Books are fuel to the imagination.

Works of fiction pour into my mind,
hours at a time.

I feel the power rise,
as I climb through expositions.

Looking down,
I see the world in the palm of my hand.

Looking up,
I see my face amongst the clouds.

On this high I craft my own words,
some spoken and others in ink.

And as I fall,
I ponder the time until my return.

I wear my cloak of crows
With a sly eye to the door
Hanging on the thought
Of leaving because
I've never really stayed

The black feathers flock to the window
Beady eyes survey my inaction
As the pitter patter of raindrops
Hum along the glass

I'm comforted for a moment
By my new ****** of friends
Gazing into my past
And the uncertain future

The rapid beat of my heart
Regains my attention
To the clutch on the armrest
My eyes have since shifted
Back to the door...

Like I'm there once again
Such a persistent memory
The one where it is too late
When regrets manifest
Into demons we carry
Through the mud, these burdens
Never letting you forget that instant

So I sit in this chair
In this room focused
On the door ready to run

At the end of the day
All the convincing in the world
Cannot change true nature
Not when it counts
Not when it matters

Dripping sweat, from the days slaving away
Carving, the blood and frustration into a mask

Each chip, which shaves and thins, is paid in flesh
This facade can capture many faces, or no face at all

But when placed upon the brow, the craftsman disappears
For in this tribute to false faces, the true being surfaces

I have never known myself, until I dawned this mask
I breathe air which has never been my own, I am alive.

I'm haunted by ghosts.
Screaming profanities,
Shattering the barriers of solitude.
Banshees cursing me,
Leading them to the depths,
Of the hell I created.

The blackened pit,
I the tormentor.
Where my eyes pierce
Sweetest fantasy, corrupting innocence.
Filling hearts with dread.

Dreams turned into night mares.
Stampeding insanity,
Like merry-go-rounds
Drilling painful truths into
The painted fictions of hope
That we dream of as children.

I am the madness your heart craves.
And the poison that kills you.

The golden hours of the morning met my eyes with favor.

Cherished and tender, the Sun kissed her skin in a swath of freckled light.  

I meet her gaze and she fades like waning of my magic.

In her absence, I stumble from then to now, tethered along by the wish of her reality.

She is ethereal, her between moments, unmoored by convention.

She is a freedom, I do no know.

She whispers her truths, words which wage war with profound ambition.

Dusk comes and I succumb, it is time.

Stampeding through the wind,
Navigating low valleys. Boom.
Thunder swallows me.
Reborn into bedrock,
The mountain side crumbles.

Guns
Slick metallic
Fully loaded sidekicks
A right held higher than most

Opinions vary, more or less
For laws and restrictions
For availability and freedom

A country divided, a hot topic debate
And while you ponder your side of the fence
Remember that the leaders and lawmakers
Prefer prayer as a means to relieve such tragedies

There is no plan to change how things are
There is no answer from the left
There is no answer from the right
Accepting complacency and prayers

Prayers, which have done nothing, not a thing at all.

I threw my darkness in a well
One wish, I'll never tell
The flick of a thumb
Splash, dream currency

An afterthought,
I walk with no shadow
Ominous spectres melt
Into the ripples of the deep

Quarters, nickles, dimes
Reflect the hopes of fishers
Casting out their demons
Cutting the line, thats a day

Bare feet
Walking against the tide
Leaving impressions in the sand
Which crumble with each step forward

Tiny grains
Earth between the toes
Salted water rises to the ankles
Each step onwards to the horizon

Waste deep
Jeans are soaked
Never ready for the beach
Ocean freezing, and pain leaving

Waiting now
The thought to keep going
Submerging any hope to go on
Instead turning around back to the coast

Time disappears
Each step leads nowhere
The return is paired with receding tides
Rare moments where infinity graces subtlety

Troubled thoughts
Leaving the peace behind
Graced by the sunkissed afternoon
Headed home, to raging heart and suffering

Oh my, am I humbled
Loving v. Virginia
History that is blood

Do you hear the pumping
Oh man, I feel it now
Riding on the winds of change

Writing is my therapy.
I find it far easier to write
Away my demons into chains
Than to let their free verse reign.

I dare not sit in that chair
To face the things near or far
The cold and the heavy
The antiques of my persistent soul.

Though in time, when farther I succumb
Perhaps, I'll find that existential door,
One which takes me to the place, I need
To restore whats so lost within.

And true, I write the walls which hold me,
But better a prisoner of my own making,
Then be held hostage by an unstable mind.
Control, power, hold on, until you can't.

I need a little help
I took a little break
See I have to work, work, work!
Otherwise I'll be a lazy good for nothing!
Its ALL work and then SOME play.
But if its SOME work then surely its NOTHING at all.

Words, word, words!
I can think them just fine,
Some days I'll even speak them quietly, to myself.
But here lies the problem, I lose them in translation.

I am thinking, I am thinking
Such a good line, such a clever prose.
Open the pad and notebooks and not a word goes!
I am thinking, I am thinking
Such a good line, such a clever prose.
Open my mouth and its out the window!

I want my words back,
I want to write,
I want to write poetry
I want to just empty my mind
I want to leave out all the words
I want to be satisfied with these little things.

This was a start, I am sure it helped.
It had to.

As a sensible,
As a logical,
And a well informed fellow
I asked that when you meet the Devil
Where do you draw the line?

Quick wit, to leave me assured
You affirmed, my friend, I'll never cross this line

Persistent and fiendish, as Devils are
He barreled through the line, with evil in his eye

Thankful to have a friend, I asked, is this enough?
Uneasiness overcame me when you said it was okay.

Quick wit, to leave me assured
You affirmed, my friend, I'll never cross this line

But he truly was hell, this ****** Devil
Carelessly he pushed right through, past the line again.

Worried, I asked, well surely we're in danger?
Of course not, he replied, siding with Devil and his plan

Quick wit, to leave me assured
You affirmed, my friend, I'll never cross this line

With no limit, his forked tongue just laughed
Storming through again, no one in his way

Terrified, I pleaded, this nonsense had to stop
My friend, now foe, said this is the only way

How foolish I must be to,
To ever believe a line that couldn't be crossed.
And to think you'd stand by me.

I was to supposed to write of the Thunderstorm.
High winds. Pouring rain.
Uprooted trees. Burning wood.
A terribly terrific piece.
But, I let the words float on.
Drowning in a sea of unwritten dreams.

I was supposed to write of the Dancing Flame.
Rocking embers. Glowing rhythm.
Sweet cinder. Smoking desires.
A horrifyingly honest part.
But, I let the words smolder into ash.
Going down in an arsonist's dream.

But mania, oh mania.
Writing everything about nothing.
But me, oh me.
Writing nothing about anything.

I was supposed to write,
But didn't.

Lost in a moment
Clarity, profoundly strikes,
Resonating in my soul
I hear the Crow caw
Her fluttering black feathers
An anchor to a spiritual realm.
Beckoned by moonbeams
Glowing full in the darkness
Piercing the night sky, into
A lunatic's daydreams
Where beady eyes observe me
So particular, curiously investigating
With a nod of approval, ambitions rise
Time elapses through the stars
Graceful wings dance of destiny
Visions of fate, binding us together.

Are you happy with yourself,
              When you jot down lies?

Do you smile as your forked tongue,
               Contorts itself putting pen to paper?

Does your reflection haunt you,
                Or are you used to that monster staring back?

Do you fear that once all your sin spills out,
                You will have nothing left to offer?

You mistake my tears for sadness,
Instead of lakes of rage

As I scream in defiance,
against the status quo

You fall in line with the masses,
And you are now my foe

Whether in opposition, or the silent approach,
You've spoken volumes, to disenfranchised folks

Is ignorance your anthem,
Or is your lack of caring a joke

Blind eyes or indifference,
Cities go up in smoke

A pattern to repeat itself,
Until false realities are broke

The time for waiting is over,
We've pulled off racism's cloak

With us or against us,
Its time the people woke.

As the fate of the world grows, darker by the hour.
I must ask myself.

Are the men, whom stood by me in times of peace
Allies in a time of War.

Is Ignorance their New Master, which robs a free thought.

Will they oppose me, during each battle, as Freedom gasp for air.

How much longer can I pretend, that these are good people, with evil thoughts.

I'm over this delusion that they truly care, as I'm one in millions.

A sea of suffering for which they don't cast me with the lot.

But all the while I see, people like me, caught in the raging tide of injustice.

I must cut the line, join chorus of dismay, and rebel and rebel and rebel.

No man can claim to care for me, while brothers and sisters painted just the same are afterthoughts.

For I am, as I always will be, an extension of all people lashed with Death's whip of inequality.

Im happiest with you.
The passion for change,
Good natured eyes melt
Resistance to intimate longings.

Of course, these words aren't spoken.
Written so that I'm free.
To explain I'm broken,
Fighting this world in a mask,
That is not my own.
You accept without knowing,
But I run away with my pieces,
Trying to put myself together,
Isolated, in my habitat of
Pushing you away, mixed signals
Hurting you like always.

Read these words, know I'm sorry.
I am an arrogant fool,
Pride prevents this fantasy
From seeping into reality.
I cannot get around you.  
Carve me into something beautiful.
Take these shattered remnants
Of my anatomy and make it
Art.

I found myself alone
for so long on this path
blindly making my way
to these dark places.

Time passed and darkness grew
enveloping me in a cloak
of rage and fear;
thrashing violently all around.

There was no light to be found.
Killing me slowly,
my burdens left me to crawl
forward into the abyss.

With all hope lost
heart heavy, eyes closed,
with tremendous force,
a light shone onto me

The way illuminated
converging where they stood
dearest company, come to aid.
I found myself, whole.

The current of clouds flowed above in a stream of darkness on top of the deep violet vignette's of sky.

In opposition of this, a defiant sickle of moonlight joined the scattered street lamps.

Their small chorus of light illuminated the early morning for the wanderers .

It is a quiet time, before the Sun gives breathe to life.

Before dawn, serenity walks all the winding ways.

Eternity lives within these moments.

Outside of Comfort is change
It is an experience of adversity
Simultaenously profound and conflicting
To lay away the building blocks of self
Into a new construct, with the hope
That it, in its togetherness, is a testament
Celebrating the distance required
For the recreation of being.

I always loved my grandmother
As most young boys do
She held me tight
Singing in her terrible voice
Sharing her world with me
I still recall peeling fresh apples
As we mixed and mashed for pie

When age overcame her,
When her body betrayed her,
When I was not there
When wounds are eternally fresh

Age came for me too,
With it, a swell of dark secrets
Ones of devils, so close to home
I wondered, what person could dwell
With family, in a home, here in hell
A grandafather I never knew, forked tongue
And perversions in the brain
His grave forgotten, while his scars remained

Perhaps she did the best she could
Turning a blind eye against a fiend
But as closed doors reveal themselves
A twisting vine of hate creeps and crawls
Sinking its roots in memories skewed
In rose colored glasses, as I unshaken gaze
Into the endless ripples of repercussions

Hot Springs bubbles
Like acid melting my skin
Deep breathes dissolve away
Any memory of a physical being

I ponder this existence
Brought to a boil, in transience
Like magma, I am liqufied fire
Reaching out as far as I flow

Head first, nostrils flaring air
As it rushes up, I dive deep
The weightlessness of freedom
An expansion robbed in flesh

Narrow eyes surface at
The impending departure
To the land of the living
To the land of rotting

I stand frail as water drips
Down a tired composure
Only wishing to return
To the bed of lava beneath

The stream played thick and heavy,
      in the red dawn, of the darkest night.
Tree-lines aghast in the kindling,
      of the Summer Solstice fires.
Upon the sunrise, on the banks among the foliage,
      time tracks into the overgrown trails.
In a deliberate folly, the seasons pass
      as the blended wood, welcomes unwavering change.
Lead back, to dusk, the crisp inviting hum
      of running water, and only a moment has passed.

With our own hands
Destiny is sculpted
The passion of youth
Molding a masterpiece

Time is unyeilding
Chipping away the details
The marble soaks in the pain
Cracks trickle chaotically
Death bombards innocence
Worn and weathered

Building dreams of clay
The beauty in life fades
Some find solice in destruction

All day I dream of space
Far off worlds pull at my thoughts
Earth on the fringes of my mind.
Foreign air chokes my lungs.

Alien brainwaves, invading
Persuading, notions that I do not belong
This poisonous world, suffocating
The light seen in dreams
Calling out across dimensions

White noise screams, broken messages
Loud pulsing, scrapes along my skull
Bleeding out into over saturated comprehension
Known truths, wither into the dust
Of old age and barried lies.

The Infinite darkness, the chill
Space comforts me, quells the flames
Blinds these tired eyes from chains
Worn heavy, by the proud fool.
Trapped in a shell, far away from home.

Life has always been about the decaying permutation of possibility.

When you are young, the infinite paths sing with endless potentials.

These branches are primed with the indifferent hands of time.

Choice still exist, as it always has, yet the narrowing is haunting.

It is that inevitability is that hangs around in ominous fog.

Approaching that finality is a journey of bittersweet grace.

The fires have razed the city
Pitchforks, picketers and angry mobs
Marching through rubble, the dust hasn't settled

The whispers ask so many questions
How? Why? What?
But this storm is done talking.
They shouted from the bottoms of hell
They shouted as every ear turned deaf
Words of peace, words of want, words of need
This fiery inferno is words of the unheard
The violent night of the voiceless has begun

The fires have razed the city
Pitchforks, picketers and angry mobs
Marching through rubble, the dust hasn't settled

I'll write everyday
Even if I write about nothing

I'll write everyday
Even if it isn't the least bit good

I'll write everyday
Because silence is compliance

I'll write everyday
Because they haven't broken me yet

I'll write everyday
Even if no one reads it

I'll write everyday
Even if it makes you mad

I'll write everyday
Because I need to let you know

I'll write everyday
Because my conscious tells me so

Golden eyes drink dry
Goblets of sunrays

Swallowing gallows of Greed
Guzzling and Gobbling

Like fat cats gazing
Down upon field mice

Gallantly waiting for
False Gods, redeeming
Envy's green deciet

I walk alleys and avenues of broken roads.
Black tops eroded from years of punishing
Rainfall, passerbys and time.

After a hard rain, shallow mirrors open up,
Revealing an unyielding world on its head.

It seems, as I walk amidst the distinguished,
Cracks, chips and pebbles that this moment,
Both real and a memory is everlasting.

Overcast, both dismal and hopeful, I read
Between the skylines of the upsidedown.

I breath in this parallel, I write it all down,
A collection of neverhaves.

A creation that is mine for the making, or
For the taking, should I wish.

I am intrigued by dancers
The body in motion
Weaving through whatever
Medium strikes its composer

Something in its freedom
Strikes rebellion within
To bind their liberation
Illustrating instead in phrases

I don't feel guilty
About my compulsions
Paper shackles and bars of ink
Slaves to the labor of expression

Love takes time
Time to tear down
The false Gods
Polluting ambitious minds

Love at first sight
A dangerous ideological pathogen
Killing the truth in patience and effort
Ignorant to fleeting feelings of vulnerability

Love is surrounded by a toxic cloud
Breeding unhappiness and failed expectations
Quarantine zone and hazmat suits
A requirement for the truth about love

Emptiness cloaks me,
In a veil of sorrow.
Blinding me from
Sharpened daggers cutting
Deep, painting my soul.

Fragmented into the
Little nothings that compile
Into my gestalt consciousness.
A whole greater than
The sum of my broken pieces.

Rain clouds roll in.
Bathing me in warm downpours.
Cleansing away crimson,
Reminders of days past.
Water trickles through
The cracks in my bones
Gently caressing my wounds,
Retelling warstories, whispering
"It will be okay. "

I tried crawling out mind
Eyes following the morning wrens
But that ****** screaming
They are so cheerful, hopping along the fence
Why are thoughts so loud today?
Run to the shade little birds, today's a scorcher

Heat stroke, but its only May!
Scatter now, fly away with any tune.
A cool glass of water, I do feel better.
Sing away, 10 wings flutter, the harmony
Something still doesn't seem quite right.
Shadows in the wind, feathered friends.

I knew a girl once
I liked her even,
but she wasnt so sure
Maybe she liked me
And believed I was pure

See I was a writer and she a poet
My pen stole her heart
Perhaps then she had known it

Each line I wrote, fufilled her fantasies
Illustrating things blind to common folk
Her sweetness grew on me
Even the innocence in her ink

But like I said she wasn't so sure
Was it my fault my feelings didn't conjure
My ego is bold and my writing takes over
Wearing my heart on my sleeve
I think thats what drove her
But then again

Intellectual love, rare to come by
We let it go, and feelings die

Still pondering on our first kiss
Life is fleeting and you will be missed.

Beautiful bearings of broken bonds
Bound, bewildered and bitter.
Break backs of blind behemoths
Being better, beating backlash
Booming boldness, and bombs
Brains battle blighted beast
Bribery brews boiling blood
Building bastions buried by bombs
Brought by belief, but betrayal beckoned
Bastille bells burdened by beheadings
Behold beginnings birth bloom.

Fireflies luminate in wake of a setting sun
Tiny beacons becoming a river of light
Riding the current into the dusk dreams
The delicate drink of the evening affairs

Night owls, inspired by the twilight
Screech a verse with midnight maddness
Acrobatic arms orchestrate sunset tunes
Big booms serenade noctournal beast

Dark now blooms with wild music
The New Moon offering her acoustic
Play on, play on, before they wake
The Sunset Symphony, until day break

Empty vessels, faded light
In the windows of my ghosts.
Floating past, searing memories
Stained into the horizon.

Slow beats, flickering
Motes of consciousness
Briskly stroll behind and around
The broken road.

Vigor torn from husk,
Holding onto false promises.
Haunting, spines chills.
Shivering at the thought.

Fatal words cut deep,
Warming unquenchable desires.
Grab the scythe
Approach the mantle of Death.

I choke on disappointment
Coughing up shards of glass.
Tasting the crimson truths of unhappiness.
Words won't come, forgotten paths

Shamelessly burning bridges
Beyond the help of tears and fortune.
Reflected monster I've become.
Layers of hate hiding pain.

Let the light in they say.
Darkness swirls around my heart.
Clenching against the violent beats.
No regrets, only anger.

The only tongue I speak is destruction
My pen murders the hopeful
Just as the innocence in me,
Was so carelessly thrown through the muck.

Monsters are depicted one dimensionally
Paintings illustrate the difficult decisions
This is the observer's farce

Blood on one's hands paint the canvas
Fingers comb through the valleys
Defining the geography of pain

Trauma sets in, and out goes precision
Distorting one image to reflect another

A change is needed in perspective's pallete
Hands soak to wash away the day view
The crimson stain nevers leaves,
Vibrant ideas left to wade in the murkiness

If you find yourself unable
To comprehend the notion
That is Political Correctness
And believe that outrage is
The result of being offended
Rather than the consequences
Held behind the power of words
I might believe you to be an *******.

If you are unable to control a pathological
Need to spew hate and ignorance from your tongue
And find that comparable to human suffering
Or some divine right that has been stolen
I again believe that you are likely an *******.

As a person, who by his own privilege
Was fat with ignorance, having been spoon fed
Lies and deceit as a result of words which are used
And abused to oppress and suppress, Manipulating
The masses to paint people as this, that or the other
I am only further enraged at this sacrificial death of knowledge.

What thought can you not express in this politically correct world?
What words that are not racial, sexually or otherwise charged,
Can you not expel from your chest?
Without hiding behind the guise of mental oppression, what can
You truly wish to say that you have felt you cannot?

The truth of that matter is not what is permitted.
It is that there is less validation in your hate.
And you attribute this to someone simply being offended.

I live in the spirit
        of the Masters before me.
Harlem's finest
        a social and artistic Renaissance
Prophets, poets and preachers
        capturing moments for change

I read the words
        I, Too, Dreams, Caged Bird
Where I once had tears
        now all I have is rage
I write death songs
        and hate has sunken in

America still isn't America for me.
America still lives in denial
America still silences
America still kills

I want to be free
I want to be free

To look upon my brothers
To look upon my sisters
Black, white or other
Rich, poor or other
Gay, straight or other
I'm indifferent, I only sing for love

So what should I do, this
is Not My America
America does not love me
My heart is heavy
but nothing will change.

Bleeding into the rain
Crimson ink rolls down
Worn fingertips
Onto soaked pages

Broken in time, this
Moment has yet to end

When all the words
Left to say, bleed through
Years of stories, scattered
In the puddles ahead.

Yellow streaks rip open
The violent violet night
Just waiting for the boom.

Thunder crashing
I'll follow suit.

People cheat for many different reasons
But almost none of them involve you

Being enough is not a factor
Listing the things that could be done
Differently is a waste of precious time
Because it truly wasn't you, it was them

Some do it for power, some do it for control
Some do it in loneliness, some do it in emptiness

Whatever the reason, remember it isn't you.
It is a mental compulsion, a temptation
That some otherwise extraordinary people
Fail to overcome, inhibit or control.

This isn't a justification, nor is this an excuse
I just want you to know these things
Are not because of you.

Temptation need not be confused with conviction.
Of course I feel the pull of wicked ways,
But the lure is not my Oddessey.
I could write a thousand sins,
Repent, inevitably repeat, and lie
I am ruled by a crooked rage
A poisoned oak in a forgotten wood
Rotting, to the grave I wear this facade.

She pours her honey words down my throat.
It takes but moments to become drunk on her artful prose.
And the lavender fills my spirits
As she buries her head in my heavy chest

Yet, you'd dare say she's sleeping with stolen dreams.
That it should be your words which intoxicate me,
That your perfume should give me life as you lay your soul into me.

And maybe for a moment, some time ago it was your words,
Which set my soul aflame.
But on came the night where you made your great escape.

It was I who was but a passing fancy,
with kind words and a gentle heart.
Was it not also your tongue
Which lashed it poison onto my breast.

She is fluid, calm and formless.
As the fire passes and I call to be healed.
It is not your words, but hers, which soothe.
So on your bitter thrown of curses, do not dare
Say that she sleeps with stolen dreams
For it was her words which rescued me
And it is her pen, which will write away this pain.

The Madness of blended reality, is confidently marching through my mind.
I could not resist the sweet sound of this haunting Muse.
She sang her dismal songs, which shook me something fierce.
Astounding words which resonate feelings I've never mustered.

Now comes the crazy, the loud bellowing of endless chords.
I'm running, clasping my ears ever so tightly, to no avail
The chantey is banging in the walls of sanity, louder and louder.
Tossing and turning, wide eyed and insane, her song goes on.

Even in my dreams, which have become their own nightmares, sing.
I cannot escape this tune, marching to the gates of some type of truth.
What am I missing, and shall silence elude me in my descent of ill will.
I roll back my eyes, to see the darkness play with such fever.

Hopeless, I give in, I let it play, over and over and over again.
I allow this cursed song to grace this shameful and unforgivable self.
For a moment, I try to believe it will end, knowing full well, its a lie.
Now, repeating with ominous terror, she sings louder, I began to crack.

I sat down for a drink
With the catalyst of my suffering
Remembering the ages
And the eons in between

This time roles reversed
Power which eluded me
In the niavity of youth
Returned to  its proper mantle

But I know all too well
This dance with the devil
So I've resisted this temptation
To crash and burn