The words unsaid are wraiths, unspread
To ears they should collect in.
Unspoken speech, they do not reach
The ears they should reside in.
Instead they're bred within my head
To ripen forth and spoil.
Each carapace returns to this
The over-barren soil
And yet, alas, the words that pass
Take root and choke the landscape
From world around they do resound
In never ending earthquake

The cold night air is a blistering kiss
Touching images and memories that I'd rather not miss-
And yet my eyes trace roadsides as they buckle on by,
The moon's a silent siren in the aubergine sky.

I left my mind behind me in the whispering wind
As the tires drag down miles past the motels and sin.
The city bright and glowing lights slash colors down my face
And I find my mind's now in rewind to settle on in.

Oh the cruel air it does not care to spare me from the dream
Of lilac breeze, the swaying trees, the water's subtle gleam.
And the way your eyes sought cloudy skies - with your back against the earth,
You traced the lines above the pines and reveled in their worth

My weary feet, they hasten me; a foot down to the floor
And spinning tires, the cable wires are a steady blur once more
Yet, that hidden place, that sacred space, follows deftly behind
With the cruel wind- the city wind- that carries better times.

You will find me
Street-side,
Where the gazes of cars do nothing to
Name me;
Breathing in Silver and moon
Lilac and asphalt
While they sleep in lattice mortar.

You will find me.
Where the Earth slopes in a sea of stone
Face up, skimming the summer grass with my fingers
And searching for the voices of the dead
In the cotton-wisp sky.

You will find me
Weaving through a sea of trees
Tracing their ashen skin
Like the carapace of each lover I've
Discarded along the way
Drinking the air of the
Earth and leaves underfoot.

You will find me
Surrounded and
Alone.

I've tasted Infinity
Acrid on the back of my throat,
Twisting my tongue around the periphery
Of what was both forever and fleeting.

I've dined on the Divine-
A place between The Nether and Earth
Where the smallest of deaths brings
The biggest of discovery-
Sending me crashing
One way or the other.

I've slept with Reality
Felt him slip, cold and hard
Into a place that will remain forever
Desecrated with truth and injustice;
Felt ****** beyond belief.

I've grappled with time
Shoving against a pervasive advance
That colors the way I see
The new line from things I've
Done and said
Built and Broken.

I've breathed and walked
The routes of monster and man
Knowing naught between the taste of blood and chocolate on my tongue.
Savoring both with bitter abandon.
Yet somehow-
My feet continue.
The day dawns.

I've persisted.

I was fire set upon
A bed of wood to flicker on.
The steady feed of brush and bark
Kept me ablaze to stay the dark

And yet at once, a time before
An oil fueled my cobalt core.
So mindlessly, I did consume
All things before their buds could bloom.


Further back, beyond that burn
I reveled in to quell the yearn-
There was chill that eddied forth
That ushered in the wind from North.

My fires faltered needfully
And lapsed into a harmony,
That warmed us both without the threat
Of razing us with hot regret.