5 Poems from my new book: A Requiem for Chivalry

Stultified suburbia

The fresh embrace of the vast expanse of a Walmart parking lot

Dotted with bobbing heads of women, whose hair are a testament to the power of hairspray and momentum

Oh, suburbia the beautiful; your myriad peccadilloes, problems and Philistinism is a fossilized treasure trove of late stage capitalism

The tremendous and titanic amount of microwave pizzas bought and sold will never fill the holes in the hearts of the families without love

You cannot escape the burden of relational distress by earning more points at Sam’s Club

Yet every day hundreds of millions try; to out spend and out earn the stultified calluses of scar tissue on their insides

Fleeting moments, bleed one grain at a time

Dropping one by one into the yawning chasm of the rippling void

With bulbous and pendulous blubber, stuffed into taught clothing, promised to appear thin

Doing it’s darndest to hold back the bilious folds of fatty neglect

Psychological scarring made clearly manifest, proffered as a lifestyle choice

In reality, merely the many missed opportunities for love and respect

Yet this is the Paradise our ancestors sought

Or so that thought has marched on for millennia

Hurly-burly embedded, unending, progress; take paradise and put up a parking lot

A generation or two and ensconced in a torrid rush towards oblivion

Living life in the interim between cradle and the big shopping center in the sky

How can we see where we’re going if we’ve leveled all the topography in sight?

No vantage point to see what lies behind and afore, the ashes of choices multiplied

Mistakes with interest accruing

Interest, good after bad, because it is

Makes my life less interesting when purgatory is what I already inhabit

Archaeology

Continents of crisis meet icebergs of shame

Forest fires of feeling, distorted by sordid winds of fearful blame

Originality transplanted to the terse recesses of consciousness

Cramping any genuine expression into packaging; taped, cheap and plain

Adventure, torch in hand, pack on back - into these forbidden wild domains

Search as an archaeologist with love, care and patience for the dazzling ancient remains

Discover your own lost cities, cultures and calligraphy

Decipher the Rosetta Stone of your soul

Push deeper into the caverns of your psyche for the princely treasure promised in store

Dust off the artifacts of your spirit

Holding them to the light, beholding them anew

Understand, treasure and embrace; the rediscovered you

Her

She looms

From cradle to tomb

Both angelic & demonic, mundane & melancholic

Ever to be seen flitting around corners

Glimpsed just in fleeting shadows

Constantly there, but never here

You can feel her, know her, yet never meet her

And you spend your whole life waiting for that day

Never would you wish her away

But damned if she’s not a gift and a curse

To follow you solemnly like the congregation behind a hearse

Collecting fragments of her in each woman you meet

Taking the lessons of love back to the lonely vault in your stony keep

For examination, extrication and catalog

The wisemen sees the folly and names it

Yet cannot escape it, and partakes in it

And she sits with God beyond the veil

Watching you ramble about this madhouse

Your eternal search doomed to fail

Only in the pure maiden will she manifest

Noble in spirit, mind, body and soul

And only when you are just the same

Will you recognize her, appreciate, and know her

Only through your own trials by fire, will you be rendered pure

Attend to them with alacrity, if you would have your destiny in your hand

Before the last fall, of the final grain of sand

Liberal Arts Confidence

You and all your friends, working on degrees

So much debt accruing, contemplating sugar daddies

Spring break on the beach

Winter time in the classroom

When you’re too hung over

A bun and some sweats is all you can be asked for

Another night out, searching for prince charming

But you’re sleeping in, while he’s rising

Ships in the night, ever passing

But you learn in the lecture halls

That you never needed him anyway

So why worry about it

Just vestiges of oppression

A tale as old as time

Yet, when you slapped the bag

Imbibed too much wine

And the DJ plays a whin’ and grind

Why is it that you find

That you yearn so much for that boy

Who made you feel that special way last time

He’s off at some another school

The connection’s long dead

And it’ll be pointless now, so late, to call him

But by the end of the night

You’re waiting for that Disney happy ending

Your girls can see it in your eyes

They catch you with his contact open on your phone

They put you back on your hot girl shit

You can’t be trusted alone

You need a shot girl, get your ass on the dance floor

Grinding and twerking; it’s good for the soul

And you see they’re right, men ain’t shit, of course, so silly - you forgot

Of course, so silly

You have a great GPA, a summer internship in the city

You’re a boss bitch in training, flex, how could you not?

Your women’s studies prof would no doubt, feel pity

With her tall heels, dark lipstick and bangs

She’s got everything together, on top of being pretty

She says men earn a dollar to your $.70, dead serious

Up at the podium, she dismantles the patriarchy with ease

Her words lift the yolk that’s been in place for millennia

Without which you’d float to the ceiling

Provided it’s not made of glass, of course

Propelled by the hot steam of all the injustice

These insensitive, privileged, men don’t deserve you honey

You know that she’s right, in your head you agree

But damn, that hunk of plastic don’t do it like they do, honestly

When the tequila hits and the moon comes calling

You want a man and you know you’re all in

Your body unfreezes in parts you didn’t know could thaw

The boundaries are blurred

He’s in you and you in him

It lasts only as long as the booze

But you’re both equals then

So bizarre now, it’s not even a question

But when the dawn breaks

It’s back to the war of attrition

Daylight, back in the ranks with your sisters

And he’s out of your bed

Back to the vicious battles of reputation

But last night’s not yet out of your head

Yet, the mask must go on, as must the show

The gloves must come off

There’s an age old war to win

Sisters to avenge

No time to be lost

So tuck your heart away

And be out front at the next rally

Chanting hey hey

Study the books

So you’ll know just what to say

Next time a man offers you his heart

You’ll utter with certainty, free of shame

No way

Perdition:

Perdition: noun

Per-dish’on

• loss of Soul, eternal damnation

•hell

• utter ruin

The sense that your soul has been vacuumed away

Le petite mort

Perdition

Elevated to a new plane of depravity

The molten, oozing core of a gilded age

Spilling out and seeping

With my seed on the floor

The panting mimicry of the genuine article

So sincere at the simulacrum of crescendo

One’s soul, life on my hands, bloody and raw

As the same source sucked into the pit of pleasure

Perversity and sin ripple under my skin

Soaking my soul in an oily film

Poison pumping through my veins

Stultifying my saintly will

The shiniest toy yet

A bright new object

A fitting souvenir

For a perusing spirit

A lovely windmill

For a gallant

Knight errant

The sense of perdition

I wear like a cloak

Tattooed to my body with staples

Accepting the mire for what it is

Who I am, and what I am capable

Does god see my handiwork

Or does the void stair back?

Seen but not heard

Heard, but not seen

Felt, ignored, felt yet again

The chasm and the little voice

All is confusion

Swirling dance of sand

Castanets echo off canyon walls

A pervading atmosphere of doom

The road to perdition

Sweet tasting and perfumed

Thank you for reading. If you're interested, I am looking for serious commentators for another round of edits. Please find me on social media or OtherLife if you would like to lend a much appreciated hand.

The book is 117 pgs. with 57 poems of similar ilk.