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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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”

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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