trigger warning: bullying, alcoholism**

i went adventuring today looking for a creek but i could not find it and it reminded me of looking for salvation in green eyes and looking for hope in blonde haired beauties and being disappointed when everyone turned out to be only human
i went adventuring today and i took my dog with me and he seemed content but the eleven year old boy walking with me seemed afraid, seemed anxious, afraid to be with the leaves and the trees and i feel bad for this kid
he gets bullied at school cause he smells like kerosene because his no good dad won’t clean up the house and hides his alcoholism under the guise of ‘back pain’
the kid has started hanging out with a man that his mom used to date, his birth father, and when he talks about things they do together, he says birth father, but the way it is said you can tell he means real father
the boy has always gone by his birth father’s last name, even when he didn’t know him
i hope this boy doesn’t look for salvation in blue eyes and brown haired beauties. i hope he finds salvation within himself

What do you see, people, what do you see?
What are you thinking, when you look at me?
Do you see a grouchy old man, reading my book?
Lonely on the doorstep, drinking my beer.
Is that what you're thinking, is that what you see?
Then open your eyes; you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still!

At 20 I have wings for feet and fly like a bird
At 30 my dreams of love,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At 50 I contemplate the future alone.
At 60 I think of the years, the loves I have known,
A life that passed me by.

What do you see when
I struggle on my zimmer frame
To buy my Bulmers ?
So you see a body broken,
A man of poor character.

Well let me tell you this,
Inside this lumbered body, lives a young mans heart,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the pleasure and the pain,
I think of the years all too few – gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people, open and see,
Not a sad old man, LOOK CLOSER, SEE ME
A man of memories and dreams,
A Life story to tell.

The world is sleeping with gun
under its pillow.
Dreaming of fantasies
to shade its broken windows.
People against people,
souls against souls.

The world is sleeping in terror
beneath the moonlit night.
'Tis the coldest war of the year;
raining tears from the skies.
Yet every cloud has a silver lining;
tomorrow is never been frozen.

no more than a boy trying to be a man
i once had come a crusader down from a far country
proud and strong with a sword swift and sure
wrote my name in the battles and beerhalls
but as my years travelled i began to wonder until
in the failing embers of a nights snowstorm
i came to this place to her
where i had come a crusader to this the last mystery
where i had come a warrior
set to do battle with some dire foe
only to surrender with willing hand
in the chapel of her soft face
in the sunset birthplace of all mans deepest desires
in the fragile breath she leaves upon the very air
i dare not breath lest i disturb its soft flight
she tells me of a love that had forsaken
she tells me of a land from which she has fled
her eyes a dark fire like ancient pools of magic's
her lips supple like heaven creased with tender folds
in the chapel of her tender face
i did waste away my former days
wandering in the starlight musings of her soft laugh
dazed by the intricate dance of her deep words
she romanced me into the quiet of a man forgotten of himself
laid aside my sword and took up the ploughshare
laid aside my warring nature for the robes of a gentle man
now on this far distant night
with the crisp winter eve
a deep snow leaving a heavy silence all round us
the sound comes to me from a far land
the drums of war calling all true sons to defend hearth and home
i came to this place a young man
crusader to this mysterious place
where such dark fires burn in the eyes in such beautiful women
now old i pull on my armour
and unsheathe my sword and sharpen the arrows to fly true and swift
for even the chapel of her tender face cannot undo
even this the fairest of women
cannot deny
what dark wind has laid at our door
come a crusader with his stallion and steel
come a crusader to reap the careworn and the strong
come a crusader seeking his glory in the sun
i must go out to meet him
i must stop his plunder before he reaches her
i must slay what i once had become
a crusader no-more