These Rooms

 

These Rooms

 

Hello, my name is

ultimately unimportant.

In here we are legion

occupying one seat at a time.

Unassuming and sterile,

yet full of pain and regret.

Heartaches and hopes,

spill from our mouths

in equal measure.

We speak of higher power

and know what powerlessness

tastes like. There is talk of steps

and serenity, but debauchery

is within arm’s reach.

We are black and white, adrift

in grey outside these walls.

Compulsion is a frequent visitor,

and habit is a way of life

Unassuming and sterile,

yet a light in the darkness.

We will know no finish line,

only days to count, time to mark,

while collecting coins

from the inmates and gods

that inhabit these rooms.

SMG

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

 

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

The isolation

is only the beginning.

Alone in a room,

the stillness disturbed,

intermittently, by shivers.

A cage-match

with demons ensues.

Sleep is fleeting and fitful.

Dreams an unsolvable puzzle,

disparate pieces out of order

and just out of reach.

Time crawls as shadows

and hints of sunlight

denote day versus night.

There is no escape,

the only option is through.

Through the abyss

of broken promises,

missed opportunities,

and failure. Your end,

the beginning, the first step.

SMG

A Guilt You Would Not Understand

A Guilt You Would Not Understand

A knock on the door

that echoed in

the unreachable distance.

The last indelible image

of my love as you faded

in the darkness

of a back bedroom.

The foreboding

that swarmed me

ignored, in favor of

an agenda long forgotten.

The immediacy of the day

superseding the years

of sacrifice in my favor.

The hours spent

playing catch in the absence

of a grandfather or father

not otherwise engaged.

You were love and acceptance

in my eyes and when you passed

I was passive and afraid.

Betrayed by a single weak vessel

in that brain that I so admired,

you lay helpless, a state

that was an anathema

to everything I knew you to be.

Forgive me

for not kicking

that goddamn door down

and carrying you to the help

that might have saved you

and all that you were to me.

SMG

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

Assembling a ship in a bottle,

piece by piece, with attention

and care, is a fascinating exercise.

I can relate to that ship and its plight.

Having its component parts tweezed

and squeezed into an unnatural environment.

Upon completion the ship is a prisoner.

As a fully formed vessel, it will never leave

as long as the ship and bottle are intact.

To escape, breakage will be required.

The bottle does not know it is a prison.

The ship does not recognize its captivity.

Only a force outside the symbiotic delusion

can break the bond that neither understands.

That force also gets to pick sides in the separation.

Smash the bottle, and the ship is free unless

too much force is applied. Shake the bottle

and the ship is reduced to little broken pieces.

What’s left can be poured onto a countertop.

Some reassembly required if the ship is ever

expected to sail again and be free.

SMG

Absolution

Absolution

The cap breaks

to the left and spins

loose on the table

like a drunken top.

Is the rush in the ritual

or in the result?

Three cubes,

no more, no less,

dropped one at a time

with bombardier

precision from above.

There follows the muted

plock-plock-plock

as the amber liquid

escapes the bottle,

and the pressure pop

of the ice as it welcomes

the whiskey.

Pavlov is affirmed

as the scent of Speyside

malt and smoke fills the senses

and light dances and refracts

through the diamonds

and gold in the glass.

The familiar bite

against the lips wakes me,

and I emerge like a penitent man

from the confessional,

absolved and ready

to sin again.  

SMG

The Challenge of Kneeling

Kneel: Be in or assume a position

in which the body is supported

by a knee or the knees, as when

praying or showing submission.

The metaphor is illusive, changing

like a chameleon adapting to new surroundings.

Is this a poem of brokenness, sorrow, or abuse?

The metaphor is Phoenixian. The imagery,

a bird fallen from its nest, rescued by a passing stranger,

a kitten pawing the corpse of its mother

or a starving dog in a cage long neglected and alone.

The simile seeks like or as comparison,

while shopping in a store it’s never been to. 

The stanza needs to implore supplication from the arrogant,

selfish, or disbelieving.  A fighter staring down his opponent

or a man so sure of own strength of will, there is no need for others

nor the possibility of something greater than himself.  

The imagery is difficult to find

regardless of the search engine employed.

Find a painting of the strength of surrender, of admitting helplessness.

A picture that explains what it takes to wake up in a fetal position, on a

sidewalk, and ask for help getting to your knees or a mural that spans

a lifelong journey that begins anew, every day, with the rising sun. 

Kneeling is redemption.

Kneeling is humility.

And kneeling is strength,

no metaphor required.

SMG

Agency

 

Agency

Control is

ephemeral,

imagined, and

when the illusion

is shattered,

there is little remaining

to hold you upright.

We are mere observers,

an audience,

as the play unfolds.

There are actors on stage,

and directors behind the curtain

that move the story forward

as we sit in the dark,

and plead for a happy ending.

Every life is a roll of the dice,

a hand dealt by someone else.

We win by the kindness of strangers,

lose as a car drifts across the median.

The bottle, the needle and the pipe

might feel like agency

but are just different masters.

Bosses, we hope, will pay us on time

as we toil under the weight

of the load we are forced to carry.

SMG

Decay

Decay

After
being dead
for some time
my soul
began to rot
leaving nothing:
A peanut M&M
with no nut
inside

SMG

Crescent City Blues

 

Crescent City Blues

 

I could see the Mississippi from my window

as it marched slowly to the gulf. The blood

of the heartland was pouring into the sea

and I was drinking scotch on the 46^th floor.

The end of the day, the end of the week

in another city and another hotel room.

I refreshed my glass, spun the amber and ice

with my finger as I moved back to the window.

 

The sorrowful whistle of a river boat resonated

off the glass in low tone that seemed apropos.

New Orleans is sad from this vista, like most

party girls, she doesn’t look quite as alluring

in the sober light of day. As I looked to the north,

to the skies above Lake Pontchartrain, I could see

the hoary clouds of a thunderstorm. Intermittent

lightning scratched the air and illuminated

the squall’s dark tentacles as they fell to the lake.

 

The sun was retreating to the west pulling a curtain

of darkness in its wake. There’s an emptiness in the

night when you are alone in a strange city, it climbs

into bed with you and whispers tiny lies in your ear.

Two glasses down and half a bottle to go, while below

the heartland just keeps pouring blood into the sea.

 

SMG

She Calls in the Morning

She Calls in the Morning

In the end, it ended

like all bad relationships,

she was a puddle on the floor,

as I stumbled out the door.

She used to call in the morning

seeking her daily diversion and I,

lonely and filled with doubt, answered,

beginning my daily digression.

“Let’s meet for breakfast” was met

with “I can’t, I have to work today”.

She had a way of removing my resolve,

with a seductive longing in her voice.

I may never understand her true motive,

but she knew my true weakness.

I wanted to taste her on my lips

and feel her warmth deep inside.

Logic and will were always inadequate

against the sway she held over me.

In time, like all bad relationships, my drunk dials

started going to voicemail as she became aloof.

Increasingly less willing to satiate my need, she

left me one night, a broken shell, in a pool of tears…

…but she called in the morning.

SMG