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

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

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

No dignity for the 4th Floor Psych Ward gang
Paraded about through the entire building
Rockin' and rollin' blue & white striped bath robes
Didn't bother with the belts, we coulda made it work
By sheer determination and the awkward looks on our faces
We set the trend for people who didn't know any better

Out for a trip to the commissary
Fifty cents in hand for a can of soda
Even though the medicine I was on
Made Dr. Pepper taste like club soda infused with flecks of rust
And a metallic, radioactive aftertaste
That was far from the sugar rush one would expect
Coca-Cola was even worst

Such dignity we carried, they called the food tray box "the chow cart"
And the food was barely fit for animals
Quickly transitioning from warm to cool
Always some ridiculously nasty chicken-based meal
I had never seen a fried chicken breast that was gray
But the sherbet was heaven for my cotton mouth
Dry as the tundra
I lost a lot of weight during those months
I survived on the fourth floor
I shot some 8-Ball pool with swagger and Sinatra confidence
Convinced I saw recognition in a visiting gal's eye
A flick of the wrist and this goofball magically exuded *** appeal
Nothing more than confidence
I could make those two girls smile and blush
Because they could sense the looseness in my crotch
They could see I was in charge, batshit crazy as I may have been
I had reached the perfect weight
For those blue and white striped bath robes to truly shine

I let them walk away, didn't say anything
I knew where they were going
I knew what they'd be doing when they got there
Always on their minds

Why couldn't the catatonic Ethiopian soldier girl do it like me?
She couldn't even hold a spoon
Psych techs had to feed her like a helpless baby child
Even then she resisted
So that food dribbled down the sides of her cheeks
But one day I passed her room, looking in
She was brushing her hair without a problem
There was some intelligence in her eyes
She caught me staring and with perfect ease she rose to close the door in my face
Catatonic no more?
Or was she ever?
Was ANY of this real
Or was it all staged for my benefit?
What exactly was I doing on the fourth floor?
Was it a test?
Was I a guinea pig?
That spot on my skull just behind my right ear
It itched a lot lately
Was that bump a quartz crystal embedded between skin and muscle?

Why yes, I believe it is

Swinging innuendos
Took one on the chin
Let her get away with it
Won't happen again
Transparent metaphors
Got something to hide
She doesn't want me to know about
Clues will be denied
I can't write anymore
For fear of what she'll say
Even if she flatters me
It's only for a day
I'm nothing next to her bright star
With nothing content to bring
She keeps me looking for meanings
In the most meaningless things

I am the dreamer
From the other side of a galaxy
Whose dream is of the dreamer
Sleeping, sprawled out in a young lady's
Victorian boudoir, snoring ignored on this
Chemically imbalanced meeting place of
Her own dream
Walking on the sea
Sleeps with his eyes open
Her wild eye child
Made an enemy of gravity all the while
Too far gone entwined  with infinity
She dreams of my return to ME
Dare I wish such a dream come true?
Break forth like tiny claws ripping fragile egg
Shells
It is me, flying like a rocket angel
Got my sights on Saturn and Jupiter
It is me, flung away like aborted children
This tunnel is necessary
You will never reach the moons of Jupiter
Without a week in the mud
You won't know what's in that mud
You won't know what's on those moons
That's enough work for 2 year
Close your eyes and go back to dream
Yes, perchance to dream
Of the future of the known universe
Of worms, hungry worms
Worms dreaming of men dreaming of worms
Those same dreaming worms feasting on men
Those same dreaming men feasting on worms
All but one of them truly surprised by how tasty these worms are
The worms, however, are not as impressed with the human flesh, generally dismissed as
"Tastes like chicken"

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

A light breeze stirred by a ceiling fan
Rust colored grapes with unused wick
Black boxes making loud noise
Wood, steel, dust for ignoring
Seven books of circles, missing two
Eyeless snake, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow
A substitute for your tears
Glass wax filled cup extolling LOVE
Bars of buttons, black, silver and white
Metal cross that will never be pierced by nails
A portrait of Jesus Christ beneath red time
Dead motor starving for electricity
The smell of ***** stirred by the whirling spirit breeze
Flower time never passing five twenty three
Altar temporarily darkness shrouded
Rabbit, flowers, bear, O Happy day
Invisible God sings “Come back again”
Sound and vision categorized, rarely seen or heard
Small life, tiny breathes, hungry for ****
Magic metal cubes, alchemic circles
From thin air, manifested manufactured chaos
Messages, riddles, proclamations of love
A bedtime story about the Wild West
Slices of trees, glued together, given names
Shadows, mirrored lights, ceiling fan, triptych
The Great Emancipator looking under fingerprint stained glass, discarded
Evolved being denying the elements
Narcissist pools everywhere
Incredible miracle fed through lines and air
Cells with open doors, keys thrown away
Prisoners content, afraid of what’s outside
Poets fooling themselves believe in inspiration
All of this. All of this. All of this.
All of that. All of that. All of that.
It overwhelms, confuses and boggles
Try to take it all in---explode and disappear
A chain hangs from the ceiling
Pull it once, the ceiling fan turns
Pull it twice, the ceiling fan slows to a stoop
And if you pull it really hard
You will yank the ceiling fan from it’s moorings
If lights are part of the fixture
They will break into a thousand tiny fragments
If you step on one your foot will bleed

I'm not feeling sorry for myself anymore
Though you may perceive it otherwise
I'm not wallowing in melancholia
As if it were the only drug
I'm addicted to
It isn't

In death, perhaps
I can slough off all these dead weights
That bar the entrance to my heart
That block joy and lasting happiness
That keep me from loving you
That keep me distant and alone
That keep the thoughts, judgments, cynical tainted observations
From mattering enough to mean anything

The responsibilities of life
Hit me too hard
I was too young
Forty years later
I'm still reeling
Stunned
But I'm not feeling sorry for myself
Because everyone carries a cross
God Himself brings the hammer and spikes
Just hanging around waiting for you to
Find a place to lay down and die
Nowhere on earth seems good enough

I'm not feeling sorry for myself
I'm just feeling sorry
Because for every moment of peace
Contentment and satiation
A fortnight of confusion
Despair and uncertainty

O, what a life

Open my mind, let the thoughts pour out
Too far gone to feel ashamed
Open my mouth, loosen my tongue right now
It doesn't matter who is to blame
I have been locked up in my own life for too long
My greedy heart is broken
All I ever had to offer was a song
And these words I've never spoken

Could you help me out? Could you lift me up?
Could you help me find the things I've lost?
Help me pick them up...help me sort them out
Put them back where they belong
I have been running on empty for so long
I could use some company
Someone just like you to come along
To help me find the way back to me

So take my heart...Take my mind, my strength
Take anything you need
Take my crown...take everything
But don't leave me
I have been frozen in my own world for so long
I can't hear what you are saying
All I ever had to offer was a song
But it's a song I'm never playing

Tonight we enter into a covenant of lies
Sealed with the blood of a million dreams
Tonight you turn and walk away
Tonight I ask you not to pray
For me or anything in my life
Listen to your old reggae albums and
Waste the night wishing away
Wishing and hoping, hoping and scheming
If only things could be
The way things used to be
Don't you know it don't matter?
Hold on to your sanity, the little that's left

Off with your mask, foul deceiver
My eyes pried half-open, mud still dripping
People like trees
Just enough to see
A halting glance of who you really are
Horrid face painted, ugly and hateful hidden
Behind pretty shades of green and haze of smoke
Pleasing to the senses, illuminating the beauty of numbness
Tripping me into the abyss, you make darkness out of love
And convince me that it is found in the
Empty spaces, colour-absent
Twin brother of lies
Your heart is hard
You stifle a laugh to keep me from knowing
Your contempt

From what deep well of despair
Did you draw the crisp clean draught
Of incontrovertible truth?
How many shrank from the reflection
Cast plainly from your gaze?
The marionette caught up in the maelstrom
Uncomfortable to watch
Reservoir of human suffering
You wouldn't close your eyes
Perhaps you saw too much

from high above the clouds billions of raindrops
shapeshift in free fall weightless collective vertigo
moonlight's glow casts a shimmer on the screen
blink-and-you'll-miss-it stabs of lightning
slash holes in dark clouds that reconnect with
the exhilarating, damning clash of God's displeasure
deafening earth-shaking thunder one after the other
I turn my music down so I can hear the din
all the windows in this hail-washed house have drapes drawn apart, shades rolled up
so I can watch the majestic display and pray
for a tornado to swing by just close enough
for me to gaze at but so faraway as to assure no damage to my observatory

these storms call to mind
secrets, reminisces surprising, in their own personal way terrifying

knew a dude in high school
found out too late he was the go-to man for controlled substances in those days
this kind of weather would send him to the phone
dialing Rhonda's number and she knew exactly what the call was about
the wind that swirled 'round the eye told her
she hit the ignition in the cute cherry red Ford truck he'd given her and braved the storm until she made it to his house

maybe it was an adolescent power trip
the sensation he felt through his ***** when the thunder spoke
then when it screamed he ******
she melted, the explosive crash drowning out the involuntary gasp which escaped through clinched teeth, the precursor to secret tears she seemed to have no control over
pitch dark, intermittent lightning strikes to illuminate the Storm King sprawled out beneath her, the look of aroused determination on his face growing more elastic with the clatter of hailstones on glass windows

I never knew about the drugs, didn't need them then, though I sorely need them now
but I knew he called Rhonda every time weather turned severe
the talk amongst peers was that the two of them were never seen together in an underground shelter no matter how bad the moon may have risen
Nudge nudge wink wink a nods as good as a wink to a blind horse say no more, squire, say no more!

I envied them
I broke cheap champagne glasses when the storm came and used them
to carve snaking tendrils across my wrists
barely any blood shed but scared the *******out of that witch my dad married after mom left
it was my failsafe procedure to assure at least another month away from them
yes, the mental hospital was preferable

the rain fell ******* the Doctor's house
weatherman said tornadoes were inevitable
flipped a switch in my brain, activated a mean streak
Doctor's favorite was insufferable
brewed a gallon of sweet tea every day and drank every drop
I saw lightnin on the horizon but that Big Bad Bear with the gun he stole from the Doc was nowhere to be found
I'd be leaving soon
I took out the gallon pitcher from the refrigerator
not even cold yet
unzipped my too-tight jeans
hung my spout over the edge and turned the beverage into 1/2 sweet tea & 1/2 cloudy dark yellow *****
placed it back in the fridge and waited

sat with him that night, playing guitar, singing incomprehensible songs, watching him drink that **** tea and possessed by just enough evil to laugh
in a ridiculously high pitch and enunciated to where I knew he couldn't understand what I was saying...
I sang
"****** in yer tea you know I ****** in your tea
aren't you so ******* at me?"
he never found out, else I probably would not be here to tell the tale

I had my excuses
broken and discarded
I was lost
toyed with the idea of being a Satanist
still lost
standing outside in the middle of an electrical storm
yes, I'm afraid
I'm told family members have been killed by a well-placed bolt and if it's good enough for them
by God
it's good enough for me
rain baptizes me, too stupid to come in out of it
the thunder makes me **** and shudder
lightning a brilliant fireworks show surpassing the best available powder and fire variety
I have become part and parcel of this thunderstorm
wait only for the appointed bolt to impale me with it's rapier voltage
here he come swingin' I almost missed him what with his night-black get-up-camouflaged by the black night that tried to hide me from his sight
alas, foiled by too much lightning

voltage from the heavens
I could personally think of much worse

This gallery of shape-shifting souls
Has become a theater of the obvious

Token observations presented as
Extraordinary divine revelation

A parade of window-shopping prophets
Pointing, praying, "oooh, I want THAT one"

Stuck in a mold, how many don't know any better?
Confined to their emotions

It's All they've ever known

But that's all it takes to get your foot in the door
Of this funhouse mirror maze

Listen now to the laughter echoing against the glass
Lon Chaney guffaws at all who got lost

Hopelessly walking in circles
Hungry snakes chasing their tails

We do all exhort love, do we not?
We all do revere it and give it a place
A throne, for love is a king
A tender taskmaster, needing no castle
Instead finding a dwelling place
In the heavens and in the heart

Let us worship this cause of love
Let us give praise to this idea
This concept which unites us
In ignorance or total, complete understanding
We can find it in the minds of every human being that ever existed

No lifeless golem, this Spirit of Air
Air…such a priceless gift to the drowning
No heartless demon, Spirit of Fire and Ice
Spirit of Earth

Our love weeps for our losses
Our love cares for lost children
Our love does not recoil in the face of our enemy
Our love kisses and kills
Our love breaks hearts only to make them grow again anew
Our love heals those wounds
Our love tells lies, none of us care
Our love offers a smile at just the right time
Our love reaches out a hand
Our love lifts one up
Our love eases one down
Our love speaks through music
Our love speaks in tongues
So that all will hear and know the song of our love

The sun is naught but heat to the blind man
Each one of us is blind to everythig outside our own perception of love.
This is a kind of love that can never be seen in it’s entirety
Having encircled infinity
This love is the heat that falls on the blind man
Even a blind man realizes that there must be something within
Which allows the sensation, illuminates it

Our love makes it’s presence known
But refuses a name

Trust follows love around like a shadow on the ground
Patience a gift to the anxious who cannot wait
Not even the shadow can touch it
Yet, in all it’s glory, love is a heart breaker
Only love could so masterfully combine pain and pleasure
To let us know when we are in love
Or to let us know love’s been lost
Through it’s touch the emotional carnage of tragedy is soothed with time until all that’s left behind is bearable
Love allows a space for mourning
But hurries to get on with it
To get on with life and the living
Where we belong
For there will soon enough come a time to mourn again

Seems the best music is
Coming out of Sweden these days
Iceland and Sweden
Nordic strains for angels to sing
Cleverly hidden love songs to the
Real God who listens
Who understands the language
And recognizes each emotional inflection
In the voice even when the language
Is gibberish, gobbledygook
Smiles thought it all
Revealing these ice white molars
He seems so proud of
Truth be told he's proud of Imannu El
And Sigur Ros
They represent they heavenly choir
On earth quite well
They are his gift to a tired people
To the jaded and cynical
May their innocence bring a moments
Bliss
To the beaten down and ready-to-die
May their harmonious melodies
Shine a light on one more joy filled day
To took forward to
And if that fails let the be joy and bliss
Within themselves
To keep the poor man company
Thus fulfilling the will of the Lord

****
Writer's block has got me
By the short and curlies
I wanna be profound
Grammatically sound
Surely I have something to say
Or maybe I really don't
Could be it isn't writer's block at all
I'm just boring tonight
Tonight of all nights
I was gonna write a new Odyssey
I was gonna compose a postmodern version
Of The Divine Comedy
By God I was gonna make a name for myself
Acch, my short and curlies
They're all over the place
Writer's block is a *****

There is an exquisite melancholy that comes
When basking in the revelation that
I was never as good as I thought I was
With a good number of years stuffed between
Halcyon days
and
The dull-edged moment

The deeper I look into those dark eyes
The more I want to jump in
The fear subsides if only a fraction at a time
Until I reach this point
Where I embrace the bridge that takes me away from here
With nothing left behind any less better off that I'm gone
For every tear shed a million stifled yawns
And that's fine with me because
What I see on the other side of that chasm
All that's waiting for me
Is all I've wanted, all I've needed
Drowning in those dark eyes
Will be an easy enough rite of passage

I wonder what happened here?
The stench of ***** is strong
Foul
The vacant faces lining the walls
Seem not to notice
Careless of blame
Fumbling around in their own dark minds

Something definitely happened here
The smart ones mill about
Sworn to secrecy
Their eyes give them away
The air of unease
Betrays their awareness
Ready to spill, but not to me

This is the moment Tolle exalts
Unconcerned with directions
Left, past, right, future
Full stop center in linear
A chronology we don't trust
I'm bullseye center
In the shadow of I Am That I Am
Happy to be there
Aching wrist holding this iPhone still
While my numb left pointer taps
The tiny letters and the long harmed f space
Clicking these incomprehensible words
As gallons and gallons of race be
Pour  from selfish yet hursting bags of water
Lightning flashes brilliant illumination
On the center of the spiral
The black hole is surely out of our reach
The exhaustion of trying to edplain
Sends me to the kitchen in hopes of finding an orange
Or pickle juice in lieu of apple and salt

My apologies are powerless
Useful for nothing
Damage done, no turning back now
No point in saying I'm sorry
To myself or anyone

All I can do is hope
You know I was powerless
To keep the tide from turning
I watched it wash over you
Unable to stretch out my hands for you to take hold of
To keep you safe from the undertow
They were tied
They might as well have been nailed to wood

Contemplating my predicament
I'm confused, uncertain
There had to have been a time, who knows how long ago
When the water flowed over me
Sometime, it had to have been a long time ago
The monster swallowed me whole
Only
To ***** my stinking body three days later, stained indelibly
(Three days is a long, long time)
Onto an empty beach, littered with broken glass, rocks and bottle tops
Signs that say, "No Swimming" and "Danger: Sharks!"

I'm sorry
Because I know how and I know why and I know where it's all gonna lead
I'm sorry
Because I'll never tell you
My apologies are powerless
Because they won't change a **** thing

Ah, look. The waters are still at last.
Somebody call a priest.

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

By the time the nuclear bombs blast
Peppering the terrain in every corner of the world
We'll be so weary of the world
We'll bow before the flash bulb shock
And thank the Holy Law of Physics
For delivering us from it
A place where compassion requires too many limits
Where looking out for number one reveals
Number one is a right *******
No better than number two
Who won't be satisfied until he's number one
We've seen too much with our eyes
Too many times shown the weakness in our values
Trust no one, least of all yourself
It's only the grace of wonder
That keeps us from slaying each other outright
So it can't come soon enough
Christen AWACs the new Enola Gay
And load them with enough warheads to take out the coasts (for starters)
Give this cursed species a good dose of radiation
After the flood
God said he would never again annihilate man
So the task has been turned over to us
Those of us who love truth and justice
In their undiluted form
To wipe the Tarmac clean
Set back and wait for the poison rays to tear us up from the inside out
O, to be the last man standing
The one who gets to say
"Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Amen"...and then fall to the ground
Exhaling the last breath of God
The singularity the last thing in his field of vision
None of it mattered
None of it meant a ******* thing

drowning in your eyes
would be such a cool way to die
all my memories floating by before my eyes
unfamiliar
these are the things that i thought i'd remember
lost in one forgotten night with you

i must be
deaf
dumb
blind
all those memories left behind
i can hear them
they are crying out to me
to remember
sanity lost on the 8th of December
gone but not forgotten in your life

if i were a child
who hadn't yet lost his innocence
all that i know, all that I see
would you take those burdens from me?
this is the way it's supposed to be?
no, this ain't the way....

where are you now
you used to come around every so often
where are you now
i need to know
i must be deaf and dumb and blind
all my life i must be

I'm a sad excuse for a ******
I ain't consistent enough
I called you here, why I don't know
You just both seemed so tough
And you both sang like gurus
From the land of the east
Chanting your Hare Krishna's
I always thought it was neat
You said you should start chanting
Cuz if you go while you are
You're gonna go straight to Godhead
Comin' back as a star

Yes, I'm a sad excuse for a wild man
My profile's way too low
And I wear the shoes of a large man
I wear a large man's clothes
Got mechanisms of torture
Stuff that'll scare you cold
I'll whip 'em out and I'll use 'em
If you ever get out of control
I'll put the wheaties in the bowl
I'll feed the newbies and the trolls
I used to live for rock and roll
But now that world has wrecked my soul
Yes you can bet that world killed my soul


Oh, I'm a bad excuse for a dead man
All that breathing gives me away
I can't convince nobody, nobody
My eyes move in my face

Thank you Mister Morrison
But I think we got the wrong Mister Morrison
I said
Thank  you Mister Morrison
But I think we got the wrong Mr. Morrison

Your lips were so small against mine
Slick, soft, slippery, alive
Pulsating imperceptibly
Sticky, sugar, chewing gum spit
The taste of children's wine
Ambrosia, Spanish fly kisses
Sweeter than old bones can stand
Electricity that forces eyelids shut
Shocks, sends spiraling
Into another dimension with you alone
Joined together, flying or falling free
We made a Heaven out of nothing at all
Ruled the darkness and named it "light"
Let it shine on our naked souls
Pressing against denim, moistening cotton and silk
I slightly opened my eyes to steal a peek
To see if yours were closed
To see the roundness of the orbs
Indeed sheathed beneath thin skin

I traced those small lips with my tongue
As if to gauge their width
I kissed your cheeks, your nose, your eyes
But always back to those lips
How many hours lying there
Did I taste the Doublemint gum
That was somewhere in your mouth?
And pushed the candy to the side
Whenever it got in my way

I woke up when I sensed the change
Peppermint grotesquely morphed
Into stale tobacco
Thirty years came crashing in
Memories of plans abandoned
Empty prayers, empty mouths
Good times, bad times
But never that Heaven again
Whose to say you'd be the same
Had things not changed, had you remained
We are not the captains of our own destinies
Our ships are fated to never again cross
In daytime or night
Perhaps you stopped loving me the hour in which you left
My love for you died a slow and painful death
In it's last years it barely had a pulse
But I remember when that thing stopped beating
It was when I found out you'd started smoking
After you walked away
And the thought of Doublemint and Marlboro mixed together
Makes me sick

One day all the pain outweighs the pleasure
And the memories, each and all begin to fade
You can only pray for better weather
But grey clouds always threaten rain

Grey clouds threaten rain

The bliss of joy, it lasts but a moment
Cherished and treasured for it's rarity
A precious gift lost in impermanence
One more blessing depression has stolen from me

Grey clouds threaten rain

Brother's birthday
I didn't say a thing
Y'see I ain't spoken to him in years
Dysfunctional ****** up family we're from
I distinctly recall him not wishing for me
A joyous occasion
The ties that bind
Were severed loose with great skill
And apathy
A bag-full of hard feelings
Solid as the stones in my pocket
Neither of us cries
But I wonder about my old mother
Having seen what this despicable world
Has to offer
You don't get what you want
Drive on by and try try try
You can't help but see the hard truth
In slow motion, dreams burst like bubbles
Empty plastic sacs
Litter the sawdust splattered floor
Waiting for the beast
That feeds on this misery
I think he's right around the corner
I heard his belly growl
When he looks at me I will close my eyes
Smell his matted hair
Hear his muffled grunts
Then I'll kick him so hard in the crotch
He won't know what hit him
As he slides harmless
Down the length of my body
Distracted by vision
To slump on the ground

By the time he wrote those words
his soul had sprung a leak
the best he had to offer
long ago had seeped into the ether

He put pen to paper
but the emptiness mocked him
dared him to write a single word
he knew to be true

It would be the first
though words had flown through him
blood to a punctured vein
from the days when his heart was strong

By the time he wrote those words
the needle fluttered on "E"
the last drops, too precious to waste
he knew they'd be the last

The first to admit they never "got him"
with his too-deep jumble of esoterica
he took comfort in the hope that death would bring them understanding
if he couldn't change the world surely the world would change for him

On the day he wrote those words he realized
the sacrifices he made for his art
all but the last were pointless
there's no getting around impermanence

With shaky hands and weak gripping fingers
taking up the paper's challenge he wrote those words
"I am..."
in an instant Truth slayed him

Subsumed into the primal substance
a thief no more
unconcerned at last with being
forgotten

Make me what you need, make me watch you bleed
If that's a lesson that I need to learn
Tell me what to do, make me just like you
Or is it something that I've gotta earn

But don't leave me alone again
Don't ever leave me alone again
Maybe I'm looking for more than a friend
You're not looking for anything
I know you'll never need me
Until I'm nothing at all

Tell me you feel the way I do
(I could lie to you, you don't want the truth)
Tell me you know the way I feel
(I could never know just how this makes you feel)
Tell me one time to make me believe that it matters
(It doesn't anymore)

Now I'm so confused and you're so abused
There's a lesson that you never learned
So make me what you need, make me watch you bleed
No, we'll never learn

I never hoped to be a sage or a seer
I'm just another singer reaching for a song
Tired of asking the eternal questions
Not knowing if the answers that I think I've found are wrong
I've been looking out for something to believe in
But faith is hard to come by in these times
And I can't help but judge myself severely
Who can take the punishment and fit it to the crime?

I think I'm walking backwards
I don't trust my own mind
I hope I'm doing the right thing
Leaving all these things behind

I spent all my life searching for the meanings
Of some things I was never meant to know
Always on the outside, looking inside
Knowing I should leave but never knowing where to go
And all I know could fit inside a thimble
Just a drop of wine in the bottom of a glass
Frightened of the last breath I'll be breathing
There is no comfort now in knowing all things, too, must pass

I think I'm walking backwards
I don't trust my own mind
I only hope I'm doing the right thing
Leaving all these things behind

So if I seem a prisoner of my own thoughts
If I seem to mock reality
If my mind seems to slip into oblivion
I'm looking for the things I know are there but still can't see
I'll satisfy my soul with poets' nonsense
I'll be content with someone else's song
Their memories will keep me from believing
That all the things I thought were real, vapors all along

I don't want to walk away from you
But you know I've lost my mind
I hope I've done the right thing
Now that I've left it all behind

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

I long to shed this bulk
flesh and bone cocoon
something in me longs to expand

A quark
flickering into Andromeda

When will this coma-grey fog dissipate?
shouldn't years have absorbed it by now?
something in me suffocates hope

A stone
tied to a rope

I wait to close my eyes
drift into unfamiliar pastures
something in me remembers

A dream
of shouting into empty silos

I know now that I want nothing
nothing is all I want
something in me is too full

A piñata
stuffed with rat poison

I walked away from absolutes
Emotions bleeding out
Determined never to return
Preferring the sting of the hailstone
Whipped by the wind of a cyclone

The relentless hard reason I thought I served
Began to liquify and poured through my hands
The truth exposed it not as a liar
But a murderer of souls
Satiating for a long season
Before withering and void of any hope

I floated in a purgatorial ocean
Uncaring, unfeeling, not even knowing
I was waiting
I thought I saw a chasm
But it must have been a reflection in the sunlight
A signal flare to let me know
The enigma is still there

Now I don't believe love has a feeling
Maybe joy, maybe passion
But never true love
Love doesn't channel feelings
Love channels absolutes
Now I can't walk away again
The next big storm might do me in
Love will find me joy and passion
In exchange for sacrifice and service
I must only believe
The absolutes are truth and wiser than I
Everything else is just waiting to die

Who made the stars to shine?
Who put that sparkle in your eye?
Who gave the singer to the song?
Who slayed the cherubim that kept me out and kept you in?
Who let the outcasts belong?

Who taught the sage to swim in waters most are drowning in?
Who'll tell the wise man from the clown?
Who made the light that shines that none have seen with open eyes?
Who sees the darkness all around?

Well I'd like to meet the man who shook the hand of the man who knows it all
I would shake the hand of the man who shook the hand of the man who knows it all

Tell me now who made you smile?
Enlighten me for a little while...
Give me your reason for my own
I want to meet the man who understands and gives a ****
There's someone I would like to know

And I'd like to meet the man who shook the hand of the man who knows it all
I would shake the hand of the man who shook the hand of the man who knows it all

I deserve this
Don't I?
It was my battle to win
In a war far from won
Who will take my reward from my arms?
Who would squelch the music in my ears
Or explain it's virtues with cold theory?
I have seized the moment
The day I have called my own
Will the morning sunrise expect me to be content
With victorious yesterday
Will the calendar's relentless trajectory
Put me back in my place
A paradigm of depression where I've convinced myself
I belong
Doomed to breathe borrowed oxygen
Or will chemicals and sleep
Ease me into another easy day?
Who among you would take that away?

Who is this madman with the smile pasted
So painfully out of place
On his painfully unremarkable face?
An offering to a camera
Or to the preservation of a memory
He doesn't wear it well but how can you tell?
You can't see the weight of the world in his eyes
The grey in his hair is common to all
It's the phony smile
Out of sync with some unseen but tangible aura
Gives him away
He floats on the periphery
Where nothingness is preferred

Thomas
Behold My side
Stick your hand in deep
Explore the spear's wound
Feel it
Touch it
Squeeze it like slick, glistening *****
Reach in further
Grab hold of whatever you can
And
QUICK!
Pull it out
You can have it
I don't need it

*Enough of generic songs about simple things easily understood. Let someone else bring the good vibes. I wanted to ask the eternal questions. I wanted to float some possible answers by you.

In the vast difference between what I wanted to be and what I am
The temptation is to count missed opportunities
To what extraterrestrial province has my Muse flown?
My legacy has been the evolution of an unhealthy obsession with death
A defiant ******* when plenty of years buffered from consequence
Getting used to the fear
Never forget the times I was high on potent hydro and paranoia kicked in
I thought I'd be dead on the ground in a matter of moments
Those times I wondered what the hell was wrong with me in courting the Reaper
Slippery medications knocked me down, metaphorically and some of the fear
Is replaced by numbness and a desire to leave
Take me in my sleep, o Eternal One, just don't let me wake up
Alas I keep waking up
And it comes down to giving up everything I have and know
Totally submerged in amnesia
In hopes that what comes after will be better in it's unique way
No brain to process senses so you might as view them as the wave of the past
I'd pay for mental telepathy and full reign of an active imagination I helped create in this life
So in the chasm between what I hoped to be and what I am
The potential for hope, even miracles stockpiling and inventorying blessings
They have their own expectations
All too rarely amused but **** 'em
In that chasm life still conducts business
Handshakes are still exchanged
There's no reason to give up hope
In that vacuous cave death and joy do a dance, ambition sings a number with missed chances
Like me Charlie
Have you got a bowl of that hydro and a light?
I need the big reminder
Coming soon
Love sonnets to a young Linda Blair

the coarseness of his whiskers prickled
rubbed red rash masses burned cheeks
lips past chapped stretching crevices
straining to kiss your goose down smile
wondering what you see behind thin skein lids
closed but to the most brilliant illumination
so sweet so soft two fat bellied worms
caress cracked slugs immobilized through sodium
his voice a dark tunnel a flickering tongue of fire
settles
you absorb the warmth understand every word
reach to stroke the bristly brush bush pulls
down
push in fall up
for the reprieve from light's absence
as the two of you stand naked in the rain
waiting for lightning to strike

I remember a time
When I used to cuss like a sailor
No one could hold me back
Least of all you, my pretty little doll
I never saw you flinch
Though my profanity was loud and obnoxious

These days you ride with me, still mighty sweet
But you've curbed my expression
By the hateful disappointed looks you give me
If I dare utter an offensive word
And I have to ask
Did you grow a stronger set of morals since the good old days of yore?

Maybe I did, you reply
All I can think of to respond is
Well, doll face, you can **** me running
But this horrid language is branded on my brain
And I don't see how I'm ever gonna purge myself of it
You say Its easy, just find other words to use
That's fine and dandy but all the other words I have to use are worse than the ones you get so offended by
I'll curb it some but I can't guarantee I won't let a ripe one slip now and again
She said Well that's fine and acceptable to me
But don't go expecting I'll tolerate it well
Cuz I won't
You're a grown man

Of course I'm a grown man
That's why I'm allowed to talk that way
She said Grown men DON'T talk that way
That's what I'm trying to tell you
If you had any maturity about ya you wouldn't find the need to use that language
I say well I'll be ******* if you didn't just place it all in perspective
Thank ya dear, for enlightenin' me
Even were it ever so minuscule

I love ya baby more than my own
Personal freedom of expression
You're too good to your man for him to discount your feelings and emotions
I'm gonna wash my mouth out with soap
One last time
And I am going to join well-mannered clean-speaking civilized society
All my cussing will be just between me and God
Cuz He ain't told me to stop yet
I'm pretty sure He thinks those words are funny
Don't worry, God, I won't tell my sweet honey pie
If she found out she'd probably die

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

I live to sleep
I sleep to dream
Sewage holes fill kinny bunk port out of the box Mr. Krull yer big headed Joyce fixation lets the dead dogs in leave the dead frogs to fry read a dull heart and mind
Down for the do little sing song hallelujah chorus let the whole world adore us we are the resurrection and you are the night take old children's programming to extremes and brainwash the yellow things
You asked don't tell so I wish you well and this drug you sling is a dangerous thing of letters and numbers all forced into the machine good girl great guns you'll do what I've done
It's a lie, my foot, there's a false ring to it's nose can you be so cavalier about things you don't know is the the grease going to settle and ruin your good clothes who knows Mr. Whitman, who knows
Words they say cut like blades in another setting where the mice eat men and dry ol' John Steinbeck writes with a pen fall out boy fudge to your granny sue I'm sure she'll agree that'll do, that'll do...bartle doo
Put 'em together yourself, old salt, here, every one on 'ems yerns, twist 'em and turn 'em, pick 'em and burn 'em, take a spoon or a spatula whatever you need to turn all this idiocy into a creed
Cut a few out they shouldn't be here what's wrong with the fool who gave 'em the time of day, there's surely a reason but his girl wouldn't say that evil ghost ***** with no reason to stay
That'll do.
Bartle doo.

Tall, lanky, muscle-less mess
Couldn't dribble a ball across the court if his life depended on it
Curly haired pubescent Nephilim
Always the last to be picked by either team
Neither knew
What I'd do
For a dollar
Or my tricks with Oujia boards and magnets
Begging money from mom and dad
To buy Famous Monsters magazine
Stills ancient even then of frankenstein's creation
Count Dracula, werewolf and wolf man
Terrifying beings from beneath the ground
Or coming down out of the sky
Grotesqueries so appalling
You had to keep looking, you couldn't stop
For all their mystery at least we recognized most of them
We loved some of them
Or maybe even empathized
They didn't seem as dangerous as my tormentors
Though they would surely frighten the living day lights out of them
Like a sordid copy of True Crime, it's pulp pages stained with ink that portrayed REAL death
I felt I was in unfamiliar territory
Dangerous and ever present
Hopping straight from the pages
To the real world
The walk home is always too long
To toss the monster magazine into the box that contained the other 16 issues I'd managed to collect
To put a record on the stereo
Lie back in bed
Stare at the ceiling fan
Listen to "Tubular Bells"
And try not to think of "The Exorcist"
Or the morons at gym practice the next day.

I wonder how many bottles of beeu
I could stand and open, drink one after another
Slugging '. em down and ***** in' 'em back up when there weren't no room for ani more, not one more little drip yessiree bob and tell Katie Mae to bring some cleaning supplies
I done my time
Drinking cheap mad dog 20-20 wine and Schaeffers quarts
I  a rot gut mamA by nature and choice

Where are the bottles?
Where are the silverwar and glassware
Could it be a dry county we've stopped in ?
What were we thinking
Every man woman and child amongst us
Thirsts

The Thorazine cocktail is a mean and nasty drink
Chemical sludge, black as hell's deepest dungeon
Enriched with the power of Mighty Thor's hammer
To smash your fragile brain pan and leave your senses numb
Belly up to the bar, boys
Jack Daniels is a school boy writing fifty time I must not
Jim Beam is a bully but he only picks on weaker spirits
80 proof ain't a ******* thang
Thorazine puts them all to shame
Explore new dimensions of bitterness
The Thorazine cocktail is a wrecking ball
You never develop a feel for it
No, it always tastes like half baked death
And smells a pungent metallic drift
Dead animals on the highway, rotting in the sun
Knock 'er back, Jack, drink it to the dregs
The dude in white thinks it's funny when you beg
You plead to take it away, how it's ******* with your head
You can't even remember what any of the voices said
You must be well, Old Jacky boy, don't need it anymore
Then again these things are weird, you can never be too sure
The dude with the cups seems to think it's not time
To kick it cold turkey, the order's been signed
So you might as well resign yourself
To the sledgehammer's blow this fine summer's eve
And shuffle away like a zombie
Hey look, that old John Huston movie about the Bible is on the television in the day room
It's just getting started, the creation scene like outtakes from the last ten minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Isn't that a coincidence?
Doesn't that make a lot of sense?
Jack, you might as well be tripping on Owsley's personal stash