The age of men and women
Taking grand heroic action
Or making small significant gestures
Which changed the world
Are over.
Enter the age of indifference
Failing economics
And aging alcoholics
Dot the skyline
Of forclosures
And reposessions
Where once stood
Raised Fists

We ignored the warnings
The unemployment rate
Rises faster than global warming
Al Gore is an adulterer
Another inconvenient truth
Lining the landscape of sephulchre

Failing motivation
Spreads like an infectuous disease
And e-mails to God go unanswered
Replaced by homicidal tendency
The philosophers and writers
Visionaries and fighters
Have all been diagnosed with
Social disorder
And put on lithium
The public would rather watch
The latest news on the off-shore drilling Moratorium
Its just getting boring.

The smallest voice has ceased to be listened
So instead of pulling out my hair
I resign to not care
And stopped acting like it makes a difference.

I think we have a different sort of problem now...
One which has probably always plagued us,
Sometimes its embrace has held hold of us for so long
Realities were changed
The concept of "the other"
A simple idea, that you are not like me
A mechanism of the smallest
Most unevolved parts of our brains
Yet without which we could not "be"
The sense that
I am
The sense that
you are not what I call "me"
The basest recognition that we are different
How simple an idea - independent consciousness
That even genetically identical twins
Can recognize themselves from each other
"The other"
We've weaponized this basic perceptual function
Since the very dawn of our species
And through complexities of
Environment
Genetic bottlenecks
Genocides
We are all "I" now
Nearly 9 billion "I"s
All seeking an ability to be "we"
That is the basic function of civilization
To define "me" among the "we" and split our burden of work
For the greater survival of the "us"
But "us" is so much weaker than "we"
"Us" desperate in our divisions still seeking to be "I"
In a complex infrastructure that "me" can be a part of "we"...
This is how humanity is gas-lit and misled
Told to always be seeking, and never to be sought,
And if the "I" of a "me" is charismatic enough...
"We" let them lead "we" and in doing so
define an "us"
For now
Civilization must be governed
but "we" continue to give away all of our "I"s
to be "me" among the "we"
In theory to push "us" to progress
It's why terrorism has the wrong name
Each ruling faction in history
Was a "terrorist" to someone else
- to have made someone afraid
"Terrorism" seems to declare that the objective
Is nothing more than fear - so reductive
A sentiment to dehumanize their "us"
and label their "we" - "them"
To make their "we" less than our "us"
I prefer Organized Non-Unified State Actors (ONUS)
"Terrorism" sounds like an individual act
Coordinated by a conspiracy of individual acts
Robbing "their" identities of recognition
- which is probably what it all is ultimately about to begin with
"They" do not fit the fold of the agreements of the many civilized "we"s and want to be their own "us"
But there is no room, resource,
There is no time
Food
Water
"We" have already identified, occupied, and commodified
Every resource for an unaligned "us"
"You" must be "we" for your share and to survive
"Their" methods are poorly rationalized, but very intelligent
Bad intellect and severe commitment
"We" dream of conspiracy to make "our" "us" look capable
But their "us" is organized and capable
If "we" ever want to end terrorism
"we" need to call it what it is
Revolution with no vacancy
Organized groups of disuinified elements taking action
It doesnt matter that the "they" may not reach "their" goals
- "they" dont have enough "we"s on their team
"They" make "we" hurt
And shame "them" for it, ignorant to their "us"'s hurt
I am not making excuse or any compassion
for those among the universal "us"
Humanity, sapiens,
Who cannot get on board with "we"
because the most of the "we"s decided this is how it will be
And it is broken
And it is wrong
And there are many hurt
But "us" lives in a universe
finite in 'isms confined to our limited time
So as much as I or any "me" tries to recognize an ONUS
in the attempt of just being seen by "we"
It is always "the other", how are "they" unlike "me"
Not what do both "we"s share.
The world's greatest collection of "we"
Wrote arbitrary rules rules of "us" in this time
That "they" isn't yet a "we" for all
"we" are not yet "us"... too many "we"
too many poisoned by "me"
and worse
entitled by "I"
When "we" do we dont need lables anymore
Race, theology, gender - ways to describe "the other"
That will be a beautiful day
When the sun rises on a dead rock
Condemned to death by fire in unyeilding climate change
And then further pushed to annihilation by nuclear winter
Robert Frost was right
The world will end in Fire and Ice

I keep coming up to that line
And I cross it every time
Because you cant force yourself to regret
What you dont know about you yet
Its taken everything from me
Stolen every one of my beliefs
But when everything's empty
You are finally honest

Let the pain rise
Like a tidal wave
When you survive
Its a good night
Let your feet wash in the undertow

I keep chasing that horizon
The just over yonder
Through forests and the fields
And wherever I wander
In every ancient ruin
I get why they stopped moving
Not ***** traps to behead
We just don't deserve the knowledge yet

Let the pain rise
Look to the skies
Sacrifice a ******
Maybe we'll be worthy
To keep crossing the line
Chasing the divine
Maybe its a sign
That we haven't found it yet

Let the waves rise
Like a tidal wave
Erasing all our mistakings
And giving new life
To the same flawed morons
Who will disappoint us everytime
Who are we to have survived
When we keep
Crossing the line

Never knowing just what you have, love
Could have (should've) been us... or maybe just me
But we'll see through tide and shore,
But when we sail in with flags shoal-masted
Even the ITC cant prove anyone living still rides with me.

To recognize our shared demise...
Could we - embitter expectations ?
Are they better than you?
Are they any better than me?

They... need (songs to keep the weary alert at sea)
They need to be better than we.

In all my songs and all my stories
I told the crowd how "she" might end with me
Or maybe end me

But are
These just dreams
That still
Let her hurt me
Do
I will let her hurt me

But no
Whisper you're safe
You own your memr'y,  mind and choice or cost to your faith
Mystical and whimsy
Or are we my enemy
Maybe me

Time is a convenient tragedy
And I play witness to this evening's mystery
Inconvenient but always complicit company.
We were never meant to be

We,
Me.
You.
I... half drunk, half hallucinating, half angry - Who can I blame for not being me?

All the same but I maybe somebody.

We were never meant to be recognizable
never meant to be anybody you can acclaim
on the most current, convenient, complicity capitulated captivation of cognitive, but captured and categorized component of your human experience...

Now I'm
Someone you cant recognize
Me
But now I'm now
Almost 40
And its always just been us.

(I'm 3 years to 41
who should I have become)

And what do I have to show
a body left too long in the undertow
This decomposing
This wreckage left of me

If in the last breaths I breathe
My history comes haunting me
There are 8 women I thought could love me

Yet today I can still recall the first
Her name like silver dripping onto silk
How her voice burned in through memories
And she's still here with me
I rode my bike by your house

And the second, like every second after
I painted you inside my head

The rest of this story, and I am sorry will drive you into a never ending loop of pity and tragedy and only one of us gets out alive...


We'll see if you can find any reference of me in three years.

I swear I have your birthday gift on my amazon
Was gonna dress it up pretty just to get your smile on
I swear it just fell off my radar
I can have it here next week if you just wait a little more

Too many bad days made the nights long
And I fell off beat like a bad song
Hit the fast forward button with a 12 pack
Every moment for the last two weeks
I wished I had Tivo on this life TV
I wish I'd rewind and take them moments back

Just to see you smile again
To not be this ****** boyfriend

Sorry I was late tonight picking you up
But I was still working off last night's drunk
Rage cleaning the house
So you'd have something to be proud of me about

Said you had a headache and went to bed early
I stayed up late getting lost in drowning my angry
In too many cups, rhythms, and beats
Trying to make myself tired enough to sleep
Next to you not wanting me

I wanted to meet you in the middle
And we could agree I **** just a little
I'd give you some private time
To maybe get your sync back with mine

Just to see you smile again
And not be this ****** boyfriend

Everything I did I said I did for us
But I was deaf to your screaming its too much
And no matter which way I slice it now
I ****** it all up and we found out

And I'll never see your smile again
Because I was that ****** husband.

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

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.

Its been far too long
Since I was left to learn to love myself
What did you expect
If I cant love anyone else
You never once told me love is like a song
That if I whistle or hum
It doesn't matter if I woodwind or drum
Someone will play along
I played to my heartbeat
But the arrhythmia was wrong

But Im a rogue line stuck in the refrain
Coda
Im a rogue line stuck in the refrain
Coda, Coda? [Jim, take out the bottom and reverb]
And I feel it in my pulse
I know that I'm alone
Stuck between my teeth
Its no wonder I cant speak.

In every block you hit,
You turned me into coin
When I burn it down, every pitfall
Couldn't catch that vine
The 8-bit ******* was meant to die

Put up with every danger
Too many times to be clean
I bleached blood off my sheets
From our injuries
I invited "you" to inflict on me

And for all my knowledge
Brought by books and bruises
"You" unrequited me... why?
Justify an existence when no one should be this..
In every "the end" you leave me...
Lady Chatterly...
My conscience cant decide
Who suffered more in this

I can not convince you
I'm the one you're looking for
You will always look me over
Like the Ducky you must ignore
You cant be persuaded
I was better left for dead
But you still find me
Dig-dug me up to bind me
In our "pet" semmatary
I cannot imagine
The suffering you've survived
To be patient enough
To surprise me.

One day when the photographs start to fade
We'll look on the patina
And reflect
"At least we made them"
"Maybe they'll be better than us"
We'll say, to the Polaroids and our progeny
And they will be our legacy
Reflections of you and me
Tattered negatives of wishes
Viewfinder images of the kids
I wont live long enough to leave

Stained curtains and ruined sheets
Stained curtains and ruined sheets
Stained curtains and ruined sheets

Only because
Only when
You could love me.

She hides her cries
In the makeup she applies
By streetlight.
Both wash away in the rain.

Devious and mistrusted
She's a little disgusted
By here reflection
In the window pane.

Beautifully tragic,
Hypocritical and magic,
She tries to
Hide her cries.
We pretend to look away.

Her parents called her stardust
And she covered her scars
Under tattooed stars
Until her body was the universe;
With a black hole over her heart.

Ten thousand constellations
Painted on a beautiful landscape
With no reservations,
Invisible lines
Connect-the-dots
And constantly change
Images making
And breaking
Alliances
To spell out
My name

Did you notice the sunset tonight
The purples or crimsons in the skies

Did you see the shoreline's greens
Turn to blue under moonlight

Did you catch that breath of air
Fresh on the high tide seas

Did you notice when I walked away
Or even see me leave

When sometimes you get lost
I'd only hope you'd find me

But my bedside is cold
And my tender heart too weak

So I let you go
Before you have the chance to leave

And we both know
That this was temporary

In all our haunted houses
Are ghosts just wrapped in sheets
And the vampires and werewolves
Havent been seen in weeks
We diagnosed the children
Who heard voices in their rooms
Now all they do is paint the walls
In crayola crayon hues
And the monsters under our stairs and beds
Seek refuge in our closets
As we boiled imagination down
To vibrations in quartz deposits

I've lived for a thousand years.
The thing about immortality...
You dont get to live
And you dont get to die.

You just watch.
As everyone you know
Lives... and leaves.

The people that I admire most;
The ones who have made immortality
Less painful...

Were the ones who,
Even for the briefest moment,
Allowed me to live in those years
With them
Not beyond them.

Who allowed me not to think
Without guilt
Of a future without them in it,
Or how I will someday have to deal with their loss.
How I,
Will have to keep living.

Its nigh on nine
In the evening.
And I for the first time in too long
Feel each heart beat leave
This frail form
Never to be heard again.
And they are all different
And some have gone unnoticed
Sadly the preservation of life
Sometimes bears no witness.
The meticulous muscle un-felt
As it pounds against all
The could've been-s and maybes.
Each gasping for the air
My lungs are the warden to disperse.
Held in a prison of bone and flesh
Unseated and riled at the mildest stimuli
Beating their own rhythm
A pendulum marking its own time.
The clock is broken and never to repeat
And each beat is a second closer to its last
It is in the dim candlelight and shadow
That it screams the loudest.
Why is a heartbeat so unforgiving
And yet so unrelenting
That at moments of peace we're hardly aware its there?
And why when shadows cross a wall
In a cast of two dimensional players
Does it cheer so?
Sometimes it is as if
It will break free from my breast
And beat no longer
I can only hope
That when it leaves
Its in a rage of songs and fury
And its departure does not go unnoticed.

The bees of the tree of knowledge
Produce a honey so sweet
And so protected in the tree's mortal coils
That any who drink from it
Get diabetes
And scrapes on their knees.

I am not what you expected
A paradox in locomotion
A pendulum marking out its own time
An uninspired
Overachiever
Who refuses to write in words that sound similiar
And I too will leave you wanting

I see threads
Leftover tokens
From where she wept
And you keep giving side-eyed energy
As if you weren't the one to leave

And I remember each sad line
Read from her diary
Every time
Reaching out
Desperate to breathe

I've known more than
A thousand sunrises,
Ruined by sunsets
And a hundred melodies
Ruined by your need to leave

When we met
Bards and satire were unequipped
You breathe deep
Life into all of your stories...


I keep trying to find my worth
And I haven't found its place just yet
Somewhere destined for your memory

And someday when youre asleep
Long after you've forgotten me
I will remain, alive
Within your damp sheets

And you can be brought
To screaming through the night
But the ride of your life
Will die with me
Your favored enemy.

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"

Did you ever make a choice
Well intentioned
Did you ever give violence a voice
That set things in motion
Did you ever watch when
I lit the sparks
Did you ever see
Look deep
Was it a candle?
Was it a sparkler?
How long did we watch it burn?
Look in the flame
Watch it burn a little longer
Search for the blame
Watch the wick release.
And once the fuse starts to ignite
Casting new shadows
I never wrote a song long enough to survive
Dynamite.
Once a flicker in the dark
A shimmer scared of the spark
The flame runs away
And it chases her through her veins
Out of pure devotion
The fire says
You set this in motion
No forest can ever breathe
Without my last breath
To crack the strongest seed
Somewhere within every cigarette
You ask for me
And you will blame me
In this I grieve.
Fire made wild by a passion
To turn away our eyes
When we'd prefer to be blind
Keep in mind
My embers are all that I leave behind
"Wildfire" is what you'll call me
When your lives are in commotion
Remember just once that life that was mine
You set in motion.

The words I seek
Just escape me
But the meaning is so clear
I try to find the right words
But those words
They disappear

So I speak to you in riddles
Because my words get in my way
I can grasp them for a moment
But they
Always fade away

I scream because
I cant trust myself
And I don't know how to speak
My breath is gone
My voice ripped out
And left bleeding at my feet

And the thoughts
They rise like water
They crest and come crashing down
So lets just sit here
Silently so
I dont have to drown
Hell no

I am nothing more than
Imprisoned in my mind
A voice I once thought reliable
Now determined to stay inside

So sit there frozen
Carved in stone
While we drift farther away
This shattered home
Is just a shallow hole
Words left ruin in their wake

Ruin in
Ruin in
Ruin in their wake