Cyber 'Love'?

1.
Failure

Here I will state
the mistake I have made,
many have made,
how foolish I feel.
Trapped by the ease
of online gratification,
so easy to meet
to dream
to want
to love
to relieve the pain
to pain again.

What can I speak
but for that which I feel
and dwells inside me
wanting to burst forth.
Burst forth?
Yes,
welling deep within
with no outlet
no one to hold
with arms,
not of mind,
but of flesh.
To care for.

How long will it take
before you realize
that online-life
and reality
tear the substance inside you
to shreds?

Realize I do
but feelings run deep
for friends and
(dare I say)
loved ones,
whom I've never met,
never to meet,
though the heart yearns to.

What will come of this association
that can go unpronounced
unfulfilled,
only lacking
and hankering eternal
but can never approach
satisfaction
of the self.

Damn the heart.
For it bleeds not blood
but berths desire,
feeling for others.
So easily
and unsuspecting,
it latches
to names and faces
with hope and desire.
Glory to the javelin
which pierces but once
and fells our hero--story ends
pain ends.
But love pierces much deeper
ripping asunder again and again
without mercy.
Without death too,
for you try yet again
to conquer
with another failed attempt
to fill the hole within.
Why try for more?
I cannot say.
For love brings more pain
than happiness
it seems.

I contemplate life without love
or without hope of you Oh love,
living to me seems so drab.
Perhaps you are not directed
in the proper way
and withhold you purpose
till our end and final breath.

(As my improvisation
of a blues riff
trail beneath my fingers
upon the Ibenez
a tear flows down my cheek.
Taste it's sweetness
bitterness.
The low
resonance of the bass
fills me
suits me
as I cry
lyrics of love.
As jazz speaks
with no words
this poem sings
my heart.)

In search of the grand metaphor
does the song speak
more than I can?
Easier to tune
to cry
to bleed?
It is performance in a way
but the performer knows more.
What is that song?
Is song only scale
note and meter?
Is it smokey blues
or swinging jazz?
Is it only loud rock music
pumped over the loud speaker in
your army barracks?
What does the performer feel,
what do you?
When it touches you
you know
the metaphor rings loud
long after the humm
of amps in ear.
The ebb and flow
progressive improv's
filling your soul,
changing your life.
We search for metaphor
to find a shelter
when shelters are few.
Carry us through the storm
that one rock to hold on to,
when all others have been washed away,
in vain attempts to satisfy,
the strong rock of substance of self,
your metaphor of love,
to ground you.

(my riff dies out
unable to express this thought.
Lost feelings of sadness
as it is just too much
to dwell on.
I will return to you,
my search,
for the metaphor of my life
of my love
for that may be all I have at the end
a metaphor.
Hands drop
bass note fades,
alone again.)

2.
Accomplice

Lust carries us
to where
we hope to encounter you.
Two forces,
one throws
one binds.
Thrown in by lust
and bound by you (love)
we are endlessly searching.
Endlessly being smashed
against the rocks of disappointment.
How pointed and jagged
they crush our bones
but the flame burns still inside
"never satiated".

Although burned
and mauled
lust carries us again,
and again,
to search for that soul
to fulfill our need
spurred on by the desires of love.
Resolved to not do,
yet we do again
searching, searching
endlessly
faultily
no end in sight.
Carried by the unbridled chariot
lust, mind, senses
to dangerous lands
we sit and be carried
with a faint inner hope
for success.

3.
My resolve

The online medium
cannot fulfill you
I know that now.
(I knew that then)
How foolish I was to think otherwise.
Yes, friendships there can be
but love?
The heart desires to be heard,
and hearing is there,
but the reciprocation we crave
can that be found?

(the gremlin of mind protests:
"why so much mental pain
just have fun
it was never meant to be more than that
you fool.")

What about those friendships
with cats, dragons, and minds
birds, princesses and pirates
lyrics, icons, names of all sorts
flutter before us.
We relate to them
real persons
behind the safety of obscurity.
I miss them when they are not before me
and I long to be with them again.
"Them?"
Who are they?
Do I really know?
Or do I just imagine them,
with the faint code I am given,
to be perfect?
Yes perfect for the time
no worries of exploitation
friends for the hour
(upon hours
upon hours).
But can we turn away
without a thought of more?
What heart is there
that does not become attached
to these people,
much like you,
searching for something.
Maybe for a good time,
some laughs
is that all?
To waste time?
Maybe.
Quick thrill?
Most likely.
But love?
No.
It can't be.
They aren't as foolish as you.

Good-bye Hobbes
my friend.
you have carried me as far as I could go here,
unable to satisfy.
You are within me
true
but I must now leave you.
Now I am Michael
a real person
more learned now
with resolve to live.
Hobbes is dead.

4.
Final good-bye

You came to me when I so needed you
so empty inside
frustrated and alone.
You showed me
that I could yet love again
although you may not have know it.
The exciting feelings
of meeting and waiting to meet
so long disappeared from me
to feel them again
was to breath new life.
Incomplete
yet complete in itself
you showed me that love is still there
deep inside
a dim smolder
but smolder still.
Your friendship has fanned me
encouraged me
comforted me.
Who are you?
And why did we meet?
I was happy
for a time,
the time with you.

I say good-bye
friend of mine,
though it pains me so.
My feelings are not mutual,
were never meant to be,
but they attack me
and torment me
and have opened my eyes.
Pushing me to real life
you have encouraged me
to do what I had not the courage to do.
How it will turn out
I do not know.
I am grateful,
and will not forget you.
This is how:

When all goes black
On the screen before me
I sit
in silence
see you still
your name
imagined form
our words
our conversation,
feel . . .
yes . . .
your love.
Found, but yet unfound.
Is this what I have searched for?
This moment of shut down
where only I sit and contemplate?
That feeling in the heart
is that you,
my love?

That feeling is powerful,
a well charged cell
driving me to real life.
Find the new one,
or mend damaged ones.
Love was right next to you
but you could not see.

Let it be this way then,
as blackness sets in
and pupils adjust,
I say now
and forever more
in that moment where tubes grow dim
you appear
with you, giggles
grins, laughs,
most of all
your memory of friendship.
"Love" to me.
You will always be remembered
in this way.
Yes, I have found you,
perhaps not in the way
I expected,
for . . . I
cannot have you
you are another's
and so am I.
"Oh, what tangled webs we weave."
To this end
I accept my fate
and offer this poem to you
as my final
good-bye.

("and in the end
the love you take
is equal to
the love you make"
Lennon/McCartney)