I often struggle with finishing a poem. Well, to be more precise, I struggle with being satisfied with a poem to the point of publishing it. Whomever becomes entrusted with the passwords to my PC will have their work cut out for them if they are to fulfill my dying wish of posthumous notoriety. Finding “appropriate” (non-defamatory) content will be only slightly less difficult than finding complete and/or coherent transcriptions. Even the poems that I do publish are often edited after the fact in my private collection. I hope the sentiment of my verses lasts longer than the copyrights. The following poems have passed my One-Reading-Without-Edits-or-Cringing (ORWEC) test. The editorial board is comprised mostly of my insecurities along with a grammar nazi and some minor creative oversight.
Float Trip
life is a float trip
time is a river
the water is choice
prayer is the raft
faith is the current
faith won't protect you
but it will carry you
you will fall in the water
the raft will save you
if you can swim to it
Tetherball
I feel--
the approximation of love
tethered and broken
like a ball tied to a pole
Hit 'round and round it goes
until wound up tight
Game over
Unravel
Unwind
Repeat--
alone.
Infectious Diseases
Feelings of inadequacy
Self-delusion
Severe anxiety
Real grief
Necessitated solitude
Nihilistic submission
Beast of burdensome
Rejection is a symptom
Failure is a sign
The problem is me
I am contagious
Indifference
To you I am too new
Too different and too blue
Nothing more than two
Too dissimilar points of truth
Within differences of view
Out of deference to you
I shall love true
Suffer rue
Distance do
Choose you
Respect a different sort of deference
Indifference
A Prayer for Peace
The older I get the more I forget
The acts of love that forged me
A foolish youth too proud and dumb
No goal but to prove folks wrong
Whispers of half-remembered dissenters
Echo dismissively 'twixt my temples
The mad commotion of doubt and reason
Eroding faith towards moral treason
Consumed by fear of choices past
Reaped from what was sown in ash
My sins have grown since being committed
Please teach me the lesson of self-forgiveness
Amen