forgotten tongue-play
betwixt apostate minds
that squander reality
for relatively small fines

licking taste buds
a gentle tug of war
between pixels and reality
for a small stipend more

******* fingers,
soggy with saliva
and dust to make the stuff
of Davids and Godivas

spit co-mingled, tasted and swallowed
spit co-mingling with my brain
spit co-mingling on an airplane
this spit will drive you insane

that's why I'm ******* my fingers
I put my tongue in your mouth
I taste the Jolly Rancher cherry
it's been a favorite, no doubt
it's sour kick mingles with your spit
spit it out, spit it out
spit it out?
your saliva drips a colorful hue
i only wish to taste of it too...

I've not been content with the empty spaces
Let alone appreciated them
Greedy to fill them with my own thoughts
My own dreams, my own desires, my own need
My, my, my, my
Never once thinking that the void is infinite
Offers nothing, consumes all
Could care less about my, my, my, my
Let alone my inability to appreciate them
I seek to fill them to sate my own narcissism
To work a fine piece of alchemy
Upon a golem
A frightening, lifeless husk of flesh and bones
Perfectly content with it's station
The last thing in the world it needs
Is me for a soul
A new life, a new purpose
A real "yes man"
Elemental body eternal, regenerated with time and coincidence
Spirit trapped within, room to spare
The perfect companion, yet still I am unsatisfied
If only I could  turn the tables
Denigrate the good times
For their rarity
Perhaps make peace with the boredom
I would be glad to sacrifice
All this insignificance I've collected throughout the years
Place it in perfect perspective
Stand back and take in the beauty
Of how nothing in this world is mine
Except, perhaps, nothing at all

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

For one second
I looked forward
To the day I've dreaded
All my life
My prayer now
Is that I might find it again
That I would live the rest of my life
Inside the eternal
Knowing that I was wrong
To believe I'd found heaven
In this world
When the Kingdom is on the other side of the door
So much more glorious
I cannot conceive
How long, how much longer
To sing this song
How much longer the weary soul
How much longer the persecution
How much longer the suffering
Only a moment
Seems a lifetime
Because it is

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

Yes, sir, I kissed her
On the mouth in the back of the bus
It was dark so I reached over and touched her
In a place where my fingers had never felt before
You bet your life, I kissed her
And guess what? She kissed me back
I 'bout had me a heart attack
When I felt her tongue on mine

She always has your eyes, darling one
It's how I know it's true
That there will never be another one
Who can do the things you do
No matter who she is
My, love, she always has your eyes
For your eyes are her eyes
It's not a surprise

Yes, sir, it hurt when she left me
I ain't ashamed to admit
Wonderin' how long until she'd forget me
You're ******* right she'll forget
You're best served with the truth, my foe
There's a lot you'll never know
So much I'll never tell you
For now it's time to go...

...go along, little dove, move along the straight and narrow. Bring along your bow and arrow. It's a small gate and few are the wasted who have tasted it's taste then wasted it's a band of jobless ruffians walking in a straight line, eyes locked straight ahead and determined to arrive at their destination. Dressed in monk's robes, their attire was not the only thing about them which conjured the appearance of a band of Tibetan's finest.
     Make haste! Go along, sweet caterpillar of the dawn. Gather your spawn and meet us on the backyard lawn. Make it quick, make your move, make every guitar pickin' note count. This is your time, La Penguin, it is the dawn of your destiny. The pawn of the mystic's I have placed upon a square I am not legally entitled to inhabit, figuring you would not notice it and even if you did you might not realize I was playing the match illegally. Royal eggs hatch regally, they are a meal of value and worth.
     Plath's dead voice recites her own poetry in the 74th century throught the medium of streaming music, which is every man's birthright. The inhabitants of this far off century are each and every soul well versed in song and voice, rythmn and melody, the poignant lyric in the third verse or during the chorus, their collective history was the culmination of thousands upon thousands of years totally absorbed in every aspect of MUSIC. To say they worshipped music would be to stop somewhat short of being the absolute truth but we listen anyway, we always do, good morning, I am the voice in your head. Have you finally befriended me? Finally accepted me and maybe even appreciated me? Regardless. I am the voice in your head. Do you want to know whose voice is in MY head? That's right: YOURS! Do you think this makes me any happier than the prospect of my being the voice in your head it's complicated, I'll grant that. But now that you're on a roll, what say we write some more crap poetry?

Try not to rhyme
No one does that anymore, that's reason enough
Yes, there is a secret meaning behind all this
You were not on my mind when I wrote this crap
If things had gone my way I could be making excruciatingly
Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?
I love all you *******, I really do
Some of you are genuine artists
Some of you can't write for ****
But that don't make it bad, does it?

Who is she?
She was a worm that crawled in your ear
One summer night while you slept in bed
Dreaming of the day your son
Shot you in the head
Then left you for dead
Wake up, David, wake up!
Fear not the tarantula, David, wake up!
For his bite doth not ****

...go along, feline substitute, your portmanteau is waiting. where are those people now who were so recently uncharitable? They've all been little boys before, every soldier in the field, every face behind bars, they've all had baths and someone to dry them off. Surely this must be? I am too wasted to go on.

Naya kudro. Reo o hart bonite. Rega in gavida, gavida. E qualid plea, senior away cast them in fee, el mquee.
Hula sona karay. Shis attune heh, hey hey, the grinavorte, honeas delong. O, fate be a queen. Allah's mortal today. The name. I don't want a name. Oh, no. The glad. Uh, uhhhhhhhh, uh, I'm madalam...you know....it's grand.......these sandwiches, they're grand.........beam me up, Scotty, you know the rest of the joke........Just like drums in an African rainforest, glistening with moisture, the rain mixing up the rythmns as drops make contact with skin. .........holding in past for the trial........coming in a car.........what a................you run, you running so much higher, climbing on a wire, you know..........you run, you running so much faster and now you're...........holding in past for the time......holding and caring for strange..........what catches your eye.........

I only thought I was too wasted to go on.
But this time
It's a for sure deal
I
am
too
wasted
to
continue

...to be continued

1.

I’m told it’s a “living thing”, a given thing and, moreover, is a terrible thing to lose. ‘Nuff said, ‘kay?

2.

What was she doing at the reception? Why was she so envious of his riches? How many drinks under her belt since she started on that glass of wine she‘s holding in her hand right now? So possessive.

I always seem to run into her at the drug store. I wonder what kind of medication she takes. Some incredibly strange desire to know this floats through my ghost. Some generic anti- depressant or maybe something stronger, along the lines of thorazine or haldol. A bizarre sense of arousal consumes me as I fantasize about popping those pills with her. I don’t care what kind they are…if they cure what ails her then they’ll probably take care of what’s wrong with me.

I remember…it was just a week or two ago. Once again I bumped into her at the drug store. She was looking good. Real good. The prospect of reading the labels on her medicine bottles was overpowering, finally knowing the names of the many prescriptions she had filled once every month.

My plan was thwarted, however, when she ordered a soda. I never did find out those drug names, but I learned something which I felt could very possibly change the odds of she and I hooking up. And that is this: her favorite flavor is cherry red.

I don’t think she has a boyfriend, but there is this guy who is always coming around for no real reason. He seems to think that he’s her old man. I often pretend that I believe it as well. One night the three of us went to a karaoke bar. I got just drunk enough not to care if I made a fool of myself having fun. The other two in our party had no problem nominating me for the opening act.

I walked behind the booth and introduced myself to the DJ.

“Yo, yo,” he said, after I told him my name and shook his hand. “I’m DJ Crackhead. Steady chillin’ and ill feelin’, I got the wax and the tracks if you got the crack, Jack. Now get off my back ‘less you got somethin’ you want to karaoke to.”

“Actually, I do have a request. Do you see that hot little red head in the ******* tank top? The one sitting next to the pimply faced weasel? Well, I’m wantin’ that dame for my own and I need to lose him. I need to shout out respect to my ***** and be dissing this dweeb at the same time. Can you play some Stones? I’m thinking ‘Satisfaction’ or maybe ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’?”

“Gee, G! I can float them joints easier than the pope be funny dressed. ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’, baby?”

“Only seems fitting. Let’s do this, Rider!”

As the short, sharp beats of the song bring down the house, to thunderous applause I strutted to the microphone. “People!!! All 6 of you! That’s not counting the bar tender or the wait staff, so we can’t really count this as the largest crowd we’ve ever had attend one of our shows. But I’m gonna tear the rood off this sucka’ with a brutal Rolling Stones tune I’m gonna send out to my gal’s old man, Jimmy!”

I wailed the hell out of that song. Jagger would have been proud of me, that’s for sure. He would have invited me back to the limo to maybe mainline a little smack with him. Everyone in that place was getting into it, but not Jimmy. Oh no, not Mister Jimmy. You could tell he was getting into the song itself, but not the singer.

As the song faded out I returned to our table, sweat dripping off of me like raindrops that fell into her wine glass. Wiping myself with a napkin, I turned to her and asked, “Did you like that one, babe? Did that spectacle turn you on?”

She replied, “O God, yeah! Yeah on both counts!” She leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, “You know, if we could ditch Jimmy I would sure be up for some kink-a-dee-kink. All the time you sang about “not hanging around” and how “two’s a crowd” on your cloud, I could only think of this leach. You’ve got to help me, sweetheart, you’ve just GOTTA!”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said quietly, then turned to Jimmy. “ Well Ol’ Jimmy, Ol’ Jimmy “ Boy, what did you think?”

He looked me square in the eye. I knew he meant business. You could tell by the squint in his eyes. He blinked once and said one word…”Dead”.

3.

Did we really count to one hundred? Why were we counting and perhaps even more important, WHAT were we counting? Why did the object being counted need to be counted to? Was 100 the exact count? Could we count further than 100? Did we have to keep counting even if there are only 79 units in total? Can you explain? I can’t.

4.

You got a big mouth. You know that’s an undisputed fact. When it comes to informing the town about the fine details of my alcohol problem…well that‘s where I draw the line. You are one hypocritical, self-serving, self-righteous biddy who doesn’t know when to shut up.

Everyone knows I’ve been drinking and foolin’ around. The Lord knows I’m sinning and God knows sinning ain’t right. But we’re gonna chat it up tonight, and if you want to see a change of attitude and tone, well I suggest that you stick a sock in it.

5.

Chewing on a piece of grass.
Walking down the road.
Wishing on a falling star.
Waiting on the early train.
Aging with time
Alligator lizards in the air…

Interlude.

All is quiet, save the ringing in the ears. The darkness envelopes me completely, I’m lying in it’s arms. Insatiable demands we’ll make against the wisdom of the Overlords. Who see it through those eyes that criticize all they don’t understand. They don’t understand me or you. You or me.

6.

Sometimes I just like to sit back and take in a good nostril or two of pungeant skunk stank. Years have come and years have gone but one thing has remained…I ain’t a-offended o’ the smell o’ Pepe LePew.

I don’t know but that my opinion might change if one o’ them little rascals were to saunter up to me and spray his stench on my leg. The buck will probably stop there.

But anymore that stuff just reminds me of the killer bud.

7.

The wolves ain’t the only critters howlin’ at the moon tonight.

That’s what she told me as inspiration swirled down the drainage ditch into the vat of apathy.

“Jump in, Jim, let’s go for a swim.”

She took off her clothes and I couldn’t help but stare.

I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already ****** and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.

No, **** it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.

But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.

Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.

Where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting near who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?"

“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.

“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”

“Nope. Not that I can think of.”

Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police had to be summoned, but on the other hand, wow, how ****** the thought of you resisting arrest.

Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous ******* carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.

And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be. Not where you should have been.

Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.

But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing else but a case for holding the little *******.

God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs their filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the filter. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on ******* smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I *** a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers ***** about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the ******* but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? *******. ******* with your nasty cancer sticks and **** your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. **** the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. **** the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on during the last who-knows-how-many years of your life. **** all your attempts to quit. **** the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.

You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.

There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse"…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a ******* good deal that is, eh, mister?

Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.

I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining **** from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people even know what Zig Zag papers are for? They sure ain't for tobacco, Charter.

“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the ****, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who could very likely mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig from it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…and yet the cruel smoker will laugh at such misfortune.

****.

God help me.

She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? **** her now, y’know? Just turn her over and **** her.

But hey…perhaps I’ve been too harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to ****** off and never come back? Then again, if they are so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult, then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.

I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began, thumbing through the hymnal, looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book, next to the Doxology?

Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window directly behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ *****.

Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.

And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.

Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?

And yet joy still is elusive
For all the cruel thoughts subjugated
Hatefulness controlled
My mind is still not conditioned
To feel that joy again
It's been too long

Joy comes
A moment seems forever
Until you pass out of it
You know you can't endure that joy
For long
You want to cling to it's sweet caress
Even as you feel sanity slipping, sliding
Into visions of heaven, God and Spirit
Joy and Despair, rising and falling
Never knowing how long
How long to sing this song
How long the wait
How long until joy breaks through
Like the sun on a grey cloudy day
Threatening rain
Promising nothing
Only the slightest glimpse of hope
And a prayer that next time
The moment will last
Just a little bit
Longer
Than
Forever

Lord of the flies
Lord of the night
Lord of darkness
Lord of light

Lord, I believe you
That you are the Lord of the flies
But I have not received you
I have not offered up my life
To the Lord of the flies

How still the ground beneath you holds
The secrets of the age
But will they still believe you
When you lead them to their graves?

You hold the darkness like a mirror to your face
To show the way

Lord of the flies
Are you coming back tonight?
Lord of darkness
Will you leave me behind?
Leave me behind

If you hadn't...what?
Been afraid?
Your work was cut out for you
How many told you to walk out on me?
Did your father finally convince you?
Who told you I was faking?
Who convinced you it wasn't real?
Tell me so I can hold him or her accountable
Thus clearing your innocent name
...but If there was nobody else
Planting words and ideas in your brain
You must have thought of it yourself
Forget till death do we part
I really believed love would keep that promise
But you got stuck between sickness and health
Had fear consumed all your love even then?
I empathize but I blame you
You could have stuck around at least long enough to watch for improvement, offering encouragement
I know it was frightening to you. It was scaring the hell out of me
But I was strong enough to hold you
Had you only been there to hold
When did you stop loving me?
I was a lost cause in that day

There were days
Wonder
I remember
Hours ****** into a void
I crushed a human-sized indention
...into a smelly mattress
There it is...out in the open air
And settled in
Tossing about when the time seemed right
To the left, to the right
Head resting on a dark pink forearm
At the sky or into a pillow
Case stained with drool
A puffed up map of another world
Lethargy's creation
Music drifted through my ears
Useless waves
Never catching
The most beautiful melodies in the known universe
Nothing but a ceiling fan's whirling clank
Yet they comforted me
Kept time as good as they could
Gave me something familiar to grab hold of
Maybe kept me
From sinking, falling, clutching at air
Or breathing in water, drowning
In sloth, apathy, illness, hurt
Jumping into the mouth of a volcano
Fleeing from something I had no name for
Something that had no use for a name
All the more fearsome for it
I jumped...I fled...I flew...
I laid down and stayed down
I didn't even recognize sleep
When it snuck up from behind
I wasn't even thankful
For it brought no dreams
Only a quick, painless transition
A tool of prophecy
Pincers to hold shut my eyelids

Now I ask myself, "How long
Ago
That must have been? How long
Since
I rose from the dead?"
That span of days
Seems as forgotten
As the lost time
Hours into days into weeks into months into years...
Though not sacrificed
So unwillingly

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.

She had a needle ***** pin for his dream balloon
He laughed at her faith
Mocked it
Loathed it for what he perceived
It had done to him
Long before she ever came around
This was something that she never knew
But what she did know was enough
She had a Mason jar for his unearned tears
She kept a wooden box full of nails
To hold up the boards
That blocked the sun
And kept the birds out
He wanted to jump off a mountain cliff
To feel free in the fall
To prove her wrong
She had a cat of nine tails and a whiplash smile
When he asked her to dance she said it wasn't her style

I don't know how to express love
During the times when I can feel it
Most of the time seems an emptiness undefined
Embracing theologies that excuse my flaw
Learning the lessons, love is not always a feeling
Except when it is
Curled up in my gut like a child in the womb
I hold it tightly, tightly in
Can't let people see the look I get on my face
Or god forbid some tears
But your books on the night stand
As they are yours and yours alone
I have such love for them
And realize, looking at them, that I have even more, stronger love buried inside me
But it rarely comes out
And it makes me physically I'll
Beingi it so deprived in my.heart
I love my wife
I don't know what I'd do without her
But she doesn't know the half of it
She can't extract it, stuck so firmly to my skeleton
It's where it must be for now
New emotions mixed with old
Ancient love leftover from the day
Mom left us behind
She left us to lions and life that way
Many years he
Help us become less aquatinted
Ain't it f'ed up?
About 35 years and seven miles to cross
Leaden lump of love and betrayal
Keeps me where I am
I have love in my heart
But it's tainted
It's bashful and too embarrassed
Some gone bad, for sure, neglected
Like bad food it makes me sick
I've got to find the right person to give it to
Even if it is a god
I can't live with it in here anymore
Takers please

Love is the wind that blows autumn leaves
The shapes of ghosts dancing
Manifest for only a moment
Before gravity reminds them
What they really are

Love is the rain that washes clean
The stench and stain of living
Hovering in heaven only long enough
Until gravity pulls each drop
To it's home in the ocean

Love is stillness
Love is peace
Being still
Being at peace
With gravity

Love demands the strong embrace
The firm pressing of flesh
To explore the contours and subtle lines
With eyes, heart and hands
Forests and constellations to map out
Legends to calculate

Evaporates without the words
Or eardrums to beat them down
To play ring-around-the-rosy
In the fertile field of the brain
That seeks their comfort in every sense
Deaf, dumb and blind spirit

For love's a blinding supernova
Incinerating all who approach
Hungry for physicality
A moon to measure it's movements
Though that satellite be
Lifeless cratered rock

I see atoms
Fall down like rain
A paper thin curtain
Hiding the eternal
A weak barricade
Though strong enough

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

I pity the Millenials
Living in this day and age
Arguing the nature of reality
Trusting only the words on the page
Trusting nothing they wouldn't see coming
That would challenge the new status quo
That bow to the god of strict science
Never considering what can't be known
Relativity gives them an excuse
A convenient state of affairs
Making up dogma from whole clothe
Convinced that nobody cares
Only the Millenials could care less
Until they decide it's best to show empathy
I don't understand 'em at all
But that's how it's meant to be

Stuck here in the middle
    with my thoughts swirlin' 'round me
Like a storm come to sweep me away

Too much thinking,
    I'm so tired of my own voice
Won't be quiet, ain't got nothin' to say...

...says it anyway.

we shall name shadows
give weight to ghosts
enshrine our egos
throw down a gauntlet
take up a mantle
we shall sing colors
with tongues of fire
we will spit nonsense
and call it...

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

Monica disappeared
She told me she might love me
I told her where to meet me
But when I got there
She was gone

I had become enraptured
By her cherubic face
Elfish, tomboy haircut
Law-breaking smile
I should have known there was something lurking
Behind it
Some secret or some thing
Some One
Some dark, ugly lie she’d found herself caught in
Fly in a spider’s web, vulnerable
But it was easy enough to see
She was too hard to let anything hurt her
She might as well have hurt me

I never told you how
Her kisses left me breathless
The music of Cocteau Twins came alive
In her ethereal expression
As our lips reluctantly let go of each other
Her sated smile told the story
Of happy endings and serendipity
The Fates had other plans
And maybe she knew it.
So somewhere in her heart or her head
She had conspired with the Great Unknown
To break my heart
And so she disappeared.

Lost, flawed goddess?
The woman kept her fair share of secrets
And most likely a greater lot of lies she’d fed me...
Cotton candy to a baby

Grim acceptance of the brutal reality
Brought home by her disappearance
And nailed shut by the knowledge

That I would never again, in my life,
Here and in the Great Beyond,
See her face, kiss her lips, relax in her embrace
Never again dance to Springsteen’s slow songs,  silently surrendered to sensuality and the staggered stagnation of sense and sensibility and I would drive all night just to buy her some smack…whatever she wanted

Hear her voice
In this place I will call her “mine”
In this place
She would confess, "I'm yours"
So much like a dream
In this place
Look into her eyes then
Wake
Wail and moan for the miles that separated us
The sackcloth and ashes well worn in the years since
She vanished into thin air

She’s as dead as if she’d stopped breathing
As if her heart had actually stopped beating.
The period for grief and mourning are long past
And yet here I lie
Overcome by a tsunami

The Monkees' "Headquarters"
   Is one of the greatest
      Most under-rated pop/rock
                                                  records
                Of
                         all
                                      time
Just learning to play their instruments
Slowly but surely crawling out from under
                                        Don Kirshner's thumb
The sound wasn't as confident or solid
As seminal recent offerings by the Beatles
           The template...    The mold....
Yet there were several pearls in those oysters
Pure raw ragged pop perfection
To give Lennon, Macca, Harrison and Starkey
      A serious run for their money                                  
            even Brian Wilson sweatin' jeaulosy
"You Told Me" solid out the gates.
"Forget That Girl" Breakin' hearts.
"You Just May Be The One" offering encouragement
"Shades of Grey" and Early Morning Blues and Greys" reminding us we're but fragile hearts
"Sunny Girlfriend " a standard to be achieved
"Band 6" and "Zilch" for comic relief
And don't forget the bands take on flower power
"For Petes Sake"
If you couldn't get all that
Get it good in your soul
There must have been something
                                                wrong
                                                      with
                                                           you

Now lay back and forget
All the days that brought you here
Or make a mental monument
Of hours painting empty skies
Of moments lost in wondering why
The colors bleed without the rain
To wash the canvas dry
Still they run, these memories
Together make a life
Flesh and blood for ghosts and stone
To wear out for a time
'Til entropy's harsh design
Leaves nothing left behind
That wasn't there before
The beginning of time

Good intentions buy nothing
In the formless space of this machine
Not even the soon forgotten happy dream
Comes without a sinister scheme
Dead weight of nothing, heavier than air
To the fish caught on the hook unawares
This monument would grow so large
There wouldn't be room anymore
To notice the moment before it passes
To find your way through to the door
That opens unto forgetfulness
Cursed but just as often blessed
So let it go, lay down, forget
You haven't really even started yet

Lover of my soul
Fill my heart with wonder
My head with mystery
Glowing through the other side
Inviting me to break away
To leave this paradigm
If even for a short time
Pour over me or **** me in
Baptism of sound
How many times born again
Balm of peace and relaxation
Spirit hands, rub it in
For forty five years not a day's gone by
Without your centering presence
Never getting old
You speak to me of
Never getting old
Something worth singing about

Swimming in a pond filled with snakes
The moonlight's reflection shimmered with the ripples
It was only a matter of time before I was bitten
I barely felt it when the fangs pierced my thigh
But soon enough the swelling began
Along with excruciating pain
There'd be a mark left that would never go away
I was lucky the one that got me wasn't venomous
Still it hurt like hell
A sensation I can even now conjure in my mind
I will always be able to do that
Why hadn't I listened to the warnings?
The place was spooky enough
The prospect of water moccasins and king snakes
Should have kept me out of the water
It was a hot evening, even as the sun went down
The water was cool
I felt like swimming
So I dived in

gotta go and get a gun
put a bullet in it's head
squeeze that ******* trigger till I'm sure
it's good and dead
should have been done a long time ago
should have been done a long time

push a little button send it
back where it belongs
i ain't coming back until i
know it's good and gone
should have never been done, my friend
should have never been done

gotta put it down before it
blows up in my face
now i know there ain't no use
in trying to run away
don't know what I was thinking, girl
don't know what I was thinking

nothing left but trouble if I
don't act pretty fast
nothing is forever, mister
nothing ever lasts
gotta find a way to move on now
gotta find a way to move on

looked for it in the mirror but
all i see is me
and that ain't even who I am
what should i believe
gonna hang it on a tree tonight, son
gonna hang it on a tree tonight

euthanize then eulogize
won't be much love lost
do the crime and do the time
it's how we count the cost
nails and wood, that's all
nails and wood

This can't be
the end of things
the line of time etched in sand
disturbed by foot or hand

This can't be
an aspect of time
from moot point to mute point
no language demand

or experience recall
or innocence regain
sleeping,  dreaming
never the same

Dreamed I was floating in space
The past a single memory I chose to let slip by
The future a yawning abyss bottomless and dark
I could not have told you at what point I jumped
In
I sacrificed sensation for the chance to disappear
In hopes the noticed absence would bring some sort of peace
To my own mind
And the lives of those I left behind

Say goodbye to all your friends
This is where the story ends
The time has come to leave
You'll forget about me

I don't know where I'm going
Why do you want to come with me?
So many roads are closing
I've passed signs I didn't see
Hear them from the roadside
Praying for their rest
So far away from you
Here is my address

And I tried so hard to reach you
But you don't return my call
And I waited for your answer for to long

Here is my address
This is my new address

We all need somebody
Want another life
Someone to walk away
Or drive off into night
No, it's not so easy
To break those ties that bind
When all your dreams of yesterday
Still linger in your mind

But I tried so hard to reach you
You don't return my calls
I waited for an answer for too long

Here is my address
This is my new address

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

I was once crucified
This dead man you see
Lost between the moment that IS
and newly born eternity
Dead and under water
Drowned to die that I might be
Born again
Into the body
Seated where I am
I wish I'd never witnessed
My father's nakedness
That my serpent-led curiosities
Had never brought me to the occult
For even the basics of how God works
Will drive a man mad
A curse to a certain mindset
Mine, apparently
As my flesh sits catatonic
A gift given and taken away
Leaving me to feel the loss
Of so much more
This is a ****** world
Full of ****** up annoying people
Ya gotta stick to your guns
And the ones that you love
Because some people just don't grow up
And some people just give out
And some want to stab you in the back
It's best to be already dead
A new creature undying

Poetry congealed muddying the waters
Hardened into a gelatinous soup of words
A monotonous stream of narcissism
Unafraid to employ half-truths
Unable to regulate the deterioration
Of chemically mutated thought processes
In love with language only

Been down this road before
I know
Still got a long way to go
I'm tired from doing nothing
Chemical weary
I was hoping for no side effects
The windscreen wipers don't help
It's a stuttered rhythm they scrape
Hypnotic as the white line
That keeps me on the track
Oncoming headlights make raindrops
Bright shining diamonds
Whisked away
Miles seen so **** long
The heat makes my eyelids heavy
Bur frost keeps me from turning it off
Something keeps me running
But tonight I couldn't tell you what

she told me
"i don't use hashtags"
so i told her "come with me"
and i took her to a church in the fields
where my grandfather served as deacon
i told her "get on the phone
call a priest
i'm going to make you mine"
i never use hashtags
her body turned me on
her mind kept me running
"the priest can't make it until tomorrow"
**** the luck

Through the darkest, coldest night
This house makes so many noises
Whose ghost wants to keep me awake?
Don't you know I've learned to ignore you?
A knock on the ceiling
I've heard it before
And the creaking sound of
Motionless doors
What are you trying to tell me
Groaning frame
Aging timber
Fighting for footing on a
Faltering foundation
You don't want me to know your names, do you
Would I recognize them?
I lived in this house most of my life
And I've believed that demons came along
Attached to a woman whose soul had rotted out
With her child molesting offspring,
Oh yes, demons tired of him
And bid him fond adieu
As he walked out of the house they soon would call their own
I've seen them work their mischief
I know they're here
I don't let them get to me
But the ghost
Or the ghosts
Are more troubling
They make so much noise
It's impossible not to notice
Almost as impossible to ignore
Put on some music
Listen real close
Beethoven, Mozart
Some other ghosts
For I do think out specters
Enjoy good classical music
I know it's just the house settling in
Buckling and shifting
All houses are alive
In that regard
It doesn't matter
I'm not afraid of ghosts
And demons only marginally
I know how to get rid of them
But exorcisms ain't cheap
these days
Furthermore the success rate is not encouraging
Easier to live with demons and ghosts
On the frijid evenings in mid-January
As there will be no company

In school
Looking through our literature book
At the poetry selections
I always liked the ones by
Carl Sandburg
Because they looked and read
The least like poetry
I didn't like poetry back then
With it's sing song meters and
Pregnant metaphors
I was just a kid
I like poetry a lot more now
Though I don't understand too much
I know enough to think a lot less of
Carl Sandburg now than I did then
Which is no reflection on Sandburg
I'm sure I'll eventually come back round to him

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

This is a song I'm working on. Not even half finished but I wanted to share it with some people here anyway.*


verse 1
Said a lot of things that needed to be said...yesterday
Woke up alone on the cold side of the bed...this morning
Somebody said that the truth would set you free
That somebody sure must have told you the truth about me
...and  now you're free... (chorus)

verse2
They tell me your choice is the straight or the crooked path...on your way
That he who was first stands a good chance of bein' last...on that last day
Well, I'll be the first to say you were good for me, girl
But I've been down too many dead end roads in this world
and now I'm

chorus
Free...like a bird from a cage with a broken wing
Free to be me, where what you get is always just what you see
Free, well nothing is free and tell me why would you want it to be?
Ain't nothin' free no good

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

We were not made for the world
Dreamers and poets, singers of songs
Try to describe what we see
Before it crushes us
And we hurt for everyone
And we gotta shut it down
Lest we become consumed by the pain
Of another
Not even our own

The city laughs at the proud, confident of their street smarts
They go so far
Infinity goes further
Darkness follows infinity
They will fall into the abyss
Vertigo will take over their mind
Second guessing
This is how artists are born
Subdued by the world
Knowing better than to touch a live wire
While standing in puddles of tears

No matter how strong my arms and legs
The ocean is deep, the current is strong
I have not reached the point yet
Where acceptance embraces it's totality
My lungs still crave air
I'm not ready to change my mind
I look for a lighthouse, a guide through the tempest
All I see are ghosts
Specters that beckon me to darkness
Phantoms I've known all my life
I've lived with them
I've given and taken perversity from them
Foulness, bad blood, indifference,
Anything to wallow in, common ground
Leagues to sink into, each one for you
It washes the oil from my skin, so I rejoice
It demands that I drop the black mask, so I celebrate
The ocean pulls my weakened legs, done with cramping
Numb and useless as my arms, with slow, calculated tugs
The last drops of mud slither down the glass and I can't help but think
Why the hell did I dive in? Did I jump or was I pushed?
What was I getting into?
I still don't know

The only difference between baptism and a watery grave
Is a hand to pull you up and out

I'd rather know than believe
But I believe in you
Knowing you'll never show

Knowing I'll never know
Yet still
Believing you're all that matters

I don't trust things I can't see through
They're as trustworthy as I am
Solid, taking up space

Faith in God, faith in you
I sometimes have trouble finding
A difference in the two

Faith's a gift
Belief's a risk
Selah

I'd rather have faith than to know
Walking the mundane streets of this life I've been given
A little uncertainty is a good thing

So long as you're the central theme
Magnetic north
A lighthouse guiding me home

When I get there I'll know
Arms entwined, dying to faith and belief
Into eternal life of omniscience

Knowing
As we are known
Selah

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