Down's just a button on a high-rise elevator

I pour out my outré

in rain-colored refrain

my goth Gaia goddess

rules this house of insane

what's sanity anyhow?

is it something I can drink

if not then shove off you

this gal really needs to sink

down black as printer's ink 

down where grim waters flow

down past my own hell

to Charon on the Ohio

 

and for that, I usually need a drink. 

words are my ferryman

to the bleak place I go

and find no strangers there

only dear friends down below

cuz really who decreed 

that up was so great 

and bad was down under

supposed land of devil's hate? 

I know, we're told that

heaven resides up there

and his Demonic Nibs

holds sway below stair

Down's just a button

on high-rise elevator 

not north nor south on map

just place-name moniker

like a dream I just had

So William Carlos Way

Plums in the icebox

And this is just to say. 

 

I'll take you with me, Jesus

neon bombazine

cetirizine dream

eau de Nil crimplene

Bailey's and Benzedrine

a night cocktail menu

I might just recommend 

strolling my word cellar

and liked the sound of them

trying hard to keep out

postured sensibility 

just wanna paddle here

in land of Honnalee

Seussically senseless

what larks, Pip, have we!

dragon fruit first mate

to take 'er out to sea

with sails psychedelic

mine eyes kaleidoscope 

in Shambhala halls 

Sister places her all hope

like bets at roulette wheel

who cares what they think

ride candy floss carousel 

sip Pepto-Bismol drink

that's what they serve on 

this train bound for glory

So I said a ship before 

don't you contradict me

it's my fractal party

I'll cry if I want to

or go drowning laughing

it's up to me, not you.

bumps-a-daisy back up

may this ride never end

boat, train or cabriolet

no matter, I've time to spend

and all day long to ride 

this bracelet says it's free

buckle up and hold tight

gonna get loud and bumpy

but damn if this poem

didn't turn to sensible verse

 try as I might to not

it just keeps getting worse. 

back to the ship, comrades

hoist freak flag of crimplene

man pink Spandex billows

shake cocktails Ketamine 

Keeping rhyming weird

that's my mission and goal

if I liked the ganga 

I'd call for another bowl

But I don't so I don't

and don't need no LSD 

my crazy train keeps on

rolling down to Kankakee

in the land of the free

this land is yours and mine

I'll take you with me, Jesus

to the land of the pine

unseen clear as memory

can't stop this fine pine pain

touch of Michigan madness

tilt-a-whirling in my brain

They don't know shit about shiva

here's me spiraling again

down the drain of memory

If only beloved ghosts

would just damn let me be

their molasses quicksand

grips my sanity so tight

pulls under with them to

that day of endless night

I know they don't mean to

they don't haunt me by choice

just hope that my riffing 

helps me to hear their voice 

Greeks I'm told do death

better and louder than we do

openly mourn and grieve 

while I just sit and brew

and drink. 

parroting dead platitudes

that people at funerals say

I want to yell "shine bright!"

at closing of Life's day 

Squeezing tears like pee

I clutch my grief so tight 

I wanna scream "rage, kick

fight against that good night!" 

used up like a Kleenex 

there's no way to explain

shocking tiny moments 

mini mortars to the brain

his little flag lapel pin

small perfect things he did 

in repose composed had me

wailing on his coffin lid

Get a grip they said as 

I sat mind-shiva at our lake 

all-knowing scolding me in

this farce they called a wake

they don't know shit about shiva 

you gotta keen out your pain

rage, burn and yearn for times

you will never see again

Selah. 

 

Bombazine becomes Electra

we interrupt this program 

to answer macabre bell

far-off summoning of

gothic mourning knell

Got myself bitten now

it's opened up a vein

psychotic butterfly 

crash-keening in my brain

of mourning and morning

and many hues of grey 

doves in pearl morning suits 

funereal iron dray

( don't even get me started on why it's "grey" as in "earl" and gray as in Eeyore. I don't know.)

death on little cat feet

or fog but either way,

it becomes Electra to go

round roulette wheel today 

got up in bombazine

counts jet rosary beads

corseted in her hatred

a thneed's what she needs

place your bet, milady

as the croupier tells his tale

watch now will the die turn

a snake-eyes shade of pale?

tough luck you lose, you

drank fizzy lifting drink

cocktail called "bitterness"

one part gin, one printer's ink 

chipped polish bitten nails

hands shaky from the booze

this is one creepy chick

who doth not like to lose

black lipstick stained tumbler 

hurled down on the floor 

You called for another yet

couldn't even find the door

well that's what you get 

for dicing with the dead

the wound-too-tight neurotic

who's about to lose her  head

the doom's come upon you

in your spiked Flavor-Aid

they slipped you a Mickey 

just to watch your gray fade

(here comes another of my famous sexy kazoo key changes) 

But wait, what's that I hear

an eleventh hour reprieve? 

comes the midnight special 

unless my ears deceive

Rise up sister and dance

puppeteer loosed your strings

Time to can-can like you can-can

shake loose grudge-holding wings

let the pigeon drive the bus

crack the mirror side to side

flip Rorschach psychedelic 

Play the acid punk B-side

Here we go, gonna get loud now...

So before you ask, what the actual just happened, I'll tell you. I don't know. I was clacking along down my reluctant gothic poem trail, when all of a sudden, Mother of Tarquin! Cue the sound the cartoon makes when it backs up and starts over. It's like a Polish dzu sound. With the z, j plus sh sound. Like bezsh-oop, plus the double take doy-yoy-yoy-yoing. Do. Not. Judge. 

That is what has happened to my poem. It has done a double take with about face. And as so often happens, the poor poet never saw it coming. Here was I just trying to write my psycho-delic verse, for once, without tying it up in any sensible ending. And speaking of accidents called art, I wanna do one of those urinal or paint drip works of art thingys that gets understood. When it's just a blasted bed pan!!  And if like Man Ray or Jackson Pollock it makes millions, well, all in a day's work. Anyways. 

(Evidently THAT's a word going by the spelling. I always thought it was just bad grammar.) So I wasn't even on board to go down the bloody goth route. I mean, look.. at..the.. picture AI made me. It's so Helen Mirren, Winchester--esque. ( I hate anything -esque.) And the "Rorschach" in the dew of the window. So dead common! Bangs head hard on desk, requests refill on the gin and ink. Even that sounds Seuss-esque!! 

But did I quibble when the muse-whatever called, nooo, Not I!! Needs must, I soldiered on. And we turned left. Again!! It's that damned pigeon's fault.

Hello, it's me the clay

Hello, it's me the clay

on the potter's wheel

waiting for the girl who

My form's fate will seal

mind turns endlessly

thoughts begin to reel

hands that shape my base

have a strangling feel 

cold, wet, smooth and hard

grip me so very tight

forcing me to shapes where 

I cannot see the light 

squeezing me into what 

I do not want to see  

I don't even know just 

what it is I want to be 

maybe potter knows best

I should just let her mold 

go along to get along

release from life my hold

cast myself upon the

whim of the almighty 

let my self go down 

the drain of infinity

(this is a rather melodramatic piece of clay!)

If I knew for sure 

what for me she'd choose

would it make it easier 

my autonomy to lose? 

It would look rather odd

if clay began to shout

"take your hands off me

quit all this pushing about!"

How would I even start 

to articulate my choice

what could I ever say

do I even have a voice?

well here she goes now 

she is about to add glaze

I have fully emerged

seems I'm a flower vase

Guess it could be worse

my neighbor next door

his potter got upset and

smashed him on the floor (!)

I can live with a vase. 

My lady of the lake

well they say all good poems 

begin with a stiff drink

I've had two so far so

slainte ma, I'm ready I think

I've written to them all

my baby grands have one

yet tremble I to air 

firstborn's poem to the sun

why am I who blathers 

on transient views 

felled, like timber by a

wee girl in teddy shoes?

that's how I remember her 

my universe true deity 

with pompadour ponytail

"high and to the side, mommy"

it's not for her growing

that my heart does grieve

it's how she grew and flew

before I ever saw her leave

to ode-ify milady 

blanc page in quill noir 

even dreamings can't sound

all to me that you are

as a sojourner 

Setting out upon quest 

no foreseeable destination

just the road traveled less

I could tell of beepees

her softie nighttime friends

I wake keening when

my memory dream ends 

you only hold your babes

when they're on your breast

you spend your life asking when's

the last time you laid them to rest

is it regret I'm feeling 

that's a familiar pain 

I've often penned on that

repeated sad refrain

for my little girl not lost

just lost to me it seems

Kahlil says I can't go to

her world even in dreams

I hear self-indulgence

as words drip from my pen 

a railroad whistle stop I'd 

rather not halt at again

but if I can't even sit 

for a spell with my rain

even in my verses 

Can I not try to explain?

Not trying to didact 

ain't no preachers on this train

just a limberlost momma 

trying to sort out her brain

I think recall hurts 

and makes it hard to say

all the stupid things I did

in all my yesterday

things I know now but

I didn't see clear then

I wish I had it, my love

to do over again

I'll pony up and admit

I got so much wrong 

even that sounds indulgent

I should play another song

so here's the B-side of 

my melancholy memory

I'll make it all about you

instead of my misery

because I'm not (miserable)

I'm most delighted to see

the wonderful you are, honey

that kinda came through me

k, here's what I never got

but I surely do now see

I was but a footnote in

your amazeballs history

You'd never deprecate me

you'd always make me shine

that's my baby, mister

I'm hers and she's mine!

she deserves more, milady

you'll understand some day

my baby star-god deity

will always have her say.

selah. 

Elysian fields forever

 

here I go again making

it all about me and yet

there's a heuristic logic

that the young have yet to get

this one picks up where

my other poem left us

wrangling with specters of

my memory prospectus 

and why I get buy in

on my kids grown and flown

they came from me dammit

they're all that I've known

they get it, I guess 

I don't ask for more

probably better than most

 still they close my door

I'm tempted to compare 

my parents' shut tight

locking me in and out

alone in the cold light

that's a place I won't go

sadly never to rescue me

only to protect now folk

who'd never be able to see

the rub is ironic

can't show me now nor then

that damn chafing blister 

hurts like it did back when 

we who'd nothing then

still have nothing today

all our now are gone

up and went far away

time was I was all to them

they're still here technically

but it sure as hell feels like 

they're sure as hell gone from me

it's about me, damn time

that's what this verse explores

it ain't about mine now growing 

but mine then closing the doors

--sexy guitar riff--

Damn them. What do they know??

Why am I writing this poem?

Why each night do I keep 

mending the "unbroken circle?" 

(and we're back to the lament of the lonesome child and the outgrown parent)

it's about us because 

it's all that we have left

what was ours is gone

we're inexplicably bereft

graveyard friendly ghosts

we see but are unseen

haunting living footsteps

eager to help, we keen

should I stay or should I go

is there a place for me

with my little loved ones

is where I want to be

yet I can't drag them back

to elysian fields we knew

they've flown to places 

when past me they grew

mute ache of them going

for lose them you sure do

can't sugarcoat it, my dears

someday it will happen to you

the unbroken circle comes

round and round once more 

wish I could, my darlings

close for you that door. 

wish we could all stay 

in my Elysian field mind

there's room for everyone here

and everyone is so kind