samuel dotson – Page 29

An Honest Day’s Work

What is an honest day’s work? Certainly not what happens here. It all feels so hollow. So… inconsequential. Nothing really happens here. Numbers go up, numbers go down. Meetings all day, every day. Nothing really changes. Same thing. Day in, day out. Sit at a desk. Walk to get coffee. Back to the desk. Maybe take a vacation at the end of the year. Go to Bali or Cancun. Whatever. No adventures, no quests, no treks. Back to the office, back home, clacking keyboards and haughty metronomes. A building full of cardboard cutouts that never seem to wither or fold. All oblivious to the pain that lies underneath a thin veneer of niceties and falsehoods told and retold until hearts give out and cubicles are emptied.

Faring Not So Well

Almost as if

The feeling itself

That being numb

It might be better

But whether it’s the former or the latter

Here I sit

Dreaming of forgotten malls

And Taj Mahals

Wishing I could feel something other than the one that gnaws

At my heart

At my bones

On my mind

And on my toes

Can you hear them?

Can you feel them?

Phantoms and spectres

Invisible

Screaming

Begging

My heart, it begs the question:

“Love me?”

Ever The Romantic

Somehow, I manage to retain my ability to see the world in rose-colored glasses no matter the circumstances. I look up through the clouds and see the stars shining just so brightly that I am basked in the faintest of lights. A world in which the problems I face are but a bump on a road to something greater. Gotta keep looking forward, that’s where your eyes face.

My Heart In California

There I am

Heart in the sand

In California where I wish I could stand

Smell the sea

And hear the gulls

Ships passing by, so many hulls

Cliffs by the ocean

Penguins in the spring

The queerest little notion

Perhaps you’d like this ring?

Hear wedding bells

Adorned in seashells

Listen to what the wind tells

That golden, shining bridge

Spied from a ridge

I think that’s where I’d like to be with you

What A Day To Wake Up

Not hungover, not particularly in shambles or anything of the sort. Simply feeling rotten and worried about the many things you’re under pressure to do and be a part of. The many thoughts and feelings you have that you so desperately try to repress. It doesn’t help to bottle it up. It helps to let it go. Try not to shake the bottle though, lest the contents explode. That would make a mess.

Sure to be Dying

Roiling, riling, writhing in my gut

A pit’s been dug, just for the bodies

Found myself in quite the rut

They’ll find me, they’ll find you

Always searching, one and two

Always looking for something new,

Something evil to do

Sick to my stomach

Try to find that thing I still lack

It feels like flying

Though we’re sure to be dying

It hurts like hell

As bloated midsection swells

Ain’t it swell?

The stories of great evil that it tells

Painting In The Park

What a beautiful day to paint in the park. Sitting here with my two friends painting and listening to music. I paint a campfire and serpent under a starry sky. I feel the cool air and the grass under my fingers, canvas under my brush. Dandelions dot the shaggy fields of green clovers, shining up and into me like stars shine down on particularly clear night. The purple padding of an open guitar case starkly contrasts these greens and yellows, an idiosyncrasy in a field of found flowers. I can’t believe I woke up hungover.

Hangover

My head’s hurt

So brief and so curt

Hard to put together

Birds of a feather

I can’t think

Fearing now that i should sink

Lost forever, deep in the drink

Missing against a backdrop sewn from mink

Protagonist

Antagonist

Both atop the list

Either way you’ve got the gist

Ein Geist

A spirit or a ghost

Caught in a vice

How gracious a host

Birds scream and sing outside the window

As grass in the wind winnows

A cold day today

There through the window, Sunshine, A ray!

Probably 6:45?

Busy, busy, busy. So much to do, so little time. Yanked in every direction by the passing threads and hands of everything and everyone who’d simply like to reach out. Many thoughts and many feelings fly about in my head, rushing one way or another, always making sure their near misses are just close enough to give me a heart attack. I do hope you enjoy the poem today. What a wonderful day it is.

Sinisterium

How the bell tolls

Sounding at the hour

Not to mark the time

But something much more dour

That taste in your mouth

Errant vicissitude

Turn from sweet to sour

Ashes then and ashes now

Ring around the Rosie

And we all fall down

A cacophony of sirens

Binding men in liar’s irons

See there so hidden in the fog

There the pyres, there the pylons

Sinister in their construction

Obscure in their function

Can you hear them shrieking?

Can you hear their desperation?

Mark the date

For your infernal consultation

I set the scene

You play the part

Watch right there

Shadows in the dark