Bad dreams are keeping me awake at night,
Bad T.V. replaces my nightlite

Late night; chatting my life away

T.V. and Netflix streaming tan, burned out eyes watch plots twist and turn before my eyes

Elitist thought has been co-opted by the shows we watch.

Sad news I'd rather not listen at all, politics cause too much to do.

Entertainment!

All night long.

Live from any device I want, it's another elitist opinion about another show I don't watch.

I was beat Orange is the New Black for building a House of Cards, I had to play the Game of Thrones in order to meet Dexter in his House. I went into the Office and often checked in with the department of Parks and Rec.

I was told only trust the doctors who wear Scrubs, Stranger Things have happened then living a life by characters. When I unplug from this device I get lost on the long drive while podcasts make me think higher of my mimic-self.

That's Entertainment!

That's all folks!
Curtains colse on one act plays while stage hands scramble to clear the rubble and make new debris.

That's Entertainment!

I was caught in an Infinity War of advertisements all declaring I was the right target for their product, I'm not mad I'm too tired to be mad so I just sigh and walk by defeated.

Boo-hoo for the moral stance, acting like you had any to start.

If it wasn't for the culture vampires most of you wouldn't have an opinion to be angry about or agree with.

That's Entertainment!

Deformed and slapped together, Dr. Leonardo Frankenstein was father.

Against science and god I am birthed from the rubble and chaos of a pop culture gate that split the two worlds.

My soul is old yet I'm a child in a body of middle age, I am stuck halfway between mortal and divine, I am conflicted about my inner workings because I fully understand them yet I understand them to know they cannot be fully understood, father says I am perfect and in his perfection he has found flaws, so I am perfectly flawed.

Halfway between a friend a threat, I resent all yet I do not repent.

I am the Godchild of Man's love of self, I am art and therefor can be sold.

To market I go, scrap my pieces and build a better creation.

I am flawed and so I was made out of a perfect image, the funhouse mirror reveals the truth, a distorted freak dressed in human clothes, I can talk like you, think like you, yet I'm a hodgepodge of humanity.

I am the atom bomb of humanity, ready to explode and take it all with me.

Who sits before you, in this ****** white shirt.
Busted nose, black eye, possible cracked rib.

You look at me and think I've been through hell, what if I told you this was a typical Monday for me.

I wear my scars on my body to show just how much I can handle, they may as well be medals, I am not made of glass.

I am not fragile.

You want to sit around and cry and whine and ***** about the wicked world, well let me assure you, I don't care about whatever you think is wrong with you.

You hide your scars, not because they're too ugly or too deep, not because it's too painful to remember, it's because they're not real scars.

You wound yourself in the mess tent then request a purple heart, you walk on the backs of everyone else and when you cross the finish line you think you've really made something of yourself.

At best you're a hack.

So here I sit, you can yell, scream and shout
it'll do no good.

I am not glass and you are not stone.

You a phantom of power, a specter of strength.

I'm warm blooded and couldn't care less about you.

I am awash in color
I am blank canvas no more

I am painted perfect by the artist who saw the beauty in me
and so I am born.

With every brush stroke I felt my heart beat as I crawled out from the blank, and as I fell to the cold stone floor I knew love, from the hands of the creator that held me.

I am awash in color
Blank canvas no more.
I am created perfection
formless no more.
I am art and beauty, I am peace and unity.
I am self.

Ode to master and king.
Hail god and leader.

Our faith misplaced by shiny crowns and golden rings on hands who ring necks of the nonbelievers.

To the slave pit with them and silence the voices, for in my court there is no equal.

Ode to master and king
Hail god and leader

Granted rule and law by holy sword or divine word from the stars,
there is no equal in my land.

For a thousand miles I walk, I'm sure the lie flies faster.
The destruction of doubt drowned out by the sound of laughter.

For every truth told a lie is hushed elsewhere, balance the scales and prepare for the birth of rumor, for the truth is buried in the pile of gossip talk and acid spit, now it's all up in the air and turns to acid rain that burns the flora of the future.

I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, but I'll plant the seed of truth because hushed lies close eyes and obscure the facts from the days of our lives, news gossip force fed down the channel to the front page of media on which we suckle- the teet and milk of ideas to fit our personal narratives.

For every mile the truth walks, the lie flies faster.
In light of the facts the lie cannot hold and it's doomed to fail from its creation, it's the birth of disaster.

I'll speak and hold true the best way I know how, but all these lies and hollow words taste sweet which is why the truth is hard to swallow.

I caught a ride to the edge of town
I took a breath and said goodbye home town, hello world.

I was getting out to get out. I was getting lost to get lost so that I could find myself, I was sick of being sick in the same place, the same town, the same faces and people, so I caught a ride to the edge of town, took a breath and said goodbye.

Feeling used for too long, feeling tired of the it all, so I vanish to the road to make a point, that life is more than what we see in front of us every day, and it's easy to forget.

I packed my bags and hit the road, losing myself so I can discover who I am and where I belong, maybe I don't belong anywhere- but at least I know where I stand.

Standing on two firm feet is better than wading through the muck and not seeing what you stand on or being so caught in a haze you can't see where you are.

When they find out I'm gone they'll see a knife stuck a wall with a note expressing my feelings and thoughts, it'll be misunderstood but by then I'll be long gone and off the grid in another city finding myself in a new job, finding out whatever I didn't know before.

Not a drifter or a sifter, not a drunk or a ***, not a hippy or running from my problems, just doing what I need to- to find out who I am.

By the time they notice I'm gone I'll be back with a new lease on life, we don't belong anywhere. We exist wherever we are, existing however we can.

Hoping tomorrow will be better.

Counting to three and lights up for the stage we take, the parts we play are about to start as we say goodbye to what we knew.

End of the bad times, say hello to the good guy.

Out with the old and in with the new, I give it up the actors,

Bad luck and hard times ring out because frankly we're out of bad luck, so let's put the sad away and start up the band because we'll be here all night.

We've come in from the cold, shown up from the war and somehow survived the battle, now it's time to make merry bring cheer and high waters, good tides, we're up good time creek and you can bet we brought our paddles.

I teach the leech to drain

I teach the leech to take all it can, so what do I expect when the mouth I feed bites back?

Instruments and devices of our own destruction and downfall- we create them. Students pass the master and now the master relearns how to be humble.

Our own falls marked by our student no longer needing the skills we can teach or already knowing the lessons we know.

We know our time has come.

I taught the leech to survive on its own, I fed it until it could survive alone and now it thrives in ways I never could.

Dog eat Dog and Cat eat Cat, if Fish catch Fish, I won't none of it.

If man vs man or man vs machine, I opt out and stay sidelined for some wars aren't mean to be won.

I wonder when this will ever stop? If foodchain politics exist where do most of us go?

If politicians have armies and armies are made of men and women, where is the soul of the unit?

If it's us vs them and me vs you and survival says we both have a fifty-fifty shot why not team up and use one hundred percent?

I'm not asking for peace just saying there's a better way at home.

Connect with your neighbor because soon this will fall apart and when it does it's us vs them and wild vs man, and when nature decides that we're too much of a bother, we'll be nothing more than a blip on the map.

If it's dog eat dog and cat eat cat and if fish catch fish, I'll opt out and stay sane and safe, I'll use sage wisdom to maintain where I'm at.

The words we leave behind the loved ones- things we never said.
If only for a moment an "I love you" could've saved it all.
"I miss you" "I'm sorry"
These are the phrases that haunt us and yet everyone has them.
We're really not so different if we feel the same and leave the same phrases unspoken.
Regret is a mask we all seem to wear and so we all look the same, sheep in a herd of wolves when they come out to speak their mind and utter the phrases we only want to say.

The words we leave behind grit the path and allow those after us to venture further than we had the strength to.

If I could I say I'm sorry, would it have even mattered?
Maybe it's better that I leave the words unsaid, the unknown future is as unknown if the words are said or not, outcomes may differ but does it matter?

Hindsight is twenty-twenty but since I can never see the other outcomes, do they matter anyway?

Sometimes allowing things to fall is the only way to rebuild.

We'll do it live,
All out or none at all,
Roll the dice and take a risk- or so they said.
So they said.

We'll entertain the lights, the stage, the people, we'll dance, sing, cry, we'll rock the roof, shake the floor and stampede the door.

Lights on, lights off- we'll do it Live.

I run on hard drugs and live for the lights, my name in them spells "STAR."

I burn bright because I won't burn long.

So I am the animated, I am the rising sun on which the papers and tabloids write about.

Live and let live, live and let die- I'm worth a million dollars and counting, who tells my story after I pass gets the prize just as my story and fame goes to the highest bidder.

I look like a saint, I **** like a sinner, I'm looking cool as long as I'm thinner.

Lights on, lights off- we're better in action, so roll the camera and we'll be the attraction.

I could so easily close my eyes and call this day and end, and yet like a child I fight it.

No fancy words, no reasons or witty rhymes, just true exhaustion.

The sun never sets on those people who can make their own lighthouses.

Fading fast to the grips of sleep, claws circle and bind...goodnight

Flicker in the hearth
The light inside her eyes.

I believe humans mean well and evil actions can't survive;
So let it be, praise be, call out to the streets, overall we'd rather die with dignity than survive in defeat.

I once met a homeless man who spoke of sane things, he lost his home, lost his mind and lived on rat bone meat. He kept his optimistic outlook and spoke of future kind, that homeless man may have suffered and in the end was somehow still kind.

I speak like a slave to remind those who have forgotten that in their chosen lack of memory we can find those who still live in chains.

I speak like to a king to show those who believe that they are not of class that money and birth do not dictate what we become.

I speak in tongues to show those who lack faith that sometimes having it simply means trusting it.

I speak like a child when I need to convey my playfulness, and when I am scorn or anger I become the parent speech.

Lacking the knowledge to bridge the gaps of social and human connection, I find myself speaking a language that everyone seems to have forgotten.

When the milk of human kindness turns sour so does our spit to venom as we sink our fangs into one another hoping to survive the pack and sit atop the bone pile.

I find myself speaking a language I did not know until I knew what it was called, and by that point I was already jaded to my fellow humans.

Language, I inked it on stone as I gave up and walked away, leaving everything to understand how I was speaking for the next linguist to uncover.

And so I laid my life down unwillingly in the high school hallway as the disgruntled kid blew off steam.

I became a symbol.

I found myself in a strange land with other people much like me, we were well armed and had matching uniforms fighting against people we thought of as strange.

I became a hero.

I found myself with a choice to leave her to love her.

I became a father.

I found myself without option or hope, I found myself in the gutter, I found myself with no life to live.

I became a statistic.

I found a cause in which I would fight and die for, a cause which would jail me and forget me, a cause with I would be judged for me.

I become a martyr.  

I found a political voice in which I thought had weight.

I became a joke.

I found myself at the edge of the world repeating all my mistakes and actions without learning the lessons.

I became insane.

I found myself looking in the mirror.

I became self conscious.

I found myself starved for affection.

I became a ****.

I found myself starved of personality.

I became boring.

I found myself in the lost and found.

Now I can become.

A name in lights
Stageshow acts, a real freak and geekshow.
So leave your conventions at the door, hang your hat and check your coat because you're going to want to stay awhile.

The stage of lights is built and the stage is set for your entertainment.
Twinkle twinkle Hollywoodland
Your name in lights and fame right in your hands.

Another day in paradise and I'm falling for the lies again, the beauty and tragedy of stories, a city of the lost and found.

A name in lights twinkle twinkle Hollywoodland.

Looking back at my teenage years and my twenties sitting on the edge of thirty-three today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Standards and seals approved inked in black and signed on dotted lines, banks paid on hold and payment plan approved.

This is what the barrel of a shotgun looks like, pull the trigger and commit life, walking away now isn't an option.

We gotta grow up at sometime, so choose life and dive deep because so far what you think is living is really wasting time on a clock, the clock you've always lived by.

Ticking down as life passes by, making excuses for why you have't left a mark, mocking the would-be-elsers, realizing you may be stuck as a loser, standard approved.

Stamped, sealed, sold, delivered and paid in full.

Do what you need, do what you want, do what you feel but do something because the time spent of inaction is just wasting whatever you have, or have left.

So walking into my thirties I kick open the double wide doors to life and take a seat at the table, choosing life isn't so bad once you have lived in inaction, once you've done your tight five, you've had your fifteen minutes, once you've burned bright, it's time to focus that light and find your spot to shine somewhere.

Stop wasting away.

Dirt and mud,
I dig through the blood.

Buried bones of the unnamed artist.

Commit ******, floorboard secrets
Hidden in the walls of the house
inbetween the pages of a storyboard fairy tale life.

I shovel through the muck and mire, I sweat and bleed and hide my work.

Selfish desire.

Digging for truth, digging a hole deep to bury the secrets and with the corpses and the secrets they keep.

Look inside and you shall find what you seek,
Desire.

I shovel the dirt, cracked soil and ****** ground
Oil and gold hidden in rock and earth

Bury the bones on which I wrote a story for the ages

A human time capsule, ****** was the way only way.

Pretender, masked lover

Hand holder and word whisperer, sharing statements of forever.

Dancer, partner, will you hold my hand?

Lover, leaver, accuser, abuser, user.

Pretender my masked lover.
Seducer and I lose myself in the mirror you hold for me, showing me what you see, making me more than I see myself.

Sealed with a kiss, kisser, hip holder and ring bearer.

Heart leads to heartbreaks and love letter hand grenades.

Love lead me down into the mines of emotions and lost in the dark I found a shining gem I thought was priceless, turns out the only claim I staked was my future heart.

If you love something set it free and if you wanna be free then follow me, save your heart for the time being because bad things always happen in threes.

When the sky is rose and the world glows you're on top, when the sky is grey and you're walking through heartbreak ally you're in the gutter.

If you love something let it go and if it comes back then be ready for the second attack, sharks smell blood. The harder you fall, the harder your heart pumps, blood in the water and sadly you're going down the drain.

Captain goes down with the ship, good ship S.O.S

Cupid's arrow, accurate and narrow; struck me in the heart
pinned me to the ground and I wormed my way around back to my feet only to have my jaw drop as lovestuck hit me again.

Dumbstruck and punch drunk I retired to the corner for a much needed rest.

It was a three, five, ten count and just like that I was out- of love.

The horseshoe had spun round and when the relationship was over I was left with just my pride standing on the lonely high ground.

So this is a cautionary tale, playing love games feels so right it can't be wrong, until it goes wrong and you're picking up what's left.

But love is what we do, and love is what we need, so once again if I love, I love and you can bet I'll fall into it again.

And it may not be the easiest thing but it definitely isn't the hardest.
I'm packing my bags because we've run our course and of course we ran the race as hard and as long as we could, but all good things must come to an end.
The fun stopped when the love went, and the love went when we both stopped trying, now we love what we love and we love what we remember so we're chasing a memory, loving the past and who we we were but who we are now isn't what we wanted and it both shows.

It may not be the easiest thing but it definitely isn't the hardest thing, so walking away is better than living the lie of love that we both remember, emotions lost and time spent well.

Now the monks set fire to the holy texts
Let it burn as so did our souls and passions
Now the monks are drinking wine from the vineyards
Each sip sweeter than the last, each sip sweeter than the last.
Do not as we do for we've given all we have and now we watch the flames engulf it.
Now we set fire to the pages to prove that we're men of faith and not just printed sages.
Holy fire ring out the bell, child let there be one final prayer.
Set here in our old ways, watch as we let the fire take us
I say bonfire child some and join the dance.
Come and join the dance

Ghost tunes, do you dance at the edge of my mind.
Haunted music I hear you before me.
And so as I fall into a troubled sleep, you are with me. My fated soundtrack to the afterlife.

Great Beethoven do you torment me so?

Master of the symphony do you choose to curse me so?

I sleep not on the edge of sanity for whenever I approach repose you come snarling back, like a demon of sound at my mind.
Gnawing at my soul, Poe- you have doomed me you blackbird, vile creature and black cats who haunt me from under floorboards.

I spend time on waking life for sleep has long since left me and now the ethereal tunes do keep me company.

For I am living for the ghosts of Master's past, and so in my fairytale life there is no resort, there is no break.
Haunt me Masters and show me your torment, allow me to steal from the ghosts of the past, the greater minds than I.

Haunted, I am.

Another sleepless night because of the break up.
I wanted to cry but I was too angry, at the same time I was just numb and a small part, some small part of me was glad that it was over.

Will I ever be enough?

Another ***** in the armor, another nic in the blade, another memory left on the field as I trudge forward without a choice.

These kind of fights could **** a lesser man- that's dramatic.
We've all been there,

Another sleepless night.

Another sting to the pride, another memory, another love gone to the wayside, wishing I was enough (for her) now I'm left fishing for love while I sit out of luck again.

It's one more battle, one more fight, it's one more bruise on a pretty battered heart, and yet it beats as strong as ever.

The river I've cried is something I cross and sometimes it's still waters while the rapids rage inside, even if I could take out my anger, what would be the point? Sore hands on a punching bag? And what if I drowned my sorrows? I'd be drunk and angry?

What if  I wrote a poem? Drove really fast? Tried to clear my head?

Would any of it help?
These emotional fire fights keep coming, it's part of being alive, it's part of being human and when we're born we sign a contract that this is just all part of the ride.

Lone soldier on the battle field of romance.

I've got one more fight in me after another fight, one more love gone to the wayside.

One down, a million down,a million more to go. This is the fight we choose and we cast our lot because it's all part of what we signed up for.

I'll leave a cross on the field for the memory and as much as it pains me I'll walk away and with every step that memory becomes a picture in a frame on the wall of my mind- summer to winter 2018-2019.

Modern romance burns hot but it burns out, and in a candle wick flicker it snuffs out.

I take a deep breath and say goodbye, I've got one more fight after this, and after that one I'll still have one more fight, until one day the fight stops and I leave the field and settle down with her who dropped her sword first and took off my armor to reveal the man.

I've got one more fight and one more fight after that.

Dark skies and broken hearts fill my journal pages as I sit down and write a lasting letter to whoever finds it.

I'm tried. I've been fighting for so long now....fighting for food, for sanity, for money, for validation and for love.

Once more into the breach for the love of love. Battle chinked armor, bloodied hands, scared face, full blooded urban soldier.

My piano is this pen, my songbook is the journal with "Kilroy was here"

I bend down and pray to myself which is how I know God watches my back.

This is another battle, another fight, another trudge through the minefield of emotion, of work, of heart, of soul.

I'm tired of being tried, I'm tried of fighting, but we don't retire into the quiet.

Johnny get yer gun, grab the sword, find your marks.

Muscle up soldier, we have one more fight.

One more battle.

I've said before in a poem that I had one last fight in me and one more after that, and several more. As long as I can stand it seems I'm in some form of combat.

I sacrifice my body for this because it's a personal victory, or loss...at this point I can't tell the ups from the downs anymore and it's simply because I don't care to look.

It's nothing I haven't done before, nothing I haven't seen, nothing I haven't done, it's old hat to me but that doesn't make it easier, it doesn't make it something that gets easier to cope with over time.

I grab my bottle, I climb to the top of my ivory tower of self isolation and I take my throne.

It has been said that when one does something right, you won't know they've done anything at all, this is our gift and curse, this is the chain we've wrapped around our necks and hung ourselves by.

So yes, one more battle- and a million more. Alone because no one else can, or will and someone has to hold back the high hell waters.

One must sit at the gate and make sure it operates correctly, one must fight until they die from it. Until they exhaust from it. Until they burn out from it.

From the top of this tower, from the bottom of my heart, I give all I have in every fight because that's whats required, I rebuild myself because I'm just that strong, because someone has to be, because when everyone falls to pieces, some must pick themselves up and dust themselves off, wipe the blood from the mouth, pick the shrapnel out, look in the mirror and do it again.

When you've got nothing to do and you can't do anything, you do what you can because it's what's required of you. Most of the time no one asks, no one steps up because it's not needed but the void must be filled and so we fill it.

a million dead hearts left behind, so we pick up what we can and move onward. Onward into the fight.

You spend your whole life running, person to person, event to event, job to job.

You grew old, you got wise and lost it. You had it and you watch it all go, and who is to blame?

People can say what they want, but I did it.

I t was never about money, it was never about being liked, it was never about anything- and at the very same time it was about everything.

We've got one life, one tiny ******* life, one shot, one chance, and with that we can do anything we want, why not go for broke? Why not lie, why not cheat? Why not love? run? why not work honest and hard, why not travel? Why not get ahead?

Look, this bag of bones will rot and that's it. Any part you play, any role you get cast as...what's it matter when you're dead? Get your family, get your friends, find your loved ones and when you die- however it is, wherever it is...you can say you did it.

Meaning, purpose. Those things won't just wait, they don't drop out of the sky, why not laugh, love, why not break and make rules, why not live as a lion, a king?

Why not grab everything you are, can be, will be and want to be and shake it until it cracks.

What else are you gonna do?

In a few hours the sun is going to rise, the time will keep ticking along and day to day will resume, you get this chance to write your own chapter in your own book, and it can be anything you want it to be...

So...what's it gonna be?

Brother O' Brother
what mess have we made now?

Time and time again we travel and watch each other unravel, yet time and time again one is there for the other, and Brother O' Brother
Family is stretched thin.

I've been down in the gutter, you've been bent out of shape.

We've been beaten out of luck, been outpaced by the younger bucks, but we're still standing, and our best hits are still landing.

So Brother O' Brother, Blood is thicker than water and wine ages with time so time and time again, we'll fail and succeed over and over again

and when it's time to settle down, the other will be watching because if no one else looks out for you, then at least you've got a brother.

Tourniquets and razor blades, and in the end Jesus saves
but charlatans make faith look like charades as they perform in cheap parades,
did it have to be this way?

Did you carry my cross for me?
Did you bend on ****** knee?

Or was it all just for show, because you had nowhere else to go,
so you became a crucifistar.

I watch her wither away.
I watch her cough blood and wheeze for air.

I am powerless.

She goes to where olive trees grow and die, she rests where the skies are blue and flowers will spring out from her grave.

I am powerless.

I held her hand every step of the way. I made her smile and I hid the tears for when she went to sleep.

They tell me it's ok. They say sorry. They say everything you'd expect and just like you'd expect it doesn't make me miss her any less.

I saw her in the best of times, I saw her in the worst of times, I wasn't ready to say goodbye.

Now I notice the lack of songbirds, I notice the lack of her. I notice my heavy heart and close my eyes wishing she'd come back. Wishing that something would fix this. Wishing I had her, wishing for things that were and can't be anymore.

I live on powerless. Powerless without her, knowing how'd she want me to be. Knowing I'm not the man she loved, too bitter, too cold and ill humored. She made me the man I was because she deserved better. The best. Now without her I want to slip away into the sleep coma and forgot everything.

These are quarantine times and with that comes the stir crazy of the truly unhinged.

All those would be social butterflies are really just wasps with pretty colors, they go so far to put themselves out there and now they cling to the fear and walls of their own homes.

No one can tell them what to do or how to live, they must spread their influence into the world, no matter the cost.

This is social suicide, mass poisoning on a misinformation trail.

You refuse to stay inside and believe that this virus is a hoax, account for the bodies then.

You seem so civil when the world is fine, you speak of end times with your shelter and food, you speak of survival of the fittest, yet now in the wake of a practice run, you run from yourselves, you cannot be detained, you will not shelter.

You are the living parasite who brings the plagues. The modern rat wears stars and bars and MAGA hats for you are the herald of pestilence.

You allowed yourself to be lead down the road by your pied piper with bullhorn in hand. You didn't know that the piper was the rat king himself, dressing as humans do to sneak among the worst of us and drag you into the sea with him.

When sanity has returned to these worried times and the calm sets in you'll have to face the fact that you are not as strong as you thought. You are not as prepared as you hoped.

When something worse then Covid-19 sweeps through the land, you'll have to look out to the world and admit that you are the sheep in wolves clothes.

I walk the world in search of sight but losing touch is just too much.

I am man, the first of my kind, I walk the line between sin and divine.

Drink  of waters from the spring, mother earth takes care of me for I am man, the first of my kind. I am clay feet in hell and heaven in mind.

Lights go down in cityscapes as the fire inside is stoked by the winds of change

Coin flip my luck for I am the first of the a line, blood lines and family feuds. But there's a light somewhere in there and in the darkest times it shines, lighthouse guiding me back to solid foundation.

Solid foundation where I'm circling the space station, day dreamer tripping over his lucid self, i am the first of my kind I walk the line of sin and divine.

I can teach you how to bleed, how to cheat, lie and stael, I can teach you how to kneel, how to sin, how love to and do it again.

I am flawed perfection and mother earth takes care of me, I drink of her spring waters while her moonlight lulls me to sleep.

I am a creature of destruction, of instruction, I am fleshmade machine.

Somewhere in this darkness there is a lighthouse with a light just for me, just for me to know that I'm not a lost cause, neon lights telling me who saves, while stars shine bright but my guiding light points me home and keeps me where I need to be.

Leather and lace and in ******* we trust, for trust is where we find each other.

Words of affirmation lead to gifts of temptation, time spent together revealed trust in one another and respect hand in hand.

Birds of a fountain pen write together and bonded words scrawled in blood on stone, time runs through sand and we are not alone.

Hourglass.

sand over sand equals time and time again, thick and thin means better or worse and any port in a storm, safe harbor from the soft words that would fall apart from lesser men who would woo you to unsuccessful avail, and ivory towers high above shelter from the storm that was.

What was is past and what is shall be and together through bonded hearts and a future paved in uncertainty but together hand in hand we become sand.

Time and time again

I'm a superstar
a new god in your eyes and tv control from my remote
my every move is on your newsfeed,
I've got a star with my name on it, I've got cameras following my every step, I walk through traffic jams to make my way to your car radio, stereo, music streaming can't escape my name.

I'm a superstar.

Jaded, faded and immature,
I'm a superstar and you're obsessed so you want me more.

Give the fans what they want, feed the beast so it can become bigger.
Lights and cameras, cameras and lights and flash.

My ****** partners are endless and slapped over the front page of every magazine you see, I whisper alone in a room and the echo sends shockwaves across the world.

I orbit myself and admire me from afar as I look up to the sky and see me and a million more.

Twinkling bight, guiding you.

Monkey see, Star do.

I make your money and live the life you want but don't deserve, I have the talent and the chops to cut it where you're just average and I'm far beyond your reach, so you wish upon me at night hoping I bless with you my light and shine it on you.

Someday this will pass and someday we'll look back and laugh.
Someday we'll know this was just small bumps in the road.

Someday we'll hold hands and walk down the high roads of memory lane, and when we walk down the lowest of lows, we'll be wiser with our time.

All things pass, good, the bad, and the ugly.

We live in the wild west- but do we ever learn?

What makes a person learn? How many times do we have to get burned before we learn fire hurts, how many times must we be gored before we understand the bull has horns?

I stumble and you know, I watch you cross icy roads as you slip and slide and yet this all just another human thing.

Just another human thing, just another human being.

We grow and someday when this all behind us, we can share a laugh.

Another punk writing words like there's some point.

Is this art? A rant?

It's free speech of the lowest kind, ******* in time.

Every-thing-can be a poem
if you speak
like-this; pointless.

Leslie Knope.

Art split a million times, we're James McAvoying our opinions on talent and taste.

I cut the cost and cut the cord so unmic'd and raw, since the dawn of verbalization we've used words as tools and weapons, sounds of love and panic, of joy and rage

Now we use it to fake it until enough of us make it to call it art.

The piped piper taking rats to the sea, stealing children and watch them drown, for hopes go with the youth.

Dead down on silent docks as bleak waters kiss the shore, quote like Poe and the whispers "nevermore"

Nevermore and Neverwas, and just like the the hopes are dashed and so go the youth so go the hopes, down into the deep blue where rolling waves smother and crush the lungs of those who try to gasp for air.

Piped piper piping down the lane, dragging with him those of faith and those insane, piped piper playing a song, some for pay some entertain.

Midnight in the garden and I watch the night flowers bloom in the beauty of the moon.

Luna washes my skin and makes me shine, my heroes used to shine.
Now I shine like them.

Moonlit roses and pretty peddles, the garden.

I toss aside my worry and whims and become the stars I see above, the heroes of the silver screen and the bullet boys whose name I can't recall on the beaches of foreign sands.

Values wax and wane and and all heroes lay slain.

Sunrise soon, the waves break

Break my bones, break my will, break my heart
all so I can create.

I weep at raw beauty, I shed tears for artistic emotion.

I steal words form those who know better, I steal thoughts from the wiser of the world.

Vampire?

******* dry the culture vein so I can keep my pulse going.

I am mortal man and soon I sleep, into the dreams I fade and with it so do the words I weep, I write.

Suicide by fashionable choice.

Poets and prophets drama queens, for the worlds' a stage and we all take a bow.

It's not that hard to stay in place
It's not that hard to be in one in one space.

Find your books, find your movies, find your games, at home work out routines, find your hobby, learn a skill, start to cook, start to learn a second language. find time for yourself now.

We must work to eat and eat to live, and all this is being taken care of by men and women who make a thousand more choices and who have far more pressure on them, than most of us will ever know.

Allow time to take it's time and in time it'll all work out. We live in a third world country posing as first world winners. We won't starve and if we do then it's clear we had problems from the start.

We won't go homeless, and if we do it's clear we had problems from the start.

If you have a fear of losing it all, it means that you didn't care what happens in the rest of the world, if you have a sudden fear about a virus and staying home you've never thought about Africa, You've never seen poverty and true starvation.

If living in America suddenly has you worried it's simply because you've never had faith in what you preach and now you see America isn't that great.

To all the homeless people you've suggested "just get a job" or all the times you've said "being homeless is a choice" for every time you've looked down on someone for being hungry or said that illness wasn't that bad, you now find yourself in panic.

I've no sympathy for you. As you have written off so many for where they live, as you have written off so many for the uncontrollable factors in the masses lives, I hope this virus drives you insane and maybe lessons learned will turn your conservative hate into progressive help.

Sealed with a kiss and I love you in distress
it's bittersweet memories that make me like me even less,
You left home when I gave up and I gave up when you weren't enough.

But I'm only to blame in the dwindling fire that was our bond, your eyes started to wander which me wonder what happened to the starry eyed lovers we used to be.

When we shared a bed its cold as ice and when we look at each other we see mutual sacrifice.

Too scared to leave too weak to admit it
so we sought comfort in the beds of others,
you found yours next to your boss and I found mine next to the babysitter.

Both won't last but that's not the point, they remind us of who we were when we met each other and that's a story told through pictures of the past.

Letters in the sand, for temporary messages are best left in the moment they happen.

I drew you the world and all its contents and held your hand as the sea swept it all away, you watched my work. My one and only piece.

My one and only.

For a moment I was De Vinci, I crafted the creation I created God for you, I wrote you a manifesto of love, in the sand I called on the angels of angels and to the sky one thousand white dove.

I cut my hand to add blood to the sand and sea, so you could see me in the work.

All too soon did the sea reclaim what I could not own, you held my hand and without saying a word you said all you had to.

I love you, so said the words on the letter.
He cast it into the fire and up into the air went the promise of forever.

Today a heart broke.

Today rings left hands and final vows were took.

Thrashed by the side, groom left the bride, son left his dad, mother sold the daughter

hearts left by the wayside.

Today a promise was made, a life was saved, a vow was taken.
Today a lie was spoken, a heart was woken, a fire was stoked and a the fated lovers joked of their ill future fates.

Sealed with a kiss, deceit on the lips.

We're only together so we don't have to be alone, we're only alone so we don't have to commit, we don't have to commit so we don't let ourselves down, we don't let ourselves down so we don't end up alone.

Crosses and prayer,
the holy man let down his hair.

Bended ***** knee, cracked hands and fear for all to see.

Holy man, say your peace then let it rest.

Holy man, say your prayers and deliver us from our sins.
Deliver us from whatever you may deliver us, a message from the beyond telling us that time spent here wasn't spent wasting on and on.

Crosses and prayers and thoughts and hopes, holy water to ******.

Count the beads on a the rosary, Sinners, aren't we all?

I am divided between the devil inside and the angel I show the world.
If both are me, am I divinely wicked or wickedly innocent?

I cast myself down and do not cover my head, for I fear no wrath of the judgement, I am who I am and I live how I live, for freedom is my first choice.

Pictures hung on the wall
they laid in a photo album
stuck in a wallet
uploaded to a computer

We had the memories of yesterday, looking back we were young, we were wild and reckless.

One for all and all for one and through fire and fury, through hell and highwater, we fought back to back.

Weddings and funerals of the days gone by, but we've got the pictures to prove we have the scars, yet the older we get brighter those black and whites seem.

Every night if it's a nightmare in technicolor, I glance to the past and know that you too have those nightmares and then I remember I'm not alone and sleep becomes easier.

Five years turned to twenty-five turned to fifty and old age consumed us, and we burned like stars in the night sky.

We lost touch but we keep the pictures alive and well so we know who we were.

And no one can take that away.

To the bottle I promise
Blood I take is blood I give.
Love I take is love I give.

To the futures ahead of me, I stand as a statue, to those before me, I keep the flame alive.

I raise the bottle to the bloodline and house, to the friends and loved ones, may you in heaven before the devil knows you're dead and may the road rise to meet you.

The last vulture feeding off bones and blood of the remainder, the carrion carrying on.

Like a virus it swept through our towns, cities, states, boarders, nation by nation fell and as it did the buzzards ate the virus flesh.

Consumed the disease and with it so the curtain was drawn across the world.

Humans fell to their knees, we fell apart fast.

No Z day, no Mad Max, No Fallout was had, we were Walking Mad if anything, dead inside and panic buying everything we could.
Dark days and black skies, no amount of social distancing can save what is already dammed.

Panic, we did it to ourselves.

Who would have though Facebook and misinformation would have been the little embers that stoked our fear and whipped us into the frenzy state we find ourselves in now.

The Grim Reaper came calling and we named it Covid-19.

Animals fear lightning and fire and all we had to see was the smallest spark to send us running.

Cholera, Spanish Flu, Typhoid, they're laughing now from the pages of history as the dead townships look upon us and see us believe that our doors and windows will keep us safe, we're the biggest danger to ourselves, we could have stayed calm, we could have taken small simple steps to secure and remain safe.

We're nothing but dumb, wild, savage, scared little animals.

The vulture knows.

Melting masks and under dressed,
to the hall for the ball and watch as we fall.

Melting into each other, painting a picture of a picture that looks like a photograph of our life, hang it on the wall and buy some time.

Dorian gray; aren't we all?

Man's vanity will be the end, a highclass ***** house, selling our skin for cash, petty cash in our bank accounts as we ***** out for the final curtain call.

I'd rather paint myself a mockery and fall in line with the hanging tree,hang til dead like individuality.

Dress to impress like we all care, but we only care about the first impression that is so quick to flee, flirt and flee with the otherside.
Tragedy by design, beauty by-product.

I take my meds and walk the show trying my best to play the part that somebody else cast me for,
signed my name on a dotted line and I fall in place like the rest.

Kiss, I miss.

Love, I am.

The poet's journey starts and begins.

Alone and well thought, by the end spent and wasted on time that would've been better spent creating concrete thought over paper tigers.

Words on a page are as sharp as swords, provided they're seen by the right eyes to evoke the emotion.

Snake, I am.

Kiss, I miss.

Words I mine.
Emotion I craft

and yet with all this power I am nothing.

I am man, mortal and small in the grand scheme of the ticking clock.

Tick tock, and so I wade into the river, drown my sorrow.

Drown, I am.

Words in stone are set to last, words of sand are set to change, words of paper may burn, words whispered are lost to sound.

Blood, I write.

Fool, I am.

Starman taking off, over Venus and to Mars, I get lost up in the stars.

Command has their doubts but I have an urge, so into the black above I travel, explorer of the unknown. Countdown to history.

Looking back down to something I knew, something now far beyond my reach as I reach to the stars and go home.

Home beyond the void and here we go, Sail into dreams, sail into dust.

Stardust and red dwarf and here we go, mission control gets cut off, we're in charge now, doing what we do going home, leaving the blue behind as we head into the void, each wearing their pride on a sleeve of Red White and Blue.

Light a cigarette, final time to say goodbye, and I'm gone.