Circus Came To Town

There’s this feeling that’s just so nearly…

Like the battered and the bruised.

I wonder if I heard clearly.

Deep down, I’m just confused.

There’s a man who’s screaming something.

In the face of that sad clown.

There’s a juggler in the spotlight.

That didn’t use the right pronoun.

The siamese twins grow tired.

Two heads can not agree.

Cooperation is required.

No discernments they can see.

The wives they seem so angry.

The husbands have that look.

Doesn’t much matter which way I go.

Either way, I’m on the hook.

Dennis Mantin

And the men

Wicked Wanda

Wicked Wanda’s telling stories and none of them are true.

She has her Heroes riled up and they’re coming for me and you.

Now I can’t say I’m worried because I’ve dealt with this before.

You see I knew her older sister and her Mother I adore.

But for you I’d make provisions, set affairs and say goodbyes.

When Wanda’s on the war path, there’s no running from those lies.

Dennis Mantin

NIGHT COUNTRY

There was no prior warning.

There is no beauty here to show.

It is darkness in the morning.

Here in deep Alaska snow.

I listened to your snoring.

In deep sleep so far below.

I’m not begging just imploring.

That cold wind is going to blow.

Went out walking in the distance.

There was nothing left to know.

Just some inner voice insistence.

About somewhere we’ve got to go.

There was no prior warning.

There is no beauty here to show.

It’s just more darkness in the morning.

Here in deep Alaska snow.

Dennis Mantin

Tip Of The Iceberg

Quite often, people say “the tip of the Iceberg.” When they want emphasize that the events are far greater than what meets the eyes.

I generally wonder when I hear this…

“Are you sure?”

Now, I’m saying it out loud because it’s been my personal experience as well as my observational opinion that humans are  prone to extreme exaggerations when trying to convey that their experience is the universal norm.

Let me give examples for this possibility:

1 Alcoholics make up 10% of the population.

2 Psychopaths make up 1%

3 Sociopaths 4%

4 Narcissists 0.5% or 1 in 200.

Not accounting for overlap, of which there certainly is, this loud opinionated motley crew would make no more than 15.5% of the population. Which means that their experiences are vastly different than the rest, about 84.5%.

Now, if and when you supply this very vocal opinionated 1 in 6 minority with the internet ; their opinions really might be only the ‘Tip of the Iceberg’. With the rest of the iceberg right where it should be.

Dennis Mantin

Abundant and Clear

Having thoughts lots about dying.

And other things that I don’t know.

Its not the fear that’s got me down.

Just that I don’t want to go.

Now sure I know I have no choice.

Has been made abundant and clear.

This transformation is all the rage.

I just kinda like it here.

I hear all this complaining.

What’s wrong about this and that.

You never really stood a chance.

With an attitude like that.

Dennis Mantin

The Need: Bandied About

Long before social media put the spotlight and raised awareness of how much misinformation is bandied about…

Back in the 1960s, the decade of my adolescence; my mother, for reasons unknown to me at the time, abhored liars. I would catch so much hell if I attempted one that I stopped telling them.

I won’t get into her reasons except to say that it involved the church and her marriage to a minister whom she caught trying to kill their baby.

I’ve experienced some life in my 66 years and have had exchanges with many individuals, and the thing that continually fascinates me about humanity is our apparent need to misrepresent the truth.

I’m not trying to change anything. I just watch and listen. Which incidentally has me questioning most of what I have read about the past.

Dennis Mantin

Bureaucrats and Hobos…

They were meandering in the walkways.

We were all at City Hall.

All were there for different reasons.

Some, really, for no reasons at all.

I was resigned to fate or fortune.

Masquerades as fail/success.

I had bagged all paper signatures.

I prayed and said, “God bless!”

There’s this memory of Fredrick.

Where he wrote that God is dead.

And all the demons there danced with joy.

Mistaking what he said.

I’ve been watching praying listening.

All these decades turned to years.

And I don’t think he’s dead at all.

The plot is in arrears.

Dennis Mantin

UGLY

It is drama in the kitchen.

Exaggeration on the phone.

Silence in the bedroom.

Until we are all alone.

It is drama all this bitchin.

Humiliation… no atone.

Beauty is just skin deep.

And Ugly goes to the bone.

Dennis Mantin

Suicide (1979)

I walked in silence on the snows hard crust.

My mind it roamed from wrong to the just.

I watched an eagle swing from the sky…

The silence was broken with his mighty cry.

He looked so proud. He looked so tough.

His freedom, his kingdom. His only musts.

Then, a mighty thrust that shook the air.

In seemingly gloom and much despair.

His blood fell on his rocks from our of the air…

And the silence was broken beyond repair.

No doubt nine times out of 10; Suicide is killing yourself in spite of yourself.

Dennis Mantin