Posts Tagged Depression
Lunch in Empty Park
While the wind emptied my spirit
in the soulless park, while
many vacant, metal picnic
tables laughed at my loneliness,
tortured my Ill-founded sense
of being, while people, all dressed
in black, walked around the park
edges as if in Olympic parades,
I brushed my sandwich against
the rusty metal of my picnic
table, took a bite from that
edge of the sandwich, not
purposefully, and waited
to die without struggle.
Rolling, Meaningless Willpowers
choosing where my mind aims
losing light
“Too fucked up to care anymore.”
finding tedium of scales
coming back to art
speaking death but unification
being told I’m worthless and buried
in sleep
knowing instead, I’m diseased
Broken
Shattered
Irreparable
maybe wishing
Not asleep
coming back to music
why don’t you choose happy music
why not music that pampers
my soul has too many bandages
looking inward builds more disease
but outward tinkles with no substance
choosing targets
obligated to fabricate smiles
fake they all are
False
why do we forgive the pretensions
we drive through repetitive forests
powerful boats full of empty bowls
antiques stained with dried oatmeal
chips of personality
Torn
by two poles
life having constructed the magnificent gift
perpetual pain is unendurable when awake
my mind lies to me
I can’t force it to wipe away
all of the evil
all of the dirty germs
.
Pissy Refrigerator Truck
Spikes of frozen hopelessness permeated
trotting around empty crosswalks surrounded
wrappers crawling along human legs
loose change not falling
wheelchairs wider than doorways
big men cheer while fixing noise systems
lights, maybe, lights reflecting mean walkers
peaceful phone call undone, lost despairs.
.
Choosing Survival Angles from the Swamp
A favorite artist refreshed my
broken perspective
this morning, leading to a dead sense
of life.
I need shiny
perspective in the frames of a
regular day. Without,
I am a defeated rabbit,
ready to hang
from that sturdy oak tree. (I pause
knowing that all oak trees seem
sturdy, so no need for adjectives, but
sturdy helps me feel more comfortable
about hanging. Successfully.)
But with this fresh view
from my favorite artist, I understand there
must be beauty in all tiny fragments that
speed through foggy crosswinds in the
chaotic frenzy of working
to do things right in every
moment, all moments, and with these
clear views, realization of the sickly,
petty, empty, frightening day strikes me as an
ice pick deep in my skull. Life,
bedazzling in its beauty,
leaves me
on splintered picnic benches,
being stabbed and
shot by the
modernity of gray roadside weeds,
weeds that laugh viciously in cackling
snaps with broken xylophones, splitting
cottonwoods, and through heavy tears
which come from dry horse troughs,
I cannot see anything
but my invisible
contributions to a society
that wants to laugh
with the weeds, see me hang and laugh,
but further,
it is with cowardice that I ask
with all clarity of my empty soul,
I plead
with you to bury me in a brick cell,
turn up the flames, if you will, and feed
me bread, but please don’t laugh
while I die. And medicine might help.
.
Dragging Along Before Lunch
I know about rounding up
courage; not bragging, but
I stick sharp fingers in plaster of
dissonant accidents, disliked
by all who know. I search for
purposeful dissonance, stomp
feet in defiance, move my head,
make my eyes wide and terrified,
petrified to be moving still, wanting
not to survive, screaming, WHAT
IS WRONG WITH ME? Knowing
chance is all gone, shaking my
head at the madness, my own with
all the others, as my hands freeze
in the plaster, choking life out of
me, not fast enough; oh, why
do I live to tell you this shit?.
I’ll Never Be Cured
My brain leaks,
just like my mother’s did,
my brain hurts,
I’ll never be cured.
They throw it back,
they give me shit,
my brain leaks,
I’ll never be cured.
My brain hurts,
just like my mother’s did,
she threw the black pans,
hailed our personal failures,
told us we’d never be good,
but I’ll never be her,
I’ll never ruin your psyche
My brain hurts,
just like my mother’s did,
my brain leaks,
I’ll never be cured.
The world hates,
It foams in my head,
with no smile,
I know I’m no good,
just like my mother said,
just like my mother said.
My brain hurts,
I’m scared of you all,
‘fraid I might crash,
you’ll see my soul crushed,
for my brain’s dead,
excepting total despair,
yeah, my brain hurts,
just like my mother’s did.
.
Let Me Rest After the Screen Is Blasted
I wish I could tell you all,
and fill this tiny screen, say
everything, leave it right here
on this screen, say it all, and then
never come back, sit on my porch,
strumming a broken guitar,
blowing on a wilted clarinet,
smoking a cheap pipe, never
coming back to your world,
telling you about all there is
on this screen, maybe fill the
screen, but tell you everything
and never come back, walk into
the front of a cement truck doing
seventy, never coming back,
fulfilled that all has been told,
knowing there is nothing left
inside me so I can go meet
that Mac, go away quickly
without a peep of noise, being
empty, never to come back.
Take away the severity
of despair, fill my tank
with the end, shut me down
forever. Let me rest, let
me loose from this agony.
.
I’m a Sick Little Child, and Why Do I Lie about it?
When I get angry, I pause
in the tension,
just a baby,
no reason to be angry,
but I’m bubbling angry,
so I hate myself
for that.
I hate the child in
me who will never grow
up, never be cured.
I’ll tell you I don’t get angry.
I get sad, I get depressed,
I get relieved when
lucky, but I lie and say
I don’t get angry
because I don’t want to be
a little child nor a scary
monster, so when
I get angry, I hate
myself and remember
that I was poorly designed
for this world.
.
The Ladies Don’t Want to Be Here
Sadness blows gray puffs from her turquoise.
Plugs don’t plug, and wires cross paths
with irritable tempers floating on the scum
of dirty rugs, where mirrors from monitors
shatter self, bright logs that support nothing
but pink coffins. Some gracefully leave
urgently, if only to save their remaining
sensibility, to float away with sticky wings,
unstuck but for the grace of gods who visit
only occasionly, who (the gods) sneer helplessly
at squeaky, rolling chairs, and the wires spark
despite masterful electrical architecture. The one
with the tubby brain thinks herself important
despite evidence to the contrary, thinks
the customers should love her, arrogantly,
just as management would want, but it is this
that is most insane as we watch time fly
by our worthlessness, laughing (time) at our ugly
building, crying at our tireless, circular motions,
wanting (time) to take us out of the game forever,
and all of this makes me want my Mozart.
.
Who Left Me Dead Alive?
If the music gets loud enough, I feel
the escape of despair, and I scream
with dizziness, though I never say it
as well as the musicians, and I’m left
wondering why I’m pale and so muted.
Freedom, let’s catch the bus as it leaves
the station, jumping up and down on the tin
roof, grabbing the crumbling cement,
passing under structures meant to bury
us, swallow us, throw us away.
Superman and I rage against the wind
as we jump from rooftop to polluted roof-
top, scrambling to locate our missing
hearts, rumbling through city forests,
making pancakes out of cement trucks.
Screaming in my twisting intestines,
coughing, blowing out clogs, who is it
who shut me out from my art, who has
splayed me, sucked out my screams,
removed my hums, left me breathing?
.
