Blood tinged with the taste of iron
As it follows the ridges that
Move the fluid like aqueducts, and
Deposit it into my mouth.
I let it pool and sit like stagnant water
Until I spit and paint the canvas
A mosaic of Crimson Red that represents
All the hours that you spent
Drenched in sweat from all the rounds commenced
Never overwhelmed by what you underwent
This red’s respect, across from me
A nodding head with arms and legs, and
He bleeds like me.
Inside these ropes we are all silent poets
Unspoken codes and a violent
Calm devotion to only speak with
Measured fists and feints.
Inner pain hidden behind punch combinations
Like a writer hides his heart behind a metaphor.
You never see the crowd all circled round
Like a pack of laser focused vultures
Looking for scraps of skin to feed
Some inner need to watch a warrior bleed.
They root for me, as long as I stand tall upon my feet, but
A buckled knee creates a switch of scenes,
Now they scream and plea for him to finish me.
I list as if this ring sits
Atop a ship hit broadside by rogue waves, but
A fighter hides his pain within a flame
Kept deep inside a hanging lantern
That adorns his heart and keeps him standing.
Now he moves with clenched fists
To man the sails and turn the ship, and
Aim it right at his, because if your drowning
You know **** well he is coming with
Body shots placed straight under his ribs
Now he sinks quick, gasping for air
Afloat on hope alone, searching for a beacon
To lead him from the deep end, but
He heads for the cliffs at the end of your fist, and
Your shoreline is his jawline
He washes up stiff, rinsed out and spit
Like the blood on your lips.

What a silence
Gagged by all my swallowed pride
A man with two minds
Sitting at an empty breakfast table
Crumbs caked in dust
Sleep hangs from my eyes
Like four fingers gripping a ledge
Hoping to be pulled in through an open window, but
Content with dangling forever
Those that I love are my strangers
Overcast in August
Sedated on the bank of a lake
Sifting through rocks
Hair hiding her face, from my memory
Silently, I can write down her name
Yet moments most important
Are just the pages where I fill in the blanks
How many tears have I replaced
With forced smiles and sundresses
Swaying with grace
As you run through the wind and into my arms
How far have I waded
Into deep waters of fiction
What lies sunken and drowned
Beneath the calm surface I have created
What will be found
When the depths are dragged
Will this lake give up my dead?

Oval emeralds peer through a man made of glass.
Casement windows carry the crash of turquoise waves,
From the coast of Costa Rica, through the verdant green
Jungle trees that surround us.
Two shoulders slung with Capuchin monkeys.
Crystal waterfalls trace UV rays
Around the blonde, attached to every neuron in my mind.
Precious moments render me blind.
Lost in the liminal space between
Two doors in a hallway.
Before and after; the passing chapters
That flip away like calendar pages.
Ticking seconds of the present, present us
With all we can own.
The nods and winks miles from the beach.
Bereft of worries about what’s left.
Unbound
From the doors we choose to walk out.

Hey, would you like to be friends, or
At least play pretend and
Have discussions that pass lifeless
Like a leaf being pushed by the winds.

You could even keep my shirt at your crib,
So years later you can forget
Whose even it is. Like remembering
Which kid drew this scribble
Hung up on the fridge.

Man, all these frayed connections are
Dimming the lights in this decrepit
Building. One huff and puff
Could turn this structure to rubble dust.

I have no mind to wink or blink
An eye, at one word half *** replies, unless
It reads goodbye. Tired of tap dancing
On the precipice of caring, or
Not caring less.

My lucid sleeping has drawn the gaze
Of these dream demons that scheme against me.
This time of night, even the monsters have slinked away
Back inside their closet.

You have not known fear, rational or otherwise,
Until you lie powerless to the paralysis
That the dream demon wields so elegantly against me.
Like gripped by a vice, my body is held stiff.

My eyes wide open, or so my mind is led to believe
By the amorphous foe playing tricks with my deepest grief.
Contorting memories into the present moment,
A bedroom near identical to my own.

Hospital white walls, and the same clothes strewn about.
A faceless lady lay next to me, curved in shadows. My hand
Reaches out, but hovers just shy, as if set in stone.
Why can’t I move? One more attempt proves of little use.

The faint rustling of hands through silverware drawers echoes
Off a cold kitchen floor, bouncing off hallway walls, and
Slipping through my ajar bedroom door. Little hairs
Render salute, as the sound crawls like ivy up my spine.

Just then, I am stabbed by six figures seven times and burned
Alive, but yet I do not die. Oh how I struggle to move
An inch or two, but this formless force denies. I demand
The demon speak to me, but before the thought can make its move
The loop repeats. I never die, but I always bleed.

I feel everything, and nothing at once.
Sadness: that others seem to always
Stand with their back to me, and
Sorrow: for the indifference
That lies in my heart.
Walk away,
And with each step that widens your gait,
Run.

Reach escapes velocity, and
Pull yourself from my gravity.
Like a white hole I repel
All good natures from my orbit.
A perpetually scarred surface, from
Periodic collisions.
The heavens send their vessels,
Like tears raining from the sky.
Only to be burned up in my atmosphere.

Death never quells
The tin ringing of its wedding bells.
Our own flesh, betrothed
To dirt, and consummated
As a glossy wooden box penetrates
Beneath the surface of the Earth.

How we tailor time to match,
A fitted formula that suits our thoughts.
Trails of missed connections,
Lead like breadcrumbs to
The fraction of a second, when you spoke too soon.
Your moment is lost. Words spoken
Forever emblazoned on the stone slab
Carried around as personality.
What you always meant to say,
Only ever reads as regret. We never count the steps
Between triumph and catastrophe.
Life is a burnt-out church house. A one-man quire
Singing sorrow, match in hand.

What is this malaise,
          that awakens with each yawning day.
Quite the tortured mystery,
          to have a mind that seems intent on being rid of me.
Staring at shapes of shadows,
          creating fables with a brain that’s addled
With a nameless affliction.
Kingdoms have lived and died,
          with only I baring witness to their fall and rise.
Scattered noon sunlight sneaks,
        between dusty blinds and sets aflame the world on my walls.
It is here that I feel,
          screams of terror and the joys of triumph.
The delicacy of a daydream.
A place for me.

My lucid sleeping has drawn the gaze
Of these dream demons that scheme against me.
This time of night, even the monsters have slinked away
Back inside their closet.

You have not known fear, rational or otherwise,
Until you lie powerless to the paralysis
That the dream demon wields so elegantly against me.
Like gripped by a vice, my body is held stiff.

My eyes wide open, or so my mind is led to believe
By the amorphous foe playing tricks with my deepest grief.
Contorting memories into the present moment,
A bedroom near identical to my own.

Hospital white walls, and the same clothes strewn about.
A faceless lady lay next to me, curved in shadows. My hand
Reaches out, but hovers just shy, as if set in stone.
Why cant I move? One more attempt proves of little use.

Just then, I am stabbed by six figures seven times and burned
Alive, but yet I do not die. Oh how I struggle to move
An inch or two, but this formless force denies. I demand
The demon speak to me, but before the thought can make its move
The loop repeats. I never die, but I always bleed.

Faint(adjective)- (of a sight, smell, chance, or sound) barely perceptible,
Like the beating of a broken heart being drowned out by
Screaming behind closed doors. The redness that circles
Around the crying eyes you use concealer to hide behind.
Faint as the sun shimmering over your receding silhouette
As you pass just beyond the horizon line, away from me.
Faint chances of survival, when fifty yellow-gold and black
Rosary beads hang free around the necks of those who surround you.
The tinge of iron you smell as your blood pools in your mouth, but
The will to never faint, as in fall to the ground in front of thirsty crowds.
Faint thoughts of happiness that arrive like butterflies, though
They never land long enough to wrap your arms around.
A faint pulse after chasing a feeling through a needle.
Faint, like the beauty of life being burned away. Ever faint
Are the screams of smoldering redwood trees.
The faint spinning of the globe, balanced on an invisible finger.

Lines on the page are like my personal prison bars;
Where all my arresting thoughts are locked away.
Ink and me, worn and fading
As each calendar day is torn,
Crumpled and forgotten.

Like a black hole, my journal entraps the light;
The turning of a page only paints,
An image of one perpetually falling.
Spiraling endlessly towards a center
I will fall short of reaching.

Set your sights out west, my friend
And know that on your back
Will always rest the dawn. Follow not
These golden roads paved by fools
Where every toll asks payment from
The only treasure one would hate to lose.
Pull the reigns on your hurried pace, and
Sing to silence when it calls your name.

Who will cherish me,
              When withering autumn leaves
              Are stripped of their golden gallantry
By the biting winter winds.

Writer and reader alike,
               Chasing streams of contradictions;
               Like our will to death, fighting for life.
Am I here at all if I am not here to stay?

Points of purpose in shallow moments;
               Ripped by tides and dragged away.
               We mind the depths,
So to never dig up our dead;

A fading
Remember when.

Time: our great captor
               Tattooed on Earth by currents
               Forever outpacing the fruitless lives of men.

Unearthed and submerged,
               In the instant between
               The angel opening their eyes,
And the tired who resign to dream.

My heart orbiting
Around these years old coffee rings
That blemish these fading,
Family pictures.
                          A path of precession,
Towards the vernal equinox of my thoughts.
When the sun’s light Scatters evenly across
Lines in the sand We never dared cross
                                       Or,          
The last solemn ride For better words left unsaid
Death truly does Do us part
                            Death of a feeling
                            Fleeting
                                        Stars
                                                Upon
           ­                                             My
                                                            Ceil­ing

How can you ask a man
Who loves you,
About the man you love?

If I was lesser than
I may play pretend and spin a thread
That pulls you closer to the center of my web.
         But,

My love is a field of a thousand faceless corpses.
Each one a time when I swallowed pride, and
Gave you my mouth
So you could smile wide.
          Little Lady,

Can you not see this calm bravado
Relies solely
On my never-blinking eyes.

For even a wink would have this city sink
Beneath
This grief I trap in ink.
You woke up and only met the sun today
          Because,

In the dead of night
I cupped your pain, and
Drank your inclement weather like bottled rain.

Hallways ever lonely in my mind
The duality
Of whispering voices
Screaming inside

Walls of empty picture frames,
Move like mirrors chasing a lost reflection.
Fading memories melt away like oil paintings in the desert.
Fickle, or free. I remember when,
Remembering was the furthest feeling found flowering inside of me.

Sword-crossed lovers,
And now a dagger in my heart.
Empty castle now stands full,
With all the rubble from its broken parts.

Tonight, she taught me the nature of healing summer rains
Whimsical descriptions of dancing in puddles, but
Metaphors only serve to drown her pain
Dry on the surface, swearing inside the drought sustains
But dew droplets in her eyes betray her restraint
The morning after, the storm remains

Little flower, bent at the stem
Oversaturated by the self-absorbed
Her waterlogged roots weighing her down, but
In fields of bloom they still look to you
See, the weak reach for the easily used green and blue tulip hues
But her yellow petals require strength to be pulled from the meadow

Who will cherish me
When withering autumn leaves
Are stripped of their golden gallantry
By the biting winter winds

Writer and reader alike
Chasing currents of contradictions
Like our will to death, fighting for life
Am I here at all if I am not here to stay

Points of purpose, in shallow moments
Ripped by tides and dragged away
We mind the depths, so to never dig up our dead
A fading remember when

Time and tide, forever outpacing the lives of men
Unearthed and submerged
In the instant between
The angel opening his eyes, and the tired who resign to dream

A Thought:
                 Maybe there is no grand crescendo to the human symphony
Maybe life ends, and begins, on a prolonged refrain
A steady, repeating, fading rhythm
The only flourish of a lonely universe
Trying desperately, in its way, to find a dance partner for the darkness
Eternity; our veiled mistress waiting past the mist
For the light to outrun an endlessly unfurling landscape of black
The space between
The mimicry of a photograph, and the true shape of the memory
That a frame can never quite squeeze
Those lost edges lie in wait
Just beyond a waking moment, and the closing scene of our final dream
A place not lost, but yet to be found
That is all,
For now.

I walk aimless, but alert, down moon washed streets
In the twilight, I strain to tell patron from vagrant
A coalescing of something at once ageless, but fading
Like the stone of this courthouse; pillars of justice
Cracked quietly by the steady chiseling of time
On forgotten foundations

In the air rests a stench of contempt, or neglect
Like an oil stain, thickening turquoise waves
To a sickening ooze, of endless, crashing degradation
A nation of people, betrothed to suitors unknown
The power of a dollar hedged against the weight of your soul
Where pockets are plump, and virtue is sold

Magenta and Reds, Cerulean and Blues
Piano paint splashes the mind of the fool
And makes him create, mostly mistakes
When trying to illustrate his own point of view

Hopeless and Danceless, Broken Old Romantic
Wooden chair rocks him like a cradle for his ashes
And time doesn’t wait, for him only it fades
Stuck on the wake of waves perpetually crashing

Black Holes and Stars, Landmarks for Gods
He just sits and he orbits like a moon for his heart
Passing the days, a face for a frame
Symphony of flowers contrasting his rain

Harboring heretics horizontally, hidden behind hinged windows
Like a wry grin swearing a sinister scowl doesn’t wait within
Lovebirds and lust bugs, twisted and mixed like distorted pixels
Cruise missiles carefully catalogue the sights
Before anchoring you in the port of your designated afterlife
Fickle fragments of frayed remembrance
Languished and lost to the ages
Like pages of parchment that anoint your claims baseless
Cynicism seems to have become contagious
Live from the basement,
                                 Full of sunken ships and rusty cages.

The red sun rises, over this hopeful land of second chances.
Deposited from the darkness, out onto the desert sands,
I soak in the silence like a thirsty dish rag.

My calculations had been compromised
By a malfunction deep inside my sickened mind.
The wicked ways of the self-depraved,
Mutated my world to Papier-mâché.
A mirage of vanity and technicolor blooms.

Folded and twisted, while my motionless eyes were mused by the mist.

Oh,
How much I have missed, of life and of love.
Even these sands blossom with their own granular beauty.
And I am here to bear witness, to myself,
And to the many footsteps that wait before me.

Alone on the threshold of liminal space;
I come across all my broken parts.
Floating and thought misplaced;
They gravitate as I pass, and circle back to me.
All these years lost in a sorrowed haze;
I had forgotten the creases that create my happy face.
The careful weathered etchings,
Of the years where pleasure always bested pain.
My eyes see clearer now, but how much of me remains?
If enough to scrawl, these reflective letters
Then enough to walk, out through the hallowed halls
That entomb all the past attempts to rid the dangling darkness
From above my waking world.
Enough to run; towards somewhere, and not away from

Oh Baby,
These still pictures seem to be running free
Tell me why your eyes have begun to move through mine
Just you, in a field of flowing flowers
The red and blue tulip hues
Wish and wave before your legs
And there you are, in full bloom

I am not so mad, that I believe I can touch the past
But I can feel, still today, the warming rose color upon my face
See, nothing ever truly gets washed away
We linger still
In a longing look just beyond our windowsills
My tortured rain has gone away
For these rolling fields and riverbanks, you have my thanks.

Down I go
Dying slow; no carpet rides
Beneath the blue below
Precious diamonds; pressure only grinds my bones
         That which dwells in these depths,
         Must be overthrown
         Like the stone, dragging me deeper
         Into this black cold
All my sunken attempts
Dress the sand in swords
For all the fallen warriors slain
By the dueling voices inside my brain
        Chained to pillars in this endless ocean
        Composure erodes like weathered boulders
        Yet, I stand staunch against the breaking waves
        For what is outside myself, I have no mind to claim

My only hope today, is that rain can wash
The rusted colored stains of blood away
Dirt; like Earth, caked upon my face
Hides the smile
          Buried down beneath
I sit stranded in the sand
My hell a carousel shore; forever trapped along a beach
The waves here, don’t swell and crash the same
They linger static like a message never read
                 Tell me then; wherein lies the difference
Between a broken heart and being dead
Every touch is cold, the only warmth I’ll ever know
Has been swept away, down the cloudy gray gutter drains
Like little villages lost to hurricanes
          No trace or tracks to lead me back
To the boy I was before
This lonely island lacks a dock
No passing ferries and only planks to walk
A salted sea of crooning souls beneath, call for me to join the deep
This symphony of sirens
Draws me ever close to silence

I slip shrouded through a summer’s mist
Away from sterile streetlights
That cast a distorting haze, hiding
Endless solar waves, that rest above
This earthly place where I pass my days

With stars tied tight to an infant night
I run and cup one lightning bug for my lantern light
Like being guided by my adolescence, to an open shore
Where the sky meets the vastness of my sleepless mind
This place is free of weight that holds me down;
No thunderclouds hover above me now

Constellations; like scars upon the sky, share stories
Through the passing tides of time. Cassiopeia undone by her pride,
Reminds me when to swallow mine. So often, I feel chained like the maiden;
Andromeda, imprisoned by a pious Poseidon.
On this lonely beach,
I trace my own tale, like a signature on the night. Not a hero but,
I was here. The simple story of a wandering man,
Always willing to lend an ear.

In my folly, of following fathers that have come before me;
I find myself lost, strewn about, and blown off course.
Teachers taught me time, in only the most linear of directions.
Yet the sins of those long past, seem to rest a weight,
Heavy upon my back.
Each of us an Atlas, on our knees before our masters.

It seems quite the contradiction, to have freedom inside a system.
Where rules are loose, in their applied use.
A game of pick and choose;
Played with loaded dice, that always seem to favor the few.
We the beast of burden, weakest first, penthouses the new-age church
Where the powers preach the verse.

Lost in our lack of direction, like southern-bound birds,
Plucked of their feathers.
Grounded in work boots, dumbfounded and resolute,
In poisoning our connective roots.
Fields of flowers and acres of pine, burning with the flame,
Stolen from us, somewhere along the line
A sinking ship, with only ***** rags to plug the holes.
Streets once paved with gold,
Forever cracked like our collective souls.

Even when the days, are the darkest shade of ash and gray
I’ll find my way
                          Even when black holes, swallow up my summer sun
                          I’ll never run
Even when winding roads, leave me lost and all alone
I’ll always find my way back home
                          Even when my veins, are coursing with numbing pain
                          I’ll never forget my name
Even when love, is emptied dry from my cup
I’ll raise it to the rain, and watch the world fill it up again

Her face; like the moon, a golden summer hue
But I prefer her dressed in blues
Like ocean waves; or Stevie Ray
𝐵𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝐼’𝓂 𝑜𝓃 𝓂𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓎

Her body; like a plume, of feathered emeralds
Elegant, and gentle
Like cursive script; or a wind-swept kiss
𝐵𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝒾𝓉’𝓈 𝑜𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝐼 𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈

Her soul; like a treasure trove, of good intentions
And one too many exceptions
Like one more last dance; or shotgun romance
𝐵𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝓃’𝓉 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓇𝓋𝑒 𝒶 𝓈𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒹 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒

I’m slipping slowly down the drain. The night is dark
And the face in my reflection, doesn’t look at me the same.
Cold disdain; no recollection of the last time I heard my name,
Spoken with grace. My faith is misplaced.
Not even a narrow escape through these castle gates would find me saved.
Only open plains await; with pain pouring down like acid rain.
These fields,
Will never flower. Just rest my head on a feathered bed,
As the world drowns around and drags me down beneath its depths.
Sand and shells in this silent hell. Darkness rings her dinner bell,
As sunken souls grab their hold, stripping my youth.
Used, abused, weathered, and confused; they never taught me the rules
Of how to save you
From you.

I want to build a rocket ship, but this full moon blanket,
keeps me tangled up in bed.
Maybe a sun shower ,will birth a rainbow,
and I could build a bridge with that instead.
A walk with the weather, may be what I need,
to clear the clouds above my head.

The soggy sounds of rain, strum the chords,
that sing a song inside my brain.
A violin or guitar riff, to untwist the tornadoes,
my heart’s stuck with.
Who needs the stars, when I’ve got the sun,
to shine for me when bad times come.

My sandy feet always have the waves, to wash away,
the darker shades of cloudy gray.
These lonely lips even have a kiss, and the warm caress,
from her outstretched fingertips.
I want to build a rocket ship, but today,
I’ll just exist.

Summer ice box, bolted to the block like a hustler’s ambition.
King of the corner. Hand to hand to every family man or,
A fiends fever dream. Metal mattress for the meek.
Chill spot on the streets,
For a late-night congregation of labeled freaks;
To people passing by at least.
Neighborhood staple. A practicing painters graffiti canvas.
Crowned with empty coffee cups turned bank accounts for the beggar.
Bent from stray bullets, but never broken.
Stalwart, abandoned bodegas
But the ice box remains.
The signature of a city that speeds away, but
Will never change.

Northern moon and quiet cold days
Are broken by the thunder's call
She walks barefoot on the banks
Dressed in her moonlight shawl

Whispered voices and starlit talks
Are safety from this weary world
Kiss your breath and adorn my heart
Amongst the clouds I don’t feel so small

My saving grace and calming rain
A hanging lantern inside my dark
Her cradled arms chase away this pain
And forces silence from the banging voice that haunts my thoughts

Where hides my creator? All these open doors only lead me to nowhere.
Outlines of memories, like furniture that once sat at the center of this empty, dusty room.
Sun-soaked curtains project shadows, of all I once knew.
With each gust of wind, the projection rewinds back
to places I had forgotten I had ever been.
A twinkle through the glass presents her ring, but before an answer,
I become the shadow of a kid again.
Sitting alone with my only friend, a pen, playing pretend.
Lucid dreams of my past being viewed from the future.
I place a quiet hand on the shoulder of this passing shadow.
A silent gesture,
for all the wrong turns and cloudy climates awaiting ahead.
My frigid touch only feels a crumbling wall, and the one building up
inside the child of this past life. Never blind to hindsight,
I trace the wounds life has left me.
Self-inflicted regrets trapped inside this dingy room.
I burn it down and leave no semblance of remembrance.
Memory lane is just a pastel retell of an empty shell.
Be yourself.

Everybody passes the buck. We pass it to politicians
They pass it to private owners
Who pass it right on down back to us.
We’re too lazy, nobody wants to work.
Flippin’ burgers at McDonald’s isn’t worth
More than a couple bucks. Give us your life
Give us your labor
We’ll give you death; once we finish
Using you up.
Condemned in the womb of your windowless room.
Attached at the brain, phone chargers like chains
Keeping you lame.
Double click for your fame, lay to sleep all the sane
As they point fingers of blame away from their face.

Feeling used up.
It all started as a way,
To suture oozing wounds and band-aid this pain.

Caught in the middle,
Of abuse and feeling myself again.
I create and I shake, like an earthquake of two dueling fates.

An artist and dearly departed.
Both tugging and pulling,
For a monopoly of my mind.

I quit and I writhe. I take and I shine,
Like a princess diamond set high upon the sky.
Sunshine from the outside; always setting in his eyes

Swimming through my blood again
The same soulless feeling
A boy found at ten

Empty silhouettes haunt my bed
Strands of blonde
Like a noose tied around my neck

Choking me slow
But what is pain to a portrait
Caught in the fire of a burning home

Look at the city from above
See how the towers of power
Cast shadow to the rabble
Cowering below

All these fields, stained dry, rusted brown
Gathered crowds are a ghost town
Disillusioned mental state of mass confusion
Factory made man

This free prison is a stretch of highway
With roads determined and paved
Two directions
Places you will never go, and the place you were always headed

Blue ocean, sleepless tides
Under the surface
An endless well
Ringing out wedding bells

Holy matrimony, red rose ribbon
Beware the trap
Low-class living
Madman skips the system

Broken road, remote
Is not alone
Endless river, always some place to go
When I is all I own

A rusty cage conceals me
Deep beneath the waves, of another passing day
The blood inside my veins
Is laced with warmth, that erodes away the pain
The needle scratches vinyl
As the pills provide the music, singing sorrow in my brain

Lost on the lamb
Searching for the touch, from my own callused hands
A wind-up ballerina in her box
Doesn’t spin and twirl like she wants
Damaged dancer
Standing still, inside my antique heart

Youthful exuberance never grows old; I suppose, until the creeping ivy cradles your gravestone.

This life; to me, is a passing train that always makes its way back around. Just not for you.

Every stop lets off the lost and picks up a child; weary, on their first day of school.

The hero in my mind rides, toward the destiny where he dies.

The wink inside his smile; resigned, for one more longing look up at the deep blue ocean canvas, where he penned the story of his life.

In his fading grin, he whispers one last nothing to wind. A cool breeze carrying his freedom. The silence, his last season.

Hope here is dead. Man in a box, Cobain in my head.
Court me some love and spin on my throne,
Of brittle remorse.

Sick in the womb, the silver spoon pollutes.
Tiny tadpole in the pool, grows to patrol the Black Lagoon.
Devouring the newt it once knew.

Fearful men, conceal their worries, in tall tales of courage.
Ironclad, Iconoclast. Kings and heroes alike,
Plant their flags in fields of ash.

Baby, it's me who taught you how to love
Out by the docks. On the Puget, where we found Sound
For all our secret thoughts.
               Deep into the night, slurring silence, sipping wine
               We let our feelings talk. A disheveled bed
               Was heaven then
The door was hell, comin' round the bend. Baby,
It was me who taught you how to love,
And it was you who taught me how to stop.

Supersonic thoughts seem to speed up the passing of my life.
Just yesterday; it seems,
love and luck laid bare next to me,
like loaded dice on a Vegas summer night.

Now I cradle the ghost of unforeseen catastrophe.
Blood from bullet wounds
prove false my bravado.

Beneath the blackened circles of my weary eyes,
sleep calls to me
like a string quartet of warped wooden violins.

My wordbook’s scribblings are just a pale excuse for my silent sins. Like neglect and
blatant disrespect for the stacking of the deck against me.

There it is again. Quiet qualifiers to mask my true intent.
Heaven sent its hounds,
to drag me down; hell bound, for ignoring the silent sounds

Of tears that grace the ground before me.
An honest mistake for rain. Pain,
is like ****** for the insane, shooting through my veins.

Feeding the flowers you think you see, blooming
in the graveyards of my brain.

The litmus test for loneliness, is the approaching dark
and the clawing hand
that pulls you closer to your resignation to become engulfed in it.
An empty café
bustling only with,

The screaming thoughts that stack up in your mind like poker chips. The same expression frozen stiff makes you fake a smile
when least appropriate.
A jester at the funeral,

Human touch just strikes you as unusual because an open hand is like
subtle subterfuge, syphoning your soul for personal use.
Emotional exposure erodes a stone demeanor.
Loneliness is like an open road with no street signs pointing home.

Only here till’ morning, so the night’s an open road and,
the beaten path only leads to mourning. An off-road traveler,
who escapes the chase of a pursuant sun.

Slow walking through river reeds.
A cupped handful of running water reinforces his state of being;
all but free.

Marathon of miles between, the first date on his gravestone and
the last number his mother reads at the bottom of his eulogy.
The hyphen shorthand for life and,

Missing the meaning through the seams, that connect his first day
to the day he leaves. An often-bereaved purveyor of shattered dreams,

Who stops to smile at every waving tree because,
even in despair he found belief beneath
the bared teeth of the machine trying to syphon from his peace.

A flower born from concrete.
Escaping through the cracked city streets;
out past the horizon line.

I got Jack Kevorkian in the trunk of,
My 911 Porsche Sport
With a leaky transmission and
Lighter fluid in the oil pan to,
Set myself ablaze
          because
I'm the hottest killer in the game
Just a poet
Who pulls his threads of passion
From the sickness in his pain
The ink is blood that
          leaks out from my veins and,
Scribbles musings so desperate on the page
My mouth is like a leaky faucet
           but
My hearts a busted watermain
           Flooding and empty room
Drowning out the poor excuse of
           The boy I was
In my wasted youth
A denizen of ***** diner booths
            With napkin rhymes that in my mind
Create the grand design of wasted time
That draws pencil lines
            Sketching out
This life of mine