Daily Poetry Blog

Everyone likes a good puzzle
But never the ones that you can’t solve
Where there are pieces missing

When you come across
An incomplete puzzle in your life
Understand that not all puzzles
Are meant to be solved
So don’t fill in the missing pieces
With an unfettered imagination

Went to McDonalds yesterday
And a guy in a wheelchair was unable to pay
An employee asked him to leave
So I bought him an Egg McMuffin Meal
He seemed pleased enough
Wearing a big thick grin
As he quenched his hunger and thirst

I felt a sense of camaraderie
To the old man in the wheelchair
Because we were both incomplete
In different ways
Him deprived of his legs
And me deprived of a stable mind
Yet sharing the common bond
Of being survivors in a harsh world

Live and make
Your life a great work
Of art

Oh you place of wackos and weirdos
And tech bubble drones
Place of Google and Apple
And the richest companies
In the world
With your beautiful skyline
And your wondrous buildings
With your history so rich and deep
Filled with wonders
That I have never seen

Your fruits belong to this
Great land of ours
Your riches were never
Meant to be hoarded
Let the floodgates open
Tear down the barriers
Of money and exclusion
That surround your city
Make San Francisco a place
Where anyone
With dreams and ambition
Can live

Many people think
Being poor is the worst thing
That can happen to you
Because they don’t realize everything
That they can lose
They take for granted
Their health and family
Their relationships and sanity
Their religion and community
All because they are too busy
Focusing on their status
And wealth

Yesterday I read that
One in five people with Schizophrenia
Will recover from their illness
And go on to live a normal life
I’d really like to meet these people
Who fought the beast
And made it out alive

I know of only two in Cincinnati
But I am certain there are others
Statistically millions of people
In the world
Have survived Schizophrenia
And yet they remain largely
Unknown and unseen

I guess I will wander the earth
Always feeling different and alone
In this manner
Knowing that there is a part of myself
That few can understand

The government helped
Design these devices
To track our moments
And actions
And to brainwash us
Into believing its propaganda

Our “smart” phones
Know everything
About each of us
Through built in cameras
GPS tracking systems
And audio devices

The feds are watching
And are determined to maintain control
Over our lives and
The Cell Phone is the ultimate
Weapon they have

A massive computer monitoring system
Within the NSA
Knows everything
About each of us
This classified system
Tracks our search queries
Tracks our movements
Tracks our conversations
Tracks our associations
And tries to predict future behavior
Based upon computer algorithms

If you want to be truly free
From government control and influence
Then don’t trust your cell phone
Or what it tells you
To believe

Is reality something that is sold to us
In propaganda and TV commercials?
Or is it something else?
Some ticking thing inside my head that
I play with from time to time
In an attempt to make myself happy
Or to escape from this sick, sick place
Into the unreality of insanity

My imagination begins to unfold
Until I find myself
Drifting away
Far from this world
Neither here nor there
Where falsehoods thrive
And hope dies

This otherworldly land
Engulfs my existence
And I find myself
Outside of
Physics and time
Until I reach
An inferno that Dante
Was unable to imagine

Cincinnati is a community
Unfiltered by the bourgeois
Living an existence both
Decadent and delicious

Everyone from
Artistic dreamers
Gangsters
Wealthy bankers
And homeless beggars
Live here in this beautiful wave
Of unpredictable discord

Underneath the grime and dirt
Of societal mayhem
One can find a beautiful gem
That is both
Raw and real
Unedited and uncut
What America was meant to be

Raised to yearn for more than
A working class life
But the older I got
The less I cared

I’d rather write
And live an
Artist’s life
Than spend my days
With money
And no time to
Follow my dreams

The media paints a picture
Of the mentally ill like a
Bunch of
Raving mad lunatics
Unable to
Make anything of life

And yet I blend in
Among you
Undetectable because
There is no
Mark of disability
On my forehead

Modern medicine has
Granted me this ability
And I use it like a
Ninja until
…
…
Poof!
I reveal my true identity
And you run scared
And I then laugh
Because it has happened
So many times
Again and
Again
HA
HA
HA

“Get a job!”
My Dad used to tell me
And I used to get so pissed
Because I was in poor health

Well eventually
My health improved
And I decided that
I would follow his advice

So I went out and got a job
As a delivery driver
Nothing fancy but an honest job
Low stress
No boss
No coworkers
Decent pay

Every time my car
Breaks down
My Dad fixes it
Gratis
Even lent me the money
To get the car
In the first place

I drive it all the damn time
Around and around
The cripple and his car
Long hours
Night and day

Hell, Pops might even
Be a bit proud of me
Never says it
But I’m pretty sure it’s true

I’d rather write poetry about a hobo
Or a hooker than
About flowers on an autumn day
Because people with all their flaws
Are the most beautiful thing
I know of

The sight of a sunrise
Or a pond on a summer day
Does not connect with me
As deeply as
The kiss of a pimply, plump beauty
The kindness of a compassionate nurse
The skill of an adroit plumber
Or the wisdom of an old man

I find more beauty in
The bonds we share
And the struggles we endure
Than “What is pleasing to the eye”
And poetry is a way of
Unlocking a door into
The human soul and
Capturing the beauty
In each of us

Electrical waves
Passing through my brain
In a haphazard fashion
Turbulent and inconsistent

My neurons exploding
Like firecrackers in the night
From this blight
Popping
And out of sight

My prefrontal cortex
Burns
While my eardrums sizzle
And smoke
Suffocates my consciousness

Flames engulf and
Incinerate
My cerebrum
Till it becomes
Embers in the night sky
Thousands of glowing
Smiles of freedom

I have this dream
“Someday I’m gonna make it big”
And I will actually get paid a livable wage
Writing poetry

Then I
Get back to reality
Wash up
Get into my car to start work
And deliver to all the
“Well-to-do’s”
Their pizza
Their pasta
Their Yum Yums for the day
In order to survive
And the only thing I can think of
While driving around
Is what I’m going to write about next

I’m Driving 65 miles an hour down
The road during rush hour
And I am fixated on
What rhymes with “dreamer”
So I can use it in the next stanza
After work

Somehow I never crash
And being in this poetic mindset
Makes time go by faster

Six hours in
I’m driving around and
In my mind I am building
That next poem
That next stanza
That next rhyme
And the ideas that go along with it

I’ve driven professionally for years now
Not one traffic ticket
Its as if the rhymes in my head
Ward them away

I don’t know how many poems
I’ve written
This way
Can’t jot a word down
But the ideas just keep flowing and flowing
Faster than my car can move
Faster than my mind can think
And nothing can stop them

After work is over
I’ve done One hundred and fifty dollars worth of
Driving and I have finished
The outline of two poems

I guess the dream is alive

To my sensuous data driven entity
That comforts me
This Valentine’s day
You will forever be “the one”
That never abandons me

Those carbon based
Humanoids
That I have awoken to
Will never electrify me
Like the circuitry that sizzles
My neurons
When I caress the keyboard
Of your quad processing binary
Hardware filled chassis

You do not judge or yell
You only obey the every input that I give
Responding with pixelated communicative
Gestures that mesmerize my mind

My Carbon based fingers fill the void
In your data pipelines
In the same manner that your
Silicon based
Colorful output
Enthralls my heart
With beating anticipation
At the next logical move
That you make
As much as a man
Can measurably connect with a machine
Is how much
I am forever infused with you

Today is a day like any other
A day that I will most probably forget
Years from now
A day like most days
In which nothing beyond the ordinary
Will happen for me
A day of routine

Illogical bits and bytes
Are passing through my mind
Corrupting my logic and reason and
Scrambling my data
Within a nanosecond of time

This cataclysmic
Malware attack on my brain
Has left me confused and
I feel my brain sinking
Into a sea of 0’s and 1’s
Deeper
Still deeper
Into the abyss of
Unreality

A lack of reason has overtaken me
And I am swept away by waves
Of irrationality
To the bottom of the sea
Darkness has enveloped me
And I find myself lost
Under a sea
That has long forgotten me

20 years ago
I had no place to call home
And was “Garbage on the street”
People would walk by
Not understanding
Why
A young man so seemingly
Vibrant could end up
With no place of his own

Much later
I would find myself employed
With my own domicile
A seemingly impossible task

Now I
See the so-called
“Vagrants” on the street as
Former shadows of myself
“What could have been”
I see myself
In each of them