AMBROSIA SALAD

Ambrosia Salad

pm 1203193

No links to the past make it impossible

to imagine any kind of future, yet if your

past is so black some of the images are blurred

beyond recognition and you lose any ability

to make sense of your present situation.

I have landed on the moon and as I

stepped out onto the surface I suddenly

realize it is not made of cheese

as I had been told as a child.

In a way I had been lied to but I had also

been left by myself hoping I would figure

out the truth on my own. I waited too long

but at any age its hard to believe that you

had been lied to and had accepted it as fact.

Naturally I had discovered that fact by myself

I didn't need anyone to tell me,

avoiding a very embarrassing conversation,

but I did feel a good deal of disloyalty when

I discovered the truth. Peter Pan, the same

thing, I don't know what the time difference

was figuring the two situations out but I'm 

sure I came to both realizations more or less

simultaneously and I was just as

disillusioned with each epiphany.

I kept these visions to myself for the longest time.

Who wants to admit they are a complete 

idiot at any time and especially when you

are at such a young and impressionable age.

I didn't feel as though I had made the cut

and I still don't, believing I am somewhat

inferior to most people even tough I make it

a point to show bravado whenever possible.

Still, I can't go to the currency exchange

and trade in anything, they just won't take

it anymore and they laugh at me through the

bullet-proof glass as I slide the useless bills

back into my wallet and make a hasty retreat

out the back entrance.

I could also hear them laughing all the

way to the parking lot, and each time I

happen on a lonely brick, placed there by

God, perhaps, and I have to bury the need

to hurl it back at the glass door.

The laughter is always incessant and it

bothers me a lot more than I think it should.

It gets into my head, only removable by

an ice pick, the tag always says and I have

yet to test the observation.

I argue with myself that I can't be alone

and how can I be depressed with all that laughter

whirling about in my head.

COVER-UP

Cover-Up

pm 1203192

Some crying in the darkness, whimpering

I cover my ears but I can still hear it

clear as day.

A whimper of suffering, pain,

pain by torture, or torture of the heart,

human beings have devised so many

forms yet the cries remain the same,

lost loves imitate having your fingernails

torn out and you lose the ability to

differentiate between the two.

Free yourself from mental pain and the

physical becomes the easy part.

Hack off a limb and they sew it back

on, painkillers are free to those who

suffer from limb-loss, how could they not

be, injured brains that deserve just as

much numbing are afforded nothing

and brain synapses once removed cannot

be reattached or sewn back on,

morphine can cover up a lost testicle

but what's to be done about a lost soul

and where will they find a place

to rest without an intact soul to

confirm your reservation?

The cloud has moved in from the horizon

and covers us all with a fine mist,

we are witness to the lack of being,

the lack of love and the lack of

trust, I feel it as deeply as a three-ring

circus, far too difficult to watch

all three at the same time, I concentrate

on one and hope thats where the real

show is about to take place.

The tent top billows and I know there

is a storm outside yet here in my chair

the rain has yet to permeate the

canvas or filter through my skin to the

bones. I have won but I too have lost

so much, way too much, unable to buy

any of it back. I search anew for something

different and only end up pining more

for what I have lost.

It startles me to think about the cost of

what is left to buy and how I never

covered what was left in my savings

I was ruined before I was born,

as was the rest of the world,

don't write a cheque that won't be accepted

at the liquor store and don't feel anything

when you are expected to be at your worst.

AIR

AIR

PM 120319

What was once crystal-clear has become

cloudy and into the clouds is a Marco

Polo-type adventure, measured by some as 

eternal and long lasting, not fair to us,

that we have run out of lands to discover

and ocean currents to ride into nowhere,

only the wind remains and in the far reaches

of the mind can we travel yet there is so much

fear, a multitude of fears, weighed down by

too many misgivings and tons of regret.

A well-orchestrated fishing trip into my inner

being becomes dangerous as if a storm cloud

had come upon me suddenly and I am lost

at sea without a sail or a hook.

Blindly we pursue the monsters who lead us

out into the deepest waters where there is no

escape and then drown us at their leisure.

How can I possibly exist at this point in the 

universe, am I only taking up space that

someone else is waiting in line to occupy.

Why must I be removed to make room for

someone who has not yet earned the right to

be here and is only going to occupy this chair by

sheer chance, or even luck, if you could ever call 

being where I am as lucky. I stare down the

hall, it is so wide and long and empty,

completely devoid of anything except 

for air and space,

even the air could take a much-needed break

and only I would notice it, but I

could always open the door and let more

air in.

The walls are grey with dust and dirty

with ugliness, yet they have served their

original purpose, to keep other things out

and they have done it well.

I can use the doors but life can't, it

must be directed through and all remains

the same to the walls no matter what type

of biological profanity is occupying the chairs

inside. The fans blow the air around

and out the doors or back up into the

fan only to be blown around again.

The same words that have flown out of

thousands of mouths echoes through the

fans until they are expelled out the door

and up into the sky, into the blue, being careful

not to be caught up in the branches of the

trees lest they dislodge a leaf or strip

away a piece of bark that is trying to 

contain some of the goodness.