I will not spoil
these poems with too many introductory remarks. When they were
written, they were intended to be an honest attempt to record my
feelings at the time and seek after deeper truth through writing. I
no longer have such lofty hopes, or wish to honestly record my
feelings for others or even for myself. It might be better to let
things happen and pass, and not even try to understand. When I began
these poems they were never meant to be shared. They came out of
notebooks I used to keep for myself to look back on when I became
wise, to show the genesis of my ideas. At first I wrote prose. When I
slipped into poetic form I was already losing my chance at rational
mastery of the world around me and becoming a jumble of misplaced
emotions and scattered thoughts, a patchwork of high philosophy and
low cravings. Soon my poems ceased to be for me and began to be for
you. So, here they are.
Confessions of a
Second-Rate Sensitive Mind
by G. Gunhold
“O Weary life, O
weary death!
O spirit and heart made
desolate!
O damned vacillating
state!”- Tennyson
“I don't believe in
God, I turn my back
On thought, and as for
that old irony
Called Love, I want to
hear no more of that again
Too tired to live, too
scared to die,
Unmasted ship loosed on
the sea,
my soul prepares itself
for grim catastrophe”- Anguish, Verlaine
MUMBLED
MESSAGE
I mainly
meander through my meagre maze
making
moments manifest
repeatedly
I cycle
through thoughts
worm-like
wanderer wishing....waiting for,
what
washes ashore, the trash of yesteryear,
my
memories
the most
sacred broke like a ship
on the
harsh wave of manhood
Or
scattered like birds: stoned.
Now all
I recall
reeks of
recollection
a copy
of a copy
my soul
a file clerk
retrieving
precious folders of pictures
we
laughed at the time and made faces
never
knowing all but that mask would go
Now we
hang it on the wall hoping
that
through its hollow eyes the truth will flow
GIFTS
GIVEN, WISDOM FOUND
It is
only worth something if it is for them
So,
this is
for you.
I sit
cross legged,
mismatched
eyes askew,
a
strange smile on my face,
as I
slice open my stomach
and let
guts spill out.
Years of
slime across the page
Here it
is!
So,
you
found some wisdom
down
deep beneath the city
In a den
of whores, drinking and dicing
Well I
found some
with my
picture book and telescope
Up in
the land where shapes shift
white
windblown word worlds
So,
Let our
wisdoms meet on the plains
And hold
a great pow wow
In the
manner of the old war chiefs
Inevitably,
One of
us will lose his land
Yet in
this loss carry back
Another
small penny
To place
in the change jar of knowledge.
Notice
how it shines
Reflective
of the light
Notice
its double nature
doubled
over doubled
In half
RAMBLING
Stumbling
Taking
big bong hits
Benumbling
Anxious
fingers
Enfumbling
My
palace of Art
Decrumbling
The
Truth
Confoundering
In the
sea of life
Befloundering
but
always
Rewandering
back and
back again
SELF
DECONSTRUCTION
Searching
for something to say....
Why
worry your days away,
Searching
for something deep to say?
They
said it in the finest formulations
We pay
them little mind today
Where is
saying going
If not
going away?
Away,
Away, alas, Away,
Derrida,
I heard him say,
Why do
you deconstruct your days
While
others build?
Now they
look down from their tower
I dug
and am misunderstood
The
cellar, the pit
The lie,
I quit
But
could not exit the game.
So I
live frozen
My
destiny chosen
Disappearing
one load-screen away.
RECOLLECTED
IN TRANQUILLITY
Hello old friend
New page
New night-time
We often speak of the same thing.
Is there value in self awareness
If you discover sad little truths?
Is there a purpose in writing
for the stomach, for chills,
melancholy chills,
the sweet sadness of a happy memory
summoned up to a present less so.
It arrives
I greet it with a fumbling longing
wishing to return there
hoping I remember true
trying not to bruise memory's soft skin
with hands calloused by petty sin
I can never stare into these beautiful
eyes for too long
always blurred, incomplete
I look away lost, but
shivers sustain my spirit
as I hide from fear's forest fires
Deep beneath the dead land of the
present
In the dark wet soil that birthed what
used to be
Old friend, old love,
How does one thank what is passed and
gone?
In a letter to no one,
A
hopeless heart felt prayer.
THE LITTLE ENGINE
Stop your choo-chooing, little train
And stop your dreams of jumping the
track
of your destiny
Oh but to tumble in fiery glory
Down the side of that embankment
Rolling and squealing
to come to rest in that green valley,
That you always pass by frantically
circling.
Nevermore to be propelled along that
cruel path
By the burning in your belly.
Your Thomas-Tank face is often sad,
It hurtles forward dreading
Helpless but hungry
Slowly settling
The little engine that could
not escape that dark tunnel,
The great guillotine;
Each day ones neck extends
With each forgotten verse a poem
ends
THE STRONGEST MONKEY
In my own little cage
In that great zoo that is the world
today
The Strongest monkey
Robbed me of much of what I wished to
say.
I used to point up at the sky
With a pained and serious look on my
face
And try to translate mystery
Into grunts and squeaks
It speaks!
The weak one, with sad eyes,
He speaks!
With a soft saying that could never
overpower
Your wild shrieks.
My words; subtle and often confused,
While yours were as simple
As a punch and a bruise.
Yes, your loud words weighed me,
and wondrously, as the years passed
weighed me down true
Ignorant I once hung happy and high
My infant whiteness ripe for feasting
And when I fell to greedy hands
I finally felt my worth increasing
I have prepared some sport for you
strong ones
Don’t let me spoil your games
With my moans and cries
I once thought God and truth sat up in
the skies
But such
thoughts are the weakest monkey's lies
OVERFLOWING OF BEING
Can we waste a moment
In honour of superfluity?
Can we pour a bottle
Down into the dirt in the name of
excess?
I toast emphatically
It is you that allows me to be here
That shelters me from the great storms
of necessity;
In your name I never clear my plate,
And trust that fickle female, Fate.
If this world were finely carved
I would be among the shavings
dancing in the breeze generated
By the buzz saw of becoming.
We must flake off for the hardness of
art to take shape
But do not doubt
That our emptiness is form
Or rather doubt
For certainty has a cold efficiency
That is foreign to us spilled suds.
We sopped over the spice mug
And now we sit in soggy sadness
Sighing stupid songs
That make you wonder
where
this leads.
THE JUDGE
Who dares cast the first
stone of analysis
across the abyss of
incomprehensibility?
One can wonder, or rage
and reach
For that sharp stone
and heave it
in that graceful arc of
insight that strikes
and cuts, the other cries
and lowers his eyes,
He feels your confident
reality
as you extend outwards
a great gobbling amoeba.
No disguise can hide
From that forceful
fastball
That firmly smacks the
writhing spirit of the changeling.
He seeks to ignore the
wound
And continue his awkward
solitary dance
But pain cries and covers
That barely perceptible
glint of gentle dream.
It sparkles and is gone,
replaced by a shooting
sharpness that says
You are
TELLING FRAGMENT
.....But of course life and fate cannot always be so divine. On most
days they abandon one to habit and idle day dreams about how things
should have been done differently. How the man of inaction savours
and betrays the little flutters of true life that brush his face like
a wind from distant stormy coasts. Oh life, I love to play when I am
asked but am too shy to run from under my mothers legs out the front
door into your sinewy arms, I fear you will buffet me about like some
unloved ruffian and then strangle the pointless life out of me.....
WE IGNORANT
sunlight reflects off of
water
engines drone
we fly about
swooping on skis
cutting through wind and
waves
we swim in shallow sunny
water
and skim the surface
dancing in sunlight
innumerable sparkles and
flashes
dazzling,
do you see...
that he who runs deep
runs
from our carefree
playground
Where we ignorant leap
about
With puzzling joy,
like children in false
smiling Disneyland
Delighted,
with each new shining
sight
excited,
flashes, instants, lost in
night
insolently return
I am back again
to face the same daydream
knowledge leaves me...
I sit dumbfounded
reclined in woozy sleep
My thought sinks and rests
come and cuddle with me.
THE SCALES OF JUDGEMENT
Oh how I long
to work a strange alchemy
with these words
the jumble of the day
must drain through the
sieve of my soul
leaving all that was
ignored stuck
And letting fine
observation pass through
Now, what have we here?
Place it on the great
scale of judgement
That sits behind your eye,
Measure it, oh man,
measure of all things.
Ring up the amount.
Deposit it in the bank of
this page
Where it collects
interesting
Possibilities for
profitable interpretation
Or grows poor speculating
On its own worth computed
by the calculator of the
critical faculty
that we all sit around
staring at desperately
as we balance our daily value books
