Home Away From Home, Pt. 2

My morn wasn't so early as night was just late

(Though not as late as my flight in). I did things the wrong way.

At my time to do business, I was still on my flight,

So now I bend rules, telling silver-grey lies

To do in the last minute what I ought in the first.

Still, I won't say the time spent away was the worst.

I'll miss having access to old favorite foods

and six days with two half-days of business to do,

I'll have to unpack, and worse, turn on my phone,

But I'm pleased to return to my home away from home.

Home Away From Home, Pt. 1

Just when I started to feel I'd moved in,

It was time to fly someplace foreign again.

That's the nature of business. It never stands still,

Nevermind that I sit around wishing it will,

Though this wasn't as foreign as leaving my home.

The routes were well marked. I was often alone.

The streets were all wider, though equal in crowds;

I stayed near a Masjid, though it wasn't as loud.

I sat with beautiful women, not shoulders wide as my own

On my way back to away, to my home away from home.

Beneath Holmes, Watson/Above Beeblebrox, Garrison

I am a half-reformed loser who doesn't know his place

Struggling to locate the deck between a deuce and an ace,

Alternating between delusions of mint condition

Or trying to live up to limited edition,

Balancing my vain, vacuous striving for elite

Or self-pitied satisfaction as a broken-down antique,

Locating who I am despite that I'm not first,

But it has still still been half a lifetime since I was the worst,

and hoping to set a meaningful definition of success,

Searching for what it would mean to succeed and not be best.

Turbulence Upon Departing (JOG to SIN)

I was surly half-awaking from an unsuccessful nap

On the passport on the briefcase on the suitcase in my lap.

At the sight of you I thought I had ten years of youth regained,

Though I now fear that is your age, and my own remains the same.

Though it's true that I've met other girls as beautiful as you,

I've never met one who looked exactly like you do.

In my experiences with beauty, you're novel, if not a first,

Which makes this language barrier seem taller, and the worse.

Can't Live With It/Can't Live Without It

As a fountain of emotion,

It's remarkable for elasticity.

As a component of a person,

It's remarkable for inconsistency.

Forgetting risk and reward for pleasure and pain,

It's oft considered partner to the brain,

Though I find it easier to analogize

As the fickle, foolish cousin of the eyes.

But above all, I have learned to think

That everyone has hearts, and that they all stink.

A Velvet Bolt of Realization

Some people forget how good they have it.

They complain and breathe, but don't live.

Some people ignore what they've already got,

Heads full of what more life can give.

Some are so quick to the horse's mouth

They actually forget it's a gift.

Sometimes I forget how good I have it.

I complain and breathe, but don't live.

Sometimes I ignore what I've already got,

Head full of what more life can give.

Sometimes I'm so quick to the horse's mouth,

I actually forget it's a gift,

But it's a good start when work starts in five minutes

and I'm not even dreading it.

The Wild Technicolor Yonder

She still falls quickly and deeply, over and over,

Her loves gopher holes like cults.

He names the same plans differently, over and over,

Expecting different results.

He still masks his rage with the thinnest disguises,

Which flow down to his stomach, where he feels them.

She still masks her strangeness with the average neurosies,

Both hidden 'til my influence reveals them.

They still fill the same booth with the same seats,

Fill the table with the same jokes and the same eats.

We still have the same chats about different things,

When both of us talk and neither's listening.

Nothing in the world ever changes,

Except my angles, my line of sight.

Nothing in the world ever changes.

I just leave.