I look into the abyss
Slow down the spiral
Stare deep into darkness that shines
Envelopes
Embraces
Caresses
I'm searching for a story
Hoping I'll see a ghost
Wanting to follow
The seldom trod path that would take me
To imagination
I want to see movement
Progression
Something I can remember
Something I can sing about
Something I can write down
Something that makes sense

I'm tired
I'm so tired of trying to twist and fold the moment
I'm sick of being so ******* impressed
So sure that I could do no more
There could be anything more to do

I thought myself a sage
I convinced myself I was a poet
Yet my deepest fear was that someone would understand my poetry

Still
Even now the snow whirls a static blizzard 'neath the glass
What I wouldn't give to infuse form and color
Solidity
To mold the void into living dream

Tonight I ride the cusp of the moment
Deeper, deeper into infinity
I'm only taking a few songs with me
Let the world move on
Clouds dissipate
Here and gone
Gone nowhere
I'm surfing those clouds tonight
To the eternal center
A few songs to guide me
Tell me what I was on the abandoned side of the veil
See it in the light of eternity
I'll learn it's value
When I can appreciate it I'll seek distraction
Jump back in the water
Try not to drown

The man kept saying "My nerves are shot"
He kept repeating, "My nerves are shot, my nerves are shot"
His nerves were shot, they were frazzled
His nerves were ******* electrical hazzards
And I was the ******* who shot them to ****

He broke his fist, put a hole in the wall
The man was ******, he knocked a hole in the wall
Fell to his knees, he was broken
Said a lot of things, left a lot more things unspoken
And I was the ******* who put him back together

For days and days
Seemed that it would never end
How could he make up for the days
He stopped trying to pretend
That he loved me

The man is saying "I don't remember"
He keeps repeating, "I don't remember, I don't remember"
He has forgotten all of the little details
A mental block on the memories that would **** him
And I'm the ******* who wants him to remember

Skirting 'round the boredom of the day
Is a skill
I have developed
Through the long, empty years
****** upon me by mean 'ol One-Eye
A temporary fix
Still useful for a time
It keeps the push from becoming a shove
A defense mechanism
Manipulation of time, streams of ballast
All the while
Weakening
This becomes obvious as
The voices tell me it is so
They keep me awake at night
There's no shutting them up
Not hateful tones
These shadows don't accuse
They only want to help
But they don't have a ******* clue how to go about it
They don't listen well
Because they aren't sure if I'm the one doing the talking
They don't trust the other
Or maybe they don't know the other
Perhaps they feel as if they are anchoring me to reality
Telling me I should hoard
That I need these things for my own
That I could actually own these things
When all the while I have no illusions
Any of it could ever be kept
I know something they don't
It's not worth keeping
They won't be convinced, though
And so their benevolence
Drives me out of my mind, for a short break

They dropped the charges
The killer got off
No one ever knew
He went to his grave
Happy, smiling
Guiltless in his own mind
With blood on his hands

I saw her lying on the road as I drove by
The ambulance had only just arrived
No shattered glass on the ground
No smashed vehicle for the rubber neckers
Just some old guy bent over her
Checking to see if she was hurt badly
I didn't see any blood
But she wasn't moving

I've walked along these muddy banks a thousand times before
And watched the waves wash clean the trees that grow along the shore
I've sat there for hours until the sun had long gone down
.....To see the hanging tree

There it stands, a silhouette against a frozen moon
The wind blows through it's brittle leaves and whistles out a tune
A song I can recall I sang the night I took my true love
.....To the hanging tree

Seasons try to tear it down but it will never die
Sometimes if you listen close you'll hear a young girl cry
Crying for the innocence she sacrificed to me
.....Beneath the hanging tree

When I was a kid
I went through twelve girlfriends a year
And boy did I know how to pick 'en
Buxom beauty's with deep blue eyes
Standing straight and tall to wait on this experienced child
I could make all twelve of them smile
A little money in the bank
Glossy dreams that was our scene
And the man who wasn't smiling was given a personal introduction to the people on the other side of the gate