The monsters in this world
Look just like you and me;
They walk free on the earth
Despising all they see,
And if you could look deep,
Look deep within their soul,
Then you would find they keep
The goodness that they stole

What will happen when
The monsters in your head
Are featured on the news
And laying in your bed?

The newspapers report
And glorify their game,
A beast no one has caught
With some god awful name,
And if you could but feel
And feel the way they do,
Where nothing seems quite real,
They're empty thru and thru

What will happen when
The monsters in your head
Are featured on the news
And laying in your bed?

Three children found today,
Too gruesome to describe,
They went outside to play,
They used to be alive,
And someone somewhere knows
The shoe-prints in the mud,
And somewhere someone throws
The weapon caked in blood

What will happen when
The monsters in your head
Are featured on the news
And laying in your bed?

A lake as still as still — a cloudless sky —
A bird-less forest — silent as the page,
That monk-like sits reflecting for an age
On pious deeds exalted upon high,
The page gilded in wisdom, lauded by
Its maker’s peers, wherein is set the stage
For Nature’s bountied beauty — I give homage
Unto its gifted craftsman, one that I
Have oft’ with envious eyes admired afar,
And matchless to his art, have grasped for skill
Far far above my grade — From him to me
Has come a gift as bright as Keats' Bright Star —
        Unto thy lake, may this stone rend the still,
        And loose thy songbird skywards, Timothy.

There lies one in Rome
With whom all England was blest,
Whose bright star came home;

And if thou wouldst roam
To seek for all that is best,
There lies one in Rome

Beneath stately dome --
A spirit too young to rest,
Whose bright star came home

And whose living tome
Gifted the heavens their crest --
There lies one in Rome

O'er seas laced with foam,
Whose words still quicken our breast,
Whose bright star came home --

His name gleams as chrome,
Where water writ his bequest --
There lies one in Rome
Whose bright star came home.

Love is like a rose —
It hastens hearts a-tingling,
Tickles all your toes!

Friendships fade to throes
As hearts begin a-mingling —
Love is like a rose,

And each day it grows
It sets your nerves a-jingling,
Tickles all your toes!

Your skin brightly shows,
With blushing blood a-sizzling,
Love is like a rose!

It tweaks on your nose!
And sets the stars a-twinkling,
Tickles all your toes!

Do not fear for woes
Of love that ends a-dwindling —
Love is like a rose,
Tickles all your toes!

A crowd to me is a watery grave
Where chatter consumes the air;
Where sharks that circle with canapés
Are eyeing up the faire —
And I, the morsel they all crave
To drag unto their lair

Give me the deck of an ocean queen
When the daily feasting is done;
When the midnight sea flows by unseen
And the guests are all but gone —
Give me the peace of a night serene
And a place to be alone

We sat atop the remnants of a spire
That counted once the heavens its domain —
The storm that laid it low no more held claim
Unto that heart, that served still to inspire,
And we — we sat beneath a sky of sapphire
Inlaid with gold, a ring of Helios flame —
And ghosts passed by, and curious spirits came
And flickered over our hill like lilies afire

And leaving hence, I felt a bitter chill,
The numbing frost-touched fingers of the dead
That rent my soul and tore my heart asunder —
Such wounds infect the heart, the soul, the head,
And evermore resound inside as thunder —
Their chattering grating voices haunt me still.

If “content” is the narrative,
Wee daubed lines on a page —
A book without superlative
Would fill the content gauge

And if “content” is bits and bobs
Left in your grandpa’s trunk —
A pair of broken door knobs
Would serve as content junk

But if “content” is happiness,
The peace of being whole —
One errant daub, or bob the less
Denies a content soul.