On Saturday, May 20, 2023 at 12:46:45 PM UTC-4, Robert Morpheal wrote:

Robert Morpheal is a poet who's been posting to usenet including RAP for (I think) decades.

His usual method is to assemble a month's worth of poems (I counted 11 in this thread) and post them all in one post. That may have worked in the slow days, when a poem would stay on the group's front page for an entire month, but with the increasing
frequency of posts it could be out of sight in mere days. Meaning that someone who visits infrequently could miss it entirely.

So, since I am glad Robert has chosen to post here, and would like to help him find his audience, I'm giving his poems a bump.

Ladies and gentleman, Robert Morpheal.

030523A
-----------

I cannot say
and I cannot say it is
going particularly well
though it is going
even if going nowhere
other than going around
in dwindled circles.

The crowd thinned
to next to nothing left
and the flock dying out
due to unknown causes
the making of plans
rendered redundant
becomes far too trivial.

We tell our usual lies
self promoting
our common deceptions
in between consigned
to watching a few more
tawdry little spectacles
disguised as entertainment.

No one does anything
that used to be done
in any satisfying ways
and we are given our selves
to take all the blame
for how it has all changed
into less than truly pleasant.

Seems interesting people
no longer actually shop
at the same outlets
that we are given to frequent
creating serious doubts
about their actual existence
in these times have changed.

Do nothings have taken control
of the social slaughterhouse
stamping and signing
those endless declarations
that define what is unwanted
outside of common and tedious
mass market produced things.

We become witnesses
to the death of the individual
and that new epiphany
that sanctifies and prepares
for the artificial and robotic
takeovers of action, reaction
and of love and consciousness.

It is no longer your choice
and they tell you it never was
so you keep tangling the strings
until the hand that jerks you around
threatens to not feed you
for being too much trouble
as it fingers your ugliness and faults.

It is only your non conformity
that then keeps you nearly alive
even if everything falls short
of being anything to be realized
as anything that is truly living
in terms of being experience
that could escape the ordinary.

It is the excess of ordinary
that is really killing us slowly
and some eventually decide
to make their quick exits
by the few remaining doors
that let them out of the same old
more, and more, of the same.

Existence having been reduced
down to being a revolving door
at the entrance to a department store
where you are shown everything
that you can possibly have
but mostly cannot really afford
for showing off to make friends.

Why does it matter if it is going
and where it is going to
or if it is going anywhere at all
and in a million years
where has it all gone to
so where is it all going to go
in a million years from now.

--------------------------------------

130523A
-----------

It is only to shoot you down
as to what they are up to
while slathering what they think
is your ego and vanity
in a fattening up for a kill.

All that buttered up for nothing
more than browning your roast
while pretending to eat up
everything that you say or do
while they sharpen their knives.

They do not trust you at all
because they know you
having had the experience before
that makes it all more hollow
than a hollow sort of victory.

No one really wins anything
until the clown show ends
and even then it is nothing
more than a booby prize
that is really for the birds.

It gets to that point
where you no longer care
what they happen to say
because you no longer believe
even one stale word of it.

Then they cut you off
and for them it is a slice
that does not give a damn
about the raw or the cooked
side of any of your ideas.

-------------------------------

170523A
-----------

It is the various decisions
other people make
that ruin it all for you
but you take all the blame.

That makes you feel real
and it makes them into illusions
that you chanced to create
in your own sick imagination.

They could never be like that
and what were you thinking
in that sick mind of yours
that thinks ill of any of them.

You know there is no one
who is ever really the way
that you think that they are
and you will never get it right.

You disassociate yourself
and you lock yourself in
to a mandatory privacy bubble
with whatever you do not need.

There you commune with the dead
immersed in what they left behind
then they packed it in
at having had and lost too much.

There is a war, there is a war
between anyone about anything
that breaks out anywhere
where you least expected it.

You needed something different
but you never knew what it was
and if you ever do know anything
it is too late to make any difference.

They do not want you to know
but they want to know
anything you keep to yourself
so they can talk about you.

Whatever it is that they say
that they never say to your face
is deforming your future for you
in sleazy back room discussions.

Given the sort of mental deformity
that perfectly suits a bell ringer
dangled from the clanger
that clangs annoyingly on high.

People still get rubbed out
but rarely the old school way
so most get to experience more
of what is now called cancel culture.

No need to even try
because that is the trouble
and it all begins right there
with trying to get somewhere.

You notice the people who never try
all appear to be more popular
and they seem to have the money
that you can never find any of.

Part of the disincentive system
that helps promote gambling and vice
along with other similar rackets
as the more popular pastimes.

Everyone else is terrified of you
because you failed to take that slide
that coasts down easy hill
and they do not want to work at it.

You are not going anywhere
that you could ever want to go
but that too is a choice
someone said that you made.

You thought you had the time
to somehow figure it all out
counting up the knots
and toying with the abacus.

You once counted rosary beads
but it was nothing religious
beyond another little episode
of playing at another pop culture.

You add up the sum of friends
that you could actually afford
and then you realize the fact
you are still massaging debts.

Whatever it really was
it did not get you in
any further than stale rumours
of their fabulous parties.

They decided your spend
was nowhere near enough
and word got around
what a cheapskate you are.

You thought you really could
make it all up to yourself
to get on your feet forward
but that is not the way it works.

Someone else got there first
to make a complete mess of it all
so then they dirtied you up
with all that futile clean up.

You never found your luck
and there were no lucky breaks
but in between attempts
you could put up a pretense.

You live on that borderline
of condemned for pretending
and not being taken for real
no matter how you do it.

They never want the reality
so you feed them an illusion
that you keep just for them
knowing they expect that.

Every path you were on
you had to dance along
to a different drummer
but no one played your song.

If you could play it yourself
you know no one would listen
as they hate any one man band
as something too annoying.

They will not dance to your tune
and you cannot dance to their's
but even if you could go that far
they would never dance with you.

Nowadays they refer to all that
in entirely different words
as the pursuit of happiness
saying you have to be happy.

There is no choice about that
that you have to be happy
and if you are not totally happy
there is something wrong with you.

Complaints department is closed
and the guarantees expired long ago
so there is no money back
no matter how you beg or work for it.

There is no place for discontent
among today's little mobs
resembling animated emulations
of officially catalogued influencers.

You can wallow in the digital mud
covering yourself with it
trying to not be recognized
as anything they hate you to be.

Follow the bouncing tweets
and talk like the characters
that are seen on the screens
of what now passes as culture.

What can you do now
when doing is so unpopular
and if you do anything
you will be doing it alone.

Particularly if it is anything
that is not being done by the others
who all try to do the same things
to not upset factory production.

You will never make it
as to making anyone happy
because it is a sell out crowd
where you can never belong.

You never made the right choices
whatever those actually were
and it has been a very long time
since you thought that you knew.

You came from a gone world
and your species was wiped out
or maybe you were wiped out
and they all moved on from there.

You are that mutant thing
that has no idea where it belongs
having missed the last train
that carried off all of the evolved.

----------------------------------------

180523A
------------

Thought that you would call
or show up somewhere
at some far end of it all
that amounts to the unexpected.

I always really hoped
you are someone I never knew
because that breaks the patterns
of casual and usual disappointments.

And besides all of that
there really is almost nothing left
as to anything that I used to be
for someone to scrape up.

There are too many mistakes
that they gave me to making
and the damage points
have annihilated my character.

Leaving me on the vague side
of what was once flesh and blood
only really wanted by anyone
if it was entirely unavailable.

The joystick is stuck
and it fails to toggle properly
so the lips fail to move
the way they are supposed to do.

No one ever really wanted
what they could actually have
unless it was for the sole purpose
of dragging it around to rejecting it.

Cats and dogs do it that way
bringing you something that is dead
as a special sort of present
and people do it in a similar way.

Another less than subtle meditation
about the nature of power
and how I never give them enough
to make it worth their bother.

Not having enough to give
tends to play out that way
and I never really learned
how to hurt someone properly.

If I were a kintsukuroi vase
maybe you would still notice me
out from among the better made
where I am only the damage.

For years having tried so hard
to find a way to find you
only to find it is never that way
that one can chance to be found.

---------------------------------------

180523B
-----------

Not sitting on the clouds today
and cannot really escape
that sudden free fall feeling
where it all goes down again
from carried up to nothing special.

I wonder if anyone does it anymore
or if everyone is playing it safe
as to maintaining strict boundaries
of the most severe boredom
disguised as predictable habits.

Feels as if I have not met anyone
at least anyone interesting and new
in what seems a thousand years
that being the same duration
they predicted for the Third Reich.

And that lasted far too long
the way some marriages tend to last
until those wars come to an end
followed by long war crimes trials
and the usual armistice agreements.

Not saying it is always that way
and not making a blanket condemnation
as to what gets bundled up
and what ends up getting thrown out
in the course of making histories.

Most people seem to like to pretend
that there is no actual bomb
poised hanging above their heads
and that home means something more
than a potential ground zero.

We do not want to disturb them
with anything that might seem serious
and that tends to limit the subjects
to who died, who lived, and sexy sports
and wondering who is screwing who.

You have to close your mind up tight
to anything remotely resembling reality
if you really want to live there
in between the hidden debt loads
and the lurking bill collectors.

It passes as a sort of no man's zone
from where you hear shots being fired
because someone got pissed off
about who got something or someone
in all the getting that was going on.

I would have rather have done cocktails
at the Hemingway in Paris
but I am down to the dregs of a cheap beer
trying to convince myself by myself
that that is actually a form of enjoyment.

There is something screaming inside of me
similar to that alien burst of birthing
that says get me out of here
but there is no sign of any extrication
from where I am pinned down.

What does it really do when it comes
all crashing down again as it goes
and all that you really wanted to do
was to go to a really posh party
to have what passes as a wild time.

------------------------------------------

180523C
-----------

We used to get together somewhere
which was somewhere that was
before they screwed us out of it all
and that becomes the routine outcome
of that and any other procedure.

If I knew money the way some know it
there could have been something
instead of being The Hermit who wanders
between the concrete and the stars
looking for any more credible visions.

Must have over reached myself
and it all comes down
to that falling backwards as a child
into some permanent condition
of caught half way between worlds.

Someone already burned The Lovers
because they saw a devil in it
and I am so tired of playing The Fool
pulling my broken but heavy chains
along that narrow edge of a drop.

Why did I even bother to teeter
and totter the brink of the abyss
rather than simply leaping into it
feet first in an act of total submission
as another easy way of letting go.

Isn't that what most of them do
not even caring anymore
if there is anyone down there
to catch them when they go down
on whatever they go down onto.

Even the devils are now singing
those same old hallelujahs
as if anyone can please the Lord
if they engage in any sort of battle
under their propped up battle kings.

There was nothing on any papers
so they rolled them up as scrolls
dissipated into puffs of smoke
becoming dark angel wings
meant to carry someone off.

That is how it sometimes goes
as to a tiny little spark that is seen
between the death and life of it
between the afterbirth and the decay
that can take up a few moments.

The Ace of Cups once overturned
is nothing but an empty flagon
and all the placards now
on other people's wailing walls
in those far less pleasant temples.

There is no one to give it back
once it has gone that way
but we are nothing much more
than the knives that are stuck
in our backs at the end of our day.

-----------------------------------------

180523D
-----------

Wishing there was somewhere to go
but there is nothing in the catalogue
pertaining to various current events
that is in any way really interesting.

We wanted something very different
to playing those sorts of games
and vainly claiming to everyone
that any of it does us any real good.

We could make false claims
that we grew out of what there was
not needing or wanting it anymore
so we freely gave it all up.

For the sole purpose of regrets
that then keep circulating
the way canned music circulates
and never seems to die down.

We are left pretending to lap up
the replacements to all of that
the way a cat laps up fresh milk
even if we have no taste for it.

At least that is something white
and white is now all the latest rage
among those who are all pretending
that they really are someone.

Made as pure as a white out
in the middle of a white out winter
that purges out the sky
and covers everything else over.

After all it can take up the time
and we can always make believe
that we were far less lonely to visit
any of those filling stations.

Sniffing those heady vapours
we can smash against bedtime
pummelling a crush of pillow
with more convincing arguments.

We simply had the wrong ideas
about what there would be to do
somewhere at the start of it all
until the accountants stepped in.

They put meters on everything
to monitor the prices we have to pay
for more desirable bits and pieces
of what amounts to nothing.

I tell you it was not always that way
but you never believe what I say
and you then refuse to actually look
at the Memento mori I have collected.

----------------------------------------------

180523E
-----------

That wild shot into the void
of what is purely personal
that no one wants to really share
as to finding it so disturbing.

Trying to avoid the so much more
as though avoiding forbidden
on endless new revisions
added to lists of mortal sins.

As though there is not much left
that can remain guilt free
and all that looking around
to make sure others are doing it.

All those who are worried sick
about always being safe
and keeping everything healthy
until it is a full time obsession.

There are healthy obsessions
and there are various enjoyments
which then create the conflicts
that clutter up any mental spaces.

All of that is really about work
being redefined and redefining us
as properly intellectual bulimics
vomiting what might get in the way.

There are more things killing you
than are intent on keeping you alive
and you never really learned
to look after yourself.

So you take your instructions
from any number of sources
telling you want you must always do
and what you must never do.

There is not much left
beyond running in repetitive circles
in an effort to rediscover sleep
before the morning alarm goes off.

It comes right down to where
you choose to shop and to what
you choose to buy there
kept in fear of being left out.

They only pay for the brand names
and not everyone can have one
but a lot of people are trying
to brand themselves for sale.

It is what you cannot afford
that will end up killing you
and the price is always sky high
grasping at a prayer of a chance.

You used yourself up on the way
until you got too worn out
for anyone to really bother with
as to adding you in to their plan.

You paid the wrong price
and it never bought any favours
no star on your door
and nothing on the calendar.

You get a dirty look
in exchange for your trouble
and someone is telling you
even the king is a fink.

---------------------------

180523F
----------

No one looks after anything
that you do not do yourself
but you never thought of that
and you realized it too late.

You get to live with that
but that is all that you get
to actually live with
leaving gaps you cannot fill.

Feeling as though a slave
accused of running away
creating breaks in your record
even if it is a false accusation.

There is no defence
and you are always guilty
no matter how you turn it
and no matter what you say.

No one is ever saved by work
but everyone is seeking salvation
despite their denials of belief
in anything or anyone.

We fall through the holes
in that or anything there is
and the only thing it proves
is that no one really cares.

Forgotten or too late
ends up being all there is
and it fell through the holes
that eat up bits of any life.

There is the lost and the broken
that you cannot ever replace
and nothing ever comes back
when it is gone without a trace.

They came and they went
but none of them chose to stay
making you feel something then
but most of that feeling delayed.

Worked too long and hard
getting nothing for that
while creating vape trails
of dissipated memories.

No one actually remembered
and no one ever came around
having better places to be gone to
and better things to be done to.

Squandered the love
and you know it scores nothing
where no one was anything
more than dreamy eyed.

Once had a dream and dreamt
a dream of trying to live it
not knowing how not to
that could make any difference.

After that it recurs in the night
coming up in various disguises
that seem far less pleasant
than what it was meant to be.

Even in theory it is all closed
as another forbidden subject
crossing hard lines and fences
angers always angry fates.

It is only another bad feeling
to be made guilty about
even if feelings do not last
in the ways they come and go.

It went to the better
and it went to the worse
but in between all of that
it falls through holes.

It will never be again
but then it never really was
and that is how holes are made
where we thought we had choices.

------------------------------------------

180523G
-----------

Used to go for all the reasons
that there ever are for going
but then that too ended
the way too much ended before
and too much always ends.

Seems nowhere left to go
if you really want the sort of life
that I always really wanted
knowing no one does any of that
anywhere anymore.

Between the rummage and junk
and between the coming and going
from the nothing gets done
there were the times we believed
it would all go differently.

You find you are in confession
not having the price of admission
having been stopped at the door
where you tore up your entry
lacking any pleas to deaf ears.

The ticket you thought you had
had already exploded
and that blows everyone away
even if it is the wrong people
and it is to the wrong destinations.

That cliche metaphor was used before
but the original authors failed
to decipher some of the meanings
so we have to exhume that corpse
and examine the same thing again.

That report needing to be filed
along with other contrary reports
having no better use for words
that have reached the outer limits
of what passes as our known universe.

Missa Solemnis continues to play
coming from sharp sides of bird beaks
rending at anything that is unfortunate
enough to have fallen in to steadily
growing plagues of the usual failures.

---------------------------------------------

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