The metal streets whir
And the buildings creaks with the shuffling of gears
Progress and movement pumped with hydraulics
Steadily compressing us into a cube of 1s and 0s

But here I will sit in the centre
Palms pressing into the walls
hunched over a children’s book
First key to my world,
First window to my mind
These pages folded into Prometheus
From spark to fire to light

Those podium sitting,
silver-eyed,
shadow-head figures
Look through binoculars searching for
Secrets in their numbers and passwords in their data

But here in my shoebox observatory
I will hold the library of Alexandria
And I will not let the future burn again

Standing in the blue light
Visible for all but eyes
I’ve got ghosts that take my place for me
Golden dust when sun goes low
Sifting through the air and snow
Don’t forget me when I never show

You’ll know when I come home

I’ve got things I have to do
***** dishes, ***** shoes
These bleached hands are not meant
for you

This blood, these veins
I’ve traded it all off for
Grand escapes
Can you tell I’m making it up
each day?
It’s too late to say that I’m not
the same

Go ahead, pull the trigger
This is bigger than us both
Even if it’s just beginning
There’s be meaning in it too
I’ve made my bed
Will the world sleep in it?
Even if you’re late
Can you say that it looks pretty?

Mongrel in an alleyway
Bleeding but I’ll never say
You’re the snow I stain my virtues on
Skin me like an animal
Gentle hands and carved out bones
Will you still smile when you catch sight my ghost?

Only you’ll know when I’m home

Doorknob parties like every ghost of a hand
That passed the threshold of
Route and routine
Sometimes I feel the grooves where your fingerprints
Burned acid into the brass

It was boring
Wet cardboard and drywall
We say goodbye like any other day

Stange how the quiet feels heavier than the talk
But carry it anyways
There’s a meaning in that too

When I talk to eyeless peers
Inane weather and harmless gossip
my voice echos in my head
Perfect moment, perfect answers
But I sometimes fear they hear
incomprehensibility in my words
uncanny in my personality
So, for safety, I resort to binary

I grow flowers in my lungs
to cover the rot in my teeth
Sugar-spun cigarette
melting when I breathe
Recoil from comprehension
offer the barest curation
I live forever in three dots
below my name in your inbox

I find all the things wrong in me and justify
chemical imbalance and medweb certified
But I know, gently, when the house is quiet
I only face my terrible self in the silence
Just a conversation with the mirror
just a prosecution in these eyes
And no one else to know me
but my doppelgänger mind

One day they’ll ask me
(in my dreams)
Where my art is found
My resume for my right hemisphere
My creative licence card

And I’ll say it’s found
obviously
In these poems I write at night
Restless hands and wordless ranting

It’s in the little yarn projects
I’ve picked up and put down
across a year
And my crazed grin when I have to frog three ****** rows

It’s all the handmade cards I crafted for mother’s day
for every year in my life
Because she once dreamed of being an architect
And smiles when resigned to helping to do my art homework

It’s the dried flowers
from manic fascination and collection
Pressed under a stack of books
Sort of forgotten when I tell myself
I’ll stick them to paper tomorrow

Not a bone in my body is professional
Not a bit of me says Van Gogh
But only I see my museum
And only I critique my art
So at least my abstract portrait of craft
Won’t have a missing ear in it

Make us fragile
like a flower
Unoriginal, textbook
Crooning love songs behind a hat on the street
I’ve seen mice with more calluses and sinew
Tough on the teeth
Grainy and cheap
If I die, I’m tender and sweet

Make us soft
like the morning’s first snow
Harbour us, carve us
Show us off on your front porch
beady eyed and smug grinned
Then rain falls and I’m run-offs
Footprints and mud
Snowman head smeared on the driveway

Make us sensitive
like your childhood TV dial
We’ll dance, we’ll bow
Until our minds get lost in a fog of
wrong signals and wrong sounds
It’s all static and I’m all electric
My breath my skin and my sight
Then you’ll hit and swear at your box until it learns not to fight

Make us young
Like we once knew
Skinned knees, knuckleheads
Holding out our hand and taking our then incomprehensible
comfort and safety
Time will have its pound
The world will have its way
But now I’ll savour this grain that was weighed
From old hands to blemish-less mine

I’m scared for the future
Like honey dripping from the comb
I only see in front of me and I’m scooping, scooping
I’m ready, I turn away and back
And now it’s all collapsed

Every so often I suddenly posses the eyes of a being outside my comprehension
And I slam back to wakefulness, yet never less dreaming than before
Madness, madness

I’ve seen my grain of sand sliding
Closer to the free fall of the hourglass
And now I can’t remember anything
But the misty dread of eyes
Staring and waiting

I hate the way my face
sloughs off in chunks when I stare at the mirror
I pull a frown, and a piece falls from the cheek

Each time I scrabble sluggishly at the sink
slapping back the flesh with a sound like mud cakes from when we were kids
When mirrors were for checking fallen teeth
and soft toy drama plays

Not a play by play surgical cross section with
every dermatologically perfect stencil I’ve scrolled past
Projected across my forehead

Not a soundtrack for
the way my bones would crack and grind
If I could squeeze and mould it just right


I hate the way that if I stand still enough
I can smell the curdling of my inadequacy
Mixed and folded into the screams in my head
until I can’t tell which ends and which begins

I laugh and joke and fear so desperately
that they don’t burn through my wax covered skin
To find all the holes I thought I beat out of me
when I learned I stayed cleaner in pretty packaging

Give me your eyes
so I can see out of them
Gaze upon this stretched out body and observe
Which wine pairs well with me,
being forgotten or being known?
Either way, I’m intoxicated on your judgement
and drunk on the guillotine of the youth

These shrunken hands
Sinking beyond my body
Common places, common days
My arms dissipate, regardless

My ribs compress like cliche metaphors
A long, drawn out CPR
My lips sting
And my body laughs
Like the dying rattle of a miser man

And my eyes
Dry like the wind

I sit
Lukewarm tea at my tongue
As I stare and try and try
Make this mess at my chest and my skin
Mine

Make my box of random trinkets
All different sizes but each in
Their own, small compartment
A mess but my mess and my mess I understand
But these clothes spill from my drawers and from
The bottom of my bed
And soon it’s just itching polyester
And nails-on-chalkboard fibre

My face is drawn tight
On the brink of spilling static
Cause under these nerves
And vessels and sinew

I’m just soda and mentos
And time

Butterflies are scavengers
Fluttering colours over a corpse
So read between the lines

Monarchs
Something, something
And death

And to love
Oh to love
The Unseen Ones hate us
They hate for we choose hate
When we can love where they cannot

Dance! The world dances!
The rocks the soil the river the trees
The worms the fish the birds the city
Waiting for your next miracle

Wake from this dream
Like putting in ear buds
Forgetting you turned the volume
Up up up

It’s the folly of man
To think us a march
Of drumbeats and boot-steps
Of razor edge lines

Bloom! The flowers last a day!
So cherish them!
Hail them!
We may never live another life

In the madness, I found clarity
The singular eye in the storm
rolling and twitching
Promising pain and whispering understanding
And with that clarity
I stood laughing
Blood soaking my hands
The storm is peaceful
I look up,
and see nothing but carnage sky

There is a desolation to grief
Hidden, buried
Rotting and writhing in the depth of the soul
And no one can see the blackened heart
Aching and curing in tears of salt

There is a wrenching to pain
Gripping, seeping
The infection and corruption of touch
Like everything could crumple
And everyone can break

There is a madness to comfort
Clinging, blinding
Feeling closer to light, to wind
Crawling up a staircase
Of bodies you’ve dragged in pursuit

There’s a silence to acceptance
Waking up from a puddle of blood and spit
Finding the faces that mouthed your name
Moths, circling the lightbulb
In your own rusted cage

Not all poetry work
and not all poetry speak
but somewhere
out there
there’s a word or a phrase
that will let you learn
how to cry again

sometimes the wind picks up all the leaves
that fall from my bark and land on my knees
and all that ive thrown and all ive suppressed
gets blown back at me in my own little mess
and the rain didnt help for the rot in the muck
and now all that i see is the pain i had held
and for some Forsaken reason my
hands touch no sky
for the Grey is above and it taunts me and lies
and i thought my roots had found peace had Found truth
in the Depths of my earth
In the Silence And my youth
But it turns out compression of rock is disturbed
And now the Soil kicks
and now the ground Jumps
and The storm it yells victory in the ocean and Rust
And my body it cracks to show all of the space
where i thought homed tranquility but out birthed my rage
and All the times I’m Empty
and all the Times i smile
all false propaganda for a Stone Under trial
And That stone will go two ways
that Stone it will crack
or it’ll reach the Point and Move Mountains
itll start to Yearn Lack
And the Ball It keeps Rolling
And It Will not stop
And Now all That Time’s left With is
Carnage and Crop

and Soon I will harvest
the blood in my roots
and the quiet will Serve my hibernating
for the next unbridled pursuit

The air is made of muted colours
That vibrate with the delicate hum of light
And I’ll try my darnedest
Catching these fireflies in my palms
But they just slip like slow falling sand

And you snap your fingers
And the world turns off
And I’m back again grasping at straws
And shredded scripts
As I drag my lagging mind
Desperate to catch up to the play

But the actors heed not my calls
Of forgiveness and aid
And once again I stare at dust motes
Singing in the spotlight rain

You said you loved the colour green
The shades hidden in leaves
the froth beneath the seas

And everyone that knew you
learned to love the colour too
And now I see it
in every metaphor of you

You painted yourself a martyr with
your blood upon my blade
And now my Damascus is tainted with
your tears and rusted pain

I was forged and beaten in quiet flames
for the risings and singings of slain
And my steel would ring crystal upon their thrones
as we show what’s womanly fame

But centuries later from charred fists
I’m set into glass and displayed
Where clasped hands and smug eyes declare my dream
and exampled as womanly fate

Yet remember
Remember
It’s in your bones and blood
Smell the ash on your face
Taste the rain and the race

We were made for walking
And stomping feet
To seek their eyes and maim

For the wanderer listens for the voice in the dust
And the lost will gain what was tamed

Sisters and brothers,
Prayers and shame
We’re warriors of water and way
We had turned to a nation of gold and rubble
We’ll turn to our stones and blade

Dig dig dig
There’s dirt in our nails
and the memories in our name
Where the weeds blossom in yellow fire
We’ll drag them into our nameless graves

I was tempered and torn in the waters of faith
Where I birthed and I sang and I laboured away
Where I’ll raise an army in the songs that I wrote
And the stars that I named in my chains

Today I will shatter each shard as an edge
and I’ll cut you as you swallow my hate
And my blood will cover as testament and crown
as you prepare for my womanly reign

I’m a mess of my own creation
Made a wager on my own nature
Now I’ve lost all the sanity to my name

You said that I died when I chose my side
And I don’t know where you buried my headstone

But parallels and pain
Are common themes in my play
And I’ll live while my story’s
Your stain

I see the light
in the corner of my window
before it morphs
Into the face of Hades

Death will guide my breathing
into this open space
and drown any meaning
Of air and it’s grace

I will see beyond all
that explorers have yearned
and the city heads tremble
Forlorn

For the street dusting folk
have accepted this fate
long before they were born
And will sing at the face of Dawn

When the sea reaches down
to take my hand
and sing me a cry
So foreign

I’ll remember that sleep
is no different from waking
and I’ll wait with no hurry
No claim

And we will soar
through the fires and
hailstone histories of man
Spit oil and embers on brand

For smoke becomes smoke
And poison becomes poison
And our bones a lovely crown
for our children

I love the same way
the bees love my carcass
Cause my body feeds the ground
for flowers to grow

And I hope that you feast
on their honey
Cause that’s the only way
it’ll get to you

I love the same way
a bomb loves the fire
Cause when it kisses that is all
it can see

And I hope the war ends
in your favour
Cause only then all the deaths
will have worth

I love the same way
the birds love the horizon
Cause to follow it is to fly
forever

And I hope at their end
you will find only feathers
Cause then you’ll know that their freedom
wasn’t free

For a moment in
this handheld darkness
the world is but
an option

The kids ran from the smoking pipes
Of tree branches and fog
Of mechanisms in the rotting mulch
Dragging heads of eclipses
On wish bone sticks

That was a metaphor for conquering
Unknown
But also the story of choosing
Unknown

The frogs write
their last will and testament on
Quivering mist and
Echoing answers

The fish know their place
Minds one ball of red string
And pass their history to their lawyers
As suggestions

The city is lined with
Street signs and traffic lights
One foot after another
One person and then another

Did you know the dictionary has no word
for the people who rely on patrons?
dependent
client
protégé

all these stolen words
and none to paint the world

Life is sheets of white paper
There’s a note when you’re born
And a note when you die
And a note when you eat

And behind each word is
A dept to be paid
In money in love or in pain
in quiet moments when you stand and wane

Perhaps I ramble too much
Mindless this and that like
the terms and conditions
of a tabloid subscription

Hah
Law metaphors from
Someone who’s not a lawyer

The kids ran from the smoking pipes
Of ink spills and crooked grins
Of mechanisms in the infinite machine
Nature following nature
Until they cease to breathe

History is written in prophecies
And radioactive handshakes
Yet the world with all it’s felonies
Cannot lay down in peace

It reads here, in the fine print:
Non-exchangeable
Non-refundable
Non-redeemable

The ouroboros of humanity
of plant of animal
of ocean of sky
of faceless crowds in an empty mirror
of lightless stars in a distant future

We will return
For better or for worse
It’s written in the fossils
And carved into our cells
And a written statement
is evidence enough

There is a lull in being
a singular heartbeat among
the mess of your room

The window is dark
with the suspension of city quiet
and the hum of incessant silence
Existing, existing

Sitting with hands bleeding
fire and flowers and fraudulent feelings
and the floating ache of lungs

The perfume stings your nose
and you learn to love it
and then you learn to hate it
Hear a voice (your own):

The apple falls, crisp, red
It fulfils it grand role
Eaten, sacrificed
The seeds see far,
noble, shinning destiny

The apple falls, clinging, dead
It rots as it descends
Putrid, abhorred
The seeds grow an executioner
choking, mindless hunger

I’ll tell you a secret
You smell of corpse-sweet

You are not your own
You are not your own
You are not your own
You are not yourown
Youarenotyourownyouarenotyourownyouarenotyourownyou

My fingers tug my limbs with puppet string
on a stage made of automatons
and I’m so scared I’ll blindfold every smiling audience
who’d come to see me dance
that one day I’m left with an empty room
only filled with audio studio claps

Every eye in the grain of the walls
Center at my spine
It crawls
Searching, staring

Fear
It’s white and blinding and
it sloughs off my throat like
An invasive buzz of
“Why”
“Meet me”
“I know”

I clutch my hands tighter to my chest
Cradling the last untouched petal
From my rotting person
Skin marred with unspoken rules
Flesh scored with glares

And even that is ripped away

I’m so tired
So very tired
It’s so easy to sink
Fall back to black
Dark
Silent waters

Every noise is a spider
On a web of vibrating consequences
I’m a doll splayed for dress up
On a stage made for the world

And now look at me
Crawling along the ledge
I tiptoe on the ice but
My feet are strapped with coals

Blind me, deafen me
Put me in a grave
If the day I get to keep my story un-judged
is the day my book burns
Then set yourself a campfire
Upon my weary bones

You kneel over,
hurling,
hands on gravel on tire stench on rubber
And there, on the streets
blood

Do you feel a pain too?
Right there, in your stomach
A little at the back, to the side
like when you run for a bit and stop and then run again but you forgot that it gives you stitches but it’s too late and it stabs and—

Do you feel it?
You grin at me with carnage teeth
We’re bound, aren’t we
Ritual and bone
Do you feel the needle?
or a cut
or a knife
or a bullet
or a— oh
you don’t feel it

I’m staring at the sky now,
your head’s the moon
your eyes the stars
my blood rain from your storm cloud lips

I— I think I’ve had enough
It’s been fun, I wanna go home
It’s— it’s been—
hold on

My chest is the rotten mouth of dying lion
Yep, crank the clamp wider, that’s right
Bad teeth in the back, come on
Yank it out

I’m still on the road
It’s a crossroads, I notice
It’s the only thing I can notice over the vice on my ribs
and the sight of your back

It’s crowded here
There’s the Hurt, doing shots in the living room
my Breath, snorting chemicals in the corner
the Night, shoving its tongue down my throat
And you, host of the Party of the Century

You walk away, silent as always
I think my veins still swell in your mouth
iron minting you a new silver tongue


I hope you taste nothing else

I need a picture on the wall of my coffin of stone
Put on a pedestal
Put on a shelf
A thousand years crusting tears on my self

Paint me immortal
Paint me a Saint
Or paint me the nightmare that everyone claims

Cause I am a paradox
A knife’s bloodless blade
A faceless body in the mirror
I can’t wipe away

Sinking on land
Quicksilver sand

Poison on lips
Drowning the tips of my
Sanity
Profanity

The sting of a bee hurts less
Than the thought of you leaving
Cause I dance the fine line
Of empathy and tragedy

Oh the church bells will ring for
Dancers and fools
Pantheon of Justice
Your name’s just a tool

Oh the road ahead is dusty
And the trees are barren fruit
But my back is to your hangman love
And I’m sorry I’m leaving
So soon

Mmm, tempting fate
Standing above storm clouds
Icarus bled silver regret
So he could be his own sun

And the audience behind the
Heavy blue curtains weep
And the sound effects team take thunder
From their giving hands

Oh, heroic, ironic
tragedy

he burned under the gaze
of our eyes

hello, stranger
i see we meet again
between book pages
within art hedges

the paths to immortality are
storylines and ballad chimes
i’ll see you in the epigraphs
i’ll read you in the skies

first law of
thermodynamics
no energy created
no energy destroyed

over and over
blood born blood lost
arms carved from fireflies
breath fossils in northern lights

hello, stranger
decaying and beating heart
chubby hands clinging to heaven
or trading final death-cards

the clock ticks to the rhythm of
supernovas far, far away
and prophecies printed on
abandoned beach sands

and you, stranger
walk the plank between the waking
and the beyond
my question to you is
Which direction are you heading?

You stand there in a field
Of gentle grass and daffodil

The butterflies gossip in dances
The breeze sweet as honey
Haloed sun on your head

And I feel you smile at me
So soft, so wanted
Cradling in your hands
My heart

A gory mass of muscle and tissue
Pulsating and twitching
like a nightmare struggling
To tear it’s desperate fingers through its
******, oozing womb

And I lay under you
skin gorged, ribs cracked
Wheezing through smoker’s lungs
clinging on by a few dripping strands
of fleshy tubing

And my hands claw the earth
nails mangled and nerves ragged
But my eyes fix
Enraptured
despite these things scrabbling
at my irises
As I strain
To catch a glimpse
of
your


face

Sunday on the school grounds
Wiping off the lead crowns
Beds set up in oyster shells
Weren’t we meant to breathe in
Sheriff’s silver casings
That fall out of the sky

And I say
Little red lies on your teeth,
your teeth,
Grinning at church bells
Atop your Van Gogh
window sill

Screams pinned on jackets and
conspiracies sprayed on knees
Black diamonds on the rocks,
the rocks,
This whisper ain’t got any
real privacy

Cutting your hands on dreams
Losing your last memory
Of white rabbits, door habits
Writhing like a royal trapped in
Big cash ins
Flayed for the prize to see

But it’s all
A
Feel
of your
Masterpiece

So meet me, meet me
My sidewalk’s got salt line
Fish in a hunting ring
Leaf in an arctic breeze
I’ve got time I’ve got time
I’ve got cigarettes and lime
Come put this fire out
And take a shot to you

Static sounds
and loading screens
System’s lagging
Count to three

Hey hey hey,
bad signal up here
Give a little more time
I’m getting there

Blinking lights
and reboot signs
‘Fraid the software’s gone, ma’am,
a little haywire

To be a machine,
oh
Binary, binary,
yes or no

But I’ve got a body
and a brain that don’t sync
So strip me for parts, baby
‘cause I doubt I can think

I steal golden apples
From the mouths of the statues of masters
Every night,
I sneak into the garden
Fountains tinkling poems
Rocks whispering symphonies

The sightless eyes of the moon
Track my every breath
Indifferent, uninterested

I bite into my prize
Each sweeter than the last
And I crave,
Crave the fire and ash
That burns my throat when I swallow
That clogs my lungs and eyes

And, the thief I am,
Came crawling back each time
Addicted to the sound of fervour

And every night hear me
Howling at the moon
Every night,
Crumpling into embers and smoke
Baring my soul to a deaf world
Drowning in the sounds of stolen words

Quiet days with the fan turned low
Soft wind across knuckles
In solemn contemplation

The dog sits, begging for scratches
And there’s only me,
the air
and all the rumbling thunder
of thoughts and headspace
In between

The concrete sidewalks
And metal rails
Are dry and wrung of rain

But the soil remembers the storm
And the trees don’t forget its taste

oh tales of rivers
and thunder cries
with rainstorm tears
and starry eyes

sing me a song
whistled ‘tween trees
howl me a moon
with Night’s black winds

the people light fires
in prayer to the sun
and the ravens tell lies
to the broken they’re sung

but all stories end
with a lesson or two
and this echo will carry
black winds, black wounds

i dream of moths and ants
in decaying living rooms
sleep in my eyes
hornets in my mouth

criminals chasing me
down fractured streets
my ghost siting idle
on a broken ferris wheel

sometimes all the days blend together
and you can’t tell yesterday
apart from tomorrow

and when you fall
from the surface of the sea
where sky meets the atmosphere
and the fish swim in trees

you’ll find that not much
matters at all

Flip a coin at me
Make me your wishing well
Your secrets in my ear
All them mine to tell

You can run
But you can’t hide
Count the candles you’ve blown out
Count the bullets till you’ve died

Oh dear

You’ve fed yourself to the monster
You’ve led yourself astray
No point running faster, faster
You’ve only yourself to blame

The heat of the cold sun
Burns frostbites into my skin
Icicles growing in the cave of my lungs
Breath a cigarette between trembling lips

And I wait
And I wait

The moon boils the waters
A deep purple neath my feet
The foam biting at my heels
And the night smothering my eyes

And I wait
And I wait

And when I still my heart and pulse
To drown within the forest
The world blows past my shoulders
And carries away my voices

I kept waiting for dreams
That I forgot that nightmares exist
So when the darkness lulled me
I ignored the flashlight that fell from my hand

And I don’t see the stars beyond
My curtain as I sit
Staring at the mirror
And sink

We were born
With no silver spoons
Just the bitter taste
Of a dead man’s moon

The city bore us
In canals we were raised
We rule these paths
As rats and decay

(the crows remember)
(the crows remember)

We are the filth
That feed your trees
Catch a pigeon
Let it sleep

From dark we rise
From blood we reign
With golden seals
And silver chains

(the crows remember)
(the crows remember)

Friend or foe
Your time has come
Pay your dues
The deed is done

Watch the streets
And watch the sky
Cross us once
We dare your try

(the crows remember)
(the crows remember)

my Good Ideas come at night

but seem like Bad Ideas in the morning

but I never had any other thoughts

so I guess they’re all just Ideas

My sleep isn’t silent
I go down screaming
Screaming
Kicking

Because I’m one breath away from
Death
One whisper away from
Eternity

My sleep is quiet
So I fill it with shrieks
Just to make sure
I am alive

I should be going to sleep
But the shadows at the corner of my eye
Keep whispering secrets
I never asked for

I’m pacing down the hallways
Of my sanity
Waiting for a door to open
Down at the deep end

The peonies dance a slow waltz
In a breeze that does not exist
And the ivy crawl up walls
Over lamps, over windows

Come sit with me
Next to the pond
You cannot leave
So take your time

Somebody texted me
About their day
And I was so happy
For them

I got a call from Ireland
Wasn’t sure what it was about
But the caller spoke Chinese
So I hung

Did someone else’s chore
While they hustled in their own world
Silently and by myself
Good job, good job

Sometimes I lay in bed
And think of all the things I might say
Lodged within my throat
A mantra in my head

A fox stole my tongue
So now my words don’t come out right
And the only thing I’m good for
Is to be someone else’s ear

No one stays to listen to my whispers
And maybe it’s my fault
Maybe I should’ve said it louder
Should’ve brought along a speaker

I’m surrounded by people
My kin are as knitted as skin
But I’m drowning drowning drowning
In nothing nothing nothing

Take me to the mountains
Mint my lead into a mouth
Let me scream out all my sorrows
Let me scream away my sound

Then maybe I won’t be buried
With all my life left in secrets
All my burdens left as monuments
Rotting underneath the stone

Boys will break hearts
Like little glow sticks
Break it a little
And let it show

Glow stick girls
Walk down the streets
With glow stick eyes
And glow stick feet

Glow stick hearts
Glow so bright
Dripping light onto the ground
But even suns will fade out

Break your heart
And bleed on the couch
Make the cushions glow
Let everyone know

Find yourself a glow stick boy
As discarded as you
With glow stick glass
And glow stick eyes
And just let yourself be you

The birds of the sky
Peck at my flesh
In the forest of bones
Of bones

I watch this quiet affair from afar
Silent, crouching
So as to not disturb
The thin veil of nature that has settled

Men in blue suits
And shiny shoes
Believe that power comes
From rising numbers
And diplomatic wars

But I
I have seen real power

Of the calm and rage of a brewing storm
Wind grasping, grasping
As electricity runs over my skin
As I root in place in the face of God

But I
I have seen real power

Of life where no life should be
Saplings growing, growing
Against the ashen backdrop
Against death and death and fires and hell

But I
I have seen real power

Of rivers and oceans and shapes in the waters
Constantly swelling, swelling
So dark and deep and whole
So dark and mysterious and promising

But I
I have seen real power

Of ice and hail like shattered glass
Stretching far, far beyond
With the cold beauty of a killer
With the sharpness hanging in the air

But I
I have seen real power

Life existing as an extension of decay
Decay, decay, decay
To return, return,
From life to death
To death to life
Over and over

The trees understand no concept of fear
Just the roots in the soil
And the branches in the sky
And everything between simply
The next life

Maybe someday someone
Will trip on my skull
Or find a fox who had his fill of me
For the end is simply a promise
Of life
One feeds the other
Over and over

Oh
True power
It was never really there
Just energy
And cycles
And the stillness of existence
Of time so colossal
It looped in on its self
Bending gravity and light and ideas and-

Oh what am I saying
Why are you here
Listening to the whispers of old ghosts
Old bones
Live your life
Forget the sleeping beasts
And the purpose of things
We are but little people
In the the scheme of the giants
And the dreams of the ancient
And the whisper, whisper of-

Looks like this is the end
Dead stop
Full stop
Bus stop

Nothing much to do
Just sitting
Staring
Horizons daring

It’s quiet
It’s calm
It’s not too bad
Just whistling grass
And tiny ants

Wonder, wonder
What has life brought?
Hither, huther
What use is that thought?

Away away
Where the wind hikes
Like little maidens
Over hidden pikes

And the rumble of rubber
And the smell of dust
Putter putter
Get on your bus

And leave behind
Your philosophical mind
For someone else
To follow

The world moves
A silent creak and pull
The people run
An endless marathon

Thousands of words
Passed between souls
But one
May shatter stone

Time doesn't flow
It rushes
Gushes
Reaching out for something
It can never hold

Lives and faces are swept
Faster and faster
In the leaping torrents of life
Faster and faster

The world moves
A silent creak and pull
And yet I stand here alone
Frozen In Time