The first day was the longest
Mornings were for ambrosia
Nights were for castor oil
Lying through teeth and tempting through lenses
Purpose lost to the blind men
Who learn to sleep in seclusion
Visited rarely by saints and messiah fathers
Learn through pain, Oh sweet little pea

The second day was all too short
Kindred, but misunderstood
Sowing seeds and ripping up weeds
Parading around town with roaring sorrow royalty
Following scripts and playing parts
For judges, elders, and "renegade" symbols
Promises, popularity; it's all just a rusty mirage
This place isn't for you, Oh sweet little pea

The third day was spent in Dada
Purgatory for insanity
Whimsical, yes, but something was blatantly missing
This place was rich with new color and null
Vibrant, yet lifelessly powered by prescriptions
No real substance, only mist-forms
Bubbling broth in a surreal soup
Don't get digested, Oh sweet little pea

I am a poor boy - A Capricorn
Perpetually saddened by my surroundings
Eight cats have sought me out for sanity's sake
But none of us seem able to escape on our own
All voices silenced for the sake of the rude,
the drunkard has-been, and so many varieties
of dream abandoned lives.
I fail to see any exit, reasoning, or plan.
These are the trials of a wisdom seeker
trapped in a pretty shell - conjuring Hell.

The west side of this city is falling apart and
my house is definitely no exception.
Any wealth left is gained from trading in
talent, hope, and aspiration for meager work
in refineries and plants that pollute
the bloodstream. Causing Decatur
to purposely decay into Lethe and
remove itself from memory and history - suicidal city.
I am just another generation in a long line
of poor romantics who close their eyes to the world.

I must have been born with the wrong last name
and composed of the wrong ingredients.
I may have insight, but no one dares or cares to hear it.
These people have given up on beauty and
have begun the worship of agriculture, but Artemis is no where to be seen.
My world has abandoned appreciation or art
because they have stripped it down to a profitable formula.
This may be a hopeless venture.
They have infected me with their grief.
Let the slumber of the soy city wash over me.

The first conversation we had
was in seventh grade P.E. class.
It was laced with talks
of our unrealized love of escapism,
and how we had saw each other on the bus.
Mama's boys sure seem to sniff
one another out like lost puppy dogs.
We were clinging for warmth in those hormonal hallways.

You had a dog named Tyler,
and that always made me laugh inside.
So many look-a-like jokes and
misinterpreted commands and calls.
I remember his death and I
remember his absence so well now.
I never know how to console you, but I guess
you didn't really need it. We were both numb.

A numb only the fatherless feel
when they search for a reason with the void.
A loss of confidence and for words
that ushers in those awkward silences.
We should have had a voice to tell us:
"You're remarkable, you know that?"
But instead we got misunderstood glances,
and we had to be that voice for so many others.

The crumbling husk of a little brown spider
chases after a swatted fly.
Not for a meal to replenish his brittle figure,
but because he envies such a glorious death.
This day is not for the covetous,
nor for the weaver. That eight fingered hand.
This is a day marked for interment by rain.
Both to be washed in Gaea's reshaping womb.

If God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt,
then why do we feed it the dead?
Whether mogul, scholar, radical, or drifter-
in soil we are stripped of semblance and class.
Man, beast, lain down as equals - offerings
to a hungry celestial wanderer.
The soaring nomad, mindlessly migrating.
Circling an eye of fire. Star sailing.

Ashes and dust. Blood and bone.
Thought and memory. Feeling and dream.
Our lives are poured into a basin of stone,
from a pitcher containing the constellations.
Every drop, a cosmic reflection
tethered by a silver cord to the present.
The perspective of heroes and house flies
is separated only by sensation.

The house broth trickles onto the plywood floor
Filtered by fiberglass cotton candy
A humid breeze slams the oblong door
and knocks over the table I found so handy

This storm has brought my ceiling down on my head
The rafters are surely next to fall
Thunder sings songs with words never said
That entices the slugs to climb the wall

A deathtrap, a battlefield, a childhood home
have fused to form this cocoon of mold
The flies have settled, no longer to roam
and I'm left for the winds to bend and fold

This leaky old roof that Grandfather built
can barely now stand, let alone shelter strays
But if I leave in the night, I drag only my guilt
My body goes wandering, but my dream world stays

The safety of the black, winding, snake of a trail is like an arrow pointing me home.

I flee from this serpent of tar, for the promise of discovery awaits me at the bottom of the hill.

I’m surrounded on all sides by the Sylvan Queen, her antlered familiars, and her army of trees.

I need only to march east to return to the realm of men and metal, but the woods beckon still.

I blanket myself under the brittle fallen leaves that have felt autumn’s kiss and gravity’s hand.

With hesitance, I find myself starting to give in to Gaea’s soft spell of slumber.

I hear the hymns of the birds in their language true and old.

I see the dreams of the cicadas painted vibrantly in the overcast sky.

I wish you only knew of the brier we planted

But your eyes are always on the stars

I watch you pluck every note from the air

So vibrant, and eager to pass the jug around

-

Think of me too, Artemis, Baste

As the coals twinkle and turn

These moments have always been yours to burn

And I am but a goat - veiled and masked

-

Home is far, but I have my thoughts

I have my brother of tune

My thanks for the smoke, Sylvan Queen

I only wish your eyes weren’t hidden

-

We were flea-bitten in the first burrow

And found gold in the next

Red cardinal be swift, I carry many gifts

But I just don’t want to be in the middle right now