When you open your mind
remember to take your heart along.
The mind some words can write,
but without heart there'll be no song.

Aye, that crescent cuts the cloud
with golden slits of predilection
for the fog's encompassing shroud
and a parasol's protection.
The sun's spring-time blooming
auric light nearly blinds my eye
because that beauty's all consuming
with eulogies woven through the sky.
I contemplate the blazing fires
along the razor edge of the sword
slicing thoughts with solar spirals
eliminating the errant, straying word,
and cast back the black magic
of numbed-down confusion
while sharpening my moon sickle
on the whetstone of illusion.

I think it was spring.
There was an easy rain
the previous few days
and the heavy sky rolled
in lazy grays and patterned waves.

I gathered my things from
the living room floor.
See, I can't really sleep
when there is someone else in bed.
I stay awake, memorizing every
curve and contour and careful breath,
to seer the sensation of hands resting
on my elbow, or breath on my shoulder,
as immutable fact into my mind.
For, I know how rare the moments
can be to find and hold for the night.
So, I slept on the futon in the living room.

I was there for a week, or so.
We used to spend every day together,
at least sharing dinner or lunch or tea.
But, the wheeling of time rolls
forward forever dragging onward
despite resolute determination
to halt or hesitate, or remain.
That week she was distant, distracted.
Lost in some daydream or fantasy.
I wanted to pretend she was the same
woman I fell in love with that night
in the rain beneath the eaves.

As I prepared to leave, the realization dawned.
I said good bye, we hugged, and she left.
Maybe my farewell lacked resolution,
or maybe it was written in cursive on my face.
She hesitated, then returned
through the side door.
She looked me square and said
"Don't cry. I'll see you again."
I wept that day,
not because I'd never see her again,
but because the woman I had grown to love
had become someone I no longer knew.

Three up-turned cups
pouring  from the heavens.
The maidens bicker endlessly
up-heaved in mediocre tendencies.
They lap at the droplets
evaporating slowly from the floor
towards hexagonal prisms once more.

A haggard crone from the side
while heaving a sigh
split the silence with a deafening roar.
With her eyes open wide
she called to the tide,
the pounding fury amassed at the door.

A new-found sound
erupted from the ground
spurned by the demands of the space.
Patterns of speech crowned
as they echoed around
waking the knight who was resting in place.

He unsheathed his sword
and he grasped at the words
that flung tattered through empty heads and ears.
Their guidance ignored,
stunned tired and bored,
in unrestrained bounds they fled until no one was near.

The knight escaped after
driven by incessant chatter.
He vowed that he'd return with the proper words to say.
Chased until foreverafter
beyond scoffing and laughter:
"Be wary of the number of players cast in your play."

A moon disc moves around in space,
beaming white with shades of time
as the pupil of a cosmic eye,
an aperture of the mind.
Its clouded iris billows,
evolving mountains in the sky
as textured fields of cirrostratus
caressing what's divine.
There's a copper sclera of diffraction,
as concentric rings of luminescence
enjoy, for tonight, partaking of this essence.

Do the pinewood teeth serrating mountains
not speak for want of a tongue?
I know they sigh sometimes with longing
when they're moved before a gale.
I hear your storm has started calling,
as the wind whispers me your tale.
The rain's a heavy harmony,
strumming straight on panes of glass,
and those rivulets of running water
walk patience to the brink
as the eddies of a circling mind
whirl cogs which make me think:

*I see your face in scattered strangers,
your form behind the rippling of skirts.
I hope your restlessness will soothe itself
and you feel at home, here on this earth.

If we continue to fall through this space,
Moving and spinning without any grace,
We’ll come to the spot where I lost my place.

If we should stop just short of the fall
We’d have to admire the end of it all;
Perched on a cliff on top of our ball.

Please, let me dive this one last time,
And it will be the final sign.
Leave me to dive this one last time.

If we all see the way it could be,
Sitting alone alongside a tree,
We could taste what it is to be free.

If we close our eyes to ignore,
And keep on the same, just as before,
You’ll find my body on the floor.

Please, let me dive this one last time,
And it will be the final sign.
Leave me to dive this one last time.

Some things can't be fixed
by fate or time,
and there's no rewind.
So, I'll say good-bye.

I'll miss yesterday,
when we used to play
but it's not the same;
that time's not today.

Now all we do is fight;
no one is ever right.
Please don't think of me --
of how we used to be.

I knew you before
(how I once adored!)
but all things change;
yes, we have changed.

I search my mind,
afraid that I'll find
you still standing there.
Sunlight in your hair.

The future is so vast for someone without a home.
Every travel sees the past scattered on the road.
Happiness is never found within the mind that seeks.
To treasures you'd be bound if you didn't have to speak.

The future is so long for someone who's lost the way.
Heavy steps drenched in fog through the places you can't stay
Moving onward is a skill not many care to know
when there is time to **** watching all these flowers grow.

The future is far off for someone who'd rather die.
Each motion an endeavor, barely scraping by.
What trials wait in store for the movement of a soul
when acts are born from restlessness always without goal.

I
don't
know what I've done.
I was messing around, I was having some fun.

I
don't
know why I tried
to **** off the seconds and ****** the time.

Now
I'll
face what I've done.
I will stare down the shadows escaping the sun,
but the night's just begun.

I
was
just sitting there.
I was tapping my fingers and combing my hair.

I
was
sitting up straight,
I was balancing all of the pieces at stake.

I
then
thought this to me,
I thought: "I'm feeling funny, I think I'll agree
that the night's just begun."

I
heard
bells on the wind.
I heard echoes of laughter and all of its kin.

I
saw
things come alive
with the essence of nature that makes us all thrive.

I
felt
things fall apart
with the rolling of thunder that thumped through my heart,
and the night's just begun.

I
flew
out of this place.
I flew out of the building and out into space.

I
flew
down to the depths.
I flew past all the serpents, with plenty of breadth.

I
went
straight through the door.
I went right to the heart, I went right to the core
and the night's just begun.

I
found
them in a cave.
They were lapis and emerald, too bright to state.

They
were
made up of stars.
They were too close for distant, they were too near for far.

They
turned
attention to me.
They said: "We'll give you a chance, you should probably flee
'cause the night's just begun."

They
said
these things to me.
They said: "You've wasted your life pursuing this dream.

Why'd
you
do what you did?
You had so much going for you, and you're only a kid.

You
tried
to face the abyss.
You wasted your talents, and we'll just mention this:
the night's growing dark."

They
burned
my body to ash.
They scattered me with lightening, with one giant crash.

I
fell
from clouds to the ground.
I fell on a pile of rocks, nothing more than a mound.

Why
won't
this night ever stop?
I am stuck on this mountain, I'm stuck on the top
and this night's growing long.

That's
when
she said to me.
"Oh, my child, don't you know that you'll freeze?

You
think
you've wasted your life,
with petty distractions, and unnecessary strife.

How
else
would you know what you know?
Your mind is quite fertile, it's starting to show
that this night's growing long."

She
made
my body whole.
She made all that was extinguished continue to glow.

She
bent
crooked to straight.
She balanced the forces not a moment too late.

She
sent
me on my way.
I understand, without having to say:
this night's almost done.

I
don't
know how to repay.
That act of kindness without going astray.

So
I'll
do what I can.
I'll be honest and open, always lending a hand.

And
when
the night's getting dark.
Don't fall to pressure, don't give up your spark,
and you might see the sun.

I'll see you on the other side of me.
Between the way it is, and the way it seems.

I'll see you the next time I come around.
When you're lost and can't be found.

This is how it has to be.
It's the only path I see.

This is how you'll find a way
back home to the light of day.

I'll see you on the other side of me,
between waking life and dreams.

I'll see you when the winds don't blow,
but your stream continues to flow.

Listen:

for some reason (truly unknown)
people call me when their trips turn turbid;
when palsied limbs jitter,
and eyes (rolled-back) flitter.

Maybe I've got one of those faces.
You know, the ones that
(between forehead wrinkles
and laughter dimples)
let her know it's okay.

Maybe I've got one of those faces.
You know, the ones that
(between penny-sized pupils
and long-haired scruples)
let her know I've been there before.

I could hear, with jaws clenched,
a deep-seated anxiety born
beyond the scope of a point
or a dab; of a joint or a tab.

And I know that trepidation;
that unending uncertainty,
interlaced -- intertwined! --
intimately with self-searching.

So, I told her about the day I found myself.
I was in a cliff-side cave, at around dusk.
Conflagrant cloud-bursts bowed to the sun
and my battered being bent along with them.

Roiling waves, gnashing madly on the serrated shore,
met my gaze with an equally unnerving force.
A melancholy crimson bathed the frothing maw,
like everyday pitfalls surely lead into that jaw.

I rolled over, away from the ledge, to another surprise:
the cave in which I was laying was only a disguise.
Stars! All the stars! Spiraling macrocosms now no more
than motes of dust floating aloft and astray.

I saw the dome of the cave come unhinged at the seams
as the million billion myriad suns erupted outside, exposed.
The volcanic initiation left floes of iridescent star-shine
eddying, diffusing into a vague effulgence.

Then the moon billowed out, with her gossamer gown
flowing streams of silvered dreams behind.
And the flowers (though the fangs of winter's
bite clamped down into their nape)

bloomed in unison -- in unified exaltation -- to herald her return.
Rose buds burst, and the lilies -- the lilies, I remember the lilies!
Rose buds burst, and the lotus -- the lotus, I remember the lotus!
I saw them rise up in offering, only hoping to touch her feet.

But each, at peak perfection, could only unfurl their last petal
and fall back down, below other (faster rising) worshipers.
Again and again they rose and fell; and ebbed and flowed.
Between their birth and demise, they embraced each other

in a mesmerizing dance, around the stems of friends and older plants,
towards divinity with leaves grasping leaves, and thorns grating thorns.
Enwrapped -- enraptured-- in foliage sewn rags; enrobed -- enshrined --
in coliseums fanned with fronds and fragrance (sandal and cedar)

I found myself.

There go the winds,
tumbling out my sails,
leaving me alone and stranded
where intention often fails.

There go the winds,
blowing down the road,
leaving me alone to contemplate
the lessons I've ignored.

There go the winds,
disappearing like a friend,
stealing away that confidence
and that wish-fulfilling grin.

There's a darkness growing shadows,
like tendrils from a plant,
with wicked thoughts of discontent
and ill intentioned words like "can't."

You say that there's a place you're going;
a place you once called home.
But do houses stand the test of time
while streams around them flow?

I never thought I'd meet you
beyond the scope of centered thought,
but here you stand before me
and I know that I've been caught.

I won't ask for your forgiveness.
Nor compassion, love nor hope.
I only ask to be met as a man
drawn out with the undertow.

I came upon a river,
wide as the years spent to find it.

I took off my shoes,
to rest down beside it.

And as I stopped to think of  a way
to travel across these waters, some day,

my hair turned grey --
my flesh to dust.

And the river swept me away.

I became the boundless beauty
of water flowing free;

from high atop the mountain peak,
to the broad expanse of open sea.

I looked to my sides,
and what did I see?

I found myself, just as before,
already standing on the other shore.

I came upon a river,
as wide as the years
spent to to find it.

I took of my shoes,
to rest down beside it.

And as I stopped
to think of a way
to make it across
the waters someday,

my hair turned grey,
my flesh to dust,
and the river swept me away.

I raged and I churned,
I frothed through the years.

I carved through the earth,
deep valleys and streams.

I devoured all in my path:

animals and travelers,
I held nothing back.

Until at last came a ferryman
slowly drifting with ease.

His eyes fully open,
with a soft smile and care.

I surged fully violent,
to consume him with my wake.

But as his oar pierced my skin --
Oh, agony's bright light!

His oar parted then,
and my drops diffracted the sky:

the stars and the moon,
all jewels within my mind!

Again and again:
deliberate strokes against my rage.

As he made his way across,
my mighty rapids became

rhythmic lapping on the shore.

Then he laid down his oar,
and prostrated three times

fully bent and out-stretched
with his head on the floor.

Surprised, I looked the side
to see who he met reverently.

And, what did I see? Myself, just as before.
Already standing on the other shore.

"We hardly speak any more."
I know it's true,
I hardly speak at all.

We used to often talk,
staying up late, letting
our words play their games.

She asked if I'd rather
live alone on an island --
in complete solitude --
or be trapped in an apartment,
only able to watch people walk by.

I said I'd rather watch the people walk by;
at least then  I could pretend that happy
people still existed.

Today it feels like I'm in that apartment,
watching people walk around me.
They don't seem happy.

I smile at them;
they never smile back.
I wonder if something's wrong with me.

I stopped talking when I started writing.
I already spelled everything out on paper,
and the words never crawl back into my mind.
If those words ever get back home,
I'll tell 'em all how I feel:

One:

You can't help anyone with words,
who needs something done.
A sentence about your love
means nothing when you're
twenty-seven hundred miles away.

Two:

Strangers are more alluring than
people you know closely;
that, my dear, is why I'm terrified
of getting any closer to you.
From a distance, you're so beautiful.

Three:

Sure, we spent a few weeks cuddled up
in your room; but your lifestyle is the reason
that I fled from Southern California.
I don't want things.

Four:

He's just going to end up killing you.
One instance of abuse should be enough
to send you packing. You crawled back for more.
I understand -- too well -- the lies that get you trapped.
I keep waiting for that phone call.

Five:

A woman should never be a reason
to abandon your old family;
although I see how her children
are your chance for redemption.

Six:

I wish we talked more often;
more than once every few months.
You're intelligent and articulate,
and the hour or two we spend
(not often enough)
fills me with hope for the world.

The moonlight passes through
foggy mist in an avalanche;
creeping tendrils hold balance
with the warmer air below.

I wash, in circles, the light from my face
with great scooping armfuls
of blissfully animated space.

Arms held, rounded.
Not held, rather perched,
effortlessly bending this warmth

slowly gathering around my core.
A tingle of sensation;
a signal of joy --

a standing ovation from my senses,
congratulating me for paying attention.

I see the morning light.
I won't make it home tonight.
Ya know, I'll be lost in the dawn.
This is how time moves on.

I hope you're waiting for me,
to keep me company.
But I've been gone for too long.
This is how time moves on.

If my house is empty,
and you've packed up and gone,
then you've forgotten about me.
This is how time moves on.

If you're sitting there, lonely,
wondering where I've gone,
I'll never forget about you.
I won't let time take all.

I've been across the country;
I've seen what love can do.
They've all forgotten about me.
This is what time does to you.

Bring on the end; I'll laugh to the grave!
This system and words are utterly insane.

Why must I claw and clamor for bread?
With how it's going, we're better off dead.

There's nothing to do, but sit here and laugh
as people debate what's gold and what's chaff.

Desires clung to and procured -- pahtooey! --
it smells like manure in the gardens of fool'ry.

It's the same; **** the rich, and the poor!
With rice in my dish, I need nothing more.

Flitting and flickering, skipping 'cross reels of form,
this thought's not a thought to be trifled or torn;
'tis the thought from which all others are born.
It is, complete, with neither mercy nor scorn.

Wholeness and vastness, sinking down the abyss,
this thought's not a thought to rejoice for, nor miss;
'tis the thought of imminence -- of 'blivion's kiss!
It is, unending, with neither sorrow nor bliss.

Chaotic and entropic, consuming all in its wake,
this thought's not a thought to leave alone, nor take;
'tis the thought under which all minds will break!
It is, ever-flowing, with nothing at stake.

Are you seeking to be free
of the burden of sorrow?
Not just your sorrow,
but the sorrow of the world?

Or do you seek to languidly
laugh in eternal pleasure,
forsaking the polar regions,
because that which is bad is bad?

Do you seek originality?
Something that is beyond
the corrupting influence
of rust and moth and time?

Are you like the rest of the human
beings wandering on this world?
For what are you lusting, seeking,
hungering? In wanting experiences --

whether they are ******, intellectual,
of first and last things, within, without --
there can be no fulfillment, no completion.
Always in the background: "What next?"

Sit still, my friend, observe the horrors,
the joys, the pleasures, the pains, the wants,
the needs, and the absence of all these.
There is nothing that can be left out.

The world isn't pretty; it's messy.
Few straight lines exist in nature;
and yet you live in a box, you eat in a box,
you work in a box, you learn in a box,

and one day you will lie dead in a box.

Won't you stop and have some tea,
and float along so peacefully?
Stay a moment, see your thoughts
all fall out so effortlessly.

Won't you stop and lose your self,
in the lights as they swirl?
Take a moment, find your self
in those stars as they whirl.

Time may warp and splinter and pop;
walls may ripple and melt.
Still, you'll know when you've to stop
and all the things you've felt.

So, won't you stay and drink with me?
I've brewed a cup for two.
Do you know the things you will see;
is there anything to lose?

I've been told to find a teacher, but
no mere mortal who weighs the world
with gilded, golden scales.

I've been told to kiss the feet
of anyone who has walked between
this world and that.

She told me that it's almost winter.
Already, icy fingers claw up my straightened spine.
"Breathe out," she says, "and when you can't breathe in,

you are dead." But still the breath comes mechanically
in out in out in out in out in out in out in out in out in
and I laugh at the absurdity of it all.

After a talk about the moon in a pond, with
its reflection being obscured by ripples,
and only calmed by a tamed mind,

the others rush to the food to fill the void.
But the sky is clear, the moon is full,
and the pond sits gently rippling, waiting to be tamed.

To fall as though an autumn leaf
released to let the burden pass
and ride along the sky’s relief,
a hissing breeze through amber grass;

to fall as though a wounded moth
when the gravity of earth may beckon,
with wings dispersed like fraying cloth
fluttering in circles down from heaven;

to fall as though in love and tender,
a softened heart without defense
laying prostrate in surrender
to honest affection without pretense;

then to land as though ashore,
a wave now broken and flowing
into a waiting embrace, adored,
a worthy ending to this roving,

and finally find my head laying on a chest,
where there’s support, there is love, there is rest.

How is it that all I see and believe
isn't more than what one can conceive?
Trapped inside these bound'ries of mine,
flipping and flopping down the stream of time,
my thoughts not more than the glint of sunshine.

So I laugh! I laugh! Great boisterous humor!
To laugh and to giggle at the falseness and rumors;
to snicker and snacker  at the play of all forms;
to chortle and chuckle at deviations and norms;
I will laugh at the process as my soul transforms.

So I laugh! I laugh! Though pains may embitter!
To laugh and to giggle at all senseless chatter;
to snicker and snacker at what's caught within;
to chortle and chuckle at all that is sin;
I will laugh at the moment when nothing begins.

So join me, my friend, and forget of your fears!
We'll both laugh, together, at the grinding of gears;
we'll both giggle, together, at prophets and seers.

So join me, my friend, and forget of your aches!
Laugh with abandon at this game and its stakes;
laugh with abandon as this machinery breaks.

A loom sits angled and precise
with my emotions as the thread
while you weave a tortured paradise
from my tangled warp and weft.

We saw the end coming, but did nothing to stop it;
there's no room for humanity in the margins of profit.

We silenced the dissenters, all the prophets of peace.
We killed all the thinkers, and the questions soon ceased.

We did nothing! Nothing!
We got drunk, in our stupor,

with wine and cheap pleasure, and any synthetic allure.
Plastic and silicon, then anything the men would adjure.

We did nothing! Nothing!
Except create senseless rumors:

"Our God will protect us; we are his love, so pure.
Mother will correct us; she always has the cure."

So, please! Burn this empire down!
Let those ashes fertilize the ground.

Erase all our names from the textbooks we covet.
Then **** on our graves, and grow rainforests from it.

We saw the end coming, but did nothing to stop it;
there's no room for humanity in the margins of profit.

"You know, this skirt used to be white."
She said, standing over the garden.
Her hands nervously straightened
the folds and creases and pleats.
The skirt was a little too long,
and trailed tattered in the dirt.
Her back was towards me
as she studied the coming evening.
"Then something red got mixed with the wash.
But I like it this way.
The way each fabric has a different shade of red."
There were maroons and pinks and purples,
layered as can only happen by chance.
I approached from behind, for the embrace,
and her hands rested on my hands
circumscribing her waist.
Not much was said.
Nothing needed to be said.

I went back inside to do the dishes
she sort of ambled close behind.
I don't know how the conversation started.
But there was a distant fogginess in her eye.
"It's just that I'm afraid of starting over.
I had made such great friends
and now we've all gone and scattered once again."
Her voice cracked and she blushed.
She excused herself, and slid into the bathroom.

Ah, but love, I've done the same as you.
When I left my home to chase after school.
Again, when I left school to wander down the road.
Again, when that road led me back to school.
Again, when I left town to chase a worldly life.
Every time I left dear friends, and lovers,
to chase some wild, cursory whim.

I was in my bedroom, cleaning up for the night.
I felt her presence approaching.
"******, I just need you to hold me."
So I took her in my arms, and waited patiently.
Then she cried, and it was fine.
Nothing's wrong with weeping free.
We slept in each others arms that night
which was a strange occurrence for me.
Usually I'm wide awake with the rhythms
of breath and heart cycling beside.
She spoke in her sleep,
words which she didn't understand the next day.
They were simply one iteration of a single phrase:
"Thank you."

That's the closest she came to saying "good-bye."

Something speaks to me beyond this reverie;
I've been along this path enough to know just what it means.
There's a jolting recognition -- more than curiosity --
and it's blooming like a lotus with fearsome symmetry.

I didn't mean all this disrespect
towards the open arms of sacredness--
I couldn't recognize your hand
behind the veiled disguise.

I know you're the epicenter of the confluence,
but when we flow together out of this sea
will it be in wretch'd despair, or in rapt ecstasy?

If I sit silently still long enough
I'll hear you clear beyond this clamor,
but everything grasps for fragments of attention
with tendrils curled symmetric, poised for desiccation.

The past answered back
in the form of flickering
images evolving in time.

I saw each of them as children,
before they ever had to work
or make it big out in the world.

I saw each of them as mothers,
the gentle curve of a smile
beaming into the eyes of a child.

I saw bones form from nothing,
wrapped in muscles, skin
and rippling emanations.

I felt the startling disconnection
of my mental projections
and healthy, natural directions.

I felt a subducting sensation,
coupled with crawling anticipation
as I glimpsed the essence of creation.

Here is where I take my stand,
to fix the things I misunderstand.
It's time the true work began.

To the psychonauts exploring
the vistas of imagination.

There is a simple question
I ask of your investigation.

Are you seeking to know
beyond bounds of limitation,

or are you using "psychonaut"
to justify inebriation?

I never could count backward from infinity, the concept of eternity casually eluded me on a silver-back horse holding reins on the floods of organized cacophonies speaking louder than the silent ones. To the silent ones with frozen mouths caught quivering, consumed in doubt: don't let the symphonies of simple minds convince you that you shouldn't try. Forget these medieval magicians bending spoons with indecision -- they're just jesters sharing feasts with crooked beasts, swept up in the tide of disappearing time like rivers ripping rightly through the earth to an oceanic expanse of karma-laced incidents. I can  tell which moments are meant to be, scripted in the folds of destiny by the way space crackles opalescently then glows and ripples incessantly. The ancients knew the riddle, and wrote the verse in broken words.

In the heat of the afternoon,
I sat in silence on the shore
and listened to the lapping
waves come rapping at my door.

You said soon you'd be along,
surely nothing more than a day
but now the afternoon is sinking
and the dragonflies come out to say
"What keeps you distant dreaming?
Son, you should head out on your way."
Into a bowl I place the herbs
I've gathered on the hike:
mugwort, sage, peppermint,
and pine needles with their pollen.
I fill two cups, with some left over.
One for you, should you come along.
The second for the travelers,
with no other place to belong.
The rest I give back to the waters,
offered to the sprites and sylphs.

The valley'd lake is getting dark
and the sun hides behind the peaks.
I'm skipping stones across the waters,
watching ripples flux and cease.
And the moon casts gentle radiance,
a silken envelope of thought.
She guides my mind to contemplate
what is really going on:

I hope that you've been stalled
by a love more bold than me.
I hope it takes your hand and
shows you what I could never see.

If you're sitting home alone,
afraid of what may not ever be.
Imagine someone strumming slow
to your whirling symphony.

Om shanti tra-la-lace,
empty head fulla space.

Mismatched mouth and mind,
squawking every word ya find.

Buncha penny-sized pupils --
spun-out "gypsies" popping pills.

When ya finally say what ya mean,
I'll be where I was with no in between.

Om shanti tra-la-lo
pack yer patchouli and go.

Turn away your weary feet there's trouble lying here
where everything you perceive is not what it appears.

Fantasy and make believe are rampart in these parts.
Discontent's an honored guest here once the party starts.

If you stay, you aught to know you can't keep what you find.
So take advice from Orpheus: you best not look behind.

Insecure anxiety will twist your head around
as you clutch the pretty things and trinkets you have found.

You may want to talk some more but I just don't have the time
and all the folk you come across have too much on their mind.

In the beginning, nothing to know or behold.
Ignorant to all forms, to all words being told.
I exist, I exist! I'm not everything else.
Throughout eternity, I'll have only myself.

I'll apply energy to create new conditions,
and cause ripples and waves with distraught intentions.
From a "this," another "that"
and the polar play will distract.

From the two, another, awareness of faculties.
Nose to smell, tongue to taste, eyes to see.
Ear to hear, skin to feel, and mind to think.
Consciousness with an ego standing on the brink.

From the conscious fields, the earth starts to rise.
Water flows through being; fire keeps it alive.
Wind, vital wind, blows great energy around.
I think I'll call myself "ME." Yes, it has a certain sound.

From the elements, my corporeal form starts to dance.
With various appendages to keeping me entranced.
Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, my body and my mind.
Oh-**! Who knows what secrets I may find?

Ah, at last, the external world and I contact!
Who'd've thought that there'd be much in that?
Awareness and otherness meeting for a moment.
Before a strange sensation -- now I start to plummet.

I think I'm sad. There's cloth on me. I smell something astringent.
I see a bright light. Sounds all around. What tastes are contingent?
I didn't bargain for sensations that flicker up now.
I'd take it all back, if I only knew how.

A welling within! I crave food and deep loving.
Only want pleasant forms, otherwise I'll take nothing.
I want good music, beautiful things to observe.
But these forms in my mind, I think I'll conserve.

I'll repeat all sensations that are pleasant
and continue this practice and never regret it.
My Self is a thing, perpetually flowing.
I'll live forever; I'll never stop growing.

Forever happens much sooner than planned.
Every year I get older, I get sick and feel shammed.
How could this happen? I was so fit in my prime.
On my deathbed with my pleasures, I've wasted my time.

Through a strange landscape, I'm stripped of my Self.
Alone, all alone, with nowhere to turn to for help.
But there is a return to this world, once again,
to the beginning with nothing to know or behold.

The empty office hums
as air-conditioned drums
rattle through the ventilation
and I sit idly with time for contemplation.
The day rolls forward unopposed.
As I've read: "So it goes."
With a sigh, I make my tea --
an infusion with elderberry --
but that alone doesn't warm a mind
limping out of tempo with the time.
My soul's too slow to keep this rhythm
of skewed self-perception and idiot-ism.

Know that I'm afraid to express my love sincerely,
because every person I've known I hold equally dearly.
Nothing special exists inside my love,
where no one is treated as below or above.
Now if you pass me on the street,
you'll know me when our eyes both meet.
I'll smile from my core for you
and I hope that you reflect it, too.

All those half-dreamed things
whirl about as tiny freckles
in the speckles of your mind.

Now my dear, I think it's time
we closed our eyes
and counted to eternity.

It's been whispered,
from treetops and mountains,
that far below the heights
she wanders unhurried,
compelled by the wind
to idly stroll along
a path fringed
by flowers.

It's been said
that she wears a
flaxen crown;
a tranquilly woven
diadem, with the echoes
of a sun-burst
flitting gently in the jewels.

I've been through the desert to get to the sea
just to feel every wave crash over me.
But seeing you darling, I do believe,
nothing has struck me more pleasantly.
I think I love you, what more could I say?
But love's just a thought that I've given a name
and since I can't see inside of your brain,
how could I know if you're feeling the same?

I've spent far too long wasting my time,
cursing my fate and wishing to die,
wandering circles and wondering why,
what is the purpose in being alive?
Where is the joy when you're on your own,
wishing for someone but you're all alone
with frigid emotion and a heart turned to stone?
It's the middle of summer, I'm chilled to the bone.

I don't know all, but this much is true.
I'm feeling better when I am with you.
But oh, darling! What should I do?
I lost my perspective, I don't have a clue.
If you're listening, I don't mean to offend.
More than a lover, I'm needing a friend.
So if you think that you'd like to begin
I hope that you're sticking around to the end.

Oh, I wait and I wait and I wait for the day
when you come through the door singing my name.
Waiting for the day...

I'm gunna walk on down the road.
Lace my shoes and I'll be gone.
I'll let the wind blow through my hair
and my steps play a gravel drum
as my thoughts merge with the air.
With ethereal feet I'll move on by,
past the cities and the towns.
I'll find a quiet place to sit and try
to fill the space that gets me down.
When the sun is setting slowly
turning the sky into an amber dome
I'll think of all my friends and family
urging me to come back home.

I'll turn and walk the other way
through the valleys of the night
and let the stars be my reflection
as I wander through the pines.
The evening's chorus is different
but the song remains the same
as I wind back through the cities,
through the alleys and the lanes.
When I meet that gravel path again
I'll know I've finally made it home.
I'll see my family and friends,
and know there's no need to be alone.

Waves of liquid summer
cascading through the wall
as your twisted voices simmer
threading tendrils in my skull
and stuttered frames of halted scenes
come skipping as co-pilot of my dreams.

'Though we said our good-byes,
hello still hung in air.
Did she understand how time flies
ever onward without a care?

Her smile was distant; the embrace not enough.

Yet, we said our good-byes
while hello still hung in the air.

Those days were delightful
with tea in the park in the evening twilight.
Through the fog, careless but thoughtful,
I'll remember the sun and hers eyes as equally bright.

Somehow, we said our good-byes
while hello hung still in the air.

There she was sitting at the foot of my bed,
floating out words like a gun to my head:

"Everything you do's based on pride.
All that you say is a lie.

Everything you think you can hide
is made clear in the light."

Oh, I sat and stared her right in the eye.
I went right for her heart and said: "I am alive

but what about you?

Say what you want about the day and the night,
keep those words coming, 'cause they sure sound nice.

Everything you say to me
is empty philosophy.

You and I will never agree,
and that's a prophecy.

I'm sick of all your **** and I think that it's time.
I've gotta let you know, babe, I'm feeling fine

but what about you?

I'm doing what I can to be more I was.
You're limping on a crutch made of "because."

When you finally hear what I say,
I'll have gone far away.

I clearly have no reason to stay,
so I'm leaving today.

I'm heading for the shore, to cast out to sea.
I'm leaving you behind and I'm gunna be free,

but what about you?"

Darling, what did you do
that made me fall in love with you?
Oh Love, what did I see
that swung me to eternity?

Was it the day you entered the room
with the fire of heaven alight in your eye
and the flowers of wonder fully in bloom
as you followed the map in the sky?

Was it the moment our cheeks finally touched,
when I entered your arms for no more than a hug?
I got swept away by the powerful rush
crashing a growing like waves of a drug.

Was it the day that we sat down to eat
and you told me things which you rarely say?
Your cadence and phrasing and weight of your speech
were spells that were holding me in your sway.

The world stood still and everything disappeared
except for your posture and the tone of your voice.
To get lost in your story, my mind volunteered,
I never even had a choice.

Darling, what did you do
that made me fall in love with you?
Oh Love, what did I see
that swung me to eternity?

What did you whisper in the morning?
Was it the cursed introduction to a tale
written in the dialect of mourning,
where dreams and satisfaction fail?

What were you singing in the evening?
Was it a prelude to the ballad of the time
that threads unwound with confusion weaving
between chiseled cracks and faded rhyme?

What did the mountain echo to you?
Was it exactly what you wanted to hear,
did you find the timbre shifted blue,
watching all the texture disappear?

What did you dream of while sleeping?
Was it a prophetic message from the spirits,
a promise offered in protection and safe-keeping
or malevolent magic disguised as lyrics?

When circumstances dance
with tattered threads of dissonance
I'll ask You once to ease this stress
and synthesize new strength from difference.

When passion lays with bated breath
subdued behind the facade of death
I hope You'll give of Yourself to bless
this interchange where less is less.

When it's Love that's just Love
not pretending to be something more
I'll know You by the easy grace
that's flowing through Your core.

Nothing lasts beyond these moments
sacrificed, in passing, to kindle movements.
I'd give myself to You, forever,
if I thought that we could part.

Even continents will crumble
from the pressure of the world.
The highest clouds will tumble
into twisted patterns of a curl.
Maybe the wind is screaming “mercy”
to the idle feeling in my bones,
but I only know what I perceive
and my mind is deaf to foreign tones.
A heavy soul's another burden
sailing on the ocean of the mind,
hoisted onto shoulders again
causing frayed virtues to unwind.
My thoughts are turning icy.
Frozen sheets claw up my back.
Icicles growing through my psyche
antagonize the fire that I lack.
I could be wrong for trying
to see the blues through rosy glass,
but when flocks of thoughts go flying
I watch the purple pass.

The path, it is crooked;
and all that I look at
is bent and skewed on review.

The path, it is broken;
and all that is spoken
are lies based on truths I once knew.

The path, it is vacant;
and all that is sacred
wouldn't do to move the fool.

The thin veil before
the form of forms falls away
is nothing, if not a negative thought,
lesser than even the grave.

Could investigation of this situation,
yield anything not known?

Or would observation of this reservation
reveal the specters dancing below?

Won't you take my saddle off, and rest it on my grave?
Won't you take my saddle off, and rest it on my grave?
'Cause if you take my saddle off, and rest it on my grave,
we can walk down the street goin' our own way.

Don't you leave me lonesome 'round these parts no more.
Don't you leave me lonesome 'round these parts no more.
'Cause if you leave me lonesome 'round these parts once more
I'm lacing up my shoes and I'm runnin' out the door.

I love to see you laughin' in the morning light.
I love to see you laughin' in the morning light.
'Cause when I see you laughin' in the morning light,
I forget all my problems and I think feel alright.

Won't you stop playin' these games with my head.
Won't you stop playin' these games with my head.
'Cause if you stop playin' these games with my head,
I'll sweep you off your feet and I'll carry you to bed.