Click, click
Scroll, scroll
Light shine in my face
Clock is ticking
As I lie awake

What time is it now?
Doesn’t even matter
The birds will chirp soon
I’ll hear all the clatter

My family waking,
Breakfast will cook
“You’re up early!”
But sleep I never took

Click, click
Scroll, scroll
Tap, tap
Roll, roll

Side to side
I rocked all night
A comfortable spot?
No, not quite.

Time to get up, another restless night.

TapaTapa-Tapatapa-Tapatapa
The beat lulling one into trance,
Plant hypnotizing all who hear,
Building steam,
Sailing across the sky as stars come out,
Glimmer behind like them like some wake.

How far does one travel in a year,
So many steps,
So many blinks,
So many breaths.

Go!

The desire hitting like a blow to the solar plexus,
Driving breath from the lungs,
Making that next breath literally taste sweet.

It makes you look off to the far-reaching off horizon,
At those hard to reach goals seems so far away in the desert like a mirage,
But teeth are bared in a grin at the challenges.

Like floating now,
But gently being glided down,
Laid finally to rest upon mattress and sheet,
A pillow soft and cool.

Eyelids growing heavy,
Not long to go,
A balance has finally been achieved,
At long last balanced upon the fulcrum.

The body stronger,
The mind sharper,
The eyes clearer.

It is here the Insomniac finally drifts off to sleep.
Taken up once again to sleep amongst the millions of stars.

I see you all,
You night owls,
Perched up high in your trees,
Wide awake in the darkest of hours,
Hunting for the words that hasten the dawn and sleep,
For the words that will set you free.

Elton John is charging forward,
At the rate of 152 bmp,
Like a boat racing shoreward,
A boat who's crew is due for some leave.

Chargin like an angry rhino,
John is jumping about,
Tearing through the room with abandon,
Just begging for a scrap.

Feeling invincible in the moment,
Where everything is going JUST right,
Where your spoiling for a rumble,
To tumble for tumblin' sake.

To break free from the usual,
For a breath for fresh air,
For a breath of something REAL!

Chain smoking like a man on death row,
Cold beer in one's hand,
Getting well and truly ripped,
Pleased at where the night is going.

All tasks accomplished,
All challengers laid low,
Sporting a bruised and bloodied brow,
But a victorious smile showing all the same.

Wind blowing through hair,
Legs churning asphalt like it's no one's  business,
Feet barely touching the ground,
Onto the next scrap,
The next in a long and wonderful night.

How do you describe a songs meaning,
If it's something that to each individual it means something different?

To one it's a song to play at a wedding,
Another another it is to be played at their funeral,
To some it's something drunkenly blundered through with your buddies at the bar when your hammered,
To others it's something that's best played quietly on the radio at night.

To me it's a song about a perfect Florida night,
Standing on the beach with my toes buried in the sand,
Staring up at a star sparkled sky,
Creating a dichotomy of images that leap out at me in full color,
When the vertigo finally breaks,
Rocketing my body into space and the constellations beyond,
Beautiful sights never to be seen or studied again,
Each an individual beauty to be marveled at for but a second,
Before being forever lost,
Then being slammed back down to earth again,
Gaining momentum more and more,
Wind that shouldn't be in space forcing me to shut my eyes against it's sting.

Finally reaching earth and breaking through the atmosphere,
A fire from the friction trailing behind me a mile long,
Streaking across the Pacific and the Western US in a blink,
Hurtling at Florida with speeds that induce a pucker factor of 10.

Faster still,
And the beach is soon in sight,
Breaching the horizon that was made by the gulf.

Tearing in many times past the speed of sound,
My impact into the sand leaves a grader that forever changes the coastline,
Driving me deep into the earth crust.

...

I open my eyes,
As I look up from where I lay on that Florida beach,
Feeling in one piece and whole again.

Ice clinking,
Cool liquid touching lips,
The familiar of ethanol biting the back of my throat where some remains.
Percussive,
Repetitive,
Hypnotic.

A soft strum of a ukulele  breaks that pattern,
Accompanying the beautiful wails that I know will haunt my dreams,
As assuredly as the person who she wails over will haunt hers,
If she can sleep at all that is.

It's staccato rhythm is almost primal,
Like an erratic heartbeat,
Driving the song with time signature changes,
It's unpredictablilty works well,
Xylophone notes giving it an etherial-like quality,
As if to give me a feel that I'm in a dream,
In the sleep that evades me so.

Their voices sound forgiving,
Almost begging,
But their words relay a bitterness,
Who was it that scorned them so?

As the song draws to a close,
It fades off as if the band has finally drifted off into the sleep they craved so.

A farmer comes to love what he grows,
Even if it is just a bit,
So much effort expended,
Something has to be felt,

Warm late summer days,
Soaked in a warmth you imagine a mandolin sound would give off if it could,
Lazy clouds floating across an blue immersive sky,
Sitting underneath a tree surrounded by four fields,
The tickling of healthy grass scrunched beneath one's feet,
A gently breeze on occasion,
Brushing across one's face,
As if to lull you into a peaceful sleep.

When I was younger he was stronger than Superman to me,
Wiser than Albert Einstein,
And funnier than a book of knock knock jokes,
A constant in the ever changing experience that it is to be a kid.

As I grew older he gained a couple new facets,
He at times became a source of ire to my teenage mind,
But patience was one of those attributes that never changed,
Although at times I more than likely stretched it to it's very limits.

And as I became an adult it clicked,
And it was like it was before,
Any previous tensions were wiped away,
Connected again after a few years of being gone,
Many a Friday night's spent just drinking beers,
Shooting the **** and listening to vinyls that he bought in high school.
Sometimes just sitting quietly smoking,
The silence a place we could both find solace in.

And now I am slapped with a harsh truth,
That he's not invincible,
That anchor won't be there forever,
That even Superman is mortal.

That a man I've seen endure the impossible with barely a muttered curse and a grimace just for spite,
Could contemplate throwing in the towel.

Talk about a shift of paradigm, right?

All because of something I never planned for, even though it comes to us all.

Strings softly sing out from the speakers,
Drifting through the room like a piece of flotsam,
Gently drifting along some unseen current,
Dipping to-and-fro,
And like all currents tend to do,
It picks up.

Faster and faster,
Swiftly building into a crescendo that resonates in the smokey room,
Faster and faster in tempo,
Peaking as Gabriel sings on.

Torn asunder by an impossible task,
So many of us seem to be,
Sacrifices for a tomorrow that could be just a little bit better,
Impossible choices rising up like towering walls of flame.

Ellekari Larsson is haunting my radio tonight,

My lungs burn once again,
As the smoke enters and leaves my body,
Floating lazilly upward to form a blanket of roiling grey.

I looked at my bookshelf today,
And realized with a start,
That I had a shelf of momentos,
Of those who were long gone.

A folded flag,
A well worn tie,
A photo of a man and boy both laughing,
A teddy bear and a cross made out of a straw,
All snapshots to help me remember.

Times that were better,
Even some that were worst,
But important all the same,
For aren't the most important lessons those that hurt, even if just a little?

A charcoal rubbing of an inscription,
A Tom Clancy novel with a dog-eared page about halfway through,
It hurts to look at these momentos sometimes,
But it feels like a betrayal to look away.

The piano and cello amble slowly along,
Like pall bearers shouldering a weight upon their shoulders,
Both physical and emotional.

A copper disc embossed with hands held together in prayer,
An antique Mr.Goodbar tin,
Containing an ascot and a box of matches.

The song slowly comes to an end and I can finally look away,
Take a drag from the cigarette,
Nearly burnt down to the filter,
As I get lost in my thoughts again.

It's been too long,
Need to blow proverbial dust off my works,
Inspiration struck like lightning,
Like the sensation of hearing a song from your favorite band that you never heard before,
From when they were younger,
Their faces with so fewer lines.

Faster and faster,
For you never know when this new song is going to end,
Only that in the here and now lies you,
The you that is most present for all the major things,
Here for some of the victories but all of the defeats,
The tides are rising friend,
Do you need to be thrown a rope?

The solo is hitting now,
The song soon reaching it's conclusion,
But it's when that favorite band of yours is younger,
Full of **** and vinegar and ******* attitude,
Crescendo!

Slowing down,
Let it all echo out,
Gotta mellow the tune,
To reach a natural conclusion and peaceful end,
Leaving your enthralled ears graced with the fading of the wave's...

...

...

...

You hit replay.

The night is still,
A silent cold hangs crisply in the air,
A quilt of noiselessness encases the world,
Looking up upon the stars,
So dazzling in the pre-dawn air.

The moon hangs over the Eastern Horizon,
Just a sliver alit along it's bottom edge.

As the world slowly begins to stir,
Slowly cracking the sky and setting it aflame,
An all encompassing blaze that kisses upon my brow,
Warm and caring,
Loving and tender,
Like that of a mother to a newborn babe.

It is here that one can be at peace,
Where the current troubles slip away like steam from an exhaled breath in this crisp warm air.

Across the smoky air the wave's travel,
Ihor is singing again,
Rocking out on a ****** out tune.

My lungs are burning,
Trying to contain hot ash and air,
Starving for oxygen as the chemicals seep deep.

The factory behind the house still clanging from after-hours operations,
A rhythmic heartbeat of production coinciding with that of the sleeping earth,
A tempo unheard and unfelt,
But ever present,
For how is one there if not but by the grace of the other?