DARK AS A LUNAR ECLIPSE

 DARK AS A LUNAR ECLIPSE

Black widow spider crawling on the stair,

Black magic disappears into thin air,

The last crumb ingested goes to the hips

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black hole disappearing in the hierarchy of space,

The foot soldier stumbles, loses points for lack of grace.

Revelers drink to excess, loose lips sink ships,

I am turning dark as a lunar eclipse.

Subsumed by the woebegone umbra of the earth,

Blackness throws its fisticuffs, destroying moonlight's worth,

Until the moon fights back, blushing damaged red,

Intoxication moving and traveling to the head,

Spreading to extremities, the legs and fingertips,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black crow feeding over tattered remains,

Nothing left but the asphalt blood stains,

A carrion bird thinks nothing of tearing as it picks,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black fog of sadness descends over me,

Send the crowd away, there is nothing here to see,

My coffee has turned cold, wasted between sips,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse. 

The darkness does not last they say, three, four hours tops,

Somehow it gets the best of me, pulls out all the stops.

I am sorrow's whipping boy and I must take my licks,

Ravenous and dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black widow biting, poison in the bloodstream.

I have no more power, and I have lost the dream,

The last crumb ingested, it goes to the hips,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2022

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*This is a poem about depression obviously. Please talk to someone trusted if you are severely depressed or call the Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255!*

TEARS IN MY REAR VIEW MIRROR

TEARS IN MY REAR VIEW MIRROR

I can still hear the hint of a scream,
From a nightmare or a troubled dream.
I wear the years like a suit of tin,
Like the stiffness I'm encased in.
How can I state the obvious or put it any clearer?
I feel the icy breath of death, the tears in my rear view mirror.

My legs are stuck like stubborn mud,
It's either DNA or blood,
Of which I'm never certain.
A wiser man than me knows a thousand things,
The man behind the curtain.
Either God or the Wizard of Oz,
The ego or the id,
Perhaps one or the other 
Or some fearless sort of hybrid.
He knows these things,
As he pulls the strings,
And the ropes in utter consternation,
Choke the hapless circulation.

Still I go on merrily, the Grim Reaper none the nearer,
A piece of work I see him smirk,
Through the tears in my rear view mirror.
I know the pain of sadness well,
Depression I have felt its stain,
It bores its evil eyes right through me.
It penetrates like acid rain.

And the canopy that covers me,
Is riddled with the swill,
Of things I've never done in life
And things I never will;
Doing time that doesn't fit the crime,
Of wanting you ever nearer.
You come and in my heart your drum
Echoes ever clearer.

Always the safest driver,
I never struck you down, 
Though my conscience is an evil jester,
A strange demented clown.
I skate alone on this borderless rink,
Without the cloud of drug or drink,
In a maze of smoke and terrors.
Forever mindful of the past
And all its bittersweet errors.

Beware the strange enchanted fears,
That make you hostage to the years.
The broken down homely hag of a horse,
Who carries you forward on legs of remorse.
A regretful waterfall of ugly rhyme,
That strains to work its overtime.

I can still hear the hint of an accusation,
From the depths of an overworked heart,
So bitter and revolting I know not where to start.
I wear the years like the suit of tin,
That I've become encased in.
A metaphor for years I've lost,
Mindful of the early frost.
How can I state the obvious or make it any clearer,
i feel the icy breath of death, the tears in my rear view mirror.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2014
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: I guess I was delusional to cut back on my depression meds. But I do like the poems that come like gifts from my depressive episodes!

MUDDIED STREAMS AND BLOODIED RIVERS

MUDDIED STREAMS AND BLOODIED RIVERS

Life these days is a muddied stream,

In which I paddle a reckless canoe.

Love to me is a torn, bloodied river,

False lover who once was true.

Intimacy, dagger in the back of already sleepless nights,

Diagnosis heartbreak and heading south,

Changing landscapes and canceled flights,

Questions answered in the negative

Before they leave the upturned mouth.

Muddied streams and bloodied rivers,

Emptied dreams that make you shiver.

Worrisome worlds that spit in the face,

Secrets that spin, nosediving into space.

Unfound lovers that grope for you,

In the midst of rubble and debris,

Ripped reckless fever that sputters with loss,

Burns like an ulcer inside of me

See the clown with the funny shoes,

Tweak his red rubber ball nose,

Awkwardly dressed for the winter snows.

Time has expired for merriment and glee.

Life these days is a sour, unsettling cream,

Love these days is a shrill and desperate plea.

Life today is a muddied stream,

A worn down broken excuse for a dream.

Love to me is a strange bloodied river,

A poisoned arrow shot straight from the quiver.

Heartbreak that rips and tears at the seams.

I say not again to the anguish,

Keep your distance I plead to the rain,

But the anguish it roars and the rain clouds soar.

The rafters collapse, and with them the timbers of the heart again,

Into the abyss of the lonely trash tin,

The ashes of a self-destructive soul,

Treading water in the lonely shoals.

My soul it shivers as it tastes the violence,

What can't be cured must be endured in silence.

Uncertainty hovers in the safety of bedcovers,

Lurks in the vocal cords of street hounds,

Useless as yesterday's coffee grounds,

The grainy shifting sand of mortal sorrow,

Walking a dead man with torn umbrella

Towards the storms of a ravaged tomorrow.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2013

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: This was originally written 1983-ish, hence the hint of romance betrayed. Today I look at this poem as a treatise on the losses that come with an incurable, sometimes difficult to treat disease. 

MOTHER EARTH

MOTHER EARTH

Mother earth, you have made me to walk a fine line.
Despair protrudes through my skin and bones,
The dirt of lost years poisons my magic potions,
Covers my emotions with the smell of tomorrow's futility,
A relic unconvinced of his worth and utility.

Mother earth, you have made me a drone,
Dependent on the friends who phone
To solve all my depressions,
Who snare themselves in the tangle
of my shaky self-impressions.

Mother earth, your thumb and forefinger
Tap heavily on my shoulder.
Meanwhile I grow so much older.
While autumn leaves blow in the gutter,
And wasted old men mutter of their dreams that fell astray.
Sweet and saccharine mother earth,
There is blood on your hands today.

I sit and shiver in this twisted vessel of clay.
Nerves shot, blood clot, my stomach a twist of impossible knots.
Random chance plays out its dance,
Builds me a shallow grave where I can sink half-alive,
Falling through another of your mud slides.

Mother earth, you must make me brave,
Build me some sort of a sheltering cave.
For the rain it pours but offers no relief,
Brings only sorrow, dredges up grief.
Into the winter I fall like a leaf,
Left over from autumn, antiquated beliefs,
And old foul superstitions 
To these I recklessly cling,
Of snow and ice I sing.
Mother earth, you must build me a tenable dream.

I tremble like a child before dreams that fall away,
Dreams that once seemed possible in the clear cool light of day.
Dreams that once lit up my soul with their promise and their power,
Whose smooth veneer soon disappeared like light from a meteor shower.
I soak up rays that i despise, the sun reveals its evil eyes,
And shows me my flaws and my dismal worth
Yet I linger in the shifting mother earth.

Mother earth, I am left to cope,
With the longstanding challenge of your tightrope.
Black clown walking with grass stained shoes,
Dipped in a paint pail marked the blues,
Perishing in your pool of unbearable sadness.
Is there no way out of this careless earthen madness?

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

AS IF THERE'S NO TOMORROW

AS IF THERE'S NO TOMORROW

I plan to let my engine rev and shift it into overdrive,
To buzz the local plaza, and give the cops a high five.
As long as I am able to go speeding past my sorrow,
I'll live with throttle open wide as if there's no tomorrow.
My dyskinetic feet, they cannot find the brake pedal,
It's a daily test of my moxie, my firm resolve and my mettle.
So if you see me coming, I'm warning you beware,
I'm a man of steel and I'm hell on wheels, 
Cruising through without a care

There are those who say I'm a gloomy guss,
Whose only goal is to fume and fuss,
But they are wrong I'm sure you'll see.
My days are long and sometimes lonely,
I wait here at home for my one and only,
Who works hard for the money, that cursed legal tender,
Leaving me to ponder the terms of my surrender.
For disease it has me in its grip,
Into its whirlpool I slide and I slip,
Come perilously close to letting go,
But I hold on firmly for the sake of the night,
And his arms that hold me fast and tight,
As if there's no tomorrow.

I cannot write a Hallmark card,
I've never lived that kind of life,
I live with the fragments and the shards,
Pain that cuts like the blade of a knife.
Unless you've walked in these rigid shoes,
Do not diminish the depth of these blues,
Nor the lengths I sometimes go to hide them.
Antidepressants only go so far,
My life is like a blazing star,
Soon to fade and flicker out.
I have no currency in this kingdom,
Nor have I any clout.

I only rise and do my best,
To pass the daily Rorshach test,
To find the vivid colors left,
To connect the dots and plummet the depths,
To adjust my meds to the ebb and flow,
Try not to ponder demise and death,
As if there's no tomorrow.

Do not get your feelings hurt if I lash you with my tongue,
I suffer fools not gladly, should they be old or young.
A waterfall of wicked words might come spewing from my lips,
Hot molten vocabulary, bubbling like Vesuvius.
i've been building for some time,
Just follow my bouncing ball of rhyme,
And wear your comfy work clothes,
I should not make a mess of those,
When alas my stack she blows.

I plan to rev my engine loud and long,
Until at last it spits and sputters,
Until my voice its last words utters.
After that live on I may, it's really not for me to say.
Don't tread on me, don't ride my back,
I am no fancy Cadillac,
Much less some sporty Peugot,
I'm coming at last to the finish line,
The church bells chime of borrowed time,
As if there's no tomorrow.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

IMAGINED SLIGHTS

IMAGINED SLIGHTS

What's one more imagined slight,
In the great grand scheme of things?
What's one more benign betrayal,
To add to my roster of broken dreams?

I feel rain with every breath I take,
Pain with every move I make.
Gracelessly I take up space,
Sand in my sneakers, egg on my face.

If the world hands me life, I hand it back.
The lust to go on I sorely lack.
If the whole world doesn't love me,
My heart it hastily hits the floor.
Detractors they stand high above me,
Useless debris washing up on their shore.

I am proud of who I am and proud of all I believe.
I dare to live my life out loud,
But I wear it all on my lonesome sleeve.
Not nearly as stable and staid as I seem,
Stripped naked and bare to the world's laser beam.

What's one more imagined slight,
In this dim house of mirrors known as my mind?
What's one more benign betrayal,
Downloaded in real time?

The garish clown with his floppy shoes,
The tabloid with its shocking news.
The circus tent is up and its freakish flag is flying.
My mascara it is running from the desperate tears I'm crying.

If I had a million dollars and a thousand screaming fans,
Like castles and like daydreams, I would turn it all to sand,
Real estate a bauble and mansions not worth the land.
Read my palm, my lifeline's weak,
The future's a cliffside, slippery and steep.
It's a raging tide I swim against,
My only relief the deep peace of sleep.

It's all of these imagined slights that gather in my brain,
A vast right wing conspiracy, a swift downpour of rain.
Guilt for the life I can no longer lead,
A hapless hemophiliac enjoying the bleed.
Choking on this surfeit of wasted space,
I stumble to the finish of my sluggish race.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: I jokingly call this one "The Joy of Paranoia".

FORSAKE THE FALSE RAINBOW

FORSAKE THE FALSE RAINBOW

I hold my rainbow close to my heart,
Yet closer still to my head.
Near to the brain where my hair used to part,
No more drinks of water, no more the lure of bread.

I hold my rainbow of visions floating beyond the sun,
Tired of this fractured fighting,
All is well inside this sighting,
The grim metallic prism of a gun.

I can see it clearly, my form on the floor,
My despair splattered like the blood on the walls.
I make my concessions to funeral processions,
The quiet of dimly lit burial halls.

I hold my rainbow here in my wrists,
Like two unwrapped packages with bow and sash.
Just take some pills and make a fist,
And take a long and luscious slash.

Those who say I had ice water flowing through these veins,
Could scrape the ice from off the floor, secure that they were right.
Where those who say I was a blue blood oblivious to pain,
Could hold their strange hypothesis to the new day and its light.
And those who claim I was good as gold would finally see the truth,
I was made of only flesh and blood and here’s your living proof.

And those who thought I was purple with passion,
Could scrape their way through the mosaic of my blood,
And look for flints of lavender on the ground where once I stood.
Some will say I died a broken man, and some will say it served me right,
That I had a queer agenda and was one unhappy shade of gay,
Some will say I embraced the end, rushing toward that blinding light,
Some will claim I was a bitter fool, who had to end his life his way.

I hold my rainbow close to my heart,
I treasure its beat alive in my breast.
Perhaps I am doomed before I start,
Life a bitchy proctor with its twisted little tests.
Heed what I am saying and read on to the end,
This fracture of faith is a passing weight,
It is not a stalwart or a happy friend.

In the end it is only me who knows what my true colors are,
And it is only me who knows my sunshine and my stars.
They say beware the vicious dog, they say beware false prophets,
Some voices ringing in my head are just as best forgotten.
Time to drink and time for joy, time to end the fast,
To give the pain its proper due then leave it in the past.
I swear I know not what I do, my world’s a broken mess.
Sometimes I’d love to take a repast in the waters of forgetfulness.

Yet even in my darkest hour, even in my frailest season,
I must find a sheltering bower, search my soul for a reason.
Find something bigger than myself to steel my bravery,
Throw off these shackles and these chains that speak of slavery.
Gather to my bosom all the colors I possess,
Hold them as a talisman against encroaching darkness.

Be it the comforting arms of a lover, or some greater higher goal
Shake off the malaise that has clouded my days, devoured my better soul.
Put down my gun and my trusty blades,
Say goodbye to the lure of nightshade.
Beware the devil in disguise, apparition without a soul,
Forego the fire to self destruct, forsake the false rainbow.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


NOTE: While this poem is not encouraging suicide (in fact suicide is the "false rainbow" referred to in the title) Parkinson's patients, myself included, often suffer incredible
depression. So do gays and lesbians, another segment of my audience, due to societal pressures and prejudice. If you feel vulnerable and need a nonjudgmental ear, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

IN A BIT OF A FUNK

IN A BIT OF A FUNK

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
Like a road kill squirrel or unfortunate skunk.
But unlike that skunk in his black and his white,
I cannot go quickly into the night.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
Pardon me, pardon me, please,
Unlike the brass knuckled city punk,
The down and out looter, the out and out drunk,
I am the proud owner of a designer disease,
A black ship sailing on pirate seas.
The reckless wanton disregard,
It opens its jaws and crushes me hard,
Like a garbage truck treats random junk,
Pardon me, for I’m in a bit of a funk.

Excuse me, for I’m just a little bit dizzy.
Forgive me my tantrum and pardon my tizzy.
Up to my eyeballs in hoc to the docs,
Lining my closets with inflatable bills,
Stripped to the bone with no marketable skills,
Oh how my battleship is sunk,
Here in my pivotal, pitiful funk.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a jam,
Nobody knows or cares who I am,
Not in the least bit handsome or glam.
If only I were a Cosmo or a Playgirl hunk,
Why I could sure make enough by posing in the buff
With tasteful photographs of my junk,
In cool strategic places.

A film career could be my calling,
if I could stop this random falling.
For a man upon his feet unsure, can be costly to insure,
Just go and ask my carrier.
It’s plain to see that woe is me,
Everywhere I turn’s a barrier.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
A cheapo muffler or carburetor
And its lonely pricey clunk.
Get me to a nunnery soon
Or the monastic ways of a penniless monk.
And turn my tantrum and my tizzy
Into a Gregorian chant.
Give me three square meals a day,
Relieve me of my tiresome rant.

Or maybe an ugly man like me
Would fare much better on the streets,
A twisted Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious wannabe.
Sucking dry Society’s mammoth welfare teets.
With a clothespin clamping shut my nose
And crowding out the stench,
Some wild and wanton woman
I will take for my wonderful wench,
Accepting all offers and draining the coffers,
Once more in the game, no longer benched.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
Envying the roadside squirrel, the flat as a pancake skunk.
Too young to die, too old to pimp, too cursed to even care.
Alone in this wreckage, this ship that has sunk,
This tainted Titanic beyond all repair.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED