The Scrivener's Jest

Guess who was on the wrong account when he posted his vss365 poem a few days back and just realized it now. 😱

Ah well...that was embarrassing, but bound to happen eventually.

I watch the clock tick by,
Hour by hour,
And count the ways,
We've said goodbye
A thousand days or more,
Like the clicking of a clock,
In time.
I wait for your return,
That happy hello,
When we can do it all again,
Spooked by the thought
That this time was the last.

#vss365 #spooked

We talked in secret,
A ritual all our own.
Little notes on strips of paper
Shared in passing,
The light touch
Of her cool hand on mine.
Snippets of dreams
Hints of desire
Inscribed in text,
Reminders that we cared.
Shared moments,
Just for us
While the world remained
Clueless.

#vss365 #clueless

The first story is always an epic. I remember mine, a masterpiece in blue crayon and construction paper. On the bus home, I clutched it in my hands like a sacred scroll. How many of my worlds were born in the balderdash of that childhood script?

#vss365 #balderdash

We built a world around our words,
An edifice of text,
A construct of whimsy and desire,
We loved there,
Lost there,
Lived there,
In the abstraction
Between
Signified and signifier
All lost in a collapse of context.

#vss365 #abstraction

"I am not a dancer," you said as you watched them move all elegance and grace. "My feet get in the way. I trip."

"Then let me catch you," I said and took your hand. "After all, there is delight in falling, too."

You smiled pretending I was clever.

#vss365 #delight

We think of a dream
As an inconstant thing.
A phantom in the dark
That comes unbidden,
Taunting and teasing
With images from paths not taken,
But it is we who are mistaken.
A dream is not an echo in the night.
A dream is what we build
When we awake.

#vss365 #dream

On the road
North Dakota to Montana
Heading west
Past the Painted Canyon
There were water slides
In Big Timber,
Right across from the KOA.
They're gone now,
And I'll not travel that way again.
One lesson of a life spent wandering:
Distance is always measured in time.

#vss365 #travel

Don't wake me
I'm dreaming,
Sleeping in the mud
Beneath the current.
I dream of you
Drifting by, swept away,
To places unknown
Of blue waters
And shimmering light,
And in my dream
I am more than a sole.
We dance in that light,
Silver scales flashing,
Blind to those,
Who lie beneath.

#vss365 #sole

There is a peace in silence.
The solace of a solitude
Unmarred by the reminder
Of other voices.
I hear you.
I press on the boundary
A dark elastic
It moves and tightens
I can almost touch you
Before I am pulled back
Into this nothing
I do not understand
Praying only for silence.

#vss365 #elastic

The peach was soft, overripe, and I watched as you pulled it apart. It split easily. The pulp from its broken flesh dripped from your fingers. Those hard hands that tore away everything leaving only the red stone beneath. That stone, a seed, my heart, too hard for you to break.

#vss365 #pulp

The road is long,
The journey hard,
Not alone, but
Blinded in the dark,
So take my hand.
Let me become
Your oasis,
You, my guide.
We'll walk together
Through this night
In search of elsewhere
On the edge
Of early dawn.

#vss365 #oasis

I lose track
In the swirl of the day,
The madness of the mundane.
I hold my ground
Against the onslaught
Of what I'm told is important,
But its not.
It is only when I stop,
Focus my gaze on you,
Let the rest fade to blur,
A soft bokeh
Where only you remain,
And I know my place again.

#vss365 #blur

Thank you! I was blown away by your poems, as well.

It was worth coming back just read them. 🙂

This has been a month.

Let's just say I'm rather glad to see it go.

Silence hangs in the balance,
Strung up on twisted strings
Threads of chaos and apathy,
Is there a question here?
Dare I still answer?
Speak to that empty space,
The hole I used to pretend
Was god,
Just a mirror in my image
Now empty
Revealing the conundrum
of self.

#vss365 #conundrum

She opened her candy with careful precision never ripping nor tearing. Every fold and crease remembered. Once the sweet was free, she'd take her time folding the paper to look like candy was still inside. "There's a sad beauty," she'd say, "in a pretty wrapper with nothing inside."

#vss365 #wrapper

Power was never a possession. You cannot hold power. You do not have power. Rather power moves. It flows and gathers. At times, infusing us; at others, leaving us bereft. The weak and petty claim it, holding nothing. The strong may never know its taste. Yet, balance always returns.

#vss365 #power

Good Lord, what madness rules in brain-sick men

He puffs his chest
Kisses her hand.
She smiles
Doesn't roll her eyes
Used to small men
Pretending to be big.
He invites her upstairs,
Demands his "due"
She returns it, in kind
Leaves him bleeding out
On the bedroom floor,
No chance encounters here
Just the rhythm,
Cause and effect.

#vss365 #chance

I drop my articles
Out of habit.
Compress the verse
To keep the pace.
Try to stay on track.
A sort of stutter
Like the one I used to have
Like I'm my childhood self
Sitting in an office
Playing Go Fish
With the therapist,
Because when I was distracted,
It wasn't there at all.

#vss365 #article

I pull my punches,
Even in the text,
Never quick to strike
As I bide my time
It's simple really.
The words are a game.
Wittgenstein's vengeance,
But what do I win?
Another dollar?
Another lost day?
Another moment?
We're never conscious
Of destinations
Just the paths we take.

#vss365 #conscious

Our existence: arbitrary. You and I: the result of a strange accumulation of chance. We are a roll of the dice burst forth into a universe hurtling into oblivion. No rhyme nor reason, just being. This, our moment of possibility. Its only meaning, ours to create.

#vss365 #arbitrary

Voices in ether
Drift and flow.
The soft sounds of people
I'd like to remember.
Memories
That elude me.

I used to think
I was good at this,
But the words slip
And fade away.
Lost in a place
I'll never know.

#vss365 #elude

I hear every whisper,
Every growl and whimper,
Every time you cried,
And said goodbye
Your voice echoes
In the silence,
Of this empty room,
Lost in the past,
But I still hear.

#vss365 #past

We are born of stardust
Swirl along cosmic paths
Etched into the fabric
Of a universe in endless motion.
We gather ourselves together
Coalesce from atoms
Born at the start of time
A sentient amalgam
Of impossibility.
This a kind of magic
We are far too quick to dismiss.

#vss365 #sentient

Of course! VCs prefer to create unnecessary problems and then sell faulty, often worse, solutions.

It's all supply and demand, right?

There is a difference
Between the audacious and the loud,
Between bravery and bravado.
They scream for our attention
Are rarely worth the time
Just the bleating of an ego
No replacement for a soul,
Empty noise, meaningless,
With nothing left to hear.

#vss365 #audacious

On the last night
I told you I was leaving.
Asked you to come,
Take risk and fly,
But you refused
Stepped back inside
Your tiny world
Safe in the static.
Do you still look for me?
Keep vigil in the dark
Knowing I am there
Just beyond reach
Past the walls
You dare not cross.

#vss365 #vigil

The words feel different.
And you do not understand
Why I cannot speak them.
I am too used to silence.
In this life of shadows.
I hold my tongue,
Lest I bite and bleed.
I miss all that was,
Still hope for what will be,
A fool's wish, but mine.

#poetry