A man of syntax and punctuation,
Though not so keen on grammar,
Used the most wonderful words in conversation,
But pronounced them all with a stammer.

Seemingly one-dimensional,
But deeply layered with meaning.
He tore the hearts out of sheep
Just to leave them there bleating.

To death, in one breath, he could swim there and back
With his hair a little more white,
And his lungs much more black.

Like smoking, on fire, his one true desire
Was to burn himself out before his freshness expired.

Now here he lies
All still with closed eyes.
I can't help from thinking he got what he wanted when he died.
I hope he's finally found the answers that he couldn't when he was alive.

This is the day
And this is me breathing
I'm getting away
This is me leaving

So long, goodbye
I'm not saying either
I hope I don't die
My mind is on fire

Losing track of what I think
This is me keeping
My body and mind in synch
This is me leaving

An exchange of words in which the truth is left haunting
A circle of people with nothing to do
My soul is left wanting
Craving something new

I can't catch these fish
My mind is unreeling
Got to scratch that itch
I've got to be leaving

Colloquialisms
Predictable scripts
A lightness of being
That Grand March of Kitsch

This is me angry
This is me seething
No one will miss me
And so, I'm leaving

Short stories with breakfast
A novel at lunch
Non-fiction for dinner
but not too much
Passion at night
The most eloquent dreams
Waking with dawn's light
and feeling serene

A piece of mind.
A slice of life
A meal much too great
For just fork and knife
Passionate power
Eloquent grace
That full-belly feeling
Of tremendous weight

Let me be your ego trip
and you can be my ego boost
Something so simple
Don't be afraid
and don't you dare be confused

You can use me,
and I'll use you
We can fold each other to stay blind from the truth

Because I don't care if it's wrong or right
I just don't want to be alone tonight

So come on, say yes
and don't over-think
Let's get together
We'll have some drinks
And I sure as **** won't regret it
Just so long as I can sleep

Because the last thing that I need
Is another girl to haunt my dreams

I really am just full of all kinds of ****
You deserve better than to have to listen to it
Yet there you are
And here I am
And I can only stand to be
Exactly what I am (tonight)
So go on and tell me
How much better off you are without me
I'll say it's okay
But then I'll still try to stay
Until you finally tell me to go the **** away
I'm not going to argue
Because I know it's true
I don't want to be your sweetheart
I just want to play with you

Yea I'm crazy
Crazy confident
And crazy fun
Think you can handle that?
Then you're the only one

**** right I'm smart
Smart enough to know I'm not
Dumb enough not to care
Does that sound right to you?
Does that sound fair?

Sure I love her
But what does that matter?
It won't keep me coming back
After I've already had her

So what do you think,
And do you think it's true?
It doesn't mean much to me
So what is it to you

I'll say it now and I've said it before; the best book I've ever read is about the paradoxes of war.

A friend asked a question, then added
"But spare me the lecture."
I told him the best book I've ever read was about architecture.

An alien sent a question from his head telepathically to mine,
So I thought of that book I once read of a man unstuck in time.
(If the title was placed here, it would just almost rhyme)

Near Betelgeuse, I picked up a man in need of a ride
I asked where he was headed, and he said,
"Nowhere in mind."
He had a book with him.
It was some sort of guide.

I once kicked the crap around with a young kid in a hat.
He looked down at my hands and said,
"Hey, what's that?"
I told him it was a book full of phonies and jerks.
He nodded, then lit a cigarette.
There was blood on his shirt

A man once recited,
Word for word,
A book I recognized after having heard.
I said, "That's my favorite!"
And he gave me a look.
The best book I've ever read was about burning books.

I once played God, and gave a dead thing new life,
But it was so grotesque that I had to run away and hide.
A tormented and wretched human imitation.
Made me think of a book about a man tortured by his own creation.

One time I was reading a book above mentioned,
When a man came up to me and asked a most impertinent question.
He said, "I see you reading all the time, but have you ever read
the greatest book of all time?" I glared at him and said,
"No I have not, but I've heard much about it.
It's a very popular book, but I do without it."
He said I should reconsider.
That it's not one to pass.
I told him to take that **** book, and shove it up his ***!

A little man with big emotion
An empty can floating in the ocean
There's more than one way to skin a cat
Your best bet is to choose one method and not look back
Don't let them know you doubt it for a second

Because it's always the second one that takes
The first never makes it
And the third is a mistake
But only actors can fake their own glory
Really all you need is some kind of story

Going through my very own time portal
Watching my life through my head
And I'm sitting wondering how I got here again

Singing a new song with clicks and clacks
Knowing it will soon get stale
Sipping on my brandy and ginger ale

You might understand a different plight
But this one is all I know
Sometimes I wish I had somewhere else to go

Remedies are all anyone can say
I know that they never help
A person's got to learn to save their own self

And all it takes is some will power
To keep myself away from this
But I can only ever stand to do
Whatever I wish

And all I have is all I've ever had before
Sprawled out on the ceiling of my own room
I think I'll spend tonight on this bathroom floor

Spending my nights with the likes of the living dead.
There's a battle every morning just to get out of bed.
Then a quiet acceptance of this is what it is.

Off time spent like a hyper kid without his Ritalin
Watching my actions as a detached audience
Thinking with horror, constantly;
"What's going to happen next?"
Thrilled by my own incredulity.
Appalled by my lack of discretion.
All the time toiling toward answering that same question.

Spending my nights with myself and a bed.
Waking with a sense of longing and dread.
Going through my days pretending.
Gritting my teeth and turning different shades of red.
Trying to time my own ending.

A scenic analytic man with figures pouring out his hands might come across you one day,
Sitting oh so lonely in a dark and dismal way,
Extending out his hand in a gesture of affect.
What will you do to process this abstract?
Reach out in a gesture of "I know it too,"
To bridge that tiny gap between a me and a you.

The best poem I ever wrote was written just for myself
The best movie I've ever seen; I shared with no one else
This is my life
This is my hell
and when it's all over, you'll just say "oh well."

And it folds so completely back onto itself.

I once knew a girl who said,
"All those little coincidences mean that you are exactly where you are meant to be, at that moment in time."
I believed it then.
Then I grew older, and the coincidences started to happen too often.
They became commonplace.
When she came back from the dead I told her so.
That "Our lives are all subjective, and the only reason that we recognize the coincidences is because we just so happen to be paying the right amount of attention to the situation that our minds currently find themselves in.
There is no such thing as coincidence.
Our whole life is but one big 'coincidence.'
The deja vu makes us feel crazy;
Makes us feel alive
We are divine.
Our lives are sublime.
They're not just coincidences, they're happening all the time!"

I thought I was falling for you,
but I was really just falling.
I thought you could catch me.
I was wrong.

Why is it always everything all at once?
I've rejected the world I had, and I've been rejected by the world I want
Nobody seems to like me much lately
I've embraced this "I feel things more deeply than you, and you don't understand" mentality
And yet I'm the one going around calling everyone else pretentious
That too, I noticed I've been saying "I" and "me" a lot more than I ought to
At least a dozen times by this sentence.
The irony always kills me in the end
8,
no wait
9
12
10

All I've done is talk trash about you
Ever since I burned your bridge
I'm not sure why I do it,
This constant talking ****.
Perhaps it helps the sadness,
The lingering regrets
Perhaps you feel the same way
Uh huh
Yea right
I bet
You know you really can go **** yourself
You're such a stupid *****
You filthy, *****, ***** ****
Go **** another ****
My friends all laugh and call you names
To join in on the fun
But it really makes me kind of sick
To think of what I've done
I don't really hate you
at least, not down inside
In fact I might still love you . . .
I hope you ******* die

When there's nobody else
There's always this
And when the wind blows west
My legs will go east

Sitting in the back with a torn flannel sleeve
Listening to someone tell me what it is they believe
I start to think that if this is life, I'd rather stay asleep.

There are so many things
Which I cannot see
But oh how I try to
So desperately
Leaving me in a state of doubtful wisdom
I start to believe
That I'd have been better off if I had just stayed asleep
There aren't any **** heads like you in my dreams

How did you know what I was thinking
When I was thinking about holding your hand
You grabbed mine first
Like some line in a verse
And I can't begin to understand
Synchronized randomness in a world of no consequence,
Or minds tied together in a net of one consciousness
Can you read my thoughts though?
Then I want you to know
That you are beautiful
Right down to the bone
Throughout your very soul
And if you can't read my mind
Then you ought to be told

In this place, I have no face
And no future which can daunt me
On this night, I can close my eyes
And remember all that you've taught me

On this street
My feet know where they're going
And I can find my way home
Without even knowing

Slowing only enough for me to take a deep breath
Realize this moment lasts forever
And forget about death

Stupid ******* ****, eats my ****, I'm so sick of it.
How everyone complains how the end is near but
To me they're all just victims who don't know how to deal with the
Here and now
The lost and found
It's that tiny little difference that makes it all worth while
Do you learn from the mistakes that your convictions dictate?
The inevitable errors that you're bound to make
Who's to blame for everything that is not the same
Which are only familiar habits that have stuck in our brain
To align
The planets in a way we see fit
And that's just fine
But baby, it still eats my ****

You're looking mighty fine this evening lady
Keep your Soul, but your flesh will be mine
Peeping through the holes where you used to have eyes
Drop dead gorgeous face perched on top of severed spine
You can't keep those precious things forever

God has the day,
But this is the time when the Devil plays
Cracked crow skulls call on the night fall
Broken fingernails
Hear the Nightingale
Hear the ghouls' wail
Your face is pale

Did you hear the one about the mental patient?
They stuck a severed hand in her bed
When it was lights out the screaming started
Shrill shrieks to slash pleasant dreams and turn all things into Nightmares
Patients in neighboring rooms took up a chorus of wailing
The halls vibrated with violent horror
The two culprits shivered
Then, suddenly
Silence
Deafening silence
Paralyzing silence
Silence so deep you'd hardly believe that you weren't asleep if it weren't for the sound of your own heart beat
The pranksters stared at each other
Placed a hand on the ****
And with a growing sense of foreboding
They turned the **** and let the door swing open

There, crouched in the corner
Was a grotesque thing with eyes and hair of stark white
Twisted into a banshee by her inescapable fright
And she was biting at something gripped tight in her hands
Gnawing at the severed one they had placed in her bed
Her lips and teeth were stained blood red

There's nothing to fear but the fear of the dead
There are no monsters but the ones in our head
Give me peace
Give me God
Let me walk
Through the fog
But when things go bump in the night and shadows dance on the walls
And things rise up from the swamps and the bogs
And phantoms screech and owls watch
I'll maintain my fear of the dark

If there was a way to you
You know that I would find it
And I still have a day for you
Where I don't try to hide it

But if those dreams do come true
It won't be as good
No it won't be so good

And if those stars never do pull through
I'll still wish they would
You know,
I really wish they would.

You know, Magic
That feeling you feel when you feel like a part of everything that's going on
Where the mood of the evening becomes you
And you smile and act but you're no longer acting of your own volition
You're going in tune with what's going on around you
And it feels so right
Like lucid dream flight
But by the end of the night
It's gone
And you're left alone in your bed
With these thoughts in your head
Wishing that you could be part of a moment without an end

My dreams were wickedly serene
With a dose of literal fantasy
Warping my life as-of-late
Into some kind of joy ride
That my subconscious did create

How sweet it is to tap into that
Without even reaching
When I awake, sometimes I wish to go back
My own attempt at leeching
Grabbing for handfuls from the deepest depths of my mind
and pulling them out
Examining the grains
Just to find
A warped and twisted mesh of real life best left
Behind

My life can't wait for my dreams to catch up
There comes a point where dreams aren't enough
To make sense of this constant bombardment of
of . . .
of . . .
How strange it is to find that word without the next
what a trip we take to the new day from the one that we've left

I have trouble defining what life is
Because I can't think of a boundary to what it encompasses
Every waking thought?
Every sleeping plot?
(for more often than not,
my dreams seem to be of a movie.
Scenes from a screen that I vaguely remember to have seen. . . )

When does real life end,
and non-life start?
Can we even comprehend what it means for life to just
Stop.

There is something more
I know that I have glimpsed
Because I've been here before

Something beyond
Your blinks and your yawn
A whole world waits with its arms wide open
Calling our names
Beckoning us
To stop playing these games
To pick up something real
And hold with patience until it begins to glow
To shine a light on our faces that we have never tasted before

So sweet and saccharine serene
It sends our minds reeling
Careening through our dreams
Picking up the trails of scents that we've always claimed to have seen

Fulfill those desires
Build empires out of your feelings
Brick of experience upon nostalgic recollections of that time
When I saw through the ceiling
I felt your heart beating
Keeping pace with mine
Just an illusion of one global mind
Feeling every feeling ever felt before all at once
Realizing what it is like to be realized
Knowing the beauty behind smiles
And the magic in laughs
Wanting to say everything
And then take it all back

This single serving reflection cracks beneath all the weight
And once we put it all together
We realize the stakes
So make yours with You
And I'll make mine with Me
Then we'll throw them at each other
For all eternity

And again alone in a den of dark
The walls wear thin
And then the rain starts

Bitterness can turn sweet when you chase it with sugar
Like having an epiphany at the end of a hang-over

And it pours down like this:
A man says his words just so she knows he has words to say.  
His listener turns to leave, but he asks her to stay.

You'll find more inside eyes than you ever will through diction
Everybody's lives are told as a fiction
The truth lies
Down in the eyes
Along with the answers to the why's.
The Why,
Why,
Why's?

Cricket to cricket
Mouth to mouth
A horse in the garden
A hole in the mouse
A moon crash landing on the roof of this house

Glasses to ashes
Dust enough
An army of lions
Couldn't figure this out

A print too dark
A matchbook on fire
An imp in the corner
With a spoon and a lighter

A line in the middle
A sheep in the hay
A boy with a fish
Thinks of something to say

A band in a march
A bulb with a glow
A group of people
With somewhere to go

A square and a circle
A line and a string
A mass of a miracle
Begins suddenly to sing

Kiss this goodbye
Somewhere beyond the clouds in the sky
Something is falling
Slower than I
Have fallen before
A monster hides on the other side of my door

Bid thee farewell
I am forbidden to tell
Of the place where they've hidden
Of the place I will dwell
Of the things I have found
My mind is still . . .
Reeling

Sliding, finding nothing now
The sky is north
The sea lies south
I open the door and try to get out
Open the door and try to get out
Open to try how to figure this out
A monster no more than two eyes and a mouth

Things fall off these shelves as if fulfilling their innermost secret desires to rest somewhere else.
We take these things and arrange them with the utmost care
Hoping to leave an impression on anyone wanton enough to stare
"Look at my Creation!
Admire my eye for detail
My magnificent use of composition
The originality
It's so unique
I take these things and make something which all the starved seek
This juxtaposition of so many different things
My inspiration?
Well, really, it's just a physical manifestation of everything that makes up me
Everything is a self portrait, if you know what I mean"
wink wink
But these things, they think; HOW DARE HE!
and in your sleep
they fall from the mirror
to drown down the sink
in order to be free from your artistic tyranny

Inadvertently avoided through mental thought processes
Subverted into
New shoes in an off white tint
And a new addition to my collection of lint
I'm sick of window tint so dark you can't see inside
I try my best to catch a glimpse of another person's mind
Striving so hard to manifest itself through the body it's been placed in
I step on the gas and pass their *** just so I can think to myself:
I Win.

Not drunk enough to stew tonight
Not true enough to be so right
Not brave enough to use this knife

It all falls back on you

Not tall enough to see above
Not sick enough to **** a dove
Not dumb enough . . .
To love

Too much of one to see through the other
Too many habits to blame on your mother
Too selfish to share with another
Gather enough sheets to . . .
Smother

It all falls back on you
These failed attempts to cut through
These mistakes
Regrets
These high stake
Secrets

Flush them out
Flush them out
Flush them out

These feelings
Are chores
These habits
They bore

Too scared to change
Too tired to run away
Get so caught up in a sentimental sway
These moments
Please stay
Please stay
Don't leave me . . .

Fade away

Whip crack in the back!
Suffering from a heart attack,
Your face is looking pale and your jaw is looking slack
Go back, go back from whence you came
Once you enter here, you'll never be the same
This outpour
This rage
This fire of sage
Bush
Ignites in your brain.  internal organs turn to mush.
Of course discourse leads one off course
To slide face first into the blackened dirt.

Now work, now work.  As hard as you can
Break your back for the consumers and your soul for the man
You stand
You try
But your knees go wild
And your bowing once again
As if to be admired

Give it up
these trials, these files, this documentation of failures
These feelings
hit ceilings
which trap them all inside

These hooks
These sinkers
These dark and lonely bleachers

sit through as the world slips through your fingers
and die

These sounds
these bugs
these mind destroying drugs

these sights
these fights
when's enough enough

hold tight
ignite
these fires behind your eyes

This touch
too much
let go and fade away

let go and fade away

and when they ask you all to stay

let go and fade away

and when they throw you in the fray

let go and fade away

and when they say
don't go
don't stray
stay here and we will pray
For you

to pull through
to find another way

smile wide
feel pride
and go and seize the day

It slides
You try
and struggle to hold tight
It fights, it cries
It screams and then it dies
let go
Goodbye
Now watch it fade away

In a twisted life
In a twisted mind frame
Who's to say of who's to blame for all these twisted mind games.

I have lifted all the layers then got caught beneath
The angels blew their trumpets,
and on my head they placed a wreath.

Now stepping in tune with the sun and the moon
Then the sand falls out from under
And with the tiny grains, my body and my brains,
They all are torn asunder.

Whoever so surrenders dough to a consciousness more in need
Will find themselves farther from hell,
(but it's all just ego that they feed.)
Cause personally, I don't agree to the degree that will match my mind
Because I find the answers lie beside the mind that tries.

So try as I might
And try as I will
To find the right **** in which my mind to fill
I have an aversion to social conversion
And your opinion tastes like a pill.

I am a fool
A tool
A rave roaring menace

A sinner
A devil
And I beg for no penance

Relief is to me
What work is to you
And so in this life
I'll live like a fool

In truth a man tries to be what he can
But deep down he thinks,
"I'd rather be what I am."

Understand this land
Of mountains and quick sand
Where one can rise to the top
Or sink through to the bottom

In autumn I see an array of leaves
Who wish in some sense to be more like me
Changing different colors before they die
Then lying down
Onto the ground
To make all fertilized

I try
I do
To be more like you
Until my heart goes dry
And my energy's used
Left dying and withering to form a pile of ash
Every missed opportunity,
You can't get back.

Like trash we pile
In a hurricane's eye
And our biggest denial
Is that we don't lie
Or that we don't mind
Or have no time
To give to someone else what I know to be mine.

Exhausted
I have done to myself
a beating worth giving to somebody else
Someone I used to know. . .

Inducted
Unceremoniously but proper
Into a world pushed out of a stopper

Oh, how I used to know
the shine of your skin in a moonlit glow
the pause of your chest after taking in breath
Awaiting the exquisite,
Inexorable,
Exhale

Where I too would exude from your abysmally beautiful depths
to fall gracelessly down frosted wrought iron steps
to land in a mangled heap of electrified fear
Wishing frantically
that your faraway ears may hear
the call of my heavy falling tears.

For years
Four years
the end had loomed near
but I pushed it away
Awaiting the day
When I would exhaust all the words I had left to say

It never came
It never does
So what you're left with ought to be enough
but if it's not
then stop right then
Quit right there
You can't hold it in
Breathe out your tainted air

I've walked down that dark street before
Went up that drive-way and knocked on the door
When the house stirred, I let out a sigh
Ran away and forgot to hide

Wrote my name upon a wall
But the name was false, and the wall was small
Called out loud to the starlit sky
But no one heard my desperate cry

Fell inside and broke my heart
Then couldn't find the missing parts
Filled my glass at dawn and dusk
But we were far from giving up

A restless soul on sleepless nights
Took to words by candle light

There is no place in here to hide
So if you are me,
then who am I?

A Saint, a Sinner, a Child, a Lie.
A Cynic, a Critic, a regular guy.
A man with an idea that refuses to die,
but with a memory that fades
along with life.

I took the road less traveled by
Broke my heart then remembered to cry,
Thinking to myself
All the while:

I've

never

felt

so

Alive!