There's a broken banjo in my birthright,
It was tied to were I wonder
Hidden between John Henry's Hammer,
and the hobbling post on Humble Hill.

I've walked this far on the blame in my grit,
pushed to by tailwind sunsets,
So kick me a mea culpa kneejerk
hardball, and sandstone my stonewall.

Forget storms in the cradle,
I found dustbowls in my waiting room,
Chasing rabbits in a wordwind,
plinking at the vermin as
they rolled into town with the rest of us,

*****, but soaring, Carrion pigeon in the clouds
not getting caught up in admiring the reflections
in all the silver linings,
Just... Flying.

narcissus couldn't manage
the glory of wax work wings.
But Icarus knew real beauty.
He felt it.
When he hit the ground

The heat of floating zeroes
blasting his broken bones
into the obsidian of desert floors...
See, angels can be as jealous as God.

Anywhere can be as lonley as the long plains
of Kansas,
Empty canvas trampled by dog and pony shows
as cowboys rode mules muddy miles
through ****** brambles
to drive herds of bulldogs and lions
from the hunting grounds of dragons
to the safety of home
from High, High, Horses.
Under the shadows of eagles.

But the devil never waits at the crossroads, people.
He lays in lies.
And six shooters,
Under Dog Collars,
with the blood and scars
of everyday life,
and the beaten bodies of
seraphim, fallen to **** the well,
with their phoenix ash.

Sheep and shepherds are never friends,
Ones happiness is the other's hunger.
Dont get me wrong, wolves get hungry too,
But at least their honest about the arrangement.

With Witnessess as our God's,
Our love was meant to be forever.
But we spent to long, straining,
heart shrapnel, from lukewarm coffee.

Celestial fire due to write super novellas
in the spaces we shared,
instead blinded us,
with bright lights,and stardust.

I'm still burning the fire that started when we met.
I feed that fire, like I fought the depression, when you left.
But I tell you now, as much as it scared me.
*******. It was warming.

I never meant for us to be the spark
that died before the flint.
Two damp squibs
choking as the air left the room.

Leaving projectors to play monochrome fantasies
in the smokescreen of your absence,
as the acrid plastic nasal tumours,
grew inside of our silent movie.

The coughing had lost it's soul.
Revealing a struggle for air.
All the dance routines had died
life saving became life,

I am so sorry, I spent my time,
kissing gifthorses on the mouth,
while looking for Trojans
instead of just enjoying your presence.

They say if you love something, set it free,
but bluebirds sing in cages
better than any canary
when fed on tidbits and tall stories.

So forgive me my dramas
Let me soap up in my failures
my ritual clean begins at the home
we built from borrowed time

I hope heaven loves you as hard as have.

We ran to them.
Achievements GLEAMING.
But the words,
that came back
HURT.

So we found clever ways
to hide what we
really meant.

I could have come Goose stepping through that door on eggshells
With an anchor in the old ways, and the wind of change in my sails.
the crux is; decide what you want foul demon,
I can shield you from the fire or burn bright to show you the way,
but I will never burn out and I will never blow away.
So go snare some other paradox boxer
or lay in the brier patch of tangle choice
you once forced into my sides.

I do not permit you to handcuff your heart to my wrists,
and the baggage? Can stay at indoors.

The persistent demand of my presence pushes me into the love affair with the lies I tell myself that make you bearable.
I make no apologies for my vacant smile,
you bought my body not my soul.
And the clocks and deadlines made me to fix a do not disturb sign on my mind.

With the ultimatums delivered to me ear-trumpeting the feelings that already echo in my diminishing proud walk,
The spine slump didn't take long to take hold.
These are not poses.
This is who I am,
or at least who I used to be,
Or at least who I should have been,
But for the game of Chinese whispers Played with champions of the rumour mill and the ghosts they've created.
Removed from the hiding places are the scars and the tumours, I've been curing them in the sun.

If you came to me looking for a hero stance and a place to live at the foot of a mountain called meekness, then I will let you down.
I was bowled over by the crud slides long ago,
And now like all great insects,
I've wriggled free of the muck,
Striving out from under
more like Frankenstein's Monster
thriving in the thunder.
And making an exit,
whether you like it or not.

A friend of mine once asked me if I was born under a
billboard that said “Don't let me be lonely”
I know she'd spent the last 20 years trying
to find somewhere to be found.
I guess she'll spend the next 20
looking for somewhere to settle down.

See there's a gypsy doodle inside of all of us.
A wasteland wanderer crawling skin
to get out.
Creating a nomad avalanche of
disquiet steam boiling up
through sleeping limbs
and that urge of do something
itch that wakes all chained men
when they realise the shackle of shelter.

You can build a roof as grand as your
heritage allows it, but that sideways
rain will always find a way in.
the storms been brewing a long time now,
passing down from father to son,
to reach you, scared lamb,
a little man in a shrinking world
of big fish and small ponds.
Before the lightening makes you dizzy,
and the thunder makes you sick,
before the flood seeps in through open eyes,
just remember,
there's more to a house than bricks.

And I don't mean the windows either,
they're just places we didn't try hard
enough to break the walls down,
that further tease us with that
urge to see more.

I mean, If you really want to break away,
I am here to see the world with you,
And If you really want me to stay,
Then I will be waiting for you,
And if you want to break the chain
that you carved across the world,
then I will be your staying companion.

After all. What are friends for?

Somewhere in all our minds,
At the end of a mile long staircase,
full of trips and hazards,
is a thirsty dog.
And I know he bit your wrists, boy,
but he only did it to lead you away
from the monsters on the landing,
From the growing growling,
Snapping and snarling,
So consider your stigmata,
dogmatic,
because holy or otherwise,
its easy to wonder why
old ghosts dont die,
when you wont let them rest.
So let him *****
your furniture,
he's wet from pulling you a shore.
For some,
treading water is the same as drowning.
And when you're taking on water,
All you can do is keep on paddling.
Its been sink or sin for a while now.
So keep an eye out for the light house,
because it's hard to see the friendly faces
In a sea of smiling sharks.
They circle in a pit of
unrequited doves,
bad choices,
terrible clichés,
and tenuous extended metaphors.

It doesn't matter though.
The defenders of Diogenes,
and his lonely bathtub,
were won over long ago,
when we were 'more' than
the some of our hearts,
all spring and itch,
getting started on the road.
So cast away the stop sign,
drink deep and celebrate,
the Doghouse is a good place to be,
but there's monsters on the landing.

I wanted to eat you alive with my heart,
Disseminate my love for you,
soul coughing a Heimlich dance routine
that struggled to keep us one.

You were to busy ignoring the coward
that kept me alive
to see the bravery fighting chance
and drawing curtains against fate

There was feeling in these young bones
where the medicine was make believe,
all sugar coated fiery tales to drive us to the well,
wishers of hope forgot that love is an effort.

Liars will tell you that there is just one,
and that one and one is one, and I too,
will lie to you but only to keep the placebos
sweet jesus if you knew the truth.

There's a colourful cobweb
I tangled round us
And yeah, I'd take the floor away,
if it would keep you falling for me.

There is not a thing I wouldn't do
to keep the demons from your door
And the wolves in docile dream states
Nodding yes to your every request.

But Memory lane is no place to build a future,
Lets move past all the haunted houses
and build the home from more than cards
glued together with coffee stains.

Fits of laughter and pits of passion
litter landscapes of love in foreign places
where speaking in tongues
becomes common language.

Blissfully aware of our ignorance
We turned a blind eye to status chorus,
breathing freeform jazz into
independent harmonies,

Shards of Shotgun Showers
Add bass to blissful dreams,
A sense of the real, reeling us in,
A foundation shaken in eternal sin,

As the sax plays us out,
its a standing ovulation,
that keeps us on course,
encores are for failures, and things that... stop.

His heart was kept in a babooshka-doll
that released memory smells
with every layer that eroded.
The wooden fences faded
to damp brick in the corner
of his head reserved for the harmonica
that played through the microphone
in his neck till the sound got lodged
in his maudlin march
that had him running like he
was angry at the road.
His Echostep
vibrating in
the kremlin skin
and marrionette heart strings
that kept him.... him.

Despite broken wings
he made the air around him dance
with the resonance of each
broken crystal ball shard used
to predict the past.
Each chime raised a mountain,
folding back on itself
hoping the hallucination would end,
till tired hands
batted away golden hawks.
With rocks for claws.

It was all the fights with the wind
that had the clouds leaving the moon's
Picaso skies,
and sailing towards him on warships of
rain and frozen effigies.
They arrived, astronauts
from outer space
burning from the lips
outwards revealing grey
intent and red mists.
He fought back with false start
epiphanies and the falsetto
prophecies that stung the air
with pitch raining down.
Leaving bare branches where once
green hands applauded
everything but empty air,
like listless typewriters furiously
trying to find their voices.

Feirce winds and fake faces
left blinking with closed eyes
in the vastness of battlefield.
Turning stomaches and
blank canvas whirlpools,
storms of anti-peace
scarring the last conquests
of the flightless ape lizard,
and all his gorilla warfare.