You've got no earthly talents
No hint of substance here
Alone is your method
You've got so much to fear.
Beneath shuffling footsteps
Worlds contort and shear
The cracks appear to show you
Recede and die right there.

Blurry sight, the danger heightens
Tears you apart to see
Just what laughs as you stumble?
These veins of destiny.
The night stalks, and it will find you
Paint a smile for the enemy
Washed clean as you're drowning
There's nothing left to see

Wake up! The cycle's turning
Attracted by sweet sin
All of this, it's all but fleeting
Forever trapped, you'll never win
A weighted hand holds your comfort
This time you'll see within
Who'd have guessed the hate that's in you?
Held just beneath the skin.

He was climbing a mountain.
There was, but a moment ago, the soft sound of summer thunder,
And the tender drift of curling winds.
A voice, that knew no constraint of time or place.
It spoke as if it had always done so, as if it were all at once memory and potential.
Its sentence had no end, its syllables outlasting empires.
It made him pang for the world he once new.
But it was far away, for now,
He was climbing a mountain.

Upon the way,  one traveler found another
One took refuge from the climb, his hands bloodied, his will broken
The other sat perched on a cliff edge, never facing his cohort, never truly meeting
The climb is far from easy, called the ****** man.
Come, let us eat together and tend our wounds.
The man of the cliff did not answer, not immediately.
His gaze was fixed upon the implacable horizon,
Its forms were grains of reality, blowing across the plains of perception
To look at one was to see no other, for this is how it is.
"We do not wound," he answered at the last.

Will you not face me, called the man with bandaged hands
That shifting sky is nothing but the wastes of life
The knowledge it holds is not for us to know
For we are the ones who climb.
The cliff's man remained silent, for he grew weary of climbers
You are not the first he thought, and you surely will not be the last
For the climbers had minds for not but the mountain
They are born to seek its peak.
Before him were the storms of life
Where beings of light roared across the world
Their lives ended within a blink
Each one, shimmering like unclouded stars against the silky black of night
Each a triumph of failure, for even in death no fall awaited them
They knew only ascent
Perhaps that was what the climbers sought?
Perhaps they wished to be as they?
But the cliff, he knew, was the end of all things
Its precipice, the boundary of the divine
It was the only true ascent, it was all that he could crave.
The climber had lingered here long enough
And it was time to send him on his way
"We do not hear the Nightingale."

The man with the mended will had no time for puzzles
To the sands with you, may the winds take you to your beloved rifts of chance
There's a mountain that needs climbing, for why else is it here?
Whilst you are betroth to destiny's stir, to the sky's delight,
I have known the beauty of her touch, the loving warmth of her breath
She is not to be watched, she is to be held, to be kissed, to be yours.
He turned his back to the cliff and its watchman
He had been sated by his stay, but it would be folly to remain
He was climbing a mountain

Too long blinded by hindsight
You'd burn your eyes just to see a new dawn's light
Wicked things made of sinewy grace
Say it isn't you, but guess who chose this place?
When was it that you began to fear joy?
Or better yet, tell me why you fear at all?
Day in day out, curse the air you breathe
Why do you persist? A tighter tie is clearly all you need.
Today, tomorrow, just which will be your last?
It never comes, no not for you, you have to live to hate your past.
Can't you see the parody you have built into yourself?
You want death, but without the price of  health?
So lost, buried under your own lies
Every wise man knows, no one really wants to die
No, just to collapse our darkness, just to see a better life.
So dispense with the sickness upon which you are built
And on that day, I will be free of your guilt.

Tread the line to seek the light, then cry havoc in the dark
As all things that were look up in pallor at the flame filled sky.
These are no mere ramblings, alas, it is palpable rumblings from which you make haste
The great mystery revealed with long streaks of dread and those guilty of...momentary worship
To them, a fate to match their faith
A Tartaric vision to sweep clean the stock houses and to empty thine senates.
With spears of lightning and whips of the sun, the anguish of fact, and doubt of the one.
Those of the fallen are but ashes upon the wind, free from the righteous to bare.
They too do not relish the task, where on Earth is the joy of this judgement.
Only the heroes stand.
There is no Hercules, no Pericles, nor any you'd take for granted to expect
Beneath a final sinking sun, it is the unknown alone who dare to speak.
To call out with their last breaths
To lay a harrowed plea at the feet of the Gods of death.
To cast weary eyes upon the remaining pools of light.
Draw up from here, your wicked rule! No more at the mercy of an Olympian.
Indeed, could mercy truly persist? Have not these ravaging flames feasted with merriment?
Does one not now bare witness?
The shattered shields and broken swords are remnants now of what will be a forgotten world.
The sweet majesty of an unspeakable truth, as if it were guilded with Gold as it rolls back and away from this once sacred place.
Its is here, beyond all calamity.
Blissful lightness of the Heart.
A beauty one's eyes cannot grasp
A freedom to assuage the lust of the free.
The waters of crystal clear tranquility and heart free from all humility.
A God! As they had once been shown.
The aromatic taste of divinity.
The motionless seas in a stasis of perfection
Can you truly know?
To see why your heart first beat?
To find out why a soul became what you call "me"?
There is no time for this and that, only for what is, and time isn't.
Revel in the serenity now, sleep and hope to never wake, it is a dream they chime,
A dream.
The noose of eternity is now but a tread on a finger...a reminder, of what?
I cannot remember.

Everyday there is a little less.
A little less consequence,
A little less shore.
A tired tyrant, an affront to a relentless sea.
Aghast at his cohorts,
They make friends of the waves
Joyously they swim and swirl through their deepest caves.
Yet down its long and crooked nose the tyrants gaze falls with ill favour upon the waves.
With a languid angst they trickle and sway,
They take a little more in a salted assault,
Day by day.
From sheer rock face, to grains of waste
All the tyrant can do is sit,
And wait.

I prostrate myself before thee
With a sheepish plea, to no longer be,
Because I swear to you, I’ll never foresee.
So you smile and you laugh and you cast a man back
Find love in all you see? Empty words!
You never spoke to me.
This ground, it trembles
With fury it quakes
And how the knees do fall to curse this fate.
You’re the face of the faceless
The crux of all matters
The infinity of wisdom
Yet all you’ve ever given
Are the gusts of wind,
From flightless wings.
You don’t stir or shift,
Your distance? It’s a gift.
Your tongues of flame shall here find no domain.
Still you’re still
It’s so hard to breathe
I can’t take a step in this hate you’ve given me.
Now and forever all there shall be,
For you it’s my back, it all you’ll ever see
Payment in kind, need I remind?
But with a nerve that astounds, you turn me around.
Coward you scream, and coward again
Thunder roaring with your violent retort
Worthless peon lost in your wordless poems,
Oh, fate and fairness have never been so close
Rightfully, they’ll coalesce in your ghost.
Furnished with nothing I throw not but rage
You smile and withdraw from within this cage
Adamantine its walls, the door swings closed
My whys and my how’s are all I have left,
You take both with one last quip.
You deserve it.

Through tranquil strangeness, I have wandered.
Where have I come to now?
A figure stands before me,
I know their face somehow.
And on this vista of illusion, its the only one I've found.
Please tell me where it is I am,
Or do you even know?
They said, I'm afraid I cannot answer that,
All I know is you may not go.
Inquisitively I called to them,
What on Earth then should I do.
They said, now that's enough of that,
Earth no longer concerns you.
It didn't hurt, but I struggled,
I said, I've left so much undone.
There were lights in that darkness,
Someday they might have shone.
They were quite for one more moment,
Perhaps they had seen what I foresaw.
But their eyes, they were empty,
And their knowing rant begun.
Yes, you could have written all those stories,
And played all those songs.
Found your courage, and got married,
And held your only son.
Stopped living in your head,
And said your thoughts out loud.
Never cared for convention,
Known no one really lives in a crowd.
Taken time to lay naked,
And marveled at the rain.
But as they say, what's done is done now,
And its here you shall remain.

We'd been walking for an age,
Stone by passing stone
We passed ever onward,
Towards our end
Here will do, came the call,
It brimmed with confidence
But it came from, God knows who.
The shadows shift to greet the day,
The shovels drift through seas of waste.
We've struggled here, me and you.
Now fight the earth, and raise this tomb.
But who is speaking?
Where from do they call?
Why was I beckoned here?
Am I really here at all?
Its all so facile!
A predictable jaunt!
It was all called from day one,
Now there's just the motions to evoke.

The dirt brushed steel finds the reaches of the deep
You'd seek to sleep, had you earned your rest
Yet among cartoon images and plastic sets
I think you'll find, you were at your best
To the dark, to the dark,
You stride with beaming smile into the reach
As if to deprive, yet no one would ever seek
Why scrawl in a corner, what do you hope to yield?
Listen now boy, the dirt is all there is
Bow your head and conceal your task
We'll hit rock bottom and you'll sleep at last.

There's nothing here,
The light comes from the dark.
I wish to linger there,
This will become my past.
A silhouette comes forth,
It's brilliance all around.
And absent kindness came,
Revealed, we are the same.
Hand in hand, backs to heaven's horizon,
It can wait.
Slowly days drifted on,
Time remembered us then,
And all you were was gone.
Pointless even to search,
All you left were words.
I leave you now,
The overture of Earth.

A systematic canopy
All the thoughts you've had of me
Immune to tragedy?
Then sit down and let me remind you.
Words of a worthless fate
All this sadness built up with hate
All broken, ruminate
This is a world that I'll never thrive in.

The things that you said, and the things that I heard
The difference underlined
Now tell me how to get out of here
Endless deficiency, built right into me
Do you think that I like this?
Insight the curse of the soul I bare.

Turning to dope to cope
Salvation's tied in a rope
A hopeless, bitter *****
Oh please God don't let me go down there.
Redemption shall not be mine
Unnoticed passing, Fine!
You were born to toe the line
And my fingers can touch your horizon.

Melancholy, I know thee well
For together it was that we formed this
Somewhat archaic,
And far from placid Hell.
But I long for so much more,
To break these bonds
To settle this fight.
Courage now I ask for, as you heard me right.
No longer the whipping boy, I rescind my love
We’ve gone past contrite.
What more is there? Came your ponderous voice
For now, I only seek your silence
Too long berated by your incessant noise.
I yearn for the great big “more”
To be more than shallow,
More than special, indeed,
To be more than a man.
To be the legend on every lip
Master of the seas!
Both every swell and every ship.
No man or beast to stand before me
Not even he of horned head and cloven foot.
To illuminate the heavens, and manipulate their cosmic dance.
To truly, embrace the celestial
To give God no second chance.
These are the length and breadth of my yearnings
Impossible, beyond all certainty.
Oh melancholy you sweet, sweet thing,
Return to me now
To nullify my mind
And poison all I think.
Tie these hands so they no longer grasp
Not for Heaven, not for glory, and least of all,
For love.
To inscribe my name on immutable existence?
Ha, a laughable task
Beloved melancholy
Envelop me in you
Until I breathe my last.

A Hero standing tall on a backstreet, wondering,
Wondering what it takes to make the kingdom come
Hammered on his fists beneath the sign of his Devil
How'd it come to be that all the wise ones fall?
They had to reach out for peace before the madman
Come to think, what if all his words is how the truth comes home

A hero's falling down, but a stumble, just a shake
Blame is all that ever seems to find his door
Casting out his hand for the weary, has to ask
Why did you ever think that she had lived at all?
Marching up the trail to the enemy's sanctum
Grace and glory cease beneath redemption's call

Stung by the sea in a search for flaming wings
An island awake and so far from alone
Set out for three upon a violent churning sea
How'd it come to be that he could find but one?
Escaping from the mist in a shadow, moving cliffs
Baring south, where oh where have the shining Jewels gone?

Time to write a poem with some shameless rhymes
I don't know why
Perhaps to pass the time?
I don't get structure
What the hell is verse?
Which line am I rhyming with?
For no reason at all, purse.
Okay, that rhyme was pretty cheap
Almost as bad as the next one
Which is something about sheep.
This is too easy, rhyming this with that
Hey, who's your favourite super hero
Mine dresses like a bat
I kid, I kid...
Wolverine almost never dresses like a bat

Tools arranged,
Laid out in splendour
A curious case
A doll made of paper
The creator stands
Cold and bare
Magnificence
Won’t be found here
Sterile fumes and frothing vats
None of which, could bring you back
He dabs with orange, and touches with blue
It’s insurmountable
He can’t create you.
He sees it all
Convex and concave
Sands it down, observes the shape
Perfection itself,
Without your face
He lay there then
Quiet and still
He heard no heartbeat
And missed your chill
His soft caress
Harbouring nothing
How did he forget
You were more than beauty
He carves your smile
And chants your name
Draws your eyes
Why do they look so plain?
He sings in defiance
Abhors the hurt
It’s just like you
Just not you yet
But there’s nothing left
It’s all been done
He’s burned the world
Just to fill your lungs
He condemns his contraption
Breaks its cheek
Revealed inside
Equally weak
He sees the emptiness
It was in you too
His desire it seems
Has been renewed
He reaches out and locks the door
Knocks sterile vats to the floor
There's nothing to say
Who’d really understand
A man who died with a memory
And held its hand

Rhythmic pumping
Concealed in a dream
A riff of rifts
Ascend to the heavens
The solo shatters the sky
The angels cease to sing
A surge of sudden grace
A dancing maelstrom of melody
A wicked, hellish pace
I'm lost
So joyously lost
The solo bites with beauty
Treble rules all
Treble tones in treble time
Though they'll say its all based in bass
Majesty spews forth when six little strings
Oscillate

There's a golden sunset in my head.
I go there when the music swells,
I go there when the nights are dead,
I go there when I think of Hell.
I smile at what is evil,
And spew laughter at the hearse.
The sunset skews my vision,
And I had thought that it made me worse.

I try to draw the golden water,
So that maybe you could drink it to.
I try to describe its every contour,
To try and give the sun to you.
For the sunset's in the car chase,
The sunset's in the bar,
The sunset's for the horsemen,
And all the stories that went too far.

I paint these savage pictures,
That never seem to catch the light.
And I marvel at my failure,
With bitter re-reads in the night.
But the sun is still there setting,
And there's time to catch it yet.
Even these words have escaped me,
But I can always try again I guess.

Lay down there
Stretch out your arm
Try not to worry
The needles mean no harm
A flash of pain
A sterile ache
Accustomed with time
You'll barely wake
It draws you in
And swirls you inside
They said you'll feel better
They clearly lied
Through blood you'll travel
Ceaseless miles of tubes
They'll clean you out
What have you got to lose
The hours pass
It seems you're done
You're free to go
Just don't try to run
Arm bursts open
Damage looms large
Hold the pressure
Stop the charge
Must be fit leave
So you'll come back tomorrow
Abandon your plans
You have no more time to borrow
Alarm bells ring
The machine calls out
Don't you dare leave
It all but shouts
You are my captive
I'll drain your soul forever
Make no mistake
We will die together

I can't go back...

The sun splitting stones, he'd never been this cold
A traipse in a daze, he was what he was, and he was what he owned
All angles perfect, signal all systems go
A rushed scrawl of penance, you'll understand, don't we all in the end?
Knows the drawer, but draws them all
Watches, letters and diaries fall and scatter, his charge in amongst it all
Little thought then did he give to what they'd find
As he inclined the .45 to blow his mind

This light, it drifts on in waves
Herald me, let me catch it
Let me drink it.
In the recesses of my mind
My darkness contorts to hide
How it loathes these better times.
As ever, light's tide subsides
Darkness reclaims its wicked halls
And again supersedes all that has come before.
Trapped within this deadened state
The past is all I can't erase
Shudders in the darkness
Mimic the stirring of a soul
How I long for something more
Yet in the darkness of this maze
I am blinded by twisted views of fate.
Sincerity could bring serenity
If only it were real.
Monstrous red flowing from lines of fragile blue
The dark zeal and steel rule supreme.
These are the things of which I dream

Yet again cowardice stays my hand
I lie awake and dream of being that better man
The glorious shards of light brought on by those anonymous smiles
Perhaps they will quiet the darkness for a while.
I convey the words of a source unknown
I assure you, you'd find no pleasure in my own.
To illicit joy, laughter's light
Cut great vast scars in my night
The magnificent contours of green grass and sky
If only this too were not a lie...

How I've yearned, Burned! For those days of light
But the sinewy hands of a loathsome mind
Will grasp and hold the weakness of these times.
I struggle, I scream
Surely a God would cut these ties
Oh kaleidoscope, oh light!
Darkness has seen you sink and fade
I begin to both forget and regret my better days
My mind spies betrayers, witches and fakes
Yet they are your righteous, your angels and namesakes.
And so, I shall dwell in Hell
For this Heaven's sake.