I offer no offense
But my solitary wandering
Yet they are offended

Nothing but my handcrafted
Stone dragging behind
Like a ***** with his fragments of beauty
And thus my offense fills
The air they breath
So cannot help but be offended
By mere existence alone

The stone lost roadside long ago
But in my heart
I still feel the full bitter weight
Round my weary, weary heart

And so they remain offended
By my solitary wandering
Like a ***** with his fragments
Of decayed beauties
Still wishing a rose could be...

But it is an offense

It's a silent place
Where men such as this
Come to settle up the debt
To balance the books
All that could have been
All that was
And the difference you made
In the lives around you
People known and unknown
In your time before
The passing room

The brine water
Lay heavy on his mind
Leaving him wrapped in
Thick gauze of wounded mind
The brine water
A trap from which no escape
Thick and cloying
A drug-induced waking dream state

The brine water is a trap
That lures the unwary
With golden whispered promise
But once you enter it's cool touch
Entombed in it you will become
Forever enamored by its sparkling lure
The brine water
Lay heavy on his mind

For the wakefulness edge of sleep
Does he dream of his room
Under a northern sky
Brine water invades it's familiarity
Slowly fills with its cold dark water
Obscures what we once smiled
Obscures where we once
Ran free and wild under
The never-ending sunlight

Slow crawl across
The new river
Currents pull me askew
Day unfortunate plays the devil
With my feet of clay
Stumble and recover
Is the method of my escape

Spare a dime brother
Won't you give to the crippled and poor
The Spend Thrift Scottish Way
Give a hand but never the word for the wise
Give leverage off your sickbed but never really leave it

The drunkard and the feeble share their thought
Boycott the Spend Thrift Scottish Way
Throw glass and nails on the path
We will sink them in our turn
Sly smile between brothers of the road
They have got you down
But they can't defeat you at your own game

It's a slow crawl across the New River
To see the King Of Clubs
But I have all day and nowhere else to go
Spare me a dime brother
Spare me the Spend Thrift Scottish Way

Born to the way of the wind
To spread wings and know
The life of the skies
To hear its wind song
to see the majesty
In the eternal clockwork
Of sun and stars

Ages pass like silent machinery
As the world below
Ebbs and flows
Along with the whims and designs
Of life breathing its births and deaths
Expelling the weary
Whisper in the new bright-eyed youth
that is the way of life
the way of the wind
And the world without care
Breaths on and on

He was born to be
that adventurer
Born to the way of the wind
Intrepid and carefree
He tread the sky like a trailblazer
Painter, Poet, Troubadour and Wiseman
Now we wait with him
To see what path is yet to come
Now we all await carefree
The choosing of our own
Way of the wind

The steering current turns north
Bringing wild winds stirring
As the massive storm stalks us
From far past horizon
I keep watch to the gathering rains fall
As my silent brother sleeps
Would try to pry him awake
But we no longer speak the same language
My mutterings no longer register

Hours become days
As the storm unwinds
Sometimes the sun breaks the rain
And my lost brother can speak
Do you remember this...
Remember that...
What's to discuss when you are not home
What's to endorse our liberty's
When you're tied to a bed

A storm stalks far over the naked horizon
The promise of her ferocity tasted in the
Stirring wind
Rain and a wicked flood
That will shred hearth and home
But my sleeping brother lay safe
In the confines of his mind
Sleep bother sleep on and on
Rest easy longliner
The sea awaits

He wrestles with the blanket
trying by sheer strength of will
to swim out of the deepening tide waters
that overwhelm him
as unseen hands hold him back

no longer am I a brother
I am a stranger tugging at him
as he tries to flee
some unseen danger that troubles his mind

Difficult to stand and watch
difficult to write

He wrestles with the blanket
and curses his accusers
slanders the mediocracy of such an end
to a life lived unapologetically
I never knew that you were so strong
till that strength was gone
fare the well longliner
a son of the sea
may the waves rock you gentle to sleep
long blissful sleep