Little Fire Dancer,
twirling about the night
These eyes mesmerized,
by the fiery performance

Exotic acrobatics
And a luminous soul
The danger in the motiob
Is transparent

Illusory beauty fades
Into flames of destruction
Footprints singe the ground
With elegant and tainted grace

This tango is a one way ride
Immersed in the fever
Step by step we burn
So brightly

Until this malevolent enchantress
Becomes one with a whisper
And I am left the only casualty,
Burned.

The words slide through me.
Disconnected lacking comprehension
Old times rush forward, focused
Shattering into mirrors of memories

Disbelief overwhelms me.
Questioning my every action
Tears stream down my face.
Every moment holding more weight.

We are fragile,
The world dies around us.
We fade into a foolish fantasy
Until the crippling pain of lose
Comes crashing home.

R.I.P. PJ Cleary

Every word falls deaf
Soundless songs depress, suppress
Any ability to breathe music (of my own)
An empty vessel, ravaged,
Through a torturous fountain of
Words: letters, syllables violently clawing
(Towards the Sun, any inkling of light)
Spewing in such a horrible way
Just to once again find relevancy
To flow like waterfalls, nurturing
The saplings of the low valleys
To bloom, and flower into peace and
Be Reborn.

I wish to own a magic quill
With magic ink and vibrating trill

Colorful calligraphy to map my mind
A revolving world to leave my sign

Short stories, thoughts and imagination
Floating allures of determination

Compose a sea of words to illustrate
Then pass the pen to facilitate

Artisitic culture and tangled rhymes
A healthy recipe to ease the times

I've not lived a day, the same man
As the day before.

Nor do I live now, intending to be
Anything less than more.

I found a voice, for silent screams

They sang of yesterdays, prayed for todays
And died for tomorrows.

I found a voice, for silent screams

They sang of yesterdays, prayed for todays
And died for tomorrows.

Hush now, lay down to rest.
Haunt the Earth no more.
Your children, are my children
Your dreams, are my dreams

Sun rising, we March to Freedom

Do not be baited
Into the notion
That because
Things could be worse
That they are somehow better

Do not give into the idea
That we are somehow past
The mistakes of nations before us
We are always a moment away
From Ancient Rome, fickle and meek

Do not listen to such beliefs
That things will just get better
Hanging onto hope is a stagnant dream
True change is revolution
But they want monotony to be the game

Three steps
One! Two! Three!
I pushed off
Into the air
Shocked to find
A building or two
Falling beneath me
Momentum gaining
The world began to shrink
Clouds began to kiss my cheeks
I was gone,
                      and I never came back!

The universe used to whisper dark melodies,
in the secret garden of mind.
Seeds were sewn with thoughts that were ravenous for the wicked sound.
Each idea bloomed into insidious beauty, humming a haunting tune of its own.

When dusk set on the infinite, the ghastly chorus set too.
Silence boomed, poisoning the life of creativity.
What grew now, was gnarled indifference, a green of dark envy.

Borderline blasphemous and a challenge just the same, a tune of antithesis finally became.
The garden sang its own song in finality.

Do I exist as the Day before
The serrated edges of brokeness
Distort any resemblance once known
Light dips endlessly into the gaps
Hoping to find a reflection to the surface

Darkness is the suture to the shattered
Weaving together ruined flesh
Inhaling deceit, runs waves of despair
How much can be replaced
Before I am lost in the night.

The crescendo of my muse
Strikes swiftly on heavy eyelids
Vibrating the hypnotic frequency
I transmute into reality

Humming machines scream out
Calling me from an aquatic slumber
Preserved from a dying world
To become prisoner in a land of dreams

Delusions immobilize my captive body
Force feeding lies, an unwilling glutton
Heretics of day become prophets of night-
Mares, praying to awake the awoken

His eyes drew back into endless darkness.
The smokey storm of features which raged
Where his face should have been struck lightning
Down my frozen spine, entangled by this sight.

The man peered into me, which his empty gaze.
Black holes which in their plainness, tore away sanity.
I wanted to ask him, I wanted to know, but words lost me.
He laughed a madman's laugh, faceless or not, he smirked.

This devil, came and went, only seeking a name.
He stepped out into the night, a frozen gaze, and into nothing.
A creature haunted, without voice for his destruction.
I know he will return, screaming death until words find him.

I walked out into the nothingness,
Lamp lit, with a little lively flame.
Darkness decided to swallow us.
I fueled the lantern, to feed the light.
But as it burned brighter, darkness grew hungrier.

There was an acceptance, to let it be.
I knew that this was the time of darkness.
Extinguishing my flame, I waited for dawn.
I waited and waited, for the midnight black,
To churn into that dark purple hue,
Kindling further into the volatile morning vibrancy.
Such a time never came, as I said
These were Dark Times.

The Land of Light could not, would not
Interlope here, and such a thing was fine.

I drink deep from the reservoirs beneath her tulips
Soft is my sweet demise,
As I follow her eyes
To the cherry blossoms,
And that babbling brooks
Reassuring me, that I'm far away home.

I smile, with sun kissed cheeks
For when the music drifts away like distance
The tenderness of words on my ears
Rewrite all of this pain into poetry

I'm falling apart,
I'm living a lie
I'm dancing with a crooked smile
Feel the beat, taste the high
Drink your poison, embrace the night

Soft are your lips, buried in my chest
Fingers in your hair, tears break silence

We laugh, we cry, I tell you I'm dying
To confess my madness, or was it sadness

A typhoon, a thunderstorm, all hell breaks loose
I let go, I fall into a rude little slumber

Tired eyes flutter, night creeps into day
Ready to serve my desires once more

That was no ordinary lightning,
I knew that much for sure.
The walls shook with violent vibrations,
Echoes of the beastly ritual below.

Through flashes and thunder,
Archaic broods of badlanders rose.
Each strike tore open the seems of
Conceivable imagination.

This is not the first time.
This storm is without end.
Some will know it for the darkening it is.
Others will hold it secretly within nightmares.

Fingertips reach out against the forgotten wood.
An old wicked tree, gnarled with memories.
It seemed only moments ago, each groove
and every ridge was known.

A palm outstretched delicately, hoping to feel,
pressed against the rot of fading time.
The wounds of the mind run deep.

The hand pulls back, steadies it’s rage,
erupts into useless follies.

And still stands no closer to remembering.

Spring decided to take this year off.
The winter was brutal, blanketing roads,
Living up the mayhem of snow and ice.

There was maybe one day, green grass,
Wind between a whisper and a scream.
Ending as quickly as it had began.

Freezing rain to Summer sun.
The heat beating, sending the cold packing.
And Spring nowhere to be found.

No April showers, or blooming flowers.
Just the ice and fire, no place inbetween.
Autumn, will be long overdue.

The solemn sea swells
Consuming the sorrow
Black petals drift into
The vast ocean of souls
Bad news and crushing blows
Drowning out in the undertow

Oh star child, oracle divine
Help me decipher these visions of mine

So vibrant and vivid
It seems I'm committed
To madness

Work your magic
Read the heavens
Or the skies
Do you see truth
Or is it demise.

I beg you dreamwalker,
Seer of wonder and youth.
Bend my lost and fevered mind.

Finally..I wake from the dreamless wakefulness,
supposing that now, this is all real.

And how is such a harsh reality met?

By staring down Death’s corridor.
I don’t take the first step, I imagine that
is still quite some time away.
Though this time, it is much more than a glance.

And for the record, I remained tethered
to the living.

But to go on, that must be the work of Mask.
For how could I?

Yes, I resolve this ordeal to Mask.
Absolve myself of responsibility,
for was he not always in control?

Steady now, it is a burden for us both to bare.

The fiend stood before the threshold,
with a wicked gait.

High above the rooftops, with darkness
flowing from his cloak of nightmares.

The claymore cementing his sinister
disposition, neck crooked high.

Rage, his helm, that devilish crown,
slithering all the lies into me.

This throne, my flesh, he claimed again,
the marionette of his madness.

I walk heavy, with the burden of his pain,
swiftly he barrels through the jungle.

Through all the winding and weaving,
destruction has found its home within.

The King, his slave and the broken,
words are whats left to save us.

But he too, has stolen such things away,
for what am I without them.

The Eclipse dawned shortly after sunrise
Though clouds decided to swallow her gaze
A supernatural dimness filtered the horizon
Some things occur and are felt deeply
Others often, can be never felt at all.

I felt the surge of madness.
The Dark Moon plunge her auras
So deliberately into my mind.

Irises became dark full circles
Reflecting the wonderfully insidious Luna
Her Eight faces shone as dancing disc

She sings, inviting visions, mayhap delusions.
What was seen before, and thereafter
Are stories of the beginning and end.

Gifted, with a sinister sight, malevolent.
But boundless, togetherness, solidarity.
All at once, with every I, to ever be.

Friends, foes, fiendish woes,
I kneel before the Universe.

The ability to adapt is the ability to survive.
Foolish me, attempting to try old catalyst.
The past is a faulty crucible.
The same tricks won't work twice.

In this foresight, the key is carved.
Inspired by the rites of yesterday,
But honed in forge of tomorrow.

The derelict, latency of change has arrived.
So have I, molded by will itself, to wield it.

Each verse is loaded ammunition
An arsenal of words preparing for war

Locked and loaded, these stanzas are ready
To fight the ****** battle, in a War of Words

Each spoken lyric, is a shot to the temple of Ignorance
Muses and medics line up to infuse their knowledge

Reload and repeat, the bards sing of Revolution
A Libretto for freedom, in unison from the Voiceless Nation

Rocks fall with each bey and beckoning
That stone hands shutter, dying
Rigid time, makes bone brittle
Pebbles of broken pieces
Stain crimson into the urn of the Earth

Chanting inaudible death hymns
The mother of rubble weeps
Her tears churn, with blood
And the sediment of the fallen
Into the blackened mixture
Exploding with fire and magma

Rising now, half broken and devil
With a narrow cage of brimstone
Twisting to a swollen brow of madness
Reigns down hellfires and Infernos
Laughing as the ancient muses
Strum the Fire God's Libretto.

Suppression weights heavy in my hand.
Holding the bleeding,
beaten remnants of my essence.

Outstretched, stripped from my chest,
clinging to the soft ideals
of a peace to never come.

Words of hatred, poisons I have made
created in failed attempt to love.
Piercing me, debilitating daggers
wounded, body broken.

All energy exhausted pulling
farther from me the strings attached
to what was once life.

Heart in hand, destroyed mantle
of my physical being, beating slowly
Crimson paints the floor.

Instinct shields this torn entity
to protect the last connection
the undying belief in love.

The winter blues are rich with gloom,
twisting my heart with apathy.

And perhaps shame too, let it not hide behind the weather.

Is it this dark obsession or some hidden transgression?

All the lessons learned, but failure is all that remains.

What road is left, I cannot see between the flickers of my dwindling flame.

Two crooked razorbills fluttered past
The old oak tree on Bell's Grave.

They buzzed and crooned, in perfect pitch
For the necromancer's song.

Not to be outdone by the deathsinger's,
The skies opened up in torrential hymns.

As the Earth drowned in sinful peace,
A young man began to dance his fortune.

Feathered fellows, pouring rain, innocence.
A tune long forgotten in this worn grove.

Yet still, it was good, it was grand.
The honesty of death was pure.

On speaking of maddening, madness
Zero down on this pounding, pounding
Of onset betrayal in my heart.

Friendly faces turned crooked smiles,
As my mind contorts them in denial
Believing in an imminent threat.

Panic blooms a wildfire of doubt,
The voices inside scream and shout.
Now we wait for the arrival of death.

This mystery, this sickening
These shades of kin, just don't fit in
And surely I'm losing my mind.

There is no plot, no grand scheme
To steal away my blissful dream.
But paranoia knows better, it must.

The marvel of space
Is that much of what we see
Are snapshots of fallen
Wonders of cosmic creativity
The beauty exist in the moments
Almost frozen in relativity

That in the night
Looking up into infinity
Standing on this blue world
Nothing is as it seems

Fascination consumes me
The very idea that this instant
You or I are in constant motion
Hurtling through space and time
Galaxies exploding through
All that is and ever was.
Star systems racing around
This is paradoxical

To be stuck in a moment
Gravitated to the gaze
Of this divine universe
While simultaneously
Speeding through the canvas
In our own piece of the marvel

Written words unravel spools of knotted truth
Unbound, I succumb to the overflow of thought
This pen, a fury of violent strokes, lashing lies
Waist deep in the tide of self reflection's revelation

I hold on, desperately, to the obelisk of false odysseys  
Watching words overturn the bastions of ignorance
Caught up, in the undertow, I begin to drown in the sea
Swallowing this sullen reality as I gasp, hopelessly for fallacies

In the space between madness
I wait. Patiently.
For the cold, univiting kiss.

The clouds overlap
Into cities of bridges
With rivers of indigos
Painted in the sky, as the
Evening begins, early now
Autumn has come.

Adrenaline and Pain,
They've brought me back to the dark waters,
Wading inside, the struggle to stay afloat.
The King, his legion, rise from their depths.
Ghouls scream, inciting a riot of mind.

The calming presence of self, helps me resist,
But this King brings corruption and death.
His fiendish aether crawls through my veins.
I suffocate under the torrential wickedness.

Once again, I rise, not my self.
Another medium for his crown of lies.

Speed is relative.
I have begun to lose myself.
Everyday seems slower, the faster I go.
I punch the gas pedal and feel nothing.
I'm not after a rush, but the null is so strong.

Lately, I have felt more alone than ever.
A circle of love, holds me in high regard.
And yet, they seem so far out on the fringe.
This real me, in this real world is hollow.
Beneath in dark shadows, deep in the core,
Is a detached, dissociated self, I pity him.

Nights have become restless.
I lay awake, tossing and turning,
Ever out of reach of a rejuvenating slumber.
Sleep is dreamless, which is hell.
Even nightmares offer some insight,
A certain clarity of clairvoyance.

Perhaps, as I strongly feel, change is coming.

******.
Slips out of white lips
I lose my ****.

Blood boils.
I hate the word
It ties my tongue
But, I get it.
Didn't always
But, I get it now

A reclaimation of hate,
Black skin shining
Owning the power of a word.

So tell me doc
How much time have I got
Before this world overtakes me

I'm asking, I'm shaking
Cause I feel my mind breaking
Lock me up, I'll swallow the pills

But please doc
Throw away the key, overdose me
Ill tell you, these demons won't leave

I'm a green eyed
Sharp tongued devil
Born for Heaven
& destined for Hell

Snow skates on the highway home.
Zigzagging, Crisscrossing, Somersaulting.
White dust in a balancing act between,
Winter Winds and Momentous Metal.

The hand rose petals of ripe red.
A fast bloom of rotten revenge,
Stemmed only from gnarled thorns.
Sage runs strong into crimson.

Reaping, what is sewn or shown.
This paradoxical thought has flowered.
Was it first the pain or was it desire.
Trim the fray or overgrow in vain.

Suckle little roots, undying doom
Eternity's flora in the poet's stalk
Blood cursed words, ancient fret.
The seed of grudge is the heart's regret.

I was once stone
The naivety of my hope
Induced a wonderful illusion
Of a changed world, just on the horizon

This rock, and its sediment
Held the key to my ignorance
Never noticing my erosion
Caused by the hatred of men

The biggest fear that I have as a writer,
Is that I will inevitable recycle old ideas.
Whether this is done consciously or not,
I fear of the complications it may bring.

Does it represent an evolution of past thoughts,
Or is it a compromise and the death of innovation.

Inspiration strikes invariably, but there is novelty.
Yet, this feeling looms, that I'm near the end.

I'd like to believe that I will forever spark creativity.
That as I have always done, new flames will blaze.

But there is too much doubt that a good thing,
Won't keep going for long, and its been long.

Admitting that feels good, and until that time comes,
If it comes at all, I'll have to trust the words in me.

I carry the guilt of remembering the dead
In fear that if I don't, who will.

This tug of war between time and memory
Brings fatigue to my soul.

Anger has long passed, leading the road
With forgiveness at its end.

Though, in celebrating life, I can't help feel
The weight of every conversation.

That dangerous, infinite, path of what if.
Decisions and indecisions that brought death.

Answers may never be found, though I hope,
To relinquish this guilt of remembering.

The black bird returns to the grove.
Its wings clipped, its pride stripped.

The black bird wretches a horrid chord.
Its song defiled, its depression wild.

The black bird offers a stifled dance.
Its passion shown, its fate honed.

The black bird finds a fractured peace.
Its freedom bound, its sanity found.

The Real World,
That is a matter of perspective.

The places I travel each night,
Those are real worlds, all of them.
The entire spectrum of realities
Every vibrant life lived.

This dull world, this emptiness
It is but a mirage, a specter , a shadow.

I walk through this dream,
A captive in a phantom world.

Knowing so much more exist.
But seemingly forever out of reach.

I consumed the man in the mirror
Who stared so emptily into me.
The gaze which split this body into two
He is just but a whisper, long forgotten.

I could not tell you when,
But his weakness was delicious.
As he faded, I only saw myself
Nameless now, until the dawn begins.

I too, eat his words, wondering where
My own will be found.
Suppose a tear is shed, running slowly
Down my cheek.

We wonder, when we will find
Ourselves.

I remember his memories
Sometimes they are mine
A world of attrition
Skewed by rosey lenses

I felt his pain as they shattered
I felt the burning cuts in his hands
I felt that strong grip as he held the pieces
Just as I felt his strength wilt

He tried,
But feeling for the first time
The physical suffering brought on
by a conflict of emotions unresolved
Led the poor boy down a road
An avenue to bleed out the hate
To break the skin that trapped them in

Short term relief
For long term grief
He sought me out
And asked with a plea
To take his life, and set him free

Sometimes I hear him,
In the back of my head
But no, he isn't dead
He wills himself day by day
To not pull the trigger
Of the shaking gun of deciet.

It had to super secede conscious thought.
To be biologically absolute.

Overthinking is a non conundrum.
Fight or flight, that’s all that’s left.

Removing choice, perhaps the key,
Though it’s no clear cut sanity.

Precision is swift, through non mortal blows,
Just within the fringes of lethality.

On the edge of life or the brink of death.
Let the flesh decide for itself.