I've been awake
since five A.M.
I went to bed
at three.
And I can't decide,
if I want her,
or a bottle of whiskey.

I let smoke roll from my cigarette,
and watch like death entered the room.
Seeing it fill with his hazy presence,
undisturbed.
Few will know the peace that comes,
with choosing your fate.
I will NOT cower,
at the ghastly shade.
I will smile at it.

Hello my dear, how are you?
It's been too long since we last spoke.
I'm running short on happiness,
I'm running out of hope.
I won't ask you where you've been, where you've gone or what you've done.
I just need your company,
some luck, and a little love.
Ask me how I'm doing
and I'll never find the words.
Every day without your touch,
is just another day that hurts.
I can live without you, I'll move on and I'll be fine.
But every where I go just know you're always on my mind.

I don't know what it's like,
to rise above it all.
Only, the feeling in your gut,
when one begins to fall.
And I couldn't speak a word,
on peace, serenity.
But I can tell a thousand tales,
of woe and misery.
If the gutter held a vote,
the king, would I be crowned.
So tell me things are looking up,
I'll show you the way down.

Where?
Where does misery end
and
happiness begin?
I'm now certain
the line does not reside
at the bottom of a bottle.
I've finished many
to find nothing but an empty vessel.
I've chain smoked my way
through a thousand packs
to find myself still wanting.
I've loved.
I've hated.
And still I have to ask
where?
Where is the line one crosses
into happiness?
Into peace.

Everybody will tell you,
"Now don't fall in love with a poet,
or a writer.
They're all liars or manipulators or both.
They're twisted in the head!"
Now,
I won't even argue the truth in that however,
what the **** is life without risk?
I'll take your stale white bread existence and flavor it!
I'll weave words that'll hit your ears like silk!
I'll show you pristine mountain peaks
and dark alleyways from a perspective so radical,
you won't know the difference.
I'll show you the whole ******* world from your couch.
That is,
if you'd fall in love with a poet.

An old soldier sits alone,
smoke rolling from his nostrils,
a tepid dragon.
He gazes vacantly at his sword,
at the blood on his hands.
It all seemed so far away,
when he was there.
It's easier to see,
after the dust has settled.
We were never heroes.
No.
Just so many pieces in a game too vast for us to behold.
Our sacrifice,
was calculated from the start.
They dubbed us expendable.
They forged monsters,
out of boys.
Then they sent us home with no purpose.
Warriors with no war.
Old Soldiers.
Just so many broken men,
with bloodied hands.

The wait here is breaking my bones,
I'm always searching for love or I'm searching for home.
No matter how hard that I seem to try,
I wind up just standing in line.
This whiskey will **** me no doubt,
but it's better than tasting your name in my mouth.
I can run, I can hide, I can waste all my time,
but you always wind up on my mind.
The good ones keep walking away,
while the worst ones come through and keep trying to stay.
I'm always asking the world to send me a sign,
but it seems all my hopes are declined.
I've learned on my own I can stand,
that won't ever stop me from grasping for hands.
At the end of the day I'll seek and I'll strive
for a woman who's strong, true and kind.

Words, once set to open air,
Gain weight.
Like boulders they can roll
from your mouth down a
slippery ***** of destruction to
eventually settle heavily on the shoulders
of innocent individuals, the weight of which
often proving too much for their
fragilely constructed foundations to support.
Like a gun,
keep the safety on what you speak,
Don't point hateful words,
at anything you love,
unless you intend to **** it.
Because more deadly than any
lead based projectile what you say
will leave your mouth like
a tomahawk missile loaded with
a poisonous and corrosive payload
capable of entering a persons soul and eating it up
from the inside out.
They'll tell you your whole life,
"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
Perhaps more people would heed this warning,
If they said,
"Your words are a thermonuclear bomb capable of disintegrating
egos quicker than Fat Man did Nagasaki, the lasting effects of which may resonate through time in a cataclysmic downward spiral you could not possibly begin to imagine, so be careful."

I grew up living by the law of escalation.
There were no holds barred,
very little hesitation.
I wasn't physically imposing
but I fought
like a ******* savage.
Winning doesn't matter
when you're just plain mean.
I got my satisfaction
from making boys bleed.
We progressed,
fist fights hastily became grave.
People started swinging everything from rocks
to blades.
I escaped,
joked it was my "retirement."
And yea I've stopped the violence,
let go of some hate.
But I still carry knives to this day,
just in case.

I don't necessarily
think highly of myself
but
I live with an old dog
and a young cat
to whom I am the world.
Sometimes
I doubt my strength
but
I live with an old dog
and a young cat
both of which view me as their rock.
Sure
the dog whines constantly
poor ******* has arthritis
and sure
the cat's a little wild
I did scoop her up
crippled and alone
in front of my house.
And sure
sometimes I feel alone and broken
but I come home
to an old dog
and a young cat
and a small piece of my heart
finds its' way back.

When Death finally reaches for me,
as a cat would ****** a mouse.
I'll distract him with some chit-chat,
then punch the ******* in the mouth.
Scream, "You sure took your time!
You miserable, arrogant ****!"
I watched so many others go,
I've grown quite bitter with the schmuck.
He'll raise his gleaming sickle,
and view my end with angry eyes.
I'll laugh and laugh content with that,
before he took me, I got mine.

The prince is dead
the castle has crumbled
he failed the quest as soon as he stumbled
off a high wall
and down to the ground
upon which he perished with hardly a sound.
The princess is doomed
now trapped in a tower
where she watches the world blacken hour by hour
the sun went away
and the grass shriveled up
the demons now revel in the ash and the muck.
Oh the kingdom is ruined
and the people all wail
but heroes all die in true fairy-tales.

I must've heard the phrase
hundreds of times by now.
"My life's going to hell
in a handbasket."
Or some such variance.
Only recently have I become able
to tell you what that actually looks like.
See
you start with a cute wicker basket.
The kind grandma might give you muffins in.
Then you place all the things you've managed to hold onto
inside of it.
Your friends, your family, your job.
Next goes in all those possessions you hold dear.
Your car, your house, your dog.
Lastly
in go the intangibles.
Your hope.
Your dreams.
All your positive feelings.
Then you set the ******* on fire
and watch it all burn away.

Maybe I should've known,
after the first bad bout.
Incessant paranoia,
glasses thrown, shrill shouts.
All the warning signs,
oh how could I doubt?
Just too ****** stubborn,
to choose another route.
As the squabbling worsened,
silence spoke so loud.
I knew it was over darling,
when my words ran out.

I tear flesh from myself and toss it into the flames;
Not to watch it burn but in hopes I can make the hole in my heart a tangible part of my being..
I won't need a warning label if people can peek in and see for themselves there's nothing left of a real man.
Like Pinocchio I strive to feel a thump in my chest but a wooden core doesn't pump.
I'm dancing attached to strings like a Halloween skeleton in a bad movie.
All grin and nothing to back it up.
It's useless to think someone might share their heart with mine and bring me to life.
I'll fill the hole in my chest with clear apoxy and dance empty with that skeletal grin stretched comically over a hard face holding nothing.
Eventually I'll feed the fire with my bones and turn to dust,
as old toys do.
There's nothing like a paper man for tinder.

You.
You are what once stayed my hand from rage.
You once blocked my lips from every bottle,
with your lips.
You are what once prevented tar from coating my lungs,
and you kept hate from filling my heart.
You once prevented my untimely demise.
You.
You are now every punch I throw and take in return,
You are every ounce of liquor that filters through my kidneys.
You are now every carcinogen I too often inhale,
You still keep my heart from hate,
Because you filled it to bursting with sorrow.
You are what I now follow to my grave.
You.

What use is sleep when your spirit
And perhaps your heart,
Have surrendered to a power that you could not resist if you wanted.
The fire is lit anew and the engines,
Stoked as high as they ever have been,
Very rarely.
Forget sleep!
You can take sleep and stuff it!
We're running this train at full steam now boys!
We're plowing through,
Day and night,
Brick and mortar!
We're not stopping!
So you take your sleep,
And forget it.

I abandoned the
accepted standard
found the edge of the map
and fell off.
The world is flat

Just how deep
does the rabbit hole
go?
We may never know
but I dove head first
into the ground.
Try and find me now

The universe is vast
but I
rearrange the planets
in a pattern more familiar
*The system can collapse

He wandered a winding path,
through a wood he'd never traversed before.
No particular destination, he would know when he arrived.
The birds chirped and a spring doe darted through the brush somewhere.
He saw sunbeams dance through the budding trees
and felt the cold steel clutched in his hand and he thought
"It is a good enough day, for this sort of walk."
The wind blew,
mixing the music of the birds with that of it's hollow whistle.
The trail broke suddenly, disappearing  like a magicians rabbit.
Sun flooded his eyes, dazzling the senses.
He squinted, seeing a small and lonely field, grass blowing gently,
as if giving him a solemn bow.
The light warmed his cheeks,
and he thought, "Ah this, this spot is good enough."
The walk to the fields center was longer,
then he thought it would be.
And strange,
he couldn't hear the birds anymore.
But he could feel the cold steel clutched in his hand and he,
pressed it to his chin with a BANG... and he thought nothing.
But the wind still blew, and the sun still shone, and the day,
was still good enough.

Sometimes,
Sometimes I can't sleep as horrors unforgotten slip their way through the thin veneer I have strung across a dark corner of my mind to hide these thoughts from the light of day.
On these nights,
On these nights I smoke a cigarette in shadows unbroken by the dim city lights and listen to a lonely cricket chirp and know at least we stand together in this midnight rendezvous.
In that I find peace.
Sometimes,
Sometimes I find myself unwilling to rise from my cold bed and face another strife filled day in a world full of challenge and misery that I was not asked but forced into.
Sometimes,
Sometimes I find my mind consumed by fear and hatred and anxiety inspired by a lifetime of bad decisions and worse luck in a seemingly never ending spiral of **** ups and shame.
But other times,
other times I find the smallest moments of bliss can rekindle the spirit and remember that goodness put forth will return if in nothing more than clear conscience and a light heart.
In the little things, I find peace.

I fled from society, failed at human bonding
too fond of the Siren's song and searching
for higher calling took to lurking beneath
the surface, the silence is calming.
Tragically lost the path and got tired of wandering
so I put a spark to match set fire to the forest
and torched it to find I'd been encircled
by enemy enforcers slowly encroaching
upon my little plot of land, far from final stand,
just a part of the plan.
See this **** was specifically scripted,
a switch flips to see the paradigm shifted.
I'll have you dreaming up apocalyptic visions
of me leading legions of seething demons
who feed on the meek. Whatever fortress you seek,
I'll ******* crush it, sowing fields of decimation,
I'll water with blood from buckets. By estimation,
I'm judging you won't recover for generations.
My friend, I suggest you switch your position,
"The end is ******* nigh" and you better ******* listen.

It's always been difficult,
for me to communicate.
Friends, family, whomever,
I can't always express what I want,
or how I would want to.
I'll sit stern and stoic,
and tell all the people I know that,
I am fine.
Than I go home,
and between choking sobs explain to the dog,
or the cat,
what it is that ails me so.
The dog just stares,
the cat just purrs,
but I find more solace in that,
than the words of anyone I know.
Is that so strange?

I was once asked
"where is home,
if not your house?"
My heart wanted to say
"wherever there is love,
and trust, brother."
My brain urged otherwise,
and so my response was only
"wherever you lay your head,
that night"

Her laughter floated,
like smoke on the wind.
All grace and beauty as it danced in the sun.
Short lived and,
short tasted before it dissipates.
Yet,
for all the music held within her voice,
the melody held delicate notes,
of heartache,
of sorrow.
I could always hear between the lines.
She made me cry while I smiled.

Gandhi once said,
"Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"
or something to that effect.
He was right.
If god was real why would he not avert his eyes?
As we maimed and ***** and slaughtered,
for the seven hundredth time.
Human beings were broken from the start.
First we killed with sticks and stones,
then transformed warfare into art.
A bitter joke indeed.
Cavernous capacity for compassion competes
with the inner beast.
Rapid acceleration  towards the exit,
planet's just gaspin' it's last breathes, death rattle.
Perpetuated by laws of desperate escalation,
accessible weapons outweigh the estimation.
Lack of communication marks the end, tower of babel.

I'm traveling on, to brighter pasture.
I've gone to seek, the rest I'm owed.
I'm traveling on, to meet my brothers.
They journeyed first, they cleared the road.
I'm told that I, will find my peace here.
I'm told that I'm, no more to roam.
I'm traveling on, don't shed a tear now.
It's been too long, since I've been home.

Sometimes,
I wish I could quit.
The drinking,
the smoking,
the maybe-too-frequent drug use.
I know I'm just chasing the high I got,
from you.
But you're gone and not coming back.
"A man's gotta do,
What a man's gotta do."
At least that's what they tell me.

I used to be a regular guy
got a little too drunk from time to time.
Generally, I think I was considered respectable,
at one point perhaps even socially acceptable.
However, all things must change,
even at a fast pace,
now I'm nightly downin bottles of bourbon to the face.
And it's scary, just how real it gets
I'm losing all attempts at eloquence
the second that this whiskey hits.
Nah forget it,
Just like Eve eatin the apple forbidden,
I'm livin in original sin and I dig it.
I'll keep fillin my lungs with filth and killin my kidneys
because I could give a **** if I live to see fifty

This twisted existence is beginning to push my limits.
I've had enough of life I only strive to see it finished.
No matter how I try the timeline won't diminish;
I guess I'm meant to stick around for more than just a minute.

It sickens me to watch as old friends depart the earth,
As I'm left to sit and ponder on life and what it's worth.
It's hard to carry onward with this never ending search,
while other men just wander in apparent ceaseless mirth.

Every night I drink,
while trying not to think,
about all the opportunities I have blown.
Then I smoke a pipe,
contemplating life,
while I listen to the winter winds that drone.
By the time I hit the nicotine,
I'm feeling fairly libertine,
Certain notions get to flowing like the Rhone.
I'm sick of this existence,
the image gets persistent,
I think it's time I put a bullet in my dome.

Do not disturb,
the dog that slumbers.
Make the blunder,
be torn asunder.
Lightning strikes before the thunder.
You'll still feel it from six feet under.
And all you love,
will not recover.
From their son,
who forever slumbers.

I've learned many a thing,
in walking with the moon.
Most importantly I know, the night is a bitter mistress.
She gives no helping hand,
nor warmth or comfort.
No,
she offers naught but a cool touch and a silken whisper that says,
"You are all alone."
But I impress,
I've learned many a thing in walking with the moon.
A muse, is a muse, I suppose.
And I know,
A heavy heart is no burden to place
on a thing of flesh and blood.
So I'll saunter softly, through the lonely dark,
Sorting through lifes' simple pleasures,
and utter miseries.
Knowing that sometimes answers are only found,
when you're walking with the moon.

Goodbyes seem like a waste of time,
at moments such as this.
We'll meet again around the bend;
I'm almost sure of it.
If you don't believe me,
take a look at all the facts.
It's gone like this now all day long,
and yesterday at that!
I'd say it's best we walk away,
with a smile and with ease.
You'll find me floating down the road,
or see me strolling through the trees.

I'll always have the vague desire,
that someone will catch my work
and help it really get somewhere.
Then I remember,
I write drunk
and ****** up
at three in the morning.
"Nothing good ever happens after two in the morning"
right?
I'll just be content,
with writing for the drunks,
and the drug addicts,
and the sleepless.
I try to tell myself maybe,
that's who really needs it anyway.

I smoke **** as if I'm on a schedule.
Must not sleep , must maintain THC levels.
Can't stop lest the stress get the best of me.
Man, all this life is gonna be the death of me.

On occasions I find some aid in the form of *******,
it makes the days so speedy and it eases the pain.
I know it's a problem and I know I probably shouldn't,
but that's just how it goes for the little train that couldn't.

Industrial smoke stacks don't hold a candle to my habit,
I smoke each cigarette like it's the last one on the planet.
My fight or flight mechanism up and snapped,
now I'm always on edge and in patience I lack.

I'm probably more whiskey than flesh or blood.
I drink at home alone, I don't consume it for fun.
I'm just hoping I can stay wasted to the grave.
Life is ******* rotten and people are depraved.

Oh, I've been low brother,
lower than you know.
I think I've sold my soul.
I will apologize,
for all the evil I commit.
But in the end it won't mean ****.

Times are hard brother,
we share the same despair.
Just know I'm always there.
When the moment comes,
I'll show you all that I have learned.
Try not to be concerned.

When I'm gone brother,
I hope my memory will be kept.
It's all that I have left.
You'll carry on brother,
I promise you can take the pain.
You know it's all the same.

Two boats float on the horizon,
as I watch the setting sun.
They put the picture in perspective,
how deep and far the water runs.
It makes my concerns seem awfully small now.
The vastness hits me like a bomb.
The burden of my ghosts lifts from my shoulders
and I think "Alayhim as-salaam"

I appreciate the sunshine
and happiness as much as you.
I've just gotta stigma on my vision,
you could say my views askew.
I can't help but see the menace
in every cloud that's floatin through.
Just can't help but get the feeling
that something wicked's coming soon.
It's a permanent disposition,
the world is twisted with a vicious hue.
It can be hard to explain,
but if anything I say is true.
With a sullied and a bitter eye,
you will surely see the world anew.

Man, we are an ugly,
broken,
people, aren't we?
We formed a society that abhors following ones' own desires.
A society that demands participation!
Or expiration...
We turn ourselves,
into necrotic sacks of flesh.
Motion after motion,
waiting on death.
**** it,
*******,
**** me.
**** everything man.
Our demise is inevitable.
The clocks been ticking for a millennia,
no one's watching.
Tick-tock,
tick-tock.
The world stops turning,
and we burn.

I'll never understand,
the rural American mindset.
And in kind,
I am alien to most rural Americans.
How do you people stand it here?
Does time not pause for you as well?
The looks I'm given,
when I express my yearning,
for concrete, glass and steel.
Yea,
I suppose this spring air smells quite fine,
but it lacks the flavor of a fifth street dive.
And all summer long you all fish or you hike,
I miss just smoking cigarettes in parking lots,
at night.
Many assume,
one who holds such animosity,
towards his fellow man,
would prefer a smaller population density.
This is false.
It's easier to remain enigmatic,
when no one has the time to remember your name.
Your face.
I blend well,
and I do enjoy the fresh air,
the wilderness.
But when I leave work at night,
sometimes,
sometimes I still sit on top of my car and smoke,
just watching traffic.
And I think,
the city is forever in my bones.
And on those nights,
I miss my home.

Last night I dreamt.
for the first time in a long time,
I dreamed of you.
It was a good dream.
We sat close,
in some surreal plane,
intensely illuminated by the moon,
and the stars.
I embraced you from behind
you grabbed my arms tight.
And then,
inches away from my face,
you held my gaze.
You turned away.
It would appear,
not even in my dreams will we ever embrace again.
I awoke missing your lips,
but knowing I had to let them go.

The modern medicine man is subtle.
No longer,
is he held in high regard by his peers.
More often than not,
he is not even acknowledged for his power.
In a world that demands instant gratification,
it is difficult to appreciate a man who has what you need,
not what you want.
If you run across him,
notice he holds all those little vices,
the ones that open a man,
not numb him.
Admire his ease,
and the pivotal wisdom he's bound to drop.
Hold in high esteem his timing in arrival;
for it is not by accident you've run upon him.
Thank your local medicine man if you should find him,
for it is a subtle duty,
and one that goes too oft,
unappreciated.

When you're afraid
you lose out.
You'll miss opportunities you could have had.
When you're angry
you'll ruin all opportunity set in front of you.
Anger leads to spite
and spite crushes all that lies in front of it.
When you're depressed
you'll just stop
or you'll want to.
Depression and sadness
lead to a path that ends where it began.
But hope.
Hope is our most dangerous of all emotions.
It comes from nothing.
We as human beings
will create hope anywhere
at anytime.
And
while to some this may seem powerful
I can't help but find it a flaw.
There is nothing worse in this world
not apathy
not rage
not terror
than being left without that spark you created.
There is nothing worse
than finding your hopes to be false.

I know I'm just a stranger,
shouting blindly to the dark.
But I will see this message sent,
it comes straight from the heart.
If suicide's consumed your mind,
the "only" option left to you.
Drop me just a couple lines,
what more have you to lose?
I've seen some malice in this world,
I've felt ridiculed and shunned.
I know how attractive it can be,
hell, I've even picked the gun.
So lend me just a moment,
in the least you'll know you're heard.
Maybe with a little luck,
I'll lend some clarity through word.

I wear on my wrist,
A simple copper band.
Among my many bracelets,
Few understand.
So very few left to understand,
This band tells me stories.
It whispers tales of blood and of death.
Tales of luck and life and,
Brotherhood.
And of bravery.
This simple copper band,
Tells me of tales known,
And unknown.
And the few who know
Know.
Of the tales told,
By my
Simple
Copper
Band.

I'm the final forlorn scribe
of this desolate wasteland.
Imbibing putrid wine,
I keep a flask in my waistband.
Nothing strangles hope
like being living in dead lands;
alone I trod the globe
inscribing lines about deaths' hands.
The blatant lack of birdsong
has viciously twisted the sunrise.
Persistent existence with ghosts
has afflicted my rhymes.
They say you reap what you sow
I'm bound to ramble for miles,
scribblin dismally written scriptures
that'll scramble your **** mind.

You're pulling mountains out of anthills,
every pebble in your path
becomes a boulder.
And you're far from being any kind,
of lost or wayward soldier.
All the love that you have leeched,
you emphatically squander it.
And there is no "Great Weight" upon your shoulders.
That's just gravity *******,
don't over ponder it.

My heart aches
at the present condition of our world,
of our species.
We the mighty human race!
We who have conquered nature!
We who have grown from simple apes to explorers of space!
We,
who continue to slaughter and maim in the name of gods whose existence is at best,
highly questionable.
We the hateful.
We,
the broken.
If only tears shed by the masses
could wash away the blood of the few.
Pity not those of us who suffer,
but rather those,
who feel justified in their heedless aggression.

You died two years ago,
when she left.
Yea you're still walking but you're just a corpse with a heartbeat and you know it.
You're trapped.
She never bothered to release the restraints she placed on you so you stay shackled by misery in a room guarded by lonliness.
You sit as your heart tears at itself while your brain stands watching in callous disinterest.
Sure,
you breathe,
but each inhale leaves only the feeling of drowning without the sweet escape of death.
You beg the reaper to take you, he says he wants to see how this all plays out.
He's never seen a man eat his own heart.
Everyone else insists you must keep going but,
they don't know what you know.
They don't know you died
two years ago,
when she left.