I put up an advertisement
"WANTED: A handsome man
To play the villain of the tale."
I was in earnest in this wail -
My play is falling as it can
Apart, in disestablishment.
I didn't think you'd laugh or like
My addition - "I don't need one
Personally." Well, I don't, no,
I don't need one, but if you'd show
A wish for consideration,
I'd love a hero on a fixed-gear bike.

Someone burns their vision of the world
In Western leaves some factory somewhere curled
And leaves the stump to burn upon the green
Where ducks and frogs make their domain,
And drops the package, too, still cellophaned,
Venom for the worms, a note to the society who brained
You - I see your disaffection's ribbon in the grass
And know I feel it, too, and yet, alas,
By all the powers that be, I know,
That I must be the change I want to show.

I became Holmes, past knowing true:
In every sense, I'd seek for you.

Now, taking the cobbles consciously,
Sick, mad, of the essence of this construct,
Dismantling the ancien régime to see
That I am all your stains in concert -

I am made up of every last touch -
Originality's a lie, save in
The combination that you see - as such
It is unique, but I still cave in

At the dawn that nothing is my own,
And much like as if you were a coffee
I'd downed: I could not, for my life, disown
The five million senses cutting me

For the time, for every conscious cup
I'd take and take again: Why should I dull
And cut myself this way, a life made-up
Of such a tannin-full ideal?

My way as a writer is to fall
In love, in my eyes, in yours, in raptures,
In despair, in tough crowds, on God, to call
On my muse and survive the ruptures

Of worlds and heavens, both real and made,
And feel the rain upon my face, but Lord,
How often do I feel, and feel the raid,
Engaged by scent, blush, needle, salt, word?

All too much makes nothing, and I can't flee
To seek another cup: I must seek me.

No markings to paper
Merely a personal choice
Unravelling rhythm guitar
And shore and off-shore voice;
Alice said, Alice said, Alice said,
And my mind opened, and I
Walked home thinking, why
Do I live by what the cradle read,
In extremes, and why do I
Not deserve to do better?
Why don't I burn every last letter
For every time I didn't cry?
All this holding, holding back,
When the "baby" twists and coils
To bite what some consider spoils
And I look at myself wearing black,
And red, and a man's coat,
So I can forget who forgot.

Yeah, I know I have no claim
Upon you or on your time
And the seconds walk by, lame,
And I pen another rhyme
About how painful it remains
To be the what-the-hell-ever.
It wasn't that I didn't wake
With my good friend by my side
It wasn't that I didn't make
The pancakes, or I tried
To refocus on my gains
Or whatever the hell ever
To remember to fail
To recall you exist
To laugh, not to pale,
At the wish to be kissed
And how stupid are the pains
Of being the what-the-hell-ever.

So, what's your downfall, he asked?
And I tell him, I'm not tasked
With losing my hopes in a flask,
Or tangled sheets, or to bask
In false lights of powders foreign,
Though it would seem my creed, I know,
By much my brethren showed and show;
I am an artist, I plead guilty to the crime,
Of being here to ask you to waste your time
To try to understand my ramblings on my pain
And then to waste and waste your time again
Hoping you can see something more
Of everything that comes before
Your eyes when you're not wasting time
Upon this crazy pantomime
I place before you: I bleed, yes,
And hope to give you life in all this mess.