I Once Loved

I Once Loved

by dan ankers

I once loved and it was a foolish, foolish thing

I was blown and whisked around by a devilish wing

And pinched between some talons you may learn a few new tricks

Namely, never trust another with your own pathetic strings

There is a thing called love

I know enough to avail you that

Just when or where or how it forms

I’ll admit it’s rather...abstract

and

it’s a human thing

and

a doomed thing

and

a lovely thing

at that

But every time I see it I think

Why is that guy even at-bat?

I know that it exists, but I wonder why it is that people even try

when the chances are much larger that you are going to cry

then that you would ever ever ever

hit that ball

sky high

I mean

I know a person or two

who has knocked it out of the park

but for the rest…

they get overdressed

and now…

They spend their nights just lounging

in the dark

This Big World

This Big World

by dan ankers

There go my dreams now they’re floating away

build bridges from straw just to see them again

See a pile of money where could I get my fix

Barbed wire surrounds them, the savory bouquet

Shovels for hunters and all of them gold

and while they lounge around I’m here searching through time

There’s wages allowed them but where can I get mine?

No prisoner’s free

I guess that goes without saying

but is anyone free

from the prison of me

?

Wallow

Wallow

by dan ankers

Wallow in the sink

I stink

A little like beef jerky

Rank

I stank yesterday

don’t judge me if I did

oh please

It’s just that sometimes

waking up in this here world

seems a disease

I know I know

I should not complain

others have less than me

I see

People like me are why the world

stinks sometimes

but you need us

the farting sort

to remind you of the lies

This world is built upon them and you can’t escape these fleas

Because they get beneath your skin at night and they

jump inside you when you sneeze

But it’s alright

It really is

The way you itch

it meanz you live

and you are not

a parasite

or a mere ghost

just aping life

and you can see

the shady side

of proper dreamz

There is nothing for you here, declares the master

While the other great percent declare impostor

And the wonderful thing is

that everyone is wrong

and left

and right

at the exact same time

Because it’s a shifting sand of

reason

upon which we climb

And absolutely no one’s figured out its grains

of sanity yet

and yes nobody can connect the puzzle

where its met

we just bash them all

together

with a rubbery

mallet

Little Things-Strange Things-Magnetic Things

Little Things-Strange Things-Magnetic Things

by dan ankers

It is often not the things we choose, wich make us real

It is very often not the ones we want, who make us feel

It is so very often things we are just drawn to, which make us feel alive

and so very often we are not

so in control

Nor do we get to choose the ones who ignite our soul

By my experience

I know I am just a hapless, helpless man

struggling and strung along

in the midst of a world

with no decent

stand

No stance on

what is right

or what is wrong

or who is dead

or who is alive

that is all

time stands for naught

so do I

thrive

Frustration is my Nation

Frustration is my Nation by dan ankers Grrrrr... How is that for a lot? The Grrrrr that I feel is about all that I’ve got & I’ve listened to my soul but my patience; red hot! and if a sign won’t appear a promised voice whispering gently into my obstinate-though-outreaching ear then I’m going all rogue & Re-designing with zeal! A new place I can find with a fiery appeal! And forget the still waters I crave tempest; unreal!

Intense Laments

Intense Laments

by dan ankers

What Whiskey sheared away in years it paid me back with rueful tears

What in unwise works wrought

were again the acts to make me besotted with facts

for which I so circuitously sought

all along

Belonged

the feeling

the sequel

There is nary an equal in human kind

Send me reeling in my human mind

away from her

And in her

Away from him

then

And if she is

Honest

unto her own self

and her own mind

Bitterness begets

Awakened; grim

Mostly Ghostly

with a bit of rouge to your cheek

Mostly Ghostly

but an otherwise charming sort of person

so to speak

When others stare

it is there

to see

that lack of vitality which comes

from not knowing

the thing

While others long pause and consider that it’s

not

but go back to eating dinner

it’s hot

Beauty doesn't live...

Beauty doesn’t live…

by dan ankers

The shores of land apportioned so

where dwells the lepers, lives the row

that sanguine smile, fallen on much harsher times

as humankind

Still reflects the light of a thousand tomorrows

and burns with the boiling from deep within

the earth

I call that church

you call it the shore

That same lives within one kid

Good Notion

Good Notion

by dan ankers

Like the interior of good intention

a novel thought, a nice invention

derived from the best that could happen

with the raw stuff of my life

a theme I deem to bake; this pleasant

cake

And cut it with my new knife

Rose

You must accept the crown of naughtiness to be human
You must extend yourself around the mould
To be an artist
You must live
And not do as you are told
And just  truly be free and feel alive
You must strive for nothing here at all
You have to be willing to color outside of the lines
Others will come and try to take you
Away

Emily

Emily

by dan ankers

Beaming waves of Emily

Are more than I can handle

I fear the worst by candle light

Amused by pompous vandal

Now overlong I can hear his words

As he slices through the evening’s bark

Come to take a bit of vengeance home

And Leave a little Evil Spark

This fool who knows this thing is futile

And that in his home

they call this art

Humbled by the Moonlight

Humbled by the Moonlight

by dan ankers

I whispered vanquished thankless thoughts

which stood for nothing

availed me naught

Liquid dreaming has left me schemes

there better left

abandoned themes

On supple windblown tails of untethered

leaves

On lifts of wisps of wind beneath asylums eves

between my own two fingers taunting

raindrops

as I please

I note the failure of the moonlight

to ignite this nights

disease

The Doorway to the Doorway

The Doorway to the Door

by dan ankers

Not quite there

but almost there

Not quite the doorway I’m striving for

but the one

before the one

Sort of the Foyer

to the mansion of my Dreams

Held up with my back bones and

Sinewy Seams

Wrung not from sopping wet clothes

leftover from the wastebasket of yesterday’s successes

but instead wrung from my head

bred from today’s incessant duresses

So whether it be

The Doorway

To the doorway

to the doorway

to the door

OR

More evolutions than even I can count

making me expel my every amount

and even more

I shall push and I shall

bind

and I shall shape and I shall

find

A future

which is worthy

Call it Mine

And in Time when Time remembers

the challenges

which I have met

The historians will pronounce

this

heavens sent

Broken Flowers

Broken Flowers

by dan ankers

bare feet stand

where broken lilies lay

scalpless on the lawn

as careless children play

where freedoms have merged

with self destructive urges

we’ve shucked our once instructed

healthy way

We are the lost

We are the alone

the unkempt lawn

became our home

and no one has ever wanted us again

WE

Wild children walk among the lilies

and we dally amidst the trees

with a field of broken plants between our knees

Each flower becomes a sigil

for the lives we have eschewed

Each broken plant becomes a monument to

the loves we never knew

Each one of these

broken vessels

arrays

and

lays

in a tidy row

as a tribute to the perfect day

on a perfect kind of way

we’ll never

know