a teacher well versed in the other world beyond our
five senses or must I wait to be slaughtered like a
sheep, here we are so technologically advanced
we can split atoms and send probes to other
galaxies but we rely on ignorant priests
to lead us to God which they can’t
for religion is not found in books
but in your soul made free
by any number of means
including ritual, fear,
near death or
whatever
means
it takes
to shake
you out of your
perceptions of reality
we live by conventions
1000 people looking at the
same event will have 1000 different
interpretations and when the Prince of
Peace said know thyself it was not your ego
but a much larger entity from which we are all estranged

Once so long ago here beneath the pines, my mother stood straight like an arrow
in the falling snow watching her grandchildren learning to ski
for their first time like Norsemen all of us returning to our
roots, the snow, the mountains, the cold runs through our
veins and I long to see the Fjords and I imagine
the sound of a horn calling from our past
and the shadowy forms of dragon ships
appearing in the mist under the one
watchful eye of Odin as our
raiding party lands to
plunder gold and
jewelry before
dawn and
redistribute
the wealth as
it were before
we found the oil
under the bottom
of the North Sea by
Thor’s hammer we all
will sail away into eternity
what secrets live beneath the sea
waves crashing over our forgotten sins
so we can only remember the past’s glory
as we race down this mountain side by side
spraying the powder with each turn one step
ahead of the inevitable avalanche of humanity
I hear her soul calling me from beyond the grave
urging me to ride the back of her great white steed
an equestrian until the very end riding out to meet a
dawn in snow too deep to walk in, I hear his neighing

Let me back in to this house of sin and maybe this time i’ll stay
awhile come back muse and give me the lyrics to this tune
thats running through my head no longer greatful dead
back it comes again to plague me like a running river
with no end and somewhere i hear your name someone
is calling from that distant shore…
will you return and will i still
be here to let you in…

Do you ever wonder where we went wrong…so long ago it seems before time began…
when love was enough to pay the bills and we didnt need any pills to get by…
if i could write songs i would and then i’d sing them from the roof top
where maybe a passing angel would pity me and take me under her wing…
i never should have left home…if you take me back i’ll never leave
again said the spider to the fly…i’ll tell you no more lies
for there is a wilderness inside my heart
and thats where silence lives

if laughter were a crime where would we be
in jail in the belly of Pinocchio’s whale
sipping tea with all the best humanity
has to offer although a few of my
friends are manatee and otter
in that order in this vast
ship of fools now lets
go shoot some pool
in the cardinal’s
sea even
though
the bishop
is a prick so
now all my fellow
blasphemers let us vent
our spleeners laughing at
life’s absurdity and I shall see
you all in hell with all my friends