Melodies play in the passing days of grey with remorse in the notes of woe. The Sorrows tune, which flows in the colors of anger and shame! The forgotten names, that hang the heavy head hang to end in rope and rafter and regret. Pallbearers hoist the match stick man, yet strike the flame and consume the land, smoldering blood to ash.

I have a home,
It is my safe place and my refuge
Where truth lives freely
And where trust is currency

It is the table
Where meals are shared
With extra servings of joy
And washed down with laughter

Located in a place called love
Where it never rains
And though it can be cloudy at times
The sun shines through in the end

And music plays there
In the form of conversations
And silly jokes
That makes me smile often

So yes, I have a home,
Not because I bought a building
Of wood and bricks and mortar
But because I married a friend.

Somewhere high up in the trees
Under a canvas of midnight and laughing stars
His music dreams on a moss covered bough

He is my friend and has always been
Known by everyone during the day
And by the setting sun he is forgotten

Huddled safely in that lofty place of his
Feathers ruffled against the subtle breeze
He waits for dawn in the rustling foliage

And when the sky is aflame
With the breath of a new day’s morning
He will sing again in those precious tones

And we, those of us who had forgotten
In that day will remember him
And in his songs
We will remember what it means to be alive.

This is my life, though it is not my story to tell. I am but a simple actor playing his part in a much grander scene. Sadly, I am not that skilled in my trade. I am little more than an extra on a stage that has become overcrowded, and it is how I live my life that will become the script by which history will tell my story. If I play my part well enough my remembrance may be somewhere in the credits; lost among the scrolling lines of the lives of others.

A miracle struggles and takes flight from my chest in each meeting of your gaze, open eyes that look upon open eyes, the passing glimpse that halts time and sets fire to my reality. I adore that I adore and clutching hands to chest fail to contain the flood.  Emotions spilled forth as swelling surf to surging seas of feelings unknown…until this moment spent lost in those eyes. The heart is a storm, beating behind a curtain of flesh and blood… thundering, running as directionless as a derelict ship in uncharted waters on an empty horizon. Beautiful lover, whisper like the roses between parted lips and speak the song of angels grace with a look of innocence. Hand in hand to swim until we drown in this flood. For though I hunger for your kiss, I starve for something else, need something so much more. Light my world with a smile and lift my heart with a touch, a kiss, ablaze in an embrace…amazed. The moth and the fire dancing on the burning wings of elegance…

Maybe today will be the day
The day I save the world
The day I save myself
Maybe today will be different
Maybe I’ll rescue children
From a burning building
Maybe I’ll feed the hungry
Maybe I’ll compose a song
That unites humanity
Today the possibilities
Are endless
So maybe
Just maybe
I’ll do something great
Something unimaginably heroic
Or maybe I’ll just shut up
And eat my breakfast.

Close my mouth and cover the truth from my eyes, hide your razor teeth behind grinning lips. Crack the liar's smile and walk on for miles in false innocence. Across the backs of fallen kings and heros who failed you, unseen. The lions of yesterday who bled for you where you tread uncaring in your timeless beauty...

I saw a white dove
Upon a white fence
I pondered upon this
And what it might have meant

While down below
Alone in the white snow
A white rabbit was born
Looking somewhat forlorn

I knew I saw them
I could have sworn
And more flakes fell
On the ground to adorn

It painted quite the picture
I must say I’m enthralled
But thinking about it now
Perhaps I saw nothing at all

I am the tool, dripping with the blood of innocence, the sword in the arm of unreasonable men, committing atrocities in the name of righteousness. Expected to show no emotions, stone faced, marching on, mouth closed in silent obedience. Left to my quiet insight, where I have become the spear that pierces Christ, while you sit there complaining about your self-proclaimed civil rights. Doing for those who can’t do what I’m told must be done. With battle cries and muzzle flash from the barrel of my gun. And one by one, these booted feet crush the sand. Until I stand under a hot sun, a man with his brow creased, watching countries fight for so called peace in their fear of the Middle East. And this is their answer, spending more money on war, while children in Africa die of famine ignored and UN inspectors with blind eyes, examine the solution to these problems galore. These solutions we don't see in our judgemental haste are the answers which might as well be floating in outer space. Why can't we see it when it's right in front of our face! Dear God help us, for we are the human race.

Steal my hopes, steal my dreams. Set me adrift with sails aflame in broken glass seas. Burn me down sweetly, gently break my bones, cut me in kindness just don't leave me alone. Tear this flesh, strip it from its home, just don't leave me alone, just don't leave me alone...

Toll the bell tower and chime the hour of night
The touching hands that fingers laced embrace
Locked in a lovers hungry kiss undenied
Slake the thirst to sated lips
Unread hearts
To undying love
Burning cold as fire
Under a dancing moon
Among a chorus of clouds
Over a feast of flesh caressing...

You chose the long road where I'll be waiting. You walked on forever as if time were nothing. Arrived late to find me there wanting, eyes wet, weeping. Endless days spent on a dead end street seeking. So determined was I to find something, blind eyes peeking, when you never promised forever as you approached and became my everything...

Sail the ship of want through the shimmering sea of sand, the lonely expanse that leads to nothing, going nowhere hand in hand. The Captain calls to crewless timbers, the empty decks the fractured hearts remember, and the path is shown in a star's burning embers, churning crimson where we stand.

Hope, faith and clouds under night stars and shining gods see me walk over bottomless holes, the barefoot faithful soul treading upon snow white darkness. Travelling the doubting one's road with no one to blame, as marks of pain heal unashamed, with disregard that life may be hard, but I hope one day you'll see beauty in these scars.

Whisper like the leaves of autumn, falling to rivers flowing behind the kiss of lovers. The wind whipping hushed secrets from their branches in the color of gold and fire. The color of desire, burning behind the embrace of a decades undying promises, life, passion and truth told in the timing...

I have this book that I love to carry
I take it everywhere you see
Inside there are no pictures
Only stories of you and me

It’s bound in hope and memories
But its pages give it form

See, some are tattered
Some are torn
Some have become faded
Some are worn
And some are stained

But what remained
Was a history
The day to day telling of our mystery
That took forever to figure out

But even after all this time
I know without a doubt
That this book was really based on you
And I’m glad I filled it out.

Grasp life!

Cling to it as you would grasp a flower with many thorns.

Hold tightly its beauty,
And its pain,
As your reward for the chances you have taken in desperation.

Drink freely from the wound, the blood of the terrified heart,
That crimson badge that defiles the bold sanctity of our innocence!

And fear not the nightmares,
The blame,
The doubt,
The anger,
Hold high the heavy head in its weary and furrowing brow.

Taste the blood of your own bitten tongue,
Drink it down, hot and bitter sweet,
Savoring it behind teeth of madness in a silently screaming mouth.

And yet neither tis not life nor love that bears the pain!

Tis I, the dream!

Shattered by the hammers of false gods.
This chalice that stood once in glistening its pride,
Reduced now to uncertain shards of hope.

The betrayer's shards,
Taken to form and cast thusly unto the ***** of the unwary and the fool,
Striking into those who survive,
The unforgiving blow.

War is its result.

On a fierce battlefield of emotions, born in the heart,
Where weather matters not against the cold torment that is only found inside.

So tremble,
And shiver,
And rightly so that you should!
For you are no different than he,
Nor she,
Nor I.

That you should not feel and bear witness to the sorrows
Served in generous portions at the table of lies.

In as much that you did indeed eat and drink your fill from the plentiful bounty,
You who also found your satiated fulfillment there in,
With each ravenous bit taken.

Wake up to a sunrise...
Or rain

Have a cup of coffee...
Or tea

Share breakfast with a loved one...
Or alone

Go about your day
In all it’s wonderful...
Or terrible ways

Live your life
Love
Hate
Cry
Laugh
Be

Congratulations!
Without a single written word
You have just created a wonderful poem...

Or become one.

Whisper archane to my thoughts
Wind of gales
To bend boughs of oaken wood

And there I stood
Patient among the grove

Alone

A prisoner to a world I can't call home
Driven by rage turned sour
In my Hour of solitude

Tomorrow's ghosts
Lust and live today

So fleeting in their time

*So magnificent...

Politician politician why do you lie? Why must you kiss our babies as they cry. Then smile seated in power with greed beady eyes as you take then deny. You who represent us as we gathered far and wide, lead us and were to stand beside us in life. And now suffer us strife that we chose you to be the one, held silent under the heel of your jack boot and the barrels of your guns. Is it fun, for you to hear our gasps as we pawn our **** for the rising cost of gas? And feel so truely alone as the banks forclose our homes? Yet we will continue to drive on, on our own, for we have no fear of being overthrown.

Muscles straining, rigid steel bands working, the man machine grinding his gears, turning the strength of years into toil. His blood begins to boil. Sweat upon sweat, blood and tears, till death return him to soil. And for what was this sacrifice made? These wages paid in time passing, age amassing in wasted years and fears of death. Fears of last breaths, jagged and gasping, eyes wide and scared, that remember laughing in those pleasant fields of fire. The open rolling desire that love embraced erased our anger, our hour of ire, and covered us in it's shelter. The shodow of it's promise given that while we're alive we have the hope of truely living, truely loving. Hand in hand to kiss the souls and never feel the cold. Never let it go, never let it go! That one precious thing that suffering subsides, suffer the sting and sing in a voice of grace in this race against minutes and seconds that steal away our hearts and the bonds they hold to eachother.

I tripped and fell one day,
over a broken heart where it lay in shades of grey.
So consumed was I in my own dismay
that I did not see it,
though it could see me.

It had been cast aside....
or more likely, it had been set free.
Perhaps it's scars were the fee,
jagged as they were.

I mulled over the thought
as I nursed my broken pride.
I dusted off my jeans and picked up that heart,
cradled it tenderly, offered it a ride....

"Where will you go" I asked,
"I'll take you there if I can.
Though the journey may be long,
for I am just a man"....

It spoke to me then,
so clear and sincere
"I care not where I go,
though may it be away from here.
My master before you was cruel and a knave!
In this briefest of kind acts
I feel I've been saved.
Will you be my new master?"...
"Words of disaster, hush now" I say,
for I am not king
nor prince,
and you are no slave" I replied...
The heart cried.

"Thank you kind sir
for your warmth and the ride,
am I heavy?" it asked...
"No" I lied...

for it's burden was great
and had been carried for years,
this crushing weight seemed too much
for only one to bear.

"It's cold out here" I said,
"have you nothing to wear?"

"Nothing" it said
"for I have been laid bare...
and left alone in the dirt".

"Then please you take my shirt,
may it cover your hurts
if only for a while,
I'll tender your wounds
mile after mile
until you heal".

"Who are you"? It asked of me
"are you even real"?....

"I am no one" I said,
"though you know me to be real,
for we are the same."

'I have not a game,
nor a name,
nor a plan."

I am no one" I said,
"for I am just a man".....

The clock tick tocks
As second fly by
Like ships form the docks
As they are untied
And dashed against jagged rocks
They sink and die
As present turns to past
In the blink of an eye
So cherish each moment
Each “Hi” and “Goodbye”
And paste on that old smile
Wear it proudly and wide
Because one day too
Your life will subside
And all that’s left
Will be the memories
Of the time that we bide.

Lighting fires in a tempest heart, the burn I so well know. Seeker of sun, run, take flight to evade the edge of your own razor tounge! While I, betrayed by the red hot blade of your words, found my fate. That I came this far just to feel your hate. So close did I stand so long unnoticed, a man of stone, using smiles to hide my broken bones.

Ferry your troops into the fray, watch them as they fall, remember where they lay. That they answered your call willingly, with the courage to obey. The beasts of men, with shattered bodies, broken then decayed. As their booted feet trample ****** earth, these soldiers march nameless and forgotten into the endless grey...

Eyes lost to silken darkness
Sold in trade to skin's sensation
I feel the touch of cherry lips
As soft as day dreams kissing the wind

Quicken the breath and exhale shaking
Body shuddering
Trembling

Strong hands gripping soft flesh
Gently
Hungry
Starving
Ten lonely wolves running cautiously
Through forests unknown
Blindly moving

Dancing to tomorrow's song of yesterday
Embracing bodies kissing deeply
Lost to the moment
There is nothing else

Only this

Only now

Only you

Soft hands glide across my skin
The satin sharks that swim the expanse of me
Devour me gracefully

Desires burning in wild eyes
Black blind flames and uncontrolled breath
Shivering hot skin
Pounding heart

Control long lost
To arousal
And crushing need

I am fallen
Like dark angels
Feathers burning

Laid to rest in passions killing fields

I am the sacrifice
On an altar of silk
Slaughter the lamb

I am the skin you touch
With razorblade fingers

Cut down the chains of defense
March to the gates of my desire
And burn them to the ground.

Let loose the hounds
Gnashing teeth
And bite to break skin
Taste the pain sweet

Strike the strings of the body acoustic
And play the concert
On a trembling stage of tensed flesh
Muscles aching

Straining

Pulling

Surrendering

Play the concert
Play minstrel play!

Rise the tempo
Rise the rythm
And spark the fire
In a room darker than black
With flaming sappire eyes

Burning blue suns that stare at the soul

Hands that bind hands
Fingers laced
Palm against palm bodies touch
Glistening sweat

Breath against skin
Hot as white ice,
Chest against breast

Whisper a dream to me
In a shaking voice
Tremble
Cry out
Collapse exhausted

Turn your head
Look in my eyes,
Look deeply and see me
Look deeper and save me
Burn brightly in the eyes
Of your fallen Sinner

Lay my head to rest on the pillow of sleeplessness and nightmares, the painting of my life on the canvass of linen and tweed and fears. Hiding scars and screams that dream and leave me lonely still. Restless thoughts that carry over restless wandering lives lost, unbeating hearts frozen to unliving and unfeeling wills.

Thirty pieces of Judas, seller of sons. Why do you run betrayer? Silver trust severed and scatter to marble steps, for a slaves wage to be paid! Unafraid for your friends as they slept, betrayed, as you left. Soon to die, rope to tree tied, you then ponder how a peaceful man becomes the original monster.

Ripped apart at the seams, the pain, the screams, heavy breathing and dreams, the raven on razor blade wings. And there you dance on golden strings, the marionette of my nightmare things and all things shown to be true. And there you are, right there where I left you, and there you are, right there where I loved you.

You can find me there, in your hopes, in your dreams. The places you forgot when you closed the book on a life so intangible; now break the manacles and run, and you can find me there, need me there as the bullet needs the gun in the breaking light of day. run, run, run....and I will be there waiting....

I sit here looking out at him
From across the distance
I can see his eyes
He is looking at me too

I am the infidel he fears
The invader of his lands
In a war waged by politicians

There’s a sheen of sweat
Beading on his forehead
His beard gently swaying in the breeze
It’s almost tranquil

As if time stopped
Just for me
And in that second
Hours tick away

The sun gleams brightly
Off his white head dress
And the whites of his eyes
As they widen

He is yelling something
Though I don’t understand
I don’t speak his language
Don’t really want to

But I see him

I wonder if he’s a husband
Or a father
I wonder what he did before this
I wonder would it matter

Because I know he is the enemy
They told me so
Then put me here

All these thoughts
All these observations
Happened in an instant

In the time it took
To level our weapons
At each other
From across the distance

His is an AK-47
It looks old
It looks dangerous
Pointed at me like that

I pulled the trigger
And walked away
He stopped yelling

And I knew
If only for a moment
That one day would come
When someone would look at me
From across the distance

Would they have similar thoughts?
When my day came
Would they understand the words?
As I yelled them

Would they know?
That their day would also come?

Or am I the only one
Who understands?
That this is what it is
To live by the sword

Angry Onion of doom
Teeth that eat the tomato
Laugh in your bowl of spaghetti

Cuddly sheep
Eat the lions and weep
In front of the candy store

Bored circus clowns
Faces painted
With laughing frowns
Drive away in your fancy car

Have I gone too far?
Has it sunk in and made sense
Or have I lost all sense meaning?
Just like politics.

I walked barefoot across the nameless tiles, littered with remnants of the stained glass windows of my broken dreams. I walked for lifetimes, or so it seems, over the twisted kaleidoscope of my wishful thinking and failures. Embracing the pain in the hopes that such beautiful shards would leave beautiful wounds. The footprints left in blood were my history scrawled across the nightingale floor, like so many broken swords washed upon the shore, forgotten by the hands of slain warriors in their rusted armor and bones. Left alone with nowhere to go, when you were the home I came to know. Those stone walls that sheltered me from the cold protecting the ragged edges of my tattered soul, which long since crumbled to dust. Leaving me exposed to the graceful storm, the whipping wind and driving rain. This is my life, this beautiful history of pain.

I listened to my heart…

When it shook with fear, as its scars sung the songs of yesterday.

I listened to my heart…

Pounding in my ears like chaos in a silent symphony.
It screeched as it broke apart, fragmented pieces shorn and twisted.
Tearing away as it sank into the cold abyss.
The rusted wreckage of a once great ship, forgotten beneath a greater sea.

I listened to my heart…

It whispered “My God” when I saw you.
When I was so afraid to take the last of a hundred second chances.
Tear down my defenses and trust again.
Try again to live only in this moment, this time without the armor, without the hesitation.

I listened to my heart…

As it became attached to yours, running blindly into a new forest.
Chasing the footprints of wolves.
Two worlds that were meant to collide and become one big mess together.
The inseparable pieces of one existence.

I listened to my heart…

On that day you took my hand, dressed in white and promises.
I spoke the words “I do, I love you”.
They flowed across my lips like liquid, like a prayer I was unworthy of saying.
It was the day I began to live again, and I said your name as you took mine.

I listened to my heart…

In the years to pass, looking back on my life as it was, and as it is.
Lying next to you, enshrouded by the dark silk of night skies.
I took you in my arms, laid my head upon your chest.

I listened to your heart.

I have become lost in a vision that was once never mine to have; a thought unseen, as in a dream that was never shared. But I was there because I dared. Or so I dared to believe, and thus was left to bereave, in whole, for the death of my hopeful, emptying soul. Yet the pen well knows these secrets which flow through my hands. As blood from fingertips pours black unto the inked page of the history we write for ourselves, left dusty and forgotten, on forgotten shelves, and in forgotten times. Such was the blindness of my eyes as I ran through thickets of whispers, unafraid, I the unshackled slave who stayed; biding my time, binding in rhyme, my poisonous thoughts. For what have I left, save for portentous doubts; that once shouted, fall upon deaf ears? Fears dripping from muted lips, flowing through clenched teeth, hand in hand with the silent promises never made. A foundation of jade that supports the sky, for there were no walls built in the becoming of I.

This world is my city,

A school of piranha, swimming in a sea of tears.
Razor teeth and gaping mouths,
Each more ravenous than the next,
Feasting on the fears that flow from my veins
In the brilliant colors of doubt,
Leaving me defenseless.

This world is relentless.

In its cold gaze of disdain,
Leaving a stain upon my soul,
Which made me whole,
Made me cold,
Then broke me to pieces
And left me crying in my sleep.

This world is deep.

Like an ocean of night skies,
And I am drowning in it,
With downcast eyes
Trying so hard
To be the man I remember,
In a past I wish I could forget.

This world is regret.

In the unfulfilled promises
Carried by the hands of yesterday,
Holding sway over the bulging seams
And fabric of my reality,
Sewn in heart strings, that once severed,
Allows me to break through.

This world is you.

And you are everything in it,
While I, the unwelcome stranger
Wish only to stay a while longer,
A sacrifice to danger,
And in remembrance, linger
Of the ring upon your finger.

I left my footprints on the sand piper shore, a lonely expanse of coast that stretched out for miles, and I, beguiled, took this path in search of healing. It was a journey that had a start, but its ending was based on mending and whether or not this would happen by my hands….or yours…..

Break dawn to tear the sky in fire and herald the coming day! Blood red dancing clouds, heads bowed to the songs of birds as they scream, angry in their cries. Feathers torn on wings beating skies soar perilously in sorrow. For the birth of the day foretells of its death and the coming of tomorrow. Linger, linger and laugh in times borrowed, hours despised that what we hold temporarily are lies all lies! Our lives are but tears in a child’s eyes that come and go as a tide ebbs and flows. Then retreats from the shore leaving us so much sand, the broken glass on which we stand shaking for the promises forsaken. Shaking for the cold truth taken that we fade in our time as grapes wither on the vine and enemy time laughs with cruel revelry. Merry in our ignorance of what we see painted on the horizon.

The sweetest wine to be had
Withers untouched on the vine
Bound by time

Bound by these chains of lace
Unbreakable the crimson smile
Idle wild eyes
The spies unmistakeable

See secrets of my soul
Secrets and lies
Beautiful the scars dispised
That remember the fires of yesteryear

Tears fall as diamonds to dark earth
Rusted ground where I was found
And from which I was made
The slave of self saved

By a touch
And the kissing embrace of a lover taken and given

Madness driven
To the shallow sorrows of tomorrow's hasty dawning
Spawning hopes
That crackle in the fires of want as embers
Faintly remembered

Each as the next, the same
No glory, no fame to be had
Yet we were glad!

In the moment of atonment
That moment of sin among women and men
Where hunger feeds desire
Feeds hunger
Feeds want

Ravenous need seeds the garden of greedy thoughts
And all for naught when the night is through
There is only me
There is only you

Our union desolved by time always moving
The unforgiving criminal
That robs us of what may be
Leaving beautiful memories and emptiness
Awaiting the new night
The next dance
And our chance to love again.

If I could touch a song.

I would want it to have your face.
I would want it to touch my heart.
I would need it, my saving grace.

If I could hear a dream.

It would laugh lightly with shining eyes.
Running feilds of gold and crimson.
Running thoughts, in a racing mind.

If I could taste a miracle.

It would sweetly linger on my lips.
Sugar and forbidden fruit.
In the passion of a longing kiss.

If I could see eternity.

It would end in strawberry hair.
Emerald gems that stare at stars.
Skin so light, skin so fair.

And if I could sense a heart beat

It would be hidden among the roses.
The gentle red of silken petals.
The thorns, and the promise that it poses.

All these senses I have told confused.
If I could say it and be true.
But if I could write a poem.
I would want it to look like you.

I see you there,
In the dark by the phone,

And when I see you I feel safe....
I feel alone.

When I feel you
I feel my injured soul
And see scars that match my own.

Cut to the bone
Sitting with you
In the only chair in a burning home

Waiting for eyes that see
My heart isn't made from stone

And though damage has been done
It wasn't me,
I'm not that accident prone.

In the land of kings I am a king! In the land of princes I am a prince! In the land of rain I look heavenward that these tears could be rinsed, and thus hidden from view. Thus Hidden from you. You who may see, that in any land I stand alone, a man apart with a fractured heart that beats unevenly, yet carries me through....And if you have to ask, yes I wear this mask, this among others to cover self doubt that bears no answers. As if it were formed of a cancer, that eats at my mind, twisting inside at a maddening pace. Stripping away my imagination, my lonely hiding place. Devouring all but the bad taste of reality; which to face constantly seems a must. Sheltered no more by my broken cage as the bars scale with rust. Trust that I am nothing more than this dust, kissed of gods and breathed life to betray. Burdened of sin again and again under the guise of false pride to ride on these pale winds of turmoil and blame. In the end it's all the same, the details may change but the story remains. Buried in a garden of shame where we have all planted our daisies and prayed for the clouds to deliver the pain.

Those who know pain know my name
They cast doubts
Hide in shame
And lay blame

They know my name
They know my name

Unspoken thoughts
like words on the page
Though they fade
Stay the same

They whisper
They whisper
They're screaming my name!

Cold and stained
From the tears
Cold and stained
From the rain

Elements of emotion
that show no restrain
Break the chains
And flee

Brittle parchment
The cracked and torn remains
Of a life remembered.

Icy fingers that touch your thoughts from a distance let you know in an instant that it was me and I was there. There, where I lingered freely in your inner most secret feelings, twisted them into doubts and fears. Echoed in the sound of your tears as they ran down your face in their race to the ground, slamming violently down without a sound without a sound. So draw near! I am the lover hater you fear yet hold dear. The secret that you knew all along, containing all the right answers gone horribly wrong. In a song I have kept you lost in the promise and hope of passion so lasting, delivering emotional lashing after lashing after lashing for the taste of tears that I savor. For I am the dream breaker, the beautiful monster who decieves to recieve that which I do not deserve. Keeping my song bird locked in the cage, break away and escape the fate! Run fleet of foot fleeing from these outstreched arms of an empty being until you reach the place where you were meant to be, get away from me and sing the songs you were meant to sing.

Another year has past, and shattered the molds from which we have been cast. Never to tread upon that sweet ground again in our race to our final days counting the calendar from beginning to end. I'll meet you there in that place if you win, dear brother, dear sister and dearest of friends. That you knew you were carved in the stone of my heart never forsaken and never apart, no matter the details... Lives change lives, and a soul touched once can never be the same, never be tame or forgotten.

Rest in Peace Dad 1:45 a.m. 29-Dec-2010

Happy New Tears!

The cigarette burns against my skin,
The pain that burns hides the pain from within,
And I forget for a moment why I cringe inside.

I forget what it was I was trying to hide.

I forget why you left,
Forget why you lied,
Seared away in my foolishness,
This pride burning pride!

Crushing the crimson ash,
This slowly rolling torment hisses and I gasp
Now in dismay at my rage on display.

How foolish am I,
How timmid my timbre,
That this ember serves as my novocaine
To all things remembered.

Yet this pain is easier to bear,
And smaller are the visible scars
So judge me not,
You who know me not!

I poured the gas and you struck the match and we danced in the satin flames of billowed sheets and romance. Meeting touch with touch, in feather light mercy and a scent of leather, teathers to bind wrists twisted and silk ribbon blind. Out of our minds! Driven mad by a daring caress, the words repeated, "yes," "yes," "YES!!" And dare for more than this! Touched bodies writhe with each burning kiss, each passion taken, given, stolen and cry out! Body on body heavy, break the levy and let flow the river! Back arched bending to the giver in the rising heat, moan, tense, collapse and repeat until the fire is doused in the flood of our exstacy, seen by the light of the rising sun from the window next to me.

Johnny, sling your rifle boy and shoulder your weapon well! March in pace with your brothers to the burning gates of hell. Shuffle your feet and hoist your pack, grenades on your chest and ammo in your sack. Still the devil laughs with his heart of black as he ushers you one by one. Single file you walk the final mile with sons fighting fathers, and fathers fighting sons. And which side won? What was the toll? A cost paid of broken bodies and scattered souls for those who dared, those who cared when cities were laid bare. And for those who later cried alone at the sight of burning homes. The smoke burning eyes, stinging tears to atone in the coming years. The fears buried deep turn to nightmare sleep about red running rivers and flames. Awarded metals and ribbons and cheers of fame over death, given, and taken in shame. Yet here we stand one and the same, day after day with a smile. Counting the miles we march, as the devil laughs in single file.