Honesty

“Everyday Deception” by Agnieszka Bloch

 

unguarded moments
shibboleth fears of
vestpocketed minds
concealed from the
stars self-embarrassed
self-loathed and preferring
to please under pretense
what waste what ordeal
in denying the world
edge and contour of truth
as if judgment lacks eyes
to see through the disguise
be yourself save the
time and the pain
erecting false fronts
maintaining deception
you are worth so much more
than your fantasies

 

 

From my book Bohemian Scents

Pentimento

“Pentimento” by Mickey Cunningham

gestured apologies
scratch at ill-spoken
impasto on canvas
first brushed by
pure heartstrokes
with lush lusty colors
now dulled beneath
layers of life wanting
clemency knowing
not how to reveal
vibrant passions
from under smeared
rancor built up
by dismay not
with she who sat
model in full bloom
of youth but with
he the self-loathed
and failed artist
who never could
capture that singular
moment again

 

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Applause

Photo from ‘The Guardian’

(Originally posted February 2014)

(For Philip Seymour Hoffman 1967-2014)

what agony pierces the veins
with such pleasure that art
must be murdered by muscle
and malice self-loathing the
criminal mastermind inside
the psycho-biology tortured
by exquisite talent and pain
breaks the hearts that erupt
in applause moved and lifted
aloft by a consummate body
of work time and over again
left to grieve and consider why
some gifts are so ill-endowed
with inherently punishing
conflict of blessing and curse

Belly Bone

“Self-Loathing” by Ponsonby Britt

man at his center

so vulnerable

not one belly bone

guards his mortality

soft tissue perils abound

all the organs of

ethical impulses

faced with a danger

that even the

inchoate fetus

can well comprehend

countless predators

wanting to feast

upon private interiors

stealing the essence

of principled men

to add into their own

so much easier is it

to eat of good flesh

than to do the slow work

of creating it

day after night

after unswerving day

how ironic the faith

of despicable minds

in romantic conceits

that morality has a

corporeal substance

how tragic the faith

of despicable minds

that a killing of virtue

can somehow redeem

self-contempt

Honesty

“Everyday Deception” by Agnieszka Bloch

 

unguarded moments
shibboleth fears of
vestpocketed minds
concealed from the
stars self-embarrassed
self-loathed and preferring
to please under pretense
what waste what ordeal
in denying the world
edge and contour of truth
as if judgment lacks eyes
to see through the disguise
be yourself save the
time and the pain
erecting false fronts
maintaining deception
you are worth so much more
than your fantasies

Parapet

“Where Guilt Lives” by Brian Messina

just enough wall
to hide from the truth
from attack by those
deadly bullets of light

life lived in a crouch
painful posture
a penance impressed
by a fear of discovery

ugliness barely concealed
below sightlines
a private existence
of gross inconvenience

transgressions laid low
to the floor of the mind
culpability held
in dense shadows

a brick and stone bastion
hand-mortared by guilt
that coldmost and cruelest
of cognitive architects

Gifted

“Man Thinking”
Painting by Alex Grey
From gestaltreality.com

wanting more than he has
always hungry unsatisfied

flowers and shrubbery and weeds
overcrowding his landscape

a house full of rooms full of stuff
from incessant collecting

material wealth both ambition
and constant frustration

a bottomless belly corporeal
in its seductive desires

possessed of the trappings
endowed by success and yet

nary an object or artifact seems
in the least worth the having

no meaningful friends nor
relationships touched by affection

acquaintances numbering hundreds
up down and across every map

he’s experienced peripatetic
with travel designed to defeat

the uncomfortable stillness
that scares him the mere

passing thought of just settling
in quite alone with himself

stirs a panic his windows must
only look out never in

he must keep on the move
with a focus on everything anything

other than what lies within
those defining interior spaces

where spirit is deeply afflicted
with mortified motives

his heart and soul blackened
by seething self-loathing

a man all the world sees as gifted
a wretch in reality worthy of pity

———————————————————-

“Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.” – Theodore Dreiser

Line of Sight

“Beyond the Pale”
Painting by Alan M. Clark
From ifdpublishing.com

unlike the others
I see past horizons
unspeakable places
unfit for the sane
where the monsters
all look just like me

Prescription

Self Hatred II
Drawing by xiaoD
From theocddiaries.com

evil animates them
gives them dangerous purpose
homed in on soft targets
parochial parasites
cutting can’t kill them
for demons don’t bleed
they lack vital organs
so bullets are useless
because they don’t breathe
you can’t smother or choke them
they can’t eat or drink
so no poison will work

they insinuate stealthily
into despair guilt or
private held shame
self-loathing sustains them
the only inoculant
shield of immunity
or once afflicted
the sure disinfectant
the full cleansing purgative
flows from belief
in the reasons
you’re worthy of love

Neither/Nor

“Howling Wolf”
Painting by Alison Vernon
At alisonvernon.blogspot.com

you stalk chocolate shadows
laid down in the gloaming
dividing your snarls
between lapdog and wolf
always heavy with impudence
yearning for stable identity
damned as a shapeshifter
unholy changeling
among despised creatures
who live and then die
in their very same skin

what cronish cruel hand petted
curses above your furred brow
giving fright to the nights
full of silver-blue moons
stealing peace from paws
never to sleep under pedigree
running from pitchforks
and mad torches brandished
by men in flax tunics who
hate their existence as much
as they fear knowing you