Ablogalypse Now

Song of Myself 2007

the majority of humanity
toils away in misery
so what right do i have as a mortal man
to challenge this reality?

i have no words to counter
this tired and worn-out refrain
other than to say, i have but one life
and to waste it seems insane

countless days defined by extremes
of exhaustion and distraction
all the while my existence mocked
by the lie of eternal resurrection

to spend my whole life shackled
to the wheel of mindless toil,
until the day my broken body
is allowed to rest beneath the soil

none of this makes any sense
to those with passion, such as i
who find no comfort whatsoever
in materialistic lies

so to those who think me a madman
a reckless fool, or even a child
you can keep your life of brain-dead work,
for i'd rather remain wild

...::cdp2007::...

Into the Black

Now, forever -
please put me back,
upon your shelf,
Into the Black

Back to the place
where cold memories dwell
Dark reminders
of Heaven and Hell

Of false paradise found,
and true paradise lost
For a fleeting desire
at a terrible cost

A price that neither
was prepared to pay,
now we've nothing
left to say

Now there's only the taste
of bitter fruit
and endless lament
over a point that's moot

Lost to each other,
lost to our selves,
each of us trapped
in our own private Hell

So now, forever -
please put me back,
upon your shelf,
Into the Black

..::cdp2007::..

crossroads

in the weeks and months that followed
the end of certainty
and all he once knew, and held so dear...
he walked the razor's edge
between sanity and madness...
light and dark...
hope and despair...

map and compass lost,
he followed his heart

hoping to find
some warmth...
some joy...
some meaning...
some shred of anything tangible
he could cling to
to refute the lies he had been fed since birth,
and make his life worth living

but with the passage of time,
and countless classified ads
that seemed to mock his very existence

...salesman
...repairman
...analyst
...technician
...consultant
...whore

...slave

each day became a cold, bloodless repeat
of the day before

and the light
at the end of the tunnel
began to flicker and fade

it was then that an idea
once deemed unthinkable
began to take root
in the back of his mind

if all is survival,
and misery is a basic fact
of human existence,
then what difference did it make?

better the clarity of the battlefield
than the ceaseless muddled thoughts
of a creative mind
out of synch with the harsh economic realities
that dictated his day-to-day life

staring hard at the recruiter's office,
he crumpled the precious few scraps of paper
that held the words and pictures
he'd carried all his life
threw them to the ground,
and slowly walked inside.

a mutual betrayal

each time you choose to walk away
it's you alone that you betray

choosing denial over truth
like a little girl trapped in timeless youth

while it's true that i betrayed you
and broke your fragile heart
blinded by naivete'
you fail to see your part

how you betrayed me in your own way
with your childish eyes
and how you helped us become trapped
in a tangled web of lies

...life isn't perfect
...people aren't perfect
...love isn't perfect

nor will they ever be
and despite the pain i've caused
at least i can say i'm free

free of a shared illusion
we somehow thought was love
free of binding fictions
of destiny granted from above

so go ahead and blame me
no matter what you say
each time you turn your back to me
it's you alone that you betray

An Open Letter to (Potentially) Unfaithful Men

somehow...

after years spent chasing the wrong women for the wrong reasons,
countless one night stands,
and drunken, awkward encounters that never should have happened...

you find Her...

someone you click with...

someone who complements you in nearly every way...

someone who brings out the best in you...and you in her...

someone who doesn't mind you hanging out with "your boys"

or when you come home a little drunk every now and then

someone who tolerates your incessant belching and farting,
and the fact that you always leave the seat up in the middle of the night

someone who makes all your friends and family ask you
what the fuck you did to win the heart of someone so cool...

making you shrug you shoulders and say, "i don't know"...

and you won't know how, or why it happened...

only that you would gladly embrace Death to save her Life,
and can no longer imagine your Life without Her...

but, living as we do

in a consumerist society

that constantly tells us

that something newer and better,

is right around the corner...

and, sometimes

because to be human

is to be flawed

and prone to selfishness, greed...

or both...

as the saying goes...

this too shall pass...

and eventually the day will come when your eyes will no longer see                                    everything you once cherished in your beloved, and you will her heart take for granted

forgetting, in an instant, all the nights you spent alone
in the time before your eyes first met hers...

you'll come to view your beloved Other through a distorted lens
that amplifies the negative and omits the positive...

and even this too would pass, but, like everyone...
you'll think this fleeting state is the End...
losing sight of something Timeless,
and forsaking it for a fleeting passion

and you'll meet another...

someone you think you click with...

someone you think complements you better than the one you're with...

someone you think is a better fit...

it may be her eyes, her hair, her breasts, her ass...

the way she laughs at your jokes,
strokes your fragile Ego,
and makes you feel like you did when you were younger and stronger

or it may be some other superficial detail that ultimately means nothing...

once you start down that path, there's no turning back...

and no God, no friend and no self-help book can save you

you will fall...

and soon, you'll find yourself lying awake at night, fantasizing about Her...

and how she's so much better than the woman you're already with...

and how much better your Life could be if you could only have her...

instead of the stranger sleeping next to you...

you'll convince yourself that you're right...

and invent reasons where none exist to justify the malice and deceit

beginning to take root in your heart and mind...

you'll think all these things and start to believe them

and eventually, fantasy will overwhelm reality...

your lust, selfishness and greed will corrode the bonds of love, loyalty and trust

that took so long to build

and soon, you will find yourself Alone

sifting through the Ashes of Eden for the clues to your Undoing

trying hard to understand how something so good went so wrong so fast

and you will blame her for getting fat and lazy

and you will blame your Jezebel for leading you astray

but eventually the painful truth will dawn on you

it was all your fucking fault

you were just too stupid, proud and stubborn to realize it.

==============================================================

Cherish what you have, instead of lamenting what you don't have, or think you don't have.
Your fantasies will always seem better than Reality, but in the End they are just that - Fantasies, and regret is a terrible burden to bear.

borrowed time

As the sun rose on another day,

Of limited possibilities

And withering hope

He wondered

Wondered

How much longer he could keep reality at bay?

How much longer would the money last

before the razor-studded fist of economics

Cut his choices down to the intolerable

And the unbearable?

He thought of his family

His parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles

Proud, God-fearing people all

Who hadn’t had the luxury to question

The brutal meaninglessness of it all

And spent their days in the fields

Picking cotton, onions, anything they could

Just to survive

Just to survive

Just to survive

But none of that mattered.

And he ignored their scorn and derision

Over his ongoing refusal

To swallow the poisonous lies of tradition

‘What is survival?’ he thought…

‘And what for?’

When all is work

An endless expanse of

Bland, ceaseless, soul-sucking monotony, that

No woman

No God

No Drug

No amount of money

No man-made Creed

could soothe

For a time, he’d taken refuge

In the illusion

That with enough time and perseverance

And a little luck

He’d be rewarded

With something he could both enjoy

And make a living at

But beneath it all

Beneath the smile and cheerful demeanor

He screwed on every day

Lurked the growing sense

That he was fooling himself

And living on borrowed time

And, as he rose to face another day

Of lost love and shattered dreams

The words of his father, long dead

Echoed louder in his mind

‘It’s a cold, hard world.’

‘No one gets to do what they want.”

grito silencio

palabras que nadie lee

música que nadie oye

cuadros que nadie ve

los rasgones silenciosos de un artista

Rosa Negra

Come to me, my Dark Delight

My Mistress of Eternal Night

My first and last true Jezebel

My tour guide through this living hell

My succubus, a demon true

My cursed angel, forever blue

Come to me now, forsaking all

And into endless night we’ll fall

Where, finally, we can be as One

Together, broken and undone

Where nothing lives, and nothing grows

Save for a lonely, pitch-black rose

A thorny symbol of the lie we shared

And the price we paid for what we dared

prison break

The rain falls hard

The cold, unyielding persistence of memory

Unleashing a billion tiny daggers of awareness

Piercing my frail defenses

Flooding my senses

Drowning my brain in white noise

Forcing its way through cracks

in my crumbling Fortress of Shadows

Conspiring to undo this warm cocoon of denial

This familiar prison of ritual self-abuse

Shedding useless, ill-fitting armor

Seeking Clarity over Confusion

Hope over Despair

I stand naked

As the rain pours in

Washing away my sins

and All that I must leave behind

            ..::cdp2006::..

What Was, and What Will Never Be

(with all due respect to led zeppelin)

To the Memory of What Was

and What Will Never Be

I dedicate this poem,

to the Love I had for Thee

For twenty years I've carried

this burden, like a stone

Always wishing, always hoping

our Love would one day find a home

Nurturing tender seeds of hope

in the barren gardens of my soul

In loving you, I lost myself

- and now I'm all alone

All alone to ponder

for the remainder of my days

How I let a fantasy

lead me so far astray

Soon, old friends will gather

just like we did last year

Toasting long-forgotten glory days

with those we hold so dear

As for me, I'll be content

to have a Reunion of One

That night I'll sit and have a drink

for better days to come

So this weekend, when you raise your glass,

drink a silent toast to me

To the Memory of What Was

and What Will Never Be

            ..::cdp2006::..