Until My Coffin Ignites

I spell out myself Or is it I spill out myself All in the hope Of nothing That's not true There's always A purpose A goal To flexing linguistics Lyrical gifts Syllabic clippings Or entrails of my Ego, superego and Id Or collected scraps On that old dustpan In the corner Set aside until The bin is changed Space among The wrappers and rubble — It's hard to be afraid Of monsters And distant etchings Of humanity When you know How capable I am With tools of Chiseled deception And lingering lies — Sometimes The pen has A mind of its own But often that's Spin Like an announcement You wanted to make But didn't want to feel so blase So you covert it How did that get out Did my feelings run amok I know they didn't # Going with the flow Means you know Exactly where Your words may take you But go there anyway Because reverse Is not progress Regression Is not digression # People often say Your work got darker Less hope Less light Is it midforty crisis Or dead dad dichotomy I wonder So much Until I don't care — Squelching dragon Forlorn kitten — I end this year as I started it Naked though not actually Exposed though nothing changes Unsure if I even want to be your hero Of word and phrase Plot and human emotional dissection # But I do Of course I do I always do # The myth is the cover story The spin — I'm just in it for the dance and the dabbling With my two right feet Because no one is brave enough to say that Always two left feet — Self inflicted Ars poetica Like arse I used to when it was firmer # Control v leakage The dance of the poetics When you find p words instead of d words for poetry For that last bit you fumbled # The search for the dilettante led me Like pencil shavings To versifier But troubadour is what we hope for — The Boss internal That bleeds American dreams Even in Scotland Tales of hope and the other thing My friend the despair — Dead dad dichotomy Dead dad dichotomy I am sure # No one ever gets out of this alive And I am not done Until my coffin ignites # I am Not Horace your poetic horse but I am I am what I am not I am not Othello Always Iago Or the picture of Dorian Not the man —#— Strong like Roman Ego Greek Scottish pride Diatribe Noise moist Maker breath Taker Dead dad vulnerability Dead dad inevitability * Author’s Notes: Aspen Marie deserves a shout-out, because this only formed after we comment-chatted. So thanks, lass.