The Artist Diaries

Resignation

never mind.
but hey, did you sleep last night?
or did demons keep you
awake, adrift
tossing and thrasing
like a splintered skiff
at large on an ominous sea?

I was so
and though i knew
you were awake, i knew
you were paralyzed

so when you sleep tonight
know that the storm
knows no end
and the rocks just come out of no certain where
and fear grips your wind pipe
like an old man grips his cane
chasing wretched mongrels that hound his heels
as he totters down a forgotten lane

know that fear
tastes perchance like marmalade
bitter and sweet at once
and when you bite back the rising bile
a hundredth time
you may not hate it anymore
you may secretly not hate it at all
you may, deep inside, perhaps...
perhaps...

but then, who knows?
I knew once
a man who was a lost cause
a woman who gathered no moss
but what do I know anymore?
what does anyone know anymore?
so
never mind.

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Disenchantment

Hope is a vile thing
Takes us away into crazy places
Alternate universes and other lives
Loaves of bread and bread in slices
Shores where we go to crash and die

The artist is a hopeless man
He sits still and knows
That all that scribble
All the outpouring of his woes
Are but the stains under her eyes
Under his eyes
All the fine lines on his page
Are but the fine lines on his face...

Think about me kindly
But don't linger there
Memory is a strumpet's child
You'll try really hard
I have no doubt, I do believe
But look
Its a new morning now
And that angelic, delicious hope
Blows yesterdays' memories of you and I
Into smoke
Wisps
Coffee on a rainy day
See me in the dregs
For that's where I shall lie
That's where I shall lie.

11.3.2019