Bipolar Confessional

"this uncharitable season"

2012-01-19T08:57:00.001-06:00

Give it away to keep it
Don't need a reason
Generous and selfish
Charitable treason

Mined it from the source
Runnin' through my heart
Lord, it's runnin' through my brain
Love don't tear it apart

I need you to want it
I want you to need it
This narcissistic fire for you
I need you to feed it

Your validation means too much to me
I feel I cannot love without it
You give it then you lose it
I think too much about it

I know there's a closet in your room
Filled with unwanted memories
Piled so high but still some room
For more unwanted pieces of me

If I had any pride I'd raid that room
Plunder it and take what was mine
Maybe give it to someone else
Everything I can find

For I cannot keep it for myself
What once I never owned
The sentiments have gone their seperate ways
From forgiveness unatoned

This addictive need to share
Has drained me of reasons
To find anything worth sharing
In this uncharitable season

BLUR

2012-01-06T08:53:00.001-06:00

The lights are out
I'm trying to feel my way
Through the dark
Got turned around somehow
Into something completely unfamiliar

Vertigo tugs at my guts
I don't want to admit it
I've forgotten the pathways through my own home
I'm completely lost without your map to guide me
Stumbling around in the dark calling out your name
Your name and help
Your name and it's so dark
It's black-night dark and your name
Hurled from my lips in desperation
Deep muddy water desperation
Thickened quicksand inviting me in
There for no other purpose than to consume
To suck me into the earth
To fill my mouth and stop it up
From calling out your name
Your name and the dark become
The only things I have left in the world
Being ripped from me even now
Why so dark?
Where did that hole come from anyway?
I don't remember it being there
I don't remember much of anything
Even as I tried to feel my way through
Knowing full well that the right path along the wall
Would lead me to the bedroom
This time the maze tricked me
The more I realized you were there
The more I knew I'd never reach you
Because this house wants nothing to do with me anymore

To think there will come a time
When the only things I remember about this day
Are black-night darkness and
Your name

Hanging onto a thin thread of certainty now,
Gravity anchors me
Were it not for this covered cage
I would rise
A blanket covered cage
Draped by a loved one with my own best interests at heart
"Sleep" she says
"Sleep and rest"

I don't sleep anymore
The string's been cut
I know nothing
It's all a blur to me now

Ease me down gently into the Dream...

2011-10-24T11:50:00.006-05:00

Ease me down gently into the Dream
Forget what I see, forget what I've seen
Hold me down softly, free me from sin
All that I am, all I have ever been
Gently, son, gently
Into the dream

Make me a home now, deep in your heart
So that these generations won't keep us apart
To dwell in your memory, free of the shame
As time and forgetting atone for the blame
A home, son, my home
Within your heart

Sing me a sweet song to put me to sleep
The one I gave to you and told you to keep
Until the day came I would need it again
To scare away gods and demons and men
No sad songs, son
But sing me to sleep

Remind me, my son, of the things that I said
Of no looking back, only looking ahead
Today is no different, though my eyes cannot see
This place where I go that my mind can't conceive
teach me again, son
These lessons I've taught you

One last thing now, before I begin
This eternal journey that starts at the end
Of a life filled with love, my last wish will be
Take mine with you, son, I'll take yours with me
Before I begin, son,
Ease me into the Dream

I wan't to knock down your idols...

2011-10-18T15:24:00.000-05:00

I want to knock down your idols
I gave them to you I should be able to destroy them
I should be allowed to crush them with the same hammer
I used to drive the nails into Christ's
Hands
and
Feet

I want to uproot your garden
The one I planted and presented to you
Flowers of all shapes and colors I thought
You needed reminders of the ideas I once held dear
Dear enough to till in fertile soil
That have proved poisonous
Black and rotten to eyes of age
While the serpent has not found the young yet
I want to pull them out, all of them out
I need to yank them out, weeds and all
Maybe it won't be too late
To sow better seed in that growing land

I believe her when she tells me...

2011-10-17T09:53:00.002-05:00

I believe her when she tells me
How you've become a monster
She has no reason to lie...

She says you are filled with hate
But I know the truth is more complicated
You just bounced from one wall to another
We both drank from the same fountain

She says I wouldn't recognize you
I'm sure she's right
Even more sure
She wouldn't recognize me
We are both paying

She says she doesn't really get along with you
What could you have done, I wonder
To push her away, it's sad, because I know
In pushing her you exacted revenge against me

She tells me a lot of things
They hurt, they anger, they pour salt in the wound
And I would listen to her all day long

Because I long to fill in the gaps
The years absent of you

I want to know that I hurt you almost as much as you hurt me

I think this was the first time I noticed...

2011-10-17T09:52:00.003-05:00

I think this was the first time I noticed
That song doesn't move me like it used to
It's nothing, really
I just thought it would always move me
I figured it would never grow old

All the idols
Crafted in cheap tin
Dipped in dirty water and left to rust
Bored of your graven image

Yes, you've stolen more than years from me
I don't want them back
As if you hadn't ditched them
One at a time, without a care in the world

It only makes me lighter
Easier to float

I think they blow demon's breath...

2011-10-17T09:51:00.002-05:00

I think they blow demon's breath
To knock the weak to the ground
Some of them don't even realize
How they're being used
Willing, ignorant mouthpieces
Gleefully spitting the Name of the enemy
Gracefully twisting the Word despised
Into something unrecognizable

Ashamed of what's behind me...

2011-10-17T09:50:00.001-05:00

Ashamed of what's behind me
Afraid of what lies ahead
I should find comfort
In the moment between
Where judgment has been passed
Where innocence is restored
I would find faith in that span
If I only knew what faith is
For I find myself begging for forgiveness
For sins I've already begged forgiveness for
In so doing I testify
My unbelief
My unwavering suspicion that none can be forgiven
Even by You
Even if I were to convince myself
That forgiving is not the same as forgetting
I would still blame You
For tying guilt to the memories
And giving me the strength to dredge them up
From the well of experience
Where iniquity floats
While joy sinks
So deep, deeper still, lost, never mine
With the understanding of repentance
As stuffed as a shadow
Yet heavier than stone
You know, You know
I don't even know what it is
So how can I be saved?
How can I be saved from this awful moment?
Where the great I AM dwells
While I am pulled back by devil's lies
Counting out time, waiting
For the glorious moment
When I can slash that coil I'm tethered with
To sink down, deep, deeper still
Until murky water is air to still lungs
All I see, all I know, all I've ever known, everything I might have known
Will be shuffled off like a thick coat on a summer's afternoon
And this hope will be tested
My question answered, are hope and faith one and the same?
I hope so.
I have faith it is so.

I Hate to Give These Things Titles

2011-06-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

Nothing has changed, has it?
Oh, but who am I trying to fool?
I only said that because I was disoriented
By how different it all is, the furniture you've moved
I don't suppose it could have been any different
Had I hung around to watch you move it
We both know I couldn't have helped you
I wasn't strong enough and I don't mind admitting that
I only wish you had understood
That you had known just how much I liked the loveseat against the west wall
That you hadn't held it against me, my weakness, I couldn't lift those things
I didn't want to lift them and maybe that's something you didn't get
Of all the things you could have gotten
Had you not known how cheaply I could be had
You have no grasp whatsoever of Feng Shui
Or most likely it's my own inability to appreciate it
Yes, that's the truth, when you get down to it

I dreamed I saw you
Standing at an open window
4 stories high, looking down at a flag waving in the breeze
Leaning forward slightly
My gut clenched in fear
I felt worry like a strong breeze
Pushing me toward you
Stopped by some invisible responsibility
"If you love somebody, set them free"
That stupid song started playing in my head and I froze in my tracks
Even as you leaned forward even more
I thought
The possibility that you would fall outweighed
The likelihood that you would not
In that realization I saw what was wrong with me
Just like the time when I was 6 years old, playing in the park
Dad was at the picnic table playing cards with his friends
(That's what they liked to do)
I climbed up to the top of a very high slide
All by myself, no one to help me, no big deal
But he saw me
He felt the same breeze, almost like an East wind ushering in a thunderstorm
He stood up, a reflex, an instinct
And he watched with the same tingle of fear I felt in my dream
With every bit of strength within him he stayed
He was a real worrier, yet he overcame that worry
Just
Long
Enough
To see me laughing as I made my way down that slide
I love him for that
It was many, many years after that I finally came to understand
How essential are the words:
"Be Careful"
So that's what I said to you
Watching you bend over even more
Forgiving myself for being so worried
Because if you had fallen
I would have lived the rest of my life
Wondering why I didn't jump out after you

Those last days were kind of rough, weren't they?
The fights over who kept what and what was whose
The resigned silence
Reading each others minds, or so we thought
We might as well have been illiterate for our ability
Blame cast in every direction like fiery arrows deflected
By shields of indifference
I won't say I'm the innocent one
I won't be here for long
I only came to grab a few things
Soon be gone

This is not for you
Think what you will, I know you do
This is not even for me
Written, forgotten, that's how it must be
My codes are easily deciphered
Your cryptograms are broken
Not as clever, either one of us, as we thought
So it's better to be forthright
This place is so unfamiliar
It's impossible to believe I lived here for so long
It's yours now
If I could only ask for the DVD of "The Truman Show" beneath the books in "our" bedroom
I know you always thought of it as yours
But...

So now I'll be going
Hope I haven't kept you too long
I got what I came for
Turn away, love, I'm gone

Memories of a Fallen Goddess Part 64

2011-05-10T14:14:00.000-05:00

What was the point in staring at your photo?
What had I to gain from it?
Mesmerized and chained to the wall
Bent into a crouch by circumstance and the cruel
Hand of Fate
It was all I had of you
A powerful talisman that just as often cursed
As blessed
For the miles between us were many
And the distance even further
Even if I could have broken a hole in the separating wall
I wouldn't have been able to cross that span
I was too weak and still reeling from realizing it
But I had that picture
A tiny, wrinkled scrap of paper to confirm
That the image in my mind was no dream
Even as time threatened to convince me
Even as time reminded me of change and all it threatened to do
The visage trapped in Kodachrome
Was immune to it
All the while you grew and morphed ever so slightly
Into the almost unrecognizable woman
I came back to
My absence having dragged you down
Into an unfamiliar reality you'd never known existed
Your fear that everything we'd built together, every dream shared
Were for nothing, with nothing to show
It may have been a glimpse of the separation
Impending while hidden, awaiting the proper moment
Just a peek, unbidden, that transformed you
Made you even more beautiful, made you all the more dangerous
Made you open your eyes to what had to be done
The same pool-deep eyes I stared at during that hard time
So intent that they seemed to move
An optical illusion tricked me into believing
Everything would be just fine when we came together again
Fooled me into thinking we would ever be the same
I had grown to expect the angel
Smiling at me from the photo
Becoming more beautiful each time I took it from my wallet
Farther away every time I stuffed it back in

No longer miles, but years neither of us care to cross anymore
No longer distance, but tears that tore us asunder
I don't even have the picture anymore, as if I still wanted it
As if I could still bear to look at it without shuddering

Wondering how I could ever have thought you were my other half
It would only serve to remind me that you were never mine at all
And if all I could have of you is this picture
No matter that it saved my life
I'd rather feed it to the fire

*****************

She had been gone for a couple of months when I found an old shoe box
Into which I crammed every letter she wrote me in days apart
One for every day of the week, six months worth of reminders
She loved me. She missed me. She could not wait until I came home.
(Oh, now I chastise myself for not even remembering what her handwriting looked like)
I stuck them in that Nike box along with our marriage certificate
I drove across town and gave it to her mother
She would pass it
Along
A long regretted final gesture of acceptance
Where, hidden in a random envelope that my love would probably never open,
I had tucked in the photograph
For her to burn

Kathy

2011-03-20T18:21:00.002-05:00

They brought her in
Through the hard wood double doors
She had a hard expression stamped on her face
That seemed out of place for the occasion
Almost as if she wanted to be there
It softened a tiny bit with the blast of the air conditioner
Melted for half a moment
Only to dry, thickening cement, the next
I don't remember
If I ever knew
Who piloted her into that cold room
Who held the handles of the wheel chair that had replaced her legs
But I do recall how they set her in a corner
The better to survey the gathering
She divided every man and woman, young and old
Into two factions
Friend
Foe
I knew exactly where I stood in that division
With the majority
And she made a scene when she saw me
Impotent to rise and look me in the face (as if she would have)
Crippled
Pathetic
As the words I don't remember and the way she spoke them...
It wasn't the time or the place
So the two factions splintered into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two...
Some converted
To leave her alone with her blood
And the ghost of the man
She
Unknowingly
Killed

It doesn't take a weapon to kill a man
No accident, cancer, water, gravity, fire
Age
Her petty selfishness squeezed his heart
And her unreasonable ultimatums broke it
All that was left was to wait and see
How long it would take the poison to do it's work
As it turned out, it didn't take long

And I don't doubt that she cried
She was too stupid to realize what she'd done
She had no idea what she was doing
And I don't doubt she loved him
In her own possessive, dominating way
It hadn't seemed to bother him
And I don't doubt that she grieved bitterly
She wasn't made of stone
You don't just piss away so many years
And I don't doubt that she missed him with time
For he was good to her
Much better than she deserved
But I doubt she thought of him
In her final dying days

The last time I saw her
She was stranded by the check-out counters in a Wal-Mart store
Tethered to the slick plastic seat of the wheelchair she'd accepted
Her pilot had gone off, maybe to the restroom
Maybe to fetch some powdered donuts forgotten on the grocery list
For whatever reason
She was left there, alone, solitary
Looking around the place like a curious turtle
Slow, halted by time
All alone
An island abandoned
Left to her own company
All alone
A sad, ridiculous sight
Soon enough cut down

She left a lot to be forgiven for
The heavy weight of anger eventually
Became too much for me to bear
For him, for myself, not for her
I stood on that sacred ground
I touched the stone
I said, "For you, for you alone
I will let it go
I will let it go"

Mistake

2011-03-06T20:56:00.002-06:00

Now
I'm stuck in a moment,
Ashamed, Repentant,
That forgiveness would have spared
A chance to be the better man
But a foolish impulse shut it out
A self-satisfied second of self-assurance
Believing I was justified
I was satisfied to speak my mind
Not wanting to care but almost knowing
How deluded it was
Incapable of seeing anything else besides
What I wanted to see

Time crawls slowly on
Giving birth to more and more moments
I will soon enough break free of this one
To leave my transgressions behind
Consigning them to forgetfulness
The usual procedure
I will become unstuck from this one

None of it is so heavy a stone
That will and the need to move on
Cannot roll away

So I prepare to forget
The thoughtlessness of my actions
As I resolve never to look back
In this moment
I would have you know
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I would hope you forget
Leaving you behind
Won't be any easier knowing
You already have

Forgotten

Burning Bridges

2011-03-04T09:32:00.000-06:00

Everything's out now
In the air, in the open
On the table
Spilling over the sides
More to come
Still, I'm just not sure this was the right way to go about it

I want to take some back
Though it felt so cathartic to unload
The empty space vacated
Is hungry for the secrets I've given away
The fresh void
Craves the pampered memories
The lost recollections that once glowed with shame
I miss the skeletons I've evicted from my soul closet
Recklessly disassembled
Tossed out with no rhyme or reason
Onto this pyre
Too late to turn back now, I've already lit the fire
I could reach in, perhaps
Sacrifice fingers or hands to retrieve precious few
But which ones?
Would they be enough to fill the churning stomach?
Would I grow to resent them for the ones that weren't chosen?
No...best to let them all burn with limbs and digits intact

The excavation process seemed so simple at the time
Heavy weights lifted from my shoulders
The promise of a bright and shining future
Unburdened by revelation I thought I could offer
So sure it would change lives, not the least of which
My own
How naïve to believe
It was worth anything in the first place
It belonged with the dancing skeletons
In the hole with the transparent ghosts of guilt
Evil twin, doppelganger of gravity
To pull me down into sinful reality

I loved them all

I still do
Though I'm quite sure I've murdered them
They will never die
My salvation comes only in the knowledge
That they belong to the past,
Unable to survive outside of the paradigm in which they are imprisoned,
And that it is my very nature
As a human being
To live in the present moment
In which they have no power

Parade of Fools

2011-03-04T09:31:00.000-06:00

Maybe I watch these fools
Because I want to believe
Or because I hold out hope
That one has a word of truth
For me
I've always been disappointed before
But I'm willing to accept a miracle
Were it offered
I have a gut feeling
These fools won't be the ones with that gift
To give

So what, then? Why?
Why do I turn up my nose and
Level a sharp cynical stare
At these snake charming hucksters?
I know all they do
I perceive their intention
I hear the lulling lilt of the seducer's song
That rolls like fragrant incense
From their serpent-tongue mouths
Lips chapped and bleeding
I smell the stench of their breath

All have eyes to see
All have ears to hear
Still the blind lead the blind
Their hands deep in pockets

The damage done
I sit and stare without guilt
Because I love to see the deceiver in action
All the better I'll be able to recognize him
When he comes knocking at my door

the Sound of the Hurricane

2011-01-28T10:20:00.002-06:00

My head is bowed
Pelted by pellets of invisible rain
That burn life sparks from a smelter
The heat of the sun, quickly vanishing
Realization stabs deep, lightning sharp
Bright, brilliant for only a second
Then gone, gone, gone from it's target
Chosen for it's revelation
I feel the thunder shake my guts
No longer in the distance
The hammer strikes hard
And the flash of metal on steel
Spits electricity, aimed with precision
So I cover my head with my hands
My instinct is to hit the ground
Assume the position
Hide in a cellar womb I've made in my mind
For just this purpose (I knew it was comin' down)
I should not have made this promise
Not to venture too far
From fetal security
It's much better in this gelatinous cellar tomb
White washed as it is by all Your lies

Can you feel the wind blowing?
Howling and whining, whistling a dreadful tune
Giving voice to ghosts and spirits, angry at me
Threatening to knock me down, back to the ground
Blow me down and stone me
With lethal hailstones as the apostle stands back to watch
Threaten to whip me up and whirl me around
Just so much debris caught in the jaws of a hungry tornado
It threatens to toss me off, useless detritus
Into ever growing puddles
But I am a heavy feather
A wet leaf, mired in fresh mud
So I ain't goin' nowhere

If I had the nerve
I would lift up my head from useless prayers
Take a quick look and hope to see
Where it's all coming from
Grey clouds drifting too quickly
Ugly colors on infinite canvas
Confusing melodies drawn upon staves of silence
Sick, dirty, murky ether
That delivers nothing but bad tidings
I only want to kill the messenger
The artist, the composer
I know exactly where to find Him
He's in the womb
He's in the tomb
And he's mean to vomit me out of his silent mouth
And he's heartless to leave me alone for these years he's given me
And he's cruel to teach me of the Grand Obsession
That will take me back to Him

I will stop up my ears aganst the raging tempest
Because I do not want to hear
So sure that my denial
Rooted, as it is, in ignorance
Will perform alchemy
If only in the playground of my mind
A minor tweak in the illusion
But I have not the nerve
Nor have I the skills
My magic is too fragile
So my back remains hunched
Eyes still closed
Head in hands, bobbing back and forth
To the beat
Of some heavy rock music I've chosen
To drown out the sound
Of the Hurricane

Letter found, along with several heavy rocks, in the pocket of a discarded coat

2011-01-06T10:57:00.003-06:00

Sylvia,

It seems as if I have taken you
To the point
Where happiness and smiles give way
To hard cynicism
Too early, too soon
Too much for such a one as you
To embrace this vision of mine
Tainted, as it is, with regrets
Tragedies you will never know
Long before you'll have to deal
With your own
I wish I could keep you
From carrying my weight
It is too heavy for the both of us

Maybe I shoved you
Across the line that seperates
Blame and compassion
To a place where forgiveness isn't even an option
For one as innocent as I
Of these things, at least
These transgressions channeled through me by fate
To serve some cosmic purpose
We'll never understand
To work out the sins of our fathers
To examine and analyze them
To ask why
We are the sacrifice for their return to innocence
Awaiting our own

Could it be that I have pushed you
Over the edge
To free fall into the void
Or did you jump by your own design?
Did the emptiness lure you?
The Siren's song silence you long to know?
Head filled with the foolish notion
That your dreams have been spent
Fleeing from fire, a more palatable alternative
Hoping for shock to excise spirit
Before gravity has completed it's work

Sylvia, my darling
Love of my life
What have I done?
Have my eyes become blind to your beauty?
Is the sound of your voice no longer music to my ears?
Have I become loathsome to you?
What is it which causes you to recoil?
I understand, my love, I understand
I feel the same way when I see my own reflection
The image of a broken man, robbed of joy
Burdened with sadness
Not only for what I've become
But in remembrance of the long, mean road
That brought me here
Set out to journey
Guided until a fork in the road frightened God away
On my own I have come to this
I regret a lot of things in my life,
Sylvia,
But the biggest regret is letting you come with me
You wore me down with your begging
Your pleas that only I could hear
Your devotion, Your loyalty
Like drugs
I was addicted
So I pretended

Now I think you see
Through the facade
Straight into what I am
What's inside of me
Wallow where I once wallowed
Way back when wallowing was the reason
The way to keep the cruelty at bay
I never wanted it to be this way
Sylvia, now I fear
It's too late

I have no easy answers
I have nothing at all worth sharing
You see, I'm wallowing even now
Old habits die hard
The sins of the fathers
They rest upon your shoulder
Heavy or light, the burden remains
May well be you will never lay it down
Until time takes me far away
Until space expands into forever
Until gratitude can only be expressed
At the point where cynicism melts
To reveal love in it's infancy
Until empathy bends the line into a circle
Trapping hope, barring hatred
Within and without the separating wall of Infinity
Strong arms await the impact of the Fall
To break it, caring less for your motivation
Only wanting to carry you home and away

If not, so mote it be
A long as you lay it down
When you lay me down

In all sincerity,
Ted

words

2011-01-06T10:55:00.003-06:00

We don't say "I love you" anymore
The sentiment buried deep
Seldom considered
Never discussed
A declaration that swims
With memories
Sinks with exhaustion
Hardens with repetition
Deep in the recesses of our souls
The fear of it's loss
Is the proof of it's existence
Throughout it's evolution
How painful to let go of what it once was
How difficult to grasp what it has become
How dreadful to consider what it may turn into
Sublimated, as it is
Fighting gravity to escape the ocean floor
This love awaits resurrection
The renewal of senses dumbed down

"I love you" takes it's rightful place
Beyond the realm of intelligence
Into the dumb bliss of Spirit
To mingle with childhood dreams
Memories of carnivals and candy
Moms and Dads
To pick up after us
Teaching, alas, by example
Wide-eyed wonder for alien species
Dogs and cats and turtles and frogs
Butterflies and bees, lightning bugs and praying mantis
We marvel at it's devotion and wonder
What is he praying for? Who is he praying for?
More likely we marveled at how green he was
Days when we knew love without knowing it's name
Before we knew what it was
A given
Yes, a Given
Waiting for the day when it would be
Taken for granted
Yes, Taken

The words have become useless to us
Offered and received so many times
Put them to rest
Hope for the best

apathY

2010-12-06T10:50:00.004-06:00

Apathy rots...
What will it take
To awaken you
When you've lost faith in dreams?
When sleep is a warm amnesia
Nothing more
Granted, a good thing
For a wise old man
Whose mind is stuffed with memories
A good thing
For a tired old soul
Weighing experience on rusty scales
Whose biggest regret
Is having succumbed to apathy
Realizing, too late,
What a weak enemy it is
How easy it would have been
To conquer and subdue it
To bend it to the will and tame it
It couldn't be all that hard
But you have barely set off on the journey
You can offer advice to no one
Even as you take no advice from anyone
Who convinced you your soul was black?
Do you think there will ever come a day when
You will forgive him
You will forgive her
For lying to you?

"It is better to have loved and lost
Than to never have loved at all"
What a damn shame William's wisdom
Has been relegated to the status of a Hallmark greeting card
Where so many people laugh and snicker
So secure in their smug little minds
That they have a fucking clue what it really means
That they don't have a use for this kind of optomistic philosophy
Or the sad sacks who just don't get it
Who can't look past their pain and bitterness
To grasp it's prophecy
Who won't swallow the pill because they just don't want to
Even if they know
(as they all do)
That it's a cure

Me?
I'm powerless
I WISH I didn't care
But that's a death wish
I'm a child who loves his toys
I don't want them taken from me
Christmas is around the corner and you know what that means
That's right!
MORE TOYS!!!

...closure///

2010-12-06T10:49:00.003-06:00

I take full responsibility
For what I've done
The stolen coins
The nicked photographs
Shiny black and white
Gray
From a time I was not meant to remember
Blessed with innocence I was
A precious gift I was
That soon rotted for you to grow tired of
A monster you could not control
You took as much as you could take, I know
As did I

I wonder if you realize what you took?
What you stole?
Would the scales be balanced?
No, you have no idea
Why should I walk this earth judged guilty
By a judge more guilty than I?
More...more...more...

No, you were not alone
But at least he tried to tie up the loose ends
You left unraveled as you made your choice
I hated him, even told my pillow as much
As I beat it and hoped it muffled my voice
Pillow my only friend, it dried my tears
Soaked them up
Yes, I hated him, hated his anger
His disgust in me
His unwillingness to slap the shit out of me when I dared him to
I took it as cowardice
I was wrong
I was wrong about a lot of things
None of his faults,
I thought there were many,
Were above forgiving
Now that he's gone I can only remember the good things
The man he truly was, beneath the flaws
Revealed slowly by time
Tested and proven by death
The time you didn't want from me
Tested and proven in death

So why am I still troubled by that day?
How can I see you off after all we've been through?
I remember my grandmother's funeral
I was only a child, it was before you gave up
I sat in a pew of the Freewill Baptist Church she had lived in
My cousin sobbing by my side
I reached over and took her hand, she cried harder
Tears flowed in that old building as the minister spoke the eulogy
No mere recital, she was loved
Then the time came for the people to walk by the casket
One last look before consigning her to memory
The friends strolled by, then it was time for the family
One by one her daughters broke down
And fell to their knees beside the coffin
Wailing and moaning, begging God not to take her
Not even seeming to realize that she was dead
They had to be dragged away, and even that with a fight
I had never seen grief so palpable and frantic
I hope I won't again

I fear I will
When I sit in that front row
I fear the years will take their toll
The absence will make the heart remember
What it wants to remember
Regardless of the truth
When I see your closed eyes staring at the ceiling
Your still body dressed in your going-away clothes
Still as the stand
Which holds the box you'll be buried in

I have resolved to stay home on that gloomy day
To learn from mistakes we both made
Far away, to court my denial for all it's worth
Let someone else mourn
And if this makes me a hateful man, beneath contempt
I will offer no apologies
Blood is thicker than water
But ours has been diluted
I wish I didn't blame you
I don't hate you, though
You did what you had to do

I will, too
I'm a liar
I'll be there
To let you lift the weight off of my shoulders
To see you off into the still, dark night
Never again will we have to worry
About running into each other at garage sales
Or how hard it is to travel seven miles
Or the reasons why
We don't talk anymore
Forgive me

I wonder if anyone has ever wrttten a poem about love before? No?

2010-11-15T14:20:00.001-06:00

We do all exhort love, do we not?
We all do revere it and give it a place
A throne, for love is a king
A tender taskmaster, needing no castle
Instead finding a dwelling place
In the heavens and in the heart

Let us worship this cause of love
Let us give praise to this idea
This concept which unites us
In ignorance or total, complete understanding
We can find it in the minds of every human being that ever existed

No lifeless golem, this Spirit of Air
Air…such a priceless gift to the drowning
No heartless demon, Spirit of Fire and Ice
Spirit of Earth

Our love weeps for our losses
Our love cares for lost children
Our love does not recoil in the face of our enemy
Our love kisses and kills
Our love breaks hearts only to make them grow again anew
Our love heals those wounds
Our love tells lies, none of us care
Our love offers a smile at just the right time
Our love reaches out a hand
Our love lifts one up
Our love eases one down
Our love speaks through music
Our love speaks in tongues
So that all will hear and know the song of our love

The sun is naught but heat to the blind man
Each one of us is blind to everythig outside our own perception of love.
This is a kind of love that can never be seen in it’s entirety
Having encircled infinity
This love is the heat that falls on the blind man
Even a blind man realizes that there must be something within
Which allows the sensation, illuminates it

Our love makes it’s presence known
But refuses a name

Trust follows love around like a shadow on the ground
Patience a gift to the anxious who cannot wait
Not even the shadow can touch it
Yet, in all it’s glory, love is a heart breaker
Only love could so masterfully combine pain and pleasure
To let us know when we are in love
Or to let us know love’s been lost
Through it’s touch the emotional carnage of tragedy is soothed with time until all that’s left behind is bearable
Love allows a space for mourning
But hurries to get on with it
To get on with life and the living
Where we belong
For there will soon enough come a time to mourn again

dive bombing

2010-11-09T18:36:00.003-06:00

The man was not the kind to say "I love you"
He'd look you in the eye and you'd know how he felt
When Dad was of a mind to tell you something
He said it with an open fist, a switch or a belt

Dive bombing alone
After all the bars have closed
Dive bombing will sure enough get you low

Hard to watch your father have a nervous breakdown
But no one said that life was kind
One day when you look into the mirror
I wonder who you'll find?

Dive bombing alone
After all the crowd's gone home
Dive bombing was all he'd ever known

And it may as well have been blood
All the sweat, the oil and the mud
That stained his hands
Left their mark on the wood
He did all that you can, that he could
He did all that you can, that he could
He did all that you can, that he could
He did all that you can, more than I ever thought he would
He did all...He did all...
After all, it's only love
And dive bombing is so much easier from above

A dream that woke me up last night

2010-10-14T14:43:00.003-05:00

They have become defiled
They have defiled the land

"It's so unfair," she said. "Is this a loving God
Who sanctions genocide?
Who commands His people to slay man, woman and child?
A nation condemned, not the first
An entire planet submerged
Heaven snatched away for disobedience
No, I will not tolerate such a Deity."

In dark caves the Canaanite altars drip with the blood of children
The stench of feces and foul urine taints the air
Yellow pools glisten in torch light
Shit drips from the walls, piles up in mounds scattered on the floor
Animals mill about, sniffing the carcasses of other beasts
Each one kept for a purpose, dead and alive
No golden calves here, only warm flesh unyielding
Worthless for breeding, unneeded
For the Canaanites feed on the carrion of their own battlefields
The meat of their own brothers
Sisters, Fathers, Mothers
The feast devoured, bellies full, sated
The leftovers packed in salt for another day

Night falls, soon the stone that seals the altar tomb
Will be rolled away
The strongest of the peoples will enter the huge cavern
To claim their rightful reward
Until then...

The sounds of grunting women and children
None resisting, none even caring
Most feel nothing
The women should be crying, the children screaming
Only the infants' wails stand out against the cacophony
The noise of mindless rutting, the tears drawn by innocence crushed
Man and woman so desensitized
They barely feel anything anymore
But they remember the sensation
They strive to get it back
The Canaanites have become too ignorant to realize
They never will
So they've turned it into a God
Given it life, passed it on, infecting their enemies
Every bit as lethal as the diseases they've unwittingly cultivated
Passed on to open hearts and open minds
And to their infants and children
A malaise that blossoms into deformity, leprosy or worse

On a dais in the center of the cave
Are seven corpses
The Strong Men know them well

A Canaanite woman squats in a field on the edge of the village
She heaves and groans, face red from effort
With a final push she feels relief
The tiny thud of a newborn hitting the ground distracts her
To her it is nothing more than another form of defecation
She wraps the umbilical cord around her right hand
With her left she grasps the slimy casing
With a quick, purposeful jerk she tears it in two
Rips, wanting nothing more to do with the burden she's carried for nine months
A final glance at the condemned child
The sand around it's body blotted with blood and issue
It's airless plea unheeded
She turns and walks away, apathetic
She's done this before
Many, many times before

The cave echoes with an ungodly sound
The Strong Men harness the beasts
The noise is maddening
The Strong Men dominate
Their laughter is insane
The creatures, they believe, are their prize
After all, they are the Strong Men
They are the leaders of the land

Friendship is dead
Compassion is dead
Fear is dead
Hope is dead
Desire is dead
Reason is dead
Logic is dead
Understanding is dead
Joy is dead
Peace is dead
Patience is dead
Kindness is dead
Self-control is dead
Faithfulness is dead
Gentleness is dead
Goodness is dead
Love is dead
Dead as the corpses on the altar
Dumb as the animals in the cages
If those creatures were sentient beings
They would beg for the slaughter
If the Canaanites had not so long been numb
They would pray for the same

The Strong Men
Are ready
Now
For the
Corpses

****

A loving God puts a crippled horse out of it's misery
A loving God buries it deep underground

A loving God does not condemn without reason
Without good reason

A loving God does not sanction genocide
But He will clear a field full of rabid skunks
Would you have a problem with that if the field was in your own back yard?

Lethargy #2

2010-10-11T08:15:00.000-05:00

I've not been content with the empty spaces
Let alone appreciated them
Greedy to fill them with my own thoughts
My own dreams, my own desires, my own need
My, my, my, my
Never once thinking that the void is infinite
Offers nothing, consumes all
Could care less about my, my, my, my
Let alone my inability to appreciate them
I seek to fill them to sate my own narcissism
To work a fine piece of alchemy
Upon a golem
A frightening, lifeless husk of flesh and bones
Perfectly content with it's station
The last thing in the world it needs
Is *me* for a soul
A new life, a new purpose
A real "yes man"
Elemental body eternal, regenerated with time and coincidence
Spirit trapped within, room to spare
The perfect companion, yet still I am unsatisfied
If only I could turn the tables
Denigrate the good times
For their rarity
Perhaps make peace with the boredom

epiphany

2010-10-05T14:15:00.003-05:00

It was in a single moment
Moment of love and resentment joined together
Moment of lust redeemed by respect
Moment of violence given and taken
It was only a moment
Stretched out like taffy, sweet salt water taffy
Remembered as the beginning
An end to pretending

It was in that moment that I knew what I had
So many times I'd almost lost it all
I understood, mind illuminated at last
By the light reflected in your eyes
That you've been mine all along
To have and to hold
Sickness and health
Till dea...

I used to believe that enlightenment came only once
Maybe I still do
But I thought I'd already been enlightened
No place like the top, nowhere left to go but down
Everything is so boring after you meet God
That's what I thought, sure I was right
After all this time, though, and in a single moment
I realized what a goddamn fool I'd been
It's the journey that matters
I haven't met anyone

It could only have taken a moment
No call for more
The gentle play of desire possessing you
Hard passion contorting your face in new, fascinating ways
A secret shared only with me
For my eyes only your curtain falls, your wall topples down
A gift to me, your sharing, taking from me
Everything I've taken from you
Without pretending we're ever going to give it back
Content with the exchange

It only took a moment
You ripped off my mask
What did you see?
Should I beg you to tell me?
Everyday I try to catch it in the mirror
Passing by, quick glance, same old bastard
I'll never see myself, know myself
How, then, were you able?
I don't even know if I want you to remember
What you saw in that moment
Even so, I know
I will never forget what I saw
What I found, what I stole from you
I'll carry it with me for the rest of my days
To brighten everything within
The four walls, ever-shrinking, in which I dwell
The rest of my days indeed
Made of moments
But none like this one

transferral

2010-10-03T07:28:00.003-05:00

My apologies are powerless
Useful for nothing
Damage done, no turning back now
No point in saying I'm sorry
To myself or anyone

All I can do is hope
You know I was powerless
To keep the tide from turning
I watched it wash over you
Unable to stretch out my hands for you to take hold of
To keep you safe from the undertow
They were tied
They might as well have been nailed to wood

Contemplating my predicament
I'm confused, uncertain
There had to have been a time, who knows how long ago
When the water flowed over me
Sometime, it had to have been a long time ago
The monster swallowed me whole
Only
To vomit my stinking body three days later, stained indelibly
(Three days is a long, long time)
Onto an empty beach, littered with broken glass, rocks and bottle tops
Signs that say, "No Swimming" and "Danger: Sharks!"

I'm sorry
Because I know how and I know why and I know where it's all gonna lead
I'm sorry
Because I'll never tell you
My apologies are powerless
Because they won't change a damn thing

Ah, look. The waters are still at last.
Somebody call a priest.

dark cloud #69

2010-10-01T12:32:00.003-05:00

From where did this dark cloud come?
This black fog that has descended upon you
That you breath in, tainting the air
That clings to you like soot
Seeping inside through the pores of your skin
Where did it come from
And how do you hide it so well?
An actress, for sure
Hating her work

From profane tirades mixing lies with the truth
Delivered loudly, directed at you
Hateful words devoid of the love once expected
Given up, lost to shame, tossed away, another burden
For your bent back
Heavy weights carried with the remnants of dignity that remain
You say you can handle it, you can handle it all
An actress for sure
Hating her work

From where did this black cloud come?
Descending, tainting, clinging, seeping
Breathing

From the force of clenched fists
The changes wrought by violence
A thousand times the ringing sound
A thousand times you kiss the ground
Convinced, almost, that the blows are deserved
The bruises spread, the blackened eyes
Explained away with blatant lies
An actress for sure
Hating her work

From where did this gray cloud come?
How do you hide it so well?

From the hardness of men possessed by lust
Their dipshit brains half-full of fantasy
Their money as good as anyone's
Eyes drinking in your mirror's reflection, unfeeling by necessity
Imprisoned forever, trapped in a computer file
Twenty minutes you will never get back, how many more
Given away for an excuse, forfeited for an excuse:
An actress for sure
Hating her work

From where did this gray cloud come?
From where did this dark cloud come?
From where did this black cloud come?
Can it get any darker?

How will Light find you?
A white-robed Deity
Or the barrel of a gun?

hOME aLONE

2010-10-01T12:31:00.004-05:00

It's too soon to live in memories
I try to convince myself
Years don't change everything
I try to convince myself
This is no prison I'm living in
I have the keys, the locks are not broken
I try to convince myself I have a reason
For not using them

Grab a pen and some paper
Some of these are important
I just know they are
These are the things that made me what I am
Aren't they?
The sum total of all my experiences, right?
I need to chronicle and catalog
Separate the wheat from the chaff
This will set me straight
Or maybe not...could be a waste of time

Time takes them away, one by one
Teases, bringing some back
Then snatching them away again
Despite my best efforts
To hoard them
Years don't change everything
The cruel workings of time
Are eternal

Of this I am convinced

I've sacrificed freedom
To live in a cage
To settle for memories
For fear that hurt would break in
And make itself comfortable
Quick to remind me of the memories
It helped make

I'm convinced I have no reason
To break these chains
An empty house, alone
Is better than such bad company

Puppet

2010-09-26T18:44:00.002-05:00

My arms grow tired
Yet the battle rages on
What am I to do?
Lifted to the sky the nations prevail
Heavy weights to my sides
We fall
Responsibility has made an old man of me
They grumble and curse
They whisper plots to have me killed
They have no use for me, looking forward to the day
The cow brings forgetfulness and madness and lust
Depravity and apathy
Still my arms point to the heavens
Still out enemies fall

My arms grow tired
I can no longer hold them up
Useless limbs, they drop
And I look to the battlefield
Blood runs in streams
Silence lost to screams
But no longer do our men prevail
They join their women, their children
Beaten down with rocks and clubs
Primitive knives and swords
I feel throbbing in my wrists and my shoulders burn
The blood flows down into each limb and makes them even heavier
But what am I to do?

Come, my brother
Heed my call, strong companion
Be my strength in this cruel time
Hold my hands, both of you
Like dead tree limbs raise them
Hold them fast and hold them long
For the battle has not ended
Hoist my dead arms high until our enemies fall
Until the last bone is broken
Until there is no one left to boast

Let our people look to the mountain
To see the miraculous sight
The weathered prophet, the withered puppet
Leaning on the rock

Let them recover in my shadow as the sun sets
Let them look up to see how a broken man has saved them

My arms grow tired
Suspended
It won't be too long now
I will become a serpent coiled around a staff

Why I Un-Friended You

2010-09-23T08:40:00.003-05:00

Hateful atheist
Ecstatic to convert
With cruelty and a mean spirit
A facade of compassion
Fingers to point at what you can't understand, bewildered
What you cannot understand, unable
To point and to laugh
Refusing to "come down" to a level
You feel above
A different level of hate
A different level of love

Worshiping science
You somehow can't see
Science is to look
God is to be
Through microscope and telescope
God can be seen

A rotten fruit on a dying vine
Cursed to be trapped in space and time
An awesome cathedral you feel is enough
It doesn't worry you that there will come a day
When you will be evicted
Wanting more
Never enough

The best you can do is to die in your sleep
Or fall to the elements
Anything to steal away the last 60 seconds
The panic of uncertainty
The all consuming fear of something unknown
The dread of learning, finally finding out
Finding out, in this last moment, that you're more than you thought
Just in time to say goodbye, just in time to lose it
Your infantile perception of space will collapse upon itself
Your time is running out, second by second, precious, more than days
More than years, more than a lifetime

Or perhaps defiant
"I don't even care
Take me away
Get me outta here"

Still mocking the faithful
Hateful and condescending
Giving no quarter
You tell me you are content
With your legacy
"More than enough is my legacy"
When all we remember
Is how you used to smoke all our dope
And when it came time to share
All you ever had to offer
Was a pinner

Rain

2010-09-21T09:50:00.003-05:00

The first raindrop tapped the top of my bald head
Like a tiny drop of bird shit
I wiped it off, unthinking, and went back to the sheep

The clouds were gray, as gray as I'd ever seen them
A hue that threatened total, complete darkness
Yet still enough sunlight peeking through
To keep me from being discouraged when it began to sprinkle
A few hundred birds
The sheep needed tending
I'd already lost one in the last week
I'd given up on ever finding it
To slaughter, sacrifice and eat
Lucky sheep, lost in the darkness, waiting for the wolves
I was sure it had no feelings and that it could care less
When the sprinkling turned to rain

When the sprinkling turned to rain
I said, "To hell with it"
Turned and left the fields, pissed off at the sky
Cursing the Deity that had ruined my day

The woman I called "wife" stood with me at the window
Watching the rain come down in sheets
In torrents
I'd seen worse
But those clouds...
The dirt had long since turned to mud
A thick, deep, gelatinous mud
Quicksand...we stayed in the house
For fear it would suck us down to Sheol

Still a ray of sunshine
Just enough that we could see what we had done

Hours passed, and my sons joined us
Congregated at the window to witness the spectacle
A rarity, a flood, seeping into our home, soaking the stone floor
We lived in the valley
So we'd seen them before
We knew what it was like to get our feet wet
Up to the ankles
But the water kept rising

The water kept rising

We didn't really begin to worry until
Adam's ale reached our bellies
Until we could feel it swirling and tugging
Rising even still, so deep a current
My wife began to cry, unsure what to think
My sons tried hard
To show no fear
Failing
Me?
All I could think about was the sheep
Each and every one
Floating on the surface of a pond
That hadn't been there yesterday
When they had roamed, mindless, without feeling
Caring only for sustenance

I couldn't help but wonder
The realization terrified me
Struck me with dumb fear
Is this our fate?
A thought too incredible to contemplate
Or entertain for even a moment
Though it had occurred to my wife
My sons' quiet resolve had been shattered by it

I used to love the sound of rain
Falling into puddles outside my door
I don't know why
But it was comforting
Soothing
Relaxing
Delivering me to deep, dreamless sleep
I'd wake up in the morning completely
Rested
And
Ready
For another day
To work the cursed ground
Resenting my lot
And the God who cursed it

The rainwater reached our necks
The screams were loud and desperate
I recognized each one
Though never so desperate
My wife clung to me like rotten seaweed
Her shrieking brittle and annoying against the side of my head
It hurt my ears and I would have told her to shut up
Had I not understood exactly why she was yelling
Yet I kept my resolve
Barely and likely to break before long
When the water reached my nose
My sons had floated to the other side of the house
I could hear them, too
But I could hardly see them
Because the sunlight
The terrible, cruel sunshine that so selfishly illuminated this ungodly scene
Was beginning to fade into the black clouds
Yesterday I would have closed my eyes to block it out
Burning annoyance
Now I knew it made no difference
A prayer for the rain
To stop
Would fall
On deaf ears

My sons, my pride and joy, my legacy
Both floating, dead, not 10 feet away
Rivulets of water dripped down their upturned faces
So much like sweat from a hard days work
I wanted to wipe them dry and tell them I was sorry
For bringing them into this world
This awful world
This hateful world
I wanted to somehow bring them back to life
Together we would damn the God who would do something like this to us

My wife, the apple of my eye
My helpmate
Friend, lover, the one person I could not live without
Her screams were muted, aquatic glosollolia
I could almost hear the sound of my name
Muffled as water found it's way down her throat
The look in her eyes was chilling
Despair, hope slowly draining away as she drank, unwilling
She begged me to stop it
STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!!!!!!!!

The rain kept falling
The sunlight vanished
I was in the dark
I felt the world flow in
A new atmosphere to get used to
Alone...alone
No more reason to worry about a lost sheep
I'm sure wrathful God had more important things on His Mind

Days later the rain still had not abated
But I was no longer alone
A nation, a race, a species
Floated at the top of an ocean that covered the globe
Corpses bumping into each other, dragged by the undertow
Flushed down by eddies
A macabre soup of carcasses
United
All but Eight to find and bury us

..............................................................

From the heights of a clear blue sky
In the bright, clean light of the sun
Heaven opens
A dove descends

Doublemint

2010-09-20T13:54:00.003-05:00

Beyond the reaches of my memory
Through fading, rotting past
I will climb down the ladder

Her mouth tasted like Doublemint gum
Her favorite kind, I made it mine
How many times? So many times
We traced the shapes of our lips with our tongues
Like a man gone blind, I still know hers well
And the soft, sweet difference
Between the bottom and the top
One at a time, I took them in my mouth
To savor, none in the world
Quite like them
Faces dangerously close
I had to shut my eyes
Or else find my soul
Drowning in the infinite pool
Of her irises
(A baptism half complete)
The reflections in her pupils
Were too much mirrors
I could never bear
Because they showed me worth loving
Because they showed me with wonder
Because they showed me worth saving
Worth healing with love
All the while I knew better
But I saw her with passion
And I saw her with greed
I saw her with wanting
I saw her with need
I saw her as savior
The meaning of life
Never once thinking...

It's time I climbed back up this ladder
Back with this moment I've stolen from her
A diamond I've dug up from the sands of forgetfulness
Hard as the heart she left beating
Hard as the heart she left bleeding

She's So Vain

2010-09-19T16:02:00.004-05:00

She's meditating on the mantra of her own name
When she puts her heart into it she can understand
Comprehend and explain

She wants to tell you her life history
Is a mystery that only she can see
She wants to give those wasted memories
Back to me

But she won't need anything
I could offer her anyway
She's so vain

She's memorizing "Sheep In Fog"
Sees her tortured soul in poetry and Burroughs
Keroauc, Ginsberg, Zimmerman and Plath

So she won't need anything
I could offer her anyway
She's so vain

She's meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra of her own name
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra
Meditating on the mantra of her own name

The Law Is Abolished

2010-09-19T16:01:00.002-05:00

The Law is abolished
Powerless to save
As it ever was
A long lost language etched
Burned into the hard element
Subject to erosion
Replaced by flesh and blood
Speaking the same message
"Mercy, not Sacrifice"

The Word is established
Hated for its Truth
Love your brother
Love yourself
Impossible
Impossible
So few can read between the lines:
TRY

It is in the effort
That we find communion
With each other
The" judging not lest ye be judged"
That fires the engines
Of life in the world
Ruled by the powers of darkness
Yet
Even so, still the world we live in
Usurped
We are prisoners of darkness

Chained in Plato's cave
Loving the absence
The void is all we've known
All there is to love
For love will be love and
Love will have it's way
Love will find something to love
Thy brothers
Thy self
Sure, unobtainable

Love nonetheless, though darkened, restrained
A teaser
Just enough to make you want more
Just enough to make you believe
You need more

Thomas can't see it
Tommy don't know
Tom's a doubter
Tommy's the man
Thomas knows his shit
Tommy's not sure
Tom hates what he cannot know
Tommy knows nothing
Thomas hates himself
Tommy wants the moon
Tom won't be satisfied until he gets the moon
Tommy doesn't know how
Thomas wants to believe
Tommy finds it very hard
Tom won't believe what he cannot see
Tommy wishes
Thomas needs hope
Tommy wishes it away
Tom won't let himself be happy
Tommy knows fear
Thomas fears happiness
Tommy is terrified of Truth
Tom thinks he might know
Tommy won't accept it
Because the Truth is...
Tommy needs
Thomas needs
Tom needs

The Law is abolished
The chains are broken
All that is left to do
Is give up the shadowplay
Overcome the fear of getting shot in the back
TURN AROUND
Stare into the Light
Let it blind you
And find bliss in the hot, white glare

Turn around
It's not all that hard
Just
TRY

The Word is established
To free the captives
To turn their sights from the inside
To show the way of love
That swirls like a sweet smelling fog in the air around them
To teach them how to cast out devils
Their own demons, Legion
To multiply fish and loaves, to turn nothing into something
TO BREAK THEM DOWN

TO BREAK YOU DOWN
To raze the tower of babel that has been raised in your mind
Swirling with ideas and genius
All the while infected with the opinions of others
Held down by meanness and cruelty of those who don't understand
Dragged down by idiots and buffoons you are commanded to love
Crucified by ignorant people who desire to make themselves your enemies
Brothers
For all this you are asked to love them
For all of this you are expected to love yourself
For all of this, can you believe that redemption is glimpsed?
Is this the price you pay?
Is it worth it?

The chains are broken
The darkness is extinguished
Death has been consumed by death
See the cave for what it is
Your heart
And embrace the Light that illuminated it

Is it worth the price?
Your secret place is sacred
But how can you bring in love
If you don't venture outside to find it?
You will forget what love even is
How can you exercise compassion
If you don't find someone to have compassion for?
How can you forgive if there is no one to forgive?
Yourself? How do you even know HOW to forgive
When you won't forgive yourself?

The Law is abolished
Flesh and blood remain
The essence of the Law now
Shining brightly in your secret place
From behind

Drive All Night

2010-09-17T09:07:00.003-05:00

Promise speeds along the highway
People and places blurred to the side
How many miles
To the end of the ride

Watch the white lines hypnotize
Paths for us to memorize
So we can drive all night

Cross the state line over the river
Turn on the radio, sing along
How many songs
Could we sing about tonight?

Watch the white lines, hypnotized
Paths we need to memorize
So we can drive all night

Catch your eye in the rear view mirror
Wipe the teardrop from your eye
Pull to the side
Let me drive

Tyrant's Confession (for B)

2010-09-17T09:04:00.003-05:00

I took something away from you
It could have saved your life
Or made it more bearable
But I snatched it away
I crushed any hopes you may have had
That it could have helped
All the well knowing, even myself
It would have

Why was I such a bastard?
What did I think I was saving?
What?
Some barely recognized cruelty
I'm loathe to acknowledge
But knew even as I weilded fear
To set you back
Reinforce the notion fixed in your mind
That I am a tyrant
I think you are probably right

And if I am a tyrant
The weight of my offense haunts me and drags me down
I only wish I was strong enough to recognize
DO something about it, usurp my power
If all it is good for is destruction

The regret nests in my chest
Squeezes my heart tightly
Pulls tears from my eyes
A secret agony, a transgression never to be confessed
What have I done?
I cannot, no matter how hard I try, convince myself
That I've done the right thing
Like a good father taking away a favorite toy
To punish
God, I pray somehow he can get it back
Even if I'm not the one who can return it
I would let my trespass fester, rot inside me
If only someone else would give it back to you
Or something better

God is getting tired of hearing me pray for forgiveness
For my persistent petition betrays my lack of faith
His forgiveness was granted the first time I asked
I'm still begging after 3 days
Impossible, it seems, to forgive myself
With this regret crawling inside me, will I ever be able to?

My son, take this guilt from me
Spare me my life
That I might be able to live again without this black hole in my heart
Quickly, cut and dig, yank it out
Resurrect my hope, let me dream,
Before it's too late, before I lose you to the world

Son, you are my hero

Why am I sitting here writing this fucking poem, nothing but a fucking poem, do they have such power? I don't remember poems breaking me down, let alone a poem I'm writing a poem I'm not even finished with a poem that hits me hard like a fucking sledgehammer in my heart, hating myself for writing something so fucking pretentious as "sledgehammer in my heart" and wondering if I should have written "sledgehammer TO my heart", every bit as pretentious and with not a whit of power to stop the tears from flowing and oh, my god, I think I'm speaking in tongues this brutal truth, who do I think I am, is this my reward for taking it away from him and yes I deserve this and a lot more and I fear that I will get a lot more if I don't let it out in some other manner than a fucking poem, a fucking impotent poem a fucking poem that has broken me and brought me to my knees, fucking impotent poem, I should leave the poetry to you because YOU are the one with the gift, YOU are the one with the talent, YOU are the one with the heart and mind to create something worth bothering with and I never meant to take THAT from you, but I took away your paper and I took away your pen and I took away one more shred of respect you may have had left for me, and Oh God I Miss You, and Oh God I Miss You and I can't wait until you get home this afternoon so I can be reminded of why I miss you or no, no, that's not quite right, just trying to sound poetic, what a laugh, what a joke, I Miss You when we're in the same room, if I didn't know that there was a little love left, or if I didn't think I had reason to hope there was a little love left in your heart for me, I would find a way to sleep. I'm settled down now. It's okay, no need to call the cops. I'm done with this poem. This fucking poem that has

Opened my eyes
Made me realize
The weight of my offense
My transgression in need of confession
(But to whom?)
That God had better just get used to my prayers
That
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY

Snooping

2010-09-12T18:48:00.001-05:00

I dragged it in
Made it my business
Stuck my hand in a hole in the ground
With my fist
Grabbed a wasp's nest
Even this I felt
Was a sacrifice worth making
I had no business there
Or did I?
Am I not the one responsible?
For this incredible talent
For this broken shell
This anvil I've forged my will upon
Appreciated, rejected, denied, rightfully placed in the trash bin
I made the choice to peer
Into dark places I once shed light into
Before hated age extinguished
No longer needed
Less still wanted
But there I am
The pain in my right hand is excruciating
What power you possess
To strike back
Seemingly glad to inherit
The misery I have nurtured (like a fool)
This perverse love of darkness
But I swear
I risked dipping into this Pandora's Box
For one reason
One reason alone
Because I love you with all that I Am
I cannot bear to tolerate my reflection
In your life
Because my soul longs to know you
As I once knew you
As I can never know you again
Because my instinct is to protect
But mainly
To find out why I've come to hate the person you've become
All the while knowing
That person
Is
Not
You

20 Words

2010-09-12T13:54:00.003-05:00

I see atoms
Fall down like rain
A paper thin curtain
Hiding the eternal
A weak barricade
Though strong enough

Conversion

2010-09-06T16:58:00.001-05:00

I gave the voice a name
He came alive
I had to try and convince myself
He wasn't Me
I wanted the solidification
I needed it to keep me from going insane
Following myself, I needed a rock
I know better
It came to life
The voice I killed was my own
I slayed that confused god
Took that rock and put it through his head
Worthless deity of flesh
And blood
To make it all possible
Wasn't yours as your veins
Motivate acid
Blue and disfiguring
Burns through metal
He still hides in the corner
Looks on, thinking
"Behold, a fool. A prodigal idiot, expecting
A celebration
Hide the fatted calf
Call his brother out of hiding"
We're gonna wreck this party
But the animal to my side snickered and said,
"Worry not, human
Your Frankenstein's monster has received spirit
Your true heart beats again
Your breast is ready
To receive instruction and wisdom"
The animal to my side confused me
All the same he comforted me
"Human being accept
This voice as if it were the muttering of God
For it is"
How deep my being
How deep

"Composed While Watching a Film About Death Cab For Cutie, Distracted"

2010-08-11T09:59:00.001-05:00

Am I the one who needs forgiving?
I know what I've done
I know what I've done
I let it build up until it poured out of me
An aura of pessimism
A Super Nova
Blasted Shrapnel
Shards of self-loathing
Scooped from deep inside a dark place
Scorched in the sunlight
And thrown into your face
Tainting your essence
Molding your existence
Unconsciously
Into the unpredictable monster
You have become
Hateful, my legacy?
Cruel, my gift?
Hopeless, a birthday present
Presented
Year in and year out
Accepted with an unknowing
"Thank You"

Unknown to my own heart
The damage being done
Watching the regression, unaware
Of my part in the disintegration
Never counting the cost
I didn't know what I was buying
Too busy keeping my own demons
At bay
It looks like I've missed one
That damned devil
Found another heart to infest
Found another soul to fuck with
To tease and taunt
A bright light, young and strong
Yet weak enough to be obscured
That damned devil
Like a moon to a sun
Eclipsed the bright shining
Of my own true one
Of my only true One
Is he gone?
Is he gone now?
Is he too far gone?
Have I driven him away?
He taught me what love is
What it means
And I've driven him away
Have I driven him away?
Is he gone now?
Was it me? Have I driven him away?
Is it over now? All I have said and all I have done
Does this mean
I've driven him away?
Each day another mile
Further down the road
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow
Have I driven him down that road?
Shown him the way down the long hard road
That leads to the end
This dead end road that's been my home
I want to drive him away
Far away from my never-never-land
Of inconsistency, Indecision, Confusion Fog
Despair at war with joy
I can't find my way
To the middle of the fence
Because at that point I have to face
The fact
That I have driven him away
Around the world just to get away
Full circle, now its come back home to me
Pretty soon now
He'll wish he was gone
Still consumed by my demon
He'll wish he was gone

For this do I need forgiving?
When my own demons have multiplied
Over so many years, like rabbits in hutches
When no one knew how to drive them away
No one was strong enough
With foresight to see
What those evil fuckers were doing to me
And so what? Who am I?
I'd resigned myself to the life
But I could not have known
The severity of the disease
Or just how contagious it was
It is
So do I need forgiving?
Does the fault belong to me?
Will this guilt be my Sisyphus stone?

Forgiving?
Am I out of line to consider
That maybe I'm not the one who needs atonement
Not for this tragedy
Not this one, although it is my whole life
It pains me to say it
But the guilt is supposed to be yours
Maybe I didn't drive the nails in quite hard enough
You're cruel, you tell me you'll take it
But you won't show me how to give it away
I almost think you're the one
Who needs forgiving
But what's the point?
Really
What good would you be
Without anything to forgive?
So let's make a deal...

A Funny Game

2010-08-09T15:07:00.000-05:00

Man in the mirror, I know that you lie
You can't see who I am on the inside
You have to seek while I get to hide
Ain't this a funny game?

Whipcrack Stripmine

2010-07-10T15:26:00.003-05:00

Gently nudge or better shove
Push me into tomorrow
From blissful blessed Nirvana
Empty head and hollow
Sound bubble drone flight
Bent bludgeoned never loved
Bend time till tomorrow
From restful dreaded medication
Full of shine and shallow
Waiting for the whipcrack stripmine
Vaudeville blue light favorite
Poke the carcass with a stick
Cut from cloth of felt
From the hearts of the Feltmen
Trapped in Gormenghast
Or doomed Hagedorn
Seasons change our sole entertaining
Reasons vain our Souls rearranging
Feather duster birds take flight
In deep forests of the night
Flee from the Tyger's malicious eye
Have a slice of this delicious pie.

Inside of Me

2010-07-08T22:53:00.005-05:00

What is it inside of me
That begs to be freed?
Why don't I know
If it's to be known?
Something that swells
That throbs
No mere feeling or emotion
But a living, real thing
Ghost? A Ghost?
No, too solid
Churning, pushing against a shell
Glowing, raging
Changing yet remaining
Voiceless yet screaming
Condemning, accusing
Scared as a kitten, playing tough
Fooling no one
Pointing and mocking
Weeping and scowling at the same time
A demon at play, an angel at bay
Confused, half-retarded
It knows so little
While convinced its wisdom
Is worth the air
It is written on
Floating heavenward
Tugged down
Can I face this bastard again?
How many times
Have I denied? Have I accepted?
Have I given up and given sway?
Wisdom has not served me well
Wrestling has not made me strong
A day passes, the skin is thinner
Another year to weaken
The cage rusts and time corrodes
Soon to crumble, to mix with dust
What is left behind?
This thing?
Unsatisfied, Insatiable beast
Ever-changing morals, never content
To settle
A weak bird on a fence
Too stupid to see
The rock flying
Flung by God-knows-who
Someone
Wanting to see it hit the ground
Delighted at the spectacle
Of wings broken, flapping in vain
Body twitching, this is insane
One for the body, two for the brain
Buy me a ticket for the graveyard train

Between the Poles

2010-07-04T11:39:00.002-05:00

Morality crushes me
From pole to pole I stride
Never taking the time
To stop for even a moment
Haunted by the ghosts accusing
From behind
I see glowing men before me, beckoning
I've been held in their arms
They have whispered living words in my ears
Soothed my tired mind with balm of forgetfulness
I know them, I have known them
But I'm not sure why they have to call for me
To join them
How did I wind up back here?
Pulled by the logic of evil
I struggle to keep from splattering
On that flat surface
I plug my ears to muffle their shouts
Taunts
Telling me
Nothing
Should be feared
That I should fear nothing
To be afraid of nothing
That nothing should be feared
But for now I have no problem with nothing
It's everything that frightens me
And keeps me running
This middle ground doesn't satisfy
And that is how I'm cursed

Waiting Room

2010-06-23T11:56:00.001-05:00

I wonder what happened here?
The stench of urine is strong
Foul
The vacant faces lining the walls
Seem not to notice
Careless of blame
Fumbling around in their own dark minds

Something definitely happened here
The smart ones mill about
Sworn to secrecy
Their eyes give them away
The air of unease
Betrays their awareness
Ready to spill, but not to me

A Southbound Plane to Ride

2010-05-28T09:51:00.003-05:00

Skirting 'round the boredom of the day
Is a skill
I have developed
Through the long, empty years
Thrust upon me by mean 'ol One-Eye
A temporary fix
Still useful for a time
It keeps the push from becoming a shove
A defense mechanism
Manipulation of time, streams of ballast
All the while
Weakening
This becomes obvious as
The voices tell me it is so
They keep me awake at night
There's no shutting them up
Not hateful tones
These shadows don't accuse
They only want to help
But they don't have a goddamn clue how to go about it
They don't listen well
Because they aren't sure if I'm the one doing the talking
They don't trust the other
Or maybe they don't know the other
Perhaps they feel as if they are anchoring me to reality
Telling me I should hoard
That I need these things for my own
That I could actually own these things
When all the while I have no illusions
Any of it could ever be kept
I know something they don't
It's not worth keeping
They won't be convinced, though
And so their benevolence
Drives me out of my mind, for a short break

They dropped the charges
The killer got off
No one ever knew
He went to his grave
Happy, smiling
Guiltless in his own mind
With blood on his hands

I saw her lying on the road as I drove by
The ambulance had only just arrived
No shattered glass on the ground
No smashed vehicle for the rubber neckers
Just some old guy bent over her
Checking to see if she was hurt badly
I didn't see any blood
But she wasn't moving

First Thought it Felt

2010-04-29T08:55:00.004-05:00

Do you remember how you first thought it felt?

Forget it
Let it go
It doesn't feel like that anymore
If feels hard and cold
Slick almost slimy
Not your promised spirit
Only thick metal
Unyielding to the touch
No longer judging
No longer fighting
No more bitterness
A blunt weapon of defense
Forget it, won't you please just let it go

I was asleep
But I thought I was awake
I thought I could hear
Deep music, but only in my dream
So the music must have come
From the other side

I stand...amazed and confused
Almost frightened
They keep falling and they keep burning
They kept falling and they kept on burning
And I stand consuming it all
Taking it all in, like nasty medicine
I saw Thor's hammer swinging down from
Heaven
Smashing the castle, falling down
Explode into ash and dust
I peer into this tortured memory
I see the how and I see the why
I see it all
And I know it for what it is
Mercury's Angel opened my eyes and
Revealed this new covenant of YHWH
Sealed in the blood of believers and bastards
Enlighten together the smart and the dumb
He say, "Get him down, off of that that cross"

Last Dream Down

2010-04-20T08:16:00.002-05:00

Look at this pile of rubbish
Spilled from a poisoned mine
A plundered treasure chest
With nothing left worth taking
I couldn't give it away
A cruel moment
Opens my eyes to it's worth
Fit for fire
Last dream down
It's time to wake up now
My legacy embarrasses me
Time to recoil
From the god that made me
This way
Without blame
No bitter words thrown
Apathy
Perhaps a trace of resentment
A sense of loss
Something that might have been
Time to accept truth
Hold it in like rising bile
Step out for a lucid moment
Look see the naive self-pity
Pleas
Demands for attention not deserved or earned
Slave to the ego
Wanting only to feed it
Until it's fat
Still shoving it in
Even as these words are spewing out
Expecting, in vain, to be heard
By a world
Unapologetic
Crushing my back

Michaelangelo

2010-03-30T14:15:00.002-05:00

I woke up
And I saw myself amongst the throng
Huddled in the vision of Michaelangelo's
Sistene Chapel
One of the naked guys
The one holding the corpse
Attention drawn to his immediate left
Naked as the day he was born
Sittin' next to some guy with a ladder
Sittin' on a green towl
He looks like he's a bit timid
Of the bald, bearded corpse bearer
Symbolic, I'm sure
Of something or another
I couldn't right tell you for sure
Although I can speculate
In my mind I can almost see the demeanour of this older man with the Willie Nelson beard
As being inconsistant
With the prevailing image of the
Status quo
His sermon falls on deaf ears
As he shakes his fist at YHWH
The ONE who inflicts the torture of life
On him
He preaches to no one
These folks are in heaven, it looks like
Sittin' on toppa them purty white cloweds
Everyone seems to be so happy
They got a lute player so they got music
They'll be okay

Too bad gatling harbor rain fell juggular do you really want to gurt he went down to viet Nam just toi get my way and yesterday I had to tell you of the weay I get the triuble mariuhaty rifdlao ha the frost on the pane was ht alkfjav oiuj g iithe number og the beast is 555555555 can't you hear the wind bloew is this the time oeonmfa h;ey little girlkl hey hey little girl this is the nmean you saw last night in the park I was the onfgoaj aojgf aoijf a men's room where lfgi'ak dfkk the kak ug aun dwn sa giooooyou didn't tell your mother did you? These folk got music blood These folk they got 9jja8jdfjl oaoj toa folk laifijje laj jjklaj had I known that was thw case I would never have let him use the car...Ever since she took that HIV test she'd been nervous. So nervus she could hardly eat or drink, her urine had turned a bright shade of powder blue flying up to meet you angel kdja gkll uappinw

No shit!
I was right there on the wall
Real as nothing else
just a few yards from God Almighty his bad self
Laying down the life on Adam

"You Don't Know Me That Well"

2010-03-24T15:56:00.000-05:00

I'm standing on a stage in some old smoke filled bar
A thousand songs to sing and play on this old guitar
And if you find yourself in even one
I'll leave this place tonight and know my job's been done.
But...

You don't know me that well
You don't know me even well enough to tell
That I'm giving you my heart and soul
The things that last and don't grow old
Did you think these dreams were all for sale?
You don't know me that well

You don't know a goddamn thing
You don't know a goddamn thing
You don't know anything at all

Now I'm playing for a crowd of twenty-two
And it seems like all of them have something else to do
You ask me how I keep on keeping on
You tell me I'm too old, I must have sang my final song
But...

You don't know me that well
You don't know me even well enough to tell
That I'm giving you my heart and soul
The things that last and don't grow old
Did you think these dreams were all for sale?
You don't know me that well

You don't know a goddamn thing
You don't know a goddamn thing
You don't know anything at all

"i like this house we're..."

2010-03-08T19:55:00.002-06:00

I like this house we're living in
I know
You aren't satisfied with it
Too small, so ugly
Stuck in a bad neighborhood
Full of unfriendly people
Well at least it's paid for
At least you know that
Even if your gratitude is lacking
We can stay inside
Lots of things to do, just we two
Or maybe just sit together
Looking out the window
Relax and watch my world go by
It's not my fault if the floors are dirty
I'm not the slob in this place
You wanted a place
You've got a place
Keep it in order, don't blame me
If it reeks of shit and mold
If the garbage of your past
Piles up high, high, high
To the ceiling
Trash pouring out the doors
Into the great outdoors
It isn't my fault
Your legacy
It's none of my doing
But I'll tell you this...
I get a real kick out of
Watching you clutter it up
I don't fault you, I mean
After all
You do hate this house
You hate all that's in it
You even hate me
Though you appreciated the gesture
When it was made long ago
I suppose you just got old
You've become jaded, bored, used to
All the things that once fascinated
Now taken for granted
Oh, well
I still like it
We can always get another one
When the right time comes
But what's the hurry?
This one's paid for...

"Gargoyle"

2010-03-03T10:09:00.002-06:00

I don't feel anything
Where I know
I'm supposed to feel
For you
You've become a stone statue
Almost as hard to me
As I am to you
I don't recognize myself
In the cracked and wrinkled
Skin
Or the recoiling
Barely perceptible
I wouldn't notice myself
If I didn't know your reasons
For drawing back
Good reasons, I guess
I search my heart
But I've come to believe
That there may have never been
Anything of you
There to find
You stole it so easily
All you ever gave
You made it look easy
How you took it all away
I try to pretend I don't miss it
It doesn't hurt
It doesn't
I don't want it back
That would break me down
Not being used to something
Gone so long ago
My whole being would shatter
A mirror
So just stand there
Please
Don't reach out for me
Don't react, as if you actually know me
As if you want to know me
As if you knew me
Don't make me feel a fool
For not caring about you
Don't make me feel guilty
For not wanting to love you
This huge empty space
Is where it once lived
There's nothing you could fill it with
Anymore
I would spew it out, lukewarm

"I don't trust you people..."

2010-03-03T10:08:00.002-06:00

I don't trust you people...
If I ever did
I was a stone fool
I don't even know if
I have the right
You know not what you do
Your right hand ignorant
Of it's brother's
Misleading deeds
I am no all-seeing deity
Who can crack your skulls
To shine light on the reasons
Knowing full well
That you have no idea
Your darkness is so complete
You've convinced yourself
It's light
And though I was a misanthrope
Before I knew your hypocrisy
Still I will cast your way
Your fair share of the blame
Even if only in my muddled mind
Even if the only one who hears me
Is on your side
And I realize that
I
Am the one who cannot tell darkness from light

"Tonight I'll place my sanity,,,"

2010-02-19T07:47:00.001-06:00

Tonight
I'll place my sanity
In the hands of the
Almighty Nothing
I'll use a burning knife
To slice a slash
For the caterpillars to crawl into
To rest until the metamorphosis
Then fly away, leaving the cocoon
Stripped dry of the memory
My mind reaching out
Wanting to pull it back in
Retrieve it from the void
My heart, frightened,
Nevertheless hoping
That butterflies will carry it away

"Written While Sleep Walking"

2010-02-14T11:06:00.006-06:00

I'm way past my bedtime
Losing balance, veering to the right
Before I hit the wall
Or the cabinet or the floor
Where did this jelly come from?
I thought I had it down
It wants to come up
So let's help him up
He's already drowned
Twice we drowned him
But they kept coming up

A man I once knew
...he was a professional man...
He should have known what he was talking about
I thought he did
More often than not
I trusted him
Law and natural fact
I could see the love in his eyes
He was convinced the cessation of my problem
Was it's light dying and silently slipping off
Into the air
My, oh my, I must not have been paying attention

Another hour passed
My mind was worked up
Worked up professionally
With pure quality workmanship
But it's not gonna last
I don't care
If they invested millions of dollars
You god, Oh Mighty Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick
I'm just gonna fall asleep
I'm a-gonna sleep until I wake
And I ain't a-gonna wake up until
I'm good and ready

He seemed to know what he spoke of
He was, after all, wearing a doctor's coat
After all, he had a silver-pearl stethoscope hanging around his neck
I was tempted to believe he was a great physician
But I wasn't so sure he was a Good Doctor
Not a very good one
The only sawbones I could afford
He told me that I'm very selfish
But not to worry, he said
"All bipolars are like that
All that they see is filtered through
ME ME ME ME ME".

So I had to think about it for awhile
I had to rub it in my clay-hands brain
Until I understood it to be truth
My hardening heart beats only for me
Prayers found me on my knees
Knelt
Until my legs fell asleep
Circulation staunched, the numbness
I tried to rise and walk
I tried to rise and walk
"Come forth!" I heard. "Rise and WALK!"
I tried to rise and walk
I TRIED
Fell down three times
It was like skating in an ice rink
The pulsating music of KISS throbbing through the loudspeakers
(It was that disco knock-off they took to the charts)
I was the kid who got knocked down
I know that funny man didn't mean to run over my hand with his skate
I know accidents happen
(Even if the Good Doctor says that's all a bunch of crap)
I lifted my hand to my face
I felt nothing
I thought perhaps it would take some time to kick in, that there would come a moment when the pain would crash over me tsunami-style. It would overcome me, and at that point I would not be screaming at myself anymore but at everyone. I'd curse them because they were there. I'd damn them for no good reason whatsoever. Wrong place, wrong time. Unlucky twins. God knows them not, nor vouches them for His. One is chosen. The Other refused. ME ME ME ME ME. It is more cruel to know this secret than it is to be kept in the dark.
Keep me in the dark.
Leave me alone.
Silence your Teaching Voice and let me sleep
Let me sleep in disbelief
Forget the part where I said,
"I ain't a-gonna wake up until I'm good and ready"

I've been put down
I'm held down to drown
Jelly air to fill my gills
No longer screaming
Abandoned my temple
To the banks of the Ohio
I gave the Good Doctor something interesting
To write in his reports

Once Was a Housekeeper

2010-02-03T10:54:00.002-06:00

You know it's not worth all the trouble
The stationary on the table
Open the doors to needy families
They need their ice machines
Need their locks and they need keys
And they need chairs and beds and ashtrays
The stationary on the table
Next to the television
I was in the shower
Looking for my soap
The doors were closed, I'm sure
No one knows I was there
Kept it well hidden, then I
Did what I had to do and then I
Walked away and I forgot this day ever happened
Ever happened
It's easy to walk away just turn your head
And forget this day ever happened
It's easy just to walk away, turn your head and forget
That this day ever happened
It's easy to forget, turn around and leave
Wrap it around your sleeve and forget
Forget this day, this day ever happened
Left the ice machine
I left my locks and keys
I left my luggage and my dirty magazines
I left my ashtrays
Left my bed and my buffet
Left my chairs and my keys and
Lord, I left my "Do Not Disturb"
Left my family, left the housekeeper
And I left the ice machine
Left the postcards of the pool
Left the restaurant, left the shower
And the rooms and the signs that say:
"Soap upstairs, stationary on the table
By the television."
I stole the towels and the TV guide
I got into my vehicle, I stole another ashtray
From the bar, by the bed, by the buffet
Sat in your electric chair and thought of children
I was a clerk, I had a "Do Nor Disturb" sign on my head
And the Doors were playing in the background
About the broken families
And the housekeeper at the ice machine
Where she lost her keys, but she never could find the locks
And her luggage and her magazines
Oh, she's on the phone too much, and the pool is warm but it's closed
She's got a postcard
There's a remote chance that the restaurant is still open
But we've got the keys to the rooms
We got showers, we've got signs that say:
"Soap can be found upstairs
By the stationary on the table
Sitting by the television."
Well, I brought back the towels but I kept the TV guide
My vehicle's in the shop and the ashtrays are filled
With roaches and roach clips
And the bar of soap that I stole from the hotel
That was by the beds that were never quite made right
And the buffet that didn't taste right
And we were sitting in the chairs
We were listening to your children
Oh, that purse does not seem to like me much
I said, "Do not disturb my meditations, if you please
Turn that Doors tape off, if you please."
Gotta get home, back home to my family
I once was a housekeeper, I once was a housekeeper
Yes, I was, do you remember when I was a housekeeper?
But I never knew my way to the ice machine
And they never gave me keys so I never knew where the locks were
And I never needed luggage because the only things I'd seen were in magazines
Heard about on the phone - spent some time by the pool
Writing on the backs of postcards, suicide notes
But it's remote- this restaurant will not be the place I do it
I know I need some rooms - rooms with showers
Need myself a sign that says "The soap can be found upstairs
Next to the stationary on the table by the television."
I need some towels but I don't need the TV guide
So I got the TV, yeah I put it in the vehicle outside
Along with a couple of ashtrays
And a bottle or two that I had ordered but never paid for at the bar
Well, the beds were made this time
But the buffet still didn't taste quite right
And the chairs they gave us were much too small
Like they were made for children
But the clerk was not responsive to my complaints
She kept on saying, "Do Not Disturb me
You know the way to the doors."
If I had a dollar for all the families who were expecting me to be a housekeeper
I'd go buy the ice machine
Empty the ice and find the keys
And then I'd go look for the locks
Take my luggage cram-packed with magazines
I've got some quarters for the phone
Brought my swimming trunks for the pool
Send a postcard
But there is a remote possibility
That I might never leave here
But stay here
Eating in the restaurant
Where the rooms are not too cozy
And the showers ain't got no running hot water
We need a sign, there were nothing but signs
I should have been paying attention to the signs
I should have brought my own soap
The thought occurred to me as I walked down the stairs
That's why I need some stationary
I'm gonna sit down at the table
Turn the television off, send back the towels
Open up the TV guide, think about the vehicle outside

"faces"

2010-01-27T17:44:00.002-06:00

My friends had no faces
I never saw the years
Wear them down
The graying hair
The crow's feet
The gradual stagnation and slowing
This would have been too much to bear
No, they were timeless, ageless
Even before I knew them
Brilliant rays of mind, one shy of infinite
Nothing but names
Collections of opinions
"Yea"s and "Nays" and "I don't give a shit"s
That was ALL some of them were
Others became more
So that I tried to give them expressions
To conjure visages
"I will fool myself into believing
This is what he looks like
That is her, yes, that is her, I recognize her
This is how I want to remember them
This is the image I will assign to each
To the memories I want to have, to hold
Each one of them."
I felt as if I had the right
After all, they had no faces
They never had
Spirit, nothing for light to bounce from
More often than not, I found
My vision uninspired, unworthy of creation
I wasn't even sure if they had
Souls
Still, I always suspected they were ONE
Part of ONE, parts of ONE
They were a portal for me
A doorway into a universe
A room with 100 doors
No "EXIT" signs above any of them
A hall full of strangers
With nothing in common
I liked to mingle in that crowd
But I wanted nothing to do with them
With their crooked smiles
Their rictus grins baring stained fangs
The hungry, greedy, hateful look in their eyes
The frowns plastered permanently to their brows
They all looked like they wanted something I could not give them
Acceptance
Respect, maybe
The time of day
A precious moment of my time
A place in my heart
Connection, compassion
Everything but love
Only for my friends
Only to my friends
Only from my friends
For my friends had no faces
And I liked it that way

I have no face
If I had one
I fear
I would have no friends

Trying to Sleep

2010-01-27T09:13:00.001-06:00

Stuck here in the middle
With my thoughts swirlin' 'round me
Like a storm come to sweep me away
Who's doing the thinking?
It sure ain't me, I'm tired of my own voice
Won't be silent and it ain't got nothing to say

Says it anyway

I percieve a point...

2010-01-17T18:25:00.003-06:00

I percieve the point of nothing
That sucks and squeezes reality into it's vacuum
Always consuming, offering nothing
It is mine, I own it
I who have nothing

He seems to know this
To understand it completely
He takes it into account
As he judges me
Not entirely satisfied

He has the appearance of a man
Who has a handle on the situation
A man who knows more than he lets on
Who knew what his choices were long before he chose them
Silently observing his handiwork
Through some kind of dirty Coke bottle lens
(Maybe he lies
Perhaps I have no head)
Filing imperfections, cataloging them all
For use the next time around

Still, when he catches my eye
When our gazes lock
He knows the game is up
He can tell I have him all figured out
Frightens him
Frightens me even more
Because I have learned his lesson
I may feel, I may think, I may know
But in his flat land
I am nothing but a hand puppet
He talks to
When his empty room bores
And he gets lonely

LoveBirds

2010-01-17T18:05:00.000-06:00

She had a needle prick pin for his dream balloon
He laughed at her faith
Mocked it
Loathed it for what he perceived
It had done to him
Long before she ever came around
This was something that she never knew
But what she did know was enough
She had a Mason jar for his unearned tears
She kept a wooden box full of nails
To hold up the boards
That blocked the sun
And kept the birds out
He wanted to jump off a mountain cliff
To feel free in the fall
To prove her wrong
She had a cat of nine tails and a whiplash smile
When he asked her to dance she said it wasn't her style

talking to myself

2010-01-14T13:55:00.003-06:00

I find I'm talking to myself more often these days
No one else to talk to
So I like to pretend
I'm talking to God
I call it "praying"
But I still think I'm crazy
Because I know that I'm the only one who can hear me
The things I say
No God would tolerate without some semblance of repentance
I have none
Not because I don't think I should
I should
It's just that I'm too far gone for that, knowing well the only repentance I ever knew got tossed out like a baby with bath water within days
Sometimes hours
Sometimes minutes
So if it's repentance God requires
I'm afraid
He'll have to look for it elsewhere
All I have for Him is a sharp tongue
A madman's babbling prayer
A conversation of one
A criticism and a forgiving, both exaggerated, neither meaning
A Goddamn thing
I try to convince myself that it's the SuperSoul doing all the talking, that I'm listening in, eavesdropping on a party, someone else's house where I'm not supposed to be
It takes more convincing than I'm capable of
Because I'm struck mute
When the Holy Spirit speaks
My rational mind shuts down each and every suggestion that
I may be a vessel
I've always believed that my body is a vessel
What troubles me, though
Is to know
That so
Is my soul

A Rusty Knife

2009-12-31T09:53:00.005-06:00

Cool little blessed teddy bears
A million little blessed teddy bears
Come to the sundown ritual
Bring your spotless goldfish, just put him in a jar
And gather at the foot of the mountain
Where fools perish and prophets hide

Now my mind's gone blank as it is sometimes wont to do
I forgot everything you've said right after you said it
And it frightens me but what else can a man do?
Price to pay, eh chap?
A trollop dropped a wall-full of bricks and made an awful divide
Betwixt the things I don't remember and the fine line which sunders in two
Knowing and not knowing
Being and not being
Thinking and not thinking
Living but not living.
Dying but not dying.
Betwixt the things I don't remember
And the things I can't forget

You seem very disappointed that I will not attempt to describe the way these episodes feel, what's going on in my mind, how I perceive "reality", it's purpose, the fleeting nature of the whole damn thing.

I am genuinely sorry for that state of affairs, but alas, what power doth mortal man hold to fuck around with the hands of time, to try to tie them behind his back. I reserve the right to keep my mouth shut and set out to do a shaker's dance. Just out behind the church, right front of the out house. Cross that field of flowers, crushing the lucky ones, and meet me, that's what it was all about, mister, you've got no idea, and furthermore, we weren't even shakers, only two kids too young to be messed up yet. So little of it survives in my memory. I can't even remember who she was. Or what she looked like, even. I only know that the cold steel of the blade she had hidden in her "Sunday Best" skirt was the most painful thing I've ever felt in my life.

It was a sharp blade. But old. Rust stuck to it and black dirty from all the blood shed carnage clinging to the hard metal. A knife infinitely more painful than a clean, sharp-edged sword.

Okay...give me a moment...

What was all that? I seem to have wondered off
Did you say
Something about shakers?
Or did you say quakers?
Soul Shakers and Earth Quakers

Could it actually be
Thor
Who crashes his camera
He hasn't a hammer
The flash is a freaky thing
It sticks to the back of the eyelid
It burns and it burns and it burns
Thor, is that you?
If it is...stop, please o magnificent god of thunder
cease from this mental torture you inflict
Upon one only humble
Your disregard for me saddens and discourages
I've worshiped you, Thor
I've brought burnt offerings to you
The spotless lamb, a pail for the blood
A pail for the blood
A pail for the blood
This suffering must come to an end
I'll take the rusty sword that brought me here
And slice the beast's neck
And hold it above, let it drain like a fountain
A pail for the blood
So, Thor, look down and consider your worthy servant
Mighty Thor, Manipulator of Gods
Trust me, if I thought I could
I would once more wield my dirty blade
...if I ever thought that this very blade had power to slay deity...
I would thrust it deep into your guts, below the heart, so that the blade would rip hard and dull when I yank it up and cut in half the organ that pumped blood through your useless veins.
Laughing, beaming

"Burn"

2009-12-27T16:08:00.001-06:00

I'd just as soon burn it
If it's all the same to you
It's grown cold
A fire would do us some good
I don't think it's of much use
For anything else
You got a lighter?

Burn it

I don't want to be Plath's latest disciple
I don't really want to sing Ian's song
But I reach into the cauldron
And all I pull out
Mud covered sentiment
Blood bourne transcendence
Conscience overlaid with fat
Disgusted with what it's come to
Wanting nothing more
Than to offer up something clean
Something beautiful
That would make you smile
That would make me happy
Oh yes, it would
I hate to accept the truth
Though it was none of my doing
Still I must confess it as my own
I would keep it to stagnate
If it didn't burn
If it didn't burn a hole in me
So I hunt for leeches
In the murky bog, the scum-topped swamp
From which I pull out all of these thoughts
To suck words like blood
In hopes that a few of them
Might make someone consider
.....

Wobbling Buddha

2009-12-12T09:11:00.001-06:00

Dirty, wobbling Buddha
I think you may have cursed me
With your eyes closed
Picking at a chronic scab
Delicately placing the detritus
Into your mouth
Ha!
You didn't think I saw you do that
Did you?
Pissed you off
Didn't I?
A wave of the hand, a well-worn expletive
And I'm dismissed

Smoking, hacking gargoyle
Glued to your grimy floor
Staring at me through tight squinted eyes
Damning each and every
Soul you've ever known
Have I been convinced
That I am exactly like you?
Or that you can send me to hell?
I think you may already have

A wave of the hand, a well-worn expletive
I'm down in the hole

But one thing must be said:
You have a wonderful collection of dolls
Every peach pink pucker-lipped face
Stares blindly
Lined up in rows on shelves
In an unused room
Their feet scuffed with black tar
Little silk dresses torn
Or naked
Nude plastic
Unashamed toys
Five gates, uncaring
Five doors, barred forever
Heads filled with air

Still they feel more than you
Still they feel more than you
Do

From the Other Side, Disbelieving

2009-12-08T14:54:00.001-06:00

You should know
I want you to know that
I don't fear you
Your wizard's tongue
At the service of your whim
Sculpts pointed gibberish to
Hurl in my direction

It's not that I don't believe
Who can tell?
It's your universe anyway
After all
But while I am stuck in it
You should know
I am not afraid

You would stretch and fold
Circumstances
Manipulate and tie
The strings of time
You would gather unto yourself
Places, shapes, things, the weak ones
You would smash them, meld them together
Mix them with spirit
To make clay
Even now you shiver with bliss
At the thought
Of molding it
With your charmed hands
Into your own image

Because you are in love
With the idea, the possibility
Power for you, the true weakling
To hold you up, for a crutch
In the slitting light of truth
And give some kind of meaning
To your reason, your witch's spell reality

No, I do not fear you
I only wanted you to know
That
When you judge
The distance
and
The time
I will place between us

Even the letters of your name...

2009-11-28T13:37:00.001-06:00

Even the letters of your name
Have power, hold sway
Fit together perfectly, a ring
A mantra to keep me here
The same mantra to set me free
Into your spirit
The atmosphere I long to breathe in
Shining from you, an aura
Transcendent we submerge
Sinking deep inside
To find a home
A dwelling for eternity
A womb-shell for Self
Reluctant to shed it's skin
Deciding not to
Instead clinging to your memory
Welding, melding, a parasite
A birthmark, a tattoo
In for the long haul

i am

2009-11-18T13:25:00.001-06:00

I am history's cruel design
A suffocating clinging poison vine

(But I am waiting...can you hear me?
Calling out from the other side)

I am the quicksand of your memories
To suck you down if you get lost in me

(Take my hand
If you have ears to hear
If you have eyes to see)

CAN YOU MEET ME IN THIS MOMENT NOW
KNOW THAT YOU ARE HERE WITH ME SOMEHOW
TO KILL "I WAS" , LET "I WILL" BE DAMNED
TO FIND "I AM"
TO KNOW "I AM THAT I AM"

I'm memorizing "Sheep In Fog"
I've found my tortured soul
In poetry of Burroughs
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Zimmerman and Plath

(There are no words where I am
Yet the silence speaks of worlds
And your heartbeat makes us laugh)

I've tried to cripple you inside
To feed your ego and your pride
Give you something you could call your own
Give you somewhere you could hide

(Step outside)

MEET ME IN THIS MOMENT NOW
KNOW THAT YOU ARE HERE WITH ME SOMEHOW
TO KILL "I WAS" , LET "I WILL" BE DAMNED
TO FIND "I AM"
TO KNOW "I AM THAT I AM"

"Bipolar"

2009-11-11T19:22:00.000-06:00

Beauty is the most depressing thing
Light will guide you further into the darkness
Ignorance a blessing to the meek
Inheriting the kingdom as we speak

A mind can only take so much philosophy
Until a gray confusion settles in
Is it pretentious analyzing life?
Pity for the fool who even tries

I am a silly man
Remember, we were young
I want another chance

Laughing at the creatures we've become
Evolution's coming 'round full circle
Innocence a blessing to the child
Inheriting a kingdom we've defiled

I am a silly man
Remember, we were young
Laughing, holding hands
Our time had not yet come
Here we are again
All is said and done
I want another chance
I want another chance

Lost Time

2009-11-11T10:53:00.001-06:00

There were days
Wonder
I remember
Hours sucked into a void
I crushed a human-sized indention
...into a smelly mattress
There it is...out in the open air
And settled in
Tossing about when the time seemed right
To the left, to the right
Head resting on a dark pink forearm
At the sky or into a pillow
Case stained with drool
A puffed up map of another world
Lethargy's creation
Music drifted through my ears
Useless waves
Never catching
The most beautiful melodies in the known universe
Nothing but a ceiling fan's whirling clank
Yet they comforted me
Kept time as good as they could
Gave me something familiar to grab hold of
Maybe kept me
From sinking, falling, clutching at air
Or breathing in water, drowning
In sloth, apathy, illness, hurt
Jumping into the mouth of a volcano
Fleeing from something I had no name for
Something that had no use for a name
All the more fearsome for it
I jumped...I fled...I flew...
I laid down and stayed down
I didn't even recognize sleep
When it snuck up from behind
I wasn't even thankful
For it brought no dreams
Only a quick, painless transition
A tool of prophecy
Pincers to hold shut my eyelids

Now I ask myself, "How long
Ago
That must have been? How long
Since
I rose from the dead?"
That span of days
Seems as forgotten
As the lost time
Hours into days into weeks into months into years...
Though not sacrificed
So unwillingly

Twenty-one

2009-10-20T10:21:00.001-05:00

Twenty-one
My heart stops to bleed
I try to remember
For these twenty-one memories
Would blow embers into flames
Would define passion
But my brain is half-shattered
I've been much too proud
Of my self-inflicted lobotomy
Apathetic at the time
Dumbed down and numbed now
To the point
Where it just doesn't seem to matter
And it doesn't
Except in moments like these
When a bubble of the past
Rises to the surface
Of my half-set grape kool-aid gelatin head
To taunt me with jigsaw fragments
Puzzle pieces scattered, most lost forever
But the ones that come together
Fire lust within me
Give me the slightest hope
Cherished nonetheless
Of twenty-one

"Forgetting"

2009-10-12T08:19:00.000-05:00

Ghosts and Spirits whirl like dervishes
Caught and crammed in a soft metal silo
Freed from time but tied to space by a coil
Clinging to dream, the lucky few
Vacate the hive for a minute
A short moment of remembrance
Denied a quick forgetting
Or consigned to lonely park benches
Behind seldom opened doors
Locked in basements, difficult to enter
Segregated from the swarm
Yet cursed in cherished imprisonment
They never grow old
They envy the ones ignored
Those who are being forgotten
Breaking their chains for good
Melting into the atmosphere
Where they belong
Parting the dead sea
They crawl without a leader
Too numb to appreciate this unexpected exodus
Caring less for those left behind
Knowing that they, for all their loneliness
Are the blessed ones

A Second Coming

2009-10-05T08:29:00.002-05:00

I can't talk with my mouth full of water
But I'll try

What are you doing here?
I would have thought you'd be
Dry, bare bones by now
I'd come to terms with the memory
Filed and stored it in a dusty chamber
Where it's power could not hurt me
Anymore
Sealed in a strong locked box
I thought I had mastered the anger
That I'd dominated it through the tears of others
Though it had eaten me
To leprous skin and bone
Forgiveness seemed easy
When you were so far away
Because I wanted to love you so badly
But now you're back
Your own anger almost dwarfing mine
Your own tears, earned honestly
Though not half as innocently as my own
And you're still repeating your mantra
I will never forget
Your message, your signal flare
Something you needed me to know
With all the urgency of confession
(As if that were an excuse)

"My nerves are shot
My nerves are shot
My nerves are shot
My nerves are shot"
You always had a knack for stating the obvious

Until today I had managed
To squelch that ridiculous chanting
But here you are again
Showed up almost out of a dream
Needing a sponge
To soak in your rage
(None of my doing)
Begging me to stitch your heart back together
(I haven't the surgeon's skill)
Punching holes in walls
(.....)
Getting your knees dirty
Asking for miracles
Expecting me to pull them off
Ultimately disappointed
Hallucinating power for me to wield
Not realizing
That my back had already been broken
By the same sad world
That broke yours

The Narcissitic Mystic

2009-10-01T09:04:00.001-05:00

Floating in a muck-filled puddle
The narcissistic mystic studies
The tainted gleam in her greedy eyes

A fog mist, salty poisoned sweat
Dribbles maps and legends, roads and highways
That tattoo her entire body

She courts tragedy in a lint ridden black dress
And despises the light
That calls forth her reflection

An aura...a stench
Wafts from her half-rotten husk
And sets a perimeter

Which I dare not cross
Lest she drag me down
To drown in the scum laced waters

Of her mysticism

"Intermission"

2009-09-22T15:08:00.006-05:00

A little rest
It's been a long hard road
You're tired and you deserve it
So lay back
Let the sounds fill your head
Marvel
At how they seep into your body
Like a pure drug
And lift your spirit

Find a soft pillow
I'll stand watch
As you tear it all down
When it gets too hard
When you fear letting go
And the sights to see
On the other side of the wall
You're tearing down
Let me be your fortress

Together we will gather
The broken pieces of your days
And I will slowly put them back together
Just slowly enough
For you to feel the love
That comes in my reassembling
And leave behind
Everything that tore them apart

Everything that tore them apart
I will cause you to forget
As we lay
As we melt into one each other
As we melt into earth
Flesh of My flesh
Bone of My bone
One seed
Planted by Death
To sprout and grow
Into new life
In a new garden

Settle your thoughts
Receive calm for your shattered nerves
Though they are shot
I will ride shotgun

I am love
This world is a mirror
You see it as in reverse
The reality:
Reap
Sow
Plant
I am the Farmer
I love you
Because you know Me
For what I am
You know
That I am not Grim
That my sickle serves a purpose
It's blade, sharp and shiny
A two edged sword
Brings you to this place
Where enlightenment never dims or fades

We will ride it together
Until harvest has come
You and I will be One
Until we both realize
We've got a spare rib

The Begging God

2009-09-20T08:06:00.003-05:00

The begging God
Holds forth His greedy hands
Palms up
Lifeline unbroken
A vending machine
Without a coin slot
Asks for a dime
Expects a dollar

A greedy deity
Who dances with demons
Listens to gibberish
Suffers fools gladly
Insisting
"This is the Way, the Truth, the Life
This is the way it's done, it's all you must do
This the truth: P.T. Barnum was right
This is the life, unearned and unpaid for
A wise investor's goldmine
A field of dreams for sale, barren
Blood money for more seed
It's yours for the asking"

The begging God
Patron saint of confidence and extortion
Comforts the elderly
Patiently waiting
For
The Big Payoff
For
It's easy to convince them
To expect a windfall
Green Granny Smith apples
On sale
Ten for a dollar
Tiny serpent worms munch tunnels
In nine of them
The gambling deity
Lays odds on whether or not
Their shiny skins will ever be broken
By coffee stained teeth or pearl shiny dentures
He knows they will
For
They are hungry, starving, famished
He also knows they will throw away all ten
When they bite into one bad apple

The begging God
Does not share well
His pockets are weighed down with loose change
But don't ask for a hand out
He will only begrudge two pennies
And tell you, as you
Walk away disappointed
"Don't spend it all in one place, buddy"

Hat Trick

2009-09-16T17:25:00.001-05:00

Pull it out of thin air
Reach in and yank it out
Make 'em scratch their heads
Befuddled awe-struck expressions
Melting stony glares of apathy and indifference
Let the strongest amongst them
Learn impotence
Let the believer tremble
Confused and startled
To witness the miracle
To literally feel the doubt flush out
Behold, they stand mortified
Frightened
For they have cherished their doubts
Every bit as much as their faith
The sudden vacancy leaves them feeling
Drained and nauseous
Whatever
That's one cool expletive deleted hat trick!
The children just love it
It makes them dream
So do it again, master
Do it again
They've been told it's not real
Only an illusion
Smoke, mirrors, lies
But they don't believe that
They never will

Fear the Conjurer (for CZ and CC)

2009-09-15T14:12:00.004-05:00

The powerless gods
Whose names I have not counted worthy of remembrance
March like high school bullies
Neither I nor they
Understand the reason for their swagger
Some dumb determination to enlighten me, may be?
A cause, a campaign
A small favor
Willingly performed for the Conjurer

Who steals from the Dream World
Who makes enemies in the Real World
Because he will not share his loot
He labels and tags and stores the treasure
Describes it all to anyone with ears to hear
Quite eloquently
With an air of pomp and mystery

Listen. He brags that his coffers are full
So much more than he needs
So much more than he wants
Still he hoards

He's convinced the dogs
That he has more to give them
Than flowery words
(As words he worships)
They believe him
Though it was not his intent to convert
As it is not his intent to keep his word
So more fool them
They look like bunglers, trolls, monsters
Rounded up into a posse
I would laugh at them if not for the fact
That I'm the one they are coming for

Before the next five minutes are over
They will have twisted my arm behind my back
Spat in my face
Kicked my legs out from under me
Held my head in their hands
Pinched my nose shut
Stuck their fingers in my mouth
Pulled it, stretched it, as far as it goes
Then, when my screams cease
They will speak to me for the very first time

"FEAR HIM."

"Why should I fear the Conjurer?"

"He will laugh to watch you
Sink into his vat of language
The jewels he's plundered."

"Why should I fear the Conjurer?"

"He will confuse you
He will dig forks in the road
To throw you from your cherished path.
He will brand you
With pentagrams
He will tattoo a goat's head on your back
Worst of all, he will convince you
That they mean something."

"Why should I fear the Conjurer?"

"He desires to pick your brain
Hoping to pluck
A slither of flattery to fuel his narcissism
He will become very angry when he finds out
That you've never heard of him
Perhaps you have never heard of him
But you know him

"You know him well
You've even seen him
Though it was not his true face you beheld
He roams the land
Behind a smiling cartoon clown mask
That hides a blank stare of greed
Derision, scorn, contempt, lies, pettiness,
Dishonesty, depravity, perversity
And the insatiable lust he has for validation
Respect and Recognition
They have twisted his visage
Into stone and dirty crystal
Ugly diamond
The sight from which even he recoils
A reflection that pulls at his intestines
And pours ice cold fear down his naked back
So we say FEAR HIM."

"Why should I fear the Conjurer?"

"Because he knows you're looking for an enemy

"He is possessed of demons
One in particular
But he willingly let it in
Shared communion with it
Offered it a bed for rest
A home, a host
Gave it a book of Crowley and said, 'Occupy yourself'."

"A demon?"

"Yes, and a powerful one
It is a testament to the Conjurer's will and power
That the demon dwells complacent
Content to let the Conjurer study it
To take notice of it's wickedness
(For he delight's in wickedness)
To search for murder in it's black heart
(For he knows that there is a murderer in his own)
To dig through the egg shell surface
Hoping to find a germ, a genesis, or just a reason for it's evil
(As he is convinced he has many legitimate reasons
For the evil embedded into his soul)
The demon understands death, toys with it
Laughs at it, wishes it on all people
The Conjuror laughs with the demon
And this makes the demon laugh even harder
For it knows that the Conjuror has no understanding
Of death
Past the idea
All he has done is flirt
With an ugly girl at the prom
Made it the realm of heroes, his role models
Idols that don't talk back
Held high it's banner
Dreamed of mausoleums and tombs
'At last, something I can embrace'
Fool

"He let this demon be his teacher
And learned much
About
The powers of darkness
The father of lies
The hierarchy of celestial beings
All the arcane symbolism (tossed out the window by science)
Esoterica
Black-robed men carrying candles in the dark
Their teachings ancient, their lessons unheeded, unwanted
Diluted through millenniums
Cracked and drained of any power or
Purpose they might have one day possessed
Robbed of relevance
Outdated curiousities
A good scary movie to watch on Sunday afternoons after church
Morbid fascinations
Spooky dry-ice rituals
That once scared the shit out of him

"His demon goads and teases him
'You can resurrect it", the demon croaks
'You can close your eyes
Make believe it's all real
And just as long as you stay in your hidey-hole
With eyes closed you can call it your own
Posess it
Give it power in your own mind
But keep this thought nestled in the back of your mind:
It's all YOURS.
No one else wants it.'"

There is logic, I think, in what these giants say.

"The Conjurer will drag you into his heart core
And there he will take back the book of Crowley
From his demon familiar
And together they will beat you down with it
Pulverize your skull
Crack open your head
The book of Crowley
Is a very heavy book
Good for pummeling
If not for much else."

And with these words
Power given to brute gods
Transferred to the meek
They will soon learn wisdom
To see the Conjurer as he really is
To realize he has nothing they need or
Want
Prepare themselves
To rip out his soul
To cast out his demon
And to burn that goddamn book of Crowley

Rollercoaster

2009-09-04T09:24:00.002-05:00

24 hours have passed
Since I scorned your invisible hand
Afraid to hate
Though I could feel it in my guts
Churning bile, acidic, soured buttermilk
I dared not spew it out
Hot, cold, lukewarm
All attributes of my intention
Kept in check
Outdated recognition
Misplaced gratitude?
Not so much that you didn't deserve
But come on, now
This paradigm you expect me to thank you for
Has turned out to be more
Than this weak man can stand
And the space that squeezes me
Contorts and packs me
Into a flesh bag of muscle, bones and blood
Is more than I can bear

Every day I stare at clocks
With equal measure
Fear and hope
Their hands drive me to the same low places
Joy, peace, love, happiness
Naught but detours
Tick tock tick tock
Hours are brutal
With midnight just around the bend
I'm gonna want to curse you again

For leaving me in this amusement park
Saying, "I might come back soon
To pick you up and take you home."
But you tricked me
You never left at all

You watched me run to the Ferris wheel
You saw me laughing, galloping on a dead wooden pony
In a merry-go-round stampede
You had to have smiled, maybe even chuckled
When I got smacked by a few bumper cars
With their antennas crackling electricity
I'm sure you relished the sight of my innocence
My enjoyment
The experience
From a place just behind me

Hide and seek is your favorite game

From the tallest tracks of the roller coaster
Once my favorite ride
I could have sworn I saw you
And you knew the jig was up
So you paid the Judas Carney
To go away, to leave
Me alone in a
Cramped, rusted, paint-chipped car
To grow accustomed to the speed
To go round and round without getting sick dizzy
But I don't lift my hands up into the air anymore

I'm sure you're still watching
Hidden just behind the stall in the men's room
Opened to the sky for all to see
I think you're still amused
I've glimpsed your greedy eyes
From the distance
And I swear I saw a grin twist your lips

It no longer makes me happy
To make you happy
It once did
It may well never again
I know that the only way I'll ever come down
Will be
When you get bored
Of watching your dancing chicken

By then I will know
I will not be afraid to hate
Though it may well be too late
For you to expect me to thank
You
For such an awesome ride
In such a cool park
You may even think I like Hide and Seek as much as you
It frightens me to consider
To accept and to confess
That I probably do

So I doubt it's gonna make any difference
If I tell you the truth
I do
I do hate you

"Songwriter"

2009-09-03T20:41:00.005-05:00

Songwriter and an unfinished song about real love
A song of love as magic, but madness is all he dreams of
Holds it in the palm of his hand
Deserves a kiss of life
His creation they'd never understand
Or give a damn

The years roll on and on and his song is never realized
He looked for truth in beauty but all he found there were lies
See it in the sadness in his eyes
Count the tears that fall
Standing with his back against the wall
They'll watch him crawl

Songwriter, tonight he wrote his final melody
A sweet surrender, he held it up for all the world to see
They crushed it in the palms of their hands
They threw it to the wind
Just another remnant of a crazy man
Who gave a damn

"Walking Away"

2009-09-03T20:41:00.004-05:00

She says she thinks she needs time
To be alone but you don't know why
She says it's time she took some things for granted
She's got expectations
Curious with an open mind
She's examined her life but she still don't understand it

She don't give me
Any reason to believe I'm not the one
But she don't seem to think that
She needs anything or anyone

Neither one of us is walking away

All she wants are the moon and stars, she says,
"That's not much so I don't know why
You look at me like I've lost my fucking mind"
I've got reservations
Thirty nine and I don't mind dyin'
But how could I give her the moon and the stars in the mourning sky?

"Lift up your hands," she says,
"You can almost touch them
You could bring one down for me
It's easy."
She sees me and I'm walking away
In her mind's eye I'm walking away
Walking away
In my mind's eye she's walking away

But neither one of us is walking away

"When It Rains"

2009-09-03T20:31:00.003-05:00

It's raining outside but I don't mind
I kinda like it when it rains
You've been on my mind all of this time
I kinda hoped you'd feel the same
But you must have been blind
Not to see
I was falling in love last night
And all I was before...

A thunderstorm in the middle of the night
And we were gettin' high
So we packed up the pipe, went on a moonlight drive
Then you looked me in the eyes
You must have been blind
Not to see
I was falling in love last night
And all I was before you
I've forsaken, I've forgotten
And a stronger man than me could bear the mirror
The mirror of your eyes

It's raining outside but I don't mind
No, I don't mind
It's raining outside, don't run and hide
No, I don't mind

"Stars in the Sky"

2009-09-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

I dreamed about you last night for the first time
In a long, long, lonely, lonely time
Sharing a world that you've most likely forgotten
That vanished when I opened up my eyes

It was the same old dream that used to haunt me
Every night when you first said goodbye
And it makes me feel so sad and unforgiven
But I don't know why

Now the stars in the sky are all we have in common
The air we breathe is the only thing we share
The memories that remain are almost forgotten
They're as far from me
As the stars I see in the sky

Once I had faith, my faith was strong
That what we had would last forever long
But it's so hard to believe in something you can't even see
How can you tell if it's there or if it's gone?

How could you tell me you'd rather be alone?
You packed all your bags and you walked right out the door
Left me to pick up the pieces of all you left behind
To try to carry on

Now the stars in the sky are all we have in common
The air we breathe is the only thing we share
The memories that remain are almost forgotten
They're as far from me
As the stars I see in the sky

"Erase"

2009-09-03T20:00:00.002-05:00

I got no reason to lie to you, girl
I've got no time for the changes in your life
We both saw this coming a long time ago
We both know, it's surely no surprise
But it's alright if you stay one more night
I don't mind
Got some room by my side
But if you're of a mind to leave it all behind tonight
It's all the same to me
It's just a game to me

Girl, I have tried to convince myself
That there is a rhyme and a reason
For all of this time you've been reading my mind
And I know you don't cry so I 'll take my sweet time
Remembering the future
Girl, I will try to erase you from my life

Been one too many times, little girl,
You have looked me straight in the eye
And the pretty words that rolled off of your sweet lips
Were all tainted with the colors of lies
But I believed each last one of them
'Cause some of them gave me reasons to live
But I'm slowly coming 'round to realizing that what I really need
May be something you could never give

Girl, I have tried to convince myself
That there was a time and a season
For our love to live, and our love to die
And I know you won't cry so I'll take my precious time
Remembering the future
And girl, I will try to erase you from my life

"Shaman's Offering"

2009-09-03T19:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I've looked through your old records
And the books upon your shelves
And I have decided
That you and no one else could understand me
Could understand the things that make me who I am

And I wonder what you'd do
If you knew what I was thinking
That I've been sinking
In a liquid sea of love
Since I first saw you
You're the one I'm dreaming of

Sacred woman
Shamed and beaten
Shaman's offering refused

See, it all comes down to you
It really comes right down to you, girl
It's like my whole world's
Revolving around you
All I do
Is to make you happy

Maybe in this life could I wish
For such a balance
Girl, you simply take my breath away
And I won't miss it...

Sacred woman
Shamed and beaten
Shaman's offering refused
Graven image
Blamed and broken
Shaman's offering
Shaman's offering

"The Wait"

2009-09-03T19:38:00.000-05:00

I have waited patiently, of patience I am made
And many years have washed away the bitterness and hate
But I don't understand it yet
I can't forgive and just forget
Now nothing you could say or do could make up for the wait

The world has kept on turning since you burned mine to the ground
And I have stopped pretending what I've lost will ever be found
But I can't comprehend the fact
That you are never coming back
It's something I've accepted but the wait still drags me down

You took away my sunny day
Left me here with the little things that kill
A paper bag of broken promises
Some photographs
And a bottle of your pills

So I will wait patiently, of patience I am made
And if I never hear your voice again I'll call it a fair trade
For the dreams I stole away from you
Squandered in a day or two
And wasted on a memory that's left me here to wait

9 Months

2009-09-01T09:12:00.006-05:00

My heart's delight
Razor groomed, baby's bottom
To glide my fingers across
Gripping, fascinated
You breathe in a sweet fog
You exhale a trembling sigh
An indescribable exclamation
An indiscernible exhortation
A dove's song of desire
Caution for the wind
Need
Fear
Mine to control
No puppet, yet I pull strings
No fortress, yet I crash the gates
Effortlessly
As you throw open the doors
Willingly
I halt
So as to worship
Before I cross this line
Of fire and water
That no longer wields power
To lock me out
Left to wander, to live
For this moment
Or to let me slip
Out of consciousness
Into the womb
Soft baby's bottom
Sharp razor groomed
The Cherubim and Seraphim lie dead
Bleeding on the floor
Slashed and drained of the power
Conferred upon them by YHWH
Drained and stained
Dry and stolen
Given to a flower
A dowry so inadequate
I feel enlightened
But
Punished as I leave
For such an epiphany will not come again
Whereas I feared the intensity that brought me to
This place within you
So I dread the inevitable
Being born again
Better to remain
Surrounded by infinity
A gas planet that bears your name
Where the air I breathe
Smells of cotton candy
Hot coffee
Marijuana smoke
And your darkness bright
A shroud of purple light
Laser beamed into the back of my head
With the sole purpose of making me forget
All that came before
So that I might be clean and prepared
To get dirty again
I'm given 9 months

"Lord of the Flies"

2009-08-24T13:20:00.001-05:00

Lord of the flies
Lord of the night
Lord of darkness
Lord of light
Lord of light

Lord I believe you
Are the Lord of the flies
But I have not received you
I have not offered up my life
To the Lord of the flies

How still the ground beneath you holds
The secrets of the age
But will they still believe in you
When you lay them in their graves?
You hold the darkness like a mirror to your face
To show the Way

Lord of the flies
Are you coming tonight?
Lord of darkness
Will you leave me behind?
Leave me behind
Will you leave me behind
You're the Lord of the flies

"Runaways"

2009-08-24T13:15:00.004-05:00

Throughout my life
A few things I have found
There are some who'll lift you up
There are some who'll drag you down
There are some who'll make you wonder
What you're still doing in this town
And they're never satisfied
Until they see you in the ground

And they're never satisfied with anything they see in mirrors
And they always wonder why they have to sleep alone
And they're never pacified, no matter what you give 'em
Just like runaways that are never going home

It's easy to sleep and hide
Hide under sheets all night
In Dreams you forget
What you've been shown in the Light
Crosses burning to the left
Hanging tree to the right
They're selling their souls
To the darkness
In the darkness of the night

And they're never satisfied with anything they see in mirrors
And they always wonder why they have to sleep alone
And they're never pacified, no matter what you give 'em
Just like runaways that are never going home

"Midland Street West"

2009-08-24T10:08:00.002-05:00

See the cars that are parked along Midland Street
Hear the sounds of laughter, music, conversation
Walk on by, never knowing the people
In the house on the corner
Where the lights stay on all night

If you walk along the sidewalks of your mind
You may find yourself on Midland Street West
Where the door to the house on the corner
Open to a friend
But don't look them in the eyes

And you dreamed you were a disciple of Christ
He was turnin' the water into wine
And you thought you could walk on the water
So you tried...

Wednesday nights on Midland Street West
Where the sacraments are weed and wine
And the sacrifice is fuel to feed the fire
That burns away the sadness
And reminds you of your dreams

And you dream of perfect circles
Figure eights on their sides
And a world without beginning or ending
Only night
On Midland Street West

Are you feeling the winds of war hard against your back?
Are you remembering how she said she would come back?
Are you waiting on the Second Coming?
Or do you wish you were still at Midland Street West?

Stooge's Logic

2009-08-22T10:52:00.001-05:00

You never knew your stooges, did you?
Never paid your dues
Never brayed your lone wolf howl
Never even knew which moon to send it to
Sharp of razor not felt
As it cuts meat
Drawing no blood
You should have got to know them
Stooges have a lot to teach
When they wield the blade
To cut meat
The flesh is severed
And the lesson learned
You really should have listened to them
For now the time has come
When the blood becomes vital
The razor selfish, thirsty enough on it's own
All those little pithy ideas that run amok in your brainstormed heart
They do you no good
They cut no meat
The twinkling stars and light bulbs bursting in your imagination
As a new idea is born only to be cast into the furnace
Given up on, no chance
A dud
Third trimester abortion
Tapped it's head just as it poked it's way through the door
No need for another one
Defective products
It only wears you down
Sucking on the memory of the last one
That proved to be worth a shit
Born 25 years ago, already on it's death bed
But your's
Straight from your soul
Arranged on a plate with a charming garnish of parsley
Soul food from the ghetto
Where hungry mouths don't get fed
You'd think they would devour your gift
As their hunger burns
But rather to learn how to steal
But rather to learn how to fight
Than a single disgusting taste
Of anything you have to offer
From a mind
Soft and cushioned
Spoiled and molding
Too weak to ever understand what it means
To survive
Barely able to get by, this is what it's worth
All it's worth, and no more
Something you might have known
Had you learned something from stooges
How to cut meat

Pen Scratches

2009-08-18T15:31:00.001-05:00

My pen scratches toxic poison
Into a wide ruled canvas
A dart thrown by an unsteady hand
That misses the mark more often than not
27 light blue lines horizontal
One long pink perfect to the side
Flanked by three holes
The design like a bulls eye
The ink pricks the center
But thoughts don’t follow
Too long in the dark, maybe
Maybe too long in the truth
They render my pen impotent
And dam the inspiration that would give it life
These empty pages mock me
80 of them, each one
Taunting
Daring me to smear their perfect whiteness
They are content to remain as they are
Worthless
Good for nothing but the fire
A total waste of resources
They want to be a looking glass
And they crave the taste of poison

"Make Yourself at Home"

2009-08-17T09:31:00.006-05:00

We would run through the woods to the silos
Empty of grain we’d just crawl on in
To scream and shout and laugh at the sound of the echoes
Didn’t even know that wasn’t what they were for back then

And we’d sit and hang our feet from the edge of a wooden bridge
That creaked, groaned and sagged when a truck passed us by
Well, if that bridge still stands I call it a miracle
Will it still be there when I open my eyes?

In the fields of the autumn leaves
To the gardens of stone
You’ve got to make yourself at home

Rollercoaster rides on the back roads we’d go
Pickin’ up pecans and puttin’ ‘em in a sack
That we sold for a quarter for five to an old man
Who smiled and waved as we left, hollerin’ “Hurry on back!”

Hear the wind blow through the maple trees, son,
Leave that memory alone
And try to make yourself at home

Singing “In the Garden” at the early morning service
With the other kids, dressed in our Sunday best
All our parents in the congregation listening
If you could have seen their smiles
You’d know how we were blessed

A lot of years have passed by since I last saw you
A lot of work, a lot of pain, but a whole lot of smiles
Boy, ain’t it funny what time can do to you
So let’s stop the clock and go back for a while

To the fields of the autumn leaves
Leave these gardens of stone
And try to make ourselves a home
We’ve got to make ourselves at home

"This I Notice"

2009-03-08T21:46:00.001-05:00

Well there you are again.
Same place I left you.
Why do I catch your eye every single time
I catch you in the corner of mine?
Little things I notice
The things that atrophy 'neath the dull hand of time
They're mine and they're yours
We do well to ignore
But you can't
Every time you come back around
I find my gaze like clockwork dropping
To sights not seen by the common man
Outside this sphere
Drifting away from the center where I stand
I stand in a place where there are no directions
Where the mighty wind of the Spirit
Blows not but congeals into fire
Content, I float

"High"

2009-03-07T23:30:00.004-06:00

Fetal I lie in the electric light
Curled and breathing heavy
I lost track of time
Listen, said I
And the sounds I picked from the air
Chose the ones to my liking
Let the rest float over my head
Who was I to say?
What made me think I could do this?
Dangerous ground I tread on now
My consciousness poured through every pore in my body
Lost all track
Of time or trouble or what it means to be cogent
Just let it wash over
Let it cleanse
Let it purify and massacre thought
Let it guide me into paths of possibility
But not those foggy streets
I know what's happening
I've been here before
It terrifies me, I know they're floating over me
They make their plans to comfort me
To be of some assistance
Ease my swollen eyelids down
Locked now forever or for a couple of hours
Whichever comes first
Who can I tell?
How can I tell it?
Will they understand?
I have no words
If this is a vision of the seventh heaven
I don't want to go there
I don't want to come back

"Camera I"

2008-11-23T10:52:00.002-06:00

Quickly, now
Before I forget
Before the cold rain washes this soot from my body
I need to remember
It kills me to remember

Was it real?
True? Honest?
Real, even so
So real in so many ways
It's not your reality that stains me

I slid through a slime covered door
Wiggled in through the mirror
Unsure of what I would find there
I thought I could handle it
This cliff edge

I was in an unfamiliar room
Taking in all I could see
My eyes like camera lenses
Strategically placed on the floor
Bound to the spot like tethered dead weight

I could have stopped it
I could have
I could have stopped it
I could have
I could have stopped it from tainting my soul

I could not have stopped it
From happening
As it
Had
Already happened

And so it happened
Real for them
Real for me
Real to the world
On every level a fucked up reality

And it chipped away
It tore chunks from part of me
Demolished a part of me
That I didn't even know was still there
That I would have kept to my dying day

Powerless to stop
Only stare
Judged guilty
By an unwillingness
To turn away

To turn away
Not so hard to do
Close my eyes
Squeeze them shut
Tightly, tightly

Only to be consumed by
The sound, the noise
The muscle and skin-muffled bone
Absorbing the shock
Of a wooden floor

Like a fish out of water
Flipping and flopping
Held down by the bigger fish
Gasping for water
Teased, destroyed then released

Puncture my ear drums
I cannot stand these
Terror, helplessness, anger, loss
I cry for you
I cry with you

But I cannot cry for myself
Tears won't fall from these open eyes
I cannot squelch
The echoing memory of your brokenness
That resounds and repeats and courses through my heart

Through my very existence
Changed forever
By an impulse
To
See

"Upon Waking"

2008-11-05T14:22:00.002-06:00

Then one day he woke up
...and the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning into the darkness
He had forgotten
The sound of the wind
The coolness of a gentle breeze
Against his skin
From the south, blowing through his hair
From the north, chilling his bones
How the Spirit is ushered by the east wind
Spirited away by the west
All these things he had forgotten
And more
The wonder of the stars and their unique placement in the sky
"Holes in the floor of heaven"
His grandmother used to call them.
Lately he'd come to believe
That she was a liar
How far away, how far
The face of the moon, smiling down or frowning
Depending on why he was looking at it
On that day
As he lay
Face buried in his pillow
He finally understood how low
He'd sunk
Into a cauldron of apathy
How easily he had snuffed out the light
How painless it turned out to be
In the numbing of his compassion
He felt as if there had never been much compassion there in the first place
His belief, his desire, his faith, his innocence, his wonder
It had all moved out of his heart
And into his head
Where, co-mingled with fear,
Stagnation completed it's hard labor
Of hardening his heart
Turning it from flesh to stone
Or maybe diamond to glass
It plucked the lotus petal
Tossed it into a muddy pool of quicksand
He woke up that morning and it all came crashing in
Like coming out of a bad dream
As it was
So he closed his eyes again
Welcomed another realization
He was granted a wish for more sleep
And when he woke up from that slumber
He wrapped his arms around the moment
He held it like it was a long lost daughter
Or a prodigal son
He paid the closest attention
To each beat of his pumping heart
And knew that it was not blood that flowed through it's chambers
But life
And the love of God was the engine that kept it going
Life, love, ever dying, ever glowing, ever re-creating
He turned his attention to his breathing
And marveled at the will with which
He filled his lungs with air
How the inhaling felt like a re-filling
How the exhaling felt like a giving-back
A catharsis that he had taken for granted
For so long
Now he was overcome with gratitude
For the Mechanism that made this miracle possible
This time he realized
That the moment
Is smaller than a single atom
That it comes and goes at a rate that cannot be measured
The speed of light times infinity
But enlightenment only comes
When the moment is realized
When it is caught
When it is seen
Then freed
On that windy morning in early November
He woke up from a dream
That lasted for centuries
And yet,
He had only been asleep for a moment

i do not understand your language

2008-07-06T13:25:00.003-05:00

I don't speak your language
but I'm trying and I'm trying and I'm trying
not to giggle at the sound of the words you're saying
but I ain't understanding a goddamn thing
it's like we live in different worlds
yeah, we do live in different worlds

I don't understand you
I don't understand why you make me do the things that I do and if not for you for you if not for you it's not...it's for you not, not for you, for you it's not what the FUCK are you trying to say?
I don't understand you
I never bothered to learn your language
and now we're at loggerheads

it's got to be a few blocks away
someone is popping firecrackers left over
from the glorious spectacle
the magnificent celebration
the day before, the day before
yesterday, today, the day before

they had gathered together to make plans
but guppy lost his marbles
it all became too much, would fall apart at the touch
but plans were made far in advance
and now there's no turning back

You've nothing to worry about, guppy
Your marbles are safe
In the strong arms of a carpenter
Gripped by hands blistered and bleeding
The hammer strikes the nails and a door is made
His door, his muscles, his hammer
With hammer blows that rip his skin, tear and bleed water
oh, no, dear guppy, your marbles are as safe as if they were in your own front pocket

This is so much gibberish to me
There are parts of my brain that do not work anymore
What am I supposed to do about that?

It's all in the moment...I don't miss a thing in the moment
Except the articulate glossolalia that spewed out of your mouths
I have explained this on countless occasions e'er we came to this pass
You seem not to be listening when I say
"I do not understand you.
I do not understand your language.

pIANO mAN

2008-06-07T00:18:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I know all about your people
How they worship drunken image
How they've exalted you to the status
Of a hero, a legend
A mythological god
Bacchus best buddy
You keep good company
but swine follow you
Different as day and night
Yet they all clamor for a good seat
They fight and swing fists
For a place in the front row
For the chance that a stream of gin-soaked spittle might splat on one of their faces
a soothing balm
a gob of stench and sputum
They gather it up
They mix it with mud
Thicken it into gel
and bow down to a snot green idol
a pus dripping idol
They'll worship it at the foot of the mountain
The towering landfill where you've brought them
Or they'll bring it to your ceremonies
They wave your banner in the air
A colorful representation of the Beefeater
Proud of their devotion
Proud of their status as "The Chosen"
Not necessarily
Sure
Of the WHYS or the WHEREFORES
You just seemed to be worth the trouble
Worth a laugh to watch you
To see you falling down
To hear your words of wisdom
(True wise words they are, too)
Slurred into gibberish
You are their man
Whose oracles remain silent
Lost in a deep dream that swirls through your sleep-dizzy mind
Whose glory and honor
Fall down
From your pulpit
In the center of a room full of people
99% of whom see YOU
Not as a profit
Not as a beatnik
Not as a poet
Not as a sage
Not as a seeker
Not as an asgst ridden agnostic
No idol
No god
99% know exactly
What you are

Few know WHO you are
Sometimes I think I do
In little ways you show me
In trivial ways you make it known
Beyond
the Shadow
of a doubt...
But the reality is...
I DON'T

Ceiling Fan (Obscure)

2007-11-18T10:47:00.003-06:00

A light breeze stirred by a ceiling fan
Rust colored grapes with unused wick
Black boxes making loud noise
Wood, steel, dust for ignoring
Seven books of circles, missing two
Eyeless snake, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow
A substitute for your tears
Glass wax filled cup extolling LOVE
Bars of buttons, black, silver and white
Metal cross that will never be pierced by nails
A portrait of Jesus Christ beneath red time
Dead motor starving for electricity
The smell of urine stirred by a ceiling fan
Flower time never passing five twenty three
Altar temporarily darkness shrouded
Rabbit, flowers, bear, O Happy day
Invisible God sins “Come back again”
Sound and vision categorized, rarely seen or heard
Small life, tiny breathes, hungry for shit
Magic metal cubes, alchemic circles
From thin air, manifested manufactured chaos
Messages, riddles, proclamations of love
A bedtime story about the Wild West
Slices of trees, glued together, given names
Shadows, mirrored lights, ceiling fan, triptych
The Great Emancipator looking under fingerprint stained glass, discarded
Evolved being denying the elements
Narcissist pools everywhere
Incredible miracle fed through lines and air
Cells with open doors, keys thrown away
Prisoners content, afraid of what’s outside
Poets fooling themselves believe in inspiration
All of this. All of this. All of this.
All of that. All of that. All of that.
It overwhelms, confuses and boggles
Try to take it all in---explode and disappear
A chain hangs from the ceiling
Pull it once, the ceiling fan turns
Pull it twice, the ceiling fan slows to a stoop
And if you pull it really hard
You will yank the ceiling fan from it’s moorings
If lights are part of the fixture
They will break into a thousand tiny fragments
If you step on one your foot will bleed

Unconcerned with Memories

2007-11-18T10:46:00.002-06:00

Everyday you prove
Someone can be
Two places at the same time
Huddled in the corner of a fortress
Fed and nourished
Caged in memories
Of a man who has learned
To live without the real thing.
Flying free through
Icy wind and fire

Never freezing, never melting
Clear mind, clear conscious
Unconcerned
With the lessons of a man
Or anything that might be missing
In His life
Everyday you prove
Anyone can be
Unconcerned with memories

Untitled, 2007

2007-11-18T10:24:00.003-06:00

Just give the goddamn thing a name
You lazy bastard