When lips have sunk the ships of yesteryear
Man can grasp the mast and pull out the fear
Casting an artful arm beyond the horizon
set down a new game in a new love’s garden.

They’ve done it so; whenever lost and known
As the hull bows to Davy Jones’ show
Let him have it. He only sings well for the dammed
And our light lingers beyond the darkest sands.

All the world's a spiel
tall tales torn from a heart; peeled.
Everyone desperate to feel
As they all lay under their ends heel
So many roles we'd play
Just to get a little more warmth today
Surging sweaty waves
Scratching at ever ending holidays
Putting hearts into ATM'S
For the roulette wheel of freedom again
Clamber up the display pen
Just to hide our broken sealed goods, friends.

Sometimes it takes the sky to open my eyes
To what's shone, coming and wrong,
To what's bright, rich and right
Sometimes in the emptiness of the night
when I lie awake to your choir of snores,
I chase the Devils of idyllic futures and more,
I hear me in them, in laments of glory, such songs,
and watch the warm creep by from feelings thought ever gone,
it ends,
yet when I truly wake to the scarlet rise
through the smog and maze on the horizon
I realize that in the center of concrete bushes,
as the wind of doubt whoosh whooshes,
I'm standing awake in the circle of change and growth
And I've waded through the black sludge of failures malicious moat,
and now I see me
as the dirt's swill stills
and I look upon my face
for the first time without distaste
and know that between this mud
and the roaring horizons blaze
stands a champion here present,
self made.

This cloudy morn of murk,
Where on my tongue I taste dirt,
I should wallow in grey plumes, sir,
But I glide by this dank flirt,

On lady nature lay cobbled stone,
Without shoes we’d feel at home,
But this spring one looks to be known,
In diamond vestments is how we ‘grow’,

As my glide comes to a stop,
And I lay rest in this earthy shop,
Sipping elixirs of generations crops,
I breath I taste tip top,

Chakra advocate with stature,
I see you too truth catcher,
Without shoes, tongue out plan hatcher,
The dew fills your pallet, oh catch her.

Everywhere I go,
No matter the pull I tread low'
Low beneath the underpass and gutter
Filled with slime grime and clutter
Of mind
Of rats
And delinquents not men
Let loose in a remote controlled pen
Freer are pigs and caged little hens
We don't know we chase
An unquenchable thirst
And blindly can't see the fishing wire
That it's dangled from in front of our faces.

How would I draw me?
In pencil on time stained paper?
On the canvas of future so dreamy?
Or on a mirror with brushstrokes much braver?
Certainly not in cyberspace even thinner
Where there's everything but real stars that glimmer
Cause to me, you see, fellow maverick,
All that is pure we can't draw and wear like a fabric
It's lived breathed and loved
It's etched into your senses and leaves you for dead
For you to rise again like the morning sun
With a painting to show to your darling young ones,
Without form, style and genre,
So take the water and gulp then go sculpt nothing
And leave to go discover in the romance of mystery.

Today you'll find me in the role of home sick slick,
Owning a back street stage in an auditorium of ghosts,
I'll take my bow and go on down to an amber haven of disillusioned bravery.
I'll wake to the sound of drums rumbling in my gut,
wash my pale face with water filled with paint,
And then I'll swipe the toast, smile ready to boast,
wishing I'd be behind some walls and a moat.

A.J Simmons '17. ©