We live in a world of lost and found
Get lost so we can be found again
And then retreat back underground
Until the process ends

You’re in No-Man’s land, shells all around
Not yet forgotten, but not easily found
Silence is a peaceful but elusive sound,
What a poor excuse for a proving ground.
Lay down, meltdown, fade into the background,
‘Cause all you’ve ever known is letdowns.

Magic is real,
It is not what most expect-
A two-bit card trick, vanishing act-
But everything we feel,
Everything that has an effect.
You don’t need prayer
Or spells to cope,
Just an unbowed mind,
A little flair,
And the illusion of hope

From a young age,
I took hours to imagine scenarios
Where interesting things happened,
Mostly to me,
To deal with an unkind reality.
A coping mechanism
That I never really grew out of.

I’m sorry, but who are you?
Did you take my face?
You look like me, but askew
Please don’t take my place.

Verse and poetry
Is an emotional release
Pristine and beautiful.
So wonderfully simple,
I don’t know if I could ever
Write a novel

In a “wise passiveness“ I sit
Able to conquer any fit.
Wounded is my melancholy
When he meets his deft enemies
My Serenity, and Spirit

Never get too close to anyone
For awhile it’s almost fun
You may be even glimpse the sun
But inevitably it’s always over
All you’ll find is two leaf clovers
With death, a goodbye, or just an arbitrary day
People always go away.
Sink back into your pit
Consumed by manic fits
That you love too much to let go,
It’s how you cope with woe.
They are not meek
Certainly not weak
Wise beyond years
They forgo future tears
They’ve found, having been hurled-
Innumerable times from a great height-
They just prefer the underworld.

When you realize you’ll never seize the day,
Never have the right things to say,
Your judgments are always erroneous,
You’re not Hamlet, but Polonius.
Though you know that all things must end,
It doesn’t spur your torments to mend,
A dutiful advisor,
Who never gets wiser.
It must be so serene
Never having thought you might have been-
“Neither a borrower nor lender be”;
I say, yet fear both apply to me.
“To thine own self be true”;
ah! Long ago, I missed that cue-
And all do agree,
The audience doesn’t need, my soliloquy.
Under all this weight so crushing
And the envy to just feel nothing,
This act’s end, now I’m certain:
I’ll die off stage, behind a curtain.

You are porous,
Blend your voice into a chorus,
Can’t help but wear your heart
On your sleeve, fall apart
So easily, and so frequently
Admittedly, sometimes even gleefully,
Feel every gust of wind;
Even drafts, make you bend,
Warping to all these demands
Making it hard to understand,
Just where others end
And where you begin

I do not feel a desire to rhyme
Nor work within any sort of structure
Traditions are a waste of all our time
And who needs iambic pentameter?
Whoops.

Battles lost and Wars won
Capsules and Caffeine
Minds warped and souls undone
Dreaming state of being

You listen for what we now may hear
Eternal cosmic mysteries
But a cost paid too dear
Another Pyrrhic victory

Too far now
A mirror opaque
But we’ll make it back somehow
And then we will awake

Antisocial, shy
Or have you lost the hope of
Being understood?

Truth is found when one can
Reconcile the irreconcilable
That’s why it’s so elusive
And Illusive
Because you can’t,not completely,
At least not humanity,
Paradoxes obscure, but also vindicate,
The all
And everything.
And creation is a scientist
And we are its Petri dish,
And creation is a mystic,
And we are its parish.

I died.
Old and weathered by the sun
  Knowing that my race was run
   I was not contrite,
    I knew my time was finite
     But my story was told,
      And eventually I grew old
     A kind reality,
    Hopefully awaiting me,
   I did not know what my life was to be worth
  To a new and unknown earth
Kicking and screaming
I was born.

It’s hard to be here
And to be sincere
When you run on caffeine
And fear
But it’s easy to be coarse
To stay indoors
When you see the whole world through
The filter of remorse

A heart lying cold and numb, black to its core,
It was so lucky I had a thousand more
Tucked away in a little drawer
Ready for when I needed more
So, not that I’m keeping score
But each time pain knocks at my door
Or else my spirit is knocked to the floor
My newest heart tore, my body sore
I take a look in my little drawer
And again I find, more and more.

Rest your bones, shut your eyes
You have earned this worthy prize
Sweet relief, a deep sleep
Twelve hours pass, now repeat
Everything’s uphill
And likely always will
Your laments avow
You have all the time you needed now
Dream of all that may have been
Never get back up again

Take it as a compliment
Branded heretical.
Bring on the pyre,
And set it afire;
When they resort to
Crucifixion
You’ll know you have the right
Convictions

Despair of a furtive root,
I try to keep the time at bay;
My ambition is rendered moot
And I begin to dread the day

And though I know it seems inane
My reality lives in dreams,
While my life is but a dream-I feign,
Since my life is faulty-it seems

Lost somewhere between hate and love,
apathy versus ambition
And the desire thereof,
Must I imitate affection?

Is love found? Or is it produced?
Is purpose found? Or is it set?
Is zeal found? Or is it induced?
Someone who knows I have not met.

I sought and searched for something new
But found and obtained something old,
I try and try to start anew
Instead I find I grow more cold

Our lives are fleeting and bitter,
I cannot seem to find content.
Through love and hate do I flitter
So I shall remain despondent...

Do not show the world you’re hurting
It does not deserve to know
Devote yourself to the diverting
And put on a good show
Drive the knife in deeper
Let it all run out
It’s a painful procedure
But that’s what life is all about
Do not show any fear
Go ahead, make yourself a martyr
So drear, so utterly clear
There’s some beauty in self-******
Kick me while I’m down
And spit into my eye
If you want a frown,
Then do not say goodbye

A heavy, inward sigh,
As I stare at all the passerby,
Each with their own lives,
I wonder if they think of mine?

It’s when, to follow your dreams,
You give up everything,
And you, piece by piece, are consumed
‘Till you’re living in a nightmare

A smaller God
Held in the palm of your hand
That will dissolve in you
And you with it

I chant the right incantation
With a little inflection at the end,
So why can’t I ascend?
Am I doomed to this stagnation?
And the wrong spirit offend?

Tallies on the wall.  
Doors that rearrange,  
In strange, entropic ways.
That dissemble and confuse  
To keep two locked in the halls;
The lights flicker, periodically-
They spot shadows on their peripheral-
Likewise in intervals.
They seem to speak,
But only mockingly.
They did not choose this fate;
The house chose them.
Some must be condemned-
Like Minos and the Minotaur-
For a terrible hunger to abate.
Another tally in the frame.
They’ve been this way earlier,
Though their recollection’s getting murkier,
While hands reach from plaster,
Reaching to claim.
They must learn to love the maze
The freedom in being confined;
At least their goal is defined-
After all, once you enter, you may never leave,
And are doomed to tread the lengthways.

Outside cars pass and children play pretend
By a for sale home overgrown,
Inconspicuous, yet locally it is well-known:
You never get too close
To the house that never ends.

Locked away, in tower grey,
The crime of innocence;
And in the streets, disarray,
Observed from the distance
Of a somber penance:
A sinister interplay.

It’s true, I’ve thought it
Through,
It isn’t right to feel this blue-
You told me too, you always
Knew
I shouldn’t have thought the world of
You

In their beauty, an unparalleled race
From a higher, supernatural place,
Driven to hidden, underground refuge
When mans’ cynical wars the earth deluged-
Leaving only the slightest, unclear trace.

They knew no pain, nor any suffering
And the world is darker from their leaving
And we are left to pick up the pieces,
While our own ambivalence increases,
Seeking to find a singular meaning.

You may call it naive wish fulfillment,
But I will search for reconcilement.
I will upturn the soil and the roots,
Until I may procure some lasting truce
Make amends for Ill-judged revilement

And then mankind again will have a guide
Some holy beings to gift us back our pride
What a dream, to again have dignity
To direct our kind to benignity
So we may be pulled back from the wayside

It’s all very romantic, isn’t it?
That some saviors will see us fit.
It takes the blame off us,
Makes our apathy superfluous,
Proves we are not hypocrites.

But maybe we should fix our own mistakes,
Go outside and clean our own ******* lakes,
Stop hiding behind flowery language and care
Waiting for a savior when they are rare,
Before our zeal irreversibly breaks.

I’d like to be free
I’d like to be a dove
Fly from my tree
And believe in love

I’d like to see a God
I’d like to be like the rest
Not be so odd
I’d like to be the best

I’d like to want life
I’d like to write prose
See the end of strife
I’d like to know repose

I’d like to follow through
I’d like to wave goodbye
Maybe start anew
With a different kind of I

There’s still places, I’d like to see,
People I’d still really like to
be,

A hundredth chance; in theory,
I really love
humanity,

But there’s a voice, in my head,
And it says everyone wants you
dead,

It doesn’t matter, where you have
been,
Nobody gets to go home
again,

So what’s the point, no one will
tell,
They’d rather see you live in
hell

Ah, the Spiritus Mundi,
The culmination of what I have searched for,
Finally you unveil yourself to me,
And it is all worth it.
In my dreams,
The world has gone to waste,
Everyone has gone sane,
And I am the one again left behind:
No different from reality.
I no longer care for structure or for rhyme,
Or if my words mean anything to anyone
But me,
For I am finally free,
From what seems an eternity,
Of torment by confusion,
A sentence from a past life,
If you believe that sort of thing.
Like the modernists of the past,
Stream of consciousness,
I am disillusioned, and
Yes, my vision is assisted
By drink, and by drug,
A revelation unplanned,
But not unwelcome.
I can only hope my rhyme
Scheme and my structure
Parallels the nonsense
That I am seeing,
And that it makes sense to some kindred spirit
Somewhere,
And I love them.

Bile risen,
Unbidden,
To my throat.
Liquid crimson,
Of my own volition,
Reminds me I’m still human.
In spite of what I’ve wrote,
I crumble up the note.

Like a shadow upon the wall
You don’t mean nothing at all

Cast out your hate
And cast out your sorrow
No matter how bleak
There’s always tomorrow

Just one, red rose,
Red lips, cute nose,
A smile, bright eyes,
An hour, time flies,
Dancing, the rain,
Car drive, fast lane,
Forget, the time,
Useless, bad rhymes,
A drink, or two-
No, never that few-
The future, the past,
The outcasts, outlast.

I haven’t been myself lately,
And by lately I mean about 6 or 7 years.

20 something year olds should be writing about how in love they are,
Or about how they’ve come so far
Or the beauty of a day,
How green the grass is in May.
Not about our collective disappointment,
Our detestable confinement,
Trying to find a culprit,
For a hostile employment market.
Celebrating illness and anxiety,
Losing hold of sanity,
From feeling superfluous.
God, who failed us?

Take a breath, we are free,
Shut our eyes, and now we see,
Forget what’s right, forget what’s wrong,
And now we dance, to an inaudible song

Do not worry;
They are footnotes in our biographies

Playing nice, my favorite vice,
Don’t think twice, roll the dice,
This high price, will it suffice
To see a slice of paradise?

Raw and uninhibited
Passion is unlimited
Lethargy’s been,
redistributed
If you’re a rebel without a cause
Than I’m a dreamer with some to spare
Our entropic revelry we’ll share
To make the world fair
Burn it down
Without a care
Put them on the ground
Smug when caught,
No longer when shot
A ringing, melodious sound;
Wall Street,
on its back feet,
Tumbling down
Avarice assailed,
No other options when
Democracy’s failed
And either side, is on their own side
And neither dissent abide,
They can’t break free
Of their lust for currency
So when mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
We’ll just love to watch it all unfurl

To sleep again,
To seek the dreams
Left behind
When intruded by the real
And inhospitable