I had a second chance at heaven
And I threw it all away.
I once again felt my happiness
Sour into hate.
On this page are the words
That exemplify my rage.
I once was great
But now I'm lost,
To this misery and pain.
My path: a fog, through trodden dirt
To a cemetery gate.
For what dark fate
Does this soul
So very anxiously await?

My boots are caked with mud.
The smell of iron permeates,
Along with moss, the smell of dirt,
And most certainly decay.
Never mind my mortal soul...
What kind of demon lies awake
In the midst of human fruit,
Over-ripened in the day?

The splitting corpses seem to beg me,
"Stay away, stay away!"
Burgeoned fruit spills forth,
As the rinds peel away.

The tortures yet continue,
Testing will and sanity.
Stumbling forth into the mixes,
Pestilences use the meat:
Fruits of flies spill their guts
Under muddied, weary feet,
And in the soup, in the gore,
Coagulation races feast:
Clots of blood battle vermin;
Scabs crunch like autumn leaves.
To this yet, there is more
On this journey I have seen:
Fire burns, and humans ****,
And mix the ashes in the breeze.
What soulless cur,
What kind of beast
Inhales with pleasure
When he breathes?

Smoke and fire burn the horizon.
There is nothing left of peace.
To the camps I was swept,
In the tide of the deceased.

Hard at work in heat,
Tattered and flayed meat
Toils in agony,
Swinging hammers in defeat.
Blood-slickened handles
Slip from fingers weak:
Wood and metal sings
At worn and weary feet.

Rusted chains sling,
Slicing through the heat,
Slicing through the smoke,
Slicing through the meat.
In the distant, murky background,
Drums of war greet,
As flesh and bone and flame
Dance to the beat.

Chastened bones respond,
Breaking stones in the beyond.
The work of hell waits
For no man very long.
Gangs of chains tag along,
Making quite the fiendish song,
As the billions in the lakes
Add their agonies to the throng.
The shrieks of charred lungs,
And throats ruined long,
Build the thickness of the air:
An anguished plague of smog.
Keep the fires burning;
Add another human log.
Respite is just a word,
An idea like winter frost:
Once before, it had purpose,
But now, its meaning, lost.

Abandon hope, is what they say...
But not for very long.
In the fire, in the rock,
They find their words are gone.
... Long forgotten, but for the lyrics
Of the Devil's favorite song:
A timeless tune, that my soul
Had been singing all along.

Men have scoured the earth
In search of lesser women than you.
Wars and famine,
In veneration,
Have been stricken in pursuit
Of the likes of half your substance.

Lain waste, the kingdoms of men,
And religion alike
In the name of madonnas
A mere fraction of your awe.

Tearing hell through this earth,
Here you stand before me:
Never prostrate, but exhilerant!
Sparks flowing from your hairtips:
A woman scorned!

All for the adoration of a poet:
The subject of your wrath
For his perception.

When your patience wears short,
And the day seems too long...
When the night's first report
Sings a disappointing song...
You'll want to leave your ship of port,
And I'll remind you:
You are wrong.

Fickle be the weather,
For though the wind seems too strong,
Save your vigil for the sunrise
And don't believe that I am gone,
Because I'm here, and I will tell you,
Stay your sails,
For you are wrong.

It is a difficult decision,
Without crew to spur you on,
To depart on frigid waters
And ignore the siren's song.
You may fear that I'm not with you.
You may feel that I don't miss you.
...but here's my only issue:
You are wrong,
You are wrong!

It's an oxymoron:
A blind man's vision,
Rehabilitative prison,
The poor politician.
It's an oxymoron:
Assisted suicide,
The creation of destruction,
The modest man's pride.

Her fingers dance along the keys.
Delicately at first, then with more conviction,
As she grows more assured.
"Something inside this one is broken," she says,
The disappointment plain on her face.

Then she moves on.

After a time, sometimes a day,
Sometimes more,
Another comes by,
Finding the notes to her dislike.
"This tone is not where it should be."

And like all the others,
She moves on.

The instrument has been there waiting
For a long time.
When the shop closes,
And no one comes to peruse,
I sit down with myself,
And strike the chords aloud.
They sound beautiful to my ears,

As my heart-strings always do.

To those of you who know me,
You know me not at all.
To those of you who don't:
These are my beacons in the fog.
These words have been my anchor.
They've been there to break my falls.
I've illustrated my escapes
From within these empty walls.
On these pages are the prices
That I've paid for life's surprises.
I've lain waste to pens revising,
Re-copying, refining.

Not all of it is exciting,
Nor sad, or uninviting,
But I gain pleasure from these words,
And from the simple act of writing.

And so for this I'm pleading,
And maybe even needing:
Take pleasure from these words,
And the simple act of reading.

Nature sees what nature sees,
And nature does what nature does.
Minds believe in memories
And sometimes hearts believe in love.
When hearts and minds do both agree,
Conceived are dreams converged as one,
But love of life and logic leaves
Our livelihoods left out of luck.

Deceived are these who dream of things
Composed of money, grease, and blood:
Mechanical beings, with cogs and springs,
Like clockwork do this planet run.
In tightened shifts, devices click,
And slowly start to smog the sun,
But smoke and fog made synthetically,
How many does this bother? None.
Machines, you see, they do not breathe
The air they leave beneath for us.
They call this craft their politics,
And leave us here to pay in blood.
One by one, by one, we wonder,
Where the humans lost their love.

When will men begin to see
What nature sees how nature does?