So you think yourself a prince alight with fire,
dynamic in your expression of unlimited creation?
But what of the fear and obstacles rising perpetually
because of your unskillful means and application?
What if your timing is off by a moment
and impatience leads to more than one undoing?
Recognize that you're uneasy. How you long to be free from
unfairly mounting regrets or mourning!
Your current approach relies too much on will-power alone;
find another way, as will-power alone is not enough.
Undam the waters of life; go deep within and seek the light.
The world is beckoning, waiting patiently for you to realize
that you are never not becoming; you will always be renewed.
Seek the Truth, without clinging to the sensation of discovering truth.
Seek the Love, without clinging to the sensation of realizing that love.
Seek the Joy, without confusing intensity for a thing's reality.

You wish for changes and emotional revolutions,
to cast aside old worn-out thoughts and constitutions.
You wish to master your psychological well-being,
tactfully blending your intelligence and imagination.
But what about the path you thought you were still on?
Do you fear you may collapse during essential maturation?
Know that you don't know where your going.
You are out of touch with reality -- place things in proper perspective!
Don't delay the inevitable cycling of completion
if you would desire your hopes to come to fruition.
Seek stability in your home, and nurturing connections.
Learn to trust and ground your feelings in satisfaction.

The two choices stand before you; but which one will you choose?
The outer path of material unfolding is easily observed.
The inner path of contemplation is a little more reserved.
You can search for it, ask for it, or even knock right on the door,
but you can never open the door, through excessive use of force.
If you sit patiently, showing all the virtue that you've practiced --
if you have the courage to dare to ask the difficult questions;
if you have the will to seek the uncomfortable revelations;
if you have the persistence to remain silent long enough to know --
then the door will open for you, without the slightest hesitation.

How I wonder, woman:
do you regret the love you've scorned?
For all the ways you've been inhuman
do you howl and wail and mourn?

You left me singing empty songs
devoid of any soul, hollowed to core;
I wonder if you count your wrongs
and fear what waits in store.

But should he raise his voice at you,
stare him right into his eye.
Say: "Anger's not a virtue.
Don't sip on poison, hopin' that I die."

And should he raise his fist at you,
don't stay and hope he'll change.
Because men like that aren't all too few.
They're enamored with their rage.

Know that you deserve the best,
not an ounce of fear or discontent.
Believe that you are blessed,
if you would but give it your consent.

She lies, softly snoring,
on my chest.
I know she doesn't mean
to lead me on.

We met a month ago,
when we both climbed
on top a roof,
to gaze at the moon.

We shared of few tales
of too many trips gone astray
and laughed at the people
through the sky-light

unaware of the pair
sitting cross-legged
just above their heads --
just above their heads.

We were made of different
stuff than those people
below us; that night
we weren't even human.

But days follow nights
and whispered words
rarely amount to truth.

She lies like everyone before her:
afraid to hurt the people she loves.

I can feel your gaze upon me,
though we're space and time apart.
Maybe you thought in whispered words      
of tales unraveled in the dark.
Perhaps you looked through pictures,
still-life captures of a face
frozen in the moments
written down on halted days.
I can feel your gaze upon me,
and I wish it would never stop.
For when you look upon me,
it fills my vessel to the top
and the poetry comes flowing out
like I've been a poet all my life
while the world could sing and dance
a play penned in strokes of light.
Every moment is perfection,
and I'll take it all as such.
If your eyes are full of longing
when I feel your gaze upon me,
know that I miss you just as much.

I'd love to see you swimming
in a sea of ceaseless bliss
where adventure waits beginning
in the fading echo of a kiss,
where life and death start to stall
long enough for us to pass
and understand that through it all
this interconnectedness will last.
If you look up from your basking
and see my shadow standing true
don't be too afraid of asking
"Boy, what's going on with you?"
I'll meet you straight with honesty
and say sometimes I'm uncertain
in this movement to the apogee
but my work is no big burden
for when I finish with the climb
I'll see your face in the eclipse
as the questions of a lifetime
flow answered from your lips.
I'd love to see you lying
in a field of scattered flowers,
not concerned with frantic trying
as we whittle through the hours.

I don't know why the cold wind blows.
I can't see what the future will be.
So come what will or come what may
it's not over 'til you're done with today.

I'm just another man with too much on my mind
thinking about things better left behind.
I've made my mistakes just like all the rest
but I try to keep going and pray for the best.

Thinking a lot about this woman I love.
Thinking about the girl gets me all torn up.
Maybe what I feel is only a myth,
but the one I love isn't the one I'm with.

I don't know why the cold wind blows.
I can't see what the future will be.
So come what will or come what may
it's not over 'til you're done with today.

If I flew around with laughter
would my mirth infect the living dead?
Would their groans resound an answer
to the ceaseless gossip in my head
that never seeks the things that matter
but wanders in the gardens of the stead
where discordant rounds of chatter
mimic every paragraph I've read.

If I stumbled through this sorrow
would the sky paint poems out of cloud?
Would the heavy shroud of false tomorrow
find a moment's solace in the sound
that was summoned from a hollow
outside the paved confines of a town
where shady specters tend to wallow
in poisons growing from the ground?

If I was frozen stiff with terror
would the sun spin a coat of warmth?
Would the threads singe or scald the wearer
if he's not filled with righteous worth
that was meant for someone fairer
who roots their comfort in the earth
where not a step is made in error
riding blazing comets through the north.

If I was sick with worry
would there be the comforts of some love?
Would wind push these sails to hurry
and bring some air back to the lung
that was emptied in a spoken slurry
heralding the hurricanes above
where cause and effect go running, blurry
and no one knows what will become.

If my temper cracked in anger
would starlight soften every blow?
Would the lightning clap with thunder
as it rouses the sleeping secrets of our own
that fill these kingdoms up with wonder
and kindly show us how to grow
where we're feeding all our hunger
with the seeds of hope we've sewn.

If they should ask, after some uncertainty,
respond resonating a cadence of tranquility:
"Because I am young and life demands it of me."

I'm a fool for loving you.
Being a fool is what I do.

I lace my indiscretion
with echoes of "it's fine,"
and blame dissatisfaction
on factors that aren't mine.

I make up crazy fantasy
from the comforts of my head,
and think I know my destiny
while lying in bed.

I'm a fool for loving you.
Loving everything I see you do.

Your grace is pure perfection,
a paradise in time,
and your innocent discretion
is utterly divine.

You're walking on the air.
You're skipping off your feet.
Your words gift easy care
to the strangers that you greet.

I'm a fool for loving you.
Because I don't want to intrude

and turn your fair complexion
to torrents of sunshine
or forge a new connection
with the shackles of time.

I've got no way to hold you.
I don't want to trap you near.
There's no need for you to follow.
I'm only standing here.

I'm a fool for loving you.
Being a fool is what I do.

I'm not asking for forever.
I'd settle for a moment
or two.

I don't want to hide
from inevitability.
I'm aware all things
tend to fade.

There's no need to
pretend we're immortal,
and I'm happy we'll never
get the chance to be so.

I've thought about what it'd be like --
to live forever, with myself.

I imagine it'd be like a new city
every weekend.
I imagine I'd see the same people,
just a new arrangement of faces.

I'd know all the pitfalls and say, quietly:
"Ya know, I've seen this before.
Maybe you shouldn't do that."
But I don't speak loud enough.

Oh well. New week, new town.

Then I think of all the farewells.
I'd probably become numb to good-bye
and forget to ever say hello.

I'd get stuck in my head
and know the story of every person
without ever speaking to them.

Watching them walk, I'd make
up their stories for laughs.

She wanted to be an art history major
but prudential planning interrupted her thoughts;
now she studies biology, or chemistry, or physics.
She isn't happy at all.

I can tell by the shoes that she wears.

He wanted to be born as a peasant,
unaware of money or cars or the lot.
He thinks people are happier like that.

I can tell by the shades that he wears.

She wants to be a trophy wife.
He wishes that he never had kids.
She thinks she's too good for manual labor.
He once lit a bag of cats on fire.

I'd laugh at the stories unfolding before me.
After a few generations, I'd know every
story combination that ever could be.

So, I'd turn my gaze to myself
and find another lonely man
making stories in his head
without ever asking if they're true.

I don't think I could handle forever.
Sometimes today doesn't end soon enough.

In a redwood forest some place along the way
where the morning light in quiet puddles lay
and the branches hung with garlands of dew
I let my thoughts kindly wander towards you.
Perhaps I fell asleep, though that's hard for me to think
because the passing time was measured with a blink.
I've seen some stranger things, but I acted first in fear
when resting on my lap was a white and golden deer.
Her fur was spun from the same fabric as the sky
which I was slowly petting as she opened up her eye.
I don't know what I thought it was that I would find
swimming in that unobstructed ocean of the mind,
but there I found a ship with sails of compassionate well-being
to the further shore, towards an existence worth believing
where everything arises in a dynamic play of harmony
always in accord with the unelaborated nature of reality.

Should we land on the same branch,
turn and caw my way.
I'll acknowledge our comradery
before you leave to chase the day.
I'll be the music of the birds,
a hidden meter lacking rhyme,
as you play the midnight raven
wheeling circles in the sky.
In the quiet of the evening
when all is calming down,
you be the great-horned owl.
I'll be the absence of your sound.

All these slip-stream silk canopies unfurling out at last keep the interchanging threads tangled in the past. It doesn't matter what I lose in the search to find my Self amid cacophonous raucousness and distractions from consciousness. When the flowers fully bloom, bearing fruit too ripe to wait, and a secondary sight sends me right into the zone, I'll walk the path the ancients tread and follow my voice back home. Sing me a song in medicine tongues, as serpents' illusions hiss from my lungs. Knowing how the angels' trumpets' wail and mourn the loss of prosperity hidden on the shore I'll listen, still reeling from the stars in my head, to the bliss that is waiting for "mine" to lie dead.

Be brave! Be brave!
I hear the cry
call sharply through
the enveloping mist;

every evening the fog settles
down atop this sleepy town.

'Though temptation bleeds
from every fractured brick!

In this mist I feel
invisible; a sprite, a specter --
an evening wisp diffusing
down streets and alleys.

The darkened smudge of
another average man.
He walks by, equally ephemeral,
and dissolves again into the haze.

So it has been until now,
even without the fog.
They always pass by,
fading again into the haze.

Although the sea may take no pity
on a stranded boat, do not give up hope!

The fog is my sea, and frosted
grays my gradient to infinity.
Vacant echoes answer my calls:
"How are you?"

Okay. I'm always okay.

Then listless lapses into silence.
I wonder if passion died with God.

If it has, you're the one who killed it.

Formless voices fill the air,
murmurs with pangs of guilt.
Growing and growing,
the dissonance turns to consonance:

Silly child, it's all in your head.*

The streets are no longer familiar,
my own hands now seem foreign.
I hasten to catch up to another soul;
someone living to help me find the ground.

Only my footsteps sound in the night.
No one else is awake at this hour.
Insomnia, alone, takes these walks with me.
All the while commenting on my folly

and the white, beckoning infinity.

If I stay the night
in a city by the shore,
I'll do my best to wait inside,
not search for something more.

If I meet another Rose,
I'll pluck out all her thorns,
and remember there's no love
in the brambles by the road.

But if I meet her in the night
and she's staying in my home,
I'll try not to hold on tight
and let her move on alone.

If I meet another Rose,
I'll pluck out all her thorns,
and remember there's no love
in the brambles by the road.

If I'm drinking wine
and she's fillin' me with laughter,
I'll lie and say I'm fine.
Then not pursue her, after.

If I meet another Rose,
I'll pluck out all her thorns,
and remember there's no love
in the brambles by the road.

Violet, blue, and white
spiraling from your brow.
Cascades of liquid light
permeating here and now.

Your name! Your name!
Exalted mantra on my lips.
Your name! Your name!
Elegant lightning to my fingertips.

My heart recklessly accelerates
through sorrow's frozen wall,
and I would like to celebrate --
we've no time to stutter or stall!

I was on the hilltop, glancing;
I fell when you gave your shove.
It's alright, 'cause now I'm dancing.
Dancing in the clear light of love.

Smile like it doesn't matter
that the world is freezing over,
like the snowflakes love to scatter
onto speckled fields of clover.
Twist the corner of your lips
with a self-sure sparkle of a grin
as your skirt sways 'round your hips
waiting for the music to begin.

Smile like you found the ocean
swimming in a drop of dew,
like your veins are full of motion
and the world is watching you
as you wander through the echium
with thoughts billowing your mind
while your eyes compose the requiem
for the love you've left behind.

Many are the ones I've loved;
few are the ones I miss.
There's only one I'm thinkin' of,
and I left her up north in the mist.

I left one sunny summer day
south, to make a life.
Now that I've made my way
I don't think I was right.

Many are the ones I've loved;
few are the ones I miss.
There's only one I'm thinkin' of,
and I left her up north in the mist.

These city-folk aren't even sane,
and I don't think they care.
How can I enjoy the rain
if she's not even there?

Many are the ones I've loved;
few are the ones I miss.
There's only one  I'm thinkin' of,
and I left her up north in the mist.

And I'm alone in the ruins of the jungle.
The probing grasp of vining plants
twists questions out of dirt
and threads together disparate trees
whose trunks are full of centuries.
The ancient pyramids herald the sky
as darkened clouds return.
I do not fear the coming rain.

The rainfall used to be consoling,
like I'd hear the rhythm of your voice,
the cadence of your metered step,
inside the pit-pat play around my head.
Now there's only atonal dissonance
although I've seen the muses dance
to the static between my ears,
and I've seen the nymphs run wild
through forgotten foliage of time.

I don't know where else to look, love.
I think I've finally lost your track.

Light to dark must fade,
watch the shadows congregate.
Dark then to light must bend,
watch the morning start to mend.

Walkin' in the valley-o.
Got me a rose in my hand.
Walkin' in the valley-o.
Find me a woman I can stand.

High towards low will fall.
Movement is nothing at all.
Low then to high will climb,
with new vision in its eye.

Walkin' in the valley-o.
Got me a hammer in my hand.
Walkin' in the valley-o.
Make me a livin' I can stand.

I remember that evening
when you were love-drunk,
freely swinging in the park.
Giddy with some fantasy
or maybe you knew
with whom you were involved.
We stayed awake all night,
just two kids with nothing going on.

I remember us sneaking out.
It was much easier for me.
My dad just didn't care.
I could come and go as I pleased.
You had to do the sneaking
through your window
when the lights went out.
There was a trailer
at the bottom of your property,
our little shelter from the world.

I remember eddies of cigar smoke
whirling in the mouth of an open cave.
We sat together at the entrance.
There was an easy tranquility
with a slightly skewed view.
You wished that we could stay forever,
but I was more concerned
with heading out anew.

You saw me change in many ways
and I wonder what that did to you.

The dog’s running off,
while the rest of us laugh,
giving a gentle guffaw.

Can we believe
the way people dream
carelessly floating along?

The sky’s falling down,
but all through the town
everyone insists it’s wrong.

Isn’t it queer
how all becomes clear
after the curtains are drawn?

The sun's going dark,
as we play in the park,
even though our spirits are gone.

Isn’t it strange,
the way people change
before they finally withdraw?

She said it was forever
and that I surely knew.

Though we spent a lifetime together,
far apart we grew.

Now the peak has passed,
gone beyond the plateau.

A grand descent back down to earth
is all my heart could do.

She's left me feeling altered.
She's left me here askew.

She's left me here to ponder
what I thought I knew.

Gather 'round children,
I'll sing you a song
about a land
and what's going on.

Gather 'round children,
lend me your ear.
Open your mind
and get ready to hear

that it takes so long.
It takes too long to be free.

There will be times
when you are just fine.
You're having your way
with good living and wine.

There will be times
when things don't go well,
when no one is near ya,
no one who could tell ya

that it takes so long.
It takes too long to be free.

When we finally
get to Nowhere
we'll be laughing and playing
and filling to air.

When we finally
have us our fun,
we'll be blasting on trumpets
and banging on drums,

but it takes so long.
It takes too long to be free.

Lying and basking
'neath sun-setting skies,
with beautiful pastels
reflecting your eyes.

Lying and sleeping
'neath moon and the stars.
Our love and our life
will never depart,

but it takes so long.
Yes, it takes too long to be free.

I wrote you a poem on the wings of a butterfly,
free-form and flowing like the rivers of your mind.
Every flap rains verses perfectly balanced out in time.
I wrote you a poem on the edge of an eagle's quill
with obsidian as ink after I begged the Muses for their skill,
then packaged it in ancient parchment and vestiges of twill.
I wrote you a poem beyond the confines of today,
where tomorrow hasn't happened, nor will yesterday.
Lain among the cosmos with stars out on display.
So love, if you get lonely, calmly look towards the sky.
It's the rustling of the breeze and sunlight's sparkle in your eye.

I'm just a Libra love swinging high on indecision
in the throes of inebriation, permeated with all sorts of
feelings filling falling fascinations in the moment.
Fleeting while failing to carry on and then become it.

Here I am,
at a fork in the road.

To the west,
the sun sets into the mist.

To the east,
the stars start to unfold.

Oh, how I wish I could sit,
and imagine the wind  
was your kiss.

If you promised
to hold me when I arrive,

I'd struggle and fight
just to survive.

If you promised
to love me like before,

nothing would stop me from
finding your door.

If you promised
to show me the way,

I'd follow the path
wherever it lay.

I'd forget where I've been
to know you again.

Fraudulent faces,
with decadent cases,
know not which path to choose.

Clever replies,
and the feelings they hide,
only work to conceal truths.

The window is open,
for the door, it is broken,
and our secrets all run loose.

The sky, it is burning,
And the world, it keeps turning,
as neither side calls the truce.

Keeping in time,
with mirrors and confines
confuses the rinds for juice.

Keep out of the garden, son.
That's not the place to play.
You have fields as far as
sunny hillsides on a summer's day
with waves of wild wind
whimlessly rolling in the hay.

Keep out of the garden, son.
That's not the place to sleep.
You have quiet afternoons
to rest with lazy sheep
and build a dream of  crowning castles
that your mind will let you keep.

Keep out of the garden, son.
That's not your place today.

I can hear the muses calling
'Though my hands are tied with work
And ghandarvas sing through cracks
Beyond the off-white office walls.
I know I should be free with them.
But instead:
Sign here,
Date there,
Keep the tally,
O reckoner of warehouse sheets!
The condition of modern slavery
Of entire paydays spent at once
While knowing that a human life
Is more precious than the profit line.

Check back soon to resume and consume
every tight-lipped, slack-jawed fool in the room.

See, it's all what you know
as the fires start to grow
and the future burns slow.

Keep your eyes on the ceiling,
and your antenna feelers feelin',
for when your senses stop reeling,
you will finally start believing.

Kick-back to the basics,
not too far from the basement,
and close enough to show
that **** really isn't basic.

It's another mid-west, ******,
******-up freak show.
Another evening drinking whiskey
with the seedling's peep-show.

So, it's time to relax and relapse
into acidified broken synapse.

The lights keep flickering
and the couples keep bickering:
“*****, I am not above homicidal snickering.”

I steer clear of these diversions,
and wander past the sermons,
just to chew up all the crooked talk
and spittle out inversions.

I shovel mockery to hypocrisy,
pin-***** the empty *****
whose passions lack predicates,

and in the background, I'll be complexifying my medic-kit:
ketamine, morphine, ecstasy;
marijuana, mushrooms, LSD.

Watch those ******* jitter-bug college *****
procreate while sloppy drunk,
but keep an honest eye
on the flies that will rise above –

then fall back down in existential angst, like:
“Dear God, why must I be free?
Oh, God! Why is every universal eye on me?
I'm just another acid war veteran,
sneakin' through these gutters
with pestilence and bitter sin.
When they reach the promised land
of golden clouds and holding hands,
I'll be underground with the slugs and the spider band.”

Yet here I sit, sick of sippin' poisons with illiterates.
So, let the skies fall and the buildings crash,
as you stand on the wall with a fist full of cash.

I'll be on the front lawn,
picketing for dawn,
while the night around me slowly ambles on.

She asked:
You know what's unfair?

I replied:
The sound of your voice and the smell of your hair.

I wonder what you'd say to me,
if Time could stall and talk.
Would we reminisce of summers spent
or bicker 'til the dawn?

'Cause life's a loop of distant thoughts
rippling blindly through the void.

Sometimes I think if I were sober
this would make a little more sense.
It feels like my life's all over.
Or maybe I'm a little too dense:

I only know what they say
when they say what I know.

Sometimes I think  that my heart's troubled,
like everything is a little amiss.
Then again, my feelings are muddled.
I can't tell agony from bliss.

He brought her along,
only wanting to get laid.

She introduced herself
as awkward, 'though
first impressions rarely
amount to truth.

I watched him flirt with her;
and watched her try to pull away.
But, it's Friday. Gotta get ****** up.
What else is there to do in life?

She drank more,
he drank more:

"Nah, guys, I'm totally cool to drive."
He slurred as he spun donuts
to impress the tipsy woman.
His hands inched to her thighs.
His eyes seized her *******;
who needs to see the road?

We made it to the birthday,
a standard college party.

She and I sat across one another
at the table. She smiled and started
small talk:
"Oh, I love Vonnegut,
have you read Sirens of Titan?"

We kept drinking as he went out
to pick up more *****.

"Of course I play video games,
they got me through high school."

He took longer than he intended
but neither of us complained.

"Isn't chemistry only
the language of biology?"

Time passed quickly, or slowly,
either way it's dead and buried.
She started to stumble,
huddled closer to me,
tried to move from him
when he returned.
She lost coherency,
she looked at me, muddied;
did she have something to say?

Had she asked,
she would have received,
but silence heralds silence
and unvoiced wants
remain unfulfilled.

He knew she was loosing interest,
that, of course, I'd gotten in the way.
He pulled me aside:
"It's time for you to leave.
I just want to get laid
and you're ******* it all up."

He drove us both home,
hand grasping her thigh,
but she didn't notice;
she was barely alive.

I suppose this is how it goes:
some nights you make friends
that you never see again.

It's two in the morning
and we find Sam still
awake, staring at the ceiling
of his cramped studio apartment.

Overhead, thumps can be heard
along with moans of squelched desire.

He rolls out of bed, gets dressed,
and begins his evening perambulations.

Don's Donuts is his destination.
Although he doesn't much
care for fried sugar bread,
it's the only place open.

He buys a  few maple bars
and takes a seat at a bench,
near his overly-intoxicated peers.

The smell of whiskey and puke
permeate the establishment,
and Sam ponders why he doesn't
succumb to the same alcoholism.

Hey, Sam.
A voice registers
in his conscious attention.

He looks left.
He looks right.
He looks up.
He looks down.

No one is paying him any mind.
Besides, he doesn't recognize
the faces otherwise.

Yeah, Sam. It's me.
The same borderline authoritative
tone echoes over the drone
of the inebriated crowd.

Sam furrows his brow
and lifts the paper plate.
A small, luminous man
about the size of Sam's thumb

sits cross-legged under the plate.
He grins and golden emanations
cascade and unfurl from his
long (relatively), tied-up hair.

It's okay, Sam. You're doing fine.
Everybody likes you more
than you think they do.
You need to stop being so ******* yourself.

I'm just here to give you some
encouragement. You've seemed
a little down in the dumps
these past few weeks.

Listen, man, I know you've had it rough,
but suffering isn't a ******* contest.
This, too, will pass.
And you'll be a better person for it.

Then maybe you can help people who
are going through the same problems.
That's all you really can do, man.
Just help the people you're around.

Sam stands up which sends the chair
skidding across the floor into an
adjacent table. He flings the paper plate
(which still has a donut-and-a-half!)

against the window and screams
in a manner which contradicts
his timid demeanor:
"Who are you? Get out of my head!"

A police officer who, before this incident,
was finishing his third bear claw of the evening
observes the outburst and intervenes.

"Say, are you okay?" The officer puts
his hand on Sam's shoulder.
"What're you on tonight?"
The officer had seen a few
Drug War soldiers
exhibit similar collapses.

Sam feels threatened, he pushes
the officer out of the way
and hurries out the door
and down the street.

The officer follows in pursuit
and shoots his taser into
Sam's back. The electric
shock causes his heart's

circuitry to become irreparably
confused. He drops to the ground,
dead as the day before conception.

Go be lightly in love, friend.
Chase evanescence on the wind.
Grab the nearest human
to feel someone close again.
I won't judge you on your whim.

I've heard that Love is a flower
with pink petals pealed back,
odoriferous in its display.

But from the flower follows fruit
which once pulled will rot and sour
if not consumed before it fades.

I'd prefer that Love be sandalwood:
slow to grow with grounding aroma
that after death remains.

Hazy dawn on the horizon,
grayish-white with yellow.
Every day when I awaken,
I stare out my window.
Broken dreams fall from my eyelids,
rest in peace on my pillow.
Robins greet me with their singing,
I wave my hand and say hello.

I've been waiting with the silence,
sitting here just doing time.
On my back and facing heaven,
watching all the clouds go by.
I've been searching for my teacher,
someone who has seen the light,
who can show me my mistakes, now,
who can teach me wrong from right.

If a voice comes through the chatter,
saying words I can't define:
"Are you doing well my child?"
Yes, Pa, I am doing fine.
I am not afraid of dying.
I'm afraid of being alive.
Joyfully I do my work now.
Doing work I will survive.

But, could you pick me up at sunset,
take me on an evening ride?
Take a trip down to the fountain
in the labyrinth of my mind.
Send me sailing through the cosmos,
set me free from my confines.
Please be careful with your timing,
I'd like to see the sunrise.

An aura of perfume outlasts the embrace
billowing around my head, bittersweet
with hints of being vaguely incomplete,
as the softened curve of a smiling face
follows the lingering glow of affection;
although, these feelings come unbidden
proclaiming myths about paradise hidden
within love and life’s fragile intersection.

Love, I'm lost in typhoons scattered
to the fiercely rising wind,
where currents flow together
throwing my heart into a spin.
Now my mind is getting dizzy
from loops of ragged thought
as I follow what I see,
but what I do is not enough.
Go and strip me of my senses.
Scrub this essence to the core.
Deconstruct these walls and fences
with ruthless promises of more.

Love, I'm lost to tidal tempests
with emotions as the sea
crashing huge and reckless,
flooding every part of me.
Now my resolution's blurry.
I don't know what I've got.
My stomach's churning worry
to a frantic endless knot.
Go and ease this journey.
Build an island from my bone
reinforce it with some mercy,
where no one has to be alone.

Love, I'm lost to wildfires burning
up and down the golden coast,
destroying years of learning,
consuming what I love the most.
My lungs are getting heavy
from sighs and acrid smog,
from preciousness gifted already
to ungrateful, petty mobs.
Now I'm getting cold and numb
to the tragedies I see.
I'm stunned deaf and dumb,
and that ain't how it should be.
I'll go and get the shovel first.
Then dig a hole somewhere within.
Deep enough to be immersed
in the fountain 'neath my skin.

Love, I'm lost in my own universe,
and don't know if I'll see you again.

I found a message in a bottle,
cracked parchment on the shore,
a brittle note crumbling to dust.
It was written in foreign words
but I recognized the sentiment
and I thought about you, love.

I thought about the oceans between us,
the continents and worlds
the time, the space, the ether,
the chains of luck and fate.

And I wonder if you're a specter,
a phantom made inside my mind,
an elusive effigy of desire
summoned on a lonely winter's eve.

I see the echo of your movement, love,
so I wrote this down to say
I just received your message
and I hope you haven't flown away.

Mischievous How,
always looking for another
to tell you what to do.

But you've forgotten to listen;
forgotten relation to yourself.

Can you sit, silently still,
with your suffering?

Patiently, compassionately,
neither taking it nor leaving it?

Just observe it; it is there!

Sometimes silence is the answer,
for the questions we discover:

Will I find what you've buried,
behind the  self's emissary --

that which stands the test of now,
un-vexed by the notions of “how”?

I don't want the facade of a face;
a masked illusion of filtered grace.

There were things I liked about you;
but as I look again . . . –

Still, I must search the depths of Friendship
to find a new way to sift through the *******.

Maybe one day we'll see eye to eye;
maybe some day we won't have to try.

Maybe one day these games will be done;
maybe some day we'll learn to have fun.

I think I've forgotten more than I know.

If only my thoughts would leave me alone,
and allow these insights to grow.

You're feeling ******,
like nothing'll go your way.

You're feeling ******,
so you'll lay in bed all day.

Life is heavy,
you know, the sky ain't blue.

Life is heavy,
like nobody cares about you.

Your mind is aching,
you can never be glad again.

Your mind is aching,
and how your thoughts will spin.

You're feeling ******,
no one else could feel this way.

You're feeling ******,
so you'll clutch your knees, and pray:

*Why go up,
if I always come down?

Why go up,
if I always hit the ground?

Please, mother please! I can't find my way out!    
It's all I can do, to manage a shout.
Though I sit still, my thoughts whirl about.

Mother, oh mother! There's spies in this house!    
They're black as a shadow, quick as a mouse.
They steal the secrets right out of my mouth.

Please, mother please! Soothe my troubles to sleep.    
They hide in the places I dare not creep;
In the chasms and the cracks running deep.

Mother, oh mother! I'm loosing again!    
I'll relish the taint and wallow in sin;
Then I'll return to the creature I've been.

Please, mother please! Why won't you rescue me?    
I call out to you from my bended knee:
"Please, mother please! I just want to be free!"

He escaped from the zoo, hatchet in hand,
to sow seeds of desire throughout the land.
Oh, he grinned a wicked, feverish grin
and called on the secrets resting within.

He spoke with a sigh, and laughed with a wink,
while making lazy riddles in the bathroom sink.
He built a house of mirrors out on the front lawn,
to hide his sulking head from the beautiful dawn.

He keeps it all a-running with some oil and grease,
never stopping for a moment to find some peace.
He just spends all his time with lies and deceit,
and keeps all his pleasures stuck on repeat.

This can't be right; I can see through his plight,
as he hides from the light, just out of sight.

This can't be true! Has he gotten to you?
Bah, I can't even see! Has he gotten to me?