Went to visit grandparents, decided I never want to be old
I have trouble keeping up as it is:
Technology is too fast paced
Phones are too small (and who needs one when they’re seven?)
Movies have too many explosions
All my music is from at least twenty years ago

While I’m planning my eternal youth I forget I take up space
I feel four hard smacks on the rear
Apparently I was blocking an elderly woman’s wheels
“Sorry for the love tap, you were in the way”
I wasn’t sure how to feel
A bit violated perhaps
It might have been, well, kind of nice
If she didn’t predate Christ

For lunch we sat with a kind couple
Marjorie and Phil
She wore all brown, with a necklace of whittled wooden giraffes
He was dressed like a lumberjack, pants mid-torso, flood-ready
We talked about a few things…
Mahler symphonies, Latin, obscure mountain villages
Both of them seemed perfectly content
You know, old age doesn’t seem so bad
As long as you have someone to share it with

I come-to from a nightmare, full of dark detail
But already slipping like sand through my hands
Walking down Charlotte street past stacked apartments
Shouts from afar past the rows of parked cars
A man whose face is now a blur makes me a promise
“*******, I’ll **** you”
Call the police, no answer, no help, no reassurance
Cut to a scene in an empty hallway, sensing his presence
My face is badly mangled and drips from lacerations

Fear and helplessness are real emotions
Even during REM cycles
I woke screaming and clutching my face
Still unsafe

When I was a kid, and my family would complete puzzles
Together
I always wanted to be the one to put the last piece in
Alone
So I would steal it, then hide it
And forget where it was
Making sure no one had the privilege
Including me

What
A little
*******

From the beach my group departs for a deep sea fishing excursion
Huddled in a fiberglass vessel known as the Barracuda
Captain Alberto is a burly man with dark skin and a silver tooth
Operating the motor is his young apprentice and amigo
The captain has his children’s names painted on the hull
One of them, Estrella, rings out in my mind
The boat rocks me nearly nauseous in the bobbing motions
My excitement builds as I photograph a variety of species
Fish would breach the surface, birds would swoop and dive
I even saw a whale
Distinguishable by tail
We slowed down for a better look at century-old tortugas
Circled round a mating pair, voyeurs to procreation
An engine boom and acceleration meant there was a bite
Alberto took the rod yet handed it to my party
The Mahi-Mahi swam and pulled with all its mortal strength
Its yellowish body shining and shimmering while it leapt
Our captain unsheathed an instrument for pulling the fish aboard
A candy cane shaped hook with a fine blade ending the curve
Impaled the marine dweller, pinned his body to the deck
It flopped about violently seeming to spill blood by the gallon
I found the creature’s face to be both hideous and handsome
A long bony bridge protruded from its forehead
Here, Alberto beat the beast to death with a wooden bat
It died with dignity
Fed a family
I thank the sea
For this gift

Paradise
Men falling from the sky using parachutes of peacock plumage hues
The professionals plummeting in perfect spirals
The novices sheepishly prolonging their gentle, gliding drop
The salmon shade adobe dwellings with their thatched, lovely roofs
Shelter me in their auspices from an unforgiving star
Handmade tiles of authentic design line each steep stone step
A covert staircase leading nowhere, we lounge near the pool by day
There I observe a couple through a sour tequila haze
A scarlet clad native and her sometime American lover
Their hands never leave each other’s guilty bodies, sexually charged
His absence of wedding ring betrays his intended affair
In the distance crushing waves claim territory on the shoreline
I underestimate; in a death roll I lose all sense of direction
The blushing sky with rosy smile watches over its children
A lighthouse by its lonesome guards the cliffs from clumsy ship
Locals sell their wares by approaching fair-skinned tourists
Necklaces of beads require long hours of work
Their labor goes unappreciated, sells for meager dollar
Popcorn man blows his lonely, dissonant horn forever
Into the deaf night

Water and death; the grand unifiers
My descent from glacier-like nimbus
To emerald elevation
Teaches me
The Mexican mountains fast-approaching
Barren, hills enveloped in mossy fondant
To think man festers in our planet’s orifices
Unable to sip the trickling life for fear of illness
Spreading death like gossip
And I, cramped in drifting craft
Soaring in the former future
Am safe
If Da Vinci could see me now
We’d have a **** good laugh
Comparing ironies

Though dulled and faded with age
Memories of violent encounters demand service of a scribe
The enemy ambushed the amicable, interrupting instruction
Plans were made and location changed to find a fitting field for fight
The mob moved through streets dusted with white
Settled prematurely in a small public clearing
The challenger caught my friend off guard, his temple struck
A sickening thud rang out over the posse screaming madness
My confidence waned in shock but before my thought completed
A mighty counter rocked aggressor’s jaw, knocked unconscious
Dumbfounded he slumped to his knees and made grapple for support
Thrown to a defenseless dorsal pose awaiting beating
Each strike from my friend’s boxing fists landed with force
Dynamic demolition; I could hear the snap of bone
Again and again the primal chanting of the mob
Was overpowered by noise from blunt trauma to a damaged brain
Authorities arriving cleared the crowd with their sirens
I dashed to wooded cover carrying the victor’s possessions
To my astonishment, joined by the badly bruised
The flesh of his ebony face stained sanguine with defeat
He felt his tissue for lumps as his pain set in at last
Adrenaline disappearing, ears bleeding from concussions
An infamous day to me as brutality yet unmatched
Performed for barbarous and sadistic spectators, I among them

In description and depiction
Your face has escaped my words
You defy my understanding when I thought myself well-learned
Like the meaning of life, or death in turn
You are the sensation when I step through specter of top stair
Simultaneously taking my breath away
While reminding me of the earth under my feet
For which I am grateful
You are the rainbow teasing me from the oil spill
Coagulating in the concrete streets
You came about by chance
Filled my mundane life with beauty
You are the simplest of science experiments
Famously reliable
Tested and proven so many times through the years
That I have come to accept you as fact
You are the trust between a mother and infant child
Love growing with each day and smile
A symbiotic synchronized rhythm
So strong that it is natural
You ask me sometimes if your lack of presence in poetry
Equates to a lack of presence in my thoughts and feelings
Quite the opposite; you come to me in my everyday life
Darling I let the beautiful speak for itself

You used to disappear for months at a time
I was too young to understand but I did anyways
You hurt me like you hurt yourself
The difference is I remember
As children we were sad and tragic misfits
Hell bent on escape of some kind
You used to try to jump out of second story windows
Enough to break eternal but not to close your mind
I found you once trembling in the kitchen
In your pocket was a handful of capsules
Ran for help and with reinforcements recommitted you
You told me I could stop you now but there would be a tomorrow
Your depression worsened and school became your nemesis
You singlehandedly proved how cruel and evil children can be to others
A victim of your instability and chemical imbalance
A social untouchable, they kicked you and you scampered under the porch
The progression across the spectrum of moods made you manic
I could handle you when you had lost hope, but you became unpredictable
Needing everyone’s help, you couldn’t bear to act alone
Always making scenes we were bashful when in crowds
I picked you up after class and you showed me your self-assigned art project
Your room was filled with them, scribbles on the walls
Poetry and carved incantations and letters
Just the way you were when you lived in the hospital
I will always remember when I was first allowed to visit
Your expression dull, eyes dead and voice hoarse but constant
Your babble was brilliant even though you spoke in tongues
Drew me equations, diagrams, promises and master plans
I keep them still and hope that you will make no replications
Reminder of the horror that goes into reparations

In twenty circles around the sun
I have come near enough to observe
From atop a distant hill I stood watching
The city of insanity
The people moved about with apparent purpose
To and fro running errands and the like
The metropolis thriving with attractive life
Its breath forming clouds in the cold of the night
From my sentinel’s post I had limited comprehension
Of the rituals or values held inside their gates
Near enough to know the man I would be
Far enough to be drawn by mystery
I flirt with delusion behind closed doors
My mistress with a sweet whisper customized for my ears
Similarly I stroll the perimeter of these walls
A rogue on the outskirts considering integration
These gates are welcoming without invitation
Yet they lock from the inside-permanent asylum
Someday I will live amongst this community
Unaware of any world but my own

I made myself a promise but it didn’t last the morning
Submit to my illusions yet again forming patterns
Journey down the rabbit hole with safe return uncertain
Constantly I push the boundaries of introspection
I demand more from seen scenery, seek to enhance
For years my body went about and I its faithful shadow
Kept silent and obedient, thinking I was clever yet
Just a jester, a sleeping shackled servant, serf or slave
Life as a dreamwalker consumes imagination
Hollow and endless, a cardboard cutout with a background
Made of muddied shades of grey, filling up physical space
While behind my eyes I could be anywhere
In pursuing solitary silence, problematic fissure to foundation
Radically alters self perception creating warped identity
I linger as a ghost, heart beating cold venom
As I haunt the places where I could have made something of myself
A lifetime spent exploring the deepest psychological caverns
Has left me accustomed to dim lighting, shy and wary of the day
Evolution passing me by; I was hiding in my cave
Inventing fire and the wheel as the universe went digital
To emerge and join the societal stream, be swept up in the current
Would almost surely overwhelm me, leave me submerged and suffocating
I must swim to the surface, escape my dependence
Before the water freezes over, holding me tightly through the seasons

My thirst for conversation has continued to impress me
Fills me with stories helping to shape another in my eyes
Met with friend for a mutual exchange of identity
An interview with questions directed; I asked first
Starting with the earliest formulation of conscious thought
Hers was the return of a sick father
She eagerly embraced him when he arrived home safely
Vividly describes the large red chair present
I transitioned to exchange of reflection most powerful
Searching for a single memory of hers that stood alone
Her face brightened, her eyes shining with nostalgia
Her dog’s name was Max
Max entered her life when she was one year old
On the celebration of her birth in fact
He was the runt of the pack, a ruby retriever
Grew to maturity and average size, with love
Max made his way into her writing in the classroom
His possible harm one of her first worries
He was a cherished family pet, she loved him with all her heart
Being a young child, sometimes she was too rough
Cancer took Max from this world at nine years of age
He was buried under a peach tree in the back yard
The peaches swollen and ripe make death turn to life
To this day they represent the sweetness of his soul

Her early years were full of stress at thought of parental separation
Subject to fickle fears and frozen emotions
Her true panic began in high school days
Developed into distinguishable attacks and episodes
There were never tangible reasons or focus points for fear
Racing thoughts, vertigo chills, imminent death
Creeping insanity and the dry, frustrating inability to swallow
Worsened as college approached and the familiar faded fast
Week one was worse than any panic period yet
Heart flutters, helplessness and disorienting dizzy spells
Friends were far away or had yet to be encountered
Sympathy for perceived insanity ran thin
These experiences require constant care and medication
Hospital visits and appointments with understanding ear
She shared her life with me through effect of anxiety
I shared in turn, but couldn’t help distraction
We did not record the interview so I took it upon myself
Documenting with equal force her story and my amazement

On the eve of early rising, with curious companion
We climbed to the highest peak, to yield clearest view
This vantage point was inaccessible to the common without clearance
The stolen key allowed me to explore forbidden fruit
We stood on the platform under star studded quilt
Quietly we crossed the bridge to another realm
Peered in through the frosted window at laboratory dormant
Followed the black path laid down over rocky roof
Hidden was a narrow hallway, a strip along the ledge
The average passerby unaware and far below
Made our way up a ladder to the top of brick structure
There I found that light shines even in the ***** city

Today I witnessed a ****** in the cobwebs
The swift and crafty arachnid ensnared suspended cicada
The cicada several times his size spun into his spindles
Soon a drained addition to the cemetery of exoskeletons
It twitched but with an air of hope long gone
He embraced his fate long before forced by spider fang
The stalker surveyed him, perched like vicious acrobat
About to perform his grand finale among the dust and decayed wood
The drawn out death captivated me, stole my attention
Like the gallows in the streets of times past
I watched and felt the transmission of energy and life
The power to spare a creature, but I let the world turn freely
This one lived and died similar to you and I
The universal experience of limited time
Bacteria to insect to man to deity
Some day we are mummified and disintegrate in the attic

Today probably marks one of the final occasions
Upon which I will visit my grandfather
Long years have made him weary
A war drawn through many winters
He is deceptively small, hardly more than five feet
But like an iceberg his hidden self is vast
Travelled the world on military campaign
He does not speak of this part of his past
My family makes prompts in asking
How he crossed the Channel, entered Germany
The frontline combat that ensued
Has never escaped his conscience
At the slightest mention of the Battle of the Bulge
His face glazes over, and he is brought back
He relives instantly, right in front of me
The soldiers who died, friendly or not
I never asked if he killed anyone
And he would never tell me
The men of his time were moved to terrible actions
They returned home numb or wrapped in plastic
I cannot imagine such an experience
To be held so near my age
Spent several fortnights living in a foxhole
The bloodiest battle, taken by surprise
My father’s father like many fathers
Did what he had to do
He remains a soldier to this day
My respect is endless for the mighty

Nighttime session, the troops gathered in the barracks
I am the early bird waiting while I think of words
See the sorry *** in the glass start to mutate
My face scrambles in a madman’s flash of brilliance
I shake in disbelief, making my supposed normal return
The last of many flashbacks to a freaky fungus festival
My companions enter the stomping ground unaware
A trace of spasm in my body, of light refraction in my gaze
Within ten seconds I went from stagnant and stationary
To drunkenly wobbling, blind-deaf-mute-terrified
My vision was the first, flooding steadily with snowy diamonds
I noticed a distinct detachment from myself and my location
Head began to throb and ears shot jets of sound
Like a pulsar detectable to keen eye on rampage
Bright white light, increasingly suffocated by diamonds blinding
Sick and driven to escape, my face drained of all color
My surprise became overwhelming and unbearable to me
I made a hopeless barge through blurry barrier
Dive into the bed that will bring me sane comfort
Curl in ball, pathetic and fetal, waiting for the war to end

Life stories are the purest form of expression
They are your interpretation of your existence
Your lens; your skewed perspective of the world
No one can take your memories from you
You can only choose to share them
I choose to collect them
Recently I came across a hurting man
Howling about lost possessions, wrapped in material mourning
Thirty years of age half his life spent in a cage
He carried the marks of his imprisonment on his neck and torso
Symbolic scribbling coupled with raised traces of injury and survival
The beauty of his anecdotal being represented
He showed me a photograph, a gorgeous girl of nine
He fought for the privilege to make her acquaintance
Her face he wore on his heart, where she dwelled
“Daddy’s Little Girl”
For thirty brief years these eyes had seen much
A walking burden, society had no vacancy nor sympathy
Money made from paving, though once upon a time
This figure provided every intoxicant imaginable
We bonded over mutual encounters with death
He narrated a story where seven men made an attempt to end him
They beat him repeatedly, punished him publicly
Like Jesus
His arm broke cleanly from a bat, but the seven hadn’t finished
They ran a van straight for this man attempting paralysis
He moved at a critical moment
This driver he later met
Alone, metallic tool of death in hand and vengeance flaring
He returned the favor, blasted the knee of the newly handicapped
Half joking, I asked if he had ever been apprehended
Half joking, he replied no and searched me for a wire
Next, he shared another instance where he should have left us
Riding a motorcycle over a hundred miles per hour
Carelessly on a quiet stretch of road, headed for fateful arbor
He ejected himself; the new bike totaled his helmet scarred
His hand shattered and held by screws like mine
In his words I saw myself
Despite his fortune at enduring such a wreckage relatively unharmed
He lamented his survival at the expense of prized possession
This criminal on the brink with Italian flag in ink
One who never learned to appreciate
Small, thin, bald and distinguished by goatee
Upset over the misplacement of a baseball cap
He made my friend aware of her beauty, assured her he was unworthy
I shook his hand and promised never to forget
Here he lies immortalized

A long time ago I left my house
On a journey to visit a friend
I took a familiar route, cutting through a stretch of woods
I encounter an old woman present with her canine
Chose to stay and converse somehow knowing that I should
She slipped seamlessly through several tongues
English, French, Spanish and Russian to name a few
I knew but two
We settled on French quite soon
Dialectic emerged from broken friendly phrases
Compared and shared our stories, the young with the old
In the back of my mind my destination urged me to leave
But the power of this woman’s soul kept me in her hold
We laughed about the chance of this spontaneous encounter
A rendezvous of unknown persons at the jungle’s edge
She told me I would later say that “this is a strange lady”
I walked away and dwelled upon every word she said

Upon leaving my place of toil and meager compensation
I seek the true reward lurking in undone deeds
I am more or less level, ravenous and hunting
Game having been at bay several days now
Before I know it, activity fully engaged
Her Red
And my Blue
Make a royal Purple
The rigid, unforgiving guest makes himself right at home
In a palace warm and welcoming
Instantaneously lost in the winding hallways
Climbing and descending spiral stairs
The view is tested from each window
The surrounding lands surveyed from this monument
The tour begins on the roof, with me on top of the world
Before I proceed to explore from the outside
The fine craft is admired; many masons must have cut
Through several suns and moons
Perfecting the polished stone that shapes this place of protection
Results bring motivation and I find my way with ease
I take control of matters in this intricate abode
The secret passageway I excavate and artifacts recover
Scream and sigh so synchronized success again I find
Effort made to appreciate the architecture to the fullest extent
I am acquainted, having made a home here
This palace is a special retreat and source of strength to me
I imagine myself there and all is well

I drift but a barrier separates me from
Unconscious percolation
My snapshot of my chamber is altered
Skewed, rearranged, differed and changed in my brain
Add contour, remove shadow
Stretch and distort objects remaining at rest
Levitate or make vanish, flood the dull with color
I have the power to paint the world to my liking
As I lie motionless, I interpret this
The light fixtures suffer simultaneous seizures
Shaking, quaking, tremors through time and space
The room has a distinct vibration
I am a plucked string, a struck chord
Sending my message to the walls and receiving their echo
The darkness around me fills with brilliant light waves
I am amazed by their purity, white and dazzling
First docile dots, then elongated tubes
Indicating motion
The vessels acquire a spectrum
My field of view is well decorated with ornate luminescence
These happenings perplex me but the wonder wears off
My still frame is a play thing
My version of existence

My condition is incongruent with the common presence
Black sheep identity burning eyes and hesitance
I move in a manner like weight attached lumbering
Unsure of myself, with no partner stumbling
Swimming in a glass half full and inattentive
Sloppy script pen tip like bull with red incentive
Reference to constructed concept subjective inference
Marker to my darker being written in this instance
Possessive and persuasive visitor leads me to temptation
Takes unpredictable control of my mental weather station
Precipitates with hate and tears me down with its erosion
Art starts with rain pain soon becomes an ocean
My breathing is done in desperate gasps
A fight for oxygen’s healing
Suddenly I am miles away
Far beyond the ceiling
Moving at the speed of light time slowing to a crawl
Cranium contained tragically between these walls
I wake to similar circumstances not changed to satisfaction
Expect a sedentary death from drone of human interaction
Hungry and reestablished, reminded now of morning
Clear mind and consequence come forth with no forewarning
Death lingers in the white noise that gestures from the mental
I open the gates to raiders as they pilfer sacred temple

Wherever I go, my phobias follow
Giving me trouble with everyday life
Adrenaline rush when engaging the unexplored
Public speaking, attention, skating, riding a bike
Facing my past, traveling, being alone, heights
Worry makes me race and bleed and need and all the like
And to think I respond to strain by keeping my brain sedated
And waste my potential, but wisdom is belated
I internalize my stimuli my mind’s eye can thrive
I enjoy my frequent fear because it makes me feel alive
Even surprise myself by overcoming the insurmountable
When easily I could fall to ruin and not be held accountable
My tunnel vision makes small conflict all I contemplate
Caught up in the moment in my aggravated state
Any ground gained is a conscious overcoming
Any pretty poem comes from days of mind running
Any day lived is time that I have borrowed
Any one could be the last but this brings me no sorrow
If anything I have taken from the images I carry
I appreciate the fact that I am temporary
Once had the option of premature return
To the nothingness that spawned me now value I have learned
I work hard to earn my being, no phobia can stifle
Patiently await the day I die and am recycled

The pile builds, accretion of assignments a while until
Relaxing, busy work not terribly taxing but my time
All consumed, brief pause and then resume the battle
Of the usual, ramble babble prattle of the professor then I lose
A full night of sleep, toxins in each anxious beat
Of stressed heart, DNA schematics down for art
And not a rigid scheme, blackboard is bleeding on me
And now the groups are formed, locusts of ambition in a swarm
I am devoured, avoiding conflict like a coward
I see his eyes, abandoned on an island he dies
In the horizon, my face of kindness becomes wizened
Faint and feeble, I recognize my capacity for evil
To continue, make no apology for sins due no effort made
To right things, expect a well deserved strike of lightning
Very frightening, conscience panicking muscles tightening
No chance at being friends, dread the day we meet again

It's done
My heart beating stress inducing chemicals
I ignore them, I am still high from the relievers
Barely able to focus
My confidence remained with me
Though I felt its desire to escape and abandon
My voice was steady, though I rushed at times
Leaving planned points stranded and unappreciated
Have to finish, return to my seat, watch the next suffer
My time has come and gone I do not recall who I was
What was my panic?
I know enough and I continue to learn
The unfamiliar angle of substance never used
Created a sensitive reaction of outpouring
Near destruction from the surge then artificial joy
Came close to casting away my life's work on a whim
We were brought closer but my true condition exposed
I have become an obscene being to be feared
Unstable in the face of crushing choices
Collapsing under my own gravity
My next challenge awaits
And I anticipate the fear
Lesson learned

Clouded formation of inner color control mechanism
System synesthesia pulsing eyes and dull surroundings
Float in gently woven tapestries that make the atmosphere
Dig into a solidified and nullified enigma
Decisions though no comprehension brought to life like a golem
The line that I cross between focused and lost has me open
Smooth and calm status accepted and enjoyed
Fellow interlocutors debate and compare wisdom
Rowdy and open to suggestion, I share freely
Less inclined to anxious thoughts
Like spiders creeping in the dark
Mysterious and unfamiliar persons are simply characters
As I weave a tale after my own interests
Nothing to fear in a world where I am capable
My guests are strewn about
The ruckus scattered and cluttering
Thumping walls of a thought tank desperate
Hydrate-Revive-Rejuvenate
Rebuild by burning like a forest fire
Cycles become me sadly

Reflection like a mirror or a post-*** shower
I am alone, and I dissipate into the room’s air supply
I pause to appreciate the sensation of life
Colorful tendrils of light play games
Crisis is foreign and distant
I am tranquil, transcendental and still
The particles of my mass are no longer bound
My existence becomes my surroundings
And my surroundings become me
Singular
Peace comes resting me into sleep
Nod off numb to the water
Stars flash within arm’s reach as my focus is lost
As my vision becomes increasingly spotted
It separates into a grid
Evenly spaced, dark, outlined squares
Snaps of brightness make me dizzy
Objects float or fade to nothing
Reality now artificial, mimicking, a substitute imposter
I fall to the final sight of myself disappearing
Black energy plays tricks on me
Silver flashes when I arrive
Purple when I reflect
Blue makes me question, fear, and follow
Green inspires me
Yellow tires me
Orange is my love
Red when the world collapses on me

A chapter I’m after
A secret hid beneath the rafters
Focus my attention on my senses many masters
Imminent danger in her vertigo fade the water spilled
Visit became hostile and now the mood is killed
Making time to make up for the time that we spend fighting
I’m impatient and inconsiderate and I take it out in writing
Today we seal the dam, my release has been contained
Forget the recent pain when my vocal cords were strained
The ice begins to crack and fresh green can newly rise
Life is born again and we are equal in her eyes
As of recent tied into a fiber woven strong
Threads of shared being as we harmonize in song
Evolution tests us and we mold to where we’ve been
Malleable and flexible and flowing in the wind
Worry presses on torso like breath held underwater
Ponder self on number line to death from mother and father
Commitment with a witness I anticipate of late
Survive the Ides and any spies, assassin doubts would penetrate

Laughing in a hollow room
I awaken
Amused but unaware
How did I manage-stunned and shaken
Traces of activity, sweating with no memory
Vague images of standing, babble without purpose
Missing time
Scattered glimpse of self in action
Recovery from a trance as my body rises
Great return from Elsewhere
A dreamscape scenario where nothing is concrete
And the endless possibilities inspire me
The translation journey is one I frequent
Falling in and out of altered state
Resting here, waking there
The in-between hazy at best
Engage in conversation and find myself with strangers
Wanderer sharing stories
Making my way home

Aching veins transmit liquid life to extremities
Warm and flowing, contrasting the cold metal interior
Sensitive to the electric current containing many memories
My sense of self shattered on the wall, became inferior
Scars are carved, reactions never reach the root of issues
The cause is now unknown, minds wander when alone
I remember the breaking and discoloring of the tissue
Thought my art dead and ****** with the displacement of the bone
I hid my wounds at first and now a cross marks them boldly
Embrace my daily pain, forget my future without motion
Temperature change controls my ways private burn or cold and lonely
Two repair attempts, a weakened state can’t stop devotion
Now I feel the hardened layer hidden in me from the air
Once frail now muscled and accustomed to the feeling
When I’m overcome by troubled thoughts I stop and store them there
My place of pain becomes my place of healing

A stroke of luck
Abyss of dust, a discus then discussed by us
Rock that formed and gas that swarmed
Trapped in circles as it warmed
Distance and diameter right
Tilt and water blessed with life
Capable of catering to creatures with its features
Atmosphere and seasons here
Travelling friend who pulls at times
Mother holds us, Mother shines
Beyond us where the giants lie
Far away and in the sky
Flaming stars shine from afar
Make us wonder what we are
Bits of sand in a desert vast
Inventing terms like future and past
Life rose gradually from the ground
From the water’s depths, then all around
A barren wasteland of desolation
Turned lush and green with vegetation
Diverse and wonderful beasts evolved
And the primitive biped kings came with them
Hunting some still hunted by others
Endless war in a circular system
But with our ambition, the way of life was broken
The divine plan and superiority of man was spoken
Passed down, retold, until everyone agreed
Taking not appreciating, progress for greed
Divisions and factions formed, civilization
Kings building nations, many generations
Men and women born in chains, into war they came to be
Universe to Earth and Adam to Me

Hot to the point of dripping frustration
Walls hugging close, ignoring boundaries of comfort
I am exposed to thickened thoughts and muggy minds
I see deeper than the blind
Running rounds of labyrinths, echoing-shaking the grounds
Foundations leaking, deep wells of pensive tactics
Breaking automatic
Subject to tangled knots as a foreigner in sacred land
Watching my step
Awareness essential to survival like a savage
The lifestyle of leisure is above me
Tapping the source it runs its course
Battles the conditions of a wicked storm
Rage like eyes that seem to bleed
Thumping external threats to safety
Camouflage is comforting, but demons never sleep
Black thoughts creep into interactions
Terrible timing, embarrassing me so

Speckling a spotless page I riddle with holes the device of my life
Cutting my vision to words given, the ink drips from my knife
Whiplash of wicked waterfalls of brain matter
Senseless chatter rise above the babble of the crowd
Powerful and loud acute attack on the master laws
That keep me down and try to hold me back when I am strong
Streaming where I’ve been into a manual of the thinking man
For sinking ships and shoulder chips to wake and move along
Explode and fade to the far away say peace and I’m gone
I mentally move and never lose attachment to a world where I am phantom
The buzzing in my brain’s become my anthem
I’m going off on tangents people taking what others hand them
Tearing down walls telepathically and then repair them
Abuse the dimensions which I dwell within
Hell and many ways
Funny how a flood could bring on better days
Nothing stays the way it seems and I don’t know what it means
Don’t know much at all sometimes so I lay back in my dreams

Rainforest rustle
Clink and chat
Cook and clean
Hustle and bustle
Think of this and that
Look at what it means
Experience the everyday wave
And inertia of now
It flows through my head
With a manner of somehow

Destruction, Creation
We are all capable
Of good, evil
Great and terrible things
Why?
Because evil is easy
Me?
I’ve always enjoyed a challenge

A rational thought-from your head or mine
We balance on the fabric of time
I exist by day and disappear at night
Many wise men have been wrong before
I suggest you question the ground you walk on
And distrust the air you breathe
I’m too busy swimming in rivers of sound
My opinions fluctuate
So numerous are the discoveries of man
Our curiosity runs deep you see
Who needs love, family, friends?
When we have God and Technology
Hide your eyes, your face and mind
Be a child with your time
Man wishes to be a lion, yet
We follow the path of the cat

I do not hear
I choose to listen
My every look is an observation
Why bother talking when one could be speaking
My ideas circulating, my mind breathing
The day I died
My soul was high
My corpse lay on the ground
I saw my writhing motions
And the blackness all around
And my return was hardly gentle
I had not the strength to stand
With scarlet glowing eyes I fell
Having forgotten what it is to be a man

I walked home
All alone
Stumbling with spotted vision
Unsure of what I was still doing here
Existing in this plane
I live alone inside this brain
How could I explain?
Banging my head on the walls and door
Choking on the bathroom floor

I just don’t know today;
Seventeen years I ought to pray.
Those who saw her every morning
Now empty chair and mourning
I did not know her well
But felt from the ones around
She was a sorest loss
Which shook the entire town

I watched them empty her locker
At the start of a day so sad
Ripping the pictures down from the walls
Like her soul could fit in a trash bag

Well I’m living in a crawlspace listening to conversations
When I can’t take reality I change the station
The music heals me

I’m living in fear with a ringing in my ear
The train is on the tracks and it’s getting kind of near
I’m thinking sideways I’ll do it my way
I should care more but why start today

I don’t keep up with the same old sound
I’m busy in my head and it’s written down
I want you to see what happens to me
When I lose existence to think is to be

Under the ceiling above the floor
Between the walls and behind the door
I’m living in a crawlspace listening to conversations
When I can’t take reality I change the station
The music heals me

I forget myself
And we is understood
The absence of my mind is flooding
Full of thoughts and color
The words are dancing on the page
And everything is blooming
Together rediscover
All the little things we know
The tangent line
To yours and mine
Is cutting through both space and time
And oh that sinking feeling
I’ve become both floor and ceiling
My comfort in an apple bite
I’m sledding on the light
My trapdoor to imagination
Fueling mental condensation
Panicking, ranting with no filter
The thread of we unwinds

I swear I could drown
In her river of sound
Playing just the tune
Stuck in my head,
The melody
Putting me to sleep
Leaving me to dream
About her song and
Making me feel it every day
Her music lets me live

Midnight Express
No more no less?
Forgot my stop
But then I found
Don’t fall asleep
Because you have to keep
Your eyes open all around
If the greedy
Are just the needy
Who could never hear the sound
Then shut your eyes
And listen for
The colors from the ground

The same I heard from everyone
Don’t fly too close to the amber sun
Melted wings are never free
But I know where I need to be
A train of thought and life too fast
When I feel my jump wouldn’t make a splash
Tied me down and kept me in
Safety from a gripping sin
Fulfillment and a comfort house
From the others who would drag me out
See me tried
Crucified
Terrified and so denied
But not just yet
Still I can be
But never what you are to me
Could not convey
Nor words portray
Those wings were an angel’s
Who chose to stay
So flying, yes
A borrowed mess
And feeling how you’ve left me blessed
Counting my days
Made each worth living
You mean the world
I love you

Fire. Replacements.
Issues? Productivity.
Decision in order, severe
Raising questions
Consumer, retailer, associates
Market based.
Will not reveal
Range for their role
Earn, risk, deflating, left behind
Probably thinking they don’t have a future there
Do these questions offend you?
Hourly workers, open positions.
We have and continue to control what’s next
Stiff competition, corporate struggle
Watchdogs fail
Demoralized

Memories and stop signs
This is a moving train
They took it away
Who are you?
And me?
Get out of my head
You know just as well as I do
We don’t belong here
No maps, no ceremonies
We’re replaceable
Headlines and lights out
Starving
Stop asking
They’re going to send you back now
I saw them
Clawing, fighting, scratching
Locked in white now
We’re safe here
Just concentrate
Stabilized, he’s breathing
Where am I?
She’s getting worried now
They could be anywhere
They could be anywhere

That pressure in the chamber
Last reflection of tension
Return to find it
I know we stole something
Scared, counting
Like magnets
They waited together
Spread the disease
Light the message
We don’t have very long
Would you stop me?
Dig a hole, exposed
Tell the story child
She’ll forget, he’s coming
Snow, it was snowing
Bad days
Help me leave it behind
Inscribed, crumble
We all fall down
Chronicled by who
Let’s see where it takes us
Time to wake up
Don’t be angry
I could do this all night

I never got what I should find
In essays and equations
Secretly, we’d always hoped
There’d be another way
We burned our books
As we decided
We’d learn right in our garden
And so we worked against the sun
Building our fortress of better days
Knowing every seed we planted
Could someday teach us Everything

I'm wide awake
The TV tells me why I place no bets
The forecast tells me the storm is here
But it doesn't pose a threat
So I listen while I watch outside
Not surprised
My TV lied
The wind was strong enough to rip the morals out of men

The people ran for shelter
And the rain kept coming harder
This storm we found upon ourselves
Turned rebels into martyrs
They tried to somehow wait it out
They hoped it would subside
We saw the storm from miles away
And all we did was hide
I'm wide awake
The storm is worse and somehow I'm not surprised
The forecast seems to have noticed, too,
I hear they changed their minds
The day we decided it wasn't worth fighting
Something in us died
Someone said questions can't be answered
Well someone also lied
As the people began to worry, they asked God what should they do
And somehow all I cared about was wondering who he prayed to

In our world,
Dogs will learn to love their cages
And forget they were ever free
In our vacuum
Pigs of war and God
Will fall at equal speed

It's Strange to think
How things will change
Tomorrow doesn't smell
Like yesterday
And things I love
Will start to fade
While others will follow
To the grave
And seasons will change
The things I crave
I fear will never be the same
What I believe
You may find strange
Yet the answers might linger
With some for days
And my life will leave
The surface grazed
As I often failed
And so remains
Years and years
Of years unscathed
And who will teach
My son to behave?
Time went and came
And I its slave
The mystery
I felt in waves
Learned less in a lifetime
Than in a day
It's strange to think
How things will change
So go on, now,
Be on your way
And forget not
To always pray
For life is still waiting
Let your path go Astray
There's still so much to see