The man lay upon the city bench, his eyes closed against the day.
Dark aged skin warmed against the bleached and crackled paint.
Shadows of humanity are the only clouds to cross his mood,
a hastened pace helps avert its formless gaze when passing by.
What judgments has the world heaped upon him, or he upon his-self,
that has brought him to this space of civic consideration?
Is he ignorant of the angst he’s caused to be set upon our bliss?
To how disconcerting to the whole, his social presence is?
He is the dying form of a comrade seen through the smoke of the day’s long battle.
The one who is forsaken to preserve our flimsy rationales,
least we be brought low in some vain attempt to save our dignity.
Whose eyes once open might catch us in their noēsis gaze,
and hold us there unable to avert their silent condemnation.
Yet they are closed.
And our troubles stir him not.

What does a man do with his time, when his time is meaningless?
When all the years of productivity, produces for someone else.
Fruits not eaten nor enjoyed seem to rot when put away,
For the promise of a future meal at a table you may not make.

How do you maintain a purpose, when you lose the sight of youth?
When your memories are dreamlike, and struggle for their proof.
When dreams intertwine with memories and the past it blends away,
And the plateau that you finally reach is just another dusty plain.

Confined upon the seas of time, this voyage we’re ****** upon.
Are we indentured to the helm of this mighty ship we’re on?
For billions seem to sail this line sans the few that drift away.
Who navigates the future, when the clouds block out the way.

What future shores do I hope to hear the crow call out to me?
When the journey nears completion, with no youth to reverie.
Will I come to on the beaches of a new and pristine land?
Or will the currents ferry me away, never to be seen again.

I grasped at an image in the mirror that was never mine to own.
Held only for a moment before time took it back from me,
leaving me to decide if I should feel loss or not.

Why try to take a hold of something so immaterial as now.
For even now has passed before you know it,
and all we are left with is an empty hand and regret.

Very few can live outside of time, it seems.
Can let the moments of their lives wash over them
and cleanse away the sins of regret.

They allow the experience of life to fill them with
anticipation for the mystery of the next moment.
Even if that moment ends in the shadows of the unknown.

But in this stillness of time I sense the torrent.
which disturbs me from the calmness of my life,
only to drown me in a current I cannot dam.

I stand the silent vigil
     with my brothers left and right.
A perfect dress-right-dress
     keeps our columns long and tight.

We guard this sacred land
     Our valor etched in stone.
One mothers sacrifice is made,
     so that others may grow old.

I stand the silent vigil
    with my brothers left and right.
In the company of the honored,
    all are equal and upright.

Our numbers speak in volumes,
   though our names do fade with time.
Our fight is finally over,
   for our countries picket line.

I stand that silent vigil,
   with my brothers left and right.
Our banners handed forwards,
   the pennants marked in rhyme.

We stand at grave attention
   as new brothers fall in line;
And take up silent vigil,
  with their brothers left and right.

We stand that silent vigil
   with all brothers on the line.
Some fulfill their duties early,
   they are called before their time.

Those brothers that they've left
   cherish memories tinged with guilt.
They are called to share our stories,
   Even if it's once a year.

Is that God or Desperation
     That gets us through the night?
Are the faces in the ceiling real,
     or figments of the light?
Do we fill our minds with banal thoughts,
     to help us on our way.
Do we mark the time thats slipped and gone?
     To live in fear of that final day.

An argument is meaningless
     to the one who lives in faith.
Though all of us are faithful,
     and in that faith so few will sway.
Yet still the act of lashing out,
     seems to have it’s own relief.
Is that God or Desperation
     when we question those beliefs.

Is that God or Desperation
     that keeps us shelling money out?
In the quest to find some meaning
     are some willing to sell out?
Is the “truth” that some are preaching,
     worth the solace that it gives?
Even if that comfort irritates,
     and causes other men to ****.

Is there truly any way to live,
     when the fact is we all die.
Or is the truth what makes the soul,
     feel vibrant and alive.
If we embrace our own mortality,
     is it then that we really shine?
Is it God or Desperation,
     that leads to a novel life.

Walking down this dark and ***** path, I go to see my love.
It’s the kind of path that only a man like me can find, when walking in the moonlight, even though it’s been worn from time.
It’s the kind of path that makes the unknown man look stranger the farther down he goes; but I’ve been down this path many times and met my love back here for years.

Do you know what love is?

I mean, do you really know what love is?

Well, I can tell you it’s something that comes from deep inside, something so strong that all the locks and bars in this old town couldn’t keep me from it.
I would **** and be killed for it.  
I would die for it.
Like Hercules did in that Disney movie, though I doubt I’ll receive my god-hood in the end.

Now picture this.   Here now, before you is a strong man, a brave man, a man for every woman (and maybe a few men also).   But here is a man with money, power, and fame; but for his love, oh for his love, he would case it all away.
He would throw it up into the air and let the four winds take it form him like some poor dead relative being scattered to the sea.

Oh to feel love like that….to feel that kind of want.


You…you can not even begin to understand a feeling like that.   Only a few of us do and so only a few of us know where to find this path.
The one that’s littered with the remnants of our previous lovers, and the promises of the future, though it never said that promise was true.
I know that though.  I knew that when I started down this path and still it didn’t keep me from that calling.

Can you hear it?

Ohh…can you hear it??

I can feel it in my bones.

I’ve put it in my veins.

Oh how my love calls to me and keeps me warm at night.

When will I look in the mirror?
        Driving home, staring out of a rain soaked
        window, my reflection flashes back at me
        from my fellow travelers lights.
Thirty miles to my bathroom mirror
and all that remains are those flashes.
       Quick, fleeting glimpses of regret and denial
       that become whole in the glare of florescent lights.

I see the past.  I see the future.
       I see myself with ageless eyes staring
       ahead at me all at the same time.
Thirty years back to this bathroom mirror;
a long hard line that is the window to my past.
      This mans face will be old from time
       but his eyes are as perpetual as his soul.

The eyes are not windows where the world
can look with happenstance… they are a door.
     One that we can open and close at a whim.
Where we choose who and what we let in,
to the glory or detriment of our souls.
      I feel mine well up some days and push against
      my hinges.  Then I look into the mirror and push back.
There is no salvation yet  in that reflection.

I touched her fingers to my lips
and tasted her essence, her being.
My better half, sometimes bitter half,
whose love's been paid for by the passing
of the years.

A love that's been earned through the tiny tribulations
that go noticed only by the watchful eyes
of that life I swore to share.

Upon my thoughts and actions
are all her better parts, laid so deeply
that even when away I can feel
her tender loves impression upon me.

A love that's time worn
into the fabric of my soul,
and clearly visible to all others
who may interlope upon our lives.

This creature, this being.
Whose thoughts at times are so alien
to my fractured life.
That even when apart from myself,
looking down,
I am held in silent disbelief.

As light grows dim I'm wakened to those thoughts
that are so easily drowned out by the cacophony of  my life.
Ushered up to the privacy of my mezzanine box,
I gaze out into the darkness of the orchestral pit,
and listen to the crickets tune their lovers chords
in hopes to pluck the heart strings of their mates.

They too soon fade as my conductor takes his place
upon the stage and brings a quiet hush upon my mind.
Eyes closed I wait for this symphony to fill the halls of my soul,
and play a lovely melody that helps me pass
the quiet meter of this time.

Tonight a Renaissance will play and take me back unto a time
where I could freely lay in melodious thought
among the suns warm rays.
Basking in the music of a youth which remembered now
brings a tearful smile to my face, a hazy lie I spin.
One to make me fond of the offerings of my yesteryear.

That youth, the one which sliped so quickly by,
but whose colored foundation still supports the fading dreams
to this dull and wakeful life.  It keeps me moving forward..  
Moving to a greatness I knew I could not achieve,
but never quite believed the lie enough to stop my youthful stride.

Soft white clouds on a winters day
reflecting the shadows on a sea of gray,
making pictures in the sky
passing by a child's eyes.

Tiny tadpoles in the river
dancing a waltz to the trickling water.
To a tune so soft and mellow
darting around in the clear blue shallows.

Acrobats up in the sky
singing sweet songs as the day goes by,
keeping the day alive with chatter
no mind be paid to the child's clatter.

Yes, this is the stuff that we all miss
that we catch here and there in a fleeting glimpse.
In a laugh, a cry, a hopeful sigh.
A child's dream, the day goes by.

Calm blue waters
dimly lit sky
a peaceful journey
in the pale moonlight.
Crickets chirp
to ease the soul
to weight the lids
of the young and old.
The world sleeps
and here I walk
thinking of verses
acting out thoughts.
Watching the stars
mark eons in time
for the minutes are marked
be mere men like I.
But minutes make hours
and the hours make days
giving each man
the stars mortal ray,
and hopefully others
with thoughts such as mine
will walk the same road
and remember my shine.

It is comfortable in this colored glass
among the barley, malt and meed.
To sit here in the place my father made for me.

Though warm bed beckons me to fall,
down comforter and pillow, wife's embrace....
I sit here...Still...
until late with weary eyes
I curse my retched luck that such a man like I
should feel so loved.
This faulted man my father made.

Drink!!!

and drink I will
Until I'm fit to let myself back in,
a clumsy thief in my own house,
making way with measured step
until I'm standing at the foot of my own future.

Is it his father that he sees?
or just the man that made him.

Walking past a clear calm lake
my lover by my side.
She pauses me with tender yank
points my gaze down with surprise.
She looks at her young slender man,
blond hair and pale blue eyes.
she sees that little smile he makes,
whenever she walks by.

She pulls herself up close to me,
puts tender kiss upon my cheek.
"You know you've always been,
and will be good enough for me."
It made me stumble onto what,
I was always searching for.
Knowing I've found everything,
but now it means much more.

Down into that mirror I looked,
at the man I'd grown to be.
For in those words we found relief,
and I glowed in her esteem.
Days and nights will pass us by,
but our love will always be.
For she had finally found a way,
to put my mind at ease.

Where the hell did you go to
with your fancy two dollar words?
What happened to the flaunt-er,
the flirtatious ******* fornicator?
You tempted me with daunting thoughts.
You teased me with your pornographic pics.
Posted HTML induced *******,
leaving my C.P burning for U!

Where the hell did you go to?
you said you were protected.
What happened to your anti-viral software?
I thought it covered all your hardware.
Don't just ignore me, or flood me out...
you have a senseless, sick sense of humor.

You kicked me from your room,
out in the cold of cyberspace.
New address, different text,
but now I've found you!
Hiding behind a new facade.
Yes now I've tracked you down,
don't you know me, can't you see?
It's you that's done this to me.

Barefoot, bowlegged,
and pregnant with you cyber-child!

Can you see the shaded hue
of a slightly slanted point of view
that leads the mind towards silky tunes
of mad men laughing at the moon?

For here I stand as they bellow on
in search of the dimly hope filled dawn.
I grasp at a verse of a newly sung song,
it helps to parade my feet along.

Received I was in an open house
and feed by young mans lovely spouse
yet still I felt as though left out
for a one track lone mans mind will doubt.

For doubt is what I did indeed,
I held their love aloft of me;
Armed with smooth black hands of thieves,
I stole that which I couldn't achieve.

Looking over this piece of mind
which I had acquired in no good time.
With hands I thought were way to sly,
but was it just that I was blind?

Now young man smiles ruefully
his eyes laughing at my simplicity.
"Why steal what's given free!"
"In the book, and the word of a man like me."

On the edge of genius and insanity, I walk a colorless line.
To ask pure questions of myself, tasking the limits of my mind.
I wrap myself in complex thoughts, obscuring a realistic life.
Tossing simplistic notions 'way for that grander broader prize.
And as I tear away the strings that bound me to mankind.
My eyes do see from point of view an omniscient god-like prize!
Then such a fear doth take my soul with force enough to paralyze.
And back I'm ****** with jealous hands, slight laughter in blank eyes.
Now mere men do part their way, as I make my by and by,
and I sense the thoughts and notions of their innocent one track minds.

6 Pence and you'll fee richer!
Can you hear just what I'm saying?
When your soul aches can you pay enough
to fill that dreadful space?

You could worship things of paper,
shapes in boxes, leaves on trees.
So what's it gonna hurt you?
Pay a little worship me!

I'll say sweet tender nothings,
words to take away your fears.
Make the hole deep down inside you
shrivel up and disappear.

Sing you limericks,paint bright pictures
like a song bird in his house.
Ever happy, always happy in that cage
with food about.

If that won't make you feel content,
or steal away your doubts.
Then I'll set the blame upon your head,
maybe then you'll dish it out.

6 pence that's all it costs,
you have only me to thank!
6 pence that's all it costs,
for the keys to heavens gates!

Who will lead the revolution?
I think the poets will.
Who else can take mere words and turn them into the thoughts that toss great men about in sleep.
Who can make the people rise, and bring the masses to the streets?  
Where the gunshot is the only way to stop such a typhoon like sympathy.

I've heard men like this and read about their deeds.  
I've seen them martyred on their crosses with little save their dignity.
With only the stain of their blood to remind us of what they gave.
I listen, and am mortified at the twisted regurgitation of their poetry.
Now a servant  of the men it was meant to grab hold of and change; put to use towards their own perversity.

They tell me that poetry is dead, a thing of young girls and old men.
I'll let them think that as I read my lines in the dark and dreary dens.
I'll perfect it by the snaps and claps of other like minded kin.
Waiting for a time that's right for me!
For one day I will bring my lines into the light and grab the souls of mortal man; while robing the wicked of their sleep!

The clouds drawing pictures
on a tapestry of land.
Distorting but not destroying
the beauty that's at hand.
The suns lending light,
To a perpetual eye.
The land lending colors
to make this temporal sight.
The land throws in contrasts
to an ever changing hand,
but it's entreats go unnoticed
like critics to a masters plan.
For when the day is finally done;
the sun tiring of it's show.
The sky will show the land true art
and a beauty that it rarely knows.

I see this world full of filth and of hate.
That's diluted with pictures of **** and bad taste.
Where *** of all kinds is one click away;
and I wonder just why my soul starts to ache.

This is a world that's been all mans to make,
who've reduced all it's colors and hues to dull gray.
Made ***** by hands and thoughts gone astray;
Whose pitiful dreams are turned nightmare by day.

This worlds made of asphalt, the trees not quite green.
Where the grass in the cracks is considered a ****.
Our ozone alerts are a new holiday,
displayed on our signs and the news of the day.

With all gods creatures turned scavenger now,
to pick through the trash and rummage around.
To beg for the food that has fell from our mouths,
and not all of them use all fours to get 'round.

Oh, how we get up and go through the day,
how we go through the motions and hide all the pain.
He we go to our gyms, and we all run in place;
how we wonder just why do our souls always ache.

Do they know what they do
when a child's first born?
Or do they just play it by ear?

Should they pass off whats taught
to them by their lot?
Or spare him the pain that they lived?

Does he show her the world
and all that it has?
Or just place it on top of her head...

Does she teach him what aught
and what naught to be done?
Or leave him to learn from the pain.

Do they know what to do,
when the child's took away?
Will they fight or resign in the end.

Does he spare not the rod;
does he unknowingly rob
what time the child has in the end?

Is she coarse, is she curt?
Does she shatter self worth?
Is he left like a shell that's unfurled.

When they corrected mistakes,
were they gentle or firm?
Did they cower in fear far away.

Do they know what they do?
Do they live in the truth?
Do they care what's been left deep within.

Stroking back the cream colored hair and staring into colorless eyes.
I see the future, the past, and slowly turn away for something better that was not there.

Holding her chin aloft, I smiled.  I felt nothing but hate.
But that hate turned into fear and that fear paralyzed all emotions,
and drowning I turned away to run.

Forsaken by family, forlorn by friends.
I asked "Why"?
"Because" was the answer, and it wasn't good enough.

Withdrawn from the world. No childhood, no love.
Locked in a room with no key, escaping from reality.
Reveling in fantasy!

Looking to be free of me.

A parakeet sits, with colorful wings
and sweet dreams of grandeur
now shattered in vain.
It's dreams are of blue skies and of billowing clouds
which it sees everyday
through the bars that surround.
And only to someone, who's been there before
do the eyes tell the story of someone forlorn.

The lion does walk with bright golder mane
and a remembrance of a kingdom
he lost one dark day.
He remembers of tall grass and plentiful game,
and a roar that sent shivers
now no longer the same.
And those eyes tell a story, as he walks to and throw
of a kingdom once had and a freedom once known.

And me?  I'll just sit here for I truly know.
The story the eyes tell and the hearts mournful woe.

The dawn breaks over the horizon
and a new life has been born.
As easy as the morning begins the day
the birth begins the life.

The stillness is disturbed abruptly
and a baby cries out with its new found life.
A flower begins to grow with that morning light
just as a growing soul brightens two peoples love.

The high noon sun beats down hard
as hard as a teens heart that's held by pressure.
This time begins the feeding of all
especially the feeding of the ones mind with knowledge.

Then the sun slowly diminishes into the land
like a book, finished or not, it is slowly closed.
Surrounded by darkness, the sun goes down
but the soul, it rises, eliminating the heavens.

Seen black and cold
with eyes worn and scratched on his surface from time.

Taken for granted are the words that he teaches,
and forsaken are the sentences she shows.

The world's future comes before him.
What he has to tell, and whether they remember
will decide their fate.

At times he is a disciplinary whose words are bold and strong.
An assayer of the past and the things that have gone wrong.

He takes upon the troubles of the one who speaks his mind;
puts into words what cannot be said to his future kind.

For years he'll take upon this task, and when his time is done;
a creature of velvet so soft and dark
will destroy his hard earned work into a pile of dust.

Oh how child's eyes do change
when mortal presence shown
when realism takes away
that inner lasting glow.

To watch the shadow cross their face,
and small minds narrow down.
To see them count short seconds 'way
and will the hands back 'round.

Their lips do part in questioning
the reason for it all.
My answer given faithfully
if afraid why live at all.

And if no answers good enough
To send you on your way
Then in a blink it will be done
and in regrets you'll lay.

Fatherhood, that long and rugged path made fruitless by the stubbornness of my seed, leaves only the dreams of baseball diamonds, campfires, and knowledge taken with such esteem that you feel false in its exchange.


I fret those years of future promises, a paternal vow rebutted in the headstrong nature that only youth can have, and pledges made to sever the sins and failures of the fathers, father as lessons learned to the son, lost to the dogged nature of my genes.


Held firm by the bonds of man I am a spectator to the infinite rehearsal of our lives, that neither leather lash nor boisterous voice can dissuade us from our course.  I can only weep in the hopeful darkness of that trepid future I clutch to so dearly.