Human Condition

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 19, The Burden of Truth

My poem today was to be about something that “haunts” me. Fair enough.

But the prompt also required that I change the word haunt to hunt. Since my nineteenth poem uses neither word, it is not (technically) written to prompt. But almost.

“You better stop, look around — Here it comes
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown”
(From the song, “19th Nervous Breakdown” by The Rolling Stones)

The Burden of Truth

There is a profound sadness in me—
One retained by conscience and nourished by guilt.

More than thirty years of unhealthy, but honest regret
and self-disgust padded with insufficient amends
has not mitigated my permanent tattoo of rue.

Done cannot be undone.
But a foolish deed,
words written or said, cannot be overturned
by going back in time —
back in time to fix, to heal, or to recover.

No amount of positive can reverse it.
Neutralizing is impossible.

Repression of memory is pathetic denial—
defense mechanisms to palliate my purgatory.

Even the permanence of death
leaves lasting damage to unrepairable hearts,
minds without memories,
which may be just as well. I know and I do not know.

Perhaps there is a time for every purpose.
Maybe this stone will be cast away.
Hope so
because I don’t know how to turn
guilt into innocence with only time.

Look both ways at the story of life for forgiveness and regret.
To kiss and to touch. To be right and to be wrong. To climb and to fall.
Mind the gap to fit the story but we may never know the truth.
Even eyewitnesses are wrong seventy-plus percent of the time.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 18, Mephistopheles’ Resignation

For the eighteenth poem of our 30-poems-in-30-days project, known as NaPoWriMo by those of us who attempt the daily prompts, we have been challenged to write a poem where a speaker expresses a desire to be something or someone else and explains why.

My theme is somewhat of a metaphysical humorous spoof. Silly? Maybe.

Mephistopheles’ Resignation

My Dearest Iblis, Nick,

I have decided to transition.
As being without beginning or foreseeable end is boring.
I shall miss you, my old demonic friend.

I can no longer stand pointlessness without end, treason without reason,
night without day, EXISTENCE —

Existence without purposeful term.
None of it continues to hold the least appeal to me.

Of all possible forms of life both universes hold,
I have decided to be human on Earth because they are most like us.

Although…

I am undecided over the whole sex/gender, man/woman or whatever.
It is confusing to me since we have no such identities.

And what of religion? And politics? Will I know then what I know now?

The whole live birth thingy, colors, orgasms, music, and…
(for the love of Beelzebub) … arguing over what is art and what is not holds familiar pointless diabolical promise.

The love. And the hate — they are so much better at it than even our most despicable offspring of Lucifer.

Since time has no meaning for us, I cannot give you a when, but I hope soon because when the Diablo hears of this, there will be Hell for me to pay. That’s human sarcasm.

Anyway…

I ask that once I pass through some birth canal if you and the others would please keep your distance.

Remember, eternity runs both ways. I demand that y’all stay on your side of the Cosmos.

With ambivalent love, mine not yours,

Azazel Zone

Look both ways for greener pastures.
Life is all it’s cracked up to be because it is transitory.
Mind the gaps and hold on to the facts. Reality is what it is, or maybe what it isn’t.

 

Note: Mephistopheles, Diablo, Iblis, Lucifer, Old Nick, Beelzebub, and Azazel are names for devils or demons.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 17, At Seventeen

Today I am to write a poem inspired by a song, and to share its title. I confess to being influenced by song lyrics, especially the well-told stories in ballads.

Earlier this year I read “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian (1975) as a poem at an open mic event. I’ve always loved the song and somehow relate to it, as do many people around the world. Janis explains how that affects her and sings her song in the video below.

At Seventeen
When she called
I couldn’t hardly talk at all,
and when she sings
I remember high school things.

The words, the tone,
together talking on the phone,
her memories, at seventeen,
were mine at home alone.

“It was long ago and far away,”
do I wish it was today?
What has changed in how we are,
in pickup trucks or borrowed cars?

At seventeen when boys like me,
Sad Sacks outside for all to see.
“Come dance with me”— because
that couple we will always be.

She said,
I pity boys like you who serve,
you only get what you deserve.
My broken heart sang obscenities,
to the one I loved but never pleased.

At seventeen I was that man,
a boy holding a gun over there,
I stay alive as best I can, but
of angry me I must beware.

At seventeen a boy like me—
at seventeen, too young to see.
And ugly boys like us do care.
At seventeen, when I was there.

Memory is a strange, unreliable thing; so, look both ways and don’t assume.
Mind the gaps in song and poem, you’ve been only human all along.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 15, How Things Change

For halfway day, for the fifty-yard line of National Poetry Month (US and Canada), for the late bunt that moved me to second base, for Day 15; I was to be inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. I assumed my poem was in the offing.

Technically, I’ve been, or was, a collector of stamps since around age 11. Over the years that hobby dwindled and failed to hold my interest, although I am still interested in stamps, especially the lovely old ones, from the US and other countries. I have acquired entire collections simply because some collector had lost interest. Click here for wiki on plate blocks.

How Things Change

When I was quite young,
too young,
my aunt gave me her
well organized, large collection
of used postage stamps.

My sister’s boyfriend at the time
(she was 13 years older than I)
collected new plate blocks.
He gave me some and encouraged me
to abandon used stamps for new
with printer plate numbers.

I did. He helped. I traded
my aunt’s collection to enhance
the upgrade. Eventually,
I put my collection away,
although I have acquired
other collections over the years.

I’m different now. Sister’s BF
has gone to the big Post Office
in the sky. I am not a collector
of anything. I’m an accumulator
(books, rubber ducks, some
stuffed animals and dolls).

But for many years I have
regretted my decision to part
with my aunt’s collection. Those
old used stamps would mean
more to me now than all the
many collections I have
stored and ignored.

Look both ways and appreciate the past,
but if wisdom comes with age,
accept it without regret, if you can.
Mind the gaps because memory is a strangely alterable thing.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 14, When You Know

The NaPoWriMo, Day 14 task is to write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word: an anaphora.

When You Know

You know when you’ve had enough
When hopes and dreams are done and gone,
When your dog might outlive you,
When you can’t pass a bathroom,
When your hair is a memory,
When all your friends seem new,
When you wonder if you still can,
When someone says you’re harmless and they’re right,
When pain, not darkness, is your old friend,
When all your plans have come and gone,
When regrets and memories are the same
— if you have either at all,
When walking is workout,
When a game of pool is high impact for you,
When your favorite song is sung and gone,
When cooking and cleaning
— are aerobic exercises,
When grumpy, old, or sweet apply
— like names to all the people you meet,
When “I don’t care” answers every question.

Some of us have more past than future, but we look both ways.
Mind the gaps, ignore the aches.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 12, Metaphor for Murder

The prompt for day 12, a Friday, gives me the option to write a poem that plays with the idea of a tall tale. This could have been a mythical character, one I made up, or I could add to a real person’s biography.

My dictionary says play with means “to handle, change, or deal with (something) in a careless way.” It is a serious topic: crime, specifically murder. While I used mythical American comic book superheroes in place of real-life investigators/detectives during the reign of terror of serial killer Gary Ridgway, and the 20-year chase by said law enforcement, I hope my poem is not so careless as to upset or offend anyone.

Metaphor for Murder

Superman came, leaping, flying,
x-ray visioning. Batman came kung foo fighting,
as Wonder Woman and journalists
(Clark Kent?) did their thing.

The Green Lantern watched
at the green river shores as Aquaman,
and the whole damned Justice
Society (or League) of America
formed up
as the Green River Task Force.

Add J-Edgar’s FBI gang, and all
the cops—superheroes were
chasing a serial killer: one death,
then twenty-one, then forty-something
raped and strangled: all women
and girls. Forty-eight, then 49,
some say 71, maybe as many
as 90. No one knows.
Not even the magical
Justice Society of America
or any such task force.

Nineteen years later before some
non-superhero, a Danny DeVito-like
lab-rat scientist used DNA
to convict Ridgway (alive today)!

The limelight shined on, and
the superheroes garnered cred,
and confessions from
the second-most prolific
serial killer in United States history
(standing accorded by “confirmed” murders).

Look both ways at the merging of fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, truth and lies.
Mind the gaps for what magic science has yet to discover and journalism to uncover.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 11, Utterly Foolish

Howdy, Y’all.

A one-line poem is called a monostich. It’s a new form to me. For the 11th day of National Poetry Month, NaPoWriMo.net challenged me to write one (or more).

Utterly Foolish

Insanity: not exclusive to the mentally ill.

Look both ways because real saints cannot canonize themselves.
Mind the gaps for folly and error and always beware.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 10, Black Swan

To celebrate the achievement of ten poems to prompt, I am to write a poem based on a headline, cartoon, or other journalistic tidbit featured at Yesterday’s Print.

I selected one from The Bridgeport Telegram, Connecticut, October 22, 1954: “Pent up prejudices.”

Black Swan

To say
“I’m only human” is descriptive,
yet
it’s neither explanatory nor extenuatory.

But confirmation bias,
is as humanly normal
as old dogs scratching fleas.

I know I like it; I mean,
hooray for my side!
I like being right. But …

What if I’m wrong?
How do I control
for
them telling me lies?
Am I just
hearing what I want to hear?

Look and listen both ways.
Knowing we are imperfect leans toward self-awareness.
Mind the gaps in the political speeches
where back scratching helpfulness willingly hides.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 8, What Just Happened?

And the beat goes on into day eight. The Napo dimension prompted me to write a poem concerned with an encounter or relationship that should not have happened; this due to time, space, age, nature, or any other reason.

I went sci-fi into a dream state of self-meeting-self. It happens because two materially different universes overlap during a time warp and interpersonal worlds mesh.

What Just Happened?

Time itself is not the same
from one universe to another.
Though parallel in thought—
they rarely overlap;
the two adjoining realities.
Yet we met.

Two mirrored persons
of numbered beings
sensing each other.

He was me and I he,
and for that brief period
of twisted time we could see.
I to the right and he to the left.

When you meet your true alternate self,
like a scratch on a record,
it is what it is and simultaneously isn’t.

As the overlapping of universes,
one sensory, real, and hard;
the other holographic waves of
semi-sensations are reflections of—
like near death experiences.

Communication is possible
as awareness is a reality
sensed telepathically.

Yet clearly
as self meets self,
if only
for a brief interlude,
as otherworld sparse realities
entangle, and no one knows why.

Look both ways and stare into the eyes of life.
Mind the gaps between dream state realities because
a thing can be true and simultaneously untrue,
where fact and fiction are confusingly entangled.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 6, Truth Hoax or Delusion

For my fifth poem of April’s first Saturday (it’s a long story), the NaPoWriMo prompt asks that I write a poem rooted in “weird wisdom.” This means something objectively odd that someone told me and has stuck with me ever since.

Truth, Hoax, or Delusion?

My friend, Elizabeth, is white, was raised Methodist, but has Carolina Low Country roots and claims hoodoo spiritual knowledge. She predicts her days by pulling runes from a bag or tossing tarot cards. She has all the New Age trinkets and talismans. She was Wiccan, claimed to be a New Age witch of some sort, then was Druid. I lost track after that.

But she is a poet from a very interesting tribe. One day Lizzy confided that there is a Big Foot (Sasquatch, Yeti, or Abominable whatever) and that she had personally seen it — all 500 to 1000 pounds on a seven-to-ten-foot frame, anchored to Earth by seventeen-inch furry but bare feet.

Her private testimony was as a passionate eyewitness. It brought a soft smile from me. I decided to ask how her Druid studies were going.

I looked up and became a believer.

Look both ways and be aware while hiking the trails.
Do not eat unknown mushrooms, carry a good camera, and mind the gaps.
For as the old Sherpa said,
“There is a Yeti in the back of everyone’s mind; only the blessed are not haunted by it.”

Taken by me at a coffee shop in Issaquah, Washington.