It's like slow motion,
Much like a train derailing,
You can't bring yourself to look away,
As the fist flies toward your face.

As soon as the foreign limb makes contact  with your cheek,
It seems like someone pressed the fast forward button,
Because you seem to retaliate immediately,
Over and over,
As more blows are returned to your head and sides.

You throw your weight forward,
Catching them off balance as they were on their heels,
Wrapping them up around the midsection in a picture perfect tackle.

You both go flying out the front door and into the street,
Both struggling to your feet,
Both you and your opponent's friends pull each other apart,
And make haste to leave before the cops arrive.

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.

Look at you in your wide brim hat,
Dressed in black,
Fingers dancing across the Strat's neck,
Easy as you please.
Voice of anguish and whiskey,
Telling me a story of one lost long ago.

I sit listening quietly, as the rain falls outside,
And a train can be heard lumbering across the tracks.

Your words take shape,
Odd stranger,
With hair long and black,
The shape is of a man recently sent free,
Deciding to walk through the roughest place in town.

I need a drink,
I take a swig,
The smell of pine like smelling salts for my brain,
The taste of fireworks and Christmas trees reminiscent of candies eaten on Halloween nights.


Then BAM!
You yell out,
Telling me of a poor dice rollers fate,
Like a siren's call,
******* me back into this sad, sad narrative.


And lastly of the visit,
The one dated to seal the protagonist's fate,
Of the freed man once again being put into chains,
A tale of Sisyphus best personified.

You lead off,
Leaving the bar room cold and empty.
I slide in another couple quarters,
And again you begin to play.

Sitting out here in the porch,
Listening to Tool,
My phone is fast dying,
Probably best that I allow it,
It's good for it long term,
To every once in a while just let it run
Completely out if juice.

Is that true for humans too?

A sweet saga sung,
A cigarette crackles as it ignites,
A tale tragic for my lungs,
But chemicals rush through the brain setting it alight.

Sweet accents to the tune as the tale unfolds,
As our hero's story unfolds,
A bittersweet departure,
Kept apart,
Held at bay by ideology and circumstance.

But a darkness approaches,
A dark fate comes closer,
To destroy them all,
And she orders her opposite to take her bow,
Standing shoulder to shoulder to bear the brunt of the storm.

The dark haze creep in the Valley,
Eyes peeled to the east for their only chance to survive to hold out,
Already morning the orchards that would soon be lost.

The rot begins to spread,
Grotesquely twisting the trees as they shrivel and waste away,
The scion of the ****** angered at the pyrrhic victory.

The long night bringing a great battle,
The feral calls are cried,
They meet in a great clash of steel and magic,
In a secret war away from private eyes,
How can just one battle last so long?

Armor is rent asunder as weapons are damaged and woundss attained,
The Scion steps forward with a sword set ablaze,
And the woman lies bloodied off to the side,
The warrior lays set with her bow pulled and arrow drawned back,
Her aiding him even after she was taken off the board.

The Scion draws closer still,
His face finally shown to him,
As the symbols of the before set aglow along the bow,
The arrow is loosed,
Sending it along it's trajectory as the sun finally climbs from the east, washing everything in light.

It's a golden hour,
Everything framed in a gentle light,
Rounding edges like a fine-grit sandpaper,
The sky such a beautiful shade of blue.

The sunset is an interesting one,
Sherbert orange clouds topped with a subtle purple plume,
Crowned with golden-yellow cirrus.

I stand in awe of this majestic sight,
Breath swept along this noble image before me,
Casting the air exhaled on the currents of this exalted visage.

I saw you in the aisle of the supermarket,
And I just realized this is the first time I've thought of you in years,
Like an anchor that was cut loose decades ago discovered by divers,
Covered in barnacles and rust.

I just remembered you still have one of my guitars,
And wonder if you still have that mug we made on one of our dates,
The one you used every morning when we dated,
I wonder if you still drink that horrid tasting tea.

When was the last time you thought about our trip to New York City,
Where we first saw the Statue of Liberty,
Do you remember comforting me at the World Trade Center Memorial,
When I was overcome with melancholy?

But just as quick I saw you,
You disappeared from sight,
Not spotting me in the market crowd,
Going on with your life.

Lips quirk up for a second,
I go back to shopping,
And back on with my life,
Glad with my lot and place,
Hoping that you are too,
And knowing I'll never think of you again.

My brain is suddenly alight like fireworks,
A thousand ideas spawning from thin air,
Things I've forgotten ten times over come back in a flash,
Birthday dates,
Phone numbers of old coworkers,
Names of films.

I need to find paper,
Need to write this down before I forget.
My phone rings,
I answer it,
It's a Telemarketer,
CLICK!

The paper before me lies mostly blank,
The only words written are as follows:
--------------------------------------------------------­-------
                                   Glass stopper
            Canada!      
                                  Pe
      Colin Hay                             black garlic


       ()**()
         /l l/
----------------------------------------------------------------­
          ^ Above is my best text translation of a doodled elephant head.

I'm about to scream,
Because I can't remember for the life for me as to why I wrote them,
It's all dialogue with no context.
A paper of hieroglyphs and me without a Rosetta Stone.

Pain ignites,
Your shoulders and biceps set ablaze to to the beat,
To this resurrected tune from the plantations of long ago,
A specter that hangs over the shoulder  when heard.

Up,
Down,
Hold that ****,
And you start to think this Sally chick might just be a real cold *****.

Up,
Down,
Rinse and repeat the pain.

It's just 30 reps,
Why is it so infernally difficult?
Up,
Down,
Hold,
The pressure builds in your muscles and your brain,
Pratcher & the Gardeners heedless of your pain.

The last chorus,
Just a little bit more,
Is it just you or is the music slowing?

The women are weeping,
At the poor departure of poor ol' Luxe.

The song cuts,
You sigh in relief,
As your body crumples on its own accord,
Sick of your efforts and insanity.

The Three had been delivered into the valley of fate,
it was there that they were armed with only their instruments,
seemingly shrunken in comparison to the valley's reaches.

So it was here they marched on,
their Frontman blazing the path,
the bonds between them strengthened,
through their shared success,
reinforced by shared lows,
when the weight was equally heavy upon all their shoulders.

It was there that momentum was gained,
a confident crew that had just hit its stride,
with faces that hadn't entirely lost their boyishness,
their walks and actions, however, told a completely different story,
for these new up-and-comers.

It was time.
They had to create an epic of the histories,
They had to make an album.

Click
         Clack
                                  Click
                  Click
  Click

The butterfly knife handle is smooth against my palm,
Worn down through years of ownership and use.

Click
                 Clack
         Click
                                  Click
   Clack

Curtis Stirgers is telling me the story of Poor Ol' John,
My mind is at peace,
And my thoughts are clear.

  Click                    
                    Click
                                       Clack
                            Click
                                      Clack

I can see the flashes of steel,
Sending off glints of light out in the darkened room,
I'm mostly zoned out,
A quasi-zen state in this dance of blade and flesh,
A Balisong Ballet.


Click
         Clack
                                  Click
                  Click
  Click

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.

The boys has aged,
On the cusp of becoming a man,
Old enough to drive but not old enough to vote.

The child has improved in eight years,
The sound comes vibrant from the boy, Although it is still a hair twangy,
And the timing off just a bit.

He has passion,
Though,
Which makes the imperfections that much better.
The sound Echoes in on itself when it bounces off the cement walls,
And the closed wooden door of the garage.

All of the boy's work producing an emotional and raw sound,
Which flails about,
Enticing others to do the same.

Driving down the road,
Going much too fast,
One hand on the wheel,
The other around the shoulders of the girl he was with.

They love each other,
At least they think they do,
Their adolescence making them believe that they'll beat the odds.

A turn arrives just as the boy looks away, And suddenly they're airborne,
Just as soon as they're in the air however,
The forces of the world take hold as the car comes down hard.

Crash!!!!
As a boy regains consciousness,
All the boy can see is the blood mixing into the muddy water,
As the rain begins to fall.
The boy scrambles are round  the twisted wreck of the car,
From which he had been thrown from,
To find the one he loved in terrible condition.

The boy begs her to wake up, but she refuses to open her eyes,
A small trickle of blood crawling up her forehead,
As she hangs lifeless from her seatbelt.

Rapid striking of Copper and Nickel,
Tantalizing both the ear and the heart,
What is it that this hypnotic tune,
That has both the momentum of a freight train and a falling feather,
is trying to tell us?

Realization drops like an anvil upon the egg of a quail

This siren song is calling westward,
O' Hark!
Offering both salvation and  damnation,
The Spirit of the West Herself calls,
Rattling one's teeth with her percussive thunder,
Blinding with the flashes of her lightning,
Strobe-like in both aspects,
Prostrate thyself,
For with every booming step she draws closer,
and the music grows louder.

Is that her steps now?
Or the thundering of your heart in your chest?

She whispers upon the howling winds,
Promising nothing that is in your control to change,
Only that her domain is a hard and still wild place.

It is everything you feel the desire in this moment,
An escape from this quicksand you have found yourself in,
Toward the unknown yet the sought after.

What shall happen next,
That is the chapter that we'd have to write,
For good or ill,
A sign or an omen.

Drive Forward!
With a thundering of your own,
With the ground shaking momentum of a thousand charging horses, I say!
Drive forward with a fury of your own making,
Let your purpose be just and true!

DRIVE!!!

...

And like she was never there,
The Spirit of the West disappears,
Her spectral like visage disappearing into the wall,
The vision broken,
Leaving you once again in the quiet and dimly lit room.

I'm looking here,
Why is it gloom all that I see?
Let me shine a light into these dark corners with a candle,
Chase away this negativity with a warm orange glow.

I know just one candle doesn't illuminate much,
But with this flame other candles can be lit,
And perhaps we can brighten up this room just a little bit more.

Naive?
Maybe,
But I just can't feel the wrong,
For life is hard,
And being pessimistic is just too **** tiring,
Perhaps we can try something new?

Sometimes I feel like my life is this canyon,
with a river in the bottom of it,
And that I'm on a raft,
Paddling along.

And in this canyon,
From my raft,
I can see those who have been my mentors,
Up at the tops of the canyon,
Calling out to me if they see rapids ahead.

So far they've been pretty good about it,
Not saying there haven't been rough patches,
A couple of close calls,
But I'm still in one piece.
I know that up ahead though,
There's whole lotta rough stuff,
And my lookouts aren'tt going to be of much use.
So it'll be just me against whatever's up ahead,
With nothing to rely on but my own wit.
It'll be like the bad 'ol days.

Levon Helm haunts my ears this morning,
As I drive up 127 with the top down,
Passing by Montezuma,
So I can see a most peculiar sight.

There's a town in an Ohio,
Where time seems to have been frozen,
A singular main street of tall buildings,
Surrounded by fields of corn and soy,
Where I have only seen blue skies and sunshine.

Like Springsteen's song the band is covering,
It seems to be a town of perpendicular and parallels,
Booming business amidst rust belt squalor,
A mixture of broken souls of the old,
Sprinkled throughout the shining and smiling faces of the young,
Looking forward to escaping?
Or maybe content in their little slice of 80's America?

There is a lake that is the namesake of the town,
Or maybe it's the other way around?
That borders this town on it's eastern side,
And for long I have always wished to just take a day and sit upon it's shore,
To take a day and just breath.

It was honestly a mistake that first brought me through this sleepy town,
All those years ago,
Through this odd land surrounded by forests of windmills,
That stretch to the horizon like fields full of planted and forgotten giant's pinwheels,
That took me from Detroit to Cincinnati by way of the Indiana border,
And arriving here felt like a surreal dream.

Just a silly 18 year old,
How was I to understand the uniqueness of this place I'd stumbled upon?
But going back up a year later,
A calling I felt deep in my bones,
To see if it was more than a dream,
So return I did,
And to my surprise it still remained,
This analogue paradox in such a digital age.

10 years later,
And it is all the same,
As if the world outside doesn't matter,
And perhaps it never would.

I pass through slowly,
Waving back at the residents that throw up a hand in greeting,
Such a antiquated greeting that still kept alive in this time capsule town,
And as I pass through it's district,
As quickly as I came,
A warmth remains,
Some nostalgic sensation for something I have barely experienced as a kid,
Or perhaps only imagined I did.

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.

The room was lined in foam,
Several microphones littered the booth,
Like corpses abandoned on a field of battle,
Grave markers of bands who came before.

Their hands sweaty,
Emotions tumbling about like clothes in a dryer,
As a small red light came on.

A lone guitar starts out,
Steadily rolling on as more and more instruments join in,
A vanguard to the symphony of rock to follow.

The Frontmans vein's bulging in his neck as he comes into the beginning of the song,
An outcry for those of like mind to join,
A rallying call.

Their sound was influenced by their city,
The Denizens of such a royal city,
Giving it an edge of steel as they tore into the instrumental,
Then suddenly a lull,
Only stopping long enough to catch ones breath, before it plunges back in for another round.
Ebbs and flows,
Until it is back to just the one guitar,
Destined to plod along alone.

Tell me my love,
What is it you need me to be?

Am I to be a shining knight?
Slay the dragon,
Climb the tower,
Defeat the evil king with my might?

Do you need the gentle giant,
A gorilla in the mist,
Some juxtaposition of size and timidity,
A stalwart wall of muscle that is oh-so reliant?

Shall I be an old-time Cowboy,
The Marlboro Man made flesh,
With those predator/prey eyes that scan the horizon,
Shaded from the sun with a hat made of corduroy.

Or maybe I should just stay me,
The man that is always there for you,
The joking friend that is your favorite person,
The one that makes you feel oh so free.

How do you describe a songs meaning,
If it's something that to each individual it means something different?

To one it's a song to play at a wedding,
Another another it is to be played at their funeral,
To some it's something drunkenly blundered through with your buddies at the bar when your hammered,
To others it's something that's best played quietly on the radio at night.

To me it's a song about a perfect Florida night,
Standing on the beach with my toes buried in the sand,
Staring up at a star sparkled sky,
Creating a dichotomy of images that leap out at me in full color,
When the vertigo finally breaks,
Rocketing my body into space and the constellations beyond,
Beautiful sights never to be seen or studied again,
Each an individual beauty to be marveled at for but a second,
Before being forever lost,
Then being slammed back down to earth again,
Gaining momentum more and more,
Wind that shouldn't be in space forcing me to shut my eyes against it's sting.

Finally reaching earth and breaking through the atmosphere,
A fire from the friction trailing behind me a mile long,
Streaking across the Pacific and the Western US in a blink,
Hurtling at Florida with speeds that induce a pucker factor of 10.

Faster still,
And the beach is soon in sight,
Breaching the horizon that was made by the gulf.

Tearing in many times past the speed of sound,
My impact into the sand leaves a grader that forever changes the coastline,
Driving me deep into the earth crust.

...

I open my eyes,
As I look up from where I lay on that Florida beach,
Feeling in one piece and whole again.

It is on this day,
The final day,
The last battle in the war that ended all my wars,
The final shot,
The final blast,
Full of rage, sorrow, and lore.
It is in the moments,
These final moments,
In which I'd reflect upon it all,
The joy, the sorrow, the laughter, and the tears,
In remembrance of those that had fall.
And when the cannons fell mute, & the rifles went still,
In realization it had dawn,
That when the darkness came,
We fought deaths game,
And those that claimed victory would have to go on.

Sitting out on the dock,
So late even the bugs are mostly asleep,
Puffing on the last cigarette I brought down with me,
Taking in the brilliance of lake stars,
And the shimmering mirage-like reflections of the resort across the cove.

Two owls conversing somewhere up the lake,
Their soft calls echoing endlessly across the flooded valley's waters,
Forever a part of the lakes empty nocternal orchestra.

Soft laps of water as the denizens of the deep come out to eat,
As the fall breezes begin in earnest,
Bringing a slight chill like an indicator of the winter to come.

The crickets chirping a tune to the spiders as they weave their webs,
As a blinking green light of a lone boat chugs gently north,
A witness to this early-morning delight like me.

Stars so much more visible,
But not quite like what they are in the wilds of the north,
Twinkling becons of long dead planets and age old messages,
Ones that tell us how small we really are.

The heros were at a crossroads once again,
But a much different one from the time before,
This one was one where they had not been,
And one they would end up not all traveling along the same path.

The Drummer and the Bassist pleaded for the Frontman to see reason,
That the path he chose only would lead to ruin,
But with the spider whispering its words their pleas fell upon deaf ears.

It is here that the Frontman struck it out alone,
Feeling betrayed upon their refusal to join him on this path.

He was alone now,
With only the spider for company,
Too blinded to it all to realize the dangers upon the road he went.

Why is it I always find myself writing on here,
When there's only 15% battery power left?
Almost like a creative procrastination,
Perhaps even delinquency.

Is it because the absolute hatred for endings?
Of being scared of the future,
Whilst being excited for it at the same time.

Sitting there smoking that last cigarette in the car,
Preparing for bed early for once,
In order to get a jump on the day.

Applications sent and the feeling of a long haul starting,
But with a bared grin of anticipation for the challenges ahead,
Revelling the struggle to come.

**** pets,
**** them for loving us unconditionally,
**** them for making us care so much,
**** them for leaving us too soon,
**** them for making us miss them.

Jimmy Page rips into his guitar as I rip into some nachos,
Covered with some real toxic-spicy **** I accidentally created in the kitchen,
And suddenly Black Dog becomes an anthem to my agony.

The habanero peppers dig hooks in as the serannos and the jalapenos begin going to work,
Hitting me with staccato body blows,
Pausing but for a moment before laying in again.

It's as if the very air itself is aflame,
The sriracha's heat sears my throat and lungs,
With the cayenne peppers charring my stomach.

My eyes water,
I want to wail like Plant at the moment,
As sweat begins to gather on my brow,
The sickly sweet stink of the apple cider vinegar used laces the air and stings the nose,
****** hair practically gets singed as it passes.

Page let's loose a riff with his instrument that imitates my heartbeat,
As the heat finally grows too high.

I reach for my only lifeline,
Something almost as terrible as the devil's ketchup itself.

I take the mason jar and take a swig,
And another fire snuffs out the one currently raging in my esophagus and brain.

My breath fast,
Blinking hard and quick,
As the song fades along with a bit of my happiness at creating something so wicked,
As I grab another chip...

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

Disconnection and disassociation,
From old jobs, old apartments, and houses.
Like I'm a ghost who'd fragmented into so many pieces and places,
Who's hauntings connect me to these people and locations.

Chains that bind one another in an eternal embrace of love and despising,
Tired bones in a youthful frame,
Disjointed memories and discombobulated thoughts,
In grey mush contained by a dome,
Perpetuating thoughts along neural highways and electrical connections,
Riding a lattice-work of joints and tendons,
Bringing a lumbering machine of flesh and carbon,
Through this odd and enthralling plain.

It was after the show,
That the Agent approached,
His eyes glinting and flittering with a wondrous glow.

He showed them that he had but a simple and loose contract,
A Retainership that would benefit both parties,
Of which they would agree to.

It was then that the Agent presented them with a significantly larger contract.

It was then that they realized what they were being handed,
Their way to a better life,
A key to a very difficult puzzle,
A planet taken from their shoulders.

They had been discovered.

Am I going insane?
Or do I hear a track playing in the background of Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm going to leave you"?
Around the 1:42 mark,
Hiding right below the guitar,
Playing whisper soft,
Plant is crying out something,
Something too soft to decipher.

I hope I'm not hearing things

Gravity must be especially heavy on my exact spot,
For I feel like I'm glued to my seat,
I found a record,
Ridiculously pristine,
It's of some symphonic orchestra,
And it's made my eyes water a bit.

I don't know what prompted it,
I just felt my face after listening to it to realize that my eyes were quite damp.

The piano piece was heartbreaking,
Clearly an excellent conductor,
I can't find any real labels on it,
And it appears to be very old.

10%... Not long to go

Sometimes funny,
Sometimes terrifying,
Sometimes mysterious,
Something nice.

Something remembered,
Something forgotten,
Something changed,
Something repeated.

Wake up.

Cronin and Richrath accompany me on this trip,
Driving down this stretch of 75,
Driving amongst the clouds and mountains of the Blue Ridge,
Giving off a soft yet intense tune.

The sun has just set,
Giving the sky a odd dark hue,
The rumbling of the jeep is a constant,
Sounds from the old engine almost giving the song certain cues.

The wind ripping through the open cabin,
Tearing at clothes and hair,
The howling it gives off,
Fails to drown out Cronin's cries,
Of his personal philosophy he sings.

Better the brutal truth than a shocking revelation of betrayal,
Hands gripping the steering wheel tighter,
Driving to destiny,
A better future awaits.

Driving to destiny

She walks through a once destroyed field,
Bare feet slipping through tall grass upon this warm and clear summer day,
A place once filled with shattered rifle and hewn shield,
Crater-filled like the surface of the moon,
Now but small divots from where artillery shells were sent their way.

Her hair the color of spun gold and copper,
Looks out upon the grave of equipment and limbs,
Overgrown with wildflowers and sapling acting as shims,
Filling the spaces where corpses were dropped where men once stood,
Stood tall and proud for the sake of honor.

Green eyes flecked with silver,
Peer into both present and past,
Looking out upon both abject horror and utter beauty,
At ghosts long past and young men,
Looking into eyes filled with dread and deadness one moment,
And the next with exuberance and naivety.

Step by step she crosses these hill filled plains,
Teaming with life,
Where once not even the rats could survive.

Gentle breeze kisses her cheek,
Where once it would have been blistered by gas,
An elemental force providing a cooling sensation,
Once upon a time it would have been nothing but burning and fire.

Bees lazily drift across the visage,
Where once it would have been bullets,
And at this she freezes and her heart breaks,
Looking at what she sees.

In this duality she sees a young man,
Crying and clenching at his chest,
Laying in one of the small divots that adorn the land,
And at the same time she sees only a skeleton adorned in tattered cloth,
Still in silent in the final sleep.
She crouches down beside the boy/skeleton and gently caresses his cheek,
At this the boy looks up and stops his shrieks,
Gazing upon this angel in a land where not even the devil would tread.

A ghost of a smile graces his lips,
As a dulling takes place in his eyes,
The pulsing blood slows and stops,
And the specter of explosions slowly fade to wind through the grass once again.

She stands,
And continues on her way,
Witness to a hell made heaven,
In a field of France on a summer day.

I tap my index finger on the top of my cigarette,
The pier of ash that was building topples off the end.
The can is at my lips,
A pleasant burn on the throat when swallowed,
Imperial stout,
The warming burn reminds me of good bourbon.
The ***** beer agreeing with my palate.
A hard day started early,
My early ending is it's own reward,
To relax,
Kick back
And let the tunes carry me away.

Give me a minute,
And I will make it worth an hour,
An hour,
I will make it worth a year,
A year,
Well....
Let's take that minute and you will see.

Rapid fire like a Lewis Gun,
Rattle and shake like a can of spray paint,
So nervous you can clearly see,
A golden chance I don't want to squander,
A chance that won't repeat.

Fit to burst with ideas and dreams,
Too many for me to speak,
One HAS to stick,
Just HAS TO,
I CAN'T FAIL TO SPEAK.

Fifteen seconds to go,
Where did the time fly?
Please don't see me as mud beneath your feet,
Give me this chance and you will see,
That this is an easily fulfilled dream.

DING

You get out,
Something I'm sure that you're glad to hear and see,
But as you get out you ask for my number,
And that maybe we'll speak

Is it upon such a limbo I must dwell?
Where hope is lost and none is well?
To be in a state where hatred swells?
Where quarrelling is preferred to the silence of this empty well?

Tell me the truth,
But don't break me so,
For I lack the spare parts,
To hold me together for more,
Be gentle on my frame,
None too unkind,
For this dread is most dreary,
When the end is neigh.

I envy the men who can smoke yet run like an Olympic athlete,
I really do.
The best I can do is operate a machine gun or a rocket launcher,
With a fat *** of dip in my jaw.

Motivation seemed to be a big issue for me as a kid,
Only what had me interested would get me more actively pay attention,
But when it happened I was like a dog with a bone,
Hard pressed to give it up,
My motivation burning brightly.

But such motivation could be a double edged blade,
For flames that burn the brightest are also those that are very short lived.

It makes me wonder about you, dear reader,
Is your motivation slow and steady?

Or perhaps your like me,
Brilliant but fleeting,
The experience of discovery and newness of an activity being your real drive?

To the former,
Take a chance and be more aggressive in your actions,
May this advice bring more wind into your sails.

To the latter,
Pump the break for a second,
Take in the scenery so to speak,
Be amazed in the factors that went into shaping the events around you,
You may discover something you may have missed otherwise.

And to those I've previously left out,
Don't worry,
And wipe away that pout,
I was saving for the best for last.

You tightrope walkers,
Tiptoeing the razors edge,
Follow your gut,
For it hasn't led you astray yet.

Carry on my fellow travelers,
Your pioneering efforts haven't gone in vain,
Blaze the trails,
Climb the mountains,
And ride the rapids.

Townsend and Daltry are the ones putting me in a trance tonight,
Sending me to a time of excess and glory,
To reflect on a personal fight,
A battle against one's own mind,
One that will undoubtely be gory.

The first two minutes are void of voice,
The mixture of keyboard, synth and guitar too pure,
To me it seems like the perfect choice,
To express the feelings of one's own self-destruction,
As something without a cure.

False fronts are raised,
A gilded shell to all those to see,
To cover the corrupted and depraved,
To hide away guilt and shame,
Buried deep down,
Then Townsend lets it rip.

Its all just a great misdirection,
The perfect lie to distract and deceive,
Smoke and mirrors to lead you away from the lows achieved,
All in the name of dark recreation.

Inhaling,
The unfiltered cigarette' s tip glows bright,
Adrenaline is released and insulin is suppressed,
Yet the words continue yet.

A certain brand of funk pours from the speakers,
Setting the air alight with 80's vibe.

They call to you now,
The addiction and excess,
For you've tasted from the apple,
And now the hooks have sunk in.

But rip through the straps you must,
Put on a smile for all to see,
You mustn't show weakness now,
For all the others must see you as free.

The guitar is haunting,
The drumming sublime,
The bass setting an ominous tone for this tune,
Like Damocles's sword set above your head,
The slightest slip will cause everything to be hewn.

Townes crooning to my fevered head,
As I'm cast through a mindscape of love and hatred,
Shame and pride,
Sailing one great hallucination,
As if on a new rollercoast track,
Smoother than a ball bearing rolling across oiled glass.

Hooked by the hopeless story as it is told,
Of a curse laid upon those who have sight,
To see what lied in the fog and impenetrable,
Those vile machinations that they had laid.

Throat going dry as the mind burns and fills the burnt remains with cotton,
Time stretches out ahead,
A weight settling in behind the eyes.

The addict's words have such a painful splash across the airwaves,
it taking my fuzzy self a few moments that it isn't just Zandt's voice in the fray with a whirlwind of guitar strokes,
but a lonely harmonica,
That is his words droning through such a fabled instruments.

The walls warble with the tune,
The flag flutters into sight line as lungs are filled deep and shudder.

A controversial documentary plays as Zevon hammers upon the piano,
A crescendo of a warriors tale,
The old days of Rhodesia as it sung out like a beacon of the colonial world,
Right or wrong isn't my right to determine,
For I wasn't there,
Which brought back the last old guns of an even older world,
An age of adventures and thrills,
Unknown danger and reward.

As I think I settle back into the normal,
I look out and see only a half hour has passed,
And the fever is still burning strong.

I feel like I'm climbing a rope that's going up a waterfall,
With a hand tied behind my back,
It's all I can do to simply not drown,
Let alone to not be swatted down from the hammer-like blows of water upon my shoulder, head, and hand.

I feel like my grip is slipping,
I could really use a hand,
I wonder where you're at now in your life,
As I try with all my strength to hold on for mine,
Did you move out west like you wanted?
To learn to surf near Santa Monica?
And learn a new language?

I wished you the best,
And now I wish you'd stayed.

Bring it on sandman,
You little ****,
I'm gonna break your ****** nose this time...

Crack you in the face with 3 cans of energy drinks,
Clap your ears with open palms of Clutch's latest album,  "Sunrise at Slaughter Beach" at 100 decibels,
Kick you in the nuts with a steel toed boot of a lit cigarette stuck in the nostril,
Inhaling deeply ,
Painfully sending cinders through my sinuses.

Body blows of cold water,
Blasted through the most concentrated setting on the nozzle of the showerhead,
You feeling it yet bud?!?

I can go 12 rounds,
And your knees are shaking on the 3rd.

Knock out a few teeth with smelling salts,
Kicking that sweet sweet adrenaline into overtime,
Overclocking the ol' brain matter with that brown fluid in the grey matter,
Show me them pearly whites now.

I will beat you this time slim,
I know all your tricks,
Give me your best shot,
And well see how well your blows meet the meat.

Immaculate hit you 3 ways,
Hard, fast, and repeatedly,
Write your will with your blood and spit,
Cuz when I'm done with you,
You'll be crawling away from me,
Beggin' like a little *****.

A singular spark
Igniting a small amount of kindling,
From there it feeds,
The worst and most terrible flames can be caused by the smallest of embers.

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.

You ask me what is wrong,
When you see the explosions behind my eyes,
Staring out at a landscape that's not there.
Hearing gunshots that aren't there,
And screams of men long dead.

I brush it off sometimes,
Coming to,
Seeing the concern in your expression,
And I know that I can't lie,
But sometimes it's just too much for me to tell you,
Some things just too painful to share.

Some of it is to protect you,
Some of it is to protect me,
From that awful time in that awful place,
Where peace was so hard to find,
And impossible to see.

Sometimes I can tell you parts,
The parts you could understand,
But others wouldn't make sense to those who weren't there,
Like getting anxiety of having to get into a 110 degree porta-john to ***.