Happy Birthday!
Guess what I got for you?

Endless blue skies
                                      (I like the night better)
My unending love
                                      (You liar)
And a couple seconds with you.
                                      (Leave me alone)


                                       Thanks! This is what I've always wanted.

The rolling stone-cold plumes, all shadow-bent,
Bearing the frosty ghosts of gallant souls
From fallen forts and earthly cities spent
Ascend from fleshly ash and hellish holes.
The scratched and fallen foes shall lurch to stand;
The silent, broken knights shall stagger high
And seek with vengeful eyes the wicked hand
That sought to quench the sunrise climbing nigh.
Some rise to fight, some rise to heal, and some
Will never rise again. The love-top spins;
The stars hurl by; we pray for kingdom come,
We pray to heaven's hosts to heal our sins.
The smoke a-rises; all collapse to knee
Weeping that goodly God might set them free.

Your lavish words enthrall me once again,
Ravishing me; accept these fingers pale.
Bind me on your palfrey, free my bale
With ****** viscid hands like tracing rain.

You, my matelot, steer me across the main
Eschewing spume-licked sea-storms by your sail.
Your lavish words enthrall me once again,
Ravishing me; accept these fingers pale.

Chain my spirit and strip the palsied pain;
Tonight you take me. Swift my embers fail
As palmy eons end; my tragic tale
Shall meet me with the old conceited Cain.
Your lavish words enthrall me once again.

Spellbinding sparkling queues of pearly faces
Seethe in a gemstone sea of lips and beaks.
Veiling night, my Nirvana, leads us places
Fraught with clandestine lies and feathered peaks.
The hidden eyes reflect the burning light
Rampant within the painful lifelong dance
And swivel southward, scorched with silent fright;
Parades of fiends swing by at ev'ry glance.
Burn the voiceless witches! Condemn the dead!
Slash the hopeless visages to the night!
Raccoons, exposing drooling mouths unfed--
Charming music conceals their true delight.
I, the regisseur, perform my role
Then fade behind the mask that chokes my soul.

Once more, I try a blue-blotched sun-shot sky
Pierced through and ripped by ruddy morning beams;
The shreds and shatters touch - I stop and sigh.
These broken words are stuff of shattered dreams.
Again, I try a muffled starless nigh,
The moonbeam's kingdom, sunshine's dusky bane;
Stygian chains bind his feeble light -
The rhythm drowns in wordless pain.
This spiked cheval-de-frise of mind impales
The noble steed of thought. Words seep like blood
And rhymes are fools with reckless line-long tales.
I mourn the sacred ground my sense once stood.
Tonight a phantom haunts these barren lands
And steals those fallen souls with icy hands.

Mankind
What are you doing
Black and white and gray
You twist and turn and rage and shine
My love, your love, our love
My brokenness, your tatters, she crumbles, he shatters
Closed eyes, open mouths, poisoned words, ***** words
Dates, times, places, people, smiles, faces, masks
Him, her, you, me
Talk about people, talk about people
Use them and wear them, win them and hang them
Elegance, poverty, hurricanes far away, imaginary crucifixions
Look at me, look at my scars, look at my hurt, look at my heart
Words and words and words and tasty, tasty words
Names, names, names, a thousand souls, a thousand stories
Changing, twisting, turning, losing, loving
Emotions, complications, complexities, perplexities
It makes me want to say
Mankind
What are you doing