I have heard enough talk,
I have read enough books,  
I know of what you speak

He lies in the grotte
He waits in the dark
He loves in the shadows
And he preys in the light

Which is why he should
Begin
Begin again to see
If once he learns
His brave
Can turn to coward

He can be one of us
And he can love in the light
And hate in the dark.

After glow of writing
Is there nothing like it

Pen jabs my hand
Splits my skin
Spills my blood
Red stuff of life

Fascinates so gruesomely
Don’t understand why
Don’t question
The laws of this world
It will always rule

She is no Louis the Fourteenth
She is no Napoleon
She is no Stalin
She is no Nero

She will always be
Accept it
Move on
To the words

A mere “l” separates the two
For a reason
The reason of power
The two have it

No one else does.

Well he wonders and he blathers
And finally I decide
And he goes sure

And everything is good
Then he speaks his mind

And the indiscriminately honest
Becomes what you don't mind hearing

Until later,
When you realize
That a free pass has been secured
At your expense

So soon now
Things will fall into place
Because nobody can wait forever
And nobody wants to wait long.

I am one of the many
So I am sending out a warning
A message for whoever chooses to listen

And deserves to understand it.

Turn the other cheek
They said

Learn to say no
They said

Be obedient
They said

Vote Obama!
They said

Vote red!
They said

Stay in
They said

Go smoke
They said

Well convoluted minds
Histories
Experiences
Paradoxal Opinions

Confused
Beffuddled
Hurt me.

No. No. No.
But one of these is wise.
But one of these should be heeded.
Know who I am? What for?

Youth for parties
Youth for learning
Youth for discovering

But no.
Youth for nothing.
Youth for everything.
That’s the Beauty of this world.

But then the creeping folds
At the corner of eyes,
Framing the mouth
And the filmy eyes
And the sudden aches
And the sluggish pace
And the Beauty is gone
And the wise are back.

They hate and
Well, what else can I say?

They hate
Ignorant
Fear

Well, we can't change.

They hate.
They take away our rights.

Well, we keep going.

Because they hate
Because we love

Because we fight for that.

We have seen the jealousy
We have heard of all the tragedy

Callous Cupid
Laughing at the top
As he shoots you down

Mischievous mysteries
Mere mortals
Fading, twisting

Selfish, hurting
Chaotic wonder and addiction
Sickly adoration – so unnatural

And he twirls and leaps and prances
Cloud to cloud
Bubbling with laughter
While the world burns beneath him.

She is terrible
Compelling, painful
My heart is full to bursting

But hers is exploding
As she drowns
So she erupts and flies to him
He who is always fleeing,
Always mocking and tormenting

Itching to be free
Cannot escape her bonds
She falls
And no one tries to catch her.

They watch
She is falling
They watch
She is hurting
They watch
She is dying
They watch.

Looking for freedom
I think I’ve found it
Now where’s the courage?

Soft aching
Slowly ebbing
Ah sweet peace

But now my mind -
Tangle, warp, torture.
So I follow it
Into the downward
As it goes viral
Drop down
Blow up
Sigh through

Always
Will it ever stop?
I fear not.

Trying to hold it in
Racking cough
Churns up your throat
Bursts through those dark cracked lips

They say that Death is a cloaked figure
That haunts the shadowy corners
Where no one dares to venture.

Well I say
She is in every jealous caress
She is in every lover’s parting kiss
She is in every line traced upon your palm

She walks free under the same flag
She cries and screams with the same voice as us
She loves and loses the same as us

But she cannot hope the same as us.
She has no body to give
She has no heart to throb
She has no soul to devote

Death is someone to be pitied.
She is not something to be feared.

Seeking as one who
Loves when it's not right
Seeking as one who hopes
Still expecting disappointment

Must be nice to have things fall in place
And see the stars align

No more star-crossed lovers
For you - or me -
Looking at the sky wishing
Oh bad omen
Too little too late
Doesn't do justice to the misery

And now I stare in horror
At all that space.

How am I supposed to find
What I'm looking for
In all that emptiness?

I still expect and hope
And fall every day

Then pick myself up
Just to see the day
Where I won't be able to

Where I'll need a helping hand
And I'll look up at that smile
And well,
Let's stop there.

Charting the future
Makes it no future at all
But an echo of the past.

And I have had enough of my past.

So let's move on.

They say to you be who you are
And yet all of these nets and traps
And tests they set to watch you fail

The only way to get out
Is to put up your own
And rise above
As you step on those
Who suffer at the whip of your tongue
And the lash of your words.

They say the witty, the clever
Survive.

And they certainly do.
Being survivors of a different kind,
Of the subtle knives
No one looks for as they turn around
To face the oncoming train,
Forgetting to step off the tracks
And glance behind them.

An empty hospital bed
The race of those two drops outside the window
The growl of tires on the gravel
Fading though
As those lines etch themselves into the face of the people
And those rivers and potholes carve through the crust of our universe

That blank stare as love fades from your gaze
And this empty room
And this space – suddenly so much bigger –
What happens now?
What happens when I don’t even feel
Like wondering?

And we forget everything about ourselves and have to find our
Relationship to others
But through ourselves
In other words, how do we find ourselves alone in the dark?
Well we feel
And I feel through art.
So stop poking and prodding
And just try to let it fill you
Like it does me with anything you can feel, anything at all.

The clung and cried
Together in rage and fearful love
They murdered in passion
They died for their love

Ripping each other
They writhe and they torment
The insane are pushed beyond

Into the existence beyond theirs

He is left in the abyss

As he lives with his soul in the grave

Lingering and tormenting
In death as in life.

Telegraph the Morse
Don’t know what to curse
Fill the silence
Beating with the pulse

But I’ll be on my way then
You don’t love me
So I won’t love you then.

Whistles and sighs
Never enough
Sob and cough
Then the lies

I give up
I give in
COME BACK!

I forgive.
I love you the way I love me.
You are me and I am you

You killed me
But I forgive
Because of love
Because you are you
Because no matter what you do to me
Being away from you
Is infintely worse
Than every torture you can think to inflict on my
Broken bleeding heart.

Leaving you
Would not maim me. It would not crush me.
It would be as if I never existed
Oblivion no end for there was no beginning.

But you killed you.
And love your murderer?
Never.

I just don't get it.

Some people just don't get it.
They make me angry because I'm irrational
That's okay with me though

Because at least I get it.

(In my sister's words)

Truer words never have been spoken
Since they need to be broken
And I want them banned
From this sand

Away from my kingdom.
Because this is a place

Where people just have to get it.

Oh to feel your touch
To feel the heat

And to not need these words

To look into those eyes
And be understood.

Isn't that what we all want?

In the meantime, though,
She has you,
But I have bad poetry,
Sad music,
Worn out books,
And burnt cookies.

Still, you do the math -
And I still have more.

He spent the hours
He shed his - and others' - blood
He broke bones
He threw kicks
He received beats

And he felt them through the pulse
Of the music
The words exploded
They raked at his insides
And ripped their way out

Looking in the mirror
He finally saw that soul -
Was it his? -  That air bubble popped
And - finally - then came the upward lift

Alone but sailing
The taint slowly
Peeled back
One day at a time
He got back that suffering
He made it into songs

He changed lives
Starting with his own

And then fell back.

Time to return the favor,
They understand more than anyone
Your words still have meaning
Your message is still heard

To err is human, and
Forgiveness divine,
Forgive yourself.
We have forgiven you.

Well he was stopped in his tracks, and froze her with a look.
And they twirled
And then they fell
Each shot down and bleeding
With their hearts wide open.

No one can save her.

Only torment and chaos.

No light no order no hope.

Sinking deeper and deeper
As they drown
In alcohol
In tears
In blood

They taste all three
On their lips
The burn, the salt, the rust
Epiphany – everything is beauty
But there is no more time

Spin into oblivion.

I have no pity.
I have no forgiveness.
They say it is divine
For I am a devil

She accuses me of inhumaneness
And yet her - other - would sacrifice
Him a thousand times over,
Would watch him melt into nothingness
Ages upon ages

Without a rage
Without a burn of ice as
The degree nearer to her than her pet writhed
And died - is deceased -

And then I would have come
But until then
I will not touch
I will not harm

As long as I am sure her regard remains.

Pigments fall from the sky
They swim in our skin

Some would rank them
By that God
But he gave them all to us
By natural superiority
But that makes for inferiority

Oppression violence abuse hate
Always find outlets through these excuses
*** color religion culture
And those that do nothing
Those that see the wrong and still do nothing
Forge the way for wrongdoers
Moderate the righteously inflamed
And accept the abuse

When rights are stolen
Injustice runs unchecked
All will suffer.

In the end remains just the question
What's next?
When will you be the victim?
When will you act?
When will your sense of justice

Cry out for rightful compensation
For rightful equality and freedom?

When will you scream and fall?
For you and others
With you and others

And right the wrongs
And take up that torch of liberty?

As others before you
That you have mocked
And called impatient rabblerousers
And ridiculed their cause

Now just as noble as yours.

Fight
INFLAMED AND RUSHED AND WHIRLED
In a torrent of change and ideas burning through all the paper
Burning books
Burning lines
Burning people

All the pain for all the good
As if nothing can matter
But that -
That if the kids no longer run
And the babies no longer wail - fear of being discovered
And are drugged and subdued
Like the minds of the rest -
Cruel cruel terror -
- Crippling knowledge -
The goal is lost
And the fight ends before it begins.

There is no defeat
As there is no victory

For the light is gone
And the point is blurred
As the ink splotches
And the pages, stained forever,
Sporting a dripping shame
The leaves of history shall therefore remain
Spotted and rotted
Festering and aching.

No cauterizing burn
Is deserved here.

She's pretty she's charming
She's better.

And that's okay.
Because I still have you,
Music and books
And all those love stories.
I have my dreams.

And she has you.
And that's okay.

A strangling stone gave way,
And the world started to turn again.
The despair shifted away,
And anger replaced it with gluttonous gain.

They took up torches
They took up sticks
They made the scorches
And gave the kicks.

They besieged the source of suffering
And down went the hurtful men
Down went the hating
Down went the deaths of children.

A star rose to the top
But it lost its glow
And the good came to a stop.
Greedy hands snatched at the power

And down went the elation
Down went the relief
Returned was the grief
Returned was the dark legion.

And they’re screaming in the streets again.

A child holds them off
Then toward his sister
He fights them off
And becomes the savior

But then he became the martyr.

The people are running
“Storm the castle!” they called
And were killed
Then downed were the fleeing

Fire at the fore
Driven from the core
Shoved from ahoy
Pressed by the death of a boy.

And there they lay
In shallow graves
Wreathed in mist, pale gray,
There are no more of the brave.

Sweet revenge
To have tasted you
And then your bitter -
Nay, poisonous -
Aftertaste

I don't need to.
I know what that feels like.

Nice for a second, gone for a century,
Scarred for an age.

Just a suspicion
But you jump for the freefall
The river’s unlucky though
And your hand is a weak one

She falls for him
And leaves you in the dust
And you curse the winds
And you crush your heart
And you smother the hope

And you watch her be happy with him.

No more he said.
The glint of the blade,
The spill of the red
The last sigh of the dead
And there she was laid.
And there she stayed.

The words write themselves on the inside of my lids.
Their sharp slants jab my eyes and force me to open them,
Force me to glare at the world.

I remember now why I am.
I remember why I should live.
But I also remember why I wanted to die.

They always said so many things
They always showed us so many pictures

The irony of so much more information
Useless viral spirals

What matters
Why is it always the hardest to find?

Hope is such a fantasy
Hope is so amazing
Hope is crushing
Hope is like everything coming to nothing

To become out of touch with reality
Then Nothing coming to Everything
All to a point
“Break, Burn, And End”
She sang
Well
“Heal, Cool, And Begin”
Is what I (don’t) believe
Sad. Wrong word. Poignant. Right word.

Saved by the bell?
Really
Saved by distraction.
Saved by a wrapped silk scarf.
Stained by a white handkerchief.
Shredded by a spotted white handkerchief.

Sensations craved dreaded addictive toxic
Only way to know you’re alive
Nature is corrupted.
Innocence doesn’t exist
In the hearts of the brave.

They always show
Inflammatory heroes
And legendary woes
Healed with a blazing personality
Standing up in the face of adversity.

But there is a quiet kind of strength also -
A strength that makes you turn the other cheek
And suffer in silence.

Some may call it a wall
In the way
But I say

It’s a tower
I’m standing on top of.

As I bear it all
Without burning.

Because once it’s all said and done,
Who do those people stand on?
Who is left after the dust settles?

Those with tongue still in cheek,
With tongue still in check.

They don't realize -
None of them do
Relapse
Of a different kind
Into the strife
And the hate and the fighting
And the tears and the pain
And the so-called rebellion
That tears us all apart with no end in sight
Moral or immoral

And there's no one
There's no one for this kind of pain
No one to hold
To hear
To cry with you
Or to even see the tears.

They're gone now though
And tomorrow's another day.

They try to tell you
You won’t listen
It’s too hard to hear
The knowledge gets ****** upon you
It bores down on your mind
You go to the bottle
You go to the needle
You go to the books
They will take it away
And the little one will suffer.

Time is munching
Tick tock
Oh and flying

Tick tock
It's always hungry
Guess I can relate
I want to hide in a tree
Tick tock
But now it's too late

I'm too old
My soul has caught a cold
Now I shut up and do as I am told.
Tick tock.

My lonely voice wobbles out
Into the Universe to find you
In the seeping darkness.

As our world crumbles and the tears fall
With our skies
Their edges eroded by these
Cages they pretend we can fly out of

But then I look to you and you listen to me
And together
The system can't break us
Kirara - oh- we're wild childs at heart
And they ain't gonna bring us down no more

We'll fly to that mountain peak over there
And then taunt gravity after we launch without the plummet
And take out over those billowing clouds and roiling sea

But we don't care anymore,
Cuz we're free!

Until then though
We pray
That the Universe hand us aces instead of the jokers we've been getting

And philosophy and reflect and become buddhas
While staying Edward Scissorhands by all appearances and feelings...

Oh my darling
Desperation makes a poet
Of even the court jester.

If only such a power were ours
We would rule the world
And not only in our minds.

I'm angry and I want the world to know it!!!!
So that's why I write,
Because the kids they die
And the people don't stop shooting
And the bullet holes
Blossom - toxic red flowers -
In the mother's chest as she rushes to her baby
And falls short

As he screams and squalls no longer
Oh and then they sing about the drugs the money the *** the jaded

When ALL YOU HAVE TO DO
IS LOOK AT THAT

No use to shake them
The world burns around them

Laetitia
A trilling name
A wack-a-mole
Incompatible yet true

Go on and bust 'a move ol' suga' mama
Make your poppadipops proud!
And don't disregard Dr. Carlisle Bartholomeue Schmo
To lift your wings as you undulate
Through human sized stalks of rye, wheat,
Whatever the young call it nowadays

And fly to the heights
Of a tall sandy-haired boy

Well I gotta get this down
I don't know what to write

I can't find the right words
For the throbbing inside

And it hurts that much more
As it festers, trapped.

Living off your passion
Waking up hungry
Sleeping less, exhausted
Working for your family

They leave and
You say hello to that old friend
That creeps and stabs
No blame no pity just reckoning
That loneliness - Oh!
Too much pressure
Building up, suffocating,
The blood lets it out.
Crying
Drugs, money, pain,
Drowning

So send them your reveries

And so they climb and swim
And there they reach the top

Don't look down at me
Don't look back at us.
We're the steps of the ladder you're standing on.

Nothing more.
But nothing less.

I don't mind the cliché
I enjoy the blasé

Surrender made necessary
And so accepted
Seems to fill with lead
And drip in a keg

And rhyme
With Time

So I’ll just leave it there
And love it there.

They pass without time
Through the glaring white light
That blue chair stuck there wavering wobbling
And then still
Finally still
Forever still
As the light slices through
Spreading and cutting
Vicious and precise
Those jabs of pity and melancholy

That we send out to space to crush those stars
So burdened from our failing wishes
And shredded by the fading hope

Of all the people watching the red sunrise
Drip off the stars
And into their waiting palms,
The beads gliding down
All the life lines of this world
To finally seep into rest
In a cool shady dusk.

He lives with his soul in the grave
Popping buttons - ripping blouses
Can’t resist the crave

Loving in the shadows
Preying in the light

Bubbling with laughter
While the world burns beneath him.

Honey forget your dread
Slip and slide those hands all over
All over - want that fire lit

Get that fire lit
Take me hard
Take me down

The words exploded
They raked at his insides
And ripped their way out

There he goes laughing
At the shards of tears
And glint of ****** streams.

They ask me why I laugh
I tell them
A way to cope
I’m just happy
I like the feeling

Truth is I don’t know
Truth is I have an easy life.
All of the above
None of the above
Seems to be part of life.

It's been a while
No more words
Amazing the effect that has

I don't care
I won't be crushed

No, I won't.
But isn't that the tragedy of it all?

How all of this world spins on games
And sassiness
Money and irony
Along with ***** skills.

All of that is great
But it builds these walls so high

You think they've gone down
Till you bleed your head on the sharp bricks
As they fall, heavy, into your lap
Staining you skin and your clothes

As it seeps into you
Then grinds you back into the ground
Back into your home

But I don't want to go!
And on goes the grinding sound of those walls
Coming ever closer

With control.

You better start moving on
You better stop getting involved
You better party while they die

You gotta stop
You needa rest
Look at the mirror
And change the world

Starting with you.

Gotta get back, back
to that? Well I've been there
Let's move forward.
Don't look down,
That bubble will pop
And down oh down you'll go.

Oop! Too late, that slide starts,
****** back into that styrofoam cup
Drowning again in that syrup
Stinging again by that needle.

Sweet, sticky, nauseous
Oh God help he's gone

YOU TRICKED US ALL

And there it goes laughing
At the shards of our tears
And the glint of those ****** streams.