Gilmore, Waters, and Wright,
Powerful message you send across the waves this night,
Full of valor, sorrow,
Righteous fury and duty,
To a man who in the forest of his mind,
He is his own blight.

But a hollow shell of what you once were,
A pale imitation,
Your psyche fractured and raw,
You flew too high and burned too bright,
An Icarus to all those that saw your star dim and fall,
You got them out of the trenches, but was bogged down by the machine gun fire that is the world.

But it is too late to turn back, you say in your own mind,
I'm but a white dwarf,
An small insignificant thing that is but a husk of its previous glory and splendour,
But you must realize this,
Little white dwarf star,
Before the inevitable heat death of the universe,
These white dwarves will be the last thing burning,
After everything else goes cold and dark.
So shine on

Lateralus is slicing through my mind like a hot blade through butter.
My ribs being hammered from the drums,
The bass thumping upon the sides of my head,
The guitar solo piercing my flesh like a spear.

The lone bass beat is what remains in my heart,
The steady thumping of a tough but tired *****,
The incoming vocals is a rush of adrenaline to the muscles,
The amalgamation of the instruments,
The effort to stand once again,
Then a guitar calling out from the distant mists,
The call of the next battle.

Justin Chancellor is blowing my mind,
His timing as he hammers on his bass,
Setting the tone in the picture Maynard James Keenan paints as he rips through the events,
A great separation between sects of the faith,
The horrid fate of a monolith,
To crumble and burn,
Alone and lost,
Adrift a raft of ashes,
Floating out to sea.

The taste of tobacco, tar, and ash is too much at that moment,
I stub out the smoke,
Taking a swig of cheap beer,
To wash down the rancid taste.

The song changes again,
Keenan belting out about his dark passenger,
Making all his victories taste of ash,
A most dreaded specter indeed.

My mouth is no longer bone dry,
I really need to quit,
Trust me.

It's a nice day, as I curse the very concept of a migraine,
Ian Anderson is flittering about,
Telling me of a peculiar elf like character,
That looked after the plants during the winter,
He is a minstrel that expertly weaves a narrative, in which we are played down on a hammock of his words.

Now it's a cautionary tale.
A tale of an old man and a mouse,
And that like the mouse,
The man could see the trappings of his everyday life like shackles,
Unnecessary responsibility a collar.

Ian probably is standing like a crane at this point,
One foot off the ground, steady as a rock.
The hat atop his head quite peculiar,
Giving off an almost manic expression,
As he plays his flute,
Coming off as slightly unhinged.
But what would you give to be able to live life in such a manner?
Without a care in the world,
Able to solve all your problems without having to worry,
As the stakes of failure would be so low as to not even warrant attention.

fingers tapping against your thigh, music note mumblings. subtract everyone else and watch the feeling
m
  u
     l
       t
         i
           p
              l
                y
disassemble and reassemble the ensemble and allocate your earnings as earnestly as you can without appearing overeager. overhearing a conspiracy between my lips and your neck. a secret isn't a secret unless you whisper it, so do it, make sure the russians don't hear us as they rush off to give reports on that look I just gave you, the one that is oh so telling. reveling in it. living in the revelation of your skin, pouring down your presence like honey, like sweet molasses dripping thick and sweet, simmering under the sun, glimmering in the water like a jewel, jealous and ****, painful and dark and dazzling. beating only in anatomical hearts, out of tune, cacophony and cruel crimson, missing someone not something, left wanting and waning in the light of a lopsided moon, farsighted and fingers that prune in purple light rippling across the walls, willing to travel the planes of your body, embodied travesty traversing the sahara, dunes doomed to be swept away by the wind, breaking and kept away, each grain unable to touch one another more than once, gorgeous enough to be pain, staking your claim on misery before the misers bury it in their own backyards, backwards discovery, a convenient amnesia, believing ruses and runes to decipher in delicate dictum like tricking a language into translating itself.

almost too much of not enough.

As Billy Joel is pouring out to the listener,
Of a tale of patrons in a bar,
I think of what would happen to my works when I die.
Maybe I get a couple collections printed but they never really sell,
And years after my death,
One such book is found in the piles of books in an antique store.

Maybe it's a curious individual,
Amused by the art embossed on the book,
Or maybe he is an actual fan of poetry.
Maybe it's just a kid who is thinking old books are cool.

Either way the individual would read my works, gets a whole lot of hubub about it,
And years after my death I am talked about as an unsung poet of my time.

Novel idea right?

Robin Williams once said,
"You're only given a little spark of madness, if you lose that, you're nothing."

He'd call it going Full Goose Bozo.
And in it he described it as an awareness, of how vulnerable everything is,
Including yourself,
It's the ideal of being mentally steadfast,
In your own facilities,
To be able to adapt and survive to just about any environment.
That madness is the one thing governments don't know how to tax- let alone handle.
That little spark of madness is what makes you the person that you are,
Your way of adding your mark upon history,
A brush stroke with every interaction.
And if you let it fade you will be forgotten over time.
But it can be rekindled.
Let your little spark of madness free.