That quirky human function

 Be the message they say
ink shows up on the white page
Makes its mark and stands out boldly
Each letter a man or woman
Each word a group or brand

Machines now think for for us
Yet we never stopped praying
Praying we didn't originate from chimps
Praying we could be more than weak links
In our boisterous collectives

Be the message
Be the consumer
Brand loyalty luxury blinders
A straw for the corner of the mouth
A microphone to scream into an empty stadium with

Praying we didn't originate from chimps
In a boisterous illusion
In a needy heart
In an underdeveloped brain
comic book utilitarians

The aging coherent

 This bald chap next to me
struggling for his life
pushing himself to the edge

Limits are external
Felt internally
So sensitive

And how does one conciliate
each sensitivity in contemporary man
And how do we exploit it for laughter?

Our lived burgeon at thirty
Then narrow predictably
Opiates thrown together

Eventually its a stretcher 
and a mask
attached to laughing gas

Old chubs up Langford

 Chub Mcgroob lived down langford street
He'd have his fill of pancakes saturday afternoon Ihop
He'd get in the door go straight for the menu 
Then inch closer to the waitress Sally ann

The same one he saw every time he came for those cakes
She was always on shift at that time
He'd come through the door like it was just the pancakes he was interested in
But down at the table when he was warming up he'd turn up the charm

So was he there for Sally ann? or those sweet soft syrupy cakes back there?
It was a mystery to her and to him maybe it was just a transaction
Chub didn't seem to think, he just seemed to bang into things
He should have been nicknamed clumsy

His legs would almost buckle under him as he walked back to his shack on Lanford street
Sometimes he'd struggle to get in the front door for all the liquer they put in his drink
One day the neighbors were on the street and they observed Chubs halfway into the front door
He was in a state and lurched forward and back until it was obvious what he was doing...

He projectile vomited into his own house
The neighbors of langford street just whispered to themselves
And covered their children's eyes
Mcgroob was never looked at the same after that 

Paul pretended to like walking

 Sarcasm bounces off that softness
A man with wit has no business telling the truth
He said he would like to invite the group to walk the hill
But when everyone arrived he sat in the pool

He made fun of the way the walkers dressed
Gulped a caiparinha and told them he would not walk
The enthusiastic group stood and pretended to enjoy his company
Then they made their way up the hill without his wit

Making do with the index of smugness left over in themselves
The summer temps were not quite hot enough
And by the time the group returned Paul had a cold
Cough splutter and wheeze

It's home and a hot water bottle
And other false comforts, illusions of recovery

An expensive cigarette

 The tailor made was given to me
The twins didn't question
The mother made a joke
Ember too long
Smoke out the the window

Inhale exhale Like a road to a beach a community
Listen Like I'm deaf
smoke and smoke
Semi belong
Eye contact fits but words get in the way

The cigarette burns slowly
The huge window not taking enough of the smoke 
Therefore a haze is growing
Wealth and games between words
Another drag and coffee is prepared

Sarcasm can be enjoyed almost like a pun
In the cup or between sandwich loaf
Simple comfort can be replaced
By wealth and games

The candle factory

 The melted wax from the church is sent in a barrel
It is melted again and formed into new candles

Somehow blessed by the church they graced
And now in someone's house, a hope, a light

The flames that went out years ago
Await a match, a prayer, a dark night

Once borrowed the only new part the wick
To be burned down again holy wax dripping

Fishing expedition

 Seabirds fly into a towering tree on the coast 
They meet briefly in a cheerful gathering
Then scour the beach front for something dead

They use the wind and glide aimlessly
As if in leisure when infact whey are chasing their food
Eyes down on those tame little waves
On that narrow slice of beach

Seabirds fly monitoring the coast
Mocking and torpedoing
Circling again and again

Use the wind effortlessly
Enjoying the mission
hypnotized by the sun reflecting in the sea
Not far out from the sand

Tide leaves its remains on the darker patch
A dead silver fish stiffens in the heat
One bird identifies it

Shadows arriving 
Towering tree waits above shore
For the next cheerful gathering

Beaches up north

 The beaches up north are like that too you know
All of them full these forests that hug the shores
(They walk barefoot across the sand slowly veering from those incoming ankle waves)
Places we can take our music too

We can set up tents there and relax for a weekend right here on this beach
(The wife kicks the sand playfully, the husband is still numb from the week's work)
Of course there might be someone trying to charge us something to park the car
A fee for the entry as they do on those beaches up north

(The day continued exactly so, the wife talked about a potential camping trip there, and the husband stayed silent, hardly even aware of his surroundings. lost without his computer screen)

What you have today

 what you have 
a big plus from fate of things that don't necessarily fit
A trial of the will 
Lack smacked good

Yet you look at all that you have now in disdain
You don't see the value in it
You sit down, pour your drink and nostalgia on
Your personal package of comfort intact

The truths and realities are shun like beggers
Yet they are the jewels of your existance
And the convenient lies are the poverty
The blindfolds are mass produced

What you have is precious
Take from it everyday
Things that don't necessarily fit
Patience and care

Tourist ambush

 The gondola takes us down over the forested hills
To a small tourist village
The altitude is to conjure tacky nostalgia
A sense one is somewhere else
For we are so far away

Getting off and having anxious shopkeepers heckle
Their overpriced kitch
Their reasoning to why each item is so valuable
Stories int the form clues followed by facts

That repeat far into the day
until the personality becomes an outward tool
for promoting little argila nothings
Oversweetened treats

On exit the slight relief
For these false worlds stink of desperation

Back to the ancient river

 And now I have to buy the house back
Here in the back yard
the scent of the decades gone
What is left of the world

Prepare your defence as if the world was an offence
I'll have to buy this house back
It is pretty much the way we left it
Like a good friendship

The world outside not so much
You see me as just some interloper
Here to acquire a piece of what was once mine
the closing gate of this life the opening to another

I see where the shed stood, the trampoline
The years gone

Until the fizz runs out

 The crack of the guarana can opening
Whoosh fizz whish and it enters the glass bubbling upward
Fizzing back down until there are only a few glass-hugging bubbles 
Waiting their turn to to float upward following the rest

To flow upward toward the surface and leave the drink flatter
With no bite and less flavor
Yes the extraverts leaving the party on cue
"To get air" They say, or "See a friend"

The essential flavor lingers still though
The guarana lolly like sweetness ricochets 
between tongue and cheek
carbonation died down before the glass has emptied

The owner of the school

 The school owner's all important whims
The huge block building holding over a two thousand students

he prounced as uncle noone ate icecream
The poor dressed up as the rich
bearded and dribbling

The true owner eccentric
picky and fussy
Just as I was

And if the roles were reversed
Could I tone it down?

I think not
The fancy sense of disregard for everything

Seems like a flavor on its own

Roadie-dom and the crawlspace

 The crawl space
The band is playing on the other side
Pop band quite narrow brained but rather wide
everyone knows them except those cynical

The popularity is incredible
And everybody wants to be a part
So duck under the entrance ease into the panic
slide yourself between the floor and the granite

Where things stick just force it
pressed and bruised to fit
Like an item of ironed clothing
then get up on the other side

Jump once for joy
Clap to celebrate and revel
And join the rabble
Ignore the discomfort

Opiate sneeze
Look back at the crawl space
Your entry's unease
Wormy fall from grace

Living life was theirs

 I bought it for twenty thousand
Drove it for about an hour

The first problem was the steering wheel cover fell apart
And only the steel underneath remained

I kept driving changing gear, avoiding accidents
The road demanded all of my attention

The people talking around me distracted me
I thought I might crash from running off the road

Instead I drove down the road I was told there would be a mechanic on
But there was nothing down there just an abandoned farm

Years felt like seconds I got back into the van and yelled we need to get out of here
So each person got back into the beat up old minivan

I turned the key and gave a little juice
The fuel cable burst
There was oil leaking directly into the car

One of the uncles went to get help
While the rest of us stood on the side of the street where the lichee grow

He came back with an ice cream in his hand
I swore I could have murdered him right there and then

The minivan was as good as irrepairable
The money I spent stuck like a huge stinking shit on top of my head

The cavalier attitude of the family and friends bothered me to no end
The responsibility was mine, living life was theirs

The fever dream

 The revs blare on the soft highway
Years have passed

Much ashphalt under rubber
the wheel wells the seats

The endless surface
the smell of gas

the fever dream
Colors of another life interrupting

Imposing themselves into this one
Over the road inside the vehicle

The decade of the seventies gripping onto the eighties
A tiny grain of sugar atop the upholstery

Sparkling out to the child in the neighboring car
Unable to identify it

A dog's rug

 The dog Ribbons sucked the rug
His rug to be precise
He slobbered it 
Bit it and almost ingested it

Then he turned back to me
Like pay attention here you negligent owner
He bites again licks and licks
Slobbers 

This dog got the restless
the ghost fleas
The ripples and rapids of a dog dream
he turned back to me

feed me
talk to me
Mr Ribbons chewed the rugged
Then in succession fell asleep

Looking back on the eye

 Those eyes that look back
Those eyes that feel judged
On a body too big for its application
In an urgency not indicative of its nature

Eyes that look back
and at the last moment look away in fear
Fear of being seen through, evaluated and ridiculed
The pain inside the eye...                                         white hot, the iris scalding, pupil eternal

Those eyes that feel the weight of the observer
That absorbs the outward energies flung like impulive reactions
Sparks that land on the membrane of the turning blind eye

Housewife's life sentence

 She got stuck with the cars
She still keeps up with the trends
1950s sentiment reaching into her temples
Divine antiquated reverberation
Velvet blinders block observation

She turns the hand crank to get the motor started
The wheels go round and the things shudders
But inside it is broken and offensive
The outer paint is expensive

Her habits correspond with her personality
All purpose is simulation for most of us that is true
Illusions of control and age makes it all iffy
Wine to get the middle ground to squiffy

Father should we be less

 Father we always followed your goals
never creating our own
Humble and modest
Pathetic and rudderless

For what would we make of our own destinies
Should we squander our lives to make yours comfortable
Not reach too far for only you are allowed that privilege
Father should we be less and you be more?

Or you figured it out and we are still calculating
It comes easily doesn't it father
We just need to know not to sweat the small stuff
Get all the glory then summarize away

Should we not exaggerate the way you did?
Should we become clones for ambition
Are we deemed invalid without it
condemned to failure lest we follow your goals

That way we stay less and you become more
And when its our turn to win you simply check out
main thing is you get your part