Wax

There were those nights lit

By that candlelight of memories

And philosophies bourne from

The crevices of age. We listened

To the blues and danced in

The flicker of serendipity.

I'll close my eyes and see

The fire of your pomegranate candles

See the glowing purple bubbling

With a metaphysical displacement

Of a thought pulled up like an

Anchor dripping from the sea.

Your furrowed brows, and flashing smile.

I'll pour molten wax into jars

left neglected to a dusty shawl

And perchance they will one day become

Burning flames of knowledge

That will seal up my secrets with a

Forceful stamp opened only for the worthy,

And I'll be able to see through the umbre

Of the night until the sun pulls itself

Up and over the edge of the earth

To scare away the thieves.

Love Is A Burning Thing

'Love is a burning thing.'
And it leaves a blissful, happy sting.
Nothing makes sense because
Love is something unpredicted,
It's a journey through uncharted
Waters that cannot be depicted.

And it makes you crazy, it surely does.
It leaves you riding a sort of natural buzz,
Carried by the flutter
Of your pounding heart,
Knocking hard against your ribs,
Begging to be released into the chest
Of its counterpoint.

Fuck that. I'm not in love.

Way Back When

Do you remember way back when?
The time when we ruled the day?
We led the pack because we were
The pack and the only rule was to play.

The economy was our lemonade stands
And the highest we had to count
Were the fingers on our hands.

And our hair was stained by the sun,
Our legs would not refuse to run.
That was then, oh way back when,
Oh way back when.

Summer felt like a permanent pal,
A supervising friend never far,
But distant enough not to bar
Us from our fun.

And we were never ever done.

When my ides ran dry,
Your imagination would kick in and fly
Us to the moon and back all before
The clock struck noon.

Seize the day, hell, seize the hour.
We were blossoming into some kind
Of phenomenal flower.

I think we never bloomed...

Letter of Resignation

Disappointment’s chokehold grips
With icy blades for fingers;
The warm spring air brings no relief,
And desultory dreams still linger.

You, who held my hand for so long,
I fail to find solace in your embrace.
Your words neither pierce nor caress,
But just dissolve without a trace.

And you, whose laughter yet resonates,
Yes, you, who so often desired aid,
Time has taught me one valuable lesson:
I’d rather leave this task for the well-paid.

And how could I forget you?
An investment, shall we say?
I have yet to reap a profit,
So I’m cutting my losses today.

And you, in the mirror:
Demons have turned your brain to shit.
Listen to the shadows, hoarsely whispering:
I quit.

Spring Showers

I am surrounded by tile,

Cool to the fingers

Steam on my forehead.

It is raining

And I see the same frame

Again and again

The past flashing strobelight

Of my nightmares magnified.

Moving, frame by frame

In colorless horror.

When I was five and sitting

In a grocery cart telling you

How you were the best mommy

In the whole wide world.

Your face cast with

A shadow of humility and shame.

And I wondered why.

Shattered glass, empty bottles,

Flies scavenging, buzzing,

Music turned up up, walls trembling,

Despising you, crashes, falling,

Spinninng laughter, wells

That never end.

I was never the rock

You thought I was,

(always trembling)

For what is left of me

Without you?

The roar of the water is louder than I,

Never in the daylight will you see me cry.

Demonization

I right myself from a wrong position,
Lying heavily on my face.
The room is spinning with inquisition
And I do not like this place.

I stand on trembling toes,
Wobbling like a baby duck.
It seems some portal has just been closed
And I'm strangely, sadly stuck.

The mirror reflects a demon,
A peculiar little fiend,
I smile, it smiles back;
There's tension that is not screened.

My hair burns and I rip it out,
I scratch my nose and it is gone.
I transform and scream and shout,
My face, my soul has been redrawn.

And I look at the mirror
And there I am, a question on my face.
For I stare intently, harder, nearer;
I'm a crimson, devilish, sick disgrace.

But my friends appear unfazed,
They do not flinch in terror,
I am the only one that is dazed
By this horrid outward error.

I suppose this means I am revealed.
These lies have ceased. My fate is sealed.

My Victory

The night is dark, but filled with bliss.
I am unseen by those in need of light.
My presence is but a shadowy
Silhouette, hidden by the night's
Nurturing blanket of dusky
Incandescence.

I let the passers-by distance themselves
From me and my delightful disguise.
I turn to the field, open, inviting,
Peaceful.
Nature's sly sanctuary.

Sprinting legs carry me across
The dewy grass to a place where
I am alone, I am me.

And I celebrate in the ecstasy of
Individuality, with myself,
For no one else could understand
The victory I have just achieved.

Sitting on a Park Bench

What are we doing here?
I don't know...sitting?
Yes, yes, I know, don't be a smartass. But this, you, me, this bench, that tree. Does any of it mean anything?
Of course it does.
What, then?
It is all simply the unique pattern, or lack of pattern, rather, spewed out by the inexplicable mysteries of our world.
That sounds insignificant to me.
It is. Most definitely.
Then why should we live if nothing matters?
We shouldn't.
Well that's easy for you to say. You don't live.
Oh but I do. I live with you.
You are me.
Yes.
Why should I even converse with you? It won't make a difference even if I figure it out. If anything it'll prove I am wasting my time.
Or, it could allow you to have fun.
Is there fun?
If you allow there to be.
How?!
Make fun.
You are impossible.
And you are insane.
Only because this world has condemned me to it. I can't figure out whether I should give up on everything or pursue what I want and only what I want.
I am here to help you with that problem.
No. You are the problem.
Yes.

Steel Box

There was a steel box I placed my soul in,

I poured out my thoughts like liquid jewels,

Arranged fragile glass hopes for the future

Wrapped in newspapers and return to sender mail.

My magic box was my only friend,

The sole provider of comfort

A neverending source of cool cloths

Upon my forehead and recounts

Of advice not listened to, that I should.

Tracing in my ear the lines of my

Future, a soft silhouette of promise.

My steel box left me.

It vanished on a Saturday,

Leaving only the imprints

Of its heavy body upon the carpet

I was left

Clutching at my heart

To pull it back into my ribcage

So it would not fly away too.

My insides were spilled in disarray upon the floor

As I piled them in my lap and arms, and stared at nothing

but chaos and the warped shadow of death.

Fall

Free yourself of everything.
Lift your feet off the ground
And take to the air in search
Of what is right.

Do not look down,
The sight will only scare.
But the thrill of free-fall is enough
To invoke indifferent
Happiness.

Yes it's frightening, peculiar, foreign,
Laced with anxiety and
The intensity of raw suspense.

Let go. Do not fight to stay afloat.
Fall.
Plummet.
Dive into oblivion

Where nothing exists but Time itself,
Where you are free to be free.
In a world untouched by the rest.

Rejoice.

Rain Dance

Cruising down the highway,
Taste the tinted breeze
Whistling
Through windows.

Harsh world hisses, shrieking and
Screaming thunderous obscenities.
Demons of dark
Crowd, bark loud until
Day’s decease.

Pushing forward, heart of storm.
Puddles plotting
Danger at every corner,
Look out!

A skid of tire and squeal of brake,
Slap and splash, water thrashed,
She halted, smashed pedal to metal,
It was settled: I had the right of way.

But as I turned away,
I thought to say
Her contorted twist of
Passion and shame,
Entranced, attractive mix,
Worried beautiful, she drove to the distance.
I captured her image in my eternal box,
And thought,
Slowly, as I rode towards the dawn of dusk,
I wish she would have hit me.

Defenseless

“Two roads diverged…”; Only two? Ha!
Dichotomies are simple.
Paradoxes make perfect sense.
Play hopscotch on a tightrope sometime,
Enveloped by its parabolic periphery,
Encircled, embedded, then engulfed
In a crystallized fractal
Of every nuance of existence.

Pull out your microscopes, folks,
Because there, perfectly suspended
Like antimatter in a vacuum chamber
Is one little speck of dust, barely sneeze-worthy,
Screaming, screeching, I am here! I am here!

And here I am, floating down a lazy river,
Drifting off into blissful slumber,
Awakening only to the sounds of a tributary
Gone awry. All I have left to do is
Pray that I wash up in a fertile
Delta, and leave the floodplains
For the faint of heart.

What Do We Stand For?

It seems there's been a shift
In the mood of our generation.
For years now I have labeled it
As 'complacent'.

But I realize now I was wrong,
That I fooled myself all along,
That we are as active as can be,
But we work peculiarly,
And the actions of our people
Are too fucking absurd.

Rebellion. Good.
Use it. Let it work for you.
Voice your opinions, yourself,
Your people, but do so wisely.
Do not comprise of rash acts
Of stupidity to prove the point
You are not to be controlled.

Rather strategize and organize,
Rationalize and categorize what it
Means to be untamed.
Show those who control that
You can control yourself,
Not just avoid their reign.

And good lord! Eat your goddamn food!
Do not refuse what is essential to
Prove you are somehow above them.
You learned what you know by
Listening and accepting.
Stubborn ignorance will get you nothing.

Indifference is good.
Rebellion is significant.
Individuality is essential.
But for the sake of an entire
Generation,
Choose your actions wisely,
Appropriately, necessarily.

Otherwise what are you but obnoxious?

Defrosted

I used to think it was made for me
I thought I had the best:
No waste of time, a reasoned rhyme
A cut above the rest.

A sun-kissed laugh, a smiling mouth

Illuminated; sweet

A silly pose, sand in my toes

And foam upon my feet.

But now it seems that sunny dreams
Can only last so long;
Your empty hands, your distant eyes
Make smiling feel too wrong

It seems a cruel, pointless trap
To keep me wanting more;
If we were going to be like this,
I wish I knew before

So let me go! Oh, don't you know?
This isnt what I need...
Is effortless the path you want?
Well, don't let me impede.

Don't touch my hand, then reprimand
And turn around and run...
There's no worse pain that winter feels
Than kisses from the sun.

Black and White

In front of me,

a person, a page

black and white

the lines are empty.

I start to color

but the blankness is quite

indelible.

I decide that I can live

in a world without color

because, after all,

who says it won't be fun?

As the days drag by and

I stare at the empty lines

black

and

white

over

and

over

I start to realize that color

is something that I may miss.

Maybe if I tell you, you'll

help me make an impact?

Good idea.

Or not.

It seems that gray is your color of choice.

Maybe my crayons just aren't bright enough.

So I leave you. Maybe you'll think about

adding some chroma.

Meanwhile, I'm left here, with nothing to do except stare

at this empty sheet

filled with only

black and white lines.

The Perfect American

Well he drives his shiny car,
That slick Mercedes Benz,
His three story brick
More than makes amends.

His hair is neatly combed,
And his tie is knotted tight.
A subtle pair of sunglasses
Reflects a pestering light.

Clean-shaven, he's a stand up guy
Doing his duty for the corporate kings.
He wears a smile of true happiness,
Patriotism the song he knows and sings.

His home is bland, yet appreciatedly so,
After all, a standard is made to be met.
There's no need to over achieve
When the minimum is what they expect.

He's never been in trouble,
Not even a simple parking violation,
He is a model for his peers,
A perfect symbol for his nation.

He loves his country, though at times
He feels a sort of emptiness within.
Yes, he lives the life, he plays the part;
He is the perfect American.

Stillness of Being

I crane my head towards the sky, frothing with clouds

Upon a blue of infinite depth, and a soft breeze

Makes the tress whisper the secrets of the future,

While the sun gently slips across the edge of the earth

Splaying orange light upon the ground,

Dancing between the shadows,

And the waves of leaves caressing each other

Falls to the sound of my heartbeat

As a bird's silhouette spills out upon the sky,

I wish there was someone to my side

So I could turn to trace the outline of their smile

And their memory would forever be etched

In this circle of beauty neverending,

And we might sit in the silence of thought

Becoming a part of the essence that is

The wind and the stillness of being.

No Birds of a Feather

You and I are two very different birds.
You and I do not share the same feather.

Yet at one time I believed
That you and I were one,
A pair of pure perfection,
Resting in the other's presence
On the same humble branch of
The same humble tree.

But time has told a different story,
For that branch grew a twig,
A scraggly, bending division
Of leafy haze that sprouted
Promptly between you and I.

Fitting.

There is no 'we',
Only you, and only me.
That twig was hardly a boundary,
But I remain on my branch
(It is mine).
I remain the bird I was a year ago.

You've since flown the coop,
To join a very different group,
In a different tree, on a shaky branch,
That sways and rocks in the
Slightest breeze.

It pained me at first to watch you leave,
But I soon realized your insignificance.
You're just a simple-minded
Pigeon carrying the message of
Compliance.

I hear your squealing chirps
Every now and then,
Those cries of imitation.

I cringe at the sound.

But I've since found another,
Who sings a soothing song of originality.

You never sang.

Better Than Me

Glasnost; an outpouring
of emotions and thoughts
and love.

It envelops me,
Shifts me, moves me,
Lifts me.

Overwhelmed by trust,
Overrun, undone,
Unlocked
I float, eyes closed,
Fingertips reaching for a hand,
But finding cracks,
Tears, rips: fragile,
But reparable, yet...
Too beautiful,
A silken web, capturing
Shreds of potential, possibility
Now impossible.
Now, it's become clear,
It's obvious what you deserve.

...That's cool too.

Thank You, Kindly

My good man,
I thank you for your advice,
I know you mean the best,
You are really very nice.

My intentions rest not far from
The goals to which you attest,
For I too have heard freedom's call,
And I shall share it with the rest.

Yet, I ask with gentle patience,
My wise and knowing friend,
That you allow me the trust
To go about as I intend.

I am confident and comfortable,
This bird is freed with dignity,
It has led me as I lead now,
Yet I shall not forget your company.

Please, good sir, do keep your restless tongue,
This matter is only mine, I believe your song is sung.