As Long As I Can Hear The Music

For my next trick

   I’ll expose the truth!

This is all an act

   Being a poet is a mask

It’s a dance—

   A performance 

Nothing is real here

   Nothing is literal 

Some thought it was raw

   A few thought it was honest

But I,

    I am a con artist

Although . . I have lost thousands of dollars doing this shit . . .

   I am a shitty con artist!

I steal your time and attention 

   And in exchange 

I get a little validation

 And I suppose it feeds the ego

You see

   to me  

    everything we try to be

       feels like a mask

    Our ‘path’ we’ve ‘forged’ is simply the way we adapt

From birth we are cursed with the idea of our worth through the eyes of another:

   A mother, father, sister or brother

Then society molds us into machines who hardly dream 

  of anything other than feeding

   the big machine in the sky

     We push the wheels of this country 

     until we die

And these sonsofbitches have the audacity to govern with force! 

    We have no choice but to conform to their greedy, shallow will, or else they will throw us in jail.

It’s enough to make a man ill. 

    Who I tried to be as a kid 

  to impress my parents 

    feels like a mask

The jock I turned into feels like an act

    The Fighter was desperate for control and scared to be vulnerable 

And The Poet woke up one day with a few things to say to a certain lady

     Yes, my dear friends, this writing shit all started because I was desperate to get the attention of a woman

    And 

     Now 

       I see it again,

               My elaborate performance 

         Dancing for another 

         Singing songs in a secret language to my lover

But she isn’t coming home

   I dance alone

A stoned puppet on strings

    Searching for meaning

    The lady in the corner of this poorly lit and smelly dive bar 

   plays the piano,

       as I stand on a table and recite poetry for the moon

    The drunks in the room are mildly amused

But I am also drunk and I sound slightly out of tune

    I write like a Looney-tune let loose

A few jokes, a little philosophy, some imagery and my bones, 

   That’s all it takes to wear the mask

They laugh

and think

   and then they sink in their seats

when they feel the heat

    never realizing my chatter is cheap 

I am an anarchist off his leash 

    I am a risk

I am an elaborate performance 

    A poor imitation of some else’s iteration

    I am the elegant avoidance 

       of anything that might unsettle me

And the more I adapt

to survive

   The more I am trapped 

I think next time I’ll pick up a guitar 

    To hide who I really am

And become a star

   But it will all be fake

 Just another way to escape 

Eventually, the audience will fade

   And I’ll be left with the mess I’ve made 

Eventually, I’ll be forgotten

    And I’ll be left alone on the stage

Eventually, the poet will run out of page . . .

I’ve decided something important, though,

    as long as that lady in the corner keeps playing the piano for me,

I will dance

    As long as I can hear the music,

I will write;

and in the end,

when I finally put down the pen,

I'll pluck at my guitar

in a shitty dive bar

for the next kid

who needs to stand on a table and vent

about what it feels like to be human.

CH 3/28/26