By: Patrick Dale

Imagination

Imagination is my painkiller, it’s as plain as this
I make a wish, grab my medicine and take it with
a spoonful of sugar, so goes the adage
when the dose is low I’m back at it to add it
double the fantasy dosage until relief is automatic
its too bad that it makes me a drug addict
because when life is testing me
I can always double up on my mental mescaline
and the rest of me fades away until my body’s festering
a mental fiend, who desires higher stimulus that what life can provide for
a more attractive body, a superhero lifestyle
and poetrys the only thing that I can write while
high off the drug of imagination
living in dreams, visions, phantasmagorias
manufactured hallucinations, stories of
what I would have done, had I the time to come up with a comeback
to God’s cruel joke, because through hope or desperation
my imagination keeps climbing until I am not who I am
the world is not what it is,
a living dream, a waking sleep
gone are the plaintively mundane pains that are plaguing me
and I am a painted me, comprised of the same things you see on TV screens
happy endings and empty plotlines
hollow characters of one dimension
one flaw, one trait, one catchphrase
simpletons who lack ways to navigate the complicated pathways of reality
a reality that is not wrapped up in a freeze frame at half an hour
a reality that does not receive my participation
reality calls, I disconnect the phone
reality knocks at the door to my home, I pull up the covers and groan
it says to act like you’re grown, like an acting adult
and not a childish dolt who flies as if from catapult
and then it does what ought to do
reality hits me, straight in the jaw
and I gaze upon its gaping maw
and it’s brutal and cruel and hateful and raw
and so I come down from the cognitive high
but long live the guy who is stronger than I
who can escape from realities logical sanity
but who am I kidding?  That thought is a fantasy
so sorry to close this poem on such a sober note
but imagination is my painkiller; I just overdosed

Love Letter to San Francisco

I still hold the day that we stood upon and looked along the golden gate in a golden way
while our fingers faced away and traced the waves on our shoulderblades.
And as the mist and fog softly slips and falls along the coastline,
no rhyme could explain the way I’ve felt about you this whole time,
because these games that we play may be way too cliche
but what else could we say?  I love you is the only thing that wouldn’t seem fake.
See you were a meek saint, and I a mild pilgrim.
You gave me high buildings and I gave you wild children.
She said good pilgrim you do wrong your hands too much.
which mannerly devotion shows in this?
For saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch,
and palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.
I said if I profane and your holy lips be touched,
would it be the same the next day if we fuck?
But did he really feel the love of the city or didn’t he?
It’s a complicated matter but the question is killing me.
I guess when someone loves you they let you hurt them willingly,
and I just didn’t know what I had, silly me.
I miss your hilly streets, and your one way dangerous curves.
See san francisco’s always had a thing for wrangling nerds.
You can see them at Mission and 16th as they hang at the curb.
My brain is absurd, illogical, irrational.
I can’t stop these passionate thoughts that keep crashing through
I had to laugh at you when I thought about the last 6 days
because these bastards do not know about each one of our mistakes
and it pains me to say, but this may be the way
to make me a sane person today
so San Francisco, do me a personal fav
let me be your burdensome weight
because I’m burning the flame of the wick of the candle at both ends
and no friends can explain away the words for what it hurts me to say:
that you’ve got murderous ways.
My heart was found dead at the crime scene,
but you couldn’t be captured by rhythm or rhyme scheme,
and that dying organ still beats with palpatative percussion
but this love letter is over, it’s done, end of discussion