The man in the booth said, "Pick a hand and win a prize!"
It took me a while to realize that both hands were empty and the prize was learning not to trust those who promise lovely things.
You only get let down in the end.

I had a vision last night of a man saved from a horrible disaster.
He lost all things cherished through his eyes in this world; his home, his wife, his newborn baby girl.
There are times when we make it through something so terrible and so disastrous that we cant help but stop and wonder why we survived.
I pictured God far in the ever looking down and nodding his head in unknowable reason while the man wept and wept, asking why.

I saw the man envision the same God and the same nodding but grew angry at the aspect that he survived for a purpose while the blood and soulless forms of the dearly departed laid under his trembling hands.
"You left me alive for a purpose? To what, change the world? Bring peace? Perhaps become an instrument for goodness on this spinning orb of wickedness and woe?" He whispered to the dirt.
"Ill show you purpose.''

Years flashed in seconds as I watched the man become an instrument of evil and sadness.
Drinking a rotten liver to death and bringing misery to all who dared to cross his path.
He died many years later in a broken down home that held nothing but loneliness and a tattered photo of a smiling family ****** by an unseen force and the scent of broken men.

Then my vision altered slightly and the figure of God nodding softly distorted and fell into darkness of an angel of light nodding casually with the the smirk of business lying on his face.

If we control this world, it is at the whims of a force we cannot comprehend and the will we feel flowing through are veins can be harnessed if given the smallest push into the always patient void.

There once was a young man named Feste, and he was not a very good young man.
He was a thief, and a sneaky one at that. He would go to all of the stores in the market and steal anything that he pleased.
He loved to steal from the baker and the butcher especially.
He would go to his hiding place in the forest after his deviousness and eat away his stolen treasures, brooding on what a “clever little boy” he was.
The baker and the butcher knew though. They noticed him coming in most days and leaving in quite a hurry. They could not actually catch him in the act, but they knew beyond a doubt what he was doing. They were having drinks together one night though when they devised a clever scheme to stop him from stealing ever again. The butcher carved up a juicy ham, and the baker baked up a delicious pie, but they added a little something extra to it…

The butcher made sure to quite a bit of alcohol into the ham, and the baker did the same with his pie. They both set their two traps in the store, right when the spoiled thief Feste came strolling into the market with his eyes gleaming.
The baker watched him walk into his shop,the pie disappeared.
The butcher watched him walk into his shop, the ham disappeared.
They both smiled and went about their work.
Feste rushed to his hiding place and devoured his stolen goodies so fast that he didn’t even realize how peculiar it seemed to taste...
Not long after, he started to feel strange. Numb and stupid. He ran towards the village, acting a buffoon. The villagers stared and laughed at Feste acting so odd. His mother found him though and brought down the fury.

“Feste! Why are you acting like a **** fool?" She demanded.
He threw out a few words in a drunken stupor and swayed in place.
"Wait.. have you been drinking!?” She screamed.

“Noe maum! Allll Ie had todae is pie and haam!” He stammered in a drunken sway.

“And where exactly did you get those!?” She inquired.

Feste had a look of terror on his face and grew silent.
He was found out to be the no good thief and was punished severely, because his mother thought he stole the alcohol as well as the pie and ham, and he couldn’t prove otherwise.
Feste never stole again and he even apologized to the butcher and baker, though they still do have a laugh now and then…

The End

Every eye gazing through bars

can never catch the weeping stars.

For magic cannot bring new birth

when they can never reach the earth.

And so the eyes will always stare,

without meaning and without care.

But stars will never cease their fight

until the void is filled with light.

I want what I will never have and I have what I could never want.

I look in the mirror and see a man, or what the world says a man should be.
I see strong shoulders and I see eyes that are doing their best not to turn cold.

At times I see a stranger.
A ghost.
A figure that just wants freedom.
But what is freedom?
Is freedom giving up and letting the waves of others carry you away?
Is freedom constantly fighting to stay above water and getting funny looks in the street?
I ask the man in the mirror the same question and he just shakes his head and walks away.
A boy is left standing there.
He gently smiles.

Our words are bridges for Hell and Heaven to cross.
The world inside our head meets the world we think we know.
All the thoughts inside our mind get ready for the show.

The words we say
can break away,
lead us astray
away from day.
Or too the light
unblur our sight
and make awareness much more bright.

A pen becomes a sword and a keyboard just a tank.
A pencil is an arrow and your voice is more like God.

Silence

The words are hate.
The words are love.
The words give grey a violent shove.

The words are living,
build towards a goal.
The words are pieces of your soul.

I walk on embers made of ice and the skin still melts away.
                 I look through glass to sunshine beasts and still my vision fights decay.



I scream,
I charge,
I draw my sword to fight
the ever,
that endless horde.
                

                                                  But words of steel and wounds unhealed
                                                      will be there tomorrow for me to feel.

For now I lay in silence unbroken and this stands alone on thought filled balloons...

In the morning I'll fight these perilous wars,
one breaching my senses,
one behind closed doors.

But right now I'm grinning
and quite justly sinning
in dwelling on those things my heart branches
towards.

I am a child of the north and south.
I am a son of the east and west.
I am a ghost of the sky and sea
A mirrored reflection of sun and moon.
I am dirt and I am water.
I am nothing and I am everything.

Where does forgotten time escape to? Does it seep away like heat after a heavy rain or does it hang around us all like a fog in the morning? The seconds fall and form wrinkles that stretch across us like scars from a time left behind, a feather that smelled of roses and rotting wood. The minutes feast on us like ravenous vultures waking from a slumber of eternal winter. Our reflections move in slow motion, unnerved and apathetic to the plight of its supposed doppelganger, while we, tangible we, circumnavigate the void of our thoughts and predetermined anarchy with a crazed sight of apprehension and fear. We come around to gaze upon our reflection still running in place, still chasing the forever mystery of right and wrong, love and hate, life and death. We shrug with pity and envy before moving along to circle the world of ourselves once more with the whips of time at our backs and the hounds of hell at our heels.

I hear the trees speak in the wind.

Whispers of grandeur and long forgotten majesty.

Arms grasping to the heavens, always reaching.

Do they not live and die? Do they not breathe and live?

Roots grasp for water like tongues parched in the desert.

Do they not grow? Do they not bleed?

I hear the trees speak in the wind.

When we put forth a new idea

and others we abhor

we never even seem to miss

all that we had before.

Inside our mind, inside ourselves,

all other truths can cease

and only if we destroy “I”

can other thoughts increase.

All I see destroy this world

comes from one iniquity

We’ll always be but blind children

until we shun our vanity.

Come with me
and you will see
when we are up Up UP a tree!
The branches strong,
so come along!
Up UP UP a tree!
We climb so high,
We touched the sky.
So lovely up Up UP a tree.
The wind will say
its time to sway
So far up Up UP A tree.
Then men below
Move to and fro
While we are up Up UP a tree.
They look so sad,
but they'd be so glad
when they're up Up UP a tree.
So if your blue,
Here's what to do.
Go outside
in joyful stride
and climb up Up UP a tree.

We live, childlike, adjusted to the dark.

What we see does not challenge us, so we,

completely naive and blissful in it,

dare not to try and challenge the darkness.

Thus we continuously meander,

stumbling with our hands along the wall,

to make our way to the end of the road.

We feel the cracks and gaps beneath our feet.

Our hands run along the tattered remains.

Our blindness is a constant affliction.

My blindness is a constant affliction.

Our hallways and roads, narrow and cold,

cannot completely cross into another.

Only can our fingertips briefly touch

as they run along the bars of another.

Fire and water are mere memories,

a thought within a mind of the darkness.

No cannon fire, nor a wrecking ball,

can ever break the brick above our heads,

and the damp walls we run our hands across

to have our eyes sear with beautiful pain

as the sunlight erupts into our souls

and our eyes strain to adjust to the truth.

All that can cause your bricks to tumble down

is to realize that you create it,

and you can burn with all in the sunlight

as the veil of right and wrong, pain and joy,

rage and sadness, anxiety and peace,

and all your closed mind had once thought you learned

crashes and burns brightly all around you,

and you walk out of you and into life.

It does not matter whether god is here or not.


Because we are here.

Apathy is not the tree

in which to build a strong levy

to keep you dry and keep you free

from treacherous and clever seas.



Understanding that which was can save us all from that which is,

and that which is, is nothing more than that which was.



Mere reality, relentless poverty, destructive novelty, laughable atrocity.

Admitted scarcity, lovely society, gentle frailty, and caring propriety.



Understanding all that we are is all that we choose.

All that we choose is all that we see.

All that we see is all that can be.

All that can be is remaining free.



Skeletons can hang in places without leaving fainter traces in all the billion windswept faces.

We are all the same and we are all different. We all are hidden in plain sight, bright as day, and black as night.



CUTTHEMOFF!

BURNITDOWN!THROWITOFF!BURYITDEEPWITHINTHEGROUND!

­

Open your eyes to something more than yourself. Heartache is felt everywhere and nowhere. A hand that ticks on a clock that doesn't exist. Freedom is everything. Freedom from harsh demons inside yourself. We are the nails that are driven in our skulls. We are the woe and we are the fear.

We are hell

We are heaven.

We are love.

We are hate.

We are everything and we are nothing.



We are the ships that ferry us into the abyss of eternity. We have our own passage ways and our own light that guides us.

We are our own and we are not afraid.

We are ghosts.
Transparent in nature.

A haunting.
Who drifts through walls
to phantom halls.

Our scream,
an echoed whisper.
The faintest rustling of curtains...
A door which opens in the night
to those who glimpse a flash of white...

We exist in different worlds
on stranger maps
through ancient times...

from those who laugh and breathe the air,
in crowded rooms
through haunted homes...

The smoke, it never clears.
Dear, don't worry about a thing.
The bombs are going off when I walk to class
and the bodies are piling up when I clock out for lunch.
I watched the fire rage in the pulpit
but the pastor is still praying
even though he feels the heat.
And the president is hanging his head
when trust me, he knows the truth...
I can't help but cry
but I feel as if that is just to hide the laughter.
We want to fall in love but we love to fall in spite
so we dress in pretty clothes and check our texts and tweets.
Grab your packs and make sure you have enough ammo.
For love of god, cleaning your ******* weapon
because we are all soldiers in some kind of war.

Dear poets,

I am leaving for bootcamp in three days.
I will come back as a sailor and I will still come back as a writer.

I wanted to say that I have adored every minute I have ever spent on this website.
So many words.
So many souls...

I want whoever reads this to remember something while I am gone.
You're beautiful.
You're loved.
And you're ******* awesome.

I will have someone post the address where I am and if anyone hear would like to send me something, it would be appreciated.

Stay you.

I do not want to speak of death
or time's unyielding sting.

I do not want a wasted breath
on such a pointless thing.

Right now I see no greater sin
than making passion dead.



So let me breathe your fragrant skin...
Come, crawl inside my bed.

Open your eyes
and focus your ears.

Steel all your senses
and cancel your fears.

The sea is calling
so anchors away.

Shut out the darkness
and embrace the day.

The wind is whispering
throughout the blue,

so unfurl the sails
oh captain and crew...

Hoist the colors, all weakness is shed.
Now bring the horizon and quit
when you're dead.

...and yet even now I look out my window and see something new.
I stepped off my doorstep and fell a couple thousand stories,
but here I am walking and talking like an actual human being.


Though, as usual, I am drunk and listening to tropical music. for some reason it calms me down, and right now I need it.
There are no faces or voices here I recognize.  I guess it is time to get used to it.

I know this isn't really a poem but I wanted to say something while I still can breathe.

Hopefully this will go until the...

dusk.

I lay my head to sleep
and ask the murmurs from the deep
that if I die before I wake,
I pray the world will learn to take
a look at what most think is gold
and what the foolish strive to hold...


With hope a soul can turn away
and drop the leash leading astray...
To those who need a helping hand, if you don't mind, I'll try to stand
and break the chain, shatter the glass,
just find me where the sand meets grass.

Is that what we wake up to every day?

Fast food and gas stations are forever stamped in the corners of my eyes as they are looking through the glass of minimum wage to the red flashing lights of a man hoping to get back to his children safely.

Is life is a pointed dagger then my blade is rusted and dull when I wonder why I even try some days.

Do I dare defend my pride and still demand something more than this? Is this a call for engines in the air or wings made of wax? Death would be more alive than waking up to another day of shampoo commercials and microwave dinners.

You are always whispering in my ear though dear and telling me that you're more than just a particle flown into my imagination from a world so oh very different than ours.

Are your eyes as bright as I imagine? Will the glare from them blind me from the tax collectors whip and will your laughter drown out the screams of onlookers who are throwing peanuts through the bars at my feet?

Will your kiss melt me and cause me to fall into wind like leaves in a storm, a tornado of color and beauty..?

I lay in bed and my eyes close tightly, my breathing slows and thoughts drip into pits men drown themselves in, the murky waters of nihilistic cynicism...

Though my hand will still not be closed around yours when the sun rises, the whisper lets me know you are still awake and searching for me too...

I am frozen in hell when I'd rather be melting.
The ice around my neck has gripped me tighter than the noose and the hatred for what I've done doesn't have a single use.
The wailing and the moaning of the children born in fire ring forever like a symphonic melody rising from the deep...
From the trenches in the deep...
I strain to speak but my words fall short and God has turned his face away but I feel his sadness as I decay.
Perhaps they'll learn from our mistakes and avoid the traps in which we fell,
with hope they'll choose a different path so they won't see a sight as me whispering for forgiveness here in hell.

Silence of the forest,
             enchant my soul.

                           Halt the gears
         of want and worry.
                     Muffle the
                 machinery of man.

Fill my ears
         with bubbling brooks,
my eyes of
         saplings in the shade,
                        instead of
                plastic devastation,
                         a toxic counterfeit
           of perennial progression

Here us and old one from years ago. It is flawed but enjoy.



A young lad abroad, was searching for truth
for what happens whenever we die.

A priest told him this, a monk told him that.
which one was fact and which one was lie?

The young lad was perplexed and filled up with grief.
He continued to search and to learn.

But the more that he read and the more he was told,
the more fear built up that he'd burn.

The young lad fell to his knees on the side of the road
and begged to be shown what was real.

"There are so many answers, and all of them different!
Oh, how am I supposed to feel?!"

Just then an old man, with a smile on his face,
asked him what caused so much grief.

The young lad said, through torrential tears,
"Without answers I'll never be strong."

"Does heaven exist? Will I go to hell?
Will all that I know simply end?

There are so many roads, which one should I take?
Do you know the answer, my friend?"

The old man sighed and said through a grin,
"There's a question more grand than the latter."

He grabbed the young lad, and looked deep in his eyes.
"The question is why does that matter?"

I will live forever because I do not exist.

I turned the metal into gold and bought the rights to the future.
The past is just a number on my account statement
and I can change whatever I please.

I do not own your today, but I will purchase your tomorrow
Don't worry, I will sell it back with a low interest rate.

It's all a joke.
You're too serious.

My goal is to write a manual on how to live and make you study until you ***** nonsense.
Wait,
scratch that.
I'll pay someone to do it for me.

You bore me.
I think I'll go for a walk.

You need that paycheck.
My history will tell you that.


...and I don't give a ****.





**I bled this out today and I am not sure what to make of it. Anyone care to help?

"Look at the way your feet drag the ground. What an idiot."
The voice is more like a knife but knives are just fragile pieces of metal.

Luckily I am in the mood to break stuff.

If I opened the door to my room and found an empty hole, I'd have to smile because I see something new.
Sadness is walking the same streets and never visiting the bookstore on the corner.
That explains why my eyes are sunken and my cynicism is more than just a bad habit.
The escape hatch is already turning though and light is pouring onto the pavement.

The odd thing is...
that is where I ran into her.
Standing in the middle of the street, holding a paintbrush and humming something soft between those lips.
Sometimes the most beautiful things can't see what they are because demons and unkind words have wrapped them in a fun house mirror.

Hmm...
Luckily I am in the mood to break stuff.
If the sun spoke in poems and sang us all to sleep, it still could not compare to the radiance emitting around your soul.

Come on dear, let's smash some glass and paint something new in this world.
The future is an empty canvas.

The last time I saw your eyes, I stopped breathing.
But I haven't seen them since I realized you never truly existed.

Only the reflection I created for you beside me did.
I turned my head one day and noticed you weren't there.
So I went searching the world and cried your name

Now I look around me at all the ones that could take your place and I hang my head.
You aren't out there.
You are in me and no one will ever be able to get closer until I find a way to live with you or leave you in the darkness.

You'll find me where the sand meets the grass.
Where the forest and the trees meet the beaches and the seas.
The mountains high and mighty and the ocean far and fierce.
One foot in sand,
gently warm and mysterious.
One foot in grass,
cool and calmly curious.
I'll wait for you there until the sun and sky collide.
When the whispers of our universe softly lay us down to sleep
and our souls fly side by side...
Hurry please because we do not have long.
You'll find me where the sand meets the grass.