Numbness spreading like a creeping wildfire,
Carrying heat along the wave's crest,
And that's when it hit,
Ideas spewed forth,
Everything was clearer,
Everything was bright.

The Trio were on fire,
Immortal in their success and youth,
On the rise ever higher,
To some their words were truth.

To be loved by all,
Their following seemingly limitless.
As was their potential.

Look upon thy creation and shudder.

A century,
100 years,
Almost 1,200 months,
A hair over 5,214 weeks,
36,500 days,
Et cetera and Ad Nauseam.

A lot of time,
To build,
To demolish
To create,
To destroy.

But even with it all it is just a grain of sand that's in the hour glass.

But let's narrow our discussion here,
Let's just say part of one year,
More specifically 118 days.

Prose thoughts and insomniatic ramblings given a cohesive direction.
And a long time passion project procrastinated until now.

A lot can happen in 100 years,
Hell,
A lot can happen in 100 seconds,
Your bloods makes 5 complete laps in your body,
The Earth moved 3,000 kilometers,
And the average human being has 70 thoughts.

Imagine if you just latched onto one of those fleeting thoughts,
Seeing which way it took you,
New ideas perhaps?
Perhaps you remember something you long thought lost.

Again,
Et cetera and Ad Nauseam.

The air is thick,
Grey eyes bloodshot from the cigarette smoke and lack of sleep.

Townshend in a rare role,
As he holds court over the airwaves.
Warning of the masks worn by those who derailed others while rising to the top,
Their vices always taken to an extreme.

The night air is finally cooling down,
It's gentle waves giving me occasionally goosebumps.

Didn't have any schooling after turning 17,
Yet by the time he retired he was living in a home that he had designed.

He would run out in the middle of making lunch to chase squirrels from the bird feeder,
But you could give him a picture of one and could give you any info you wanted on it,
From scientific name to dietary needs.

Had an extensive liquor collection to make any aficionado green with envy,
And hadn't touched a drop since his first grandchild had been born.

And perhaps most shocking,
He owned and regularly operated a boat for 57 years,
And never learned how to swim.

He was the living contradiction,
And he is a contradiction to this day,
For even if he departed us some time ago,
He is still teaching me things.

What was once a refuge,
Soon became a cage,
Whether self imposed or not wasn't an issue,
And if asked you wouldn't get an answer.

The silent yet imposing North Winds would caress your cheeks here,
As you see the fruit starting to rot,
Marigolds blooming,
Like yellow bells ringing in the impending Autumn air.

I never wanted him,
And I swore I never wanted him,
But the time he approached me about moving  in was the second I just didn't care.

At first it was awesome,
An exciting time,
Doing something not cookie cutter and certainly not something I'd do if I was in any sort of right mind.

And for a time it was great.

The curtains finally seemed to be drawn away,
But little did I know all I was doing was putting on blinders,
When I thought I was exploring the new and adventurous,
I was rooting through the dark and the dangerous.

The roommate turned out to be a creature,
A monster in sheep's clothing,
And he was in the middle of the flock.

I think I ridded myself of him,
Though he is always knocking on my door,
I made the mistake of letting him back in once,
Something I'll never repeat again.

I walk on,
For I'm the only one on the street,
All is quiet at 1:35 a.m.,
As I try to clear my head.

Afraid of failure,
Afraid of the walls,
As they slowly close in,
Constricting tighter and tighter,
Running out of options,
Running out of air.

I will try to not kid myself as I begin to pick up pace,
That smooth voice still pouring out at the back of my mind,
My pace picks up yet again.

A trot,
Could barely count as a run,
But the slight relief of the gentle breezes is all I need to spun me further,
Faster and faster,
As the tempo picks up a second time.

It's all I can do to keep it below a sprint,
As my lungs start feeling dry and hot,
My heart ratcheting it's beat up to a whole nother level.

The walls start to fall away as I finally break free,
If only for a little while longer.

A hiss as pressurized fuel escapes as a gas,
Fumes escaping into the atmosphere.

The crackling of steel scraping on flint,
The cacophony of sparks following,
A fountain of brilliant orange light.

The ignition point is a dark blue,
As one of the sparks finally ignite the billowing fumes,
Spreading almost instantly,
Eating up the latchkey mixture of oxygen and fuel,
Produced in such a violent reaction was...


a singular light


Its flickering warmth
Dancing across the winds as they pass nearby.

The heat deflects off cold steel,
And soon a change was being made.

The Frontman took forth the Elixir,
The gift of the very helpful spider,
Providing him a way to save that which had been lost?

The Frontman looked at the Elixir,
Multicolored & unintelligible patterns flashing through the post mortem aqua vitae.

The Frontman drove the cure into his body,
Hoping to fill the long bleeding wound in his heart,
Hoping he could just speak to them again.

Too late to realize that the Elixir was gilded,
That the game had been rigged from the start,
The flashing covering up the milky white venom,
And the cure?

A nail in the coffin.