I am not who I thought I'd be
Sure I look a little like John McClane now
If he'd birthed Gary Busey.
An unrelenting action hero
That finds "action" an unlikely filter too far from reality, and "hero" a notion so freely given that societally we have reduced what it was meant to mean.
Heroes used to be subjects of admiration
That which inspired aspiration in our youths (utes- some of you get it)
But the title of "hero" was an impermanent...

(Character) is a hero (timeline) for doing (x)

Yet it becomes their lifelong nomination to the firmament of history.
How many of our "heroes" died on crosses only to reveal skeletons (a lot) or journal pages of moments?
How many times have "heroes" been exposed as nearly inexplicable excellence deposed by the consequence of inconvenient fact?

{This guy did a super awesome thing... but oh, wait - no... don't Google, he's really a *******}

That achievement, as laudable as it should be, is no replacement for an expectation to be human.. to be in spite of being.

Athletes, actors, poets, and songwriters, producers, investors, and attorneys who all say "you're going to do great kid", who support you right up until the moment you aren't doing great... or in reality: they're about to get "me too"-ed. {I desperately want to call it moo-ed}

It's not an accident that every movie is familiar and every song sounds the same except the few artists who stake their own vulnerability - it's a badly written matinee.

[Like trying to make those words rhyme]

If we sound or seem mundane, it's because you, the sheeple, conditioned to show contrition at the steeple, believe it to be a reflection of your pain.
We've crafted a carefully cultivated currency of resistance in the constant contentious, captivating and  licensious, breeding and ever feeding, consumers of today... to tell you all to stop listening to us.

And stop smoking cigarettes <wink>.

Taylor Swift, America's sweetheart and a genuinely talented songwriter keeps writing songs about why you should stop listening to her. And that none of you get "it" is probably why I never will.

It's more subtle now. The punk and post punk movements of the pixies and velvet underground refaced the pavements surreptitious to what "adults" then thought was "a wall of sound".
But what is punk now except an exposition of 30 somethings trying to find the after hours after party, even literally underground? Or just go to bed?

We cannot even have an open discussion without being so hurt we have to find private corners to complain about anyone who disagrees with "me"
Never giving credence or understanding of what "me" means...

It's nothing. History will forget you as I hope it forgets me. The only thing I hope is that a few people read my lines, I might help shape a few minds, and I might live forever in the national archives - the pages of memory.

Terrible people are capable of great things
Just as every person history records as great...
Just as all "Great people" have all done horrific things.
No exceptions.

I may have been seeking
A perfect disaster
Thats where I found you
Poring through the files in the evidence room

Swipe right, its like a mirror
You're my reflection
In the beautiful fractals of broken stained glass
A composite of missed memories and failing to act

But I
Keep callin you "lady",
But thats a stretch like calling me a "gentleman"
I am a perfect *******
That's what you're after
Baby I'd be your "*****" if only you'd let me in

A thousand times I should've known
I should have felt
The thousand times without.
For the misplaced faith in a wraith I couldn't doubt...

My own feeling left me reeling
For me to tell the one story,
I'd left untold
And I can never know - if I was right...

I dreamt a hundred lives
And in each time
I never saw your face...

You were here with me from the beginning
Maybe a reflection of my ghost
Or I was too young for me to place you.

On and on.

But I chased you well.
I told the stories
In poems, songs, in visions
In theories, in ev'ry mis-decision
I keep you alive in every lie
In every breath that claims that I
I believe

Did you know that I drowned...
Twice?

You are my hidden face
Wittness to my unveiled disgrace
I was once asked in all my songs
Who were "you"

My unseen mistress
My forgiveness,
My implacabal
Agressive shadow

My insecure insignificant
My insight
Myself deplorable
An adorable
A beautiful disaster

And we slept
So many nights
In each other's comforting arms
And I invited you in
Without a fight
But thats all you left in me

... the FIGHT

My disgraceful, irreplaceable
My exoneration,

my desperation, my displacement,
my revelations...

My whimsical
Mystical, quixiotical
My enervation...

Disgraceful, irreplaceable, it's not just distrust,
Its ireedemable

You're my,

Captivated, and one day they'll maybe see
You've always been me

My inescapable

"you"

You...
Feel the ***** of your feet
Each step painting a tapestry
Each breath left unnoticed
Each move unrelenting...

Neither of us
Wished I were here

What should've been a revival
became default to a recital
And every pirouette
A moment none of us
Should have missed
... and I'm no better

I'd've penned you letters
Each with the broken, desperate intent
And secret hope, you'd just throw it away

But I can feel in each poissson
As i fish for every moment you've lost
And the tilte barre
Cant fulfill your absent tomorrows
I could have staged for you
an "I'm sorry"

Now every time I hear your laugh
In playback or live from a hundred miles
Your giggles reignite in me
A flame through a negative
The moments as they might be
But here we are
And where we both were left to be

I had a normal day once...
I suppose that depends on how you define "normal".
And I think it was a Tuesday,
But that depends on what a Tuesday is, or means, or if our Tuedays have ever meant the same things.
It was late spring. April, maybe May.
But it was a steamy Tuesday, the first angry sun after a rain.
And the only thought that occupied my mind that day,
Suspiciously
Surreptitiously
In that moment and in my memory...
Was how the uneven earth felt beneath my feet
As I, solo, explored the woods beyond the shopping plaza across the street
And it might have been or may still be the last normal day for me
On some random Tuesday, two decades ago
In April or maybe May.

My intellect has served me only a level of awareness of the fragility
Of our world... bonded pieces tethered together
By the bubblegum and handshakes, and gentleman's agreements of
Violent, un-gentle men
Lost in time to a group-think long rumored to be extinct
Rumors whose purpose serve only to palliate the weariness of consumers
To keep the market machine spinning
But whose ideals every decade or so resurfaces to strike bold into each generation that our history is not as clean as
The books, and songs of the "good ol days" mislead us to believe
And to raise the rancor of the awakened shouting into choruses of their own voices carrying the same message of resist
And whose fervor is cartooned as extremist
It is said the entitlement of the peaceful to sleep sound at night
Is owed to the will of brave men who stand ready to deliver violence
On their behalf
But whose iron sights and guided bombs increasingly shift focus to the not-entirely-innocent
Whose guilt by association signed in iron pen their death warrants by foreign manipulators claiming liberation
They know what's best, after all
My intellect has served only to deliver this life of anxiety, in the pursuit of happiness.

Die Welt
Die Welt fällt um uns herum
Und Splitter
Splitter reißt durch die Luft
Und wir stehen
Denn es gibt kein Versteck
Aber die Liebe
Die Liebe wird uns dort beschützen

Und wir küssen uns
Als ob nichts passiert wäre
Und die Bomben
Fallen Sie weit zur Seite
Und die Kugeln
*******nicht so erschreckend
Und nichts so Auffälliges
Wie die Verlangsamung der Zeit

Und die Nacht
Die Nacht bricht um uns herum ein
Wegbrechen
Bis zum Morgengrauen kommt Licht
Wie der Rauch
Der Rauch setzt sich um uns herum ab
Wir stehen immer noch
Zur Niederlage beider Seiten

Dann sind wir helden
Nur diesen Tag

Und wir sind dann Helden
Nur für diesen Tag