To Rebuild An Empire

A frontier doubled back
Due to the attraction of a frantic heart,
Panting from the banter that sets him apart.
Every source is tapped out
On every course he mapped out
So he looks three feet about the ground,
He looks to greet the calcium light,
The crescendo of hello's and arms squeezed tight.
The foundation is vast and every corner is hugged.
Show me a different kind of sun,
Remind me of a safer love.

Touching the Ground in Newark

This state is in a state of identity crisis.
I'm dreaming of death,
A kiss from the wife of Osiris.
She is the familiar light at 6 a.m. in Jersey
When everyone's still in a hurry to leave.

Just talk it over with yourself
Over some terminal food
Dying from preservatives,
Preserving what was,
What won't
What would be
Traveling alone in this part of the fields
I feel the sun has had enough.
Enough with the light,
Its petals will wither
Its roots will run dry
Much quicker than I meant it to be.

Leave it all there as carved notes in a tree.
Let it take in the meaning
And fall out with the leaves.
Now that all has been cleared,
I can see New York from here...
This is the closest to Montauk that I'll ever be.

Mix Tapes Mixed Me Up

The deed is done
And along goes the quiet one.
In this world,
The unsettled must rest.
In this girl,
Swallowed in her heart
Was the best of me.
The rest of me was left to pass
These steps were paced and retraced
I'm taking it all back.

The memory is what I keep
The memory, I won't let leave
The memory is everything
I thought it used to be.
We never learned to need.
We never learned to speak.
You were right,
It was all a dream,
But I've got my witnesses.

Now I can't know what your business is
Dressed in suits of spider web spun,
The green-lit fog is moribund,
I am the Gatsby and you are the sun.

Damn Parallels

You learn to cherish the short bursts of light...
They lay down softly on your skin
In the thinnest coat of innocence.
My ambivalence is my guilt,
Quilted to keep me warm with maturity.
Past the point of being absurd,
Past the point of keeping your word,
I've learned everything this way.
It's the normalcy you love to hate
Where the brightest colors fade away.

Only Familiar

This is embrace is something
I can't wrap my mind around,
The distance seems bigger
After being far away,
After nothing much to say
The charge is stretched and dissipates,
Things don't hold and float away.
This is the static of progression,
An interference called regression.
We're all just visiting,
We're all growing up,
Shooting for the moon
Happening too soon.

Simpler Times

Contentment bent in every direction
I inspect the color of this light.
It's arc is short and rather contrite
But trying to stay true to its colors.
I look to my brother...
With a tiny face that holds so much light
I hope earns a burnless flight,
And my blood, keeps churning through the night.
In this repeat of festive lights,
We have to learn how to turn out alright.

Golden City Synthetic

How I love the unpolished shine,
The burnt out promises
Have always had my name on them.
It takes five hundred days to understand
Then five hundred more before you can stand it.
Flexing at the thought,
I braced for what I brought on myself.
These shelves could only hold so much
And I was held up by the rush
Of whatever was under my feet,
Digging itself out of the ground.
It was a consolation prize,
And an incessant ringing sound.
Bells of warning,
Bells of warming my chest
With the rest of best wishes
Adorned on silver dishes.
It was out on the table,
And cleared.
It made room for the absent,
Or otherwise weird.
Inevitable,
Inedible,
I forced it down.
Into circles,
Circles,
Dizzy-drowned
In the sweetest sugar mixed with lead.
From a dream in which I was already dead,
I finally woke up today...
Those dreams were great,
But far away.

Mercury Down The Aisle

A flash and I'm a part of a stranger's memories.
A smudge whose light diffuses
By the thin protective film.
But it would never protect you from the heart's kiln.
I'm buckling down for known losses,
Soon to be lost in translational.
The destination is home,
But it was gone before I could leave.

G

The floor is the only thing left to hold you up.
So you slam back to earth, but it won't slow down.
Hot tears fall to your ears
To drown out the awful grinding sound
When things just aren't working out
And I don't have the tools to fix this.
But we're given pain that comes in pills
And God slips the bill under our doors
Because we're always waiting.
And we're always saving ourselves for the insatiable.
There is no benefit to the doubts that I have
So I lay it on the table to be judged.
This is the hope that we've all learned to love.

Life Is Your Favorite Movie

Everything is a science here,
The truth in the silence
The guidance of fear,
It wrung out my pillow after long restless nights
And cooled off my head to dampen the light.
Source-4 days, we'll toast
For what I'm thankful the most
It won't be the mirrors,
It won't be the ghosts.
I just balance those acts, using both of my hands,
And pay love respect with a sarcastic grand.

Willful Corruption

We connected our paths over laughs and wax paper,
I traded my freedom because I liked the sheets.
The seats in the foyer are warm and safe.
It is never letting the colored light escape,
It is two clasping hands,
It is brotherly grace...

Depths

The world spins so madly,
I feel that I am already dead.
There's a lightness in my head
And everything that was said
Is muffled with a ring,
A stinging high pitch
That will be thrown in the ditch
With all my dirty dishes,
Put them into the ground.
This body is an anchor,
It drags the soul,
Down.

Pulling the Envelope

A child's instrument plays
And we make paper cranes
Before God decides he has lied
And crumbles our paper names.
The sender never sends,
And taps a foot for a message home,
The other: sender-returned,
So that this body sleeps alone.

Names

We sing our drinks
We sing our past
Grasped in binding,
Blinding
Ethereal light,
And the echoed wood and clocks
Make the city safe at night.
Troubled youth choose
To shed their own kind of light
That resonates in the hearts
Of lovers of the same,
Lovers that need someone to tame
Every field of our flowers
With a place and a name
And a purpose:
It nurses our souls for a day.
I have a daisy,
And its petals float away...

Restoration

It is a default face
For a default place, a pocket in time,
Tucked in my jacket
Hugged between lines.
This one has many breaks and turns,
But its meaning is direct
And its the effect of intentions
That invent a detectable glow
Giving light for its trace.
The L.E.D. palindrome has for now lost its place,
I'm already coming home
And the greatest things haven't changed.

Envy, Lust, Intentions and Trust

Behind closed eyes,
They're comfortable just out of sight
Where the right-of-way is far from right.
Lines are judged by the distance stepped,
The distance closed,
The closure met.
They bet their warmth
Not high,
Nor low,
They know no logic in the flow.
Unreasonable,
Undaunted,
Rush.
The lushness of a fatal crush.
Behind closed eyes,
The muchness clutches, cold as ice.
Behind closed eyes,
The darker things are realized.

Undiscovered Heights, Rediscovered Lights

Beautiful sin.
Chaparral,
City,
Brushing against your skin.
Everything breathes,
Car engines and leaves
Branches and streets are the arteries of an entangled life.
Polygamous glamor,
The ocean and skies and earth are one here.
Brown and blue, I hold you dear
As I sweep the dust from sweet dreams that are rusting.
I'm trusting that lushness in lost youth may soon run,
Those legs haven't stretched since I've last seen the sun.

Reconsidered

Frankness makes the canvas bare,
With trace hints of an off-shade blue.
A palette of justice with a balanced renewed.
Stay true to yourself,
If you knew what these shelves had to hold.
Paints for a straight path to hell made of gold,
Or a bed with a cross when you're withered and old.
I was told this kind of war is not fought,
It is not won with weapons
It's not one to be bought.
You stand at the barracks
Holding echoing hounds
As sickness takes foe,
And they fall to the ground.

Revisited

The same lights
Mean something different every time
And you've finally found the chords
To tie it all together.
Turn to the right
One to blame for the weather.
You get out of the car because it smells like rain
And you need to know what it feels like again.

In the Company of Thieves

I'm overstepping into holes
Trying to find a hand to hold.
I'm directing traffic,
It's getting old.
The whispering trees.
The moon is gold.
But then rustling leaves explode
In a burst of words
I should've known.
You fire empty shells, but I don't respond.
It's dead,
But still you fire on.
You point this gun in every direction
And your selfishness is my resignation.

Ironic Bombs

A little slip of paper light
Will slip under your sheets tonight
When you've tucked the beast in,
Nice and tight,
And absolved your skin in treacherous night.
I could've had it any other way
It could've happened any day.
But now it can
And now it will.
A missile in the loading bay,
Big Mike for the kids today.

Important Points

The soldier lines up by the trenches, nothing in his eyes.
His secrets are unkept, so that it's quiet when he dies.
And when this broken body finds its way into the ground,
I know I won't regret that I had turned my car around.
I know I won't forget how she had put my body down.

Punching Bags and Ticking Bombs With A Pressure-Sensitive Detonation Override: Life Is A Pretty Thing, Ain't It?

Selfish
Translucent
Transducer,
Elusive abuser of long-lost advantage.
How can you manage to go on?
The winds are howling,
On and on,
And sing to you a warning song.
The storm is returning your call,
The storm is coming in strong.
Because these chains have been undone
And I begin to run...
I'm waking,
Eyes towards a setting sun.

2,492

It was a citywide search for the insane
The streets are untamed
And we are the same.
Striving with a drive for the intangible
Grabbing for points that we make.
We are here to stay!
There is every way to get this right
Even when we get it wrong,
We've always got some off-key song to sing
That brings us back to why we are here.
It isn't of blood, but we do get near
And it's been clear
How much we are willing to give up
For no kitchen works,
For working so long,
For twenty-three strong
Yeah, that's what's up!

Touching Base

Weaves,
Weaves,
Through the stripped down trees
That grasp for the expansiveness
Of freedom.
My sanity has been redeemed,
By familiar things
Mixed with new stings
That poison us together.
I'd never say never to the antidote,
But could never find the anecdote
To rival new remnants
That replicate what I'm shown,
When local is getting closer,
But the ghosts are staying home.

The Softest Bells

This scene seems all too familiar.
A series of indirect paths,
Magnetized and hypnotizing,
While realizing these eyes
Are only looking back.
The slightest glance stolen
Steals my heart for a moment.
Bring me back,
Bring me back.
I am seasoned with the words he has spoken,
Folding the maps of bridges broken down.
I built them,
Hoping that something wouldn't drown.
I'll be the anchor,
Put me in the ground.
I'll hold your dreams
And put creases in my hands
Because this is what life demands
From a man who has felt this once,
The birth,
The journey,
Of falling in love.

To Baker And Back

I brought it on myself,
Letting the sober dust
Accumulate on my shelves.
My lifeboat was sunk
And I went down...
Down the stairs
To feel the ground on bare feet.
Everyone is waiting outside to meet me
And I pray these feet would bring me back
Quick, like a lick of lightning,
I dash out the door,
Nothing fearing, nothing frightening.
Just one step at a time,
Hoping authorities' paths won't cross with mine.
I know we crossed the line,
I know I didn't want the time
To say hello to the person
Waiting behind those doors.
This is what you see and a little bit more
Feeling a rush that bites down to the core,
An adrenaline rush that gives me the heat
To run through the cold in my first naked streak.

Deadlines

I'd put the clock on a tourniquet,
But it would tick all the same.
I'm not the one to blame for this.
I'm all worn out,
Out-blamed and pissed.
Spoiled milk spills on the page.
It will never taste better
Just bitter with rage,
Tired rage.
Helpless swings at a ghost
You're out of line, soldier.
Get back to your post.
I'd want to believe
That the days get brighter
But the light comes in sleep
And the nights meet you too early
So your breath of relief
Comes out with the sun,
And they day's just begun
Just when you're giving up.

Coming Home

I hear your voice
A sentence complete,
Now meet me at the lion's gate.
The skies will roar,
But your shrill happiness
Will keep me safe on the ground.
Now it's the sound of your blood,
My blood,
Genesis with her arms open wide,
Embracing to suture
Rips in time when she cried.
An angel's howl,
Like the darkest delight,
Packaged so neatly in a puddle of light
Spilled onto wood grain and night.
She sings judgment comes early
But I'm glad that it's so,
Light spills on old chapters
Where the ink comes to flow...

Peace of Mind Is Peace In Mind

When your friends start dying,
Hold the others in your heart...
We're too young for this to start.
Keep your feet on the ground.
Though your soul might be helium
I swear that this feeling of
Lightness
Is the tunnel that carries
That awful silent sound.
We know you're meant for it,
But not quite yet.
These hospital sheets are your safest bet,
As we bet fate with our hands clasped together,
Holding our hopes like butterflies.
Our whispers are kisses that fall on your head,
Hoping to give it rest.
You are a balloon that is tied to this state
But gently you're pulling yourself to the stars...
Oh please, not just yet,
Don't make this the start
Of when atoms stop tugging,
And just simply fall apart.

Having Pretty Friends

I'm listening to jazz while God
Washes his paint brushes in the sky
And the sun slides down like yolk.
These moments are scrambled, relived in a flash:
Stumbling through the darkness
Over concrete and grass,
Finding the light just to put it away.
Because we've found our words
Pinned to the wall with nothing to say,
Playing Marco Polo with our lips.
I know those who would kill for this,
So I hold your hand,
But look away.