Take your strong arm
And blow your horns,
Every man is a bunker
And each battle - a war

The choice is yours,
You can’t hide,
The choice is yours,
You will die,
The choice is yours,
They will lose,
The choice is yours,
Your life is used

You and me,
It’s a matter of utility,
Your burning flesh
Lights the straw
Leading to our barn,
This choice isn’t hard

Carry us away,
Our torn bodies
Manipulate,
Our collective grave
Retaliates,
Let your mask
Be your face

---------------Still eyes are still ripe
---------------under the deep
---------------shells sown shut,
---------------------------deep like
---------------------------echoing hatches
---------------------------with cold metal
---------------------------ladders,
----------------rooms of blowing
----------------violence underneath
----------------a new finish,
--------------------------------light gray
--------------------------------over walls
--------------------------------red as velvet,
------------------------------------------------over blue like mist
------------------------------------------------from quiet Spring rain,
-------------------------------here he wakes
-------------------------------out of smoldering
-------------------------------ash worn,
------------------------------------------A thumb out waiting,
------------------no one can see him.

“Where am I?”

I awake in realization,
all that energy
went into the marrow
and not the muscles,
after all,
climbing close
to the top
just to plummet
right down,
bones breaking,
It was a fall
towards
the bottom
and I
am
on
the
wrong
side,
back where I'd begun,

“Get up, you've a long way to go...”

The mud and bone floor
I once forged through,
like before - it's not pretty,

"A waste of time and breath having fallen on this side..."
"But how?”

Remembering how
I bent myself from
the edge
where I fell,
the frost on my nose,
it's still there,
cold down my face
when I look
back up,
frozen to the bone
when its face
fills my eyes
without escape,
marring the sky
as I lie
in the valley,
so low
and
alone,

“No creature should roam here long...”
“I should start crunching around the border.”

“It's my time.”

But,
flying above,
there is that dove,
the one from
the frozen tundra
of the crest,
the one that
led me up
and almost over,
it circles closely,
the close friend
who never spoke
to me,

“Hah! Your wings tell
truths in the wind...”

I listened to its spell
without a grin,
it was then
I climbed a cliff
to reach
where it perched,
instead finding
a **** crow
huddled in
the snow,

“How ugly.”

In that moment
I jumped,
falling too far,

“And now?”

Here it is again,
the failure of evolution,
a stupid creature,
an idiot savant
who created
my great mistake
and misfortune,
a hallucination,


“You're here too now?”
“Go away, useless bird!”
"What help are you?"
“Let me walk around this mountain alone...”
“I regret following you.”
“How could such a beautiful bird not know how to sing?”

**"It's still my time."

I'm young and poor,
Sitting here all alone
not knowing where you went,
The free water cup in front
of your chair is empty
and mine is
barely half full,
Being spent in sips
as the cigarette smoke
whirls in the room,
creating a haze
and leaving a daze
in my eyes,
the old lonely man
to my left
is writing a novel,
I stop him to look,
groveling,
“and what about you?”
he laughs,
“it's a story about
the time I crashed
my ship in the pacific ocean,
I didn't have any
sunscreen lotion so
the vision I had
shortly after
was a hallucination
of a beautiful
mermaid woman,
She helped me swim halfway
to a beach before my energy
was lost and I was put to sleep,
After that,
She spoke without speech,
She swam without
a breech in waves,
she stayed by my side for days,
I laid on her fin until I
found myself sunken,
rib like projections
coming from my throat
which filled my lungs
in the dark water
I was so afraid of,”
What happened
next surprised me,
I didn't think,
I took my cup
and with the last
of my money
I filled the drink
with coffee,
I glanced at
the thirsty old man
as I walked
out the door,

His laugh still
echoes in my
memory.

Was it a bad day,
or did you have to go?
Was it the wrong week,
or could you have stayed
just a bit longer?

But time doesn't
make promises,
maybe being alone
was a need
I got lost in,

Knowing who we were
with our mistakes,
some of which
I find hard to take on,

I never wish
to go back there,
but sometimes
I want to take you
to the river,

It flows like time
at a steady pace,
the water has no name
And your dress is perfect

It shakes forward
leaping over itself
when I
lie next to you,
holding your hand
in the grass,

You smile and laugh,
it's just us and the river
talking together
about places
we've never seen,

I want to love
but I don't know how,
You are very good
and I could
learn from you,

The sun falls
and the blue
mist surrounds,
telling us it's time
to go back,

I'll never forget
who you are,
whoever you are,
you're gone,
but I still
haven't found you.

Honestly
I've been honest
with you
since the beginning,
I think,
but there is this
lingering
note on your face
that keeps me
in dis array
about what was
true and what was
fake,

Can you give
me a hand
and stand
in a way
that displays
a truth about
the inner ways
beneath that gaze?!

PLEASE
try something
like this
or that,
like,
Because I'd
hate to see
what you mean
to really
say
is that you might
be waiting
for someone
who was displaced,
Or is that just me?

Long gone and late
in a phase
that's out of place
and perhaps,
well,
my love,
with your torn soul in
two
and into my lap
like a warning tap
on the top
of my arm,
It told me,

It told me not
to trap you
because,
well,
what's
Harmful to you
is often too
strong on me,
four weeks times
three,
or maybe four?
Oh god and
with these mistakes
(as you know),
I seemingly need
it to bleed,
stream down
my eyes
like tears
and in fear,
Because time
is often
too long here,
(As you know),

Honey,
can you hear me?
Deep inside please
give me a sign
because it was coming
to be about that time
in the road!
And that fork
told me
that it's going to
need more
from you
to recuperate
because
so much time
and effort
makes repair
so much longer,

Because sweetest,
the love I have
is the trash on its way,
the ash still burning in the tray,
The blast
still shaking
with waves
but,
the mast is
facing the wrong
way.

I say,

"Who am I?"

Don't make me form
for more than awhile, boy,
It makes me DEAD tired,

You say,
"But, you're alive!"

What is the clicking of your chattering
teeth about?

You say,
"But, honest expression, my love"

Oh you're honest, boy,
but it blows me away,

I will say,
“Are you sure about that, my love? Do you have proof, my love? Is someone lying to you, my love?”

My mind speaks so many unheard words,
I don't really believe you,
Though,
I'll flatter it
for awhile,

I'll say,
“You look a little sleepy!”

It's like a jigsaw that will
NEVER
fall into place,

I'll say,
“That's a secret I've never heard of!”

So many choices
to embrace,
Yet,
Too many clouds
fill this place,

We'll say,
“You're so hard to embrace...”

Can you hear me yet?
Do you know what I say?
I'm shapeless, boy,

We said,
“Let's be friends”

Your very own play-dough,
with a smile,
Friends in a worn out playhouse,
for awhile,

I'll say,
"Did you hear my secret?"

Those curious beads,
they can't possibly see,
And I'm so sorry
but,
This time I'll have to
SCREAM,

"Just don't put me in the icebox, my love!"