Sigur Rós played Fljótavík
A reverent calm
Between bookends of heaven's thunder
We were, everyone of us
Hypnotized, given over to a beauty
So consuming
Like water to drown in

I don't know how long into the song
But a thought of you broke into my heart
Experimenting with chords
Trying to hit the high notes
Failing, even so all the more endearing
Those notes were really high
And you tried

I wanted to give you something good, pure
Something to remember me by
To take the edge off the bitter memories
I blame on depression
Memories nonetheless, ones that loom large
Proven by miles and miles and miles
Between

So I wanted to give you something good, real
To serve as a bridge to one day cross
Above a dry river bed
That should have been teeming with water

As Jonsi hit the really high falsetto notes
I felt something like a bolt of lightning strike through my very being
He hit them perfectly
But that's not what I heard
That's when I felt that old familiar bittersweet feeling
In the pit of my stomach
And had to fight to keep my mouth from twisting
I finally surrendered to the feeling that words will never describe
But I kept the tears from dripping down my eyes
Barely

And soon enough I was glad the song was over
Even while wishing it would never end

I sat back in my seat
I looked around to see if anyone noticed the anguish in my face
I had to confess to a strong sense of paranoia
Because really, who would take their eyes off of the stage
When Sigur Rós plays Fljótavík?

If there's one thing I regret in this life
It's that I wasted my finely honed gift of telepathy
On Internet dice games

Free apps, obviously designed
To stave off pure boredom
And **** precious time

Free games, without even a small pay-off
Free games, worth every penny
Free games, not so much the skill of telepathy

Dice games, the luck of the roll
Dice games, immune to strategy of any kind
Dice games, not so much the skill of telepathy

It's times like these I rue the day
I came to the realization
The wells of telepathy had run dry

The deep ocean of telepathy sopped up
With the proud assurance that I knew exactly
When my opponent would roll or bank

I could have been a diplomat, read some leaders' minds
Or a well respected advisor, or even a CIA spy
I could have made a killing, a fortune teller's wage

A gift that kept on giving because people want to know
From where they once were coming and where they soon will go
Or something half as simple as a failsafe "yes" or "no"

I could have done a lot of things
But only one thing that I would
Kick some *** playing Farkle

And yea though I feel some regret
And yea though this decision seems drastic
Come, all ye faithful, watch me kick your ***** at Farkle

I must have given her that Grateful Dead t-shirt
Too tight now for my thickening chest
It hung like a sheet from her bony shoulders
Draped to cover her tiny *******
The sickening smell of cheap menthol cigarettes
Would have pushed me far away yesterday
I was thinking I might have to get used to it
She wouldn't kick that for the world

I must have had a thing for pixies
Or bruised fairy tale princesses
With glass slippers smashed into a thousand shards
I stepped on every last one to pretend
I was the saving prince, the forgiving hero
She never asked for
She never needed
She never wanted
She'd leave that guy waiting on the phone

Tiny, fragile dreamer
Dancing at the ward ball
I'd seen her a few times before
Acting like a ***** with a joint in her sock
She made me sick
A strange sickness that drew me to her
A saccharine smile hid the selfish harlot's heart
It didn't fool me for a minute but I didn't care
No worse than anybody else in that packed house
I'm the one who asked her to dance

With her barbie doll's head on my shoulder
And our eyes closed tight
The slow rhythm gave us permission to take our time
I knew what I was doing when I requested the song
I knew what Springsteen meant when he sang
"Heart and soul...heart and soul...heart and soul...heart and soul..."
Only to find out in the end
She had neither
But it was easy to pretend with the other lost people dreaming along with us

She don't have that **** shirt no more
And I don't have to know that for a fact
To know it's the ****** truth
She don't have nothing from me
Not even them memories
I hoped to get into her
Stinking **** teeth
Skinny ******* trash
Alien face, big teeth
You thought I didn't have a heart, either
Or a soul but you were wrong
It wasn't for you to take along
To whatever hell you went to
When you left me on some universal corner
Standing by the phone
You dead *****
I won't listen to that song anymore
Get out of my mind
No one else hears you but me
And most of the time I can keep from listening
I never cared about you
You didn't give me a chance to

I put all my bibles in a big box,
Stacked two-high, two long rows,
That was heavy to lift when the lids were closed.

All the books of theology
Endless volumes of philosophy
Filled five more boxes in the trunk of my car

It seemed that one box was lighter than the others
But I didn't think it was worth the time
To weigh them.

I carried them for 30 miles
Until I found the apartment
Of the old lady who bought them from me on the Buy 'n' Sell

She'd only had five dollars when she made the call
Said her home was lonely, her mind was lonesome
I spent more than five dollars buying gas for the trip

Heaving them out of the trunk with a grunt
I asked her if she wanted me to unpack them, put them on her shelf
"Oh, dear! I don't want to put you out!"

I took the first few books from the first few boxes
Running my finger down the spine of an old favorite
I felt a pang of regret

One by one I handed them to her and she placed them on a wooden bookcase next to a television set
Out of order, no sense of alphabetization, she didn't care
It was stupid of me that I did

Two rows across and two rows down
I gave her the last of the bibles
She marveled, "That's a lot of bibles, young man".

"Yes, it is", I agreed and she turned away
I was so glad she didn't ask why I was getting rid of them
What she must have thought

As if it mattered what some crazy old lady with just a five dollar bill thought
Five dollars to buy a few thousand dollars worth of dusty thought and rusted belief
Forty years of crossword puzzles, the easy ones quickly done, the expert ones left unfinished

So many not even begun

As if it mattered that she could never understand how dumbed down I'd become
Falling beneath life's hard demands
Taking the punches, getting back up again

I could never have told her, whether I wanted to or not,
That those books had picked me up and then let me down
Too many times to count

Those books had given me treasure to take it away
They'd taken my heart, swept up the floors
Opened the doors for Legion

They left me with nothing but answers to questions
When questions were easy to answer
And they teased with the only answer that mattered, refused to give that one up

Through pages and pages I waded and waited
For some kind of hope to go on
Something to show for once and for all that the wading would soon meet the shore

I expected too much of ink and wood
To convey what I needed to know
Binders and leaves could never contain the spoken Word

I tried to give her the five dollar bill back
She could have it all for free, it meant nothing to me
The trip had been a nice one, her manners were sweet

She wouldn't take it, though twice I insisted
But she sternly insisted to me
"There's too many bibles in this here lot, you have to take one back from me"

She was right. There were way too many bibles in that lot
I couldn't argue with that
And though my better instinct begged me to flee I got down on my knee

I reached to the bottom shelf, a pain in my back
I picked out a ratty old paper bound NIV
I'd drawn **** all over it to prove that pages and ink can never contain

The living...the breathing...the mystery...the words spoken
Even more importantly
The silence

I took that old tattered book and threw it
In the passenger seat of my car
I never thought about it all the way home

I rid myself of words and language
Driving through the dark night, squinting at the lights of oncoming cars
Dimly aware of the instinct to look away when they got too close...too bright

Turned my eyes to the right for the seconds until
Darkness returned for the precious time
Before another car came up and over the hill

Up, up, over the hill
In my pocket a five dollar bill
And a bible to my side

it would seem I've been playing games
with god and air, electricity and dirt
i've stuffed hope deep in my chest
for the sweet assurance they've bourne
surrounding my heart

i've breathed deep the air that floats about me
a swirling bed of fog I called spirit
felt my chest rise, receiving
knowing without knowing
dying was all I had to offer for all of this

then from the other side of the blue sky
a light shone illuminating imagination
i had the skills of a novice alchemist
still enough to capture the mercury drop
of inspiration and tame it with words

that filled my mind and built my soul
from scratch and air and hopes of god
memories and dreams enough
to take with me when I leave
when the games are over

and they only matter
until they're over

Grasping for permanence
Once again slipping through my fingers
Daring me to try again

I'm laying down my poet's pen
Never picking it up again
Words no longer can describe
The thoughts that swirl inside my mind
Best they drag me down alone
Nothing here you need to know

Michael walked huddled through the valley of the shadow that followed him all night long,
Cast, fading then glowing, fading then glowing,
By the shine of bright halogen light meant to illuminate and show the way.
Micheal built a bridge. Michael burned it down.

Bibles on the tables at the last place he ate, with plastic knives,
Plastic forks and plastic spoons, cold canned chili never so delicious.
The rat stole the bread, wasn't that something to laugh about?
And he fought like a soldier for a blanket on the floor.

Cold wind pushed him forward to the Great Unknown.
Cold and shivering
Someone stole his coat while he was giving blood.
He kicked himself for leaving it in the lobby.

He said, "What kind of fool am I, how did I get here?
Was I so naive as to think someone wouldn't have taken it?
These ghosts are every bit as desperate as I am."
Michael built a bridge. Michael burned it down.

"I would have done the same thing cuz ******* it's cold,
This void of uncertainty, this sentence I've been handed.
Time drags so slow I cannot feel it pass.
Nowhere to go. Go to be going. It tires me."

He sat on a porch last night with grizzled, bent sages
The sweet sick smell of alcohol floating like fog from their mouths.
"In this world," the sober one said,
"You've got to learn to fight and beg."

He knew in his heart of hearts
He could do neither.
So his fate on the mean streets was good as sealed.
Michael built a bridge. Michael burned it down.

It wasn't quite so bad when he still had that coat.
It was torn and frayed from the frost of older days
But the pockets were deep and warm.
His hands belonged there.

It gave some comfort when the chill came on.
When his legs were getting sore, he had to stop and rest.
In the slate brick awning of the old Indian school
He'd lain down to nap but his eyes wouldn't close.

It wasn't time to dream of how things used to be
Or how they all wound up being tossed to the wayside
Or to prophesy a future somehow rising from these ashes
Of the bridge that Michael built, of the bridge that Michael burned down.

Now Michael wishes he had stolen one of those Bibles,
Onion paper pages hard to turn
But good kindling for a fire on this cold night
In the valley of the shadow

Without a coat.

I like to think your eye is at the keyhole,
Your sloppy brain conjuring make-shift realities
     for your majick to paint into thin air
         from your lies.
Bald-faced whoppers or sneaky half-truths,
You twirl them around your illusion
     expecting
          a fantastic creation
                with which to delight yourself.
A pitiful white smoke jin,
     dissolving
          almost as quickly
                as it rose from the flame.
You honestly believe you've stolen my illusion,
     kept it just long enough to smudge,
           a chalk drawing.
You honestly believe
     I've let you do it, unwilling and unknowing.
Your fingers are *****,
     the powder won't wash away.
All for nothing.
You only erased the memory of what I once felt for you.
     Ah, your makeshift majick works!
Well done and thank you.

How long will you keep squinting at the light on the other side?
Your eye must be getting tired.
Why don't you just open the door?
     It ain't locked.

I've a feeling you've got a wicked temper
     and a lot of hate built up inside that you
          refuse to acknowledge,
              try to ignore,
Until you're secure in the darkest corner of your prayer closet.
     Facing a mirror,
          Worshipping and damning
               at the same time
That's when it boils over.
***** **** dog, frothing at the mouth...
Mean drunk, indiscriminate for a fight,
     but there's no one at the bar.
          Only a witch's cruel mirror
                    and all it says is...

"You aren't the Golden Child,
"Your majick is a sham
"No one cares enough to read you
"You're a thick, boring book
"The worst kind: a book about a book
"A book about yourself
"A book called 'Look What I've Done!'"

So here I sit, on the other side of your peephole view
Wondering what I should do next,
Knowing I'll never be strong enough to tell you
     to your face
          that I've known all along...
I walk through streets in your dreams...
Of this I'm certain
     even as I know you're watching me right now,
         with all your wasted mental projections,
                 charms, chants, lusts, cravings, desires, needs,
Casting that covetous spell my way but I guess
     The keyhole must be too small
Because I don't feel a thing
     and as I sit here,
         naked in my own secret place,
I could care less that you live for these moments
                of disappointed voyeurism

I'm so tired of walking this tightrope.
I'd rather fall than turn back
Only to be turned around again.
Turned around touched down long long ways from the ground.

I look out the door to a grey sky
Promising rain.
The color of my mood this afternoon.
The very same grey...
The very same rain...
Threatening.

Maybe I shouldn't be listening to this music,
Melancholic as I knew it was before I even queued it up,
Expecting or hoping,..well here I am.
You're a drug I scored this morning and I couldn't wait
To get you my blood.
You're a hard drug, relentless, and now I cannot wait
To get you out.

Who pushed me into this corner?
What made the difference, pulled the last straw?
Closed my eyes?  Opened my mind?
Opened my eyes. Closed my mind.
You're a hard God, teasing.
Blessing with confusion and the unknown.
Damning with certainty.
A game for the enlightened who know better
Than to believe it matters.
Anyway our animal souls won't realize
Until it's too late.

By day and through night
My brothers and sisters waited for him.
I never knew he was gone.

In a house heavy with history forgotten,
Save a few precious moments, hoarded,
That barely made up for an hour but at least they were mine.

I found myself last night,
With all that I'd lost,
Cowering in a corner.

The reasons, submerged beneath a thick, black muck of subconscious
Thought, I would just as soon not know.
I tried so hard to shove forgiveness down his throat when it was too late and he didn't need it.

There we were, wide-eyed and grateful,
Locked in each other's arms,
As if he had never been gone.

By now I knew
The newness of his heartbeat...
The novelty of breathing...

It was then I saw.
It was then I felt
His body held tightly in my grip, no longer frail.

I felt his warmth.
The heat, an aura of life,
Brushed against my chest and I grasped the body all the more firmly.

We shared the same air for a moment.
Selfishly stealing it into our lungs,
I was so frightened of exhaling.

He'd conquered that monster
A long time ago,
But he held me all the tighter.

I felt the pressure of his embrace...
We must have stood there for hours...
Or a few precious moments, hoarded.

I don't remember him ever leaving.
We stood like statues in that haunted house
Until the rain of nothingness soaked us to the bone.

I don't remember him leaving.
We merged into ghosts and floated together
Until the wind of forgetfulness finally blew us to other shores.

I don't remember him leaving
We dissolved into baptismal waters meant for saints
Until the Sun scorched us dry.

I never knew he was gone

From what well of unconsciousness do these words come?
How deep, how strange?
Muttered beneath thin sheets of sleep.

They come from a place where there are no lies.
Even so, the  truth is tricky.
You never can tell.

It's good to know you're there to keep me from believing.
I wish you weren't listening, but hold me down, hold me down.
I say such silly, silly things.

Rhyming words of confession
I've offered accidentally
With no intention of repenting.

My own words, drunk on slumber,
Become an unyeilding relentless God
Who keeps me more honest than I need to be.

Who am I when I claim these memories that aren't my own?
When I recall experiences that don't belong to me?
Why don't I remember any of it? Any of it?

From what thick air do these visions unfold?
Dark clouds, thick rain
To wash clean and baptize dreams,

Revelations ripe for misunderstanding.
Even so, the truth is tricky.
Of that you can be sure.

You really should know how special you are
That I would trust you with these
Words, confession, dreams

Blank verse

A stream of nonsense, funny as hell.
From the belly of the beast you'll hear me laughing
At the God of inhibition, the God of oppression.

For who am I to bear this curse?
Why shouldn't I plunder memories and experience
When I won't remember a thing in the morning?

I know I could break your heart
With one instinct, one hunch
You'd fall to your knees
Either begging or praying
As if they weren't the same thing

With each moment that passes
The heart turns to stone
The flesh dies in time
Still the spirit lives on
Twisted air inhabiting life

Get inside my head, why don't you
Try to understand
From where I've gained this power
What it is and what it means
How I don't even have to do a thing
To strap the heavy burden of regret to your back
You'll carry it until the light of forgiveness dawns upon you
Or until the darkness of helpless realization
Makes it heavier still
Heavier and harder to slough off

Yes, you'll fall to your knees
I'll be the one who knocked you down
Without moving a muscle
Not a single thought of mine necessary

I don't want to do this
You made me
You gave me the power, yes
You
Not even knowing
Clueless as it became stronger
Not even realizing what it was
You were doing
No idea the damage

My great transgression was letting you

When I'm judged
For every moment I've sinned
My punishment will be knowing
I'd opened up just wide enough
For you to jump in
Not knowing how to swim
And for giving you a reason
To hit your knees
Begging and Praying

WARNING: The following is NOT a poem

It's an old guitar abandoned and forgotten, leaning it's warped neck against the cement wall of a cellar, caked with dust, strings useless with rust and dried oil

Ir's a video you've watched a hundred times but refuse to download because you're convinced it will give your computer a virus

It's a dust bin for calenders and a trash compactor for clocks

It's a scrapbook stuffed with reminders of things that very likely never happened and a wrinkled, road-weary rock star to convince you they did

It's the rancid odor of dead skunk that remends me of all the **** you burned

It's the goofy laugh some found contagious but I just thought was goofy

It's a running bet to see who could guess exactly how late you would be to an important occassion

It's a hell of a good time if you're looking for hells of good times you won't remember twenty-four hours later

If you don't mind losing the time

I doubt you even consider
That your leaving was such a betrayal
You couldn't consider much of anything with your gut
So full of cheap bourbon whiskey
Your words untethered from your thoughts
Your feelings numbed, just the way you liked it
If you cared the morning after
That was the only time you cared at all
I was robbed of the justice in calling you a liar
It took too much of your energy to stand
You surely had none to divine truth from fiction
Stand and talk
Move and breath
Glad to fool
You seemed cogent, enough to inspire trust

I shouldn't hate you
I despise you and I'm wrong
I loathe you and I know I'm judged
I am jealous of you and I am ashamed of it
I envy you and I can't help but wonder
From where did you get all this power?
What makes all these memories I have of you
Mock, Scorn, Torture me with guilt for all I feel
Even as you walked away you had no idea of what you promised
The ties that bind, you said, the ties that bind
They're hard to break and you were right
I've spent all these years trying to untie that knot
Every time I hit a snag I can't help but think of how tightly you wound them
It makes me despise you even more

I despise you even more because I know
If you were here right now I'd take you for granted
Every bit as much as I did when we shared the same room
Ages ago
Only difference being how acutely aware I'd be with
Well learned 20/20

God, I miss you
I miss the way you made me feel normal
The way you made me believe I belonged
Three sheets to the wind, plastered
Eight miles high and laughing that goofy laugh of yours
Hanging around long enough to pick you up when you fell
What I want to know, when all is said and done
Where were you when I was the one sprawled out on the floor?
Did you never think that I would need you to return the favor someday?

The view from down here is the one I am bound to remember
Looking up to a myriad of faces
Not a friend amongst them
Certainly not a friend like I thought you were
Teetering stinking drunk you could still lift me up and get me the hell out of this place

...and I can't even blame you
...you were a dry leaf blowing in the wind
...kindling for the demands I made of you
...easily crushed

There was a time when it served me well to forget the times
When they were fresh to devestate
Hard times, mean times, time to forget but the memories wouldn't stay buried
For too long
It took a long time to keep them from escaping the soul-locked box I stuffed them in
Hoping, they would rot inside
Losing, with the passage of time, the power they weilded
What damage had been done would eventually be credited to other foes
But that's not quite what happened

**

There is a soul-locked box sits in the center of all I know
With no labels or any way to guess what might be inside
Be it wonderful or wicked
Light as a feather
Stinking, moldy air?
Ashes, fine powder weightless?
A black hole vacuum just waiting for me to open it
For to be ****** down and in to the times for which it was spawned

I don't know what's inside but this I do know:
It's something important
A missing piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle that covered my grandmother's coffee table
An instinctive aversion to Thursday nights at 9:00 o'clock
A resolution to never again defend the Bible to bullies
A plastic bag filled with flour, snorted like *******


I don't know what's inside, but I do know this:
It's something important
A casual observer forced to take sides to help a weak man win
A look in the eye only noticed through hateful glaring and if eyes are truly the window to the soul...
A new meaning to the phrase "looks that ****"
A wet pillowcase still warm from muffled curses

I don't know what's inside, but this I do know:
I'm afraid of knowing
Because I think I DO know and now I don't want to
I remember pain and disappointment, fear and contempt
A loathing for someone who may or may not have deserved it
Someone with a set of excuses every bit as valid/worthless as mine
I'm afraid of the possibility ithat those excuses don't amount to anything
That forgiveness somehow got lost in the shuffle and someone went to heaven without mine
And I can only pray that there was a time he repented and forgave me in his own mind

Because I have a strong suspicion
That forgiveness is the key to the soul-locked box
In the Spirit, let the breeze dissolve the molding, rotten air
Let the Wind, which no man knows which way it comes or which way it goes, dissolve ashes into ether

I long to find out the times, torn from the fabric of time
Memories alive but unconsciously ignored
You tell me you can tear down those walls
I say Ignorance is Bliss

Beauty is a mold
You have stolen for yourself
No matter how I try I can't believe
You were all that mattered
All that matters to me now is to know you
And the sound of your name

Cassandra
A touch of innocence
In a guilty world
I fell in love this morning with another girl
Another name
A different time
It's all the same
A light that always shined for Cassandra

The angels never flew so free
Your eyes sparkled electricity
You dug into my heart and brought my vision back to life
Graceful as Isadora Duncan on a ride

Cassandra
There are no innocents
In a guiltless world
I'll fall in love tomorrow with another girl
Another name
Every time
I'll feel the same
The light that always shined for Cassandra

I touched your face
You were asleep that night but I watched you
Wake up from a dream
I turned to hold you
The silence broken by a whisper
Wishing it would rain

It could rain for forty days and forty nights
I'd still be by your side
And when the land was dry
I'd still love you

I raised my voice
You were so bitter that it scared me
To think of what I'd lost
And what you'd gain
If I just walked out and left you
Would you even care?

Would you care about a foolish broken man?
Or would you understand
That I still loved you

You walked away
I was asleep that night but I heard you
Or was it all a dream?
You touched my face
And I knew your heart was empty
I took too much from you

I'm sorry for the things I put you through
Every dream that won't come true
Because I loved you

Sheila, this life's too long to leave behind
Sheila, your world's too small to get inside
It's a needle's eye I tried to squeeze through
I tried to get to you

Sheila, waiting for a place in time
Sheila, counting every tear she's cried
It's a coward's lie I needed to believe
To get to you

...and I almost threw it all away
Let the memory dim and fade
The only thing about you that I ever knew
Was your name

In a painful, ****** ritual
I watched my heart taken out and handed over to me
Like someone thought I knew what to do with it

I kept it close, after all it was mine
Alive, pumping life through my body
Giving life to my soul
My heart became a part of me

I was grateful
Until one day
The workings of time, fate, God
Ripped my heart from it's home
Carried it far, far from me

The void it left would not be filled
By anything or anyone

Only hope, only hope
Though sometimes shallow water
With the last drop
I will get my heart back

From God
From Fate
From the cruel workings of time

For my heart I'll tempt them all
And we shall never be separated again

I looked to the western sky at sundown and I saw it as the Canvas of God.

I stared into the deep infinity of the night sky and imagined every star a pin-***** in the fabric of the black horizon, offering tiny glimpses of the Light on the other side.

I came to realize that heaven was to be found in the moments after sleep consumes the intellect and just before dreams tease the spirit.

I feared inner peace and sought distraction to the point where distraction took the place of inner peace, and I was content with it.

I sought to deny myself thoughts, beliefs, experiences…to sacrifice them to a code I thought prohibited them.

I tried to do the right thing when most of the time I hadn't a clue what the right thing was. I learned that "the right thing" has more to do with luck than any result of good motives.

I celebrated diversity and sought to tear down the walls of intolerance. I firmly believed that you should do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

In regards to how others lead their own lives I added this amendment" "Mind thy own business".

I closed my eyes and thought "This is all there will ever be". And so I taught myself to love darkness.

I opened my eyes and thought "This is all there will ever be". And so I taught myself to love light.

A guru led me into a place within myself that was neither light nor darkness and he told me "This is all there will ever be". He told me that if I wished to find it again I must empty myself and surrender to the Supersoul. It was then that I realized I knew nothing.

I wanted to be a philosopher. I wanted to be a priest. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be a famous rock star. I wanted to be a mentor. I wanted to be a scholar. I wanted to be a Marine. I wanted to be a champion. I wanted a lot of things. Too many things.

I listened to a great man's words…."You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need." And so I tried.

I noticed that the numbers on calendars never went backwards.

One morning I saw a storm brewing in the eastern sky and I gave God a high five.

I was told that "good things come to those who wait"…I'm still waiting to see if that's true.

I willingly lost myself in the dreams of others, then felt used and manipulated when the credits began to roll.

I satisfied my soul with poet's nonsense.

I was content with someone else's song.

Memories kept me from believing that all the things I thought were real were vapors all along.

I spent all my life searching for the meanings of some things I was never meant to know.

A strange thing, that the more I really loved someone the less inclined I was to tell them how much. As if "they should know by now" was good enough." Many were the times such logic turned against me and proved me an idiot.

I proposed that loving someone grants them entrance into your heart, where they will dwell until the day you die. I like to think that, of all the foolish notions I've entertained, this one is an unshakeable truth.

The needle falls down on the record, a thump deep in the bass, the speaker cone shakes and the sound ocean floods from my Serwin-Vegas...That alien who stepped out of the saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind decides to speak to Dreyfuss, and this is what it sounds like. This is the language of his planet, on the other side of a black hole in the Gamma region.

A ****** of crows, cold in the snow, muttering low, squeaking and squealing. Love taking on flesh and blood, suffocated by skin, now let's let the service begin. They sing their gut-hungry praises then flitter away.

Signifying nothing.

The priest places the wafer on the infidel's tongue. He lifts the cup to the liar's lips. A subtle glow emitted from a place slightly behind his head. He intones the Mass and tries to empty himself to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him as he ministers in the name of Jesus Christ to his congregation. The Spirit lifts up his voice to the sky and intercedes for my weak soul.

These chants are ancient, as old as the book of Genesis. These are the languages of the Mishraites or the Zareathites or the Eshtaulites. These are the tongues spoken by Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. A language taught to them by their slave ancestors, excommunicated from the clans of Sarah, mother of the promised. A language used by Abraham himself, when he beckoned Isaac to the land of Moriah, making him carry the sacrificial knife soon held to his throat.

The procession moves forward, each recieving the body and blood in turn, enriched and better for recieving it. They walk like slaves submitting to a kind master they love to serve back to their seats in the cathedral, to wait, to get lost in the sacred relics and the sacred art scattered throughout this beautiful sanctuary.

And surely the Lord is in this place, for all that is good is from the Lord and this music is exceptionally good.

The chanting continues, now sung in the language of Baal-Zephon, where the king went after the Israelites, translated: "Wasn't there enough room in Egypt to bury us? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why did you bring us out of Egypt, anyway? While we were there didn't we tell you to leave us alone? We had rather be slaves in Egypt than die in this desert!..."

These tone poems, written in the days of the Exodus, have a modern sound to them that is uncanny. Aliens who landed on earth in 897 BC bestowed gifts of prophecy and tongues to the individual members of the head's charge, and they are merely tools at the disposal of the leader of the aliens in their attempts to express themselves to the earthlings. No, there's no way any of us not from their planet could ever understand their language, borrowed as it was from the priests, Zadok and Abiathar in a meeting held on Mount Calvary the last time they landed on earth. The chord progressions are subliminally tainted with commands to relax, encourage a sense of floating, drift off with the thoughts that interest you most.

A looping tribal dance, recorded on site at a Buddhist monastary where the monks would mumble polyphonic OMs and the tourists would catapult their spirits through a needle's eye just to show that it can be done... Are they praying for rain? Or is it a rich harvest they petition the Great Spirit for today, their knees to the ground? The dance turns into an ****, bodies tangled up misplaced pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

They **** the whale, and so we mourn.

They fester hate like a sore that won't go away, so we sing this lamentation. Translation: "The Son wants you...Hear things in the music that aren't there, only in your hammer struck head. Ring the living bell, ring the living bell, shine the living light, shine the living light...

They incite aggression, so we back off.

They treat the blind man with scorn and contempt, so we judge them.

They are good for nothing but fighting your wars, their stone hardened hearts too far gone to notice each life snuffed out under orders from ground patrol. So we pray for conflict. We petition the Lord for strife and dischord. Exterminate these burned-out husks of men before their 4 years are up.

They lay hands upon the genius and lock him in institutions with people who pull steak knives on strangers. They are afraid of him, so they put him away, in sweat-stinking padded cells or wrapped up nice and tight in a straight, mornings woke and hustled to the breakfast line. They extricate his confidence, thought pattern by thought pattern, and curb the flow of his intellect. They leave us to sing a funeral song for the postmodern society on the day when common sense is evenly distributed amongst individuals and Moral Law is accepted as fact by each and all. A dirge for each time you've ever been hurt by someone's words or actions. Our common denominator of heartache and sorrow. Divided about all other things, by necessity united by tears, wailing, howling at the moon, primal scream therapy and insomnia.

And now the church is empty. Angels lingering to usher the Spirit from the echoing halls. Silence and stillness brutal proof of God. Music from the other side of this life. Welcoming songs played at St. Peter's Gate. Stubborn prayers from those passed over, coaxing us through, waiting with scissors at the ready to slice the mortal coil. Believers bellys full of the body and blood of the Lord, digesting it at this very moment, letting the body do it's digestive work, preparing it for re-birth.

Whenever I hear that song I'll get a lump in my throat
The size of a grapefruit
It will be your voice I hear gliding through the melodies
In my mind's eye I won't try to hide
Your head tilting back with the high notes
Your own eyes closed, squinting, holding back
A look of pure ecstasy and passion deep as any
Union remembered or forgotten
You sing and you make the song your own
So it is your own and I would not take it from you
Even if I could
Even if I wanted to

The sound drowns and I won't turn it down
It fills the room to overflowing
I fall back into your favorite chair and watch
You skim the waves
I color the empty space blue to give you something to sink into
When you fall
Sinking as the noise subsides
Reaching for my lifeguard arms
With the first line of the second chorus
I pull you down and draw you near
Ease you into your favorite chair
You won't mind, we can share

I've got the song in "repeat" mode and it's played 6 times now
Every single spin my head begins to swim
Doesn't get old, just sinks in deeper
A knife, a nail, sharp enough but painless
It's just a needle for my weakest vein
Injects the feeling I had the very first time I heard it
The first time I saw you hold a microphone to your mouth
Saw you move to and fro to the beat of the music
Already lost, five minutes and nine seconds out of time and space
All of the world's existentialist quandaries forgotten and powerless
You took me with you
Or more like you let me follow, by the tail, hold on for dear life
Knowing that when we burst through the other side
The words and music would be branded into our brains

I could leave it on "repeat" all night long
It never gets old

Still, the next song on this playlist is awesome
You really should hear it

I see you hiding beneath
Old shirts and memories
***** jeans and worn-out shoes
That have walked a saddening mile
Weakest armour of cloth
Ripped and torn by cruel adolescence
Cursed with hate or blessed with indifference
I see you in there

Surrounded by toys
Some broken, unneeded
I see you and I know that you want to play with them
But time seems to have withdrawn permission
Or maybe you're frightened
Of how happy they once made you
Reluctantly believing they will never again make you smile or laugh
For they have become little more than fodder for the garbage heap
You find yourself beneath

On the other side of the locked door
I bend to peek through the keyhole
Expecting no more than shadows on the wall
But I see you

I've watched you walk in...
(you didn't know I was there...sorry)
...and it broke my heart
To see how swiftly you ran to the door
To behold the look of relief on your face
That broke up and melted the death mask of grief
Saved by grace
When you stepped in and turned the lock
A beaten veteran getting off a plane, whose salvation is the tarmac beneath him
You kiss the ***** carpet and call this place "home"

"How can a man be born when he is old?
can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb, and be born?"
Behind a locked door
You found the answer
Discerning flesh from flesh and spirit from Spirit
From the crowded confines of  your mother's womb

I wanted so badly to see the look on your face when you emerged
Refreshed and ready to battle demons
Or downcast, crestfallen for another day
It would have been worth the waiting hours to bear witness
To the power of this basement haven
Alas, sleep was not as curious
I could not risk your discovering me
Where I was not meant to be
Fallen from my hands and knees
Best to settle for forbidden glimpses through a keyhole
Best you didn't know I'd stolen a tiny part of your soul

I see you there, hiding from the light
Books on shelves half read or dog-eared to the very ends
A hardback Bible, the binding cracked, it's pages would spill out on the floor if not for your curiosity
66 books held tightly in your grasp to hold them together
In order
Camus, King...Baldwin, Irving...tattered paperback
Koran, Augustine...Srimad Bhagavatam, L. Ron Hubbard...sturdy hardback, spines still cracking
Barnes & Noble books unnaturally pinched between mold smelling garage sale bargains and bulky Salvation Army bookends (Webster's Dictionary, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Bullfinch's Mythology, Asimov's Chronology of Science & Technology...anything thick and sturdy enough to squeeze in a row of lesser volumes)
I see all those books but I don't see you reading them
Still, I don't wonder why they are there

I only wonder of you
Why you lie like a skeleton
Beneath piles of junk

I only wonder how
You find comfort there
And not in the arms of the ones who love you

In my dream he wanted to know why
I want to think he'd care with my eyes wide open
This ghost that dwells in the wells of slumber
Deserves an answer
I feel compelled to spill it out
Before he melts, fog-like as the sun rises
And returns to more comfortable depths
Far away from memory
Into the bigger wind to which no one knows
From whence it came or where it goes

Would that the Wind show me a reason
I could pass on to him
That it would blow through the hole in his soul
Indifference punctured through

Take heed
Before experience proves the truth of my words
If love dies in your heart and your mind
Dare not believe that the ones left behind
Will heal any time
Soon

If you have ears to hear, Know
The love you refuse to mourn
Torn
You believe was stolen from you
Ripped from your fist
With violence excised
The love you choose to deny
Time after time after time
That with cruel alchemy
Melts into molten gold
Glows
Grows like a Rose,
Resonates with beautiful Music
Shines a most brilliant Light,
Feeds the Breath of Life
At your peril clip it's petals (with your "loves me-loves me not" nonsense )
At your peril drown it out (with your arguing and fighting)
At your peril call down darkness (call it down, down it will come)
Try not to breathe and fail every time

Only violence, desperate to have it's way, should wield the power
To break a chain of love
Sleepy ghost, you know this is true
On my life I would not do it to you
If a link in the chain were so weak as to break
You'll know which one before I'm awake
Though you'll never know why the metal was broken
Neither will I
Once I've awoken

Headlights flashing in the west lane told us
Something was wrong
That it was only a matter of time
Before traffic would halt to a stand still

Late evening darkness, a trunkload full of groceries
Still another 45 minutes until we would be home
Not looking forward to the chore of unloading
The sorting out and organizing, putting things where they belonged
Couldn't see the end of the line in front of us
From where we found ourselves
At the end of the line
Headlights coming up behind us to take over that position
Pushing us closer and closer to whatever it was
We had been stopped for...

"Uh-oh", she said, and I understood completely
"Wonder how bad it is?"
Even as Highway Patrol cars
Black as vultures with carnival lights dazzling
Zipped by us, close cut to the left, at unnatural rates of speed
Their sirens blared louder than usual
Almost pulled, it seemed, by a magnet
To the scene
A small perimeter surrounded by casino lights
Luring the line of cars forward
A yard at a time
Towards confirmation, their worst fears
Vicariously offered by the indifferent hand of fate
"There it is!", she said. "I can almost see it."

I took my iPhone out of my pocket and opened
The camera application
"It's too dark for that," she told me, a little perturbed
She expressed her disgust with me that I would capture the scene on video
"Ah, but the lights are cool. "
Even then I understood exactly where she was coming from
And I realized that I was disgusted with myself
Never mind, I'd already started, might as well let the camera roll
Cool lights and all

The truck in front of us began to make some progress
Picking up a little speed
No more than necessary to witness
The reason for the wait...didn't we deserve it?
Such a pain in the *** to have to wait

"There it is...Whoa, that looks pretty bad."

The car was facing the wrong direction
There was no doubt that it had been going in the right direction
Before it all went wrong
Alone, though it looked as if it had smashed head-on with a truck
No hit and run, not from the looks of it
Most likely the concrete embankment
Velocity
The automobile's hood torn off to expose
A tangled and crushed engine smoking
A good portion relocated inside the cab
The whole thing looked like a vision
From the mind of an artist
Trying real hard to give Salvador Dali a run for his money
In black and white, exposed only by the bright, flashing, candy machine lights
That made it possible for all of us to see
The cops hovering around the scene every bit as impotent
As we
None were even close to the wrecked machine

Like anyone would have done
Admit it or not
We rubbernecked our way around the display slowly
Slowly enough to see
Only a second or two of noticing
In the miraculous glow
Of the overhead light
The driver

He was still as a stone at the bottom of a pond
Head slumped only slightly
With no one at his side to encourage him
His chances were slim to none
The cops seemed to be repelled by the car
As if none wanted to get too close to whatever it was
Floating through the night air
Coming from inside the cab of that crushed machine
We felt it ourselves passing by and we fell silent
I struggled in my mind to understand why I felt the way I did
What deep wells of my psyche had been tapped
A stone skipping across those waters, the ripples colliding
Splashing into others, forming even more, without reason
Without significance, without a single clue
We were forced to settle for silence and I gave it the opportunity to sink in deep
Until I turned on the radio, hoping for some kind of levity

"Well, there goes the ambulance", I said
As we both noticed it's lights flying westbound toward the scene
"Maybe things aren't as bad as they seemed," I said
She was more realistic:
"Maybe they're worse."

We drove the rest of the way home
Sober and somber
The spirit was still with us
But I could tell it was breaking apart
We didn't notice it after I turned the radio on
The classic country station
The only one we could agree upon
The song was just beginning to fade out
I recognized it as Eddie Rabbit's biggest hit
"Driving My Life Away"
And I couldn't help but think,
Someone's got a wicked sense of humor

Give it away to keep it
Don't need a reason
Generous and selfish
Charitable treason

Mined it from the source
Runnin' through my heart
Lord, it's runnin' through my brain
Love don't tear it apart

I need you to want it
I want you to need it
This narcissistic fire for you
I need you to feed it

Your validation means too much to me
I feel I cannot love without it
You give it then you lose it
I think too much about it

I know there's a closet in your room
Filled with unwanted memories
Piled so high but still some room
For more unwanted pieces of me

If I had any pride I'd raid that room
Plunder it and take what was mine
Maybe give it to someone else
Everything I can find

For I cannot keep it for myself
What once I never owned
The sentiments have gone their seperate ways
From forgiveness unatoned

This addictive need to share
Has drained me of reasons
To find anything worth sharing
In this uncharitable season

Fire breathing gorgons
Consume radical liquids
Fall into poetry repetition
Also sprach Zanabanana
Centered and pressurized
Back-up pushes against
Sphincter.

Antibiotic shortage
Carefully planned
Lower intestinal numbness
Head in the clouds
*** on the ground
I'm right
It hurts.

When the time comes
For the reconcilliation of the Hermit
I will be there
Sixty-nine guns
And one more, please, makes seventy
...and I've got what I need
7-0 for the Hermit

When the rhymes slow
And yer listeners don't know or care 'bout the Hermit
I shall believe
Sixty-nine suns
...Eleven more makes eighty, see?
...and I've got what I need
8-0 for the Hermit

If the Hermit sees the reconcilliation coming
He'll turn the other way and start to running
They don't call him the Hermit for nothing
And I got a double-ought nine volt battery,
I'm gonna stick it on his tongue

If your mind's numb
And you're as ***-dumb as the Hermit
I'll shed a tear
Ninety nine nuns
...one gave birth and that makes a hundred
Sixty nine to the Hermit
Sunshine to the Hermit
I bless the life of the Hermit
I put the knife to the Hermit

I can't talk with my mouth full of water
But I'll try

What are you doing here?
I would have thought you'd be
Dry, bare bones by now
I'd come to terms with the memory
Filed and stored it in a dusty chamber
Where it's power could not hurt me
Anymore
Sealed in a strong locked box
I thought I had mastered the anger
That I'd dominated it through the tears of others
Though it had eaten me
To leprous skin and bone
Forgiveness seemed easy
When you were so far away
Because I wanted to love you so badly
But now you're back
Your own anger almost dwarfing mine
Your own tears, earned honestly
Though not half as innocently as my own
And you're still repeating your mantra
I will never forget
Your message, your signal flare
Something you needed me to know
With all the urgency of confession
(As if that were an excuse)

"My nerves are shot
My nerves are shot
My nerves are shot
My nerves are shot"
You always had a knack for stating the obvious

Until today I had managed
To squelch that ridiculous chanting
But here you are again
Showed up almost out of a dream
Needing a sponge
To soak in your rage
(None of my doing)
Begging me to stitch your heart back together
(I haven't the surgeon's skill)
Punching holes in walls
(.....)
Getting your knees *****
Asking for miracles
Expecting me to pull them off
Ultimately disappointed
Hallucinating power for me to wield
Not realizing
That my back had already been broken
By the same sad world
That broke yours

The lights are out
I'm trying to feel my way
Through the dark
Got turned around somehow
Into something completely unfamiliar

Vertigo tugs at my guts
I don't want to admit it
I've forgotten the pathways through my own home
I'm completely lost without your map to guide me
Stumbling around in the dark calling out your name
Your name and help
Your name and it's so dark
It's black-night dark and your name
Hurled from my lips in desperation
Deep muddy water desperation
Thickened quicksand inviting me in
There for no other purpose than to consume
To **** me into the earth
To fill my mouth and stop it up
From calling out your name
Your name and the dark become
The only things I have left in the world
Being ripped from me even now
Why so dark?
Where did that hole come from anyway?
I don't remember it being there
I don't remember much of anything
Even as I try to feel my way through
Knowing full well that the right path along the wall
Will lead me to the bedroom

This time the maze tricked me
The more I realized you were there
The more I knew I'd never reach you
Because this house wants nothing to do with me anymore

To think there will come a time
When the only things I'll remember about this day
Are black-night darkness and
Your name

Hanging onto a thin thread of certainty now,
Gravity anchors me
Were it not for this covered cage
I would rise
A blanket covered cage
Draped by a loved one with my own best interests at heart
"Sleep" she says
"Sleep and rest"

I don't sleep anymore
The string's been cut
I know nothing
It's all a blur to me now

A little rest
It's been a long hard road
You're tired and you deserve it
So lay back
Let the sounds fill your head
Marvel
At how they seep into your body
Like a pure drug
And lift your spirit

Find a soft pillow
I'll stand watch
As you tear it all down
When it gets too hard
When you fear letting go
And the sights to see
On the other side of the wall
You're tearing down
Let me be your fortress

Together we will gather
The broken pieces of your days
And I will slowly put them back together
Just slowly enough
For you to feel the love
That comes in my reassembling
And leave behind
Everything that tore them apart

Everything that tore them apart
I will cause you to forget
As we lay
As we melt into one each other
As we melt into earth
Flesh of My flesh
Bone of My bone
One seed
Planted by Death
To sprout and grow
Into new life
In a new garden

Settle your thoughts
Receive calm for your shattered nerves
Though they are shot
I will ride shotgun

I am love
This world is a mirror
You see it as in reverse
The reality:
Reap
Sow
Plant
I am the Farmer
I love you
Because you know Me
For what I am
You know
That I am not Grim
That my sickle serves a purpose
It's blade, sharp and shiny
A two edged sword
Brings you to this place
Where enlightenment never dims or fades

We will ride it together
Until harvest has come
You and I will be One
Until we both realize
We've got a spare rib

I take full responsibility
For what I've done
The stolen coins
The nicked photographs
Shiny black and white
Gray
From a time I was not meant to remember
Blessed with innocence I was
A precious gift I was
That soon rotted for you to grow tired of
A monster you could not control
You took as much as you could take, I know
As did I

I wonder if you realize what you took?
What you stole?
Would the scales be balanced?
No, you have no idea
Why should I walk this earth judged guilty
By a judge more guilty than I?
More...more...more...

No, you were not alone
But at least he tried to tie up the loose ends
You left unraveled as you made your choice
I hated him, even told my pillow as much
As I beat it and hoped it muffled my voice
Pillow my only friend, it dried my tears
Soaked them up
Yes, I hated him, hated his anger
His disgust in me
His unwillingness to slap the **** out of me when I dared him to
I took it as cowardice
I was wrong
I was wrong about a lot of things
None of his faults,
I thought there were many,
Were above forgiving
Now that he's gone I can only remember the good things
The man he truly was, beneath the flaws
Revealed slowly by time
Tested and proven by death
The time you didn't want from me
Tested and proven in death

So why am I still troubled by that day?
How can I see you off after all we've been through?
I remember my grandmother's funeral
I was only a child, it was before you gave up
I sat in a pew of the Freewill Baptist Church she had lived in
My cousin sobbing by my side
I reached over and took her hand, she cried harder
Tears flowed in that old building as the minister spoke the eulogy
No mere recital, she was loved
Then the time came for the people to walk by the casket
One last look before consigning her to memory
The friends strolled by, then it was time for the family
One by one her daughters broke down
And fell to their knees beside the coffin
Wailing and moaning, begging God not to take her
Not even seeming to realize that she was dead
They had to be dragged away, and even that with a fight
I had never seen grief so palpable and frantic
I hope I won't again

I fear I will
When I sit in that front row
I fear the years will take their toll
The absence will make the heart remember
What it wants to remember
Regardless of the truth
When I see your closed eyes staring at the ceiling
Your still body dressed in your going-away clothes
Still as the stand
Which holds the box you'll be buried in

I have resolved to stay home on that gloomy day
To learn from mistakes we both made
Far away, to court my denial for all it's worth
Let someone else mourn
And if this makes me a hateful man, beneath contempt
I will offer no apologies
Blood is thicker than water
But ours has been diluted
I wish I didn't blame you
I don't hate you, though
You did what you had to do

I will, too
I'm a liar
I'll be there
To let you lift the weight off of my shoulders
To see you off into the still, dark night
Never again will we have to worry
About running into each other at garage sales
Or how hard it is to travel seven miles
Or the reasons why
We don't talk anymore
Forgive me

It's too soon to live in memories
I try to convince myself
Years don't change everything
I try to convince myself
This is no prison I'm living in
I have the keys, the locks are not broken
I try to convince myself I have a reason
For not using them

Grab a pen and some paper
Some of these are important
I just know they are
These are the things that made me what I am
Aren't they?
The sum total of all my experiences, right?
I need to chronicle and catalog
Separate the wheat from the chaff
This will set me straight
Or maybe not...could be a waste of time

Time takes them away, one by one
Teases, bringing some back
Then snatching them away again
Despite my best efforts
To hoard them
Years don't change everything
The cruel workings of time
Are eternal

Of this I am convinced

I've sacrificed freedom
To live in a cage
To settle for memories
For fear that hurt would break in
And make itself comfortable
Quick to remind me of the memories
It helped make

I'm convinced I have no reason
To break these chains
An empty house, alone
Is better than such bad company

You don't have to worry
I won't be here long
I only stopped by to grab a few things
Before I go

Nothing has changed, has it?
Oh, but who am I trying to fool?
I only said that because I was disoriented
By how different it all is, the furniture you've moved
I don't suppose it could have been any different
Had I hung around to watch you move it
We both know I couldn't have helped you
I wasn't strong enough and I don't mind admitting that
I only wish you had understood
That you had known just how much I liked the loveseat against the west wall
That you hadn't held it against me, my weakness, I couldn't lift those things
I didn't want to lift them and maybe that's something you didn't get
Of all the things you could have gotten
Had you not known how cheaply I could be had
You have no grasp whatsoever of Feng Shui
Or most likely it's my own inability to appreciate it
Yes, that's the truth, when you get down to it

I dreamed I saw you
Standing at an open window
4 stories high, looking down at a flag waving in the breeze
Leaning forward slightly
My gut clenched in fear
I felt worry like a strong breeze
Pushing me toward you
Stopped by some invisible responsibility
"If you love somebody, set them free"
That stupid song started playing in my head and I froze in my tracks
Even as you leaned forward even more
I thought
The possibility that you would fall outweighed
The likelihood that you would not
In that realization I saw what was wrong with me
Just like the time when I was 6 years old, playing in the park
Dad was at the picnic table playing cards with his friends
(That's what they liked to do)
I climbed up to the top of a very high slide
All by myself, no one to help me, no big deal
But he saw me
He felt the same breeze, almost like an East wind ushering in a thunderstorm
He stood up, a reflex, an instinct
And he watched with the same tingle of fear I felt in my dream
With every bit of strength within him he stayed
He was a real worrier, yet he overcame that worry
Just
Long
Enough
To see me laughing as I made my way down that slide
I love him for that
It was many, many years after that I finally came to understand
How essential are the words:
"Be Careful"
So that's what I said to you
Watching you bend over even more
Forgiving myself for being so worried
Because if you had fallen
I would have lived the rest of my life
Wondering why I didn't jump out after you

Those last days were kind of rough, weren't they?
The fights over who kept what and what was whose
The resigned silence
Reading each others minds, or so we thought
We might as well have been illiterate for our ability
Blame cast in every direction like fiery arrows deflected
By shields of indifference
I won't say I'm the innocent one
I won't be here for long
I only came to grab a few things
Soon be gone

This is not for you
Think what you will, I know you do
This is not even for me
Written, forgotten, that's how it must be
My codes are easily deciphered
Your cryptograms are broken
Not as clever, either one of us, as we thought
So it's better to be forthright
This place is so unfamiliar
It's impossible to believe I lived here for so long
It's yours now
If I could only ask for the DVD of "The Truman Show" beneath the books in "our" bedroom
I know you always thought of it as yours
But...

So now I'll be going
Hope I haven't kept you too long
I got what I came for
Turn away, love, I'm gone

What was the point in staring at your photo?
What had I to gain from it?
Mesmerized and chained to the wall
Bent into a crouch by circumstance and the cruel
Hand of Fate
It was all I had of you
A powerful talisman that just as often cursed
As blessed
For the miles between us were many
And the distance even further
Even if I could have broken a hole in the separating wall
I wouldn't have been able to cross that span
I was too weak and still reeling from realizing it
But I had that picture
A tiny, wrinkled scrap of paper to confirm
That the image in my mind was no dream
Even as time threatened to convince me
Even as time reminded me of change and all it threatened to do
The visage trapped in Kodachrome
Was immune to it
All the while you grew and morphed ever so slightly
Into the almost unrecognizable woman
I came back to
My absence having dragged you down
Into an unfamiliar reality you'd never known existed
Your fear that everything we'd built together, every dream shared
Were for nothing, with nothing to show
It may have been a glimpse of the separation
Impending while hidden, awaiting the proper moment
Just a peek, unbidden, that transformed you
Made you even more beautiful, made you all the more dangerous
Made you open your eyes to what had to be done
The same pool-deep eyes I stared at during that hard time
So intent that they seemed to move
An optical illusion tricked me into believing
Everything would be just fine when we came together again
Fooled me into thinking we would ever be the same
I had grown to expect the angel
Smiling at me from the photo
Becoming more beautiful each time I took it from my wallet
Farther away every time I stuffed it back in

No longer miles, but years neither of us care to cross anymore
No longer distance, but tears that tore us asunder
I don't even have the picture anymore, as if I still wanted it
As if I could still bear to look at it without shuddering

Wondering how I could ever have thought you were my other half
It would only serve to remind me that you were never mine at all
And if all I could have of you is this picture
No matter that it saved my life
I'd rather feed it to the fire

*****************

She had been gone for a couple of months when I found an old shoe box
Into which I crammed every letter she wrote me in days apart
One for every day of the week, six months worth of reminders
She loved me. She missed me. She could not wait until I came home.
(Oh, now I chastise myself for not even remembering what her handwriting looked like)
I stuck them in that Nike box along with our marriage certificate
I drove across town and gave it to her mother
She would pass it
Along
A long regretted final gesture of acceptance
Where, hidden in a random envelope that my love would probably never open,
I had tucked in the photograph
For her to burn

To the crowd around me
I'm invisible
To the ground below me
I keep falling

Always alone in a crowd
Always alone in a crowd

In a dark and empty house
It's cold but it's my life
There lives a man whose tied his tongue
To silence all the good he's done

And he's always alone in a crowd
He's always alone in a crowd
Isolated

It's the price for all the hatred
That's built up for so long
We trade the pain for bitter pills
That leave us numb and sitting still
To each his own throughout the years
Manipulated 'til we're always alone in a crowd
We're always alone in a crowd
Isolated

In the corner of my eye I see a vision of a life
That could have been
In the corner of my mind there is a memory that I
Have held too dear
In a corner of this house where you once spent some of your time
I
I
I will spend all of my life

canto 1
I call her daddy my own. He felt nothing for her when the time had come for him to do something he fell and she felt nothing at all, nothing whatsoever. It is a cruel world, mateys, and the best thing you can do is curse God and die. Hard to ditch the pity act. Ditching is denying and there is much truth to the lie.

canto 2
Their eyes bubble in the open air, they fill to bursting and scrub until they scratch. **** drips. It's a sound that I will never forget. A sight that should be reserved for the dream world...a stench unrivaled.

canto 3
The Chinese bomber is persistent. One has to wonder why he bothers at all, seeing that his attempts have been futile up until the present moment. It's shoe week, so I guess he has his reasons. But this has gone on for far too long. If there were a way for me to stop him I guess it wouldn't hurt to try.

canto 4
Random parking lots and good God what have they done? I thought it was all over, these thoughts were through, these voices are mad. Usually it's not as upsetting. Your car door gets stuck, you know, it happens all the time. It happens every day, still you never get used to it, do you? You're always stuck inside that ugly mirror.

canto 5 (the "missing canto")

canto 6
I want to tell the world how good you are. Amazing and incredible. **** and *******. Talented and unrestrained. Honey nut Cheerios. You give it but I have a sneaky feeling you would rather be lost in a dream. A banal night vision. Comparably

canto 7
I want to make it better. I want to see you smile. What can I do? You are my own heart ripped from my chest and given wings to fly. Your smile is a lost treasure I would do anything to get it back to give it back to you, I didn't mean to take it away from you. You push me up against a stone wall and you don't even realize you're doing it. That my soul cries and prays for something real, for some kind of explanation or even an excuse would be fine right now. Instead I float. Not the way I like to float. I drift and crash, a dizzying spiral out of control, confused and dumbfounded by the realization that none of it means a ******* thing. What I thought was love turned out to be a jester's game, a joker's trick. You don't need me anymore.

canto 8
I hide myself behind a blanket of stone where you cannot spit fireballs at me without cracking an egg. Cold breeze tickles my news. It's not too chilly in this room. But the fireballs warm things up. "Blanket of stone"...what a stupid expression. Why do you have to be so hateful to me? How many times can a man say I'm Sorry without losing an eyeball?

canto 9
I have no right to feel the way I do. I don't think I can control it, though. This is one of the ****** up idiosyncrasies of my confused existence. Vanish without a trace and look for clues in the alphabet soup.

canto 10
Weariness is like a slug, a giant slug, a parasite infesting my body, hanging on and hanging out. A fire down below that waits for my imagination. My sleep patterns are getting ****** up but I'm not sure if I was sleeping or just dreaming I was awake. Under the impression that it doesn't matter? Well, you are a stone fool for thinking that way. You've never experienced the life-changer. Else you would know. But all I want to know is this: Why am I afraid of sleep?

canto 11
Things get slow. Patience is required, but I don't have any. Why does it have to be that way, o cruel dictator? You get a kick out of this ****, don't you?

canto 12
Spill your guts, maties, it's the only way you'll ever come out of this situation with even a shard of dignity intact. I know it's early and you haven't had time to adjust your eyes and your wrists for this delicate task. Go! Do it now before you lose confidence.

canto 13
We took a holiday and it was so nice. She stood there on that stage without a stitch of clothing on her voluptuous body. Baby, don't you let your hairdresser down

canto 14
Who doesn't love breakfast? Me, actually.

canto 15
I can't help it if I'm changing every day. Ask the question later, maybe my answer will be suitable. I don't think I can help you because I'm not like anyone you've ever known or will ever know or can ever know or would ever want to know and why do you keep wanting to know where I've been? I've been right here. Right where I've always been. Haven't moved a muscle.

canto 16
This is the 16th and I should be proud but the apathy seeps from my very pours. That little ******* was about to take a **** in the corner. When I picked him up to take him to the paper he dropped a couple of turds on the floor beneath me. I guess he couldn't wait.

canto 17
Sometimes things change so much that it's hard to tell if they're for the best or the worst. It is at these times that I enjoy a good evening on the water, enjoying my yacht and eating peanuts from another man's sack. Salted peanuts with pickled eggs and deviled ham with a side order of angel food crack.

canto 18
My wrist hurts and I've lost the will to **** socks.

canto 19
The lawn chair has been placed under extreme scrutiny. It's rocking motion is being scientifically tested and arranged for packaging. The physics of this miracle are in the process of logistical infiltration. You'd be surprised at how useful a rocking lawn chair can be in a world tangled in war. It's a good place to relax. For paranoids, that is.

canto 20
Bird feathers of a different post, it has never made a lick of sense and the promises made were broken. Who was that man in the bird suit? Why was he making all those funny noises? I'll have to investigate. Lawd have mercy I do believe I've **** my pants.

canto 21
Don't come crying to me if you feel misunderstood. I can read right through you and I know that all you're doing is fishing for a compliment. You will not receive one from me, Salty Dog, not because you don't deserve one. You probably do. But not from me. Perhaps you should take up your case with Hoda Kotbe. Who knows but that you might look really, really good on television. Just remember to feed the dog before you leave. He gets hungry. But he doesn't miss you. I don't mean to break your heart, but the rational man within me is very convincing when he tells me you are a real pickle.

canto 22
Those comments are found particularly offensive in light of the situation in the Gulf. You need to regulate your interest in beans. One day you'll fly to the Middle East looking for peace and all you will find are demons like the ones who raised so much hell in "The Exorcist". You don't want that, do you? Settle for Ranch Style and leave the diplomacy to the masters.

canto 23 (the "lost" canto)
I wouldn't wish this on a barrel full of monkeys. They say that time heals all wounds and I suppose it does. No "if"s, "and"s or "but"s. Don't believe me? Listen to 'em snarl. They're hungry for blood and sandwiches. I owe you nothing, so perhaps I'll send you a good time from New York. You gotta love a trapeze artist.

canto 24
I'm trying my best to change the world but the fact remains that the human race does not deserve the kind of tender loving care that I'm well known for. This holiday event will not include high temperatures or the kind of crap the weather people try to sell you.

canto 25
******* Valhalla. This is how it always seems to wind up, isn't it, Pinnochio? Just when you think things are getting better, BAM, ****** up again.

canto 26
You know you've reached a severe point of boredom when you switch to the Daystar Network and find yourself singing along to the bogus faith healers. Pecans on that one, please.

canto 27
Plug away, Sailor. Keep plugging away. When you get there you can say you plugged away with as much vim and vigor as a much larger man. Slough it off, O Great one. Keep sloughing it off. When you get there you can say you sloughed it off with as much skill and empathy as one might expect from a lizard. Or a monster frog.

canto 28 (the "twenty-eighth canto")
Come, look at my incredible collection of dice. Right next to my collection of mice. Next to that bowl of rice. Sugar and spice, everything nice. My head's full of lice. Don't think twice, just break the ice. Pup your puppy dog in the freezer.

canto 29
My toes are cold and so is my nose. I should be concerned with this situation but, strangely, I could care less. There are so many other, more important things to worry about. Like how many frosted flakes are in that box over there. And is there any milk left? And is it the real deal or that phony 2%? 1%? Skim milk is even worse. If it gets down to that point I'll save the money and use tap water. Don't think for a moment that I won't.

canto 30
Colored pencils expect risque answers to tame pencils. Unfortunately the quality of superior eggs is relative to the ice cream that has dripped down your shirt. You're starting to smell bad and I would highly recommend soaking in vinegar for an hour or six.

canto 31
There are times when I wish the planet would implode and **** every living thing into a void. I don't wanna die, but if I'm gonna I want everyone else to come with me. I'm tired of hearing about God's word. But even more so John Hagee's special gift for your love offering of any amount, the super duper Bible verse audio player, with selected passages read by the man himself. You can leave him behind.

canto 32 (the "same as the 31st" canto)
There are times when I wish the planet would implode and **** every living thing into a void. I don't wanna die, but if I'm gonna I want everyone else to come with me. I'm tired of hearing about God's word. But even more so John Hagee's special gift for your love offering of any amount, the super duper Bible verse audio player, with selected passages read by the man himself. You can leave him behind.

canto 33
Yazaa, yazaa, yazaa I told you I was gonna steal that car. You didn't think I had the guts, did you? But look who's laughing now! That guy with the big flower in his pocket must really feel like **** right now, realizing that his awesome vehicle is no longer in his possession. Maybe get an ice cream cone, maybe feel better.

canto 34
Come out of your hidey-hole, scurvy dog. Rat scabies be breathing down your neck and it's cold and old and you'll do as you're told. Pinch back that stray lock of hair, O Queen of Sheba. You shall spend the rest of your days parked on a green chariot overlooking Lake Erie

canto 35
You could have given me a reason for the season. Instead you had nothing to offer but a huge chunk of pepperoni that had mold growing all over it. Admittedly it was delicious but surely you could have come up with something a bit more expressive of the tender emotions I inspired within your fluttering heart.

canto 36
The prospect of a news reporter calling you a crack head based on information gleamed from your Internet social network profiles is quite terrifying, but when you tie the noose you might as well make sure it was time well spent. It's a shame you shaved your head because the painful truth is that now you bear a striking resemblance to Telly Savalas.

canto 37
Energy. That's what is required. And not just the kind of energy you can get from sugar, caffeine and butter. If it were that easy you could be **** sure that the Catholic Church would be the first in line to canonize it. They have a burning desire to fall off the wagon. "Which wagon?" you may ask. The one with the ice cream, of course. Don't be a fool.

canto 38 (a "short" canto)
If boredom is a sea in which one can easily sink into and drown in, I must be swimming the Atlantic.

canto 39
When the dog barks like that it's a sure bet that he's been neutered in the last few days. It's a sad and sorrowful sound that is only recognized by **** knockers in the deep woods.

canto 40
I could stare at the bars of this prison for the rest of my life. Okay, that's *******.

canto 41
Who was it that once said time is the only reliable concept in the universe? Oh, wait. That was me

canto 42
They tell you to wait. That's what it's all about. Wait, wait, wait, wait until I can almost feel my hair turning gray. The estimated time is currently number 7 the estimated hold time is 4 minutes, thank you for your patience. Well, you're welcome, comrade.

canto 42
I've only to surrender you to the world, lie down and wait for it to crush me.

canto 43
If I can only keep it together...if I can only hold it together this one time, I know the gravy train will come my way. Would it do any good to pray? This isn't the first time that enlightenment and illumination have reared their blessed heads. Would that I could live within them this time.

canto 44
Have I told you lately how much I hate to wait? Thinketh not that the Chair has lost it's financial imbalance, the very thread of chocolate that brought you here. It is still a very important and, some would say, a hot topic regardless of the amount of grime, sweat, blood and V8 juice is spilled on it's ivory shaped pear seat.

canto 45
The shadows turn into cloaks, dark itchy woolen capes that enfold the nothingness beneath them, the nothingness of being. You could have worked a little longer and a little harder on that one, amigo.

canto 46
It's been awhile but my wrist still hurts and I've written the word "moon" on the back of my hand with a Sharpie.

canto 47
I'm movin' this **** to WordPress. No I'm not. **** WordPress. Press WordFuck. Word FuckPress. On and on and on and on and not the least bit clever or entertaining. But I do like steaks.

canto 48
I swear to God I wish I had never taken that first hit of ****. Look what it's done to me. After so many years, I guess I was only fooling myself. Or maybe I was so dumbed down that it didn't seem to matter. But now things have changed. And I can do nothing about it. Dump a can of Campbell's Chunky Soup into a bowl, throw it into the microwave, let 'er go for three minutes, let 'er cool down in the oven for a couple more, stir in a quarter cup of Tabasco sauce, let 'er cool down for a little while longer, mix in a ****-load of Cheez-It reduced fat crackers and then go to ******* town. Go to ******* town, I say, **** the stoner days.

They brought her in
Through the hard wood double doors
She had a hard expression stamped on her face
That seemed out of place for the occasion
Almost as if she wanted to be there
It softened a tiny bit with the blast of the air conditioner
Melted for half a moment
Only to dry, thickening cement, the next
I don't remember
If I ever knew
Who piloted her into that cold room
Who held the handles of the wheel chair that had replaced her  legs
But I do recall how they set her in a corner
The better to survey the gathering
She divided every man and woman, young and old
Into two factions
Friend
Foe
I knew exactly where I stood in that division
With the majority
And she made a scene when she saw me
Impotent to rise and look me in the face (as if she would have)
Crippled
Pathetic
As the words I don't remember and the way she spoke them...
It wasn't the time or the place
So the two factions splintered into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two...
Some converted
To leave her alone with her blood
And the ghost of the man
She
Unknowingly
Killed

It doesn't take a weapon to **** a man
No accident, cancer, water, gravity, fire
Age
Her petty selfishness squeezed his heart
And her unreasonable ultimatums broke it
All that was left was to wait and see
How long it would take the poison to do it's work
As it turned out, it didn't take long

And I don't doubt that she cried
She was too stupid to realize what she'd done
She had no idea what she was doing
And I don't doubt she loved  him
In her own possessive, dominating way
It hadn't seemed to bother him
And I don't doubt that she grieved bitterly
She wasn't made of stone
You don't just **** away so many years
And I don't doubt that she missed him with time
For he was good to her
Much better than she deserved
But I doubt she thought of him
In her final dying days

The last time I saw her
She was stranded by the check-out counters in a Wal-Mart store
Tethered to the slick plastic seat of the wheelchair she'd accepted
Her pilot had gone off, maybe to the restroom
Maybe to fetch some powdered donuts forgotten on the grocery list
For whatever reason
She was left there, alone, solitary
Looking around the place like a curious turtle
Slow, halted by time
All alone
An island abandoned
Left to her own company
All alone
A sad, ridiculous sight
Soon enough cut down

She left a lot to be forgiven for
The heavy weight of anger eventually
Became too much for me to bear
For  him, for myself, not for her
I stood on that sacred ground
I touched the stone
I said, "For you, for you alone
I will let it go
I will let it go"

Now
I'm stuck in a moment,
Ashamed, Repentant,
That forgiveness would have spared
A chance to be the better man
But a foolish impulse shut it out
A self-satisfied second of self-assurance
Believing I was justified
I was satisfied to speak my mind
Not wanting to care but almost knowing
How deluded it was
Incapable of seeing anything else besides
What I wanted to see

Time crawls slowly on
Giving birth to more and more moments
I will soon enough break free of this one
To leave my transgressions behind
Consigning them to forgetfulness
The usual procedure
I will become unstuck from this one

None of it is so heavy a stone
That will and the need to move on
Cannot roll away

So I prepare to forget
The thoughtlessness of my actions
As I resolve never to look back
In this moment
I would have you know
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I would hope you forget
Leaving you behind
Won't be any easier knowing
You already have

Forgotten

Maybe I watch these fools
Because I want to believe
Or because I hold out hope
That one has a word of truth
For me
I've always been disappointed before
But I'm willing to accept a miracle
Were it offered
I have a gut feeling
These fools won't be the ones with that gift
To give

So what, then? Why?
Why do I turn up my nose and
Level a sharp cynical stare
At these snake charming hucksters?
I know all they do
I percieve their intention
I hear the lulling lilt of the seducer's song
That rolls like fragrant incense
From their serpent-tongue mouths
Lips chapped and bleeding
I smell the stench of their breath

All have eyes to see
All have ears to hear
Still the blind lead the blind
Their hands deep in pockets

The damage done
I sit and stare without guilt
Because I love to see the deciever in action
All the better I'll be able to recognize him
When he comes knocking at my door

Everything's out now
In the air, in the open
On the table
Spilling over the sides
More to come
Still, I'm just not sure this was the right way to go about it

I want to take some back
Though it felt so cathartic to unload
The empty space vacated
Is hungry for the secrets I've given away
The fresh void
Craves the pampered memories
The lost recollections that once glowed with shame
I miss the skeletons I've evicted from my soul closet
Recklessly disassembled
Tossed out with no rhyme or reason
Onto this pyre
Too late to turn back now, I've already lit the fire
I could reach in, perhaps
Sacrifice fingers or hands to retrieve precious few
But which ones?
Would they be enough to fill the churning stomach?
Would I grow to resent them for the ones that weren't chosen?
No...best to let them all burn with limbs and digits intact

The excavation process seemed so simple at the time
Heavy weights lifted from my shoulders
The promise of a bright and shining future
Unburdened by revelation I thought I could offer
So sure it would change lives, not the least of which
My own
How naïve to believe
It was worth anything in the first place
It belonged with the dancing skeletons
In the hole with the transparent ghosts of guilt
Evil twin, doppelganger of gravity
To pull me down into sinful reality

I loved them all

I still do
Though I'm quite sure I've murdered them
They will never die
My salvation comes only in the knowledge
That they belong to the past,
Unable to survive outside of the paradigm in which they are imprisoned,
And that it is my very nature
As a human being
To live in the present moment
In which they have no power

My head is bowed
Pelted by pellets of invisible rain
That burn life sparks from a smelter
The heat of the sun, quickly vanishing
Realization stabs deep, lightning sharp
Bright, brilliant for only a second
Then gone, gone, gone from it's target
Chosen for it's revelation
I feel the thunder shake my guts
No longer in the distance
The hammer strikes hard
And the flash of metal on steel
Spits electricity, aimed with precision
So I cover my head with my hands
My instinct is to hit the ground
Assume the position
Hide in a cellar womb, conceived in my mind
For just this purpose
I should not have made the promise
Not to venture too far
From fetal security
It's much better in this gelatinous cellar tomb
White washed as it is by all Your lies

Can you feel the wind blowing?
Howling and whining, whistling a dreadful tune
Giving voice to ghosts and spirits, angry at me
Threatening to knock me down, back to the ground
******* down and stone me
With lethal hailstones as the apostle stands back to watch
Threaten to whip me up and whirl me around
Just so much debris caught in the jaws of a hungry tornado
It threatens to toss me off, useless detritus
Into ever growing puddles
But I am a heavy feather
A wet leaf, mired in fresh mud
So I ain't goin' nowhere

If I had the nerve
I would lift up my head from useless prayers
Take a quick look and hope to see
Where it's all coming from
Grey clouds drifting too quickly
Ugly colors on infinite canvas
Confusing melodies drawn upon staves of silence
Sick, *****, murky ether
That delivers nothing but bad tidings
I only want to **** the messenger
The artist, the composer
I know exactly where to find Him
He's in the womb
He's in the tomb
And he's mean to ***** me out of his silent mouth
And he's heartless to leave me alone for these years he's given me
And he's cruel to teach me of the Grand Obsession
That will take me back to Him

I will stop up my ears aganst the raging tempest
Because I do not want to hear
So sure that my denial
Rooted, as it is, in ignorance
Will perform alchemy
If only in the playground of my mind
A minor tweak in the illusion
But I have not the nerve
Nor have I the skills
My magic is too fragile
So my back remains hunched
Eyes still closed
Head in hands, bobbing back and forth
To the beat
Of some heavy rock music I've chosen
To drown out the sound
Of the Hurricane

We don't say "I love you" anymore
The sentiment buried deep
Seldom considered
Never discussed
A declaration that swims
With memories
Sinks with exhaustion
Hardens with repetition
Deep in the recesses of our souls
The fear of it's loss
Is the proof of it's existence
Throughout it's evolution
How painful to let go of what it once was
How difficult to grasp what it has become
How dreadful to consider what it may turn into
Sublimated, as it is
Fighting gravity to escape the ocean floor
This love awaits resurrection
The renewal of senses dumbed down

"I love you" takes it's rightful place
Beyond the realm of intelligence
Into the dumb bliss of Spirit
To mingle with childhood dreams
Memories of carnivals and candy
Moms and Dads
To pick up after us
Teaching, alas, by example
Wide-eyed wonder for alien species
Dogs and cats and turtles and frogs
Butterflies and bees, lightning bugs and praying mantis
We marvel at it's devotion and wonder
What is he praying for? Who is he praying for?
More likely we marveled at how green he was
Days when we knew love without knowing it's name
Before we knew what it was
A given
Yes, a Given
Waiting for the day when it would be
Taken for granted
Yes, Taken

The words have become useless to us
Offered and received so many times
Put them to rest
Hope for the best

Ghosts and Spirits whirl like dervishes
Caught and crammed into a soft metal silo
Freed from time but tied to space by a coil
Clinging to dream, the lucky few
Vacate the hive for a moment
A short minute for remembrance
Denied a quick forgetting
Or consigned to lonely park benches
Behind seldom opened doors
Locked in basements, difficult to enter
Segregated from the swarm
Yet cursed in cherished imprisonment
They never grow old
They envy the ones ignored
Those who are being forgotten
Breaking their chains for good
Melting into the atmosphere
Where they belong
Parting the dead sea
They crawl without a leader
Too numb to appreciate this unexpected exodus
Caring less for those left behind
Knowing that they, for all their loneliness
Are the blessed ones

Sylvia,

It seems as if I have taken you
To the point
Where happiness and smiles give way
To hard cynicism
Too early, too soon
Too much for such a one as you
To embrace this vision of mine
Tainted, as it is, with regrets
Tragedies you will never know
Long before you'll have to deal
With your own
I wish I could keep you
From carrying my weight
It is too heavy for the both of us

Maybe I shoved you
Across the line that seperates
Blame and compassion
To a place where forgiveness isn't even an option
For one as innocent as I
Of these things, at least
These transgressions channeled through me by fate
To serve some cosmic purpose
We'll never understand
To work out the sins of our fathers
To examine and analyze them
To ask why
We are the sacrifice for their return to innocence
Awaiting our own

Could it be that I have pushed you
Over the edge
To free fall into the void
Or did you jump by your own design?  
Did the emptiness lure you?
The Siren's song silence you long to know?
Head filled with the foolish notion
That your dreams have been spent
Fleeing from fire, a more palatable alternative
Hoping for shock to excise spirit
Before gravity has completed it's work

Sylvia, my darling
Love of my life
What have I done?
Have my eyes become blind to your beauty?
Is the sound of your voice no longer music to my ears?
Have I become loathsome to you?
What is it which causes you to recoil?
I understand, my love, I understand
I feel the same way when I see my own reflection
The image of a broken man, robbed of joy
Burdened with sadness
Not only for what I've become
But in remembrance of the long, mean road
That brought me here
Set out to journey
Guided until a fork in the road frightened God away
On my own I have come to this
I regret a lot of things in my life,
Sylvia,
But the biggest regret is letting you come with me
You wore me down with your begging
Your pleas that only I could hear
Your devotion, Your loyalty
Like drugs
I was addicted
So I pretended

Now I think you see
Through the facade
Straight into what I am
What's inside of me
Wallow where I once wallowed
Way back when wallowing was the reason
The way to keep the cruelty at bay
I never wanted it to be this way
Sylvia, now I fear
It's too late

I have no easy answers
I have nothing at all worth sharing
You see, I'm wallowing even now
Old habits die hard
The sins of the fathers
They rest upon your shoulder
Heavy or light, the burden remains
May well be you will never lay it down
Until time takes me far away
Until space expands into forever
Until gratitude can only be expressed
At the point where cynicism melts
To reveal love in it's infancy
Until empathy bends the line into a circle
Trapping hope, barring hatred
Within and without the separating wall of Infinity
Strong arms await the impact of the Fall
To break it, caring less for your motivation
Only wanting to carry you home and away

If not, so mote it be
A long as you lay it down
When you lay me down

In all sincerity,
Ted

If I could ask for anything
I'd ask for nothing
Would that be too much to ask?
Would it be more than you could give?
I could expect nothing less
So I will ask for nothing
Knowing
That my prayer will be answered
It has been answered
So be it

Apathy rots...
What will it take
To awaken you
When you've lost faith in dreams?
When sleep is a warm amnesia
Nothing more
Granted, a good thing
For a wise old man
Whose mind is stuffed with memories
A good thing
For a tired old soul
Weighing experience on rusty scales
Whose biggest regret
Is having succumbed to apathy
Realizing, too late,
What a weak enemy it is
How easy it would have been
To conquer and subdue it
To bend it to the will and tame it
It couldn't be all that hard
But you have barely set off on the journey
You can offer advice to no one
Even as you take no advice from anyone
Who convinced you your soul was black?
Do you think there will ever come a day when
You will forgive him
You will forgive her
For lying to you?  

"It is better to have loved and lost
Than to never have loved at all"
What a **** shame William's wisdom
Has been relegated to the status of a Hallmark greeting card  
Where so many people laugh and snicker
So secure in their smug little minds
That they have a ******* clue what it really means
That they don't have a use for this kind of optomistic philosophy
Or the sad sacks who just don't get it
Who can't look past their pain and bitterness
To grasp it's prophecy
Who won't swallow the pill because they just don't want to
Even if they know
(as they all do)
That it's a cure

Me?
I'm powerless
I WISH I didn't care
But that's a death wish
I'm a child who loves his toys
I don't want them taken from me
Christmas is around the corner and you know what that means
That's right!
MORE TOYS!!!