The back of Dad's chair is black like a void,
its mid discontinuous of solid support.
Cushion coils creak as his weight shifts,
his interest unhinged from light hypnosis.
The scuff of rough wheels rub fine lines in
encumbering crumb-crusted floorboards,
which mundanely sustain the weight
of a burdened waistline and wasted years.
He forfeits the fortunes of a father: favor and honor,
as points tabulate and clock ticks wick up
the last of my sapped up, tapped out tears.
His glowing, giddy face is unfazed,
too focused on fantasies to notice me.
Dad's back trespasses my passive stares,
his incessant inattentiveness ingrained
like the prison-bar stripes on the back of his chair.
10/5/2022
hop on board my carousel of thoughts
where wild ideas bob up and down
theories hang on tight for dear life
some die on the vine; others run rife
tabulate all data collected
frame it in pie-chart form
make sure it fits my narrative
truth today, whatever conforms
They put us all in the institution
And threw away the key
They say there's no more constitution
And freedom isn't free
The voting machines have infections
They won't tabulate the votes
Russia's running the election
With the buttons on their remote
The senate does nothing at all
To stop the runaway train
The writing's on the wall
Can you feel the pain
When the smoke has cleared
And all the babes stop crying
It will seem so weird
To know that freedom's dying
5-3-19
should I attempt to tabulate the ways
in which I cherish this thing we call life
a single eye to count the twinkle stars
might I borrow the worlds fingers and toes
arms, legs and noses, still shy my target
better still to prey my heart from its chest
laid out raw, in ore, wanting more, love score
no magician can fill up a full cup
that does, clearly, already overflow
bulbous, crimson, life, spilling down solid sides
flooding the firmaments, essence of me
a reason for being, forging, worthwhile
I straddle the beast who carries us through
tallyho, avanti, onward we go
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