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Brett May 2021
I sometimes think of growing up
Waking early and brewing cheap coffee
Pouring it in the same old half washed cup
Exchange a cold shower for a couple bucks
Trade happiness for a crooked smile
I could walk to work, but I think I will drive instead
Traffic is soothing
Job security
Misery becomes my amusement
Local radio 8am
Woman won a thousand medallions
Two burnt down houses
Stop short, *******
Now the coffee is on my trousers
Half past nine
Parking lot is packed
Six block walk and twenty minutes of life I will never get back
Hey look its Tim
Tim is divorced with two kids
Grown up stuff I guess
I’ll just follow him in
Brett May 2021
Fingers tracing my scars
Like celestial bodies in the sky
Every wound hides its story deep
Like eons etched in stone
An archaeological dig
As time deforms the tissue
Beneath, forgotten bones
Roads lead back into the past
A one-way ticket carrying you far away from home
Life leaves its mark
Though I heed its reverence each day
The world spins on
Our silent unspoken truth
Destined to be the scars
Just another rest stop along an eternal route
Brett May 2021
Dark cloud gown covered moon
                    Searching for your surface

Led by the scattered streaks of light
                    I see when the wind lets your skirt drift

The majesty
                    Beauty with a purpose

The silent stoic sun king
                    Even bows his head in your service
                    Cracked, barren and imperfect

Yet you bear your face
                    Reflected on every surface

The ever-watchful unveiled bride
Our clear open eyes in the darkness of an eternal sky
Brett May 2021
As a man, I contemplate my thoughts just beyond the boundary of breaking waves on the shore. An endless symmetry stands before me. The ocean with its crash and calm takes any and all forms. Yet though it morphs its shape, its nature always remains. To be life and to contemplate life. A mere thought that has enchained the minds of greater men. In the grand symphony of time, we find ourselves in the 21st Century. Where there are those who postulate the Theory of Illusion. Each of our own odysseys reduced to the hallucinatory will of my brain. Tell me then, how does one illusion contemplate its own existence from within? My gaze refocuses out to the endless blue horizon, and I imagine the shape of it all. Though we take many forms, our nature prevails. Social animals some would say. I prefer a different metaphor, shepherds of knowledge. Though our collective knowledge flaunts many costumes, our true nature perseveres unfettered. Through the ages we carry all human ingenuity, meanings, and purpose inside some unspoken tome. It does not erode against the battering winds of time. It can not be sunken to the depths. It endures in this very contemplation. My wandering inquisitive mind cannot help but wonder what abstract thought will be captured in this very spot a thousand years from now. For some this conjures a mysterious existential dread, but I can only stand and smile. My mind lets me step outside the binding flow of time and watch the world unfold. Campfires under the crescent moon to villages etched out on verdant ground, and here now to the grand gusto of modern cities. Endless forms and shapes pushing towards our ultimate nature. To understand that purpose in the universe if left by our boot impressions on the mud. The cosmos is our endless ocean. Out there; waiting, for our contemplative minds to shape it.
Brett May 2021
Not quite summer
Mindful of an ever-approaching future
Two quarter cranks of my casement window
Allows the unfettered breath of night to pass through me
Like ephemeral thoughts escaping an open hatch
I think, therefore I am
Yet I think and think again
What conjures the conscious thoughts that leak out from this pen
Am I a prisoner of some electric zoo
How can I be sure the structure of me
Also resides in you

I sit and I stir
To be meat in soup
Aspersions cast
Mother always told me not to fiddle with my food
To an outside observer I seem aloof
As I peruse the library
Of stored memories from my youth
Why you ask?
I haven’t a hint or an outline of a clue
My brain seems to find nothing better for it to do
My lifetime ticket to the Electric Zoo
Brett May 2021
Intensity is the underdog story
Wild soil to a champion
Flame out, and maybe
Fell to the drink

Consistency is two years without
So much as a batted eye or a blink
Ten steps ahead, maybe half an inch per week
Books with battered spines stretched across coffee-stained sheets

Intensity is ***, or
A free trial for a week
Gold plated words
Tin can actions underneath

Consistency is the love, and
Knowing I know I will never know enough
Unconscious heartbeat
The very breath that fills my lungs
Brett May 2021
I see your reflection in the glass
***** mirrors distorting visions of my past
Lonely, naked in the rain
The wind baby, always whispering your pain

Corrosive thoughts slowly poisoning my brain
I was broken long ago
A silent sickness
Steadily driving me insane

My conscious mind refrains
From falling out or giving in
I will go without
On the strength of that which lies within
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