With Apathetic, Ludicrous Descent from the Sublime I Bewilder

With languid bathos I bemuse

And maladroitly acerbate

With inconcinnity confuse

And prolixly extravagate

Anserine pride all agrestic

With languid bathos I bemuse

Amphigories soporific

Fatuously averse Infused

Surcease of invidious muse

Indurated impudicity

With languid bathos I bemuse

Immured within duplicity

Nascent nadir oscitation

Inane lucubration occlude

In all febrile obfuscation

With languid bathos I bemuse

 

---

 

Translation:

 

With apathetic, ludicrous descent from the sublime I bewilder

And awkwardly speak sharply

With lack of literary elegance confuse

And tediously worded exceed reasonable bounds

 

foolish pride all uncouth

With apathetic, ludicrous descent from the sublime I bewilder

nonsensical verses tending to produce sleep

purposelessly hostile filled

 

cessation of resentment causing muse

made callous or unfeeling shamelessness

With apathetic, ludicrous descent from the sublime I bewilder

imprisoned within bad faith

 

immature lowest point drowsiness

superficial, pedantic literary work obstruct

In all feverish impediment of understanding

With apathetic, ludicrous descent from the sublime I bewilder

 

Note: Poem is a Quatern approximately in Iambic Tetrameter [Hideous fun with a dictionary]

Talk About Being Schizoaffective

Let’s talk about being schizoaffective

First of all
It wasn’t my elective
To be schizoaffective

In many ways I may seem different from others
In other ways not

Like anyone else I have my good days and the bad
And the days in between
But I think I may seem more extreme
Than others do

On the good days I’m ecstatic
On the bad days I’m depressed
Sure I’m erratic and more so than the rest
But let’s not suppose I’m so different from those
Who think they need to treat me disparagingly
Just because I’m somehow defective
For being schizoaffective

If only I’d broken an arm
Or a leg
Then others wouldn’t be so alarmed
And I wouldn’t need to beg
To be understood or just feel normal

And we all want to feel normal

Then there are the delusions
Some are grand some are banal
Some paranoid, auditory, visual but somehow
I think I still qualify to be a human being

No, it’s not everyone out there
Many care and that’s a great thing
But the world is often cold and cruel all on its own
Whether we humans like it or not

Employers don’t like to hire
People who are in dire straights
Too much drama for everyone else

Sometimes I think it would be better
To lock me away out of sight
Or get rid of me altogether
Than to put up a fight

Because I feel like too much a burden on society
But it’s hard to go quietly into oblivion
So I stick around for another day or two
Just to see what comes my way

I suppose it’s not the end of the world
Being schizoaffective
But it’s no picnic
At least not from my perspective

A Satisfactory Complaint

Things could be worse
Or they could be better
But whenever
I think about it
I think first
Of what could be worse

If things were better
I could not complain
So then again
I’d not be happy
Just the same

For if I could not complain
Then that of which
I could not do
Would just as soon
Bother me too

Therefore, if I am asked
How am I
It seems to me
I ought to reply
That things are worse
But I am fine

What Sense Does it Make?

A poet who does not rhyme
is like a heart without a love
or life without music

What sense do these make?

what point
is a body without a soul
soup without a bowl
never getting old
or a wall with no gate?

it is like time
that goes slowly by
that never ends
without friends
or a river with no crossing

what is life without music
but eternity in a cell
walls without paint
thirst without drink
night without a moon
a day so long
it never reaches noon?

a heart without a love
is like a piano without strings
a bird that can’t sing
planes without wings
skips a beat
a year without a spring

a novel with no plot
makes little sense
as does a fork without dinner
paint without thinner
a race with no winner
is like a home with no bed

all these things
sadness brings
are like a poet who doesn’t rhyme
or a bird that doesn’t sing
life without music
or an eternity never lived
are like a heart without a love

What sense do they make?

Wrestling with Despair

It takes energy to write a poem and create a rhyme
It takes energy to wrestle with despair some times
Despair is like having no will to move forward
Like fits and starts that come and go and bottom out

Life is difficult enough to live without despair
Sometimes I think it’s just not fair
living with despair.

But then! I think to myself; if there were no such thing as despair…
Then there would be …well…no despair.

So maybe there’s just no silver lining to despair at all
Who needs it? Go away is what I say!
But despair won’t listen.
And so it stays.

Despair is kind of like a tortured poem that doesn’t rhyme very well
It’s the sort of thing you just can’t sell
Because nobody wants to live in it
Or be reminded of what it is to despair
Because like I say,
There’s no silver lining anyway.
So I sort of wallow in it sometimes
At least until it leaves
Then I’m fine

Coming to Terms with Violence

It appears thus far that the San Bernadino shooting may have been committed by the Muslim equivalent of a Robert Dear-the man responsible for the deaths in Colorado at a Planned Parenthood Center. Some guy (and his wife in this case) appear to have bought into violent extremist ideology and ended up killing people because of it.

I realize it is hard not to want to run out and exact revenge (the shooting makes me angry as well). However, to paraphrase Stephen Crane; there are times when we wish we could throw bricks at temples only to realize that there are no bricks and no temples to throw them at.

In short, tragic and unfortunate as it is, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot we can realistically do about such incidents except pick up the pieces and move on. There will always be violent people and there will always be weapons available for those violent people to act out their anger and resentment regardless of what steps are taken. The perpetrators have been killed and there is no more retaliation to be had.

In some ways it seems like there is a ripple effect, something happens to disturb a few of us and the disturbance resonates and reverberates out among a greater number. I think all we can realistically do to make the world a better place is try to spread a little kindness and good will to offset and quell the bad.

We must ask ourselves every day, what act of charity and kindness have we done to make the world a little better. . .

Pantoumonium in Pentameter

This computer screen is too luminous
It really does shine like florescent light
This computer screen is so ruinous
It is probably going to wreck my life

It really does shine like florescent light
while I play many ridiculous games
It is probably going to wreck my life
Or maybe it will just drive me insane

While I play many ridiculous games
The clock of my life slowly ticks away
Or maybe it will just drive me insane
With all the mind destroying games I play

The clock of my life slowly ticks away
like blood draining from a dying body
With all the mind destroying games I play
I really should find another hobby

Like blood draining from a dying body
This computer screen is so ruinous
I really should find another hobby
This computer screen is too luminous

Quintessential Quatern

---

I dedicate this poem to

A lovely girl that I once knew

Her name Laurie so fair and bright

I thought of her both day and night

 

Laurie so fond I grew of you

I dedicate this poem to

I’d like to hug and hold you close

For you’re the one I think of most

 

A wondrous life I could have had

With you I think I’d been a dad

I dedicate this poem to

Laurie the one who makes me blue

 

For now I wish I’d asked her out

Instead of being shy with doubt

But then Laurie would not be who

I dedicate this poem to

Sonnet without Rhyme or Reason

---

In misty hills of old Virginia

A thicket grows of honeysuckle

By mountain springs so clear delightful

Echoing sounds of home musicians

Who sing the songs of lore and legend

It takes me back to days of children

A time of safety free of danger

We swam and fished in flowing rivers

Collected wealth of springs’ abundance

In misty hills of old Virginia

Memories fade but not forgotten

The days of youth retreat before us

Now spend my time as thoughts do linger

In misty hills of old Virginia

A Quatern Without Refrain

If I had to describe my moods

In a manner most judicious

All the ways I rejoice or brood

I would use the word capricious

 

If I seem unstrung or serene

Somehow attentive or distant

Or act in manners unforeseen

You may call me inconsistent

 

No cause for worry, stress nor fear

Be it the case I change at will

You may just think me insincere

You may call me mentally ill

 

But If I say in the matter

Whether ill or temperamental

I say I would choose the latter

Than a label detrimental