From me to her and back again

Writing love letters

to her who was when

little girl replies

to now me, again

Dear child, I'm sending

x's and o's back then

addressed to your fort 

in dune hemlock glen

I receive a note

from long ago miss

kid scrawl envelope

sealed with a kiss 

wintergreen ink on

berry stained fingers

mint scented memory

in cortex lingers 

I wish I could go

back in reality 

to beach combing me

by Michigan's sea

what's real anyway?

and what's memory?

is it something I can drink

like Insani-Tea?

bespoke misery?

I'll pass on that drink

already drunk on

gin and printer's ink

Let's dwell for a time

in warm mica sand

my far away child 

will you hold my hand?

we'll jot our wisdom

along the lakeshore

in backward glance through

the wide open door 

Dredging dirges rung by the reckoning bell

quilling in reverse

of deep septic pain

handdrawn scars tattooed

with indelible stain

there's an ache droning 

like a killer bee

igno-ranting insults 

drilling deep in me

be careful passing

judgement on my verse

if you think that's bad

my real life was worse 

no lowest low in

my trauma bleed brain

spelling out spook house

just might find me sane

so I'll keep taking 

bucket to the well

dredging dirges rung

by reckoning bell 

putrid and ugly

no sheltering womb

tailor made fright night

colder than a tomb

so buckle up if

you're riding along

no happy lyrics

to requiem song

loud and discordant

keened harshly off key

got to keep screaming 

to find harmony 

thank you for holding

space and time with me

carrying the banner 

in solidarity

With love from young me to now me. 

Going where only Amygdala knows

the girl then recalled

parents looming large

quietly sinister

corrosively in charge 

clown parade balloons

high on pride's LSD

punch drunk delusions

of Grandiosi-Tea

sarcasm IV drips

from mean emojis 

garish caricatures 

impossible to please

love was a blanket

held out then yanked away

knit to bind not warm

cat with mouse did play 

never any words

explain way back when

no exit out of 

her misery then 

then is also now

a spiraling she goes

blinded by betrayal

only Amygdala knows 

I'd love to share a

cheery thought or two

yet pie crust promises 

simply will not do 

airy and airless 

broken by a breeze

pointless platitude

said with careless ease 

bandaged over bleed

just to stem the flow

of mother nature tears

dressed only for show

feather pen laments

articulating pain 

drawing scars as flowers

in healing refrain

no other way out

must pick up my pen

no more to do but

verse and verse again 

Call off my black dog

wind chiming vespers 

angelic melody 

composed by the breeze

four part harmony

innocent or evil

it sounds of coffin bells

terrifying tinkling 

buried alive foretells

for my soul wonders

by much darkness known

is devil percussion

calling to its own?

when I found the switch

on technicolor TV

I saw what I missed

in black and white naivete 

It made me question

all I ever thought 

all their fabricated 

nonsense that I bought

trust wears a double edge

with deadly overbite 

if given too freely 

to them with no right

mercy and respect

likewise cut two ways

didn't understand that

in my gaslit haze 

I've been driven mad

angry and insane

by demon tinnitus

hammering my brain

in my mind's mire

dwells snarling hell hound 

baying for my blood 

invisibly all around 

call off my black dog

I cried in choking yelp

to Boadicea 

from whence cometh help

the raison d'etre 

why I clack this rhyme 

hope avenging angel

makes it here on time

thus explains wind chimes

ringing Morse CQD 

alerting goddess to

child drifting out to sea

sewer water muck

murky memory

flotsam and jetsam 

rank polluted sea

not my mother lake 

named Michigan 

nor Elysian fields

I go to again

the lake is my friend

yet I've dates to keep 

miles to go before 

I lay me down to sleep 

and regardless if 

the lake's friend or foe 

I've much to do 'ere 

to dark night I go

I think perhaps that might be salvation in itself. Reading the celestial GPS and seeing my destiny or calling written in the stars. 

Amen. 

Saffron in the Town of Brown

In a youthful oasis

we once played a game 

gave each other a color 

friends with forgotten name

Singapore Sunset Saffron

was a shade assigned to me

once upon a way back 

in sweet land of poverty 

tempest washed up and

foundered flotsam me 

just miles yet worlds from

my dear driftwood sea

nothing much to do but

loiter by the liquor store

nowhere nothing wasteland

too far from the lakeshore

ghosted empty windows

where hope died on trees

framed in asphalt cracks

live amnesiac memories 

I see it always fall

all dead leaf hues of brown

no spring green nor autumn red

the graveyard called our town

not a city nor village

just the isolated farm

too close for comfort 

too apart to keep warm

no employers employ

never any claim to fame

built to be abandoned

with already extinct name 

I tried to share my saffron

pink and purple twilight

Singapore sunset-ness

Outshone by rural blight

don't get me wrong, I

got bleaker shades too

peach bellini cocktails 

with chaser black and blue

the brown was not in them

who in decaying dwelt

just their misfortune

got a shitty hand dealt

I strove to assimilate 

with denizens of the daze

but I'm ever outlander

unfamiliar with their ways

bouncing in and out again

ping-ponged post to pillory

the transient can kicked 

down homeless soliloquy 

so inevitably 

my rolled stone rolled on

leaving no moss behind

to mar the brown landscape

with golden evergreen mind

Trauma Bond Seance

trauma bond seance

summoning the dead

nightly roll call ritual

with all its black dread

you thought this dirge was

just for Halloween 

but it's real recall

of horror I've seen

I grant you it fits

the funereal theme

my zombie led life

quite the spooky meme

I don't choose to go

down their road to hell

it's me been summoned 

by their mourning bell

deatheaters' drink

doom beyond the pale

while we toast the joy

mine's a pint of ale

can I please go back

to moonlit fairy tea

with Raggedy Ann

Andy boy and me?

back to the garden

and the printers ink

I'm sick of drowning 

spiraling down the sink

back to the post light

Narnian reverie 

snowy dune woodland

steam train odyssey

let's get this over

let's walk by the lake

sitting shiva nights

no seance but a wake

Beer Tent Revival

sweet saintly church hymns 

hurting in my head

whisky sour melody

on hypocrisy fed

paradox puzzle

swimmer's ear pain

oxymoron blonde

logically insane

little shrimp spiral 

down his paisley tie

Fibonacci fugue 

I did prophesy 

when dicing with death

watch for sneak attack 

what you shit on me 

bites your anus, Jack

never thought I'd say

did you, daddy dear

what had to be said

you needed to hear

Such a good punter

buying lies they sold

Till I was bankrupt 

now my soul's grown cold

Sick of pew filling

preacher talks the talk

gospel double speak

while I walk the walk

you the Messiah

who can't even crawl

beer tent revival 

hucksters lead them all

cheap sham theatrics

the quack charlatan 

no revelation, just 

a Bible salesman 

peddling religion

from wagon you do

promising healing in

snake oil and voodoo 

spare me your twisted

punch drunk politics

blind evangelism

half-baked lunatics

get out of  my dessert

you don't belong here

this is for mothers 

and fathers held dear

If that's blasphemy

then I'll take that chance

do-si-do along 

time for me to dance

now I'm spitting out

doom you drank on me

pass the Listerine

to flush Insani-Tea 

life's a conch shell

and color in the lines