Familiar tale as round and round goes the illusory carousel.

The faithless dogs snarl and snap with jagged tooth at the Master’s hand.

I am brooding inside, churning a hatred for this borrowed paperback life,

this wide path leading to the shattered uprising.

Then come the cold nights where you don’t have any answers,

and fall with weary spirit upon the tiles, full of self.

Here a faithless prince seeks a queen who is not yet born,

and finds only ghost and shadow of what once was vibrant life.

Words of the lesson droned on static in the background,there was only the the lined paper. His fingers gripped the yellow #2, tip blunted, eraser nearly gone.
It had to be perfect, every word a symphony of color and light, eyes pacing the smudged and wrinkled page for a hundredth time it seemed.
The blue steel lockers gleamed in the high stone halls like silent centurions guarding some ancient secret. He folded the creases with his best dexterity as rustling of assignments were passed around the class signaling that the hour was at hand, restless eyes glanced at the unforgiving clock by the door.

Three chimes sang  change of classes, he scrambled to locker 4A with a burning blood, the small square clutched like the world's last precious stone in his sweating fist. The echoing corridors flooded with faces and clamor of boisterous youth as he slipped it between the cobalt metal's narrow gap, breathing in deep with a hope that her perfume might come through and with it all dreams of her visage, and the words that he would tell her softly in some far away room where only she would hear them,  responding to him with lips unspoken, pressed to his in the warmth of all that is or ever could be good.

It was finished now with quivering hands and heart, he sidled through the throng to end of the iron hedgerow, where 4A was still in view. Pink polished digits twirled the combination lock,  then bent to retrieve with careful curiosity the parchment at matching toes. Her gaze lifted and combed the area, panic rose with sudden tornado force that whirled him unseen, then glancing again across the fading chorus he watched her reading. All joy swelled to fill the world as bubble gum glossed lips curled in a smile, her cheek glowed strawberry.

Her name was Alexis, she never knew his, for he did not sign the note.

Sidewalk below the neon glow, slick with misplaced ale.
A prisoner of self, unable to run from what he ran to.
Now lay here, sick to the marrow, as the blurred faces
congeal in their laughter, only to become obfuscated
once more in the whirling street. Images at random
come of the naked, bleeding form of Christ’s final hour.
Branded from the metamorphosis, the scars gleam
on the paste white skin, and stir the dusts of memory.
Why this tragic stage? Why this prodigal’s second rebellion?
The old world ties stringing up the marionette, familiar song,
disparate man. These marks are clear, there was once
severance, and now again. Crawling behind towering stones of refuge,
and resting safe within the pain, free in it’s reality.
Wailing like a newborn, spilling cleansing streams of saline,
so stands the fallen.

My senses reel with every beautiful memory of shining summer days when I see her face.
There is nothing magic about the sunrise in perspective. Hours like stones tied to my back, and I trudge up this hill of regret, trying to fulfill some penance. The venom lies spill into my ear. One more hour, one more stone, and I am breaking slowly. What balm can soothe this, for I would go beyond the sea to find such. I would lay it upon crushed velvet at your feet and cry pardon. But I have nothing, just one more hour,  one more stone. I will look to the east and dream of days gone by, of your laughter sweet and the dawn, and hope that once more the star will rise.

Dawn fades to day, wilts the orchid's bloom.
Questioned light of coming Spring; of clouds spilling cool waves creating innocent hours.
New midnight sight, colorless worlds caressing remembrance, washed ashore, pulled back into the waves, evoking silence from the once chaotic weaving of a dew drenched widow's web.
God watches all with omniscient eyes, peering through time, beyond all conceivable beside the quiet looking glass pools of drowning baptism, leaving lack of redemption and edging thirst.

Spirits gather around the roadside death indefinitely finished.
His cruelest masterpiece, the waving fields of Gettysburg.
Rain blankets the cracked soil where Christ's wine poured out.
No existence without this, moon fades to sun and man denies his ******, even though the ground felt Abel bleed, and the ***** of Nod still rages,
Earth fades to dust, and the War ends in silence.

I dreamed of her again last night,
so real I could feel the satin of her skin,
smell her floral perfume and taste her lips that pressed softly to mine.
We danced in that dream,
falling and fumbling into ecstasy,
then I opened my eyes and breathed in the morning’s damp air.
She should change her name, was the first thought I had.
Leave behind her history and all of the pain and shame written upon it.
Some things are just not meant to be.
Too long in dreams have I stayed.

Spread the word , the Machine is coming. A circus of steel springs and combustion all grinding to the drums. Watch them waiting, every color, every clan; all wanting to be part of the system as it begins with a roar like a turbo charged engine they rush the door.

Inside, heads swim in a new found sea, unconscious are the dancing sparks and gay revelers in their glitter coated world. Limbs pumping, pounding pistons running full blast through the night. Up creaking stairs into the radiator, cooling chamber, thick green haze passes over innumerable points of light; oxygen restriction. Drums persist pouring down white rain on melting minds. Thrilling, rushing euphoric rhythms flow like wine from fine crystal. Speak and you will not be heard, listen and you will hear no voice, for the machine stops for no one until morn.

Wasting away in the exhaust of a comatose state are some, eyes open seeing new worlds in clarity are others, while a select few crawl through Hell blinded by visions of terror. Still the electric pulses have yet to slow, numb to the deafening watts as they are now winding their way to the surface of a sleeping city. Whimsical youths will lay until afternoon, their internal timing chains hours slow, yet only eight rounds of the gauge have passed. The beating motion is still lingering as weary heads fall upon waiting pillows, headlight eyes switch off near six am. The last sounds fade for these who now dream anew, yet still worshipers of the dance rage against the coming of the light, would they be consumed in the warehouse flames before they saw the dawn?

Spread the word the machine was here and they called it the Rave.