Tom Hall

Contrary to popular belief, I’ve found.
Either Nothing or Everything is to be write for everyone,
Not that, as a group, generalizations have ever been believed,
But opinions can’t stop the “moving finger” writing.

Knowing all there’s to know about how young birds fly
We jump off the cliff, melt our wings and we die.
It’s just like creating what they’ll call fine art.
Bones drifting in water are beauty. A start.

DADA and the rest of Philosophy sit in the sweating house.
The latter might care while the former’s indifferent.
Which is exactly why DADA thrives in our souls.
Rejection can be what is first or last…or should be.

So, sit on the campfire and sing with us,
To see if your song is blowing out or in the wind.

Lead the unchanged to back where it was,
And open full-mast on a rail.
Retrace down both paths that forked in the wood.
To achieve is the thing, live a life you don’t fail.

A Pepsi that’s flat really tastes just the same.
A hose up your nose is as sweet.
Cook your eggs differently each morning this week
And that smile inside makes it feel like a treat.

Success is a trick that plays with the mind.
What’s already found ’s what you get to find.

A tsunami arose from so few souls.
The magnificent waves flowing in
For a thirst only an ocean could satiate,
But the receding scars left a dystopia.

At least you can’t spell dystopia without stop.
As a child, I always wondered how big, fat people
Managed, you know, how to, you know, wipe themselves.
Now the years have passed and I am big and fat.
So now I know so much about so many things.

Resulting in a language where “empathy” and “apathy”
Are so alike in practice it freaks me out.
I’d never take that juicy bone from a dog.
If we could just rewrite the world,
And lose that one word: absolute.

editors note: Yes, let’s do. Absolutely! – mh clay

On a bright and sunny afternoon with cumulus clouds
Deacon was finally so bombarded with information
That it filled his pock marked face ‘til it was smooth.
A force so strong all excess fat blew away (a whole new wardrobe)
Deacon became a fine-looking man.

That had been his biggest hope in life
He rejoiced beyond the meaning of words
His eyes and ears and mouth fulfilled
(if you’re thinking mannequin, I’ve fumbled)
He was every bit a living, fluid, joyous human being.

Achieved by these gods’ torrent of information
There was no source, nor need for output of any kind.
Deacon was perfectly filled in every way.
If you drink too much ambrosia you can always throw-up
He’d found perfection so would never be heard from again.

Two people sitting, facing each other.
One vase stands stoically, silently between them.
Bisected at the sides in neon beige and neon black.
One person sees beige; one sees black.
Both are telling alternative truths.
But neither is telling the the vase’s truth, the complete truth.
Either side could have easily had a puppy fetus stapled to it.

Jennifer and Jack both start with the letter J.
Not implying they are intrasexuals or hermaphrodites.
I like desserts and people
Who bleed out sherry, not nonsense.
Unlike vases, Jennifers and Jacks can’t bisect and live.
That you want them to makes no difference
To those you’ve bored with your desires.

Relativity is the only all-absorbing entity.
If it were a river it would be dry and not a river.
If it were a theory, it would be over my head.
And if it were a floor, only tall people would survive.
Four alternative truths,
All based in my perception of truth, not relativity.

It follows this stanza should have five lines.
But I rarely live up to expectations.
The reason there are three is so it’s not a couplet.

A lot of people I call “friends” don’t know that I’m insane.
“Insane” arouses passions when I really am quite tame.
“Tame” is a subjective word I feel that I attain,
Cause even though I have no skull, it’s hard to read a brain.

Using iams, I will try to make this next line work.
I’m bi-polar with little hints of schizophrenia.
Think: Fluctuating feelings with a little squirt of quirk.
At least that’s what my state says, and that’s California.

Thus, my doctors without bounds, they give me lots of pills.
A trillion dollar industry I’ve done my share to float.
You’ll see my graceful qualities, my motions, wit and skill,
Those stories that you might have heard, all petty anecdotes

But now when Tom-Tom eats his poo, I’ll open up the door.
We’re all in this conspiracy, It’s not for me to bore.

My first hallucination was the perfect one for me.
I had walked deep into the woods when rain began to fall
It fell so softly bending trees and rustling through the trees
The rain drops shone like blood red beads, descending on us all.

These colored drops turned colorless, following their falling.
The most relieving thing was that it painted nothing red.
To bathe the forest and myself in blood would be appalling.
The colored of the world remained, only the clouds had bled.

It was a warm and welcome thing, the rain had been to me.
I laid upon a massive rock, to let it wet me down.
And then it stopped, as rain will do, the sky had set it free.
I’d had my fill of ambrosia, there was no need to drown.

My Psych took back the pills next day, he had no way of knowing
That sanity is subjective, he’d got my engines going.

I won’t deny I have had my share of therapy.
Doctor’s concur, BiPolar Syndrome’s what my mind keeps prey.
It’s easy to converse with them, they listen quietly.
Their words are few, their thought’s acute, it’s scrips they have to say.

Eviscerated by the drugs, I’ve tried psychologists.
They talk much more and make much less with themes that don’t abut.
I’m not after my “Happy Place” or psycho-chatter myths.
I watch them smear with butter knives, where scalpels need to cut.

The last group of intuitives I let in are my friends.
Their problem is they snarl back and never give out meds.
Well, that’s not true. But they love me, they’ll stay there in the end.
It’s crazy ’cause I can’t make use of twenty cogent heads.

So, do I glean truths from these varied groups or am I self-absorbed?
Oh. Maybe that’s the illness that I ought to have explored.

It was one of those days; the boss spitting out wrath,
His venom was clinging; I craved to be clean.
I needed to soak in a hot bubble bath,
have some anxiety pills, maybe more than routine.

Finally restored, I pulled out the plug.
The strain and pain swirled down the drain.
But one bubble grew, out-sizing the plug.
I stood back, my rational reasoning in vain.

An amiable bubble, no sense of dread,
He bubbled about while I put on my robe.
He bounced on beside me and saw me to bed.
Then popped and dropped, this curious globe.

I may never be able to prove he was there;
But, I’d made a friend who was both gracious and rare.