All we get
In the end is
Our own
Separate Peace.
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All we get
In the end is
Our own
Separate Peace.
The only pleasure that I get now
is from forgetting I exist.
His thoughts were tailored by
The absence of himself
Her words sincere but from
The mind of someone else
Each clicked like a chess clock in the park
Played by strangers in the nude
It’s a simple game we complicate
When we react before we move
Her thoughts were tangled by
The silence in the room
His words unclear because
They sounded from a tomb
Each fit like a shadow in the dark
Exchanging others clothes
It’s a simple game we complicate
What we wanted with the truth—
I’m not a gambling man but I’ve played a hand or two
I’m not a fable or myth but I’ve read what sounded good
A tired man sits idle in the park asking questions with his eyes
I’m not that man in the park but what separates the two?—
It’s a simple game we complicate
When we react before we move
It’s a simple game we complicate
What we wanted with the truth
While the money drains from my pockets like a busted water main I can’t help but wonder—has our existence really boiled down to name badges and paychecks, fedora’s and chino’s, tax breaks and debt? It’s no wonder the streets are filled with broken bodies.
It’s no wonder the idea of the “weekend” has begun to depress me. This invisible structure, unspoken, yet accepted continues to devour our living, chewing us like cud, and then spitting us out to white sheets where we can’t even reach the bedpan without assistance.
A weekend ago I was eating brunch in The Village, drinking a Bloody Mary, eating eggs Benedict, and writing a letter to a friend when I noticed two men noticing me. They asked if I was a writer—each in their 50’s debating women over Mimosa’s—to which I told them I was just going through the motions of my 20’s. They both smiled, shared a laugh of remembrance, and went back to arguing. If I was smart I’d play the game, perhaps try to sell myself even. One day I thought, but for now, I’m an artist stuck in his artist ways, trying his best not to care that he can’t afford the eggs, the rent, or brunch in The Village for that matter.
The lengths we’ll go to prove a point
are nothing compared
to the lengths we’ll go to save a life.
There’s something cynical in your smile
as if I rubbed off some and forgot to say,
that I’m not that kind of cynic.
And I feel no joy from any of this.
There was new life once
In this old house
Which echos lonely footsteps
—silence rants and raves—
Trudging towards Nirvana
My confidence comes and goes
like passing showers in Southern California.
I wish I could have been
The air of reason
Forever calm
Before the storm
Instead of becoming
Those howling winds
Those howling winds
You knew before
But having been
Picked over plenty
Like a jukebox full
Of another’s score
And though I never
Sought to reign
Like Aprils Fool
I seem to pour
Forgive me father
For I have sinned
Repented, and
Will sin again—
My son, dear Michael
Finnegan
3 Hail Mary’s
I’ll see you then.