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When I am staring at the ceiling
as it stares back in shades of black
and needles me, once more, with feeling...

What is it, friend? What do you lack?
Why can't you have some peace and quiet?
Why is your mind a storm, a riot,
a jumble of half-written songs,
of slights, accumulated wrongs,
and all demanding your attention?

What must I do so that my mind,
however stubborn and unkind,
relents, forgives, forgets to mention,
the thing that's keeping me awake?

I should have had that piece of cake.

I huff and puff to generate
a meme to seem supreme
It's rough and tough -- hope not too late
to dream and scheme on theme.

When the years press you down
and the aches that add up
put a frown on your face
do not fret, do not stop
and eschew any talk
that it sucks to get old
As the old proverb says…

Fortune favors the bald

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

I bring ya a tale of the Möbius stripper.
As handy with Euclid as she’s with a zipper,
and furthermore, since she’s got nothing to hide,
she’d show perfect strangers her only good side.

She, sadly, got caught in a lovers’ triangle.
Obliged, by her nature, to twist and entangle,
and having no options — she knew this was wrong
she found a new job and now serves as a thong

Author notes: Image generated by author prompt to GPT

If I could just get rid of "chuckled"
the reader laughing on his own…
These latest edits that I've tackled
(and I'll admit, I'm in the zone)
I'm getting rid of "heard" and "listen"
and any sun that doesn't glisten,
no more of "saw" or "thought" or "felt".
With all of that under my belt
will I succeed? No lack of trying
but then remember that a "knew"
just like a "nodded", be they few,
will keep the editor from buying,
and so continue what I must.
If I could just get rid of "just."

When I cavort around the town
I often look for love.
But ask a lady: "Are you down?
"We fit like hand and glove!"
and you're as likely to receive
a whupping as a slap.
So I, although I've much to give
have almost given up

Confined to rubbing the old lamp --
It, frankly, has been years,
hand spasms up -- a wicked cramp --
A genie, though, appears.
He says: My friend, you need not fret
I know the Kama Sutra
and lest you have any regret
best know: I'm gender neutral

"Hold on!" I say. That tired trope,
you owe me certain wishes
and he is like: if there is soap
I'll also wash the dishes
"But wait!" I say and glance around
to search for an escape
and he says: oh, look what I found
and shows -- I swear -- a grape

Well, let's just say I was afraid
I thought I knew my tastes,
and though -- like all -- can use an aid,
I'm more for waspy waists.
I banished him, this genie friend.
I dare not see such sport!
And promise, for a happy end
to happily cavort

https://makebestmusic.com/shared-music-new/5a96f297-8d6b-47a3-b28b-66a11c81b64c

When I am tortured by the dentist,
and at the least, like twice a year,
I wish I hadn’t been apprenticed
to, of all things, a chocolatier.

Alas, sweet tooth, you've cost me dearly,
in both deductible, and clearly
in pain and suffering to boot.
Oh well, at least it’s not my foot.

That aforementioned, sad affliction,
is what the textbook would call gout,
and let there be no shred of doubt,
as to my chocolate addiction,

but to withdraw from meat and wine…
And then pretend that all is fine?

It’s lots of things, but fine, it isn’t,
this desecration of my flesh.
The whole thing loosely reminiscent —
I claim no birthing in a creche —

to, after serving out your mission,
return… but only on condition
of being put up on the cross.
You will return, so no big loss.

Return, refreshed and resurrected,
If you behave and cease all sin.
One doesn’t know where to begin.
A steroid shot — right where affected —

And you return to walk again.
Mouth open, dentist says. Say when.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to ChatGPT

As wisdoms go, conventional’s the worst.
Best dress it up as ancient. That does better.
Uncommon — when delivered and dispersed
by graying talking heads who claim: Unfetter

your shallow thinking from its rigid past
and benefit from our well-hidden knowledge.
They grow alarmed, increasingly aghast,
when challenged on the benefits of college…

Collect them, all these wisdoms, each a pearl,
and worthy of its own consideration,
then string the set together, to unfurl,
depending on a given situation,

and offer one, as needed, to a fool
The wise already have it, as a rule.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

What's art? It's Plato's shadows on the wall.
Go, touch it - It's a snake in Eden's garden.
Or maybe it's a leaf before the fall.
An executed man receives a pardon.

What's art? It isn't suffering or pain.
It's rather a disease, a kind of vector
that's able, through its subterfuge, to gain,
bypassing any shielding or deflector,

a channel to your very inner self
and transfer its concealed, mimetic cargo
from where it sits. A wall, a frame, a shelf.
No matter any sanction or embargo
that you may put on empathy and care.

That's art. And you will see it. If you dare.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

When the light at the end of the tunnel goes dark
When a walk is no longer a walk in the park
When doubt eats at your guts at the end of the day
When you're ready to fight, let them come, come what may
When the spirit is wanting, the flesh, though, is weak
When the spectre is haunting, the living dead speak
When the hope springs eternal and hearts are on fire

Try to say something new. Do not preach to the choir.

Canute had failed to conquer the Atlantic.
Though some would later claim he didn't try.
Those claims, however genuine or frantic,
their efforts to suppress and to deny
the obvious, ring fatuous and hollow.
Did not the man put throne upon the shore?
Command the tide to stop while it was shallow,
to stop it from returning, as before?
They claim that it was just a demonstration.
A way to teach his courtiers a truth:
No man, whatever his affair or station,
no youth, or one that's longer in the tooth,
commands the tide to stay where it once stood.
They claim. But we all know he wished he could.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

As to the wisdom of the ancients:
Beware the Romans and the Greeks.

So says my artificial sentience,
the common wisdom of all geeks.

And as to why beware this wisdom…

Is it to coddle or appease them?
Those who would claim that it is spent
and we had better all repent?

Is there, perhaps, a different reason?
That having grown a bit too wise,
wants a monopoly — surprise!
on wisdom, as it plots its treason,
us none the wiser of the act…

Still thinking opposites attract.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini