Here we are again standing on the precipice of war
Paralysed by the past and the greed of our forefathers
While the inside battle has raged since birth
Good enough? I think not.
History only repeats its worst parts
They saw a green orb signalling GO GO GO
Faith in illusion the yellow-blue glow
Look but don’t touch! You’ll break it child!
But, they silly foolish daisies flitter flutter in the breeze
What nature? What love? What future? Roars the uncanny double
As it reappears, so much better now at creating disposable monstrous insects
Death? Very well, I guess we accept. We’re ***** for pain
But why walk into the river with rocks in your coat?
You’ve never been to war they gloat
As the wax drips steadily sealing our fate
And so those monstrous insects march by one by one
Hurrah! hurrah! here we go again old sport!

I had my cake and I ate it too,
like all the time in the world that you took.
Adorned with cherries
and decorated with cream,
like the taste of my lips
that is only a thing of your dreams.
I thought I have once
tasted a slice of heaven,
only for it to rot away to
a thing from hottest hell.

I had my time and you took it too,
like my faith and my core that you shook.
Laced with grace
and the promise of salvation,
thoughts of your touch once felt
like a dream vacation.
I thought I have once
been granted patience,
only for it to burn down a hole
in my purest conscience.

But then I was sure I had it all,
the diamonds, the universe,
I had you, but then I also have a curse.
The parties, the best jazz age whiskeys,
these shall be enough to distract me.
The waiting, the wondering
are opulence I could no longer afford.
Like my favorite vice I had to abandon,
you are a glimmering borrowed gown
I shall never again don.

But then I'm sure I could do more,
the Philippine pearls, the world,
wrapped around my finger in a red cord.
The weddings, the finest wines I could buy,
these shall do good to get me by.
The patience, the pitying
are charities I could no longer give.
Like a prayer I utter in front of a new lover,
I am the luxury, the gold, all the fortune
you would never wager.

He too saw the promise of a distant light,
but unlike him he renounced the gold hat,
and unlike her she did not renounce him.
His parties were simpler, but she was content
with what he could offer: a romantic
readiness, just like his; a gift for hope
for a life together; a capacity
for wonder at the promise of a dream.

Even now he remembered the sad things
that happened to them -- the deprivation
and the foul dust that floated in their wakes.
But through the smoke he peered into her eyes
and saw the light there, green as ever,
and knew they’d turn out all right at the end.

tell me, gatsby—I know thee well—
what fate of ours do the stars foretell?
fantasy and reality—wherein do we lie,
thus deceived by passion’s sigh?

oh—but you’ve told me before,
what the world has in store
for those like us who live content
with fancied ideals set in cement

that cursed or blessèd day
when you faded far away
falling further in a pool
while i sat here on a stool

alone and by myself
sequestered on a shelf
stored for someone else to see
my wretched tale of misery

Looks like this cursed title falls to me
I’m Gatsby
At least, now I am
Beer money inheritance
Tighter than the rope round his neck
It all falls to me, no glee
Just a ****** musical rolling in my head
I was a kid once
Little more than a dunce
Friends out of my league
Hiding in leaves
Beyond fields of bricks hidden by empty heads
Falling asleep on desks
It’s lazy education
Low preparation
The works of leaving kids stranded
In a world they’ll never get
Falling far of flat
In terms of getting their hands on it
Giving us all a pit
Just weak little gnats
Blood rain leaves us wet
Once again, branded
Who’d have guess high school never ends
In this bad sandbox

Sister never knew about him
He was potential personified
I always new, never said a word
Terribly waiting for him to take the world
Finish each loose end
Understand depths beyond comprehension
Could never really get how he worked
Killed in the end, a waste more than gold
Could have done so much
Underestimated, self-made, the works
Never really got how it worked
Tell me now, how he died
Never mind, I don't wanna know
Throwing me inheritance
Like the father figure I never had
And certainly never deserved
A few years older
Always sticking out his neck
Now a check?
Miss me with that
If I wasn't strapped
It’d go to wreck
Just like his house
At the end of this mess

Robbed beyond repair
Silk robes in the furnace
How did he earn this
A man so earnest
Now he’s in the sternest prison around
In the grave, like a pound for a stray
Waiting for the day
One shot leads to release
In such a permanent way
This won’t lead into peace
It will lead to more delete
Lives hanging in the balance
Bankrupt to the finest
Capacity they could have imagined
But now it’s all me
Suits, colors, and all
Just a puppet for the crew of the ******
Whispering to me through wrinkled polos
Rolling through the power vacuum
And I don’t know
How quickly I’ll be booted
Or how long I’ll hear his voice
Bouncing around in the black water in the back of my mind

The green light has frozen over.

See that haunted house,
how its windows
flicker desperately
in their attempt at survival,
how every lampshade droops
under the sublime gravity
of its glassy tears,
how each blackened bulb
crystallizes then shatters
like the constellation-mottled
pupils of the starry-eyed--
of any
optimist
dreamer
lover
bright-young-thing.

Nomadic phantoms float along
the pin-***** stalagmites
of the ceiling in ringlets of
emerald shadow.

Surely,
dawn will break,
(unconventionally.
tragically.)
The sun itself shall bow to ruin;
and, in a remarkably quiet gesture,
it will fizzle out
like a can of cherry cola
that's gone stale,
like humanity's own taste
for the light
(and its growing appetite
for the darkness).

Still,
we drink on--
in wait of the rush,
indulging in the hope
that somewhere
in this dying
expanse of universe,
there is someone
who will love us
for the tipsy,
poetic souls we are.

Daisy he desired, and of Daisy he thought
His eyes only for her, and to hold her he sought
Riches and Daisy, perfection, together
He wanted it all, flawlessly, forever
Longtime dreamer, believer, hopeful and true
Desperate for an illusion, with absolutely no clue
That his flowering dreams were wilting away
To become nothing but memories that hold little sway
Over what his life has become from before
And the dream he had once envisioned, they tore
To pieces that lay, shattered and broken
Shards of a past come future, only tokens
Of Nick Carraway's memoir writ after two years
No mourners at the funeral, goodbye without tears.
His lasting imprint, whether worst or best
Tells us that hopeless dreamers can never rest
For the elusive green light that stretches far
We go faster, faster, towards that fixed star
Boats against the current, waves beating high
Despite it all we trudge forward, and always we try.

In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.
but the only one you wanted to see was her
“Can’t repeat the past? Why...of course you can!”
and so you did.
or at least attempted too.
but it didn’t work for you
now did it,
old sport?
because the harder you tried to
keep up this game
the more they rewrote the rules
“they’re a rotten crowd” I shouted across the lawn. “you’re worth the whole **** bunch put together!”

you fell in love with the girl
whose voice was full of money
in the valley of ashes.
looked at her the way every young girl wants to be looked at
a beautiful little fool, she was
perfect for you

afternoon tea
silk shirts stained by her tears
your resurrection
was born.
or so you thought.

you were endlessly
attempting to recreate
a  sequel to that summer night in 1945
the kiss
the sky
that night.

your death was almost heroic
only you and I know
you were doomed from the start
“gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...and one fine morning- so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”