APW: Themed Free Verse

understand that we understand nothing
our notions of truth and what is
are temporary key signatures for the birds
forgotten coins in the crevices of car seats
our ideas exist to be mocked and toyed with
like a volunteer tomato carried over the ocean
fulfilling its purpose through its shortcomings
there is no turning the clock back
but we can walk an inch on the map
and be thankful we made it this far

in our modern masterpieces


we've become
stars in finite skies
i think how hard it is
to not fantasize
if one had a remote control
and short patience
they’d glimpse my mind
like slot machines in action
the golden street
a dog's moonlit shadow
clouds interrupting the rainbow
the beginning of the end:

a child’s first word

they’d see as i see
the underachievers lost
in the unmistaken undertow
all the sewage gushing out onto the streets
all this procedure and progress
and prolific procreation, except
more people don't always breed
sustainable positivism
there are newborn genius
and meaning in every child
but the turning of a day
shows that nothing tangibly lasts forever

when did we become blind
to the webs we’ve spun with one another
we no longer see anyone
we don’t know anyone’s name
their favorite color
or how they cry when they wake up
because their dream has died
all the potential in the world
and we find ourselves floating in a hot air balloon
drifting into the boundary of inner space

my mind has grown down rather than up
it is filled with underground fantasies
the trick is i learned too late
already confronted with childhood status
superhero rain drops and tongue depressed stimulus plans
problem of this chapter:
I’ve already started at capacity
solution: 
new amendments to my soil
require good drainage

though i'm not yet through other side of the tunnel,
i'm catching the light that filters through in a new way,
this world is built on perspectives and while mine keeps
growing with new angles as i experience different
cultures, ideas, people, i am forging in my mind
an almost tangible shape of the world, but this universe
doesn't have too much of a tangible shape either, at least
not from our human perspective, but if we dig to a deeper
elemental simpler level we can more easily ascertain
what surrounds us and our lack of control and acceptance
of that lack of control.  the postulations will never end, the
universe will never end, our last breath escaping
our bodies on this earth is not the end

there is no more room for dead languages
where do the words on the screen go
when they are edited out of existence
do they join the cowboys from centuries past

the indigenous tribes 
before the missionaries
burst through thatched roofs uninvited


or are they thwarted as outcast
like the third llama
who was banished from noah's ark

alongside the first dummy
intended to estimate
the harm of a car crash

the quiet before the gunshot
inner workings of a clock
stone plopped into a calm pond

is all of history now huddled around a fire
sharing stories
about time that matters




itall

i read it all
on the faces of card players
looking up from their one eyed jacks
hiding behind the shaded lenses
of their selves
i see it all
in pursuing eyes and gleaming teeth
the aftermath of the strike
and i hear it too
in the washing machine's music
i wear it all
on these burdened fingers
just the tip of histories failures
the weighted down generational old
traditions too outdated
for the unknown tomorrow
i feel it all
when a rainforest falls
unnaturally
i dream it all
the white rabbit tip toeing silently
rendering what is meant to happen
and our ability to change it
i slip through it all
into the white noose
next to the hanging planters
hidden in the wild flowers
right where the dead languages die
i understand it all
as a jade vine blossoms
there can be only one
of everything in the world
yet in each inherent uniqueness
we are too proud to join hands
with the weight of our pasts
it’s easier to sink into hazy depths
like strangers in a night storm
than to rise together like flour yeast and water
i sense it all
when the train's choo-choo fades
into the oblvious horizon
ignorant of the secrets its possesses
like a lady ignorant of the effect
she has on the white rabbits
i smell it too
on the fur of a wet city rat
i think it all
leads to somewhere else
i wish it all
proves me wrong
i know it all
and i know nothing
i follow it all
to the end
and chase its tail
back to the beginning