I will always be
And even the stars I am made from
Have become black holes
Fuming with all the light they have devoured
I will always be
And my devolution to a lower species
A primal instinctual beast
That pities passion and hates what's beautiful
I will always be
A hurricane that never meets the land
A bitter force of nature
Who dies alone in some northern sea
I will always be
A bubbling stewing volcano
A ticking time bomb
Just waiting for the right time that never comes
I will always be
Beat down

I see it most days
A red hatchback
Mostly red
One of the doors is white
It has two doors

I see it most days
As I stand outside
And take a cigarette break
A break from a soul shattering job
I see it

A 1987 maybe a 1992
Can't name the model
Or even the make
Certainly not the year
My best explanation is
It is a beatermobile

I don't know how it runs
But it does

I see it most days
As it chugs along in the parking lot
Spewing exhaust
Carbon emissions
It has two doors
One is white

The other one is a red that doesn't match the rest of the car

I see it most days
And it blows my mind
How is this thing still running?
Well
It is
A beatermobile

And I'm sure it has a story to tell
And its story now

I don't know how it runs
But it does

Beautiful scar
I saw a chasm in my skin
A deluge
A mount of Venus
The angels took their hands
And forced upon my palm a deeper meaning
I saw it bleed
I felt the pain
No head line can account for this
No love line can amount to this
No lifeline
No imperfect star
Only knives
Sharpened by whetstone
And gleaming with meaning
As they steady carve your name into my salt
You were the razor
I was the skin
You were my love
I swear to god
Even the tears you shed found a way to cut me
Cut me deep
And I bleed your touch
My screaming nerves
my fragile flesh
My paper skin
I offer up
In all my wounds I know your heart
And as I heal I know your hope
It is a line on soft tissue
A forever
A beautiful scar

The flower doesn't have to grow
But the sunlight is a friendly song
And the flower only wants
To join in the chorus
The flower doesn't need to bloom
Leaves and petals wasted soon
Its only shows us color
Because it wants too

But it seems it understands
That the whole world only really wants
Something that is beautiful
The flower is a friend of mine

The mystic sees the heavens
Only to then proclaim
That he cannot understand
What it means
When sun and moon play tug of war
Axels on a loaded cart
Carrying the weight of the world
Because nothing else can

The sun doesn't have to share its light
It could run and hide
The moon doesn't have to spend its day
Influencing the tide

And if its not for something painful
What would we know of joy
Why do we just destroy
To then rebuild
Well the seasons don't have to change
And we don't have to love
And all these things become
Only just because

Die
Into my
             Arms again
And be never the same
Im sorry
I am
Sorry
I am
Not

You are not before
I am not the same

I am nothing
That you decided I would be
Because
Be
Cause

Days can only end
And night
Weeks
So many gone
But time can never take away
How much I love you

I never quit loving you
I quit the fight
I am sorry
That you decided I should be
Be
Cause
Because

Die
Into my
        Dreams again
Be perfect
That never could be real

I place nothing above you
Songbirds sing sweetly in my ears
But you fly higher
Clouds grow and form shapes
But the form that shapes in my mind is your face
The moon is out of reach
But you are a light that shines brighter in my night
The sun can rise and set over me a million times
And the stars beyond
I place nothing above you
Because I love you

I place nothing above you
Not hope or joy or love or life
I would eat your pain
Let your cancer spread through me
And destroy me completely
Let your sorrow become tears I must shed
Let your darkness swallow me whole
I take a misstep and lose my way a thousand times
But I'm found again if you find me
I place nothing above you
Because I love you

I've seen her hands
Soft and subtle
Sweet and gentle
And I understand
There are ten billion hands
But none I want to hold as much

I don't know why
Should in waste my time
To try and explain
When all I can say
I only love you
Because I want too

I jump off bridges
I tie a noose around my neck
I throw my self at walls
Hoping that I'll stick
I jump off cliffs
I take handfuls of pills
I drive into trees
Crash at eighty-miles-per-hour

I cut myself
Because you bleed

I breath in poison
I lock myself in my garage
And turn on the car
I suffer the fumes undiluted
My shotgun savior
I ask the bullet for any answer
I sit in silence
I look for endings

I
Cut
Myself
Because
You
Bleed

I love you so much
That I let it destroy me
I left alone to search for oceans
Where I could maybe find some depth
I love you more
I loved you before
When the primordial soup was all there was
Monomers when we were together
Carbon and protein
And all of these things
That make our lives
And all of our dreams
I love you so much
That one and one
Is all the same
And we became
Each other
And the only love I feel
Is the love you give to me
I love you so much
I'll love you again
When our seeds and bones are dust
And we are only the memory in the wind
Once every part of who we are
In the farthest parts of space
Burns brightly as a star
We shine as one
Like we have
Since before time

no weapon formed against me shall prosper,
I am not the flesh,
without ears I hear,
without eyes I see,
without touch,
the voice that speaks is not mine,
it is me,

in,
back, forth,
right, left,
up, down,
out,

coming now from inner-space,
before the body,
speak without the mouth,
without hands
I hold love, and I hold truth, and I hold knowledge,
I was born of the light,

in, in, in, in,
out and out,
front, back,
side to side,
up, down
in and out

I am here
but I'm not

in and out

How did I break you?
Something I predicted
Something I always knew
Something that I feared

It doesn't feel good to be right

It doesn't
It feels like I wasn't strong enough
To push the river
And change its course
How did I break you?
Only in the way I knew I would

It doesn't feel good to be right

From the grand expanse of the sky
To the unreached depth of the sea
Every stone, every tree
Every bone, every seed
That I know is hard to fathom
But somehow you must believe

Pathways right through the middle of town
Lead directly to an open door
But we were not worried that the rain was falling
No we were not worried if the rain was falling

Sometimes dealing with the truth is painful
But in the truth there is love
Every word despite the world
Every word and each heart beat
That I know is not so simple
But somehow you must believe

Arrow shot forth in a million different ways
Aimed directly at your heart
And a moment you could feel that the rain was falling
Take a moment we can feel the way the rain is falling
The rain is falling

I try not to believe
In love

But trying to not believe in something
Is pretty **** foolish

Belief is guided by more than reason
And there's more than a reason

I try not to believe in love
But I can't

I've heard enough today
And I keep listening
I've heard so much
I've said enough
Twenty odd years of pain
And maybe more
If you can't believe in me
You can't believe in truth

Love is a whisper
In a world of screams
A scrap when the feast is pain
I have everything
When I'm starving

And I'm so tired of the trees
They get to grow their roots
While my feet have to move
And I always have to prove
What words cannot explain
Can't be understood
If I can't believe in love
I can't believe in truth

And love is my relief
In a world of stress
A light in the universe
That's mostly darkness
And I'm blinded by the star I see

I first would have to say
That im sure no one will listen
So im sure the first thing that I say
Won't matter
I first would have to say
That you are right
And have always been right
And this reality is a testament
To this

Be so stubborn

Because nothing can be perfect
But the antipode is life that we all know
And we all love it
Our comfort with it

Be so stubborn

Because all we know is all we're told
You know it all
You can't be wrong
You can't

Be so stubborn

If my poetry
           Can achieve
                        What I want
It will be
A legal way
For you to get
High

I love you
       And so
I wanted you
To have the best things
In life

And one of those best things
Is me

I love you
From a million days without
And a million miles away
There is a sense that you are with me
And I'll love you
With the million units of pain
That cannot be quantified by measurement
Still seeping into my sober heart

And if you ever knew me
You know me now
How a dreamers thoughts can grow so loud
That I am lost in the thick of a maddening crowd
I love you
And I'm only trying
Just to make sense of it all
At least figure out the best way to fall

Stepping out behind the dying in the day
I saw my own hands breaking just trying to hold on
And grew tired of the smiles full of serrated blades
I've tasted blood
I've killed before in a manic rage
My waterfall
The calamity

I can't
It can't
Be this way
I can't wield the knife
I can't carry it with me wherever I go
It can't be all I know
It can't

Falling back into horizons as the sun
I saw myself in a new light and the hope I dream
I've learned what the moon means when she speaks to me
I've tasted truth
Honey as the flavor on my tongue
Saccharine
And happiness

I can
It can
Be this way

I wish I was a better man
Maybe my wounds would heal
My scars as a reminder
Of all the pain I feel

I wish I was a better man
That I could understand
Or maybe not understand
What's not meant to be understood

I wish I was a better man
That I could forgive
All this pain was caused to me
And I wish I could let it go

I wish I was a better man
And still love
No matter what
No matter if I am loved

To change the person you are
Change the things that you do

They taught you to read the lines

Did they teach you to read between them?

Sometimes the empty space
Contains more meaning
Than the sharp shock of loud noises
Made by people in distress

Sometimes those who have more to say
Can't say it
Because they are tired from the fight
And only wanting to sleep

We wake up every morning and look to the west
Our ritual
Would that maybe the future be much brighter
Than the past
I don't know much more than supposed to be
I wouldn't
Dare to guess

I know the ocean is much deeper
I've seen beneath the surface
And drowning sailors
And ocean floors

We wake up in the morning and search for what's right
Nothing is
We only ever wait for the day the sun doesn't rise
May tomorrow
Fare the well

I know the seas that stand between us grow
And inbetween us only storms
And brutal squalls all raging
And ocean floors

I know I

It was my hands that made me walk down to the corner store where I bought two forties, a pack of smokes, and a candy bar because I had the change

It was the night when I could see mars shining redder than any stars reminding me of war and why I drink but never taste

It was my heart that made me never want to love again

Some things are made to be broken
Some things are broken beyond repair

As big as it is
And bigger
I was holding onto suns
And letting go
Of universes
Each inside has an out
An easy out
A darker moon that can crowd our sleepless night
And find the feet to walk
As big as it is
Everything is
I will certainly live forever
And die tomorrow
Again and again
For the first time
And the last
While my mind paints rainbows
On the bottom of the sky
As big as it it
My fingers touch
My hands are all but empty
Holding onto something greater
And feeling the end
In beautiful beginning
The stretches reach much further than the time
And our dreams still more vast than my mind
As big as it is

I will always know the beauty
Of your big blue eyes
Even if the tears are forming
If you feel its storming
And bringing heavy rain
I see the joy behind the pain

A hand to hold
A friendly smile
A savior

You know that I care
That I'll always be there
Despite the distance
And any ocean in between

I will always know the beauty
Of your big blue eyes
And if they're crying
I'll be the one to dry your tears
If you feel its storming
I'll be the sun behind the clouds

I am next to you
And your eyes
They are not sad

And you will hear my song
And sing along
I'll destroy these walls
And together we build bridges

I'll always know the beauty
Of your big blue crying eyes
There is nothing more gorgeous to me
The words you speak
The way we believe
Nothing I'd rather be

Its okay if your not always strong
And its okay to cry
Just as long as those big blue crying eyes
Can smile once in a while

You would want the same for me
A hand to hold
A savior

Its a whole world
So why do I feel confined
Trapped in the limitations of time
And my own mind
Well, better things have come before
How soon, how many better things to come
And what will they be
A moon setting for a sun to rise

Still I know my own self
I know my exasperation
How much I can bend
The point when I break
And I know as much
And maybe more

I know what can't be explained
That if I had never seen a bird
It could be described to me in meticulous detail
Bones lighter than air
Feathers and plumage
Miraculous color
Flight

If I had never seen it before
I could envision birds as they are
But still never believe
That they existed

So destroy my yesterday
Affect all my tomorrow
A river only flows downhill
They say
And the sky is only filled with stars that don't have any answers

Vanilla icing
On the cake
I know you ate
On your birthday
When I found vacuums that obliterate
Me whole

My soul

I want you to be happy
And you don't care

Haven't these streets been flooded with blood for far too long?
That they can't predict my future
Haven't these parking lots been empty?
My dreams die in the worst way

I am not worried
What is there to worry?
My greatest fears are recent memory
And im still alive
Only barely
Still alive

My heart is beating

And as my heart is beating
It reminds me how you beat me
Its reminding me of you
Today's your birthday

Happy birthday

I still love you

I know you hurt me

I know you killed me

And now its just a photograph
I'm planning to destroy
A bitter pill to swallow

The woman in the black dress
What a love we had
What a mess we made

Its your name
And her favorite color
You only want to play guitar
She only wants to hear
I wonder where you are
She wonders where you are
Because you've never had a home
Without her

The time hurts
The day ones
The words say
Love
The end knows
The heart feels
The mind chose
Love

Its your night
And her hope for tomorrow
You only want to sing and dance
She longs to dance with you
I wonder how you've been
She wonders how you've been
Because you never seem to smile
Without her

The rain points
The tears pile
The mind screams
Love

But all your seeing now
When you look into the sky
You've never seen color
Without her

In a black and white photo
You can tell my eyes are blue
With black ink on white paper
You can tell my soul is too

A black and white rainbow
Pixelated and distorted
Sent as zipped up information
Stored as a file in my memory
These Terra bytes are more than mega
Unpacked and shining bright
My eyes and digital image
Signals on a screen
There is no beauty in technology
Only cold charts and data
Just index of double helix
Just codes and firewalls
Just system analytics
Just fiber optic cables

Somehow through endless fields of source
Through endless pattern repeated
I found an oracle of infrastructure
The platform where she stands

A black and white rainbow
Pixelated and distorted
Sent as zipped up information
Stored as a file in my memory
These Terra bytes are more than mega
Unpacked and shining bright
My eyes and digital image
Signals on a screen
There is no beauty in technology
Only cold charts and data
Just index of double helix
Just codes and firewalls
Just system analytics
Just fiber optic cables

Somehow through endless fields of source
Through endless pattern repeated
I found an oracle of infrastructure
The platform where she stands

We've only had our eyes be closed
For so long
We forgot the way it looks to feel
Protesting in the streets
Mourning the death of the innocence
And going numb

I cannot dream right now
When I see the image as a vision
Displayed for my eyes
And the world to see
I shed all my tears in your direction

Family
Friends
Children
Goals
Aspirations

I feel the same pain you do

Black man

I feel the same fear you do

A darkness you don't want to see
The harshness of reality
When everything happens for a reason
Even my pain
A black mass
Behind a mask
These stars
These scars
And I'm digging my own grave
Because nothings going to save me
And if I'm going down
I don't want to take you with me

Come your artist
Come your junkies
                And your flunkies
Come your revolutionaries
Come your student
                 And your teacher

Come your beat poets
And join along
Write your words
And sing your songs

Come your Kerouac
Come your Creely
                  And your Burroughs
Come your Ginsberg
Come your greatest minds
                   And become the generation

Come your beat poets
To Black Mountain College
Write your words
And share your knowledge

Come your genius
Come your heart
                   And your heartbeats rhythm
Come your soul
Come your lungs
                   And your air that you breathe

Come your spirit
To Black Mountain College

Your weakness
Your nightmares
Your demons chasing you
Through netherworlds
Blame it on me

And you woke up
By punching yourself
In the eye
And now your scars are even greater
Blame it on me

Your loss
Your sorrow
Your fear
Your tomorrow
Blame it on me

And you said
The most beautiful things
I fell in love
And I loved you like no one else could
Blame it on me

Because I am weak
Even when I am strong
You saved me once
And all I could do was save you
I guess I didn't

Blame it on me

God is on the pavement
It's a chalk outline that is drawn
Around the city
And from every corner of my mind
The jaws of hell are closing in

And I cannot help but wonder
As I wander
As my feet created in an image
I never could attain
Carry me from station to station

God is love
And where has all the love gone?
It was replaced by parking lots
Strip malls and strip mines
God is in the nature
Man destroys

I am on the pavement
Bleeding out
Just like god did before me
Sometimes you have to admit
The battles lost

Let the war still rage on

I used to think
The only way I would never see your smile again
Would be if I was blind

I'm reminded of an ancient Chinese poet
Who became so frustrated with his lack of talent
He wanted to burn all his works

He chose instead to make himself blind
By holding a burning stick of wormwood to his eyes
So that he couldn't read them anymore

But others could

With my destruction
Once the boral terracotta
Sinks below the the rising sea

My roots have known
Long before the leaves
There is no sun left for me

And blonde is the only color I see
Not these black and starving nights
Not these screaming banshees white

Halfway inbetween
Cantilever bridge
When I want to turn back

My eyes have known
Only a little of the light
The morning brings

When I'm cured of my disease
I no longer need to fight
And blonde is the only color

Blood and gold
I am feeling so old
So weak yet so bold
I have to be, I have to say
Blood and gold
Heartbeats of a young man
Who wants nothing more
And fights with all is might
To make it be
Blood and gold
Monetary value aside
Currency and economy
All I have and all I've spent
I have to say

Maybe pain in my heart
Maybe hurt and failure
Maybe I'm just a poor man
But I'm rich with the love I have to give

Blood and gold
I'll shed both for you

There's a song inside of me
You wouldn't sing
Coming from the city of queens,
There's a light I want to see
You wouldn't show
I'm far from the city glow

And ****** Carolina
Can't you see?
The way you're killing me
You gave me life
You gave me love
And then took it all away

There's a hand I used to hold
The skin grew cold
I couldn't feel the same as I did,
There's a song inside of me
You wouldn't sing
I'm sick of all you're whistling

****** Carolina
You could be the one
To make me feel like I'm in love again
You gave me time
You gave me hope
And then you took it all away

****** Carolina
If you took the time to realize
Maybe I wasn't always wrong
And there are demons on your shoulder
You hear
Do you hear?
I only hope you understand

****** Carolina
Can't you see?
The way you're killing me

I watched the way she fell
And knew
****** Carolina
Through and through
Saw the colors red and blue
Streaming down my face as tears
Never feel in life again
Never feel in love again
Tearing up my face in waves
Read the colors black and blue
Through and through
****** Carolina
I knew
I watched the way she fell

Don't I enjoy
Walking down the street
Even if my feet hurt
Even if my soles are worn
Just like my soul

And what would I say to you
If I had a million years to choose the right words
Nothing I wouldn't say right now

But the birds on the branch
In the tree in my backyard
Sing a different tune
The way the winds blew
The colors too

returning to wonder of everything
when constellations sing a song
I find rhythm
it has a lot to do
with the stars
the way they can burn in men
in different points in my body
your body
even our bodies can be firm, placed heavy on beautiful earth
as we reach station to station
and my hands
even in pain
I still am happy
it has a lot to do with love
I am whole

I know I will live now
when I love the rain again
I find rhythm
of course it has a lot to do
with water
I drink from the well
the way a river extends to my fingers
and flows in my head
pure, and clear, lifegiving in its touch
waking to dreams and oceans
her body a still pool
even in pain
I will always be
it has everything to do with love
I am whole

The candle you lit
Is not a light for me
A lantern casting shadows on a wall
Shadows becoming demons
I gladly went out into the world
Gathered my wood
And found good kindling
The candle you lit
Is not a light for me
I have my own bonfire

I often am longing
To create a poem about nothing
So beautiful
The meaning is everything
But I'm here in a time
How can I be timeless?
Lost in a place
When I want to be everywhere

Its only foolish want
Foolish greed
Foolish desire
Foolishness
To have a world in your palm
And want the universe
To have a song in your head
And want it on the radio

I often dream
To write something so magnificent
That anyone in the world
Can understand
And the lines
Are always changing
To blend in with changing times
And changing demands

Its foolish want
Idiocy
Its lack of understanding
And maturity
To not realize
If I write something
That means something to someone else
Its the same as meaning something to everyone else

We all are one
If I reach you


I reach the world

I was born into a storm I could never calm,
When wind shaken shutters rattle against the time warped windows,
And the growl of thunder reaches even your very bones, fragile and broken,
Where there is no light, only lightning, only darkened skies, and tears we cry,

I was born on a battle field as blood was flowing,
The angry rage of war, the soldiers last lament, would be the first thing that I hear,
The iron clank of swords, the deafening   blast, the cannon *****
It's a war I fear will wage long after I am gone, and I'm dust again,

I was born into the storm, the tornadoes, the hurricanes
The spin that was the first thing my innocent eyes would see
The flood which inundates and makes most of the world suffocate,
And I learned to breath

I was born into the storm
I was born to love the storm