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ryan-j-toll
American Musician and writer from the group Tumbleweed Company, based out of Nashville, TN
Far into the night I wandered over vast age and distance before time or names through dense shadow thickets across wide black waters to the edge of an infinite sea In my palm, a pebble which I skipped along the surface disturbing the dark glass I heard a thousand voices saw a thousand faces and lived a thousand lives all in a moment I knew yellow I knew cinnamon I know fear and love and I found you and I found many others but you I found again and again over countless lives I found and lost you a thousand times the melody rolling outward forever and on the stone and the sea the world in a song
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Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 10:30 PM UTC
The Stone and The Sea
You said we've all got cracks and blemishes wrinkles in our character the little crevices where the past is hidden where the fear settles as a dust, nibbling away at a fragile foundation It's this Modern Age I said, kids in the automaton state profit slaves desperate to break their screens and return to the fields rise and set with the sun like in the ancient golden seasons But you smiled, it has always been so men with eyes glazed recalling days long gone when the real work was done when love was grand and the food were rich Roman hearts pining for halcyon Greek nights Then we are born crooked it seems fresh but weathered like newborn lava set under pressure, too old for our years just clumsy instruments put to task in a china shop every stumble a chip in our innocence And in there lies our radiance you beamed with every glass shattered, a million gems by accident refracting light on an imperfect world every hasty breath a powerful wind destined for great heights
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Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 10:28 PM UTC
Clumsy Instruments
and I woke from a dream as fading clouds float downstream and collect like leaves at the mouth of the sea, children of the spring monsoons, but today merely a wave I see all this from my perch high above the main, rolling to and fro on Mother's breath, her every sigh gives us motion, portends danger leaning her shoulder on rocky cliffs and I woke from a dream to a screaming train car gripping the tracks, gobbling human snacks and spitting them back out on the streets passing signs that press for cash as goblin laughs mock and sneer from the fleeting recesses, off limits to civilian souls, just one more stop to go and I woke from a dream with bare feet on cool tile water drops pooling in low spots of grout and steam collecting in the corners while dawn peeks through thawed out windows, a dim promise of the heat of day shaking the dew from my eyes I see in the mirror haze, strange reflections, unfamiliar through a glass roof sky cursing screaming questions why and I woke from a dream and I finally woke free in your arms, far from dark seas and subway dreams and prophesies clawing sleep like an attacker wrestling sheets and memories and welcoming the day to ponder what these visions foretell, left to wonder the vast expanse of mind fumbling for a pen to try and I woke from a dream
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Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 10:09 PM UTC
and I woke from a dream
I sent my soul to walking down barren wastes of land housing nothing but garbage rats and all the worst kinds of people where conversation was bleak and simple and hopeless dreams were last week's lottery tickets, scattered and forgotten in the ditches along empty bottles So I sent my soul to diving lower than light cares to go so low that thoughts weigh tons and past plans sink into canyons forever lost in cold chambers where ***** and eels munch on ancient bones from a world away never knowing of the sun above them So I sent my soul to flying dodging lightning, seeking craving and reaching but the outskirts of heaven desperate for love, but finding only hostile bodies hurled down paths with no beginning and no care for earthly truths and happy endings holy indifferent to joy and pain So I sent my soul to writing to wallow in the mud and shame to sift among the shadows for a song or simply a voice alone to sing and weep along with me never to see the dawn, a few scratches on a page and nothing more a single soul sent wandering far
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Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 9:56 PM UTC
I Sent My Soul
Standing on the precipice the people dance and sing tip and toe along the razor's edge not knowing what the day will bring Finding comfort in the company we keep, how brief the fleeting guarantees from silver spoons like babes we feed It'll take the doomsday bell to wake you from your sleep And all we hold in our hearts as dear we must secure by our own means In no other man's hands rests your care so when the hammer falls, prepare! prepare! Your withered fingers feebly grasp what's left of grandeur long since past why do you cling to the status quo? abandon your canon! forget what you know! With humble heart and honest hands carry the torch that holds the flame, illuminates the darkened path and points the way to start again What countless numbers choose the road, clamor for their place in line, deaf to warning tones sustained stretching across time, it's the doomsday bell that's ringing so when the hammer starts swinging where will you be?
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May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 7:31 PM UTC
When the Hammer Falls
This letter was not meant for you it was meant for me with you to that crystalline time when we were two before the shattering was through. The mornings in  when we lay oblivious to the shuffle and the city din when the weight of the world was still  not enough to budge us a single inch  from between the linens. So I recollect all the fragments I thought I left I'm not one to dwell but what else is left for the lonely boy at the bottom of a well? But now there are three There's you and there's me and there's who we could've been And I've not spoken to him yet as I'm not sure this specter is real Or maybe I'm afraid to ask if he once half-lived, was he thrown from the wheel and tossed down the well here with you and them? But I've fooled myself again What I saw as a window was only a mirror that needed mending And what I heard as your voice was always the wind hurling back at me my own laments. Beauty brutally murdered my captain One touch, and the crew deserted a hasty mutiny to an unknown island Where I before with calm weathered the waves, now the torrent upends the bow, wrecked upon rocks that could've been havens. So I'm thrown from the sea to the sands Left alive by a wiser hand than I, doomed to make beach castles, just a man mending the grains, seeing the slate wiped clean again and again forever banned from the mountain and the densely wooded lands. One day I'll abandon my post cut short my careful tending and set off from the coast Leave behind the crooked lines and SOS signs, the feeble moats Face the interior, each step deep down and further down into the jungle dark and every fear the most Hope beyond all Hope that all I own is Hope and one day reach the sun, then I'll know. And what keeps me shuffling through the dark? The thought of you shuffling too alone and apart Not the thought that our end will be as our start but that the art of the whole **** thing is all we are.
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May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 7:29 PM UTC
Not For You,
This letter was not meant for you it was meant for me with you to that crystalline time when we were two before the shattering was through. The mornings in  when we lay oblivious to the shuffle and the city din when the weight of the world was still  not enough to budge us a single inch  from between the linens. So I recollect all the fragments I thought I left I'm not one to dwell but what else is left for the lonely boy at the bottom of a well? But now there are three There's you and there's me and there's who we could've been And I've not spoken to him yet as I'm not sure this specter is real Or maybe I'm afraid to ask if he once half-lived, was he thrown from the wheel and tossed down the well here with you and them? But I've fooled myself again What I saw as a window was only a mirror that needed mending And what I heard as your voice was always the wind hurling back at me my own laments. Beauty brutally murdered my captain One touch, and the crew deserted a hasty mutiny to an unknown island Where I before with calm weathered the waves, now the torrent upends the bow, wrecked upon rocks that could've been havens. So I'm thrown from the sea to the sands Left alive by a wiser hand than I, doomed to make beach castles, just a man mending the grains, seeing the slate wiped clean again and again forever banned from the mountain and the densely wooded lands. One day I'll abandon my post cut short my careful tending and set off from the coast Leave behind the crooked lines and SOS signs, the feeble moats Face the interior, each step deep down and further down into the jungle dark and every fear the most Hope beyond all Hope that all I own is Hope and one day reach the sun, then I'll know. And what keeps me shuffling through the dark? The thought of you shuffling too alone and apart Not the thought that our end will be as our start but that the art of the whole **** thing is all we are.
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