That tug of the heartstrings as it all falls apart,
The tired trepidation, sinking through a fog of emptiness.
A dream once, nightmare now,
Of the mundane order, living a life with another
Everything once hoped for left unfulfilled.

I want to ask. I wish to know.
Do you love me as I love you?
I'd travel far beyond the stars
Bringing back everything I found
To share with you for all of time.
My heart for yours.

Do you understand? Do you know?
The ghost of a thought in your mind?
I'm terrified that you will leave
And never know the pain I feel.
Please, I beg of you, take this dream
And make it real.

A tower built, of mortar and stone,
To hold these bells aloof, alone,
Forever as a prison keep.
Yet by their own merit,
Bells cannot be entrapped.
For a pull of the rope
Brings forth golden notes,
Conversation that far beyond
Those cold walls surpasses.

Tear-stained faces shouting
Obscenities flow through the air
Think and dense, seemingly tangible.
Building a wall that
Only tears us down,
Ripping apart all we once had
Bringing with it a finality,
So fragile, as if a breath,
But spreads to overwhelming
Like a fog in the early winter morning.
We both walk away,
Dull anger still pulsing behind our eyes.
Looking around, its all empty
Everything is so empty,
Like a heart beating nothing but air.
We walk away,
Finding nothing.
Nothing but a cycle,
Catch-22.
Love found and broken.
Like the washing machine
Load, wash, *****.  Repeat.

Call me Don Quixote,
For I am a dreamer on a journey,
Travelling forth with noble cause
To see the wondrous sights
And save fair maidens.
And though you say,
There are no such things as Giants,
The Dragons are all dead,
That a Knight I'll never be,
I tell you this:
The journey itself is magical
In a way you will never know,
For all of your logic is but a crutch,
A way to keep to safe Roads.
And so you will never understand
That windmills were never windmills,
But Giants all along.
So call me Don Quixote,
For the Surreality I perceive
Is by far the greater than the Reality
By which you are deceived.

She danced in the rain,
Bare feet slapping at the old, worn wood
Of the picnic table.
Her flushed cheeks
Burned bright in the cold wind,
Looking like rubies
In the fat drops of water
That the sky wept.
She looked like a faery queen
Dressed in just my t-shirt,
Dancing in the cold, fall rain.

Bring to me a strong ***
By which my soul's sorrow will be forgot:
Filled with an ****** divine
So that Woman may be driven from my mind.
For I no longer want
This stream inspiring a heartly haunt,
That once flows will not stop
'Til my heart's blood drains to its last drop,
And so drained, then breaks.
Leaves me with an art held for its own sake.
So bring me forth this draught,
Deepest as ever one from Lethe quaffed.
From my broken heart charm
This fair Image of the earth's Fairest Form
That ever my heart has held,
That ever my reveling heart has swelled.

Alas, seems never shall be
My mind's eye, my heart, my soul ever free
Of this tort'rous torment.
Left with naught to do, only lament.
Away I cannot chase
The mind numbing beauty of her face.
'Tis all in vain it seems
For such a draught appears only in my dreams.
My sight did so invest,
Bringing damning pain abreast.
No longer can delight
Be brought forth from sights seen in any light.

Had she only known how
My heart, once free, only beat for her now
And with but a smile
Assuaged that murd'rous pain but for a while
I would then know relief,
That most bittersweet pain, the "joy of grief."

Eyes meet
A smile follows
One step, then another
Repeat, until face to face
Words flow
Into sentences
Which pour out into conversation
Time passes
The crowd thins
Time to leave,
Time to part.
An embrace,
Then farewell.
Then...farewell.

The best part about falling in love with someone,
Are those poignant moments, filled with awkward pause,
Where neither person quite knows what to say
And both just stand, sit, lay, looking in each others eyes.
That feeling of knowing everything and nothing all at once.
That feeling of a dream realized, while yet truly begun.

The worst feeling is when the love begins to fade
And the dreams that once were are slipping slowly, quickly away.
Where there was once hope in those pauses, now only pain,
Terrible, painful, dreadfully poignant moments, filled with awkward pause.
The sheer disgust and and sadness at what once was,
Tainting something beautiful, becoming something awful.
It was all a silly dream.

Go forth and catch a falling star,
Cup it tightly to your breast
Give to it your heart
And in return it will grant
The world and everything in it,
If you aren't afraid to lose
Everything you ever were.

That enticing future
Rife, with the hidden pains
Of everything
And nothing
All at the same time.
The emptiness
Of being so terribly full.

So go and catch a falling star,
Do it if you dare,
Clutch it to your beating breast
For those beats are your last
Before it takes away
All
And gives you truly nothing.

Haiku is like this:
The moment a petal falls,
Beautiful and brief.

Hello, are you there?
Somewhere out there,
Past the clouds, beyond the sky?
Hello, are you there?
I'm still waiting,
For a word, for your reply.

All I hear is silence
Pressing close - now I cry.
Won't you answer me?
Aren't you God?

Is there nothing else
Left to wait for,
Left to carry me on home?
Is it just a dream
That I'm living?
No one here to call my name.

Maybe I should just die,
So I can wake up.
Maybe then I'll hear you.

Bottle of wine, full just moments ago,
The last drops resting on my shirt,
Memories of moments ago
Now a blur.

Tears that used to exist
No longer have a home
Having been replaced by these grapes of wrath,
Mindless revelry.

Pass the blunt, breathe in, now out,
**** helps the hurt to mellow,
Touching out the feelings the wine couldn't get to.
Darkness and spinning.

I sit on a couch, watching plaster bumps
Turn into stars and spin as my head
Turns on its orbit, round and round,
Drowning out everything.

Blackness, preceded by heavy lids,
I stumble to my bed, stumble, stumble,
Sleep now, until the next dream,
Sleep now, never awake.

I could dream a thousand dreams of you,
Losing myself in what is untrue.
Streams surround of you, of me.
My heart longs to stay forever in this fantasy.
But would it, could it, ever outweigh,
That greatest joy I find in just one day,
In simplest of moments, spent with you?
Alas, I fear no dream would ever do.
And so, I'll strive to stay awake,
Living on, though my heart may quake
In fear that you may one day away.
Even then, sleeping dreams, stay at bay,
For knowing you whilst I am here
Is ever greater than any dream, my dear.

To me, my heart, I cannot compare
You to anything, to be quite fair.
Shaming, innocently, Nature's beauty,
Your smile, a look, indescribable to me.
Thoughts strike fiercely, like lightning,
Of finding something, anything
In all creation quite like you,
But nothing I've found will ever do.
Shall I compare you to the finest jewel,
Lit eternally aflame, yet to the touch so cool?
Or perhaps to the morning sky,
Rising gently, the canvas of soft clouds on high
Painted gently in reds and golds by the sun,
When all is shown as art of the One,
Putting all the world with but a look at ease.
Yet still, before all of these,
I am quite convinced that He,
Spent far more time on thee.

I'm drunk again
And am thinking of Midas,
With his Golden Touch
And the Gorgons,
With their stone look,
Because everything I touch
Turns to stone.

She found me,
Hanging from the rafters,
The noose wrapped gently
Round my breathing neck
Mason jars of whiskey
And packs of cheap smokes
Wake me back up.

She whispers,
"Never leave me,"
While I wonder if
I am even alive.
I'm lookin' to the rafters
Where I'm pretty sure
I died.

Can't ******' move
As everything we had
Now goes to ****.
She's cryin' on the floor
Tears mix with blood
'Cause I'm hangin' from those rafters,
Drippin' down from above.

I feel most at home with a pen and pad
Or perhaps a book as company.
For within the boundless confines of my mind
New worlds can be created
Explored to great depths.
For 'round every corner is something new
Something fresh and never seen before.
That created world, be it my own
Or perhaps one that I have been loaned,
That is where I truly wish to go.

Something happened,
When we first met,
Something happened to us,
I mean.
It never stopped happening either,
Simply changed each and every day
Into something new,
Something so curiously wonderful,
That we,
Neither of us, could explain.
Something happened to us,
That day we first met,
And it hasn't stopped since.

Can you even capture the brevity of this moment in that space between your ears?
Do you know what this is, what it was, and how you came to be here?
Foolish child, do not ever think that what you've dreamed is true.
For you, yourself, has never had an inkling, the smallest clue.
None have, for we all have all been deceived.
But He, who is patient, has hatched the plan that He conceived.
And now all can have faith in what we once could not perceive.
For now, we can quite simply...believe.

Eyes lock on to eyes,
Tears ******* the solemn orbs;
Breaths, ragged and harsh,
Cough out,
Awaiting that final
Gasp for air.
The comforting grip
Of a friend's hand in hand.
The smell of death,
Now closing in.
Eyes lose focus, blurring,
And shut one final time.
Farewell...

That day I did happen upon
A mountain that I thought to there climb.
This mount was tall, greatly peaked
And crowned, as the wise splendor, with snow.
Daunting, the task calls me forth
Eyes agleam with fierce joy, I test my worth.

Young and brash, so did I run,
Zeal yet unripened on wisdom's vine,
Until strengths end I had reached
And then my foolishness I did know.
As I sat to catch my breath
Shame now would surely bring about my death.

Yet as I sat, risen, the Sun
With gentle beams, lit a path now mine.
Slow steps I take; Caution I heed.
Steadily now to that peak I go,
Each step holds its own great cause
I stride onward, forward, no more to pause.

Dreams left standing in solemn silence,
Those you forgot long ago.
Are there tears?
Only you can know.

The night sky glows an ephemeral silver,
Stars gazing upon me as I slumber.
Their beauty is immeasurable,
None striving to out do,
But rather coexisting in Beauty.

The Moon's light shines,
Gently enhancing the sky.
Graceful and clean,
It brings peace to my soul.
The brightest silver,
Never dull nor faded.

Alas, the sun rises,
Its radience masking the others.
Yet they are not gone,
Merely resting
'Til they grace us all
With their prescence
Once again.

A subtle sadness resounds in my soul
Constantly reminding me I am still un-whole.
Where will I find what I lost 'long the way?
And how long until the feeling fades away?
I am entrapped by what once was my mind,
Encircled by the dreams and lies that ever bind.
Until the day I am made whole again.
Until that day, incomplete I ever remain.

I write to find myself,
Having lost something along the way.
I yearn to find it.
Am I whole?
I cannot say...

Truly, when I look towards
What future days may hold
I worry, as Keats once did,
That I may never put my
Heart, soul, mind,
To the page as I desire.
I long to express
In a most marvelous way,
(Having great passion for my craft
And dreading what has become
Of the most noble of arts
In recent days)
That which all men feel
But few can say.

Oh the ponderous musings of the truly insane,
When art for arts sake
Takes the place of rationale and reason,
Drowning itself in creativity.
The thoughts and dreams that take flight
To new heights, never before seen,
Calling forth a new self,
Both brighter and darker than before,
In which, recreation as a whole is inevitable.
It is by that insanity
That we who are so are made whole
And put the world to our blade,
Calling forth naught but the greatest greatness
Never satisfied with but the thought
But made alive through the craft.
Oh the ponderous pondering of the truly mad,
Our wings insanity.
Our breath creativity.
Only then are we truly alive.

Ephemeral... quick to leave
Those are most mornings for me.
I awake now, not even bothering
To look at what occurred during the night.
All that would bring would be
The guilt, that biting guilt,
That I try to escape by finding these girls.
Its such a strange cycle
Very give and take.
For moments I feel truly alive
The next moment in a grave.

Perhaps I'm looking in all the wrong places.
But, perhaps, perhaps just maybe
I'm looking in the right places
And simply have not found that niche,
The one
I'm waiting for.

I'm not sure,
Maybe I will never be sure.
Too locked in now
I'll never return.

There is, or perhaps was, always,
And forever, quite invariably,
Yet inconsistently, as if sporadically
A thought that I once won over.
Or did I get one over in a thought?
The idea of greatness, un-sought
Never dirtied by the eyes of those
Who want only, horrifically,
Most terribly, quite incomparably,
My inner most
A ponderous place, that I abhor
Fleeing ever quicker,
On feet made of lead.
Perhaps just one look back?
They'll never know,
Until my salt-pillar body they find
In later days.

Perhaps you've heard, of this Jesus I know,
By whom I do live now joyfully so.
Maybe you've heard, great things he has done,
In this war for your soul, already won,
If only you turn from your life of sin
And learn from the Truth we all hold within,
That the Lord, He is God Most High
And His Word is what all men should live by.

I can’t believe we were won
By the bright lights and flames
Of a petty liar.
Pretty dreams
Of wondrous things
None of which held
Even a drop of water.
We walked along,
Quite willingly,
Being led gently by the hand,
Like little lambs
To the slaughter of who we were.
Drink, smoke, ****
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat.
Can’t sleep
Feel so empty
Who are you?
Where am I?
Are we even alive?
Those days are gone now,
Like a sigh,
Once exhaled, it can’t be recalled.
I thought I was dead
And I realize I was
To myself,
My dreams,
The world.
But now, looking back
I was,
And would be,
Now, forever,
If it had all stayed the same.

Simple words form a stream,
Which flows, gentle, through the woods
That are my soul.
Laid bare before the world
Truth, unabashed springs forth.
All speaks to me.

I take what inspires,
And write these words for all
To look and see.
Perhaps to you it will be,
Something big, something small,
A thought it sires.

Simple though it may be,
Everything has its worth,
A love to hold.
You lose what made it whole,
Ruining these fresh goods,
For a rhyme scheme.

Now I dream, never truly awake.
It is all just a dream,
Life that is.

She died just before me,
Right before me, shot down.
"It is all just a dream"
Her last words.

I go there now,
Not knowing what it is truly.
I go there now,
To find out if I was ever truly awake.

Bang
A shot to the sky
I lay here in my final moment
Quite sure now,
Still questioning,
Was it ever true?

Now I've dreamt, the dream of dreams,
Its is all just a dream,
Life that was.

I used to wonder to myself
As I would watch the world turn
On its axis
Whether or not
It was leaving me here
To fester and rot and die
Leaving me alone forever.

But now,
The world is turning to quickly
And I am being taken along
On the ride I always desired,
Yet it is nothing I hoped for,
For its all too fast
And I cannot enjoy it.

Death has taken me in my time,
I have been buried without breath.
My life washed away before my
Unseeing eyes.

Rebirth! Eyes that saw only death
Now see naught but the purest light,
Never but unapproach-ed light.
Sanctuary.

I am safe here, far from the world,
Strong are my walls, guarded my heart.
Chains are my freedom, I reach out
Bringing forth life.

The melancholy that can only be expressed by those who have loved and lost.

The tears of a broken life, left to question where it all went wrong.

The dreams that call out to us as we walk through the veil of life.

A poet crying out for recognition, hoping his plea is heard.

Loneliness of a tired soul, only twenty-three years old.

A song, left unsung, for a coward I am.

A dream, but a dream.

She took me away to elfin grotto,
For there I'd fall in love
And kiss her wild, wild eyes,
As we danced and fancied in the rains
That washed down from the fat clouds above.
She'd sing to me there,
A song of fierce joy,
Full of the frenetic laughter of infatuation,
Yet at the same time,
Permeated by a deep sadness,
For she, faery's childe,
Would love me for naught but a night,
Though I die of old age.
I listen to her sing
And dance, wildly loving her
With the brightly fierce love of youth,
Love that burns quickly, so quickly
Because it cannot last,
And so shines all the brighter because of it.
She took me away to elfin grotto,
For there I would fall in love.

Raindrops, wet and warm,
Splash upon my face,
Looking so much like tears
Running endlessly down
As I stare up
At the tumultuous skies.
The summer rains wash down
Bringing a smile to my lips.
A smile midst the tears.

I look longingly at the sky,
As I wonder what it would
Be like to fly.
As the birds do.
I laugh at the thought,
Full of silly cliche.

Then I pause,
And think to myself:
Life itself is full of cliches.
If life is so simple and
Childish, why does
It captivate so?

As I sit wondering
and pondering.
I come to the conclusion:
Who cares...
Life will go on
With or without
A few cliches
Along the way.

My heart cries out, "Perhaps she is the one!"
Sending me into a roller-coaster ride
Of emotions I must strive to hide,
Knowing this battle may never be won.
It burns me, it does, this beautiful Sun,
Her beams, Eros' arrows, they pierce my side
Her beams, her smiles, the tears that I've cried,
My heart, it cries out, "She must be the one!"
I hope beyond Hope, for Hope's lost before,
That someday, somehow, I'll hear you say "I do."
Until then though, only dreams I'll dream of you,
And into these words, my heart, I will pour,
But no more than that, till my dreams come true.

O! Pour me some of that fair, flooding draught
Which marshals forth that darkest of darkness,
Leaving me sinking into something less,
Easily erasing all thought of craft.
That's all I am, something crass, something daft,
With wounds from the past that I'd rather not dress,
Instead escape to my glass, not to stress
Old hurts long forgotten, stitched, closed, still graft.
O! Please, please, take from me this dreadful drink!
It has stolen me, all I ever was;
Robbing me blind with every sip and gulp.
Man once, now a shell, in this draught I sink.
Flee, run, I will! Yet she calls me she does.
That fine draught devoured my soul to the pulp.

Oh, sweet Dianne, Huntress,
How ****** steps do bless
These very woods through which you give your chase.
Wearied now, so wish to lave
In your spring off the way.
To there she did repair, her holy place.

Actaeon, hunter too,
Left his friends, oft did do,
To run with his dogs, his skill was unmatched.
The same it was that day,
With his friends back a way
The beginnings of Actaeon's doom hatched.

So it was that noble
Actaeon did stumble
Upon fair Dianne attended within
Guarded by handmaidens
But her face un-hidden
The sight of which, Actaeon's final sin.

"Go and tell, if you can,
That you have seen Dianne
Unapparelled!" she added as water,
So potently bless-ed,
In his face was dash-ed.
Actaeon a stag, form she did alter.

"Ah! So wretched is me!"
No escape did he see
As the great hunter became the hunted.
And his dogs now gave chase
Knowing not his new face,
Run, Actaeon! Your life yet stunted!

The chase gave for three days,
Greatest, worthy of praise,
Till Actaeon's poor heart did finally
Break, now unto his fall
To the dogs he did call.
Actaeon's death, as a stag he did see.

I am the final of Days
And I'm here to hear your sorrow
I will listen to your every word
Then softly end tomorrow.

I am the End of Time,
Vast in all my power.
I am the final judge
Visited in the last hour.

I am the Beginning
To my will, all will bend.
To me, all will succumb,
For I am the End.

Faces pass by me
In a ceaseless crowd.
I am overwhelemed,
With the task
To which I am bound.

Compassion can ****,
I feel it in my soul.
For the tears of man
Quickly overflow.

I cry pardon to the masses,
Yet they do not Understand.
The Truth is before them,
But no one raises a hand.

I wish it were simple,
Easy too.
But if that were the case,
The Word would not be true.

A seed is planted and
Watered by some.
But only by His Hand,
will fruit ever be grown.

We all walk along
The path of life.
Some choose to hurry
On, rushing ever
Forward to a goal
That is never guaranteed.
Others putter along,
Looking ever backwards,
They only remember
What they've done
And don't see whats right
Before them.
Does a moderate pace exist?
Balancing the past
With goals for the
Future?

There is a Raven
Perched upon my window sill,
Its talons tearing into the paint.
The tick-tock
Of a grandfather clock
Resounds throughout the walls,
Matching the scritching-scratching
Of the ravens claws.
I sit in the corner,
As I have for night after night,
Not sleeping,
Never sleeping,
Simply sitting and waiting.
The Raven begins
To tap-tap-tap
At the window pane.

And I sit

And wait.


How long now has it been?
Since my Sun,
So beautiful at its Dawn,
Had left its Noon-time heights
For an untimely Setting?
Sadly grieveous as it had been,
My Sunset had been darkly beautiful,
Asplash with deep reds and purple,
Crowned in gold.

Oh that I had been Pyramus and she Thisbe.
Star-crossed and Tragic,
A love made eternal by mutual deaths.
Alas, it was not to be,
For I am no Pyramus and she no Thisbe.
She went ahead of me
And not by choice of her own,
By my blade yet not her hand.
And after her I would chase,
Pleaing forgiveness on bended knee
In that next dream.

Yet I am afraid,
Of the knife,
Her scorn,
Her embrace.

And so I sit

And wait.

The Raven is at my window,
Talons scratching divots in the sill.
The resounding of the clock
Still surrounds me,

As I sit

And wait.

Stale smoke from endless cigarettes
Hangs softly in the rafters,
Gently billowing around the beams
As the barkeep pours another draft.
Its the same old tired crowd
Drowning their sorrows in their glasses.
I join the dilapidated throng,
Looking to find solace in the drink,
Though it has never come before.
It is a Catch-22, inescapable,
In every way possible.
Drink to forget,
Only to remember again tomorrow.
I stick to the ritual,
For it is the only thing I know.
As the days  drag on,
They become clouded like the rafters,
Stale smoke blurring everything,
Cold drafts blurring everything,
And I stick to the ritual,
For its the only thing I know.
Night after night I shuffle in,
Forgetting night after night.
Am I even alive...
I stick to the ritual,
For its everything I have ever known.

Welcome to the Adagio of my Soul,
Where that slow, slow, sad and sweet melody
Drags me ever deeper and deeper below,
As demons and monsters in panoply
Frolic, full of cheer, in the blazing abyss.

Salute, from the Allegro of my Mind,
That dreadfully cheerful, quickening time;
The one that comes when burnt bridges I find
All around me, as insanity's rhyme
Taunts me terribly, all my world's amiss.

Enter the Fortissimo of my Heart,
While it screams out loud, oh so silently,
To its love, desperately wanting part,
The slimmest, smallest of portions to be
Returned in kind, brush of the lips, a kiss.

End.  Pianissimo of my Body.
Lost love, burnt bridges, demon and monster,
Surround me. Overwhelm me.  Defeat me.
I lay alone.  The music grows quieter.
The song of my life, comes now to but this...

Though more beautiful than a thousand sunsets,
And more captivating than the stars in the sky
This dream, I fear, must come to its end.

For though lost in its mists for quite a while,
I have come to see that it was but chaff.
That it deep as it seemed, shallow it remained.

So I bid this dream farewell,
Knowing that a greater reality lies ahead
I give myself to a Purpose,
No longer willing to chase after what is not

I set my eyes on the sunrise.
For morning has come,
And what was not
Is carried away...

Sadness is the song that binds our hearts to greatness.
It opens our minds to the things that escape our reach;
Ushers our souls on to the Truth given freely,
Yet rarely understood.

So I bid you to fare well,
Wherever you may fare,
And embrace Life as it passes
With each fleeting instant:
The Sorrows and Misbegotten Woes,
Alongside the Happiness and Fair times.
For without these, the spice of life is Bland
and without Distinction.

For the Nuances of Life
Are wider than any ocean,
Deeper than the Darkest crevice,
Yea, more expansive than the Universe itself.

Yet we only tap the Surface,
Of the Miracles that are taken for granted,
And in our Pride,
We dare to claim
That we Truly Understand.

Wrapped up in thoughts of someone else,
The truths that make me happy
Pushed aside for the moment
(moments...how long... too long).
I've forgotten what it means to desire
Hungrily, greedily, selfishly.
Smile for forever so she survives.
Smile for forever as pieces continue to die.
I find myself wishing that the the title was optional,
Like it once was;
Selfishly pursuing what felt alright
(at very least)
Striving for villainy
And thriving within it.