A flock of penguins shivering
Sing to mothers and fathers
Voices quiver, the cold wind moans
A mournful symphony
"Inside we're on fire
You rise up
Inside of all
You sigh"
What is language to a penguin?
The sound they make
Singing and freezing
Breaks my heart
In every way I love
Having my heart broken
**
Signals coming through now
Rough winter all over the world
White
Powder coats everything
Toes numb, frost bitten
I don't care if I'm where
I need to be
Numbness is exquisite
When my heart is on fire
Those flames are all I want
To feel
This song is gasoline
Turn it up
***
Now I am encouraged to go to sleep
To find that nirvana spot
And ride it into dreams
Of penguins
Frostbite and fire
Where logic and reason are illusion
No one speaks the language
And dream time is generous
A lifetime spent in moments
Your eyeballs rolling 'round like
Magnets and marbles
Goodnight my son, Goodnight sweet daughter
Goodnight dear woman
Sleep well knowing
I don't pray to never wake up anymore

You get hungry for the way it was
           Even though the way it was...

Killed you slowly,
                    slowly broke you down
             Killed the part of you
Kept apart from everyone else
           part of the past you won't let die
When the best you can do is help it die
                                         do it
  Drown the voices, I'd do it for you if I could
                                                           ­ and I can
You only have to know the difference I can show you if you let me
You take all your selfishness and fascination with evil
You take all your anger and anxieties
You take all your fears and misconceptions
You take all your judgment and hypocrisy
                               you see it's all hypocrisy at the core
     That's keeping you away from doing something about it
                  We're all this way
           When we all recognize it we can move to the meat of the ******
                Stuff it all inside a golem, chant a few prayers
Even your dead god listens to that chant
          Small case god just isn't the One that can hold it under the water
            Not strong enough, not long enough to keep it under
                                                                ­It's got to be held under forever
                   Before it loosens the grip it's got on you
              But the right hand, the right chant, can you tell me what's next?
Struggles and bubbles, muffled screams, it was you but no more
                          Murdered that illness, left it on the ocean floor
     Only an illness, no demon or serpent crawling on the floor
  We're killing it with chemicals, ripping theses from the door
  We're tearing them up
  We're throwing them out
  We're never going to hunger again for the
                                                             ­               way
                                              ­                                      it
                                                                ­                       was

I've allowed these sounds space
To find a home in between my ears
Metal Machine
Music of the Spheres
Bass digging deep, rattling intestines
Unfamiliar sounds to boggle the mind
Calm the beast and soothe the breast
No catgut drawn across string
Or human muscle powering the beat
Electricity, electronic alchemy
Like lightning streaking across the night sky
Left to right, blink and you'll miss it
Sonic ice, freezing sheen, dripping into sharp daggers
They fall and impale
This is the sound they make
When cold first hits the brain

That old song from the seventies
Is as sappy as the thought
That it still could make me feel something
For you
But the seventies are long gone
With them a lot of other things
Not the least of which is
Any appreciation whatsoever
For this sappy song
From the seventies
Or
The puppy love sick sensorium
That is a teenager's heart

I don't care about your politics
Your choice is your choice
I don't care about your religion
Or if you like girls or boys
Red, pink or yellow
Purple or black
Kiss or **** me, bore or thrill me
Put a knife into my back
I care about the things that make you smile
Never out fashion, always in style
Songs and singers and players
Beethoven, Bach  & Slayer
Worlds of words for your escape
Poetry and basement tapes
I live for the smile that I bring
To your face whenever I sing
That Beatles song, the one I made
Into a lullaby when you were a babe
Yes, life's a long and winding road
You carry that weight, it's a heavy load
But in the end indeed I have found
You can count a lot of blessings when you finally turn around
And that's the smile I'm talking about
No room for disagreement or doubt
No room for religion in paradise
No need to choose sides or ask for advice

*PostScript
God listens to the praises and prayers of His people
But He REALLY loves the sound of laughter

The goal is to make a big statement
To stitch your heart on your sleeve
Tell everyone to watch it bleed
Roll out maps
Plot out universes smaller than a grain of sand
Witness the subtle transformation
Of the man
Into the god
Then back again
Open your bedroom doors and share
The smell of ***
Or give away the key
To your three lock box
It's so much harder capturing the essence
Of the genuine article
Because love ain't always what you think it is
Some people don't realize they're drowning in it
And that's a big statement
But it's true
It ain't just a feeling
And it ain't all there is
But sometimes
It's the only thing
Worth writing about

We survived progress
The three of us
Secluded high on Mt. Ararat
Safe from radioactive fog
We have all we need
More than we could ever want
We have everything

What kind of bees gather in such masses?
You're raining and then you're clear again
They'll pay to hear you babble such nonsense
You're surfing in near perfection
You're ruined by the pure maybe
After the loss, In the shadows
Fly fly fly fly fly
Float
I'll throw this to the ones watching
See just how hungry they are

On Ararat we long for a new language
To express the confusion of loneliness
Knowing that nothing will change a thing
But still, to talk
We must remind each other of who we are
Once in a while
It's not easy being the world

What did you come for?
A soliloquy?
A sonnet from a madman?
Madmen, true madmen don't do sonnets
They assault and jar
They resent being toyed with
In no uncertain terms will they tell you
What they think of you
In the guise of a poem
But chances are you won't get it

I sat in front of a wood burning stove
Feeding pages from a spiral notebook
To the fire
Leaves and more leaves sparsely scribbled on
Because there was a conciseness and brevity
To my poetry that conveyed the stark nature
The rudimentary nature of my state of mind
The flames ate it up

I apologize
I haven't smiled in such a long time
It's hurting my face