A lifetime ago, I was younger like you,
before my dreams faded and life was still new.
I wish I knew then, all that I know now,
I wanted our life but didn’t know how.
I settled for less and tried the right things,
and cashed in my soul for all that it brings.
I’ve made my mistakes, like others before,
forgiveness more fleeting, ‘til you closed the door.
Waiting for answers, I went into shock,
you left me no choice but to turn back the clock.
I walk this new path while finding myself,
forgetting our past is best for my health.
As I move along, a decade removed,
my body more fit now to go with my mood.
I realize by now we could have had more,
alone I will see what life has in store.
I so miss the comfort of you every night,
kindness from others, brings love at first sight.
Each new encounter, just gives me a shove,
reminding myself not to fall back in love.
When, where and who will be the right one?
I’ve so much to give, just let it be done.
I may never take them, to become my wife,
but I need embraces to sustain my life.
Addiction exists with drugs and affection,
I’m itching for love at each intersection.
How long must I wait to rip out the sutures?
Pleasure Delayer, indefinite future.

stitches.
a stab taken for healing purposes
proof my being is but dangling on a string.
mental scarring turns out to be more permanent than the ones I gave my wrist.

self-hate, self-doubt, self-destruction
I'm a snake that bites its own tail
donating a venom transfusion into my bloodstream.

staples.
shards of metal punched through my life
in a sad attempt of composure.
running from myself as my life runs away from me
emotional damage runs deeper than any blade could.

self-medicated by the pain
and mistaking poison for a sweet elixir
my world turns upside down in a matter of minutes.

sutures.
a single strand of fiber
responsible for keeping everything sewn together.

I'm a pretty little cross-stitch
patterned to perfection but laced with nightmares and a handful of bad memories.

2 better days
of better ways
too bigger dreams
in better words
to the express
of my renditions
in wish-less missions
to infringe in fantasy
as i write out the years
of fearless tears
and scream
in happiness
and chant
of the blasphemers
laugh
in the murmurs
of drunken
entrepreneurs
admiring
sewer structures
plucking
the sutures
of my missed maneuvers
clueless
in my bruise-less
cutsss
toofwisss
and still strutting my luck
in abrupt
catastrophes
compliant
to the clause
of impunity
to rhyme-less scrutiny
to sooth the dream
for today
bolstering
the blame
of melancholy messiahs
playing pariah
on xbox
they gonna fry ya
through savvy ****** talk
with their mouth on your ****
but their ears on the block
to fulfill the onslaught
of a distraught
goofball
in lock
about to drop
calm
in happy bombs
of debilitating
shock
you cannot
talk
when you are
smiling
you cannot galk
when you are
smiling
violently
happy
with ******
knives
fixed to enrich
the lives
of the many
i have plenty
in the trunk
just bend down
and look
ill blend in the boom
of bass
thump
ding
the second thump
closes the trunk
strap up
with me
be blunt
don't want
a ninja on the run
in the sun
of reputation
1 finger away
from
nation-less
the mostest patientest
lyrifi$t
a bu3ro$hit
to 0bl1terat3
the glUt3nou$
of thy most muTtonest
of ch0ps
i cropp3d
the plopp1ng rainb0ws
of raindrop$
and Stopped  .
thE hoPped up ho0ligaNnry
of my N1njary
in my socks
sometimes i rock
but mostly not
i wont stop
until outlined
in chalk
until the froth
from my lips
blinds me
in trips
crossed
with a 5th
into thine own
obscurity
from the groan
of maturity
and the **** flapping
of insecurity
i try lyrically
to be free
and stop rhyming
at least stop whining
just trying
to do my thing
dost thou heart not sing
when im plowed
within the silver lining
devout
with a little shining
came hither
to where the sliding turned to slithering
delivering
my ministry
of infantry
infamously
into comedy
applauding me
in my idiocy
its daunting
in simplicity
marinade me
in a massacre
or a major disaster
watch me blow my ***
in haughty claims
of clogged
alpha/beta waves
enslaved
to a pre paid card
and charged
for helping a man up
in a corrupt
city of butts
entrusting
my paychecks to the *****
of never was
im riding the short bus
until she blushed
and brushed
the *** from her mouth
im gross
a little weirder than most
i boast
in defeat
i facebook
over tweet
as if there be a choice
as i crumple
the invoice
and rejoice
in knowing
i know nothing
i'm [Esc@ping]

I'd follow you
  To the ends of the earth
I'd sell you my soul
     For what it's worth

A sign for the blind
    And brale for the deaf
You told me you loved me
   & then you left

       Theft!

An OxyMoron
     Stole my heart
Found my sutures
   & picked me apart

A blow to chest
    He rattled my cage
Took my paper heart
  & turned the page

In west Virginia, they do things different
they don't want to advance too soon
if you don't believe me let me take you
to a west Virginia emergency room

deer hair sutures for stitching you up
then a duct tape bandage on your wound
redneck responses by physicians
doc needs a break to spit in the spittoon

this one is in critical condition
this poor feller has run out of luck
doctor redneck turns to mention
"go get my gun out of my truck"

I've got to be better,
I've got to do more!
You paint small paintings?
And I'll paint a wall.

I need to be better,
I need to make more,
I must be creative
Or else I'm a bore!

And all of these pressures
Swell up at my joints
And I just can't focus
To make me seem poised

And everything's blurry
As if I have choice
And everything's choking me
Even my voice

I've got to be better,
I've got to do more!
You've seen twenty countries?
Well me? Twenty four.

You got a good grade?
even a degree?
Just sit here and watch
While I tell you in glee

That I've got more houses
And I've got more cars
And I've had more boyfriends
And I've touched a shark
And I've snogged a stripper
And I've met the queen
And I've seen the things
that terrify me.


But maybe I'm lying,
and maybe it's false.
Maybe I'm ordinary,
It's just a pulse

It's all that we are
It's all that we'll be
There's truly not much
That separates me

There's nothing that's better
Than thinking your best
There's nothing that's worst than
Pretending to impress

And wasting your life
In elaborate lies
And pining for greatness
From unholy mind

It's stupid to care
And it's easy to fight.
What if all I want's hugs
At the end of the night?

And it's easy to suffer,
but I struggle to learn.
And I count all my blessings
As if they are burns

And it's scalding my mind
To recount all the goodness
Cause I just want to tear off
All the sutures

And yes this sounds crazy
I'm rambling thoughts
When have I been sane
Not for years I'd have thought

And if everyone's crazy
They hide it so well
Behind masks of confusers,
And bullies,
and well

I can't find my place
I don't really fit in
And sometimes I wish
I was my only friend

And I'd take me away
From everyone
Maybe then I'd enjoy
What you people call "fun"

And I just want to write
And I just want to scream
Cause things in my mind
Make people seem so mean

And I just want to travel
I just want to learn
But what is the point
If I end in an urn

Maybe that is the answer
There is no confliction
Your knowledge is power
We use to make fiction

So I'll tear me apart
And I'll suffer for days
And you'll draw open curtains
And I'll think that I'm saved

you love to slide your
fingers into the wound,
feel the broken skin,
hold me so tender and soft
from the inside.

i'll split my ribcage
to show you how i work
if you promise not to laugh
or look repulsed.
i'm so used to cutting you open and
stretching your very heartstrings
to relieve a little tension
without you even asking
that i can create that incision blindfolded,
but when i need sutures
for a lone rose coloured ****,
i ask and you're gone.
i'm prepared to rip my ribcage apart
but you have to get a grip
of the knotted pulpous mess my organs have become
over decades of neglect
when they erupt from my chest
and sprawl at your feet.

Society, the embodiment of human securities
Is in reality the stark confirmation  
Of a conglomerate of screaming insecurities
Begging….its leaders….fervent introspection

Bending logic is an art perfected by all
Regardless of creed class or stature
No wonder the walk is seemingly a hard laboured crawl
Culminating into deep exposed…psychological sutures

**Beings are bedevilled by a roving myopia
Craving a farfetched grandiose utopia
That’s why a bespectacled cynicism
Is ironically of essence…to neutralise a deep rooted parochialism

The window creaked. I heard the breeze

My mind was what I must gently ease



I grabbed a pen, trying to write something worthwhile

I turned on the radio, and cracked a smile



I sat at my desk, thinking of themes

But I drifted off as I wrote, sweet dreams



I went to a land of magic and splendor

Though part of me says I'm just a pretender



It's Spring and I can feel the sun

I can see a swingset, and a child having fun



It got brighter, and the heat rose fast

I wondered how much time had passed



I watched this boy as I sat under a tree

Recalling the way things used to be



I sat for hours until I finally noticed something strange

The season, it began to change



I saw leaves of orange and grass of yellow

But near the tree, just like the other, I saw this fellow



He sits and reads about the future

Feeling the wounds he must one day suture



Finding things he must one day revive

And dying, just to feel alive



I walked up to pat his shoulder

Winter's coming kid, and it will be much colder



And I left the boy with that simple quote

And, before I left, as well, my coat



So I walked as the breeze continued to blow

But soon the leaves turned into snow



The ground turned as white as the sky

When I turned my head and heard a cry



And snow like tears to the earth would douse

And I looked up, and saw a house



I floated to the window and I saw a shadow of someone sleeping

It was a boy, not much older, in his pillow, weeping.



I watched him lay there, feeling dead

I slowly moved and approached his bed



On his table I placed my ring

And told him to hold on until it was Spring



And I whispered everything will be alright

And I gently kissed his head goodnight

Why attempt to claim the moral high ground
When your pathetic argument holds no sway
Why march to war with the rebel bound
In the uncommon disposition of yesterday
Why hold pretentious personality
When acceptance is based on adaptation
A pyramid scheme brings fatality
To your pseudo-martyr nation
Unwarranted non cooperation
With the voices of the future
Speak without brainwashed sedation
And unravel your poisoned sutures
Your self proclaimed image of authority
Is unwanted within the confines of freedom
You back a mentality of all encompassing conformities
When the generation of today can't see them
Your hubris lacks the willingness to act
Yet you call yourself Ole-Times-Hardened
And the simple depressing fact
Is that your ignorance cannot be pardoned
Leave while you hold a handful of passion
Before it is lost in the folds of time
Because dignity with age is not everlasting
You are but another one track mind
Whether or not you care to move forward
The world turns on an invisible axis
There is always a new world order
And living life requires emotional taxes
So be willing to express and voice opinions wholly
But like many lost souls before you say
Wander unknown territories carefully
Because the past is lost with today

i'm a volture with a scalpel and cropped brown hair, circling over the injured in the field as if i'll find something that will make me feel important enough to push through the failures of the past. Dark blue scrubs cling to my tired, worn out body like a second skin; at least that's what it feels like. it's my body and my being, but it's not enough for you to want me after this final mistake.

you're a beautifulmess ; just as cliche as everyone assumes you are. your first skin is your only one and you can't seem to understand my need for the feel of flesh giving way beneath the sharpest weapon in my artillery. it's completely different for you, a feeling like lightning coursing through your veins in the place of blood. a transfusion of mystery and obligation that you have to undertake.

he is nothing you ever thought you might want but everything you can see next to you, handing you the forceps as you do your job, working to save lives. but he's not someone you can see next to you in bed, strong arms wrapped tight around you as if he's afraid you might try to escape while he's distracted by everything you pretend to be but is really only your new transplanted face; the surgery went well by the way, even though the procedure was basically brand new. i just thought you should know.

she has dark blue almostblack bruises lining her neck like a macabre collar, left there from this mornings goings on with her g.i joe, fresh back from iraq like he has nothing wrong with him. she hugs him and it disgusts you but you say nothing. she's a grown woman and you're her person, but she doesn't want you right now. she's flying solo for the first time and she panics and lets go the strangers secret. then she cuts into his skin and sighs in relief. she's all better now.

i'm falling apart at the seams, my sutures unraveling before your surgeons eyes and you cannot help because i'm angry and drunk and the body bleeds more with alcohol in its system. you can't operate without consent and i won't sign the form and i throw your promise into the trees like it means absolutely nothing to me.

the stranger is alone and fragile and the voltures are circling again but they won't find anything that can save them this time. she's without a cause and i'm a neurosurgeon with alcoholicbreath and shakinghands and cropped brown hair. the scalpel in my hand is like a lifeline; you refuse to give me another promise because it might be my easy way out of saving the stranger. you couldn't risk it any more than i could.

the "chief" wouldn't let you choose your path and so you ended your day in an elevator lined with x-rays and brain scans; patients saved because you wouldn't let me quit. it's my love letter to you, no matter how unconventional it may seem. it's your second skin and i'm your promise; cut me open now and let it begin. "scalpel please?"

I feel sorry that some people think

They
Weren't
Born
Whole.

So they go out searching,
Waiting,
Abating,
For somebody to complete their soul.

At a young age I was blessed to be broken
Got to put the pieces back together myself.
No man, no prince, no shining bright knight.
Just me and my sutures
Disinfecting alcohol on the shelf.

I don't need a healer
So no human need bother
I fixed what was broken
Saved you your wine-and-dine dollar

Spend it on a damsel
Who's been tricked into thinking she's distressed
Because I'm having none of that **** here
I'm the latest model of me and it's simply the best.

See medically speaking,
Scars won't ever leave
But they can always be replaced
By smaller ones chosen at your knives' reprieve

So I've built myself a brand new me
As whole and together
As possibly could be.

Patched up nicely with sutures
Tied ever so tight
Keloids like embedded trophies
Many a victorious fight.

And while one might go searching
Like a pollinating human bee.
I know my self worth.

I'll never depend on thee.

They say that poems should include seasons,
Pictures, feelings, sensations; 'imagery'.
Whether it be a concoction, something,
Everything, anything, even nothing.
Whether it be things, memories, persons.

Meticulous pixels make up pictures,
Like when I fell, I had many sutures.
So accurate, captured and so painful.
Imagery of warmth, my heart beats blood red.

I've admired you for some time, oh my.
Your imagery of such indistinct hues!
Like abstact art, leaving me asking: 'Why?'
Gawking, in awe, you're igniting the fuse!
An imagery: 'Burning love in ashes.'

My heart
has cracked open
like the most
fragile of
elusive
eggs
viscous fluid
drips d
            own
upon the plate
filled with
fissures,
spidercracks that
threat to
quake into
seismic
         measures
and eventually
piece off into
oblivion
and only when
I can finally
unfold myself
from these
underwater
embryonic bends
fetal stretches
and folds
that never end
only then my arms
reach out
into the night
searching
and,
in tiniest of beams,
in one fell stroke
of midnight kismet
I find you
around me
in colored chromium
wrapping me up
headstrong,
filling my
wounded sutures
with
     liquid
gold

Hellenic
Flesh and marrow
Raphaelite form
painted into life.

Honey hair
slipping through the vees between my fingers like
sand
conch-white skin
You blind me
like the noonday sun.
Enveloping—
body wrapped in body—
ocean and sky
meet
at the horizon.

Peel my skin from me
like an orange.
Apple.

Heal me
with hands upon thighs
Stitch my ragdoll body together with the sutures of your kisses
Stuck
by the glue of lips

Raise me like Lazarus
from the valley of death
from the orchard in Eden and the shame of skin

Reupholster me
like a dinette chair.

Vivid as the Sistine Chapel
your hand
outs t r e t c h e d
toward God

I find you in
pumpkin seeds
scattered
like tears
on the floor of my car.
They were yours.

Must you be here in such an interesting illusion?
Why must you sit in such... vogue?
Here though, you exist in fashionable cyst.
Bygone futures of blighted sutures
Youngster-stale and eight-hundred pale
Destitute pasts of layer passes present
Horses gather at the gates of heaven
Spitting at me
And in this way, I've given myself nightmarish feelings.
Yellow blocks provides battery-colored translucence a doubt of mortals
Tungsten belated harmony

woke up not knowing what time it was, looking toward a sewing machine instead of a clock on my desk, still reeling from hypersexual dreams of celebrities, old friends, fast cars, thunderstorms, video games and social experiments, mutual ******* without contact, floating in a nothingness world of bliss, then, thinking about sewing the right way, with seam allowances, wrong and right sides, and cutting out pizza slices from curves, wondering if my forlorn yellow polka dot shirt with the holes in the yoke would look nice as a giraffe, or if it's still worth mending. shades of marigold and dandelion pouring through my hands, buttons touching down on my great grandmother's old flowered quilt, taking their places over the holes. a needle threaded with delicate string weaves in and out 'round the tears, the negative space, the flaws, closing them up, sutures administered on a long forgotten corpse, breathing life with every stitch. open the curtains and it looks like dusk, though i'm sure it's morning: dark clouds, lightning, mist, fog, grey, gloom; promises of a storm, like in my nighttime mirrorimage otherworld of chances never taken, experiences that never, can never, will never, present themselves in reality. taste tests of who you want to be, but without the risk of ruining everything you've worked for. secrets you can keep, burning through eyelids, wanting to get out, but staying just below the thin layer of skin and lashes poised just right, painted and black and reaching toward the heavens, before flaking off into tears that confuse a happy face, slow dancing to the sweetest music, smiling to the words, the motion, the what will comes and the what might happens and being carried away with the love in the room and the sun in the sky and the warmth in the wind. no dreams, no mirrorimage otherworlds, no pretend existences, could ever ever ever be as sweet as these feelings, this love, the beating of twin hearts, the warmth of skin on skin, the colours of sun-shone sea and land irises looking at mine, through me, into places only you can see, only you know, only you've ever been. my comfort, my rock, my anchor in the storm, holding the moon tight in orbit, even when it pulls, even when it wants nothing more than to get in a boat and never see land again. heavy weathered metal from the earth digging deep into the ground under wires and waves and crashes of the sea, tethering the melancholy man in the moon to the only place that makes sense: helping sailors see the way on clear nights, reflecting sunlight from china to the seven seas, shining through dark windows to light up blushed faces of lovers and dewy tangled limbs, twisting sheets and straining steel, singing quiet songs of familiar feelings only we know, never wanting, never needing, to write the lyrics down; they whimper, weep, wail, cry out with passion, from every pore in our heaving entangled bodies before laying down to rest, to visit the nighttime mirrorimage otherworld that will never ever be as real, as sweet, as warm, as this real world life we share.

And I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be, is a beautiful little fool.
To see no fault and see no cause, a demeanor that elicits the ceasing of qualms
She will drink mint tea while sitting with glee on top of a cloud above a raging storm
Her focus is precise and what she sees will be calm
I wish for my daughter to be one

She will live in a bubble, plated with the toughest material and doubled, and coated with rose-colored glass.
It will be her veil, disguising injustices too well, but her aura will always be electric
Her tears will be daisies growing amongst the lilies near a pond where there’s coy and fairies casting spells.
She will sleep and dream neutral, as the sandman began his sutures, to maintain her outlook that life is swell.
I wish for my daughter to be one

With her sway and her gallop and her nod and her twirl, she will please the sensibilities of the world.
I pray to the heavens, her angels and gods, that there will not be a crack in her armor.
For if she is to see how the world truly be, then her face will forever be furled
She is my joy and my love, a pearl necklace with a hug, a jewel that can never be matched
And I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be. Is a
Beautiful
Little
Fool

Masks hide true burns
With no futures
Take off your mask
Wounds need sutures
Try to stitch with drips
From a whiskey flask
Taste numbs cherry red lips
Whose all for another
If they pucker again
See me quiver and stutter

I see it in
         shades of
liquid coal
  slaking
    my aching
           thirst in
black ocean shoal
      onyx crystals
             washed up
            in tides
       of barely
    peeking,
night-lava eyes
     silently spoken
                   and through
     the waters of deep
my soul is
    waking up from
          eons of sleep
              weaving garlands
             of darkest green,
            seaweed tips
that I tenderly keep
       strewn, in chlorophyll strips  
                      across the stardust glow
                                       of my naked skin
                                     as I liquid float,
                       spirit whirring within
                              eyes bright
                in illuminated
          moonstone glow
picking up signals
of halted flow
This is needed here,
in this darkest of dark
waters abundant
with tight, broken sparks
shards of the living
and fragments of souls
                  a luminosity of darkness
                  making us whole
      And pulsing next to me
   in beauty's surprise
phosphorescent creatures,
     a feast for the eyes
           loving, gently brushing
                my outstretched fingers-
                     bioluminescence divine
                         on my body lingers
                   from jellies to squid
                to jet -hued sharks
    knifing through layers          
     of dark on dark
         within the
lush waters' quiet force
a dance in faded flicker
conjures the source
                 within the depth
                         of the depths
                            of my endlessly
                            wet
          in my darkest of dark
between blood and sweat
penetrating the mysteries
   that quake through
          this heart
         filling it up
  as it tears it apart
         smashing it
    to smithereens
   creating sutures
   of ironic healing
until through the cracks
both wide and slight
        shoots up
the flare
of my own
    inner
          light

I woke up on the gurney
with pain that robs my breath.
Broken ribs and a row of sutures
running down between my *******.
Strange to still be breathing
when my heart is dead and gone
In my chest Abio-Cor
stubbornly pumps on.

Was it really just a week ago
sitting with my friends  in class
when first I felt the stabbing pain.
when each breath came as a gasp?
My teacher called an ambulance
He saved my life, friends say.
A muscle killing virus
caused my pulse to fade away.
One hundred over forty
I was quickly losing ground.
I would need a donor transplant
but none compatible was found.

I’m a high school girl, just seventeen
-I should be college bound
Not fighting for each breath and
destined for a plot of ground.
The surgeon asked my parents
if he should try Abio-Cor
an artificial heart replacement
in which researchers placed great store.
My crying parents, grasped the straw
consenting he should try.
They would operate immediately-
delay would mean I’d die.

So now I’m in recovery
with my artificial heart.
My fiends call me the Tin Girl,
because of my replacement part.
It will be a long recovery-
seven weeks if fate is kind..
I share my feelings with a heart
still learning to be mine

relief is such a good feeling
all that weight off your shoulders
you can now start over
your head is suddenly clear
contentment is near
the past is behind you
taught you things you never knew
you're ready for the future
you've healed all your sutures
now life is on your side
you've gotten over your pride
the light at the tunnel is beginning to shine
once so low but now feeling fine
life has a way of working out
there is no reason to doubt
fate has in store something great
sometimes you just have to wait
relief is such a good feeling
no more false hope
or walking on a tight rope
positivity takes over the negative
and now you begin again

We used to say " I love you";
Now we just think it.
The people we became
are an odd fit.
I will admit
I am no longer pleasant
to be around.
Constant scowls and frowns
amidst the silence.
The clicks of keyboards
divide us.
Define us.
Align us.
We used be to analogous
like Bubble gum Princess
and Finn.
Just like them we've become unakin.
Padme & Anakin.
My fear of loosing you has caused me to loose you.
Like an episode of That's So Raven;
attempts at the prevention
of the future
ripped open the sutures
in my heart once again.

Turn back the time
Change the channel
Erase the old tape
Move to Montana

Am I afraid of my past?
Or afraid of my future
What am I running from?
Please insert the sutures

When will I be whole again?
I lost my only friend
The bottle is empty
Here we go again

One day at a time
Doesn’t seem to go very fast
Every day is pain
I don’t think I will last

I

I came to see The King originally for a favor
I was a troubled writer
I searched around my home and inside myself for some kind of cure
A trick solution... Basically
I didn't want to practice
Work hard and get better.
Try and try harder
No, it was more important that I quickly and easily achieved greatness
That killed me.

I want to take you inside the moment
Have you feel the real emptiness of me
As a HUMAN BEING
As a LIVING SOUL.
There is nothing there still.
Arrested development.

Loneliness

II

It overcomes
And I try to make the decision to better mysef
But this unbearable loneliness
Inhibits action.

This was The King's curse
The King's curse this remains.
And all of it my own fault

This is me now
Walking aimlessly forward on a barren canvas
Blissfully ignorant to everything
And everything is nothing anymore
And nothing becomes something to me
A crutch I cling to for my life
And all of this is just wandering
Without hope of accomplishment
Of even the
MINIMUM
Requirements.
Minimum. minimum. MINIMUM. mINIMUM

I know some people like to keep me blind
And they don't realize it
They don't understand
Where I have lost myself
The worst part is owing that they have an idea
The worst part is KNOWING that they KNOW
That they KNOW

Knowing is important
I KNOW this now
The important thing
about knowing
Is not knowing.

Being helpless becomes the fire escape
And as I climb down to escape my landlord
I encounter other tired helpless wanderers
Slumped all over the floor, blocking several ladders down
Before I push them aside
Alienating them too

I can't let myself be friends
Or even friendly or respectful or even
Decent and not unkind
With so many people
Because they can't let me let them.

I tell lies.
They can't make me let them let me become any of those things.
Not that anyone would want to

I want everything I say
To be known by everyone
And understood and not judged
And forgiven so that I can start over.

Because the past year has become
A wrinkle in time
I have found the Time Machine
The simple mechanism
Which brings down worlds.
The most dangerous invention.
The beast that slew the kings of days gone by
And if I were stronger I would fight the beast
But I am weak and bend to their will

I am a textbook example

I am the kid in the southern gothic scene
I am the overdramatized case of redemption
I am the same as everyone who ever went before me and
I am the one who nobody expected, but
Then in a way kind of did.
You know. The textbook example.

I am the one who dreamed too hard.
And dreaming really is the only thing I do.

I try to create some reason I should buck the system
But creation isn't possible with that attitude
The ambitious negate the ambition
In this world which is always
Counter to the will
And disposition

To be rewarded for a passive existence would be a crime
It's irresponsible of anyone to let me have my way
But I can't blame them, it's easier that way
I make it impossible for them to stop me
And my punishment is losing the audience

And the audience is the only thing I want.

AUDIENCE. YOU'RE THE ONLY THING I WANT

I present to you a string of drunken accidents
Expect you to justify it for me
And fly away and
Sleep forever
Which is all I want to do

SLEEPING FOREVER. YOU ARE ALL I WANT TO DO.

Most unhealthy most unhealthy
Just give me a chance
I'm Michelangelo drawing caricatures on the boardwalk.

No I'm not.



III

I can't start to consider myself better than you in any way at all

And now when I wandered through the jungle
I stumbled upon a situation
A guy was trying to **** a guy whose giant hooves were crushing me as I walked by
And I fought them both and beat them all.

And now somebody else
Hand a transitory period
A mind-expanding event
Did something good
Like I always want to.

I'm a kind of Don Quixote
But less good
More bad.

IV

Desolate, washed up
Thin and swollen face
Barely tell the difference 'tween sleep and wake
Pigeons and rats, dogs and cats
Late at night it's snakes and bats
I just sit there numb, unmoving
Happy with my new solution
Saw no use in concentration
Drugs just give me resignation
Takes the key from my ignition
A year from now the new expansion
Will see me as an aberration
And up will rise a league of nations
Dressed in all the latest fashion
Take my name, identification
Throw away my medication
I can't rise to the occasion
I can't understand the notion
I can't meet the expectation
I can't locate my location



I don't have your full attention

V

How can I catch up
When you dropped my body off at the beginning
And brought my mind all the way up to the end?

How can I cheer up
When I walk into a confrontation
With the obvious intention
Of losing my head?

How can I shape up
When the way to do what's right
And the way to do what's wrong
Are just the same way?

How can I come out
When my life has been the open file
That everyone has rifled through?

Easily

Easily

Easily

Impossible.

VI

...orward on a barren canvas
something something
mumble mumble
wimble wimble wimble
Blissfully ignorant of everything
The surface of Mars I wander
Walk
I walk forward
I take turns
I act as if
I have a destination
I take turns
I walk forward

On the surface of Mars

After a while I think about nothing
Think about nothing
Think about nothing
Rhythms and patterns help move me along
Move me along
Move me along
The sirens of cycle are calling to me
Calling to me
Calling to me
And anything novel is something to see
Something to see
Something to see
A lot of the time I get stuck in a loop
Stuck in a loop
Stuck in a loop
A loop
A lot of the time I get stuck in a loop

A loop

And then the loop
A loop
Becomes a ring
A loop
It wraps itself around my finger
A loop
And the ring rings out to you
A loop
Ring. Ring.
Wring ring
Of its ring
But observers are observers
And they observe me
And I am never sure of their intention
I know they care less than I know they do
But I know enough to stop them from knowing
Or at least, I know that
And I know it is untrue
I believe and disbelieve

VII

I wake up and look around
They've woken me from ancient slumber
Noises bright lights total confusion
I lash out into the blinding light
At nothing in particular
I look down at myself
See myself in this pure light
See the sutures and the scars
Scabs
All drawn on with pen and ink
But the flesh beneath is rotten too
Rotten in its shallow and unstable condition
Naked and afraid I lash out again
At nothing in particular
At myself in fact
But directed out at everyone
Nurses and technicians who monitored me in my embryonic tube
That is all anybody is to me
That is all there is around me
In this chaos I can see no option
But to relish in the madness
Bite the hand that feeds me, in a way
In fact, exactly, but...
Maybe it's about time it was bitten
No use deciding
Already biting
So I destroy so I may escape
But I escape and then I know not what to do

(inside the moment. Inside the moment of realization.
The sensational horror of staring off the edge.)

VIII

Sometimes when I'm
Crawling through
Alleys, over
Fences through
Drains under
The streets

I start to experience moments of lucidity
At times I am not lost and I'm not incognito
And at times I would be safe even in the wide open streets
At times I realize just where I'm going
And I can look with clarity and laugh at all the comedy
The desolate dark comedy of errors called existence
And if I wanted I could sidestep my own mask
Just tell the world that I've been kidding
Just limp away with a chuckle and a wink
Just gather up the pieces, start again, I really mean it this time
Just forget what has happened
I already have... Why couldn't anybody else?
They already did... What's the problem?
They can forgive, perhaps forget, but never will their respect return

And anyway I still crawl through
Alleys through
Fences through
Walls.
In secret
And I'm sure
The authorities
Still know where I am
I'm sure that
To be discreet
Could be the secret

And accusatorily I'm followed
And later punishment slips past
Looming overhead,
A hawk-like creature
Many biting heads
Head 1 is Guilt
Head 2 is Shame
Head 3 is Pain
Head 4 is Doom
Head 5 is Fate
Head 6 is Nature
Head 7 is Justice
Head 8 is Mercy
Head 9 is Man
Head 10 is Woman

Fearsome talons
Talons of words, forces, actions, feelings
Even in escape I have to fear for my survival
With so many threats around me there are no safe bets
Particularly when I try to get away
And in the struggle try to knock The King's curse loose
It's happened once or twice or even four or five times
But every time it finds me here again, again





IX

Now indebted to The King
My waking Hell now worse than Nightmare
The curse is pulling all the strings
My conscience is empty and bare
Violence, violent times I live in
A living extrapolation
And in a way it feels like Heaven
Drenched in much more exploitation
Create a monster of myself
To rid the pain of being man.

I can see your past

I can show you your future

But after I’m done

You may need spiritual sutures



If good fortune is your goal

I must tell you, it will take a toll

Causing irreparable damage

To your mind and soul



The dead cause chaos in my head

But their power keeps me calm

I will know every intimate detail

With just one touch of your palm



There are a few steps

That you must take

To connect with the spirit realm

To alter your fate



I see you as 6’5ft tall

In my crystal ball

And the body of a Greek god



I can erase all of your flaws

I’ll just need a newborn’s skull

My cards favor your odds



Pick any woman

You can have them all

I’ll just need your signature

In blood…that’s all



I can make you rich and famous

Or whip up a love spell

But you must offer a sacrifice

To crack open the doors of hell



Don’t play dumb

You can’t possibly be stunned

Where do you think these

Abundant blessings come from?



The power I’ve held

And the tales that I tell

Are very real… not allegorical



Certain acts may be required

To acquire this kind of power…

That some may find deplorable



These are demented acts of brutality

And I’ve done the most horrible…

The mentality and morals

Of an obscene oracle



You can’t be a coward

If you seek this kind of power

I’m addicted to it

So if you’re standing in my way

You will be devoured



The spirits are whispering

They say that you’re unworthy

That you don’t trust me

…Like I’m undeserving!?



Hmmm…You've hurt me

Guess I’ve said too much

But I’ll show you mercy

A curse…a small verse

So you will forever serve me…

I

His tail is cylindrical hailing immaculate twine of dimensional swords and my mind

With tinder and cinder and used dynamite - wily, perplexed - we are cunning, contrite

Silt and asbestos ensnare diaphragms -
duly expressing elite contraband

"Come on man, take my hand," tooling my ribs - reactors are passing for colonist fibs

My funeral follows a prudent position: infinite drama recounted in visions

Muddles reality into insanity - imagine the ways I'm bewitching my vanity

Woke up in feverish pools of deception - recalling this snaking tale of repression

Saddled apocalypse summons the storm - carnival prince and the reptile are born

II

Yesterday, I was saved frozen at sea drowning in confidence - pulsating excellence

Sudafed, opiates, amphetamines - sifting like gold diggers scratching at screens

This fabric has hieroglyphs witches and ornaments barely, she begs us to win sacred tournaments

He reached for her arms as she swam in the pyre, true to the caring that she had inspired

He's standing there drunkenly highly confused, gasping at semblance of what he could do

I don't know - I don't care somebody must
Fleeting ambrosia - burnt naval husk

Honestly, looking back nothing seems real
Surrealist and spooky is all I could feel

Scrapping sweet memory fertile new bones
A concert of cannibals worship this tome:

III

Psoriasis fingertips - silvery hair - eyes so cartoonish, "I can't help but stare".

Drawing strange images into the dirt - ghoulish imposter, "Flames on his shirt".

Crouching in testament - cutting herself - steadfast and jolly, "Infusing with health".

Leaving a trail of blood left in her wake,  as she stumbles and crumbles, "And tumbles in place".

Bastions of light usher scoffing demands - spears made of aloe, "Leave wounds on my hands".

Anxiety begged her to hide in the sheets - praying she'd come to bed, "Thrashing her feet".

Mysterious words from some fiction have bled into parasites,"Parasites play in my head".

"Hold me", she told me, eternally wed under deadly exposure, "More nightshade," she said.

IV

Exquisite demonics implanted inside - articulate, "Just let me hold him", she cried.

Feeble as Latin words - etched down his spine - congregate, estimate, "Counting in rhyme".

We offer up sacraments, sacrifice innocence, whispering terrorists, "Following genesis".

Accordingly heathens with blasphemous hearts, "Whimsical orphans - atropine darts".

I keep you immortalized - captured in song, standing in pentagrams, "Naked as sin".

Dwindling starlight and twinkling frost - honored to share in this, "Paradise lost".

Arc of the covenant, star in the earth - hands held together - they're chanting this verse:

"I love how the world has the need to expire," and, "Look in my eyes as we bask in the fire".

V

Chefs lack the candor of regular pith in this kernel of sorrow we're journeying with

Beating her sternly - he's scaly and ****** - caging her bones under fertilized loam

Estrogen forests are trampled by scythe, sickle and saber, reaping the wife

Frisky in nocturne this sensual bride finds contextual meaning in meaningless rhyme

Standard and righteous - I prance in your skull - are we fated for cancer and ready to fall?

Tumors, abortions and cellophane wombs, consecrate gargoyles - guarding your tomb

Weeding out chilling improvements she sings, "Are the best of us lonely or left without wings?"

"I don't know anything - not anymore". He's begging to stay with her - holding the floor

VI

'Flowery words', she rhetorically mused
Rawest emotion, endangered, refused

Lost and impossibly caught in the heat of the endless embrace of embarrassing need

Hopeful and starry-eyed, pushed to the side, doubted by scornful inclusion and lies

Twisted by jokes, wishes and visions, and tempting tornadoes of desperate decisions

Head in the clouds like the lady deserves, not the tinge of exclusion, repulsion, the nerve

Standing beneath as the waves crash above and the whip grips her knuckles - the crack of the glove

She falls on ground with an earnest composure while hippies and poets all **** on her floor

Promises, bonds and a zone full of friends that all predate her lovers - impaled on the fence

VII

The pair of them rumble in harmonious glee, to wrestle and grumble in palpable need

Tanning distraction this action proceeds under cover of capture the flag as we leave

Beady and auburn, I gaze in your throat as you're speaking in languages nobody knows

Follow you as they do barking at wounds  - howling at insects - gnawing harpoons

Tenacious, relentless and yawning at doors as this screeching is creaking and echoing violently

Mischievous prankster - he sleeps on the floor - god of destruction, you unsullied *****

"Enough," is enough to command that he store all those awfully snide instincts that cause him to roar

"Maybe she just wants frontiers to explore?" In this city of carnivores no one is poor

VIII

The extent to which anyone really should mind is a farcry from anything I would have tried

How do you look at yourself in the mirror? Caring for no one, "Can I please steer?"

Monopolize - colonize - fall to your knees,  derangement of outfits and gloveless disease

"Them," he thought, fraught in sharp needles, "They knit," sought it out seeking some table to sit

Sickened and tarnished, they're grafting his skin, Alice keeps asking him, "Please let me in".

Swift as the sultry ones - swagger for days - aloof and untouchable - "Just go away".

Subtle forgiveness was penciled in rot -abstaining from quicksilver lessons he thought

"Apple shaped targets?" this weird maidens heart is a factory of gears that all grind with a start

IX

Quintessence, purses strings and cardinal demands, weaving his fingers through crucified hands

Fondling smoldering kingdoms of glass - "Sand in my eyesight,"  she sinfully asked

Cathartic - imparting this wisdom upon as the mask on his face does gives way to the pawn

Comforting cripples with zippers for lips all while shards of perfection steal barbershop tips

Companionship - sunken eyes - drown in the lake as the greatness of bodies of water intake

Angry as clamouring mountain folk groan, "Cavernous hillside. Some call it home".

Clamping considerate grips on her wings as they sell her for rubies and loose diamond rings

Foulest intentions from bittersweet ghosts, repenting for eagles with talons for toes

X

Painstaking chimps have their skulls opened up under practical willows with creatine tusks

Tedious dysentery fractures the press of impoverished illusions, "Why aren't you dressed?"

Trapped under flint rock - collapsing in filth - avalanche scoring and soaring from hills

Breathing out fire from chemical lungs, fringed with discomfort - flensing her thumbs  

Hot as fresh crystal - clanging like gongs,
cost of the gambit is mounting to some

"I'm not sure you'd go - if anyone knows," as your icy composure forcloses your glow

I'm content to think that anyone cares - it's a panicked delusion and I wouldn't dare

That's why you wake up just shaking in fear, sleepwalking in public,
the horsemen are near

XI

Waterweight - ******* - no one is home - send up the lizard - "I might as well go".

Jello shots - taking the bus to the tower - sticky and tenuous - eloquence strenuous

Pent up and sent up the labyrinth spire - elevate thusly, cables and wire

Incarcerate me as they douse you in ***,  sloppy and ****** - bloodied with ***

Warned of a fortune so spacial it ****** at the cosmic imprisonment laden and fixed

Misogynist epitomes launder transfixed on a native reserve burning nicotine sticks

Steeping a boiling *** - struggles display - "Are you gonna keep letting him talk?" Go away

Tearing her eyes up with digital pins - asunder they tore me with calico wings

XII

Vainglorious stitches - monogamy dead, shuffle to school without sutures or bread

Starving so beautifully no one is there emptying halls of his putrid despair

Wallow as germophobes glean to react, "I was hoping to bounce as the luster refracts".

Hookworms are evident dazzling tone - shoddy as hues on this luminous phone

Lioness named for the flame of our youth - rather you gargle my pain in vermouth

Flimsy as benzene - it seeps in my ***** - bartering spirits for paper and coin

Seltzer and alcohol, oh how I trust that you'll ****** me right into this shallow new husk

Casket misshapen - diving beneath the surface of every mistake I can see

XIII

There's more darkness in consciousness than you could know - pesticides rest inside nightmarish dreams

Tantamount, visceral -  mountainous screams, "Colossal magnetics start firing beams".

Floating upon rings of onyx and lime - the city was swept under soundwaves of time

The first night I met them, they washed me in light - fifty foot gypsies - lasers in sight

Demonized, ostracized - gaudy as hell -
trampling heavily - rotating noisily

Show boats with no hope to wake up and yell, quoted retraction - lucid reaction

Shadowy faces contorted and towering -  flinching and wincing, cringing and cowering

Flowering stupidly - running away - asking, "Can anyone help us today?"

XIV

Justify heartless precision you take on this rectified burials thirst to replace

Cresting some green fixtures spiraling waste - photonic windmill - sneezing with haste

Alkaline infants are tastefully conned into terrible matrons with hypnotic yawns

Grifting the shoulders our blades rest upon into sorry excuses for stabilized arms

Braced for the chance of a kick in face - "They offered me poppers with lemons in place",

Of some sort of wandering thievery race, gracing the shape of the nails in her face

Abstract absurdist - this faction is severed - luridly campy and hopeful he let's her in

Demonstrates how it all works when you die, "Your body keeps heaving perpetual sighs".

XV

"How would you like to experience death?" The smoke in his broken heart lovingly said

Typing cryptography under his breath - "Shade of a pyramid's awkward," it says

Scabs weld their fools on the tracks to the rails - locks crimson black as they whimper and flail  

Sabotage robots who walk on the ceiling - gibberish, ******* "Roaches are dealing".

Larynx absconded with starlings and doves - swallowing nestlings while fledglings make love

"Time to stop fighting," it bellowed and mourned - spongy testosterone - exercised horns

"Sodomites," - come to me - "Gumption eschews". Hilarious pictures that serenade you

"Unruly, infesting," - bowels of a God - evoking the pantheist's haggard facade

XVI

Catacombs yielded pretentious as mines - lines in the quake of awakening vines

Higher than killers with thrills who conspire to bask in our innocence, "Lakes made of fire".

Needlessly sending for doctors and kings - soldiers of vitreous letters know things

Nobody else could have possibly guessed, sauntering safely into our regrets

Twisting odd verbs in a blunder he spoke, "I wonder when they'll ******* thunder". She wrote:

"No one wants you to fly more than me".
Red as her blood was. Blue like the sea.

Operate casually - amateur alchemist
Practicing chemistry  - new occult balcony

Reaching a point of unparalleled strife -
Precedent slit - heralding the knife

XVII

Allergens checker an angelic frown - grinning to save face - numbing her crown

No one wants you to fly more than I - correcting her grammar... "I'd rather die".

System reset - she said, "Need to expire?" Curling so cowardly, "You're such a liar".

"Philandering suckerpunch," arteries whine - encumbered, sporadic - they plough through my spine

Clinching the gashes that poke in his sides - entryway clutter is littered with pride

"Heuristic Columbus," hypocrisy boons, "Exiling marrow," he passively croons

Fitful hounds - kerosene sheets - "Leave", - fueling the sparks of satanic relief

"Pastor, what have you got up your sleeve?" He actually thought he would get a reprieve

XVIII

Climbing down sideways - expanding deplores,  "dastardly hooligan - hands on the floor!"

"Stout absolution?","Storybook gates?"
"Novacaine icebox?" Hoodlum debates

****** as rangers with rifles and glocks, they're flocking like animals down at the docks

Fifty-six mannequins crouch in a row all while tantric eccentrics converge toe-to-toe

They're bowing in tandem and chanting in sync, "I swear to you mother, it's not what you think".

Ancestral wigs often shed temple spawn,
"Honestly kid, what the hell are on?"

"I don't know anyone higher than you".
Hairdresser puns are a noxious perfume  

Gripping strange stalks of white tight in his claws, "Bring me a lighter", he silently gawks

XIX

Ubiquitous - which is his festering moan, conspicuous stealth in the place of this poem

Tolerate surrogate - lecher bemoans - fostering pestering questions alone

Delegate consciously - losers go home - victory pasteurize hearts made of stone

Revving in dangerous jungles, you know, "I'm confusing the past with a future foretold".

Approved as a commune of toxic cartoons, the queen suffers no more than idle abuse

Deep in the pockets and dunes made screws we are trenched in this utter bereavement of you

Alice in wonderland  - Alice in chains -
Alice likes cannibals, torture and pain

I don't remember if that was her name -  cats in black dresses - are scratching in vain

**

Cross-legged in triangles, shells billow smoke, after everyone's lymphatic system is choked  

Sanctum synthetics - these viral fiends **** - oh how I loathe silken knights laced in cloak

Vitriolic and fatal - she's spiteful and mean - relinquish your insides, "I want you between".

Riding on horseback their sheaths slip behind, hypotenuse daggers have poisoned my mind

Isosceles vertices equal - they feast - growling in lateral scalene it creaks:

"Love all my friends," now the beast has a plan, "Triangulate all the new ravens I can".

Colonic intoxicants signal the fan of the chronic conception of too many hands

Again we're in triangles primed for the farce, exit the scheduled-impressionists art

XXI

Fantastic, predestined - the sickness is seen as the top hats and wizards make scientists gleam

He comments, "we all love you carry my breed to the temple of torment, I offer the seed".

Tally marks scoring with scarabs and ticks which impregnate the fleece of these humanoid tricks

Triangles, Triangles, "Beg me to stay,"
Parasite, Parasite, "Don't go away".

...

They are young, they have passion, we love'em out here,
they are on a tour, country wide, BC pride, their name,
Good For Grapes!  They are more than Indie, they are
the Sons and Daughter, Mumford never had, but they
did not lose out musically, they have their own unique identity,
they rock and they sing,
and even make shiny with some brass!  Did I say
their name already, Good For Grapes!

Musical future,
dissolving sutures,
to what music now
may hold for you,
Look for the "Man on the Page" and then
let yourself go! Listen! Enjoy...