A soldier cowered in a muddy hole,
The crack of weapon-fire tore the dark sky above,
and he felt hopeless because of the fight raging around him.
He cried to himself, feeling all was lost.
The barrel of his rifle, he put into his mouth,
ready to end the terror of this life.

Then an angel appeared and slapped the gun away,
"What are you doing my child?
Don't you know this battle is not lost?
And after, there are still more battles to fight.
The war will not go away because you do.
Do not let fear consume you,
for there are many depending on you,
and you must fight not only for them,
but for yourself as well."

The soldier turned to face the angel,
through his tear drenched eyes,
but the angel was gone.
Yet the battle was not,
so he picked up his rifle,  brushed off the mud,
and stood on shaky legs.
The fear was still inside, and it was all around,
but undeterred he clambered from his hole,
and rose to fight again.

Because the fear was strong,
but he was stronger still.

Born of blood
and raised on violence,
the life of a rider
it was all that he knew.

He was an outlaw of course.
The rabid son
of Harley Davidson,
living life faster than the law allowed.

Death had begot him
and he begets ****** in turn.
A temper hot as the sun,
a mind cool as the breeze.

Forearms like timbers.
Crisscrossed with train tracks
in and out of tunnels
drilled through tattooed flesh.

Cigarette smoke mingles
with the fumes of exhaust.
He drinks this aroma,
exhaling gun-smoke.

The law comes for him,
but he shakes them from his jacket like dust.
He is a wisp of vapor
escaping their clutch.


His days are unfocused.
And endless and brutal cycle.
Shots of tequila blur the faces
of the women of the night.

When he looks at his life,
the beginning is unclear.
When he looks at the future,
it is as certain as the tide.

Born of blood
and raised on violence.
To ride into the sunset,
was not in his stars.

His life was to be
no more than a pothole,
A nameless bump in the road.
Barely felt, then forgotten in time.

These stones were once a castle
Now a jumbled mass of rock,
All that is left to remind the world,
Of what it was that once stood here,
As the sun crests the horizon,
Its rays are broken by this waste,
Creating a shady spot amongst the debris,
In which a man sleeps.
This man was once a builder,
With his hands a fortress wrought,
Every day he added on and raised it towards the sky.
Until one day a sickness came,
And struck him down from where he stood on his ramparts.
It laid him low and made him weak.
But weaker still did he become, when he saw the first cracks form,
On the face of that which he had crafted with such tender care.
The mighty castle crumbled, over many days and nights
The wind and rain and fire and pain, brought it down brick by brick
And the man sat at the bottom of the courtyard, and watched it fall around him
And said, “Why should I build when it must fall in the end?”
This ******* was once a man, who was blinded by his fears,
unable to raise a hand to protect what he once loved.
His back he kept turned against the light of the sun.
But then one day he fell asleep, and in his sleep he dreamed,
And in his dream he saw himself, but he was not broken,
In fact he saw a king.
When he awoke, the suns first light, it graced the lashes of his eyes,
And though he pained and feared the future, inside he finally smiled,
He picked himself up, and brushed off the dust that he had been wallowing in,
And he picked up a stone, and placed it atop another.
This castle was once a stone,
a jumbled mass of rock,
but what was once a pile of rubble
now stands impregnable in the glow of the setting sun.
This king was once a *******.

When you walked away
you left with not just a part of me,
You took my soul in its entirety.
Without your eyes to gaze through
my universe is shaded gray.
The motion of my being continues
but it is a shallow imitation of the life I once had,
during those precious few moments
when I found myself, lost in you.

Humanity tries to sculpt the mind of every man
like an artisan chipping away at a marble block,
to mold and shape the thoughts of each
as if your mind was a formless lump of clay.
But the being of each human
is constituted by the uniqueness of their thoughts.
Knowledge is not a construct of man,
it is there for all to ascertain.
To turn away from truth is denial of yourself
And the humanity you embody.
But to impose your rational
On the life of another is blasphemous,
and a concealment of the truth.
We have been given the ability of reason,
the power of rational thought.
Do not let this power be stripped away
by the bearers of lies
And the carriers of deceit.
The weak minded practice their craft,
which is to convince the righteous
that their thoughts are of little worth,
being based upon a foundation riddled with defects.
The mind of the righteous
is rife with self-doubt,
questions of their own validity,
and a lack of faith in their value.
This is the result of the mind control
practiced by those who would have you agree.
Those that would place themselves above you
even at the expense of every mortal soul.
Do not be afraid to look at your convictions,
and if they have merit then treat them as such.
When the vultures swoop down to convince you of death,
shake your fist and send them on their way.
No other creature has the right the shape your mind
or ridicule your thoughts or the worth of your being,
for each and every person is marooned on this rock together,
straining and striving to find the righteous path.
All that exists, are the tools of the sculptor,
not tools that were wrought by people like we,
but implements that lay buried, and are revealed by diligent reflection,
which are used to craft the shape of your wisdom.
It is up to each of us, to reach through the dust that obscures
And seize hold of the ability to find truth for ourselves.
The truth in ourselves, the truth apart from us,
the truth that is reached, through rejection of falsehood,
And the willingness to challenge oneself,
In order to be refined and become truly whole.

Wrap your arms about me,
as we ride across this desolate land.
Pull me close and never let me go.
Place your gentle hands in the chinks of my armor,
to stifle the torrent of pain,
flowing from the wounds I bear inside.
Feel the quake of life against your palms
as your precious heart trembles against my back.
Restlessly I roamed in search of you,
thinking to rescue you from perils I imagined all around.
I sought to prove myself by being your salvation.
As if I would slay the ferocious dragon that was holding you captive,
and sweep you off of your feet, to gallop into the falling sun.
What I found instead, as I rode beneath the barren sky,
with naught but the bloodless moon for company,
was the dragon coiled within my cage of ribs,
burning a hole through my chest,
melting my core,
consuming me with a flaming tongue that I was too numb to feel.
Although the adversity I carried, was the only real foe,
frailty would not allow me,
to  fell this loathsome beat within.
Swaddled in my illusions,
just a wretched fool, not worthy even of pity,
jousting at windmills in my dreams.
Somewhere along my demented journey,
you glimpsed this madman,
fighting through his world of fantasy,
swinging his sword at the demons of his own creation.
To laugh at such a jester, would have been your due,
but instead of derision you bestowed compassion,
and mercy in the place of mirth.
Reaching through the shroud of lunacy,
segregating me from truth,
you plucked the devil from my breast,
and replaced it with the soul I did not know I lacked.
Now I understand that it was not you in need of succor,
for I was the one who was lost.
Unable to perceive you through the fog of my mind.
But you were always out there, waiting patiently,
for me to let you find me,
and deliver me from myself.

It is hard not to be overwhelmed by this foul world,
In the end, we must succumb to the fate in store for us.
So build your mansions, your glittering palaces, your endless highways.
Set skyscrapers in the air so you can blemish the bountiful clouds.
Consume the forest, torch the plains
Burn oil, burn witches, burn yourself with your desires
Run through your life carefree, or take the burden of responsibility.
Fly, run, dance, swim;
Eat drink and laugh.
A short piece of time is all that we are gifted on this earth,
before the strength that makes us  dwindles,
and fades from our body, and we are left,
cold and alone, to perform the final act
as the stage light dims, and the curtain begins to fall.