The sunset awakens the lonely dreamer,
Who gives no deference to the day.
Early mornings meet late nights on a one-way street and,
A late June crescent moon
Becomes a suitable seat,
To watch the world spin below my feet.  
I cast a kiss from way on high and,
Watch the wind carry my intentions
To the window of her bedroom.
It doesn’t stop and stare, it changes its shape.
The bluest of birds; perched, sings for her to wake
From the silence of her sleep, where somewhere down deep
I imagine that,
She was thinking of me. The lake through the trees
Where we waded waist deep, skipping our stones, together alone.
River of souls, to wither we go.

I hope the supple touch
          Of all the women I have ever loved
Cascades like rain
          Over every inch of this Earth’s terrain
Let the sunrise kiss from her crescent lips
          Chase away the nights gangly grip
Turning barren fields
          To blooming bastions
Of roots and seeds, nurtured into
          The smile underneath a weeping willow tree
Raise the bones of change
          From their dusty graves of grief
Discard your flesh and,
          Bare to me only what lies beneath

The wick is fading, and I have no matches left
In this dark abyss where I sit depressed
My valiant heart has become a perch for crows
Smile shaped in stone
Each embrace stiff and cold from my marbled soul
My arms depict a grasping hand
Reaching for a world these etched eyes will never know
Trapped in the heart of a withered artist
His mad dealings mold and make me
A victim of his musings
Crafted in a candlelit madness
Delicate delusions and vague allusions
To courage in the many veiled faces of death
Carved and set at the base of the steps
Statuesque

Dancing with my ghosts, on a midnight summer’s eve
A cacophony of determined footsteps
Mirrors the melody played
On the last night I spoke my piece

A candlelight vigil for time wasted
Buried is the boy, who once lived inside my waking dreams
Now bereaved, the man forgets all the boy has seen
Trapped inside of photo albums, in an attempt to resuscitate fading memories

Forever falling
Through the open hearts of outstretched arms
Tunnel vision of the past
Paves the roads ahead
The off-ramps of destiny are untamed, forgotten, and overgrown
No safety awaits me, and
There is no shelter under the roof of a broken home
Storms chase me, but
In thunderclouds I drown out the world
Wanderer
Weary of only the weather
Inside his own reflection

In this wasteland of avarice, I struggle to pull silver threads
From this gray cover of smog. The sound of brittle bones aching,
Drowned out by the quaking footsteps of titans.
Men, who would be gods, push for you to play your hand.
Knowing from their fingers, have you been dealt the cards.
A deck of diamonds, devoid of Kings with hearts.
Honor has been dead, since Pride married Malice and,
Greed shacked up with strife. 21st century freedom.
A modest monetary price,
For ownership stake of your life.

Walking on a windy, late night crooked street. I call to my city,
To play that soft bassline beat. The one that captures,
The red shade from cheeks. Tonight, I step with ease.
Fresh oiled springs,
Bring a bounce, back into my knees.
Full moons are a flourish for the freaks.
Yet in this dark veil, only loneliness presents a hand,
To dance with me.

I bow at the honor. Emptiness is just the face I need, to imagine,
A smile that never takes its leave. In this heartbeat of a dream,
Moments mirage, and recreate my most cherished scene, from
Our midnight movie marriage, when the space between,
Was only the frills of your dress and,
The stitching on my jeans.

No man is free that speaks from a cage.
Choke chains spiked to the dirt,
Sweat feeds the fields like rain.
With calloused hands,
The nameless toil away. Fed a morsel,
From a fistful of grain.
Praying for clouds to shelter the sun;
If only for a day.
A famine of hope. Straw cities of the voiceless,
Screaming silence.

I sit on the seat of a silent hill, watching hope stripped bare
Like tender flesh ripped from the bone. Where do I go from here?
The words in this world, are poisoned with pain.
Even the ink on this wrinkled page decays, like
Receding waterways that turn rivers
Into mass graves. Every frontier turns to a last bastion.
No decadence can dress the dead. Sunken souls
Weighed down by boots of lead. Work and worship.
Open plains become a purgatory for the horseless.

What is it that makes me miss
The lighter fluid on your lips. Toothaches from a temptress,
And her candy kiss. Arm’s elastics wrap me up. So foreign,
Is this human touch. Like a siren she swims and sings,
To lure me close enough to clutch. An ephemeral embrace,
That chews me out and spits me up.
Love eats hearts for lunch.

Laying in bed today, listening to tunes
          As I so often do
A feeling encroached, one I could not shake
          Or attempt to lose
The sound of sadness, through the microphone
          Blew the dust from my aging bones
Sunlight diffused, into the tomb
          Of my desolate room
Shadows scattered, from their thrones
          To reveal four walls of stone
Flowers dressed, this cold gray place
          Where I woke from rest
Bare and unburdened, my blemished fleshed took its first steps
          Bent but not broken, rebirthed, awoken

Down by the river I lie alone. Folks wade on the banks,
Sifting for gold. Washing the aches from their brittle bones.
This land of the forgotten, has never felt so close to home.
Detached from the blood-oiled machine,
Not much to part with, but
Every footstep carries with it
An imprint of meaning. The current here
Flows away from greed. Deposits into a reservoir,
Of pure intentions and peace. Tucked away from the cracked city streets
That mirror the crying streaks of those bewitched by the banal belief
Of progress by any means. Power here,
Is a drink for the weak. The outstretched arms of willow trees,
Cradle this quaint town. The last bastion of human passion. Bereft of malevolence.
Indeed, the realms of Hell seem to have a slice of heaven left.

Time spent on the faceless. Smooth skin turned abrasive
By the scaled scars, my broken heart has created.
Serrated blades of blame pierce our veins and,
Trickle down pain through broken water mains.

A gluttons dinner bell hangs above the poor’s poisoned well.
Dead men don’t feast. Lead a horse to water and,
Wait for it to drink. Watch the self-defeat. Hand-made desolation by men with no faces.
Puppet string desperation keeps us in our places.

How do we spend the days of our lives? What slice of the pie do we leave,
for our parents eyes? Add the time spent driving,
going to and from. Divide that up and, you get
about three hours every six months with the ones you love.
Imagine that.
                Life’s a laugh track
Like a re-run sitcom that will never get its air back.
That’s why I spin in circles at the square dance.
If the water is wet,
Then I am diving headfirst and swimming laps.
Rivers turn to roads and,
there ain’t no coming back. I slip out a straw and,
Sip the sun.
Inhale and expand my lungs until I float above,
The streets. Here lies the stoop kid,
Who became a balloon on the breeze.

What can I say? Another one dead and gone away.
Lost to ignorance, or
Possibly blind to addictions hooked grip.
One day your dangling a toe
Just over the edge. The next,
Your staring up wondering
How you lost your footing. I could say he’s a ******, but
Lord knows the elixirs I have invented
To dispel the dark heart of my depression.

Though I stand stoic, life has taught me
To never shame a smile. The sun rises for the living, and
Dead men fall short of tomorrow.
The amorphous soul slips through the seams
Of hands grasping to hold. So, when death discards its cloak and
Swirls its specters all around me
I’ll raise up life like a guiding lantern
And
Step through existence with my convictions.

Are we just sitting around counting down the clock to doomsday?
Casual watchers of the apocalypse
Like another piece of news to gossip with
“On the tube today, all the free worlds have up and gone the way
   Of every other empire too resigned to say….”
Maybe today,
Is the day we change

Beggar, sir, please, come and play
Your empty tin can tunes
                    Politician, sir, please, preach me your wants
                    And masquerade them as my needs
Hurt me, so you can wipe my dying tears away
Enslave me, so you can break the chains and whisper I’m free
Be all you have ever been. Seemingly, all that you can be.

What is our society if not a copycat catastrophe
          A cold-hearted calamity of blind hindsight
Severed chains reforged in the flames of minimum wage
          How we herald the heretic

Free is the slave who detaches their arms and legs
          To gift kings their reign
Jeweled towers of bone reach to the sky
          And devour the progress of our connective open roads

What is prosperity absent a shared purpose
          Like a brain held apart from its own heart
Human history imprisoned on a page
          Ink-stained chronicle of our original sin

Thinking we can get where were going
          By forgetting all we have been
Each obstacle a handcrafted impediment
          Dinosaur dynasty doomed to irrelevance

A one-eyed sun peaks at me
Through the silver lining of thunder clouds
The coming storm is predicted
By the tightening of my weathered bones
My odyssey for eternity has led me to the precipice of our world
Where gluttons feast on famine, and
The rabble have hourglasses for eyes

Each grain of sand slips through their idle hands
And falls lifeless at my feet
Poor souls charged interest for borrowed time
My research only serves to carry me on a current
Closer to an unwanted conclusion
That death is the escape hatch from life’s grand illusion
How many submit to suffering to hold on to something
They are destined to lose
No, this will not do.

It is a quarter past June, and
          already it seems like a record setting summer.
Sprinklers and the scent of chlorine filled pools,
          as I walk in my street-worn shoes to my sanctuary.

The lifeless blacktop park where
          my will and the heat-embracing pavement meet.
A well-manicured backyard tree hangs its verdant leaves
          just over its owner’s fence.
Like a lifeline for life reaching out to me.

I stick and I move,
          as the sweat cleans the dirt and despair from my face.
Like a sunshine superman, I drink UV rays into my bones.
          Alone I feel whole.
The disinfecting flames of summer
          have begun to melt the cold rot encasing my soul.

If there is one thing I have learned on my travels,
it is that
the currency of eternity is the fingerprints you leave on the fabric.

The slow imprint of a million miles walked. Set free your timid heart and
leave behind an outline of an essence.

An amorphous mold that denies the shape of the world around it.
Be a surprise.
Let them label you a miracle or a sickness.

In time they will come to realize
the edge of the world is a place to dance.
Reach forward, and gift sound to silence.

I remember cooking for two. Last Sunday afternoon,
the stove light hit the fritz. Same bulb I ******* in the night before you called it quits.
By Tuesday, the burner I simmered onions on
had begun to rust away.
Wet metal tears,
as I sacrificed the dish we loved to the microwave.
Round and round it went. Watching, as the plastic peeled and bent;
remember treating you with the same contempt.
Left with soggy slop and goo; starved for love,
I eat my heart out with a spoon.

The ******* is bashful only when he lacks control
Vulture poaching ***** as his victim
Hands like constrictors, slither up your clothes
Hidden smile, scaled, behind a venom veil
He talks in toxins, and when the will has rotted;
Ties in knots; consuming whole a struggled “no”

A brokenhearted boy dangles his legs over the edge of his pain-soaked bed
Pulse slowing as angered rain thunders down below him
Acid sadness erodes his calm devotion

An absent hearted boy pens his name as Hopeless
Swallows’ days in minor doses
His river ******, and doomed to meet no ocean

A weary hearted boy seeks to make amends
Trades his soul to suffer silence from a friend
The sun for him, hides itself just around the bend

A truehearted boy never minds the hole inside his chest
He writes his story in the flesh
Chords of open wounds he plays his music through

Each day is a face with two sides
      Do or die
Failure is an ointment
      Swarmed by flies
Lies birthed from larva
      Contempt bred from pride
The caterpillar cocooned is consumed
      Blind to the future
Either monarch or moth
      Led astray by the flame

Moist morning dew, I river bathe aloof
Rushing water filters out my youth
Wilted skin sheds, falls to fish as food
Old parts always have their use
Cleansing waters and reflective banks
Currents carry away yesterday
Older now, baptized anew

The world is words so seldom heard
Cries for help ignored, misspelled
Silent screams from those in need
Dying pleas can not be gleaned from mute TVs
Opulence by any means
Poverty penned as the new disease
Truth, the circus freak
Meager, meek, sad is weak
Rinse, Repeat
All that history speaks
Unheard echo
Beneath the flesh and bone
An unread poem

I have never had much luck with love. Explanations only skim the surface of the sea. Always caught up on the hooks at the end of your line.

You tug on the spool and play with your food. Just reel me in. A wish on a dandelion, I get blown to the wind.

Piglet and Pooh, sweet is the honey we are destined to lose. I send kisses through the door you scream at me through.

Flourish and wither like the wrinkled crease down the heart of our family picture. Dice with the devil, cee-lo with evil. Paranoia through the peephole. High on her ego.

I can not help when I wake up with you on my mind
As if my eyes, had wandered off into the past

I know it’s over, but the more I see
The less I can claim to know

Inside my heart there are footprints
Artifacts of my wandering gypsy soul (sole)

My thoughts conjure up an image of your lips, but
I taste only that in which I miss

Only loneliness lingers on a phantom kiss
Calloused hands made of stone

Carved to reach out, but
No innate strength to hold them closed

I don’t know who I would be, without the darker side of my personality.

The painted desert of night allows me to explore the eternal moonlit forest of my life.

The beating compass of my heart, points in no particular direction.

I pace my steps on its rhythm, though the deeper I venture, the less I can rely on its repetition.

Neatly trimmed hedges devolve into bogs, witches to the west, sirens sing to me through the midnight fog.

The road less traveled stained with blood, a path beaten with hurried footsteps and battered love.

I take to the tress; beneath the wind-strained leaves, the monsters are now stalked by me.

Demons by day evade my pleas. Now, stuck in a dream, they can’t leave.

Sometimes I forget to breath
A nagging voice, gnawing at my sleeve
My demons,
          at the gates they seethe
Begging for me to set them free
Darkness beckons me,
           with its ecstasy
Clawing from the inside, but
Outside I crack and wither
Like these scars are all that’s left of me

Picture perfect portrait of paranoia
Sunken eyes
My inner voice has distorted
Causing me to toss and turn,
and become contorted
Foreign is my reflection
The Dark Man has trapped me
With his apathy
I let him in
Depression wins

I sometimes think of growing up
Waking early and brewing cheap coffee
Pouring it in the same old half washed cup
Exchange a cold shower for a couple bucks
Trade happiness for a crooked smile
I could walk to work, but I think I will drive instead
Traffic is soothing
Job security
Misery becomes my amusement
Local radio 8am
Woman won a thousand medallions
Two burnt down houses
Stop short, *******
Now the coffee is on my trousers
Half past nine
Parking lot is packed
Six block walk and twenty minutes of life I will never get back
Hey look its Tim
Tim is divorced with two kids
Grown up stuff I guess
I’ll just follow him in

Dark cloud gown covered moon
                    Searching for your surface

Led by the scattered streaks of light
                    I see when the wind lets your skirt drift

The majesty
                    Beauty with a purpose

The silent stoic sun king
                    Even bows his head in your service
                    Cracked, barren and imperfect

Yet you bear your face
                    Reflected on every surface

The ever-watchful unveiled bride
Our clear open eyes in the darkness of an eternal sky

As a man, I contemplate my thoughts just beyond the boundary of breaking waves on the shore. An endless symmetry stands before me. The ocean with its crash and calm takes any and all forms. Yet though it morphs its shape, its nature always remains. To be life and to contemplate life. A mere thought that has enchained the minds of greater men. In the grand symphony of time, we find ourselves in the 21st Century. Where there are those who postulate the Theory of Illusion. Each of our own odysseys reduced to the hallucinatory will of my brain. Tell me then, how does one illusion contemplate its own existence from within? My gaze refocuses out to the endless blue horizon, and I imagine the shape of it all. Though we take many forms, our nature prevails. Social animals some would say. I prefer a different metaphor, shepherds of knowledge. Though our collective knowledge flaunts many costumes, our true nature perseveres unfettered. Through the ages we carry all human ingenuity, meanings, and purpose inside some unspoken tome. It does not erode against the battering winds of time. It can not be sunken to the depths. It endures in this very contemplation. My wandering inquisitive mind cannot help but wonder what abstract thought will be captured in this very spot a thousand years from now. For some this conjures a mysterious existential dread, but I can only stand and smile. My mind lets me step outside the binding flow of time and watch the world unfold. Campfires under the crescent moon to villages etched out on verdant ground, and here now to the grand gusto of modern cities. Endless forms and shapes pushing towards our ultimate nature. To understand that purpose in the universe if left by our boot impressions on the mud. The cosmos is our endless ocean. Out there; waiting, for our contemplative minds to shape it.

Not quite summer
Mindful of an ever-approaching future
Two quarter cranks of my casement window
Allows the unfettered breath of night to pass through me
Like ephemeral thoughts escaping an open hatch
I think, therefore I am
Yet I think and think again
What conjures the conscious thoughts that leak out from this pen
Am I a prisoner of some electric zoo
How can I be sure the structure of me
Also resides in you

I sit and I stir
To be meat in soup
Aspersions cast
Mother always told me not to fiddle with my food
To an outside observer I seem aloof
As I peruse the library
Of stored memories from my youth
Why you ask?
I haven’t a hint or an outline of a clue
My brain seems to find nothing better for it to do
My lifetime ticket to the Electric Zoo

Intensity is the underdog story
Wild soil to a champion
Flame out, and maybe
Fell to the drink

Consistency is two years without
So much as a batted eye or a blink
Ten steps ahead, maybe half an inch per week
Books with battered spines stretched across coffee-stained sheets

Intensity is ***, or
A free trial for a week
Gold plated words
Tin can actions underneath

Consistency is the love, and
Knowing I know I will never know enough
Unconscious heartbeat
The very breath that fills my lungs

I see your reflection in the glass
***** mirrors distorting visions of my past
Lonely, naked in the rain
The wind baby, always whispering your pain

Corrosive thoughts slowly poisoning my brain
I was broken long ago
A silent sickness
Steadily driving me insane

My conscious mind refrains
From falling out or giving in
I will go without
On the strength of that which lies within

Dirt dried and cracked upon my weathered face
          The black hole in my soul
Covered only by the carefully stitched fabrics
          Of my two-day old clothes

          A man out of time
Handprint impressions
Depressed in my mind
          Sing to me darkness
Shed the weight from these eyes

Quiet is the lullaby
That cradles and rocks me to sleep
Somewhere down deep, I call out to you
In silence you speak
          Peace

We are all immortal in our own time. Today I feel the warm caressing touch of life across my beleaguered face. Death does not escape me, but in this moment I am alive. One is immortal if one has yet to understand what it means to die.

So come sit with me and listen as life plucks on her string. Purchase a moment and together we wither. Time, good friends, the great veiled indominable figure. Our last breath denotes the bigger picture.

We are all immortal in our own time. Today I feel the warm caressing touch of life across my beleaguered face. Death does not escape me, but in this moment I am alive. One is immortal, if one has yet to understand what it means to die.

The ice from the sun
Paints frost upon the roads

The sun is different here
          Far more glimmer than shine
Dangling conveniently from a string

The sky wears its blemishes
As each passerby stitches their heart upon their sleeve
          Bloodstained fabrics
          I stand naked on the street

Exposed
          Or maybe,
Free

Costumed faces
Pay no mind
As the birds fly south in Spring

Lips of an angel
Carefully stitched
Upon your kiss of death
            
            Here I am again
            Hedging my bets on your every toxic breath

Heart of stone
Carved by the jagged edges
Of my own broken bones

            Here I am again
            Your wicker man

An eternal effigy
Burnt and blazed
Windswept ashes
Scatter all that’s left of me

Life is rough baby
            So go on
Cry us a river
Drip the liquid venom from your fangs
            Under my skin
Be the dark mass spotted on my liver

Go on now love
            Nourish my pain
Feed me my ego
Shoot your pride
             Up into my veins

Give to me life darling
             Or come and take it away
Hold my bleeding heart in your hands
Let me watch
             While you throw it away

I often ponder the thought of living forever
Immortal
The weary heart chronicler
                    Of one last cold December

Death does nary escape my mind
Yet who is the keeper
What specter
                     keeps its watchful eye on time

Stuck in a daydream
Yet I see life written
So clearly across the sky
             What fate awaits eternal eyes

Whose lips
             Shall be my last kiss goodbye

Would I be stricken lonely
To witness life’s flourishes
As they slowly
             Recede below me

Breathe in
Now count to ten
Ready your fingertips
Now softly stroke the pen,
Across the page

Don’t write the words
Paint for me
Falling autumn leaves a slight mahogany
Create the sky
Show me the technicolor dreams inside your mind

Call for thunder on stormy seas
Cupid’s arrow one snowy Christmas Eve
Make me believe
Now on my count,
Breathe out