Listening To Daughters

This morning is cloudy
The sheets are undone
This heart pours out sugar
Through buttons undone.

Dark is the night,
The wind glides on ice.
My bed has become a foreign place
Where I sit suspended
In pretended kept space,
Tracing lights in colored streams
That gleam out from these floating dreams.

And what it seems is what I've seen
And what I've seen is how it ends.
Cities burn for habits unlearned
That churn until perturbed again.
The nerve again for coastal norm
That came in left in sudden storms
That gave me weather far from home
I'd rather not must spend alone.

Casual Reassurance

Blood sits quietly
And waits its turn.
Churning, this heart
But subtly yearns
For the fading burns
Of Epsom salts.

I had cut my open palm
On the broken glass
Of preserving balms,
Conserving the calm
In the calling of storms
Where hurricanes dictate the norm.

Some things will always go forlorn,
An unaired wound will remain torn,
So we breathe.
So we keep our heads above the water
And hope that mine will not get hotter.

Timeless

May this prove responsive
Though my beat peaks in Boston.
The L.E.D. screen screams in bleeps,
"I am lost!"
But arterial maps always lead me back home.
And lyrics snaps tell me I'm not alone,
I am here.
Somewhere near the edge
Of the glass,
Of the past,
Its prison is warped in the prisms of tears.

I peer in and seer skin
From the sharpness of it all:
A distinct recollection,
I drink from my reflection.
It is thick with the sickness of a love mid-
Sentence,
Sentenced to the senseless sense of solidarity.
But she visits,
Voluntarily.
And her kisses,
Always there with me.

We make rounds to the sounds
Of a tune of never ending,
The prisoned past passes
Through the white light-prism bending.
So I'm still chasing rainbows
And I'm still where the rain goes,
Always and forever,
She took the best weather.

This rainstorm's a brainstorm
Most days of the year,
So forgive the rhythm-patter
You seasonally hear.
And sometimes you need,
So you can relearn,
The sturdiest bridges can never be burned.
Thanks for compassion,
And thanks for concern,
Consider this finished:
A message returned.

The Lock-In

Slavery split up nice,
But production's put on ice.
Where are the beers?
This is nowhere near focus.
Attention's at its lowest,
We're the slowest from the start.
But this glue will cool
As we tool it all night,
Putting together
To never pull apart.
Radiate a mass of land
With the wobbly fist
Of a can-clutched hand,
Which broke the fall
Onto the floor on which you slept
And then on which you eventually wet.
On which the other threw a shout,
The flow reversed,
And spilled about.
This is viral and embarrassing,
The way brotherhood is meant to be.

Mixed Drinks and an Ominous Swing

This is me raised to the third degree:
The music, the book, the bitter and sweet.
Remember the beginning?
My memory is thinner of a sinner without sinning.
Together we were spinning,
But grinning every time,
Because it was all ours.
And every time I recycle this theme
I’ll always remember you singing with me.

Principles of Exclusion

I see hospital lights.
I see them through tired eyes.
And I've tried to decipher
A life more estranged
By the rivers and mountains
And miraculous range.
Its not hard to see
Something you've worked for
In danger,
When they start growing older
And looking like strangers.

Wall

I etch hours into the bower
That is this youthful mind,
Taking too much youthful time
Well spent hell-bent on being it all.
Pushing forty out of none,
There's work
There's play
There's sleep,
Choose one.
The moment I had left
I promised for the best.
But when it came to hit,
There's nothing in me left.

Dusty

Tickers are scissors
Reflections on my neck
I can't keep myself in check
If I don't respect the clock.
Pillow shock from the withdrawal
I'm all in and talking talk.
Walking walk right off the edge,
Pull the sheets back on my bed.
I'm tired,
But I'm trying to shake the sleepies
All out of my head.

Heavies Then Lights

And we start it where we all left off,
Where we all trailed off into the next day.
But I found its secrets!
They're puckered in the kisses
That miss the mark.
Parabolic hypnotics,
They took the hydraulics out of this day.
Lids cover my eyes,
I'm under the gun,
Running from cross-hairs,
It's been a long one.

Severance

Oh, it's such an impossible task
When echoes are meadows,
I lay in the grass.
I took for granted the planted moments
That passed ever so quickly...

I scramble the pebbles along the bank.
Pointing an arrow towards where the sun sank,
A perfect ending.
A perfect bending of light,
The curved around the earth
And birthed joy in my life.
You were a toy for my eyes
That held you like a doll,
Your buttons,
Your stitches,
What a beautiful call.

And all it took were some seeds in the ground
That rooted and raised
That blossomed each day,
That whispered in wind, a soothsayer sound.

Hung Up

This was the greatest story ever told.
And I'm waiting for it to get old,
Old,
Older,
Gone...
But there's no one else who knows this song.
So it sticks with me.
It pricks me in the sides saying,
"I'll never let you hide me."
This is something that couldn't stay home
Insatiable and never filled.
I'm carting Jesse up a hill
And if I ever had the will,
I would never want to sleep alone.
I don't ever want to sleep alone.

Cram

I still hear your voice
Tucked between vibrations of familiar songs.
A familiar wrong
Was that I never had it right,
But we made it through alright...
We made it through those nights
Dipping shadows into light,
Sipping romance from your eyes.
Siren eyes.
Fatally magnetic and I'm pathetic once I get it,
But I had it all along:
I'm feeling lower,
You're getting bored and
Pushing forward,
Moving on...

Memory

I might forget this,
I might regret this,
But yeah...

Summon You

A crooked carriage reels you in,
The horseman lost his head again.
I wander plains of worn out graves
Moaning for forgotten names.
A table set with dirty sheets
Wines picked from the dying trees.
I took the cue and made a toast,
A summer hue in sudden ghosts.

Tooling

Delightful distractions
Attract these eyes to temporal demise.
Your life is refractions,
A fraction of what I had been in your eyes.
We quietly go on with our lives,
Definitive renditions of a factor of lies,
Exponents,
Necessary components to a long-sought stability.
If I had the ability to choose,
It would always be mine,
But everything's perfect and it's all out of time.

Magnetic Eyes

Circuitry and alkaline,
Something's here that isn't mine.
A stolen spark from the '84 DeLorean
No, this something isn't mine anymore.
But this core is reacting,
Forever more
Forever storing,
More consistent with more precision,
Magnets do not make decisions.

Innit

I maximize neatness
In this incompleteness
That's gone completely out of hand,
Like the pin that falls
With every grain of sand,
Demanding a moment taken.
Input without a turnaround.
The hourglass will keep its ground.
Every second has its sound.
And every minute,
I am in it.

Silent Night

Backdrop of tiny boxes of light,
Reflective skies warm your back tonight.
Here is my comfort,
Here is some other thing I plucked from your eyes,
Gracious and spacious,
A delicate light.
Stay warm and sleep tight,
I'll make sure you're alright.
It's been a silent night
Now that you've closed your eyes.

Under the Garage

There's a fluctuation
In dedication to my mind,
But I've taken my time
And I've waited in line
For this state of mine.

This is where games
Become the gravity of now,
Pulling us in,
Giving us in
To something never intended.

I pretended many things.
And I'm sucking out the poison in my skin.
There is a magnitude of disgrace
Holding the walls to this placebo effect.

Noses erect, we hunt.
A stunt never doubled,
We're going through the trouble
Of a concrete bubble
Where instincts are vicious
And judgment will miss us.

The Woods and Nauset Vastness

Rain patters on my jacket.
My face glows in the fire
Growing slowly.
I retire my back
And drops illuminate
Seconds before impact,
And then there's a feeling intact
From fulfilling attacks on me.
I turn back to the fire
And repeat.

But then I leave.
The ocean breeze calls me
With its squalls howling in,
As darkness grows and falls
Over me.
I can't see anything,
But the crests of waves,
Yet I brave the front.

And I am small,
I am so small.
We mean absolutely nothing
When we stand on the divide
Of the vastness of nothing...
I can open my eyes.

Replacing Names with Similar Faces

There's never enough
But I'm making mine
Like a needle that fits into grooves,
I am fine.

Brain Pressure

Brainstorming with my head in the clouds,
Oh yes this is how,
Yes this is just how it flows.
Like the slow churning
Cool burning
Of an ominous breeze,
Right outside my window.

Why do we invite hurt,
Becoming blood brothers
With poisonous words?
Because they are words.
Humans hoard and then get bored,
So then they hoard again.
And we swear off our bias
And we wear out our names
Worth no more than the check
And the ink of the pen.

We build up our fake deaths
And then we all make bets
And then we make regrets,
But now I have digressed...

Chapter II

Bracing for the bite
Of razor sharp or chewy gum.
Hours shower quick
As I stand under the gun.
Here it comes,
Here it comes!
Four years have come to this.
Tomorrow I find out
Just how hard it really is...

Happy Where I Am

Always right in
Never left out
Always spicy
Never bland.
Fitting smoothly in the grooves,
A soothing now I am.

Distance-Importance

Recurrences disturb,
Occurring at the waking moment
Lingering slowly that
Vinegar spoils the levity of life.
Dyspepsia is mixing with a drink never had,
Unidentifiable in the sugar dreams and sand.
Desaturation exaggerates a truly unbalanced state
So that somber politicians tie flags on their faces,
Gagged and bound like true gentlemen.
Lied-out, they stay silent
Debating the dead,
The memories unsettled
Ghosting somewhere in my head.

Wood Horse War

Fight for me,
A ghost to be
In one week's time.
What's your name?
You forgot mine.
We're there before the line,
You're stepping over mine.
It's been a while since I've been me
It's been a while since anything...
Just tell me what's it that you seek
Stealing presents from the Greek?

Binding

Always a day behind
I haven't got the time to find
My peace of mind
The pace of mine is far too fast
Letting not the good times pass by.
You and I,
Yes, we all see
These people will be there for me.
Because families are familiar
And friends are made of memories.

Coffee Cake

Serendipity
And coincidence.
I've coined it ever since
It jingled in my pocket,
Shining in the timing
So tight that I could lock it,
Deadbolt and key,
He is answering me.
He wipes time off our clothes
From when we are young,
Finding a closeness,
River and sun.

Another Quiet "Goodnight"

Push one out on the house of cards
On which I stand,
Shaking my fists with shaky demands.
Inhale for every sentence,
Exhale for every pause,
Open your hands
And clench your jaw.

There is a dullness that knocks at your head,
Inertial and certain as your chance is dead,
For now.
Wishing best for months self-served,
Enamel cracks as you turn your backs
One had paused,
The other stopped,
Thoughts as fast as hummingbirds.

It's time to share,
Though unwillingly so
And unwillingly slow.
Hold your life against a plot
And you think you know
A bittersweet is what you'd meet
But this rewrite I demand.
I'm speaking as the jealous man
To all the people I don't know.
But now you know...
And I'd hope so.

Undelivered

An onslaught of zeros
Reminds me that there is
No hero
To this story,
Because there is no story.
I reach into these pockets
To find a proper allegory,
A category drowned
In the glory of victorious,
Inglorious,
Erroneous,
Matrimony
Of lonely neuron
Chasing neuron
With something pure on
Vast azure.
Turning blue,
I stay true...
So I reach into these sockets
To find something that's shocking to me.
I jostle the urge of disabled nerve,
Yet all cannot have,
And none I deserve.

Snowflakes in the Dark

Mute,
Unmute,
Pop the lights out,
Talk and find out
That there's stout resolution
After accepting the inclusion
Of silent things.
My retinas don't sting.
Many hours, not a thing.
Listen for the sightful
In the quiet and dark.
Glisten in the night folds,
Undeserved and stark.

Building Bridges In Ditches

The suspension swing sings
Over seas of aspirations,
Tempest-tossed and lost to
Hopes and expectations.
Echoes bellow deep
In a moaning metal sound,
We're building broken bridges
Just to stay on level ground.

Where are you?

The morning brings laughs,
The night lets them pass
With the clouds the bring rain
And stain the sidewalk a darker shade.
Light dances in the splashes
By which they scattered apart
And then became our stars.
And then became our hearts
Drifting somewhere in the air,
Solemn sky...

I just want someone that I can tell,
"Goodnight."

Unfinished Self

I rub the contour of my face,
Look into the mirror
And nothing's replaced.
So I look away,
So it didn't fade away,
Seven days on its way
Crooked lines had been retraced,
It didn't fade away.
There is always a reason
You don't want to stay,
But we say we miss it anyways.

The lines bind this train to the track,
Derailed, yet prevailing to stay intact.
Time is the length between theory and fact,
But metal on metal just whimpers and drags.
Outbound,
No sound,
A lack of responses,
Confounding this town for something I've lost.

The gasoline burned before it met eastern sun.
And delusions to truth rivaled
Three,
To,
One.

Holding A Gun To Your Therapist

I fell 2,000 miles to a chair and a chaise
And a message replayed.
No one is home except for the drone of phase,
An advantage advancing in retrograde,
Stomping our feet in a ladder parade
Unevenly broken to evenly break.
You're asking a healer to kill.
You're asking to take like it was your will.
But you won't.
It wouldn't be home and you couldn't,
You missed it.
Physician-assisted
With a gun in your hand,
You demand a prescription
Because you know you can't.

Prob-

The sun is up again.
Again.
A gain of none,
A yawn to morning sun.
I live in the night before
In some sort of magic,
Fantragic, fifth floor.
Solar panels flex in the light.
I crack my back and rub my eyes.
Machines never sleep,
Machines never die...
But sometimes it seems like we try.

Trees

Putting X's through messes
That compress into paper.
Irreplaceable,
Untraceable,
Insatiable as long as I walk these bridges
Sowing the ditches and sewing these stitches.
Whether grasping anew
Or holding to keep,
These branches reach high,
And these roots burrow deep.

Cutting Angles

Water falls for waterfalls
The pressure of the wave still calls
And everything falls still.
A voice emerges from the deep,
The fragrance of a dream received.
The audible caress of a plausible truth:
Boston is a ring and deserves a gem like you.

Chapters

I will never know
What I missed in vertigo.
Ascension to heaven,
I was taken away too far
To wipe the tears from your face.
I stretch out these arms
And brush my fingers through space,
Empty space.

I never want to know
Your words turned white
In winter snow.
The months to come
Will fade in flavor
Like the gum you used to chew.
You thought you knew
But were insecure,
But we know the thing
Of which we were sure:
Attraction.

The reaction is shock.
There is no longer touch
There is only talk...
Oh it's been so long
Since I've talked about love.
I had never felt so right...
The plane's direction is wrong.

Clear Waterfalls

You are reading this,
Wondering what secret crypts I'll reveal.
But every seal has been broken
And the warranty for hope has been soaked up
By a rising sun, nudging my eyes open
Because I am done,
And our thoughts go further than the syllabus runs.

Hours of stillness,
With nothing but the soft vibration
Of soft voices
Speaking soft choices
That wrap around our skin.
It's a refreshing calm from within
Like when these lungs can't hold anymore
Of this fickle air.
And I didn't care of the noxious gases,
Accustomed to the breathlessness
Of a moment that passes,
Over and over,
And then it is over.

Together we spin
Through open doors to the bizarre
Left ajar like tempting sin.
It dropped us into the purest waters
And we saw how deep we could put ourselves in,
But through the seaweed and crystals
You were always above...
Maybe you'll find it when you've fallen in love.

Sing With Me

Soundtracks emerge before the sun even sets
Behind Christmas tree mountains in the sea.
Our voices pour out like the concrete rivers
Flowing into the sea,
Flowing into the breeze,
Flowing into you and me.

The silhouette of numbers fade in
From the dark side of the moon.
The evening comes too soon
And an "X" goes through
April, May, June,
July,
And now I lie on the tracks
Held down by thumbtacks,
Held down by the numb fact
That the calendar won't back down.
The digits fly across the sky
And in the sea,
There they will drown.

They are always on time,
When I'm late on the dime
But we have to make due.
A sorrowed flight spreads wings of truth,
Adhesive peels off from my shoes.

Expectations vs. Reality

And I'll remember when
The last summer sun is setting,
Just how it came to this.
A transmission lost in translation,
A definition of home.
The water's getting colder
And the sunset sinks alone.

Typically Late

This world is small, this girl is all it takes to get people talking. Now I'm walking in the grooves, a centering spiral uncovering truth. The record plays on. The decor stays on the theme of class. like drinking wine from colored glass...of the Solo cup variety. Every name is familiar. All the fame is a glimmer into something that will be left so soon. But would've been great. We are typically late with our movie-script conclusions, but it serves some justice to our media delusions. So here's a toast to cheap wine's sting and a conscious stream of "normal" things.

Wooden Saint of the Sea

In the darkness of night,
A familiar wheel is your beacon of light.
Spinning,
Spinning.
You grin at the hypnotizing spin
And you want to stay home.
And in the drone of late night
You turn to the other side.
Your organized life seen by organized eyes
Sees no divide between ocean and sky.

Holy Trap

Pretty, pretty, soft and witty,
These chairs are stiff
Like the poor man's coffin
After the poor man coughed out his last
Breath.
Breadth of this situation juxtaposed
By naivety with a smile and salutation.
A lead heart led me apart from reality
And pulled me to the ground
To hear the sound of surreality.
I feel vibrations,
Sensational and violent.
But these eyes remain silent,
Quietly crucified to the generic carpeting
Dreading what this mind is harboring...
Fiery ships guided by a lighthouse blinded.
Mariners strung up by anchors of distrust,
Dangling and waiting for the moment I combust.

Double-Faksies Lied

Compulsive
Impulsive
Decisions.
A fission at the center of the mind
Has thoughts crammed against your skull.
There's a hole in the hull
And time falls in buckets
Onto paper.
It bleeds through.
There is too much truth for a single sense,
The rest, lost in translation.
You hesitate on what it meant.
You had hung on the swings
As sleep hung on your lids,
And you slid into home so that you were alone
With a social exhaustion before leaving for Boston.

I believe (Speak to me)

The hair on your skin turns gold
As you drive into the sun,
There are dust bunnies in your head
From the same old thoughts
That fought until death
As you laid in your bed.
You turn on the windshield wiper
And the sunlight comes in brighter,
Midas brushes the softness of your cheek.

When imminent change is absolute,
The elements of life seem to follow suit,
A humble gesture from spirits unknown,
Embraces from faces I'll always call home.
These are the traces of a life well-lived
When a sieve bleeds out impurities of heart
And leaves familiar unique,
The stable I seek,
An answer unquestioned, but known from the start.

Single Digits

A private city sits perched on smoky air,
We stare as the ash clings to clothes and to hair.
I'd dare to close my eyes,
But I don't want to fade away.
I don't have the heart to say--

These festive lights make no disguise
So I bottle these things that I've been shown:
Innocence,
Sweetness in sugary flow,
Things like these I'll never know.
I'll just smile at which I can't relate
And sip into a darker state.

So I take a few steps back,
Admire your laugh in my panic attack,
Finding a soft way down the slope
A dull light replacing the essence of hope
That maybe I'll find what always escapes
With a trail of photos and audio tapes.

Amber

Direct light gray,
Indirect golden.
This life works in angles
In shadows and degrees,
Never poured in your eyes
But in everything you see.
Remembering a father's anguish
Recalling a mother's pain
Recounting a brother's laughter,
All at once, and all the same.

I pack solitary warmth in a suitcase.
I pack my youth into a binder.
I pack my calendar with time
Because I don't know what I'll find
Once I've left the real thing behind.

And in a three-hour gain,
I'll feel a great loss.
Because somewhere in the worthless gloss,
Los Angeles is a paradise lost
Where jaundice spheres forecast the day
And all your dreams can come and play...

The Right Side of the Bed

Once you get over the drone
Of the music that will always be home,
You hit a silence.
You see it in the dust
Reflecting beams of light
When you're spending time alone
When you're spending time to write
When you're spending time alright.
I'm alright.
I've been all right lying on this bed,
Making a lopsided grating
From celebrating tradition.

But now I'm mourning rendition
As forced as it may be,
For the raincoats and frost
And the seasonal leaves.
The trees will stand naked,
Only bare at best,
As I will be too
After everything's left.

I am poison.

Tell the girls and boys
There's dark leeching
In the screeching
Of the overtones in his voice.
These are the choices we make,
The greatest takings of chance.

When a train of thought stops
At the length of the page
Of a number detracting
On the calendar's page,
Like the wheels of a plane
That takes me away,
A sentence stops short
Of a meaning to say
That the Fields of Elysium
are my equilibrium,
A fable,
Unstable,
Where nothing is certain,
And I hold that burden.

It has not been enough
But it all is too much
And my only crutch is my frame,
Polished out imperfections
But still flawed all the same.

So I've crossed all my T's
And dotted my I's
As I sign my name off
To the greatest of lies.
A builder of morals
Independent of sin...
See the signals?
Hear the bells?
That's the train coming in.

Jalapeños & Beer

There is so much with me
There is so much to come
There is so much in the muchness
Of not being done.
An unfinished masterpiece
Is merely trash on the table
And the OCD inquires the insatiable.
Forever foreboding
Forever controlling,
Forever sensational.

Red Zone

My shortened breaths
Have only brought words for myself.
They are selfish heaves
In a coward's panic,
Sucking up dust under a sheet up in the attic.
Baby boy, you're giving too much blood
And the wood floor drinks your body's wine.
There's not enough pressure
Not enough money
Not enough time,
Not enough time.

12:34

This is an ode to every moment
Spent bent three-hundred and sixty degrees
Dividing the psyche into millions of pieces.
This is to five in the morning
Ending where everyone else began
Held back by the nothing
That no one would understand.
This is putting that ugly face on
When you hear the hardest song,
But mama said my face would stick
If I held it for too long...

So the seasons are calling for a change,
And though the trees are sweating
I am betting that their words are missiles
That will always be in range.

Magic

Retrospective catch phrases
Catch days in dreamcatchers,
Wet from the sweat
Of cloudy days in late November,
Brown leaves and wet trees.
Run through them screaming hard,
Laughing loud with your hands on your knees.
Wasn't it innocent?
A singled strand frayed at the end,
But brought together by fretting hands.
The same which cradle cardboard unique
Strategically placed and portraying me weak
As he always has.
Unintended, yet well deserved,
Like the multiple meanings in a single word:
Magic.

Bodies/Entities/Me

Words escape me as birds escape me,
Doves out of bullet wounds
That let out lovely swoons
As my lungs hiss and fall asleep.
Still light runs through blood vessels
And wrestles itself free on my irises
With the colors of Osiris...
The colors of a memory fleeting fast,
The blurry film reel feeling warm on my chest.

Where is...

Tired nights make you lonely
And you're tired of lonely nights,
Wired up to a pleasing screen
Bringing restlessness in a stream of digits.
And you fidget as the numbers get smaller.
A ring,
A fate,
A phone,
A caller.
The loved are so far,
The fear is brought near,
And all the pretty pictures have slowly disappeared.

As Perfect As Death

Sunlight through a dirty windshield,
Bluer skies where buildings once were.
Something about the past,
Something about the last thing I said
Before it left me fast.
All the while,
I'm standing still,
Looking for something
Never lost nor found,
But longing and belonging
With feet firm on the ground.

Interim

Still light,
Night life,
Sleep is something that pushes from the east.
Where normalcy meets in the cradle of the beast,
Somewhere off the western ghost
With longitude, latitude, nautical ghosts.
Numbers are smeared on the clock
Like a cheap windshield wiper
On poorly fitted glass.
It streaks as it passes
And creaks in every
Tic,
Toc,
Tic,
Toc,
A pause.
A lock,
But daylight is breaking through the blinds
...My eyes are now opening to my mind.

Dining with Lions

Judgment came in hospitality,
And I clicked affirmations against my morality.
Because here is a good shot
And I heard in God's earshot
I'd be damned to not take it
If I ever wished to make it.
It was a circus on a turbulent sea.
Hand-wrapped plastic meat,
Lions and me,
Balanced on hard beds
With soft memories
Of some angel sitting next to me.
But as divided chains had pushed and pulled,
I stood my ground and then was full.

New Light

Today was a day for transactions
So I converted my units into something
A little more compatible.
Divisions of four in a 4-door sedan
Headed into the mountains
Of bedrock and sand.
And what silly sung harmonies
Some hardly heard voices sang
That buzzed in the basins
And hugged on the hills.
Choppy English,
Baby laughter,
While a seasoned voice went higher,
Faster,
Like the wheels that rolled
And took us far away
Humming our hearts to heave
Something to say.
And that we did.

Unstable Equilibrium

Halfhearted happenings
Happen half the time.
So this candy tastes plain.
Every bar tastes the same
And the feeling's mundane.
And Monday through Sunday
I'm hoping that someday
These taste buds will bud
And not hide from the words
That I hold on my tongue.
But the future draws blanks from a clock with no face
And I am treading on time in the fluid of space.

Lifelines

We take love
We fake love
We make love
We break love.
This is my hole,
In it, I'm deep.
This is what happens when I never sleep.

Block

I am distractions,
I am subtractions from lines
Of what this might have been
If I didn't have the need to sleep in.
Gorgeous lights gorge out my eye
To the words' alignment on white.
They become inkblots,
A product of a tired and spotty mind.
So here's my one card, redeemable today
And I'll come back tomorrow
With something better
To say.

Maren

We are everything that is around us
And we are made into nothing,
But our own.
And in our secrets,
We are alone.
You are my future,
You are my unknown

Session

Impression
Obsession
Depression,
Repeat.
Suppression
Repression
Digression,
Deceit.
Compression
Profession
Confession,
Retreat.
Delete.
Delete.
Delete.
Delete.

Classic

A favorite fragrant found by chance
Advances to assurance of a good day.
History is written in the patterns on wings
With flourishes, brightness and colorful things
That flutter in their kisses like lashes on neck.
So we beckon the moment to stay.
Words arched at a burger joint
Make the point clear as day
That this is the way eyes focus on light.
A perpetual dream state laid out on the floor,
Sprawled out on the couch,
Or asleep in the bed,
And the sun-soaked mornings
Make me want to stay more,
But only so many good things can be kept in my head.

Glory Pain

This morning is the good hurt
Like the first fight you won
But first took one in the head,
And the chest
And the legs,
And the arms,
And the back.
And the fact is
You're actually a little more tired.
But you're running on adrenaline
Left over from last night:
Fought up to the gate in the first row,
Setlist in-hand by the end of the show,
So many bruises,
So little water,
So worth it.

Warm Milk & Basketball

Everybody has a story
That starts on tiny metal plates.
They are always from the same states,
But all going to the same place:
A city that never sleeps
And tries its best to keep you in.
Yeah, welcome to the city of sin.

Mirrored hotels to indulge our vanity
Gambling and sex to the point of insanity
Seizure-inducing flashing lights
Fashion reusing guido guys...
This place makes me sick.
Like the anesthesia women sucked
Before their plastic fix
For their plastic fantasies
Armani and alcohol
On a casino balcony.

Just add a little rubber
For a recycling party,
Recycling girls between
Clones of Ed Hardy.
Let your money and vomit drain down the sink,
I came to this hellhole to rock out to Blink!

Fader/Balance

I twist my fingers in the air,
Stirring vibrations with the rolling of my wrist.
The music and dreams
Lost somewhere underneath the eyelids...
I know that everything will be alright.
I know that this isn't goodbye.

Bobblehead Night

He wasn't supposed to play,
But what did the crowd say?
The biggest number on display.
Ninety-nine.
And as the chant echoed loud,
A chill ran down my spine.
Every plate was covered in blue
And it was time to see
What hope could do.
Hope calmed the bullet
And guided its path,
Hope pushed wood
To make lovers at last,
Hope was a crack
That was heard through the stands,
Hope was the making
Of the grandest of slams.
One pitch it took
To turn the tables around,
One fence it took
To turn a ball overbound,
One man it took
To put it six underground,
Manny Ramirez,
And this is his town.

Whose Word For It?

This life runs like clockwork.
I'd say it was God's work,
But who'd get a robe so dirty
Working at thirty-minute intervals
Weaving a fateline of subliminal messages?
These tiles are snug around the edges.
I walk over them quietly
Touching them, lightly.
A T.V. screen pours light where none is needed,
Keys sing in the dark of a room overheated.
We float unbound in this river,
But it has always had a path we've missed
Glancing over words in parentheticals...
This is purely hypothetical.

Hands On A Numberless Face

These are my fingers
Pulling up on the ledge,
This is the light that pours
Around the edges.
The sky has no direction,
But I follow it with my eyes
And it tickles my retinas
With the azure as sure as
The darkness of night.

That's what I'll remember
When plastic sheets
Match my couches
And others in my house.
But the dark of that night
Is as dark as my eyes
Looking forward.
But look inside
And you'll see silhouettes.
There is nothing I hide.
This past is mine,
For I passed the time.

And I'll carry to the grave
All these pages that I've saved
That say the most meaningful things
Wrapped in plain linen sheets:
Good moms make you eat,
Good sons go to sleep,
Good friends you must keep,
Good seekers must leap.

A Latex Cloud

The pushover was pushed over the edge,
And brought the second back
To the arch of my neck.
The apples aren't quite in season,
But a reason to pick
Is very, very near
And my mind's getting sicker
With every passing year.
Traditional,
Unreasonable,
I think I've had it all
...and It's not even fall.
He said,
You've found your head,
Now find your heart.
And I never thought I'd be,
But now I'm finally there
When a single white balloon floats up in the air.

Relax

A skin deep fever tickles the senses,
"It's the house with the white gate and green fence."
See friends that make you feel alive again.
Liquid diamonds
Shade of blue,
A single pearl that shines for you
Unstrung,
Unsung,
The words before the rhythm
The softest point of living,
The impressionable mention
Of the tension yet to pass
Strung up in wood framing
Under a widow made of glass.

This is a reflection of the things unknown,
The pseudosecrets we let breathe,
But never let known.
One light at different angles,
One life of silken tangles,
Static in our conscience that sparks,
Never shown.

And this is far from over,
We're only getting older.
I know I've been bold,
But I'll have to be bolder
Because on mirrored seas
This sheep has no herder
And when the sun sets,
It only gets colder.

So I'll take their hands,
They'll set me free
And let me be away for once,
Let me see from my own eyes
And drop the pen hen brooding
On how we will die.

Vines

Names made of light
Fight under plastic and glass.
Racehorses with blinders
Make corners tighter as they pass
Stacked,
Packed,
A relentless, foreboding stampede.
This delicate weave of poison leaves
Rejects a double helix
As it tangles like weeds,
As it dangles its seeds
Over super-rich soil
To feed these machines
that breathe and bleed oil.

Evicted Two-Fold

This is the real world,
Where positive numbers
Seem to only get smaller
And as time goes by
As does the size of your collar,
Until your strangled with debt
And the general regret
Of living a cubical life.

So wake up young
And focus those eyes.
Not on money spent,
But the unworthy prize.
You're stupid,
And spend all your nights in a car,
But now think of the ease
Just to see all those stars!

The Harbor Buzz And My Pillow Fuzz

A ticket to the sea,
Through the glass on which
We breathe.
We knead our troubles into mush
And cast them into the deep.
Metal cables, plastic whales,
Crystal jellies, crystal scales
That hold the gentle balance
Of all our mental talents.

A ticket to the sun,
Under pine tree needles,
Our faces smile young.
A lighthouse, a song,
A mountain half a mile long,
We blow soft bubbles
From the laughs in our chests,
Unexplainable,
Unattainable,
Unchanged and nothing less.

Can't Take Me Down!

Strep choked on the words in my throat
And Cold is in the closet,
Getting his coat.

My body has has won,
A double-team too!
Sicknesses: 0
Immunity: 2

Conscious Sessions

I couldn't tell you when I returned,
But I can tell you that I burned
In the awareness of the bareness
Of these walls.
I painted them with empty intentions
Lacquered with the hope of
Divine Intervention.
But no work done.
But we jerk, son.
Colored up making noise,
Fired up girls and boys.
The bluest light
Face-to-face
In overlapping time and space.

It's been erased.
But faded lines mean brief recession,
When day is replaced with conscious sessions.

Newfound Wisdom In Strip Club Lighting

Downtown Los Angeles.
Leather couches and barbed wire
A choir of commercial jets
Shake loose from the metal frame
Of this warehouse,
Painted with phrases worn out,
And get lost in the scrap yard of the dead
Somewhere over the fence
On which I rest my head,
It came and left in a rumble.
The tumblers start up
And tear this heart up.
Hipsters,
Industrial strength.
Hissers give them hunger pangs
And venom glistens on the floor
Making and breaking,
Always wanting more.
And of course we know the truth:
These are the trials and errors of youth.

One-Way

We're 93 million miles high
And we're falling in circles towards the sun.
Forever falling,
But never into,
A paradise lost
And found
In one.

Undeserving

These keys can click
For every tick and tock
Of every second on every clock,
For every minute
Turned to hour
To day of my life,
Through the waxing and waning
Of ecstasy and strife,
The best of me,
The worst you've seen,
The wrong and the right,
When the alarm bell rings
Then death to me bring,
But I shall never clock out
On the love that you need.

I suppose the correct attitude
Is perpetual gratitude.
An ocean storm on all latitudes
Of words that cannot express
The gush of water out of my breath
And a rush of warm air to put me at rest,
To feel life in my lungs and heat from your hand,
To see beauty in life right now where we stand.
To wake up,
To breathe,
To shut up and believe,
As the summer sun shone on our faces again.
Again.
Again.
This is unheard of.
This is absurd.
This is the song of my talking bird.

So she sings,
And I sing
That life must be rigged,
Too big,
Majestic,
Complex
And hectic.
Silk strands woven too thin for our eyes to see.
Supporting our lives with what it takes,
And what it brings.
We can writhe until we die,
Until we stare down the eyes
Of the calm venom keeper that puts us in deeper.
Or we can lie and look pretty
In a web connected
Like the lights of this city,
That brings us together
When we are miles apart,
So we can play our part in close lives in danger
Or be strangely complete for incomplete strangers.

You have the anger of a devil
With the graces of an angel
And I'm flying up rockets
And jumping off buildings
To find new perspective
To get a new angle.
Because the lines that lie between
Molten, earth and sky,
Have been blurred in my eyes
From the tears that I cry
So these lines and my life
Have become undefined...
But if there is one thing that's certain,
I must be in heaven,
Just badly disguised as every day life.

So with everything I did know,
My perception of reality
Was thrown out the window
To make room for you to fly right in.
And if I wake up
And this never happened,
I'll just call so you can tell me it did.
And so you waited for me to drift away.
To get lost in dreams
That can only gleam
In the radiant light brought on by today.

I've lost faith in logic
But find comfort in disturbance,
Because you're the exception to every natural occurrence.

Sickness & Heart

The moon made of cheese
Melted through the silhouettes of trees
And spilled in the cracks of blinds
Into a time-suspended dream
Relieved.
A negative mirror,
Jaws theme swimming with me.

Thank Trudy for moving
Regardless of what love meant,
Thank God for the clod
In my heart known as judgment.

It's a bloody smile.
The kind that takes a while to earn
Like the passage through swords
That perpetually burn.
They cut me while I was down
To prove a point
That drove into my sides,
To find a searing truth inside:
This is my deserved retribution,
Brought on by Christian institution.

Moldy Orange

Welcome back to the shits.
Life is as colorful as the cold grits
In your cracked porcelain bowl.
Every shirt has a stain.
Every window has a smear.
Every day is no more near
Normalcy.

How you used to hold it dear.
Now you fear the judgments of every day:
The letters, the voices, the tactile display.
You're checking your pulse
Before the phrases you say
Change the way the matter stands.
Delirious,
Delusional with the sight of open hands.
Out of tangles of strands of mismatched hair
Or defeat in the plainness of palms open-aired?

So with a charged exchange,
We've come back to the base,
Stripped off layers caked
To the same pretty face.
With the same ugly scar
That cut down far,
Too deep.

It was a strike too much,
That came all too soon,
From burning my eyes under citrus moon.

Vladimir Ballistics

Vocal clips must have faulty rounds
When I find that I'm the only one around.
A shot meets an echo
Then falls to the ground.
I count ripples in the sound
That have stayed for a while,
Ever since I swallowed the bullet in tragic style.
It's the pound of the sounding of words
Wished to speak,
It's the sound of the pounding of...
Keys, keys, keys!

Imaginary Ordinary

Dreams of you calling
Keep me talking in my sleep.
So much for keeping sanity.
So much for keeping family,
Friend,
Love.

You're still all that I think of
Before I sleep,
When I wake,
And you're still always with me
With the absence that you make.

Timetables Obsolete

Captivated by the native
City smog and palm trees,
A closer view came dirty,
So they gave it for free.
Floating lights wait in line
To be heaven-received,
Guided home by the stars
We suspend on our streets.
More warming than blankets
Or entertaining than sleep,
L.A. at this angle is all that we need.

Lights in the Dark

Colored sparks spill out the secrets of sounds,
Suppressing surprises we'd meet on the mound
Seconds later.
And after failing to fill us with fear
From the frightening rumble we knew we would hear,
We dressed the smoky air with satisfied laughs
With occasional Woo!'s thrown into its path.
Yes, these are the beauties in which we revel,
Watching light rockets explode at eye level.
And I sit in wonder as two worlds converge,
Smiling in laughter
In such pleasant urge.

This is what I was let to keep,
Undeserving of this love
That was given to me:
Colorful, bubbly, sugary sweet,
The presents I hide in jewel boxes of sleep

Lying in the moonlight.
Rediscover new heights.

Something Sleep Can't Escape

I wasn't in for winners,
I was out for justice.
Just this is too much
And I clutch my heart
Kicking to escape,
Sticking on the points of my ribs.
This feeling is a wound to forever stay open,
Contact is a contract I've consciously broken.

The current state of affairs
Is that no one is there.
All I know is the familiar
Stale air of my cage.
With the occasional prison break
To piss, shit, and beat
And beat
And beat
And beat
And nose-bleeds become a daily routine.

I can't pluck a note on these vocal cords
They have bored and forgotten how.
It's just the sound of breathing
Every now and then.
And I remember when way too well.
It creates the hell encased in bone
In a separate hell I call my home.

When loves learned to hate and I faded away,
Silence came over with a word to say
And moved himself in with intentions to stay.
He pushed me down into a hole too deep,
He called it reality and it was mine to keep.

Nothing is certain.

I'm beaten though I do the beating
Under street lights.
Under these lights
Flashing in and out of my life,
A love started.
Friends drop like flies,
My thoughts pop me in the nose,
It bleeds.
They leave.
I need a full body exchange.
The mind can go,
This flow is empty.
I go back to the corner to spit out teeth
Into a dirty tin bucket
Called honest relief.

She was the crystal
I was the crane
Holding the wrecking ball.
Wrecking all the power lines
Except the spine that made me
Let it all go.
Letting the sun drift away
Given no reason to start her day.
Replacing light with cast iron
To take her away.
And I wait for the back swing
For all the bad things I've done
Fighting against gravity
With a triggerless gun.
An empty threat for the inevitable
So I choke on this inedible truth
Two in the morning,
Driving away from you.

Faces are scarred
Into the darkest places of the mind,
Disconnected from a darkened heart
Out of beat in the darkest time.
Where is my guidance?
I lost my confidence
When a took a butter knife
And laid my life on the ground
Mixing with tears and the horrible sound
Of heartbreak.
It drips down our shirts
And seeps through the cracks
Never to come back.
I skinned the pride
Now bring on the pack.
I'm waiting on lions
As I lie on my back.

There is no defense,
There is only fact:
I never knew it was this dangerous,
I never knew I could hurt this much,
I wish to god I still loved her
But I suffered the duty to do this,
And I'll haunt this world
Until I find forgiveness,
Undeserved.
Absurd.
Like every word that I spoke that night.
Like every picture painted on my eyes.
Of an immeasurable pain,
The worst of its breed.
And of sadness that sucks out
The essence of being.
I am alone now.
This is what I've become.
This is growing up and falling out of love.

Hi, my name is Christian Livingston Welch

I don't know who I am.

Getting Rid of the Past Tense

This is taking flight,
Stepping off the ledge
And never asking why.
Just because something here felt right,
Something here felt real.
And we feel it
In our blood
In our lungs.
Our bodies fit like gloves,
Warming us and swarming us
With circulating release.
It's the pleasing satisfaction
Of anticipated reaction,
That cracks in our voices
And shakes in our knees.

The wolves' howls turn to whimpers
In the shimmer of night diamonds
As we laid there like lions facing the sand,
Hoarding the warmth of the heat of our hands.
We challenged the roar of the crashing waves,
And there you gave more than I'd ever save
In pictures,
In poems,
In music,
In art...
I've been set free.
You've set me apart.

I couldn't have it any better,
No, I couldn't ask how.
It was dreaming back then,
But this,
This is now.

Mixes and Scarves

I drank in the light that dripped into my eyes
From the moon shining bright
On the darkness of calm,
And the fragmented white
Dropped on it like bombs.

We were spectators
Flying at the edge of this war,
Hiding our shivers
In the warmth of a coat.
No warboats or fodder,
Just dull light and water,
That filled in our thoughts
To make memories float.

And we lost our words
To the music and sight
Of skyline and ocean and Ferris wheel light.
A hush,
A moment that showed on our faces.
And finally,
Everything's in its right place.
Phenomenal, fabulous, running, and cheese.
I never thought this would ever be me.

Rejected Blood From Dejected Donors

It's the pressure of perfection
That synthesizes the convection,
And the red phone rings
And sings for connection.
But then begs for direction.
Yet the hand of the master
Stays still,
No affection.
With one hand on his desk
And the other underneath,
He reaches to pull the plug.
And all remains quiet on the western front.
He only enjoys that setting sun
To watch arise another one.
And his daughter laid,
Confused with love,
He cradled to sleep with printless gloves.
And there was hush from fingers and lungs
As they both were emptied in unison,
And one was fighting.
And what was fought.
But here, he is god
And he's not saying, "Stop."

The Answer

...And as starry nights seen through blurry eyes
Become blurry nights lost in my starry eyes,
I'll toss and turn and stir until light,
Thinking two purring cats and ten hungry bites.

Shishin

Every day is a trial of mental strength
Throwing myself against grain.
Going against the world,
Against myself,
Against the pain.
And at times I prevail,
At times I have failed.
And if flightless birds saw paper trails,
This would be my goodbye.

These vacant eyes have flushed out light,
Empty, black, a starless sky.
Oh no, these are no good.
If you could pull the switch back
You know you would.
Hell, I'd do it too,
But I'm too weak.
You're seeking switch passes passed long ago
And you're blinded on tracks through innocent snow.

My hands are cuffed and painted red,
By this skilled artist, bag-on-head.
Now I walk dead down death's wedding aisle.
Yeah, it's been a while
Since you've seen an honest smile.

Stimulating Simulations = Resignative Anticipation

Sleep sessions are restrictive,
Predictive fictions made all the same.
But I am still-staring
And the seams are still tearing
As I wear out my blood
In covers undone.

I am draped.
A body bound to the grave,
Comfortably waiting,
Anticipating to be saved.
I'm gravely symptomatic
But never diseased,
I'm kept on my knees
Under satin sheets.

Wake me, wake me,
I'm going to die!
Repeated rested readings
Leave the feeling inside
Unfinished,
Diminished,
Heaven's incomplete call.
So I linger in limbo,
A sleep unresolved.

New Sorrow

I'm your class-A dead weight
Waiting for the day
When continents collide
And I have died a thousand times
Just to save a cat's meow.
Ask me how and I'll say
Nothing at all.
It's braking on air
With the wind through your hair
When you're living a life
Full of no one there.
Nine lives back,
I had my back to the wall
Propped for the push
For when I'd take it all.
And I was backed with the wrath
Of a thousand sure-fires,
But I still had no desire
To go.
I know we're all drones,
But I'm the sole one to show.
And now I fill this page
With the rhymes of a slave
While I count up the days
Of lies that I gave to you.

Low-Fi Lullabies and Silver Strands of Trust

Who could've believed
That we would shove iron giants out to sea,
Trumping the skyline in buoyant majesty,
Rivaling gods in westward bound travesty.
A disappearing act.
And all the chips are stacked.

Who could've believed
That my greatest dreams born in quiet tears
Would be mine to trample just once a year.
A rainbow in one shade of blue.
Bolts and desperation,
Imagination and glue.

But who would believe
That you'd leave and never see it.
And if you can't believe
What I see, then so be it.
This is my last garrison,
So save me the embarrassment.

I know you're tired.
I am too.
But any plants we seed,
Before the autumn leaves,
Is a little heaven seen and another dream received.

Montauk Getting Heavy

O, how I wished for mirrored beaches,
Salty cheeks from washed up dreams...
I just wanted to believe.
I just wanted to believe.
But this,
This changes everything.

So readily lost at sea
To forget the things you used to be.
Now you lock up the boiler
Since she took too much in,
Because you won't make it out
Without leaving me in.

I see the light and find the charm
In splintered wood and rocky arms,
And burn my maps in signal fires
To call you home and hope a liar.

The Exhale After A Shortness of Breath

You're putting tape
On lips fresh wet.
Licked for the taste
Of a space less expansive,
In a porcelain shell
That cracks from advances.

Hands, hope, and heart
Hum a drone tone
In dreams recurring,
Hurrying the process
To return to address.
To burn in her dress
In the hot summer sun,
To read to the end
Of what he'd begun.

This one-hit wonder
Wonders where it went.
The order's now backed,
Was to ship heaven-sent.
The light has been bent
Suspension bridge burned
Shock value reduced
All levels returned.

A lesson learned and one to teach:
Better mute than ill to speak.

Money Shot

I get my wish against the wind,
Looking for calm pockets of air
Your eyes hide behind
The locks of your hair.
Lovely hair.
Sprawled in the grass,
We let the good times pass,
And I am still young again.

I let my childhood go,
It floats.
It catches the air
And raises my hopes.
This is the simple glory of flight
Backdropped on dramatic skies.
...And these eyes are far from worthy.

She's willingly helpless to the uncontested
Stockholm Syndrome, so well invested
In her heart.
That tears her apart.
That sets her apart.

Wings are for angels
And I'm not there yet.
After seventeen times,
Here's one final bet.
I'll be the blindest of pilots
From the kindest of drinks,
Alcoholic.
Symbolic.
Sweet like sinks full of honey.
I'm calling shots in the dark,
And this one is money.

Three Ways To Forget

It's a matter of tone.
Your voice shakes to my bones.
And with static and mumbles,
I'm mostly alone.

I'm only human.
I can't say what's wrong.
I'm shedding my wings.
I feel change coming on.

The Quiet Game

So who's even talking?
Who's spoken of?
Does the glove even fit?
Are those wax candles lit?
Thousands of words,
None ever spoken.
No curse ever lifted.
No beast yet awoken.

It's a contradiction.
No,
It's a work of fiction.
I don't get his diction.
Where is the conviction?

I zip these lips to loosen yours,
I leave a crack to peep through doors,
I talk too loud so you can hear,
I stare you down so you can fear
That these words might be yours.

For all I know,
I talk to myself
To wipe down the shutters
And unclutter shelves.
And for now I'll say that it's all done me well,
Until these heavy words drag me straight down to hell.

Narrations

Where do you draw the line?
Is it under the numbers
That count down the days?
Is it under the words
Emphasized when you say
Nothing at all?
Germane, of course.
Her name, of course.
This direct object,
Is directed objects in its direction
From the perfection in strokes of a pen
Making curves smooth and fancy,
That pleases the eye
And makes thoughts antsy.
It's the sound of grinding keys
That slip through the lock
That fit snug and tight
That don't need to talk...
Because if they spoke,
It'd be the greatest of lies,
So he silently waits on the other side.

The present, the future, the past,
Redefined.
When you erased the line between
Memories and dreams.

Geologist

You found your progress going back,
Tightening the slack to see if there was something,
Something still hanging on.
And then the rope was taut.
Your calculations were shot,
And there were too many variables
To take into account.

You can't dig this deep
Without walls collapsing,
There are more than just skeletons
Buried underneath.
You can't breathe this deep
Without lungs collapsing,
There are just too many words
In your chest
That you keep.

And you hoard them with fear
That the end is near.

Precious metals speak precious truth in my head
About this precious youth and precious doses of lead.

6:15

With your hand on my lapel
As you damned me to hell,
A warm swell came on.
And in a flash flood
Of nerve endings and blood,
Songs took on different meanings
And sleep took on different dreamings.
So here's time to think without mine to say,
Counted days on open hands seem so far away.

So much has happened
In secret hours I keep
That are savored driving east
Towards a slow rising sun.
Anticipating questions
About unexplained sleep,
I slip into cold sheets
While others' days have begun.

God Damn It, Christian

"Tomorrow, I'll wake up and think this was a dream."

Push

It only drizzles,
Never rains.
It only sizzles,
Never flames.
Rubber dreams are strung up on tall plastic trees.
They flew through the loops as they hung in the breeze
That tightened the knots on the gallows they braved,
And the future sends chills from the feet on my grave.

Coldwater Canyon

I pull out a crinkled map
Out of my back pocket,
Once pristine,
Folded neatly and clean
Eight states back with a changed state of mind.

You stop the car on the dime
and walk into the shop:
Candy,
Smokes,
and a six-pack of chalk.
You see through the sky
And walk down the line,
To outline my body
Just seven miles back.
The asphalt is dirty,
The white line is dashed,
Discrepancies were found from my credit to cash.

But I never bothered to keep the receipts
Purposely lost in the cracks of seats.

There are cities hidden in creases of the map
And the highway lines thin as the melt in my lap.
I can only drive besides telephone lines
Because all the world's liars write directional signs.
And we were driving so fast, but not going far
Since we skipped the fuel tank and poured gas on the car.

Justice

These wood floors are weightless,
These white walls are bare,
Each room carries echoes
Through nothing, but air.
The cars, the pets, the boxes were sent.
I'm finally free and everything went.

Built Up and Stripped Down: These Layers of Time

I fell victim to the colors,
Never changing.
Accentuating the aging
In body and soul,
A wholeness achieved
In a pale, slender tree
With poison dark leaves
That burned through the skyline
At leveling speed.

God's mind matter splattered
On a canvas of sky blue.
The rest slipped in drips
Down the slits of my shoes
That hardened to cement.
All the while,
The bloodhounds whimpered
At your stinging ginger scent.

The sheriff's searching town
For a temptress with a gun
Who drowned a man down in the river
And brought back...
His father's only son.

Blink

We spent our hours with each other,
Stuck in the mundane smell
Of countless cookie cutouts
That would otherwise be cooking
In the California sun,
But June Gloom has begun
And we're the only ones who see
There's more to life than hipster tees
Or skinny jeans that strangle knees
Or glasses made for those who can see
Just fine.
They're useless,
And stupid,
Just like this line.

But when the flood gates opened
And we were let in,
Only then did fanbased tempests begin.
Loud and crowded,
In a sea of glistening sweat,
We began to sway in every which way
Trying to say every line of the song
While trying to keep the air in our lungs
To let out another chorus.

It was the perfect storm.
With morals forlorn,
A new game was made
To see how long until your knees
Or your stomach gave.
All the while, the drummer drummed on
And we screamed in our ears as we sang along
In every pitch
In every key
On every note
On every beat
...My god, we were awful,
But we sure had soul.

The sweat in my clothes was mostly not mine.
I'd gulp some more air if I had strength and the time,
But there's just sweaty air, already been breathed
And cookies baked two over one-eighty degrees.

Dizzy Spells

Explanations are traces
On a circle, never ending.
Destinations are bending backwards
To find the light around the bend.
Around the bend.
Around the bend.
Around the bend.
Around the bending page
Is another for the books,
But the only hook was on a rod
Cast into a sea of infinite suns...
I was always after the reflective one.
Dancing in the ripples of the tide,
The yellow moon screams warning,
The yellow eyes cry mourning
As I contemplate the ways I can stray to the side
To soften the impact as reality collides
With every clock that ever ticked.
With every secret ever kept.
With every lie I ever told.
With every dream that ever bled
And stained these hands with the brand of hope
That comes from the uneven-layered ghosts,
That kiss before they kill
Your free will in your sleep,
And in waking, they're tracing,
A circle complete.

It means two different things
To stay the way I am
And say the way I am.
And I know I'm going to regret this,
But talk to me when you get this.

606: A Hole In Your Devil, The Day of My Revelation

This morning I dressed up,
Pretty and nice,
To sit on the concrete and cry.
To watch something beautiful
Die in my mind.
Like the man on the cross
That now hangs in the sky.
It's metal.
It's cold.
It's dirty and white.
A mother suspends it,
So structurally sound
With a womb with glass doors
Where salvation is found.
A light for the ages.
Some fun for all ages.

But the most Sunday goers she ever does get,
Are the ones going by towards something else in their lives.

Attempting Justice Through Revision

Blood.
It rushes and gushes
Into every crevice of my mind
And my lips.
These hands are cold,
My heart is bold for once
No twice,
No third time's the charm.

Seven years.
Countless fears took hold of you,
But this is release.
This is running your fingers
Through cloudy fleece,
Knowing that you were right
All along.

I'm holding my breath
And counting to three.
Laying out the table
So nice and so neat.
And what it meant to me:
Reading out loud the lines in between
Painting a picture that hadn't been seen,
Has shaken the very foundations
Of memory.

You left me sinking for thousands of leagues
But now I've planted my feet on ocean floor
And twisted the knobs on open doors.
So let it all flood in,
As we let it all out.
Our ink-silent shouts
Had always been synchronized
And you read it in my lies.
And I saw it in your eyes.
A blue sky covered in clouds,
I found glitter in the silver lining.
You found a sun behind a storm front,
Hiding.

Every word, I meant it.
You took my light and bent it
Into a palette of beautiful collisions,
The clouds and the colors
With so much precision
That this vessel went down in the sea
And when I breathed in the blue
I found you, waiting for me.

You are the storm,
You are the calm,
You are the crystal bombs
That explode in the skies,
That fragment and sprinkle
On my world, on my eyes.
You are the siren
That tells me to leave,
That cannot be done justice,
That I love, that I need.

Two Lines and Signed

With one last call into the dark
Those deep, resonant frequencies
Finally shook doors,
And shattered windows,
And the widow's hourglass
Gave warmth like a heart.
With my own poison,
I woke the dead.
I broke my head.

Two lines and signed;
An acceptable ultimatum
Discussed in kinesthetic conversation.
I took my reservation:
Tentative,
Yet from years past,
The same.

You took the best weather in your name.
Just as you always did.

I paused for a moment,
Using twilight's shade
To hide what I betrayed between our hands.
I tapped into the past,
Under the faint morning glow,
And Adam screamed and told me
That everything must go.

Benediction

Please stand.

Class of 2009, family, and friends,
It is an amazing feeling
To stand here and know
That I've been a part of something
That can never be
Replicated,
Reproduced,
But most importantly,
Replaced.
We've walked down this road
Together.
Hand in hand.
And now we've made it to the platform
And our train is coming.
May you never forget
The warmth of your neighbor's hand,
And the warmth that you provided them.
May your voice always be heard,
Above the engine's roar
As we go our separate ways.
May your faces forever shine
Brighter than the whistles
Of friends and family,
Cheering you on
As you chug,
And chug,
And chug,
On a train with no rails,
Free to explore the expanse of the horizon,
Spreading the love and values
That we have come to know
As the defining qualities
Of such a beautiful and unique community.

Amen.

Unnecessary Changes Into Open Lanes

I pressed my clocks against the sky
Timing the choke before thunderous cries.
The storm is coming
And I'm becoming weary.
My eyes are straining from not seeing clearly.
I nearly hit a tree
Made of light that branched out from the clouds,
Illuminating details of a shrouded past.
I had reached in the bag of goodies
And sampled the stale cookies
Made soft once again by the moisture of tongue,
Memorizing the texture
Of sugary crumbs.
It found my blood
It found my heart
And started syncing its patters
With the things that once mattered
In keeping my chest warm.
I lost the wheel,
And I closed my eyes,
Regretting the roads filled with potholes and ice.

Soft Dirt

I planted jaunty flowers
As worms devoured her grave.
This is no way
For a grown boy to behave.
So now,
I've become a slave of a man
To something I can't understand.

I've been digging holes
And finding traps,
A golden coin on iron snaps.
Just look away,
Avoid the hurt,
Or run your dirty fingers
Through the cool, soft dirt.

Dreamborne Remnants

The nightmare doesn't start
Until you awake in a haze
A turbulent transition in the days
Out of step
Out of line
This time you've been called out.

There's a hunch in your back
From the weight on your shoulders
And now you walk the plank
As a court marshaled soldier
You were blindfolded
And told to walk.
Walk out of this door,
Walk out of this hell,
You're stepping on eggs
And breaking their shells.

Hassle

I'm always idle
Suicidal
Base jumping without the cord,
But every breath I take
Puts more weight on these heels
Until I'm
Dragging,
Stopping,
Bored.

What a thought to consider
That should have withered and died
But the sugar and sand
Shook cocktails encased
While the mind and the body
In two cars,
Collide.

Latin Numeric

The screen was left unattended,
The night was met unintended,
But the sleeper was shaken
And taken by something strong.
As months fell short...
It felt sin coming on.

The Best Death Ever

This is my funeral.
Arnold in his Sunday's Best,
Collared shirt and sweater vest.
He says,
"He was a good kid
And was loved by his mother and father,
But he didn't have enough time
TO GET TO THE CHOPPAH!"
Clothes rip as he poses for them all,
As poles flanking my coffin
Stretch to the height of the wall.
And the ladies begin to dance
As eyes advance to a revealed IMAX screen
A fighter jet with machine guns,
And me.
I jerk with the impact of each bullet
As would marionettes dance and dangle,
Repeated slow motion,
And shot seven angles.
My dead smile would be seen
Plastered there on my face
As the place shakes with uproar
And bulls on parade.

Pushing and Pulling

One more sigh
Until we breathe in again,
One more wince
Until the pain goes away.
I've been inhaling excitement
That's kept me away,
Taking in liquid rush
That doesn't do much
To keep me alive.
To keep me afloat.
But if everything goes right
...or at lest not so wrong,
This will be the last time
I write from an absence so long.
I loved the stay, but I'm going soon
To see you again in white crescent moon.

Needles

Creaky floorboards whining to the top...
It's the only thing that stops
The greatest fear that crawls in your ear
As you crawl up these rocks.

We found their god in a lookout tower
Saving the green from the devil red fire,
The devil red heat that meets me at dusk.
Hello, savior in the skies,
Wrinkled, calm, and wise,
Save me from the fire.
Though I'm a different shade of green
I mean no harm.
Maybe these branches
Branch out too far.
I'm catching the fires,
I'm getting my scars.

I think they've gone too deep.
These leaves can no longer keep.
Goodbye to brown, goodbye to green,
Hell to gray, eternal sleep.

Diffusion

You walk facing dirt,
There's blood on your shirt
And you're squinting and wincing
From the sun and the hurt.

But we're high as birds
Even if our thighs burn
I can breathe once again.
These mountains never shave
Their trees give us shade
And I am grateful
Full of great,
Fighting for space
With the sickness and longing.

I'm only so strong,
My lungs need your calm.

Because I Had To...

I woke up better
Making things worse.
Baby, this means I'm leaving.
I'll see you if I'm still breathing
When I come back,
If I come back....

Here it is.
It's our first day.
Nothing's the same.
You're so far away.

Caught in the T.O.W.

Lost in the thought
Of words to make right
Of birds to take flight,
Finger on trigger...
Eyes down the sight...

Born in a cage,
Sedated from rage,
We live to die
And count our lies.

From Jormp to Jomp

The cement is wide.
This grooves run deep.
We're trying to keep our composure
This nightmare needs some closure
In the form of termination
And we're determined to overcome
At 65,
Weekend drive,
Under hot summer sun.

Black paint gleaming,
Engine screaming,
This tigress is her own.
Her dominance shown with authority
Never to be questioned.

She carries her pride
In her soft caring bosom
Holding her heart
So they aren't torn apart.
From the changing of lanes,
The five-freeway switch...

I can say that we've tamed
This here mistress bitch.

The Pleasure In Justice and Punishment

Idle in my bed
Idle in my head
Blank stare the ceiling
Eyes closed, idle feeling.

Boy, slow down
And sit yourself down.
This is a hit that you can't shake off
So you can brush off your shoulders
All you want.
It's time you spent less time on your feet
And more on your knees.
Or better, on your back.
It's time for you to get back on track.

It's time for hesitation
From getting your high
From increasing elevation.
Get your head out of the clouds.
It's time for self-constraint
Satisfied from black shoes,
Black suits, black paint.
Things don't need to get loud.

When you've cooled all your nerves
Maybe you'll just get better,
But you find so much pleasure
In what you deserve.

Return Address, No Postage Fee

There's a tickle in your throat
That's there to let you know
This isn't in your hands.
You think it's chaos
Dressed in green
Dashing your dreams
On mossy rocks
Then locking your heart
In the rustiest locks,
But mother tells you
It's for your own good.

These mirrored walls
Stand far too tall
And you lean on them
From weary legs.
They wobble as you brace
Yourself with your arms
And you're finding the devil
In a display of your charm.
Sure you mean no harm,
But the lights are flashing
From the sounded alarm.

Sometimes the taste will take you away
Sometimes the sun will set on your day,
Sometimes you're willing to put up a fight
Sometimes the truth is you're furthest from right.

Grateful For

Finger-smudged sunlight
Seeping through the windows
Always keeps me coming back.
They aren't as sticky as I remember
Yeah, if I could remember.
Three o'clock shock
Dream stops,
It's time to go,
But this fuzzy case stays
Because she says
I'm her escape.

I'm her escape.

Cycles

Holes in the places
Where teeth used to be,
Your singing
Your laughter
Have sunken in me.
Squeezed in from the arms
A quarter way around my waist
Soaked in from the sweat
After playing all day,
I will stay!
I will stay!
I already fit in and I smell like first grade.

The Great Leveler

I'm still wishing for threes
But these days aren't getting any easier.
I'm still shaking at the knees
And doubting everything I believed
About them.
About myself.
Take your hand and run it across the shelves
Disheveled are the levels
Flashing lights,
Ringing bells.
Argument and resolution
Still produce scar tissue
And the issue is a matter of memory.
I was stacking chips and counting cards,
But under neon signs glowing
And without even knowing,
The silence came faster than death.

Do Not Reuse

...So I put my endurance and nerves to the test
Frequently checking for pulse and for breath.
I hide violent sun from a head lacking ice,
And all I can say is that we cleaned up nice.

Dorothy

Don't pop the trunk!
There are the cops,
Your mom can see!
Don't sit still or else you'll surely
Fall asleep.
You'll sin in second wind, yeah
That's all you need.
A musty dance room
Holds memorable sights.
The broments,
The buildings,
Big city,
Bright lights.

+1

You're constantly seeking stability,
But you barely have the ability
To breathe.
You've just got to believe
That you'll find what you need
And your troubles will fall
Like dry, autumn leaves...

Collapse!

Talk about dreams dashed
When it all comes down to current.
Cash.
Money.
Paper.
Cuts from the green
Bleed moths at the seams.

What a shame
This hand eats trees from a tangled root,
But she'd do it for you
And now you know,
So you clean yourself up for that shine
And the glow.

She says,
"Go and light up the night!
It will be too dark for me,
Yes, still too dark to see,
But I am as blind as my trust.
Don't forget what you must."

It's hard to stay calm
When everybody's dropping bombs,
But angels' wings seem like a dream...
If I could just hold her light
For more than tonight.

Jumping Into a Black Hole

I'd stretch the atomic train,
I'd bear the seconds of pain,
For even less of memory
And watch growing galaxies,
Bursting bright to live and die.
While at home,
I'd be your darkness,
Standing still in your black sky.

Intrusion

A pinprick in the heart
Is enough to start the flow
Of all the bad things
That strangers only know.
It is friendly,
It is foul,
A caring smile with neglected teeth,
What shines beneath
And reflects through mirrors.
The brighter you are,
The dimmer it gets...
The art of deception,
The guilt,
The regret.
Each confession is a verbal attack.
Spontaneous reactions make me
Pull my hand back.
I'm not in this game.
Pull my head back.
It sure looks like rain.
Pull my eyes back.
This man is not sane.
Is it exhausted?
Or have a lost it?
With the eight-ball, corner pocket
And a table full of spheres,
The key is turned and locks it
Adding substance to this fear.
Don't tell me about
These temporary scars.
Don't tell me about
The antics in my car.
I know,
I know...
So get out.
Go!

Summer Trees In Groups of Threes

The skies opened up
To let the rainclouds storm in
And those clouds opened up
To spill raindrops within.
They fell in a fury
With finesse and grace
That caught in my curls
And flowed down my face.
Off came the wrinkles
That sat on my head,
Off came the bags
That my tiredness fed.

The water came in like a porous ship
It drew into my throat
Seeping in between lips.
My voice once hoarse
Lost all signs of remorse
And these cords worked like clockwork again.

So now I strum while I drum
To the beating of hot summer days
Because the presents steams to past
And the future's not far away
When your hitting eighty
And you're already late,
I've been saving the best for last.

To Analyze Statistical Samples

You've got white teeth
From white lies
...they must be,
And trust me,
There's insanity in those eyes.

Here's a year's challenge
And I'm crawling for the cup
That spilled red wine on the table cloth.
It will be what I remembered
It will be what I forgot.

I came in the fall
To have wings made of leaves.
All I needed was autumn
And belief grown on trees.
And by belief I meant
In terms of having faith...
I don't believe that you
Can possibly believe in me.

Denial of Acceptance

The ticks on the clock
Are the bricks to a wall
Waiting for the call
To have my name etched out.
It's consistency crumbles
And falls about onto the floor
Because every night is the same conversation
The pen is pushed for my resignation
From the house.

A little mouse told me to get the hell out
But I'd rather count to ten before I'm knock out.
This boxer takes hits to the heart
That dictate the beat, the finish, the start.
It's just a game.
You must learn these techniques
We are not all the same.

Sometimes you can't see
Everything that I feel,
Sometimes you can't see
That this could be real.
Sometimes you must believe
That your ears heard true,
Sometimes you must believe
That it just isn't you.

The Seconds Between Light and Sound

I stared down light streamers
As they beamed through the soft, smoky night.
Down four flights of stairs we went.
Rose thousands of flares,
Hell-bent.

But how they reached for the heavens
And lit up the skies.
I tilt my head back
To hold tears in my eyes.
Experienced eyes.

I have found mine
And I'm finding more out,
But it's
One.
Two.
Three strikes, you're out!

MoMentous Guilt

You were always working,
But knew were not working.
My ascent is your descent
It is boisterous.
It is jerking.

Culture shock!
I forgot where you have come from:
You were lacking
And backing against the wall.
But of all the three
It was lucky me who made it
Years later in a hospital
In a town I would call home.
And that would the extent of detail
As callus and malice would surely prevail.

I hated the feeling
Knowing that you were right
...But you were right.
And the tears did come and blurred your eyes.

I'm sorry,
So sorry I strangled your dreams...
Things aren't as pretty as they had seemed
When you left heading east
Leaving all but a sun,
And eighteen years back
You called me your son.

Day Two: Day to Day, Today!

Home is where I stay
Until I'll find out how to leave
Since they yell at their fall
But don't rake up a leaf.

Wake up!
Wake up!
Rake up those teeth,
So combed, so neat.

With one vent divided
To the corners of her full-sized bed.
She lets out a sigh.
Out on top of the sheets,
A rather drawing scene
As I say goodbye...

Hard Tetris

Test,
Test,
Test,
Test!
There's lots of stress
To be the best,
And I won't unless
I get needed rest.

Tripping On Milestones

Thousands and thousands of
Words and phrases
Of days and phases
Have shaped me to who I am
Under the weight of this momentous crown.
No way I'll slow down, just
Don't forget what I said:
Remember what's gone.
Each dawn has a story...
Dammit, life shall go on!

Drank

The cars are full
Like the stars are full
With the brightness of the brightest kids.
They're just trying to have some fun,
Living the stereotype
Under California sun...
And you know we're loving it!

Tell your cliques to take a rest.
This is a culmination
Of the best relations
Between one person and another
With only a year shared together:
Two thousand and nine,
So fine,
So fine.

The wave's crash brings me two years back.
Sun bleached shirts
And rolled up slacks,
Putting on a show for our closest friends,
Scanning the dark sea,
We are free.
We are friends.

Fire lights their faces,
Some light sheds on dark places.
The space between is filled.
They live on adventure and thrill.
So give them peace,
While they tear this place to pieces.
So fuck it,
Just send them the bill.

But give it good time
And you'll see words between the lines.
I left a dream and awoke asking why.
This yearning is burning
For my girls and my boys,
But I can assure you that staying is poison.

Transporter

I wish I knew what this was.
I wish to God I did.
For all I know,
These words are not mine.
The pen dips into shadows
Leaving stains illuminated
By a single street light.

This is where he stands,
One man
Writhing in the bile
Of his own thoughts.
Letting the stench sit in his clothing,
Single black backseat self-loathing.
I hope no one will ever find me
But I want them all to know
It's not me.

These tears are made for crocodiles
Backed from my eyes and soaked in my brain
While I switch from first to third,
There's no second,
Only shame.

I'm hiding from my friends
I'm hiding from it all
Headlights and eye sights
Burn everything above my head
And no one knows I'm even gone.
I scream in my own ears
Because I can't stand the silence
Of self.

This is me.
Throwing my books off of the shelves
Each one I wrote
Drags my heels toward hell.
Don't you dare tear your clothing
Because I'm the fool
Who thought you would.
Now I get what I deserve:
Choking on my tightening nerves.

I am a failure to myself.
...is that all I come to acknowledge?
I praised others to praise others,
I feed my spoiled baby with sour milk.
Maybe I'll leave
Once I've made a scene.
This paper has no sympathy,
This pen doesn't know what I mean.

Dare I mention the stars?
Dare I mention the scars?
The moon is in debt to the sun
But runs in foolish circles.
And still,
I'm putting alligator clips on my lips,
Wet with lipstick
Red.
And somehow I was surprised
When my heart felt the shock
And the light hit my eyes.
The inside of this hollow crystal
Is black.
And the bright outside says,
"Let go without a sound.
You've tethered the lifeboats
And they are going to drown
With you.
Do you really think this is fair?"
So I leave an unfitting scene,
Leaving my scent in the air
And yes,
I'm still not there.

I am not deserved.
I am not deserving.
A drunk takes a swig
At attempts to stop swerving.

I said it before on the eastern shore
When two puzzles were mixed
Until no pieces fit:
This is not me.
No matter how hard I tried,
Or how much I cried
No matter how hard I tried,
I'm not understood.
The termites have found pleasure
In your treasure made of wood.
And so I'm dying from the inside
And these stomach pains
Never do subside.
It's reality,
Pinching at my sides...
A slowdance where it leads,
A slowdance with no time.

So here I am, lost.
I don't know what I'm seeking
And for this lapse in time,
I'll explain I was sleeping.
Right now,
I'm on the edge.
Insane at the border.
I am not reason, destination, or order.
I am merely existence.
I am transporter.

Example One

The the harder the needle pushes to the left.
The harder it gets to force words through mental lips.
Rhymes fall out of the squint of my tired eyes.
While sitting on the stand,
Making alibis.
Who would have expected?
Who would have sensed?
That I'd stop making sense
For the sake of a post,
As my heart loses substance
And my ribs encase ghosts.

The Ends of Circles

I spent my childhood chasing rainbows
But now they are dates
In color-coded pen.
It's the same now
As it was back then.
I'm running, running,
A sprint to the end!
But as I run in this tunnel
The light seems to bend.

Tumblers

With the gate cracked open,
My thoughts run free in every direction.
But I am still bound to these thoughts
For they remain mine.
And I get tense as these chains
Lose slack
And unwind.

It went taught
When I was caught
On the curb by my car
But I stumbled on
Surroundings gone...
I must know where you are.

I should've known and not have lied
To myself.
More worrisome things beckon
Like keeping my friends alive.
No one dies,
But I still fade
And persuade myself that it's all
Okay.
Okay?

I'm getting defensive.
And getting up fences
That I'll tear down
With a look,
A "sorry!"
And a book that reads:
I once couldn't see,
I once couldn't feel,
But now I can tell
That this has been real
-ly different,
And now I finally understand.

Sucking Up Sand

Mind against motion,
The body is too stale.
Pores become moldy sores
And neural fibers combed out,
Smooth like the breaths,
In and out of consciousness.
Smooth like the transition of the day
Flawless when I saw it from my window.
Smooth like the sand that spills
From the holes in my pockets.
The plug fell out of the socket,
While I went running on reserves.
My nerves are shot.
My focus, lost.
So now I run through the courtyard
Equipped with broom and pan,
Trying to make sense
Of the ticks and the hands.

The Ghost of Imprints Past

I dipped my hand to test the waters
And I felt the drag
That threatening drag.
There are waves pulsing on the water
There is a light pulse in the water.
An illusion of a warmth
In the womb of the sea?
Aye, but the cold to get through
Would surely be the death of me.
More knowledge, more complexity
An implied parting
With a goodbye under my breath.
So I watch bubbles surface and pop
A mournful sound that beckons to me,
Stop.
I turn my back to the edge
And cast flowers from my post
From staring at these towers,
Over and over,
And sinking with a ghost.

Returning Chester

A weekend gone,
From zero to red.
Threefold at the edges,
Wedging our eyes open
To open and open.
We're dead not yet,
We're holding and hanging
On.

Leaking gray matter from the pressure,
You pursue fresher air
In hopes to get the hell out of there,
To let the wind
Bear the weights in your hair.

Bars hold me back,
As the quarter notes attack.
And you forget,
And I regret,
Formalities and familiarities.

So I gather exclusion
In a red metal case
Without financial intentions
But starving attention.
...So it is given,
And it is gotten.

The stability found
When all else fails.
The perfection embodied,
A storm that I sail.
The dictator laid down,
Halting reign that I hail.
The unseen pleasant things
That forgetfulness entails.

Silver Rabbit

Are these nerves too rusty to work?
Yet we wore them as they
Tore us apart.
As pleasing as a rock
As silencing as a sock,
We were thrown in the trunk
That jumbled our words
As they were spoken
And our ceramic masks were broken.
With shards so messy.

These are meant to be learned from
And our shame is meant to be burnt
Under the outdoor lights
Laugh after work and start anew
Because we are the lucky
And ever so few.

So are your nerves too flimsy to jerk?
These beasts feast on animals
While others channel their focus
On those of cameras
We've lost all standards!
And laugh at the shocks
That encouragement brings,
And our praise we sing
Until we heard word of the cops.
In a getaway so messy.

We run, but you lead
But then in I'm in
And out
Of cover.
Embarrassment of a lover
That is quickly recovered
I wouldn't ask for another.
I couldn't ask for another.
Something so perfect,
So messy.

Uncorked

I started with a startling thought:

You have what you don't want

And want what you don't have.

Well, I'm glad to say that isn't

Entirely true.

You can tell by the creak

Of now functionless seats.

They're all on their feet!

They're all on their feet!

Pleasant dams slow down my drift

That compliment our style

Of dramatic shifts...

We are clockwork.

We are god's work.

There's no stopping us now.

No,

Not while we're still alive.

And already it's over,

Our first one down!

But thank god we've still got five.

No Breath

Too much,
Too fast,
My mind
Can't last
The race.
This pace
Disgraced
My pride.
I hide
In sleep,
Forget
These things,
And I
Just feel
much worse.

The Calling

The sour taste of shadows
Overpowers a raspy voice.
I've been breathing in sponges
And belting a blossom
Of granite,
Of rust.

Places, places,
Call in the replacements.
This is my selfish jealousy,
This is what happens
When you get to be
Me.

Before and After

The plane landed, but I never stopped.
And when my face hit the tarmac
I only ran faster.
Disoriented form a story that ended
At 7:28 p.m.
I burned the coal
And closed my eyes,
Full speed behind!
I'm hurdling dams
To hurdle more waves
To find a nice desk to resign.
This ship is sick
The crew has turned lime,
The clouds stole our guidance
The sun stole our time.

If I could sit back in the waters
Of the eye of the storm,
I'd let go of the oars
And let freedom be born.

From Charlie to Angels

Here's to a day
Lost in changing planes
No time to say good bye!
Just leave a note behind...
And walk back to familiarity
Walking back to family.

Let your recollections
Clang with the affection
In tied cans to your bumper.
Sugar, mint, and grain,
Running for the train,
Knowing the pain of indecision
After walking the streets,
Noting deeds both good and bad
But nonetheless,
An experience to be had.

I followed laughs down the gateway
That told me, "Come home!"
And its signal was tranquility
In a silent, resting monotone.
The States' scale had tipped
From the places I had flown,
And balanced has been restored
Now that I'm finally back home.

Big Bad of Googies

I was drawn in by the colors,
But they were poison,
It was a spoof.
So I'll call these bricks my own,
Metropolitan,
Fire proof.

Bad Tapes and Balanced Stereo

Every day is a page I rip into two.

A series of sacrifices,

Making me

A slave to own devices:

The power of thought.

I bought into it all

and now,

I'm facing that squad

With my hands on the wall,

Assembled on the quad.

Defining my god.

They're lighting their city

They're licking their grins

And I'm guessing in tunnels...

To find where I went in.

And where I'll get out.

And I quiet the echoes

with even more shouts.

The is sampling nectar

With the venom of snakes,

To make the hardest decision

That I'll ever make.

T

Adding ah's to the er's

And oh's to the um's,

Here I imagine old men

When they were young.

You can never erase that dead  stare.

In your red wagon dreams

Those eyes are still there...

And youth is dead.

I almost feel guilty

Laughing young bubbles from my seat,

Filled with nothing but trivial troubles

That float away,

And away,

And away.

But I refuse to say a word on that matter.

The chatter of the train

Inclines us to do the same,

And so we laugh.

And so we think.

With our new friends.

And our mixed drinks. 

Brownstones

So put it on the cart
Or put it on the cot?
It seems that I've forgotten
That I've been flying all day
Listening to what people had to say
About the crying baby not too far away.
Stretching maps long,
Plus three hours
Gone.

Tired from the heat
Of a long, sleepless night
I felt as if I was ready to die,
Until I took a breath of the air
Outside.
Sunshine.
And brisk Boston air.
I was constantly wishing
You could've been there.
The city was waiting,
The river was waving,
So I buttoned the coat
I had always been saving
For a day like this.

Reverse Thrust Boosters

Airplanes and birds
Spread their wings through the sky,
But this airport is far from a bird's nest.
Its best twigs have thorns
And its fledglings have horns
That will poke a hole in any self-control
You thought you ever had.

They're filled with so much water,
They might as well explode,
So the young alarm makes sure
That everyone knows.
I regret to inform you
That this is my home.
The nest has a stench
That has me grabbing at walls,
Trying to create a distance
With the least amount of resistance.

But we all know
That the innocent are bombed
So I run down this terminal
As missiles whistle me on.
So now I sit on the floor
Holding to my chest
Everything that I hate,
And I yell at the wall
For an echo... delayed.
Delayed.
Delayed.
Delayed.
Delayed.
Delayed.
Delayed.
You feel that?
Your anger?
Your sadness?
Your hate?
Yeah, sulk all you want.
Delayed.
Delayed.