I love turning pens into paintbrushes,
gliding over the canvas of your mind;
then stepping back to see if there’s a picture,
or only a collection of colored strokes.

Some say the glass is half full;
others say it is half empty;
I say it is half full of liquid
and half full of air.

The sheep who adore me
scrape and peel at my lyrics
so I shred some gibberish into a song.
“What does he mean ‘I am the Walrus’?” they ask.

One woman bleats so loud
she doesn’t notice that I’m
politely calling her a “******* pig.”

When I begin wearing
my repulsive glasses,
I see a pair on every face.
Can’t they afford minds of their own?

“They’re gonna crucify me,” I predict.
Then I tempt fate once more saying “shoot me,”
and one man does.

One hundred
unfamiliar faces
flash through my
mind.  Teasing
characters mock
me.  I am
imprisoned in a
circle of light,
surrounded by
chanting figures.
Forced to give a
speech of body
language for
the immortals
of the underworld.
The last drop of
life is ******
out of my now
meaningless
corpse.  With my
last remaining
strength, I fight
to the end.  My
soul breaks free
from the enslaved
body and washes
ashore the
beach of
heaven.

Faint songs, riding and twisting on
the wind; distorted melodies ripple in a
pool by the
waterfall.  Musty memories rot in
a forgotten room, as my
heart fills the void.  A
weightless flight, dimming to
the sun, fading like
the moon,
spending one summer,
Alone.

With each step,
blistered skin slaps against my bare foot
like a 3-day-old band-aid.

The glare of passing headlights
blinds me, and for a few seconds,
I’m clinging to this world only
by the bottoms of my feet
and the air, thick with
remnants of the sweltering day.

Every so often, I dip my ear into the music.
Each time, like a forgetful child
touching a hot stove,
I shrink back.
The comforting rush of passing cars
and the buzz of crickets
will by my symphony.

Suddenly, there is a shadow before me;
a sinister outline in an eerie light.
Looking over my shoulder, I see a
UFO, looking for a place to land.
It has a mysterious protrusion

….

that is firmly rooted to the ground.
A lamppost that suddenly flicked on.
The shadow, is mine.

These confused thoughts
are pearls
echoing against
the pavement;
where is the idea
that threads them
together?