On Saturday, May 20, 2023 at 12:46:45 PM UTC-4, Robert Morpheal wrote:

Robert Morpheal is a poet who's been posting to usenet including RAP for (I think) decades.

His usual method is to assemble a month's worth of poems (I counted 11 in this thread) and post them all in one post. That may have worked in the slow days, when a poem would stay on the group's front page for an entire month, but with the increasing frequency of posts it could be out of sight in mere days. Meaning that someone who visits infrequently could miss it entirely.

So, since I am glad Robert has chosen to post here, and would like to help him find his audience, I'm giving his poems a bump.

Ladies and gentleman, Robert Morpheal.

> 030523A
> -----------
>
> I cannot say
> and I cannot say it is
> going particularly well
> though it is going
> even if going nowhere
> other than going around
> in dwindled circles.
>
> The crowd thinned
> to next to nothing left
> and the flock dying out
> due to unknown causes
> the making of plans
> rendered redundant
> becomes far too trivial.
>
> We tell our usual lies
> self promoting
> our common deceptions
> in between consigned
> to watching a few more
> tawdry little spectacles
> disguised as entertainment.
>
> No one does anything
> that used to be done
> in any satisfying ways
> and we are given our selves
> to take all the blame
> for how it has all changed
> into less than truly pleasant.
>
> Seems interesting people
> no longer actually shop
> at the same outlets
> that we are given to frequent
> creating serious doubts
> about their actual existence
> in these times have changed.
>
> Do nothings have taken control
> of the social slaughterhouse
> stamping and signing
> those endless declarations
> that define what is unwanted
> outside of common and tedious
> mass market produced things.
>
> We become witnesses
> to the death of the individual
> and that new epiphany
> that sanctifies and prepares
> for the artificial and robotic
> takeovers of action, reaction
> and of love and consciousness.
>
> It is no longer your choice
> and they tell you it never was
> so you keep tangling the strings
> until the hand that jerks you around
> threatens to not feed you
> for being too much trouble
> as it fingers your ugliness and faults.
>
> It is only your non conformity
> that then keeps you nearly alive
> even if everything falls short
> of being anything to be realized
> as anything that is truly living
> in terms of being experience
> that could escape the ordinary.
>
> It is the excess of ordinary
> that is really killing us slowly
> and some eventually decide
> to make their quick exits
> by the few remaining doors
> that let them out of the same old
> more, and more, of the same.
>
> Existence having been reduced
> down to being a revolving door
> at the entrance to a department store
> where you are shown everything
> that you can possibly have
> but mostly cannot really afford
> for showing off to make friends.
>
> Why does it matter if it is going
> and where it is going to
> or if it is going anywhere at all
> and in a million years
> where has it all gone to
> so where is it all going to go
> in a million years from now.
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> 130523A
> -----------
>
> It is only to shoot you down
> as to what they are up to
> while slathering what they think
> is your ego and vanity
> in a fattening up for a kill.
>
> All that buttered up for nothing
> more than browning your roast
> while pretending to eat up
> everything that you say or do
> while they sharpen their knives.
>
> They do not trust you at all
> because they know you
> having had the experience before
> that makes it all more hollow
> than a hollow sort of victory.
>
> No one really wins anything
> until the clown show ends
> and even then it is nothing
> more than a booby prize
> that is really for the birds.
>
> It gets to that point
> where you no longer care
> what they happen to say
> because you no longer believe
> even one stale word of it.
>
> Then they cut you off
> and for them it is a slice
> that does not give a damn
> about the raw or the cooked
> side of any of your ideas.
>
> -------------------------------
>
> 170523A
> -----------
>
> It is the various decisions
> other people make
> that ruin it all for you
> but you take all the blame.
>
> That makes you feel real
> and it makes them into illusions
> that you chanced to create
> in your own sick imagination.
>
> They could never be like that
> and what were you thinking
> in that sick mind of yours
> that thinks ill of any of them.
>
> You know there is no one
> who is ever really the way
> that you think that they are
> and you will never get it right.
>
> You disassociate yourself
> and you lock yourself in
> to a mandatory privacy bubble
> with whatever you do not need.
>
> There you commune with the dead
> immersed in what they left behind
> then they packed it in
> at having had and lost too much.
>
> There is a war, there is a war
> between anyone about anything
> that breaks out anywhere
> where you least expected it.
>
> You needed something different
> but you never knew what it was
> and if you ever do know anything
> it is too late to make any difference.
>
> They do not want you to know
> but they want to know
> anything you keep to yourself
> so they can talk about you.
>
> Whatever it is that they say
> that they never say to your face
> is deforming your future for you
> in sleazy back room discussions.
>
> Given the sort of mental deformity
> that perfectly suits a bell ringer
> dangled from the clanger
> that clangs annoyingly on high.
>
> People still get rubbed out
> but rarely the old school way
> so most get to experience more
> of what is now called cancel culture.
>
> No need to even try
> because that is the trouble
> and it all begins right there
> with trying to get somewhere.
>
> You notice the people who never try
> all appear to be more popular
> and they seem to have the money
> that you can never find any of.
>
> Part of the disincentive system
> that helps promote gambling and vice
> along with other similar rackets
> as the more popular pastimes.
>
> Everyone else is terrified of you
> because you failed to take that slide
> that coasts down easy hill
> and they do not want to work at it.
>
> You are not going anywhere
> that you could ever want to go
> but that too is a choice
> someone said that you made.
>
> You thought you had the time
> to somehow figure it all out
> counting up the knots
> and toying with the abacus.
>
> You once counted rosary beads
> but it was nothing religious
> beyond another little episode
> of playing at another pop culture.
>
> You add up the sum of friends
> that you could actually afford
> and then you realize the fact
> you are still massaging debts.
>
> Whatever it really was
> it did not get you in
> any further than stale rumours
> of their fabulous parties.
>
> They decided your spend
> was nowhere near enough
> and word got around
> what a cheapskate you are.
>
> You thought you really could
> make it all up to yourself
> to get on your feet forward
> but that is not the way it works.
>
> Someone else got there first
> to make a complete mess of it all
> so then they dirtied you up
> with all that futile clean up.
>
> You never found your luck
> and there were no lucky breaks
> but in between attempts
> you could put up a pretense.
>
> You live on that borderline
> of condemned for pretending
> and not being taken for real
> no matter how you do it.
>
> They never want the reality
> so you feed them an illusion
> that you keep just for them
> knowing they expect that.
>
> Every path you were on
> you had to dance along
> to a different drummer
> but no one played your song.
>
> If you could play it yourself
> you know no one would listen
> as they hate any one man band
> as something too annoying.
>
> They will not dance to your tune
> and you cannot dance to their's
> but even if you could go that far
> they would never dance with you.
>
> Nowadays they refer to all that
> in entirely different words
> as the pursuit of happiness
> saying you have to be happy.
>
> There is no choice about that
> that you have to be happy
> and if you are not totally happy
> there is something wrong with you.
>
> Complaints department is closed
> and the guarantees expired long ago
> so there is no money back
> no matter how you beg or work for it.
>
> There is no place for discontent
> among today's little mobs
> resembling animated emulations
> of officially catalogued influencers.
>
> You can wallow in the digital mud
> covering yourself with it
> trying to not be recognized
> as anything they hate you to be.
>
> Follow the bouncing tweets
> and talk like the characters
> that are seen on the screens
> of what now passes as culture.
>
> What can you do now
> when doing is so unpopular
> and if you do anything
> you will be doing it alone.
>
> Particularly if it is anything
> that is not being done by the others
> who all try to do the same things
> to not upset factory production.
>
> You will never make it
> as to making anyone happy
> because it is a sell out crowd
> where you can never belong.
>
> You never made the right choices
> whatever those actually were
> and it has been a very long time
> since you thought that you knew.
>
> You came from a gone world
> and your species was wiped out
> or maybe you were wiped out
> and they all moved on from there.
>
> You are that mutant thing
> that has no idea where it belongs
> having missed the last train
> that carried off all of the evolved.
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> 180523A
> ------------
>
> Thought that you would call
> or show up somewhere
> at some far end of it all
> that amounts to the unexpected.
>
> I always really hoped
> you are someone I never knew
> because that breaks the patterns
> of casual and usual disappointments.
>
> And besides all of that
> there really is almost nothing left
> as to anything that I used to be
> for someone to scrape up.
>
> There are too many mistakes
> that they gave me to making
> and the damage points
> have annihilated my character.
>
> Leaving me on the vague side
> of what was once flesh and blood
> only really wanted by anyone
> if it was entirely unavailable.
>
> The joystick is stuck
> and it fails to toggle properly
> so the lips fail to move
> the way they are supposed to do.
>
> No one ever really wanted
> what they could actually have
> unless it was for the sole purpose
> of dragging it around to rejecting it.
>
> Cats and dogs do it that way
> bringing you something that is dead
> as a special sort of present
> and people do it in a similar way.
>
> Another less than subtle meditation
> about the nature of power
> and how I never give them enough
> to make it worth their bother.
>
> Not having enough to give
> tends to play out that way
> and I never really learned
> how to hurt someone properly.
>
> If I were a kintsukuroi vase
> maybe you would still notice me
> out from among the better made
> where I am only the damage.
>
> For years having tried so hard
> to find a way to find you
> only to find it is never that way
> that one can chance to be found.
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
> 180523B
> -----------
>
> Not sitting on the clouds today
> and cannot really escape
> that sudden free fall feeling
> where it all goes down again
> from carried up to nothing special.
>
> I wonder if anyone does it anymore
> or if everyone is playing it safe
> as to maintaining strict boundaries
> of the most severe boredom
> disguised as predictable habits.
>
> Feels as if I have not met anyone
> at least anyone interesting and new
> in what seems a thousand years
> that being the same duration
> they predicted for the Third Reich.
>
> And that lasted far too long
> the way some marriages tend to last
> until those wars come to an end
> followed by long war crimes trials
> and the usual armistice agreements.
>
> Not saying it is always that way
> and not making a blanket condemnation
> as to what gets bundled up
> and what ends up getting thrown out
> in the course of making histories.
>
> Most people seem to like to pretend
> that there is no actual bomb
> poised hanging above their heads
> and that home means something more
> than a potential ground zero.
>
> We do not want to disturb them
> with anything that might seem serious
> and that tends to limit the subjects
> to who died, who lived, and sexy sports
> and wondering who is screwing who.
>
> You have to close your mind up tight
> to anything remotely resembling reality
> if you really want to live there
> in between the hidden debt loads
> and the lurking bill collectors.
>
> It passes as a sort of no man's zone
> from where you hear shots being fired
> because someone got pissed off
> about who got something or someone
> in all the getting that was going on.
>
> I would have rather have done cocktails
> at the Hemingway in Paris
> but I am down to the dregs of a cheap beer
> trying to convince myself by myself
> that that is actually a form of enjoyment.
>
> There is something screaming inside of me
> similar to that alien burst of birthing
> that says get me out of here
> but there is no sign of any extrication
> from where I am pinned down.
>
> What does it really do when it comes
> all crashing down again as it goes
> and all that you really wanted to do
> was to go to a really posh party
> to have what passes as a wild time.
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> 180523C
> -----------
>
> We used to get together somewhere
> which was somewhere that was
> before they screwed us out of it all
> and that becomes the routine outcome
> of that and any other procedure.
>
> If I knew money the way some know it
> there could have been something
> instead of being The Hermit who wanders
> between the concrete and the stars
> looking for any more credible visions.
>
> Must have over reached myself
> and it all comes down
> to that falling backwards as a child
> into some permanent condition
> of caught half way between worlds.
>
> Someone already burned The Lovers
> because they saw a devil in it
> and I am so tired of playing The Fool
> pulling my broken but heavy chains
> along that narrow edge of a drop.
>
> Why did I even bother to teeter
> and totter the brink of the abyss
> rather than simply leaping into it
> feet first in an act of total submission
> as another easy way of letting go.
>
> Isn't that what most of them do
> not even caring anymore
> if there is anyone down there
> to catch them when they go down
> on whatever they go down onto.
>
> Even the devils are now singing
> those same old hallelujahs
> as if anyone can please the Lord
> if they engage in any sort of battle
> under their propped up battle kings.
>
> There was nothing on any papers
> so they rolled them up as scrolls
> dissipated into puffs of smoke
> becoming dark angel wings
> meant to carry someone off.
>
> That is how it sometimes goes
> as to a tiny little spark that is seen
> between the death and life of it
> between the afterbirth and the decay
> that can take up a few moments.
>
> The Ace of Cups once overturned
> is nothing but an empty flagon
> and all the placards now
> on other people's wailing walls
> in those far less pleasant temples.
>
> There is no one to give it back
> once it has gone that way
> but we are nothing much more
> than the knives that are stuck
> in our backs at the end of our day.
>
> -----------------------------------------
>
> 180523D
> -----------
>
> Wishing there was somewhere to go
> but there is nothing in the catalogue
> pertaining to various current events
> that is in any way really interesting.
>
> We wanted something very different
> to playing those sorts of games
> and vainly claiming to everyone
> that any of it does us any real good.
>
> We could make false claims
> that we grew out of what there was
> not needing or wanting it anymore
> so we freely gave it all up.
>
> For the sole purpose of regrets
> that then keep circulating
> the way canned music circulates
> and never seems to die down.
>
> We are left pretending to lap up
> the replacements to all of that
> the way a cat laps up fresh milk
> even if we have no taste for it.
>
> At least that is something white
> and white is now all the latest rage
> among those who are all pretending
> that they really are someone.
>
> Made as pure as a white out
> in the middle of a white out winter
> that purges out the sky
> and covers everything else over.
>
> After all it can take up the time
> and we can always make believe
> that we were far less lonely to visit
> any of those filling stations.
>
> Sniffing those heady vapours
> we can smash against bedtime
> pummelling a crush of pillow
> with more convincing arguments.
>
> We simply had the wrong ideas
> about what there would be to do
> somewhere at the start of it all
> until the accountants stepped in.
>
> They put meters on everything
> to monitor the prices we have to pay
> for more desirable bits and pieces
> of what amounts to nothing.
>
> I tell you it was not always that way
> but you never believe what I say
> and you then refuse to actually look
> at the Memento mori I have collected.
>
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> 180523E
> -----------
>
> That wild shot into the void
> of what is purely personal
> that no one wants to really share
> as to finding it so disturbing.
>
> Trying to avoid the so much more
> as though avoiding forbidden
> on endless new revisions
> added to lists of mortal sins.
>
> As though there is not much left
> that can remain guilt free
> and all that looking around
> to make sure others are doing it.
>
> All those who are worried sick
> about always being safe
> and keeping everything healthy
> until it is a full time obsession.
>
> There are healthy obsessions
> and there are various enjoyments
> which then create the conflicts
> that clutter up any mental spaces.
>
> All of that is really about work
> being redefined and redefining us
> as properly intellectual bulimics
> vomiting what might get in the way.
>
> There are more things killing you
> than are intent on keeping you alive
> and you never really learned
> to look after yourself.
>
> So you take your instructions
> from any number of sources
> telling you want you must always do
> and what you must never do.
>
> There is not much left
> beyond running in repetitive circles
> in an effort to rediscover sleep
> before the morning alarm goes off.
>
> It comes right down to where
> you choose to shop and to what
> you choose to buy there
> kept in fear of being left out.
>
> They only pay for the brand names
> and not everyone can have one
> but a lot of people are trying
> to brand themselves for sale.
>
> It is what you cannot afford
> that will end up killing you
> and the price is always sky high
> grasping at a prayer of a chance.
>
> You used yourself up on the way
> until you got too worn out
> for anyone to really bother with
> as to adding you in to their plan.
>
> You paid the wrong price
> and it never bought any favours
> no star on your door
> and nothing on the calendar.
>
> You get a dirty look
> in exchange for your trouble
> and someone is telling you
> even the king is a fink.
>
> ---------------------------
>
> 180523F
> ----------
>
> No one looks after anything
> that you do not do yourself
> but you never thought of that
> and you realized it too late.
>
> You get to live with that
> but that is all that you get
> to actually live with
> leaving gaps you cannot fill.
>
> Feeling as though a slave
> accused of running away
> creating breaks in your record
> even if it is a false accusation.
>
> There is no defence
> and you are always guilty
> no matter how you turn it
> and no matter what you say.
>
> No one is ever saved by work
> but everyone is seeking salvation
> despite their denials of belief
> in anything or anyone.
>
> We fall through the holes
> in that or anything there is
> and the only thing it proves
> is that no one really cares.
>
> Forgotten or too late
> ends up being all there is
> and it fell through the holes
> that eat up bits of any life.
>
> There is the lost and the broken
> that you cannot ever replace
> and nothing ever comes back
> when it is gone without a trace.
>
> They came and they went
> but none of them chose to stay
> making you feel something then
> but most of that feeling delayed.
>
> Worked too long and hard
> getting nothing for that
> while creating vape trails
> of dissipated memories.
>
> No one actually remembered
> and no one ever came around
> having better places to be gone to
> and better things to be done to.
>
> Squandered the love
> and you know it scores nothing
> where no one was anything
> more than dreamy eyed.
>
> Once had a dream and dreamt
> a dream of trying to live it
> not knowing how not to
> that could make any difference.
>
> After that it recurs in the night
> coming up in various disguises
> that seem far less pleasant
> than what it was meant to be.
>
> Even in theory it is all closed
> as another forbidden subject
> crossing hard lines and fences
> angers always angry fates.
>
> It is only another bad feeling
> to be made guilty about
> even if feelings do not last
> in the ways they come and go.
>
> It went to the better
> and it went to the worse
> but in between all of that
> it falls through holes.
>
> It will never be again
> but then it never really was
> and that is how holes are made
> where we thought we had choices.
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> 180523G
> -----------
>
> Used to go for all the reasons
> that there ever are for going
> but then that too ended
> the way too much ended before
> and too much always ends.
>
> Seems nowhere left to go
> if you really want the sort of life
> that I always really wanted
> knowing no one does any of that
> anywhere anymore.
>
> Between the rummage and junk
> and between the coming and going
> from the nothing gets done
> there were the times we believed
> it would all go differently.
>
> You find you are in confession
> not having the price of admission
> having been stopped at the door
> where you tore up your entry
> lacking any pleas to deaf ears.
>
> The ticket you thought you had
> had already exploded
> and that blows everyone away
> even if it is the wrong people
> and it is to the wrong destinations.
>
> That cliche metaphor was used before
> but the original authors failed
> to decipher some of the meanings
> so we have to exhume that corpse
> and examine the same thing again.
>
> That report needing to be filed
> along with other contrary reports
> having no better use for words
> that have reached the outer limits
> of what passes as our known universe.
>
> Missa Solemnis continues to play
> coming from sharp sides of bird beaks
> rending at anything that is unfortunate
> enough to have fallen in to steadily
> growing plagues of the usual failures.
>
> ---------------------------------------------