I'm gonna try,
And I'm gonna fail.
Then I'm gonna try, try, try,
And I'll try again.

I'm gonna lose,
Time and again.
But, I'm gonna keep playing, baby,
Because someday I'll win.

The longer it takes,
The sweeter it will taste.
The prize is the flavor,
And it's love that I'll savor.

So, if you brush me aside,
Just know I'll be waiting,
My patience, enduring
And love, unabating.

My faith, my desire,
Knows no limitations.
You'll know me one day,
Meanwhile, no lamentations.

As rises the sun,
With certain precision,
And shine do the stars,
Through the vast expansion,

I'll be just like clockwork,
I won't let you down.
When you need someone be to be there,
Know I'll be around.

I sorta needed you, baby.
I kinda wanted you, dear.
I hoped you would call on me,
When you wanted someone near.
I guess it wasn't my time,
And maybe he's who you want.
It's sad that you gave in
To his virtueless vaunt.
These grapes are not sour.
They are sweet on the vine.
My love in undaunted.
Still, here I wait.
I wish that he could make you happy.
He doesn't have what it takes.
The moment you know that,
Then know I await.
From under the viaducts,
And the shadows beyond the stage,
Behind heavy curtains,
Let my love asage.

You know we should crash like the cymbal.
You know we should anger the Sea.
You know that the sky should rumble
In praise of our unity.

I'll keep thinking that I'm next to you,
Cause sometimes thinking is all a man can do.
I'll long for your embrace,
If you would only give me grace,
I would give my world to you.

i.
dusk doesn’t feel like an end to me.
gladly, we play hide and seek amongst monuments
made in retrospect, and the sun doesn’t make us
go home until it’s already past dead. we drop
hearts on the unsuspecting, play make-believe in the
style of world war ii documentaries your grandfather
watches on the history channel. winston
churchill played with fire the way we play with
matchsticks and death and dying make
cameos fit for better actors. your rocking horse isn’t
fast enough. nagasaki still stinks of radiation.

ii.
we breathe, virtueless, shoes untied and headaches no
tylenol can hope to amend. there is
money involved, as there usually is, and
bills are exchanged from hand to soulless
hand, stench of cannabis like perfume in the air.
sobriety is elusive–you, effusive–we toast to
ambiguity and *** between stoners and
sinners. The ****** of yesteryear haunt street
corners we use for battleground, though the
fights take flight on rusted wings within the confines of our
heads, vacancy signs flashing in our pupils.
you reek immortal.

iii.
colourlessness is inevitable, but you always liked
noir films. i play you on first base, set myself
against flesh still pink with love bites from december
chill, and your lips tell a better story than
anything in black and white. we consume–we are all that’s
left. we don’t speak english until sunrise and by then we’re
telepathic. i don’t need words to say i love you.

iv.
we part, gasping for breath without sound in
clothes that don’t yet fit us right, doggy paddling because
they don’t actually teach you how to
swim in high school PE. you’re a
cartographer, your hands are
maps, and i am left bereft, grasping at substance too
thick for breath. i stop breathing, then, and
you haven’t held my hand since.

The city is a nameless collective
people are submerged---the bad and the good-
some would succeed, others would come to grief
glum, morose and somber is the general mood--

choices I have and I'll be selective
to pursue that which would yield me the best fruit
to shun the faces of the virtueless and the deceptive
knowing where and when to put in my careful foot.