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

Silence Neverending

There was silence neverending…

“Oh now, just you never mind!”

Can’t tell lies without airbending.

Write it down, and I will find.

I am learning all your deceptions.

Teach old dogs your newest tricks.

Looking smart and clear complexions.

Smile sweetly, count the clicks.

We’re just over, condescending…

Just more silence in that smile.

I just read and past pretending.

You’re too young to stay in style.

Dennis Mantin

The Shopping Mall Generation

When I was a kid in the 1960s, the farmers could be heard lamenting about a changing world that they feared.

Beautiful stone cobbled streets of small towns were replaced with “The Shopping Mall Generation!” AND cities grew. “Who would grow the food?” The farmers asked.

But did anyone see this coming down the pike? A generation so smart that they make money while they sleep?

A generation who became so important that not having children became for them, the best option. Which is probably the best thing since we can no longer determine genders…

I am not afraid. I am not in control. I am embarrassed… or am I entertained?

Dennis Mantin

The Myth of Normality

In the beginning… I saw glimpses of what you might call normal in the living rooms and kitchen tables of schoolyard friends. Those friendships never lasted for me, and in time, they ceased to exist even in my memory…

My behavior? I guess it was odd. Angry and loud. Sullen and sad or boisterous and much too much. The invitations dried up and faded fast. “He is strange.” I often heard.

I was tolerated as a boy. Feared in larger shoes. I moved a lot. Shifting. Fading. Reappear like smoke in mist…

Spent some time in the shadows there, with  others going nowhere. Found out I didn’t fit there either.

“You are strange.” I was told.

“What is this strange you speak of? I have nothing to compare with, really. I do not know this comparative myth of normalcy.”

In time, I grew quiet and introspective and listened to wise counsel who told me the source of my strange. I was childish, emotionally sensitive, and idealistic… and oh, so angry.

I looked into this-faced my fears, and asked for spiritual help.

Things are so much better, and I am far from normal. Being a bastard has shaped me. I couldn’t be with normal friends. Normal girls wouldn’t date me. They all let me know by rejection that I wasn’t worthy. This is what not having a father creates…

Dreaming of a Future Post Thanos Multiverse

We were dreaming of a future.

Where something better came along.

When we could guide the children.

Where we could be that strong.

We were dreaming of a future.

And the future it is here.

And we are all so happy now.

There was so much crap to clear.

We were up against those forces.

In a post Thanos multiverse.

All the heroes, they now know.

To carry makeup in their purse.

Now that that’s been settled.

No more God or faith no more.

Our leaders are busy leading.

No more questions or out the door.

Dennis Mantin