The Collector

He collected stories like stamps,

gluing them in his mind’s spiral bound leaflets

and on occasion he would part those pages

brushing the dust away gingerly with his fingertips

to find they had aged, and cracked,

but more interestingly, had morphed

and only slightly resembled

the charming anecdotes they once were.

 

His stories were not usual ones

full of adversity, heroism, or moral.

Instead, they were whispers of depravity,

debauchery, and delicacy.

Loosely intertwined were blots of humor

dropped in the most indecorous places.

 

His stories were not fictional,

but they were in-credible and un-believable

to the audience of a few whom he cornered at debutante parties.

He was odd, and ofttimes avoided, but respected for his brilliance.

His hobby appalled and fascinated at the same time.

And his listeners in their black bow ties and tinsel gowns,

wide-eyed and rubber-necked,

once having eavesdropped,

would focus intently on his words, and still

remain to display disgusted looks on their faces.

 

This gentleman, with his idiosyncrasies,

like a ringmaster to circus freaks, yet

still warm and convivial,

and a restless insomniac,

made his nightly junket

into the dark passages of the world without slumber.

 

He befriended lost souls

that luck had ignored

and took their confessions, their plight

with an anthropological wryness, and

recorded them into his mind’s spiral bound leaflets

for no one’s sake or pleasure but his own.

 

He had no goal to educate his targets;

the slumberless, or the aural party voyeurs,

nor did he intend to change lives.

His tales were not wrought with sympathy.

Like a grandmother’s teacups on a shelf,

he sought different patterns, and stockpiled

not something so rare,

as something so rarely treasured.

 

But as time promoted his body,

so his yarns became tangled.

The bindings that held the pages were loose.

Some pages had drifted out into oblivion, undetected,

on the occasions he would finally sleep long enough to dream.

The gritty details which made his gems so tactile

had disintegrated and left, mostly, the core of the chronicles.

  

With little to preserve,

he fumbled to save them,

confusing the delineation between events, instead

weaving an incongruous braid of torpid remarks.

In his confusion and mournfulness,

he staggered through the shadowy sleepless underground

trying to repair the finer membranes of his memory.

 

Whilst striving to re-piece events with those he’d collected from,

he’d get it wrong, and mistakenly divulge private goodies

to those who trade such secrets like currency in the underground.

His sufferance increased as those who sought to silence him

paid him in pain and harassment.

The congenial man with the sardonic wit,

trusted and revered by many social classes

and always sure to repulse with a calm and matter-of-fact demeanor,

had become useless to everyone, even himself.

 

His only choices were to forsake his quest to reclaim his joy

by retreating into his lonely apartment,

with little left to draw fondly upon

for the rest of his long nights and miserable days;

or to go full balls-out into the sooty depths

of the whores, the beggars, the addicts, the sociopaths,

the gamblers, the cheaters, drunkards, and thieves

to howl at the moon in anguish

and become one of the very objects he spent decades ogling…

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Liberate me

from cigarettes to seatbelts

from sugar to salvation

from  every vice to vegetables

from vixens to vaccinations

  

from addiction to assurance

from craving to consecration

from fixation to fitness

from the perverse to preservation …

 

Which of these makes you feel more at ease?

And is anything without moderation a good thing at all?

Should anyone be given the right to moderate these things for others?

Would you let your neighbor make that call?

Defense Mechanisms

Started a while back. Finally putting this one to rest.

 

 

Oh no.

Issue

what to do?

Eschew

 

feel hate?

procrastinate.

 

how about rage?

disengage.

 

life a mess?

you can outguess

 

in hot water?

start the slaughter

 

some controversy?

get a little cursy

 

silly squabble?

gooble gobble

 

touchy topic

well, you’re myopic

 

altercating?

start berating

 

family riot?

remain quiet

 

heated dispute?

be resolute

 

tricky conflict?

make your verdict

 

tense and hostile?

watch your thoughts fill

 

feudal ruckus?

for wisdom’s struck us?

 

Ah, understanding

that’s better handling!

 

The wifely whiff

crimson blush’ed rose

with lips and folds

so sweetly nectarous 

scented center entered

stem and stamen placed

into the connubial vase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Not fewer words, was it Roger? Julio’s was still better though.