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Apr 2012 · 966
Finding the Night Sky
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
I reached into the night and touched the sky as a star fell heavy into this untrusted land. I caught it in my hand and it hit me at the speed of fright. I outstretched my palm to see this cradled light, this heat, it was a heart and I knew its hesitant beat through my bones. it was my own. Though it had blue eyes through which true beauty shone.  Its red hair so fair and fine wasn't mine, it wasn't mine but it's song was the same, it had a name. By chance it did dance a delicate ballet into my soul. I knew instantly then that I was made whole and that scars could subside with the healing of wounds. This gift, this boon, was without end in this delicate friend. Who whispered softy as the doves and touched me with a love so clean that I knew I was walking in a waking dream.
Apr 2012 · 769
WAR
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
WAR
There's war on the TV
You watch it as a show
It's real though
So much more than you know
I hope you'll never know

I pray you'll never go
To follow where I've been
To march in sync with sin
Booted feet of monsters
****** hands of men
They're one and the same

Slap the magazine
Seat it in the well
"Click"
Chamber the round
Take aim

Loose the black dogs
Heat the steel barrel
The hand held beasts of war
Barking in their firery savagery

let fly their teeth
that they bite to break skin
Commanded to fire "FIRE!"
Lead filled air
Raining artillery
A deafening symphony

Tat Tat Tat
Falls the enemy
Tat Tat Tat
Falls my brothers
Tat Tat Tat
Falls your sons
Tat Tat Tat
Falls your fathers

And our souls
Falling farther
Stuff the memory down
Hiding it deep
Rocking in sleep
Nothing looks the same
Through tainted eyes
And nothing feels the same
Through tainted lives

No one sees these tears
This hate
This fear

And
No one hears

The soldier's cries.
Apr 2012 · 450
The Pessimist View
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
This coffee cup is only half full.
Like the world around me.
Like the people who invade my day to day.
GULP
****!
Now it's empty.
Apr 2012 · 652
Fortress Heart
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
Fortress heart
Guard your ramparts
And lock your gates
Shiver behind your defenses from fate

The pain and hate
That hewn these walls for your protection
Offer only the chance for reflection
And the avoidance of pain

Though fear walks with no name
Among these hallowed halls
With hymn and whisper

"no one may enter here"
It says in the dream
"It's dangerous"
"It hurts"
"I'm afraid"
"NO ONE MAY ENTER HERE!"
It screams

So it goes on
And so it seems
That beat after lifeless beat
The impenatrable stone home
To the heart afraid of pain
But desperate not to be alone moans

It wails
In the elegant jail
Of it's own design
Apr 2012 · 486
Fist Full of Sand
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
Cling to hope, frail as it were, even steal it if you must, and from every corner of every dusty room remember! The memory of those things, long forgotten, those paintings of rust, which left to time, became the ruined dances of moths and canvas. Or perhaps they were the chances we so desperately longed for, gone the way of all fleeting things, to take back the laughter of the child of spring. Listen carefully, as the echoes sing and the sun blond hair so fair in its youth brings a smile so fair in the truth, under the tone the ticking clock rings. Count slowly the second hand whispers, seconds as scriptures till the hour departs. Draw me pictures inside pictures of broken hearts, with broken crayons from a box with a broken lid, just like you did when we were broken kids.  Just like the arguments our parents hid, to spare injury to our glee, now you disagree, and then admit defeat with me. Look through the eyes of someone else and see so many things I hate in me. Yet we cling to these things desperately, with failing hands, afraid to let go, afraid of the holes they’ll leave in our soul. They’re now lost to us, leaving us cold, or is it simply our loss of control, like a fist full of sand. The rivulets that pour through the crevices of the fingers of our empty hands, leaving only the few grains that linger for the empty man who stands on legs of strength borrowed, in the hopes that his memories may survive the morrow.
Apr 2012 · 663
Writer's Block
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
This writer’s block is heavy; it sits on my chest and becomes my test for the taking, pressing my emotions to the point of breaking. Ever taking, ever testing a man’s will to take quill in hand and fight the parchment in a battle of pen strokes, curves and lines. This stalemate enemy in my shattered time holds the battle line and controls the destitute thoughts, controls the ideas I brought to bear. Tear them free from the grasp of this, my enemy, and scatter them lightly across the pages, creating symphonies without a sound in an arrangement of profound rages. They are rambles, rants and raves and nothing more, with no winner, no loser, and no settled score. There’s nothing to be won. Yet here I sit, nervously undone with uncertain hands that shake, for what came so easy to me was so easy to break. So thoughts may move in circles, to occupy the wandering mind for mercy’s sake, to shake the tree and make fall the fruit thought to be lost, thought to be beyond cost, that which was free under the skies. Because the ability to sing of heroes, of villains, of love and of lies was never mine to have, it belonged instead to my soul. A thing once made whole, once broken, that when stirred is outspoken, and bleeds across the lonely paper dolls to wander freely in the halls of lost dreams. Covered in the dust of forgotten themes that seemed brilliant once, though never shared by the trepid heart that wouldn’t dare, for some things are better left unsaid. Unread words of dread that seem to repeat over and over, coming back from the dead to seek their exposure. And I am somewhere in the middle of it all, somewhere lost in my mind and I am enthralled, I can only watch this opera to its final verse, lay my hands across the keys and give control to this curse, like a once proud ship tied to the docks, this is what it is to have writer’s block….
Apr 2012 · 558
Trigger Pull
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
I streched the spring.
Then put it back.

Closed the reciever
With a click and a clack.

I charged the handle.
Then let it go.

I counted my rounds.
Twenty nine in the mag.
One in the hole.

She felt the same.
Cold and steady.

I felt no shame.
Cold and ready.

The air felt heavy.

But something was new.
Some mechanical remedy.

My magazine was full.
And I could face my enemy.

with a 2 lb. trigger pull.
Apr 2012 · 1.1k
Joe Nobody
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
I’d like to introduce myself to you today,

I’m Joe Nobody.

You’ve seen me before, I’ve worked for you for years.
I was the crossing guard at your children’s school.
I was your janitor; I emptied your trash and mopped your floors.
I delivered your goods by truck or took away your garbage on Sunday.
I delivered your mail in the rain.
And you never even knew my name, but that’s ok.

See, I’m not special like you,
I’m just plain old Joe Nobody

I don’t drive a Mercedes; I drive a beat up old Dodge.
You wear Armani suits and my clothes are sort of hodge-podge.
But my hands know the feeling of an honest day’s work.
And no one in my life ever said “That guy’s a ****!”
My pockets aren’t full, but what’s there was earned with honor.
So with that I’m off to the store to buy supper for my daughter.

I’m not looking for anything special, no big fancy type of ordeal,
Just a box of mack-n-cheese, some veggies, and some veal.
Maybe a small piece of that cake they had on display.
Then I’m off to the register, goods in hand and ready to pay.  
“Hello Julie, how are you doing? How was your day?”
She smiled that I remembered her name, and that I cared enough to ask.
See she was helping me just then, though we’re just regular folks.

Not special like you.

I pulled up in front of my small home.
Sure it ain’t much, but it’s warm inside and well lived in
The roof doesn’t leak, not even a bit.
And the fridge is covered in magnets that hold my priceless art collection.
It’s all drawn in crayon and scribbles of course.
Mostly pictures of a pink unicorn dolphin horse.
I still laugh at those…..

I opened the door and walked in to the sweetest voice saying “Daddy’s Home!”
I dropped to a knee, bags in hand to hug an Angel.
I, Mr. Joe Nobody, hugged an Angel today you see.
Maybe you never knew my name; maybe to you I didn’t matter at all.

So I’d like to introduce myself to you today,

See, I am a Father
And in the eyes of the most special little girl,
I’m not simply special like you.
I am a Super Hero!
Apr 2012 · 758
Enemy Mine
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
Walk the minefeilds of truth and face the dangers; with clear blue eyes under clear blue skies. Light up the fatal mile with your smile and know I was there before you. I walked the ground lost, searching for you at all cost and step by step, I fell to the danger. I the enemy, you the stranger.
Apr 2012 · 537
I the Hunter, May
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
Drag the cast away chains and shackle the dreams of beauty to hunger and sorrow. Furrow the earth, iron manacles and rattle your warnings, ****** hands dripping yesterdays blood on tomorrow. Panic, frenzy, and scream the sparrows song; from a hunter's whispering lips, hunter's heart, hunter hollow...
Apr 2012 · 349
Red Hands
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
A thousand red hands
Touch my thoughts
Sing my song
Kiss my lips
In a dream
Of things seen
In a dream
Swarming bees
As they sting
Dancing dolls
So pristine
Twirl white
Flowing gowns
In a dream
In a dream
Yet I stand
Unafraid
Shiver not
In my dream
Made by you
From a smile
As you sing
In a dream.
Apr 2012 · 544
In a Glance
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
A vision so lovely,
A chior of angels songs,
Swimming in broken glass.
Reflected in dark lonely eyes,
A heart peircing stare.

Vulnerable at a glance
And in a word, powerless.

What fragile beauty
That binds my thoughts
Completely,
Trapped in this gaze of wonder.
Apr 2012 · 510
Iron Butterfly
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
Cry like rain drowning deepest sorrows and fly broken butterfly, wings of steel colliding. The heart's unsung sonnet of pain, a song of refrain in a concert of anger rising! Burning and seething the broken heart's bleeding for the one left behind, left alone but surviving.
Apr 2012 · 585
Walls of Jericho
Sean Kassab Apr 2012
Angel take your breath now and blast the trumpet's rage to tear at the walls. Red chord crumble the tone, abandoned sorrows and crashing stones, defeated army of no one marching no where alone. Cold sweat, pale skin, cold sins to atone, in the arms of grace, of flesh and bone, and a kiss that outlasts time healing time after time.

— The End —