A

In a garden, I finally met truth
And I spit blood in its face
With the world for my proof
I kissed the cheek of grace.
I have walked with walkers of water
Sailed with fishers of men
I have seen the eyes of a Father
In the face of a Son, oh when
Did I ever see this before?
Ate lunch with sinners, supper with saints
My brothers asleep on God's floor
I stain my lips with betrayal's paint.
I have walked with Life and courted death
And here in one eternal breath
I met God with an embrace
I leaned in and kissed his face
Oh God, it was sealed with a kiss.
How did I turn into this?
What did I see? What did I miss?
My name a curse on eternity's lips
Judas. . . Judas. . . Judas.

Hey look, I'm still writing

If someone says leave
I go
If someone says stay
I go
If someone says wait
I can't stay in one place
I won't take the bait
And I go.
If someone is walking beside me
I try to leave them behind
If someone is trailing behind me
I try to leave them behind
If someone is holding my hand
If I'm tired and sore and can't stand
If anyone is close at hand
I try to leave them behind.
If I see the promised land
I go
If I'm in the promised land
I go
If I'm lost and confused
If the path is a ruse
Whatever I choose
I go.
Stay is a four letter word
Love is a four letter verb
If I found both
I might see some hope
But mostly I cope
And I go.

Hang Out The Banners And Shout The News, Blow The Trumpets And Horns

Empty hearts and empty eyes

Empty souls see empty skies

Empty hands seek empty truths

Sunday came under darkness' roof

All was disbelief

Until,  upon sunlight's stark relief

Gloom's evil glee was turned to grief

For 'twas then that daylight shone

And revealed the grave as empty stone

How can we be silent? How dare we speak?

For all of the ages are dawned and complete

In one sacred act of defiance

Death's unholy alliance

Is dealt it's final defeat.
On Friday, it was finished, complete
Saturday was with evil replete
But Sunday, oh Sunday, the King took His seat.

46 (3.0)

Sit down
Lock the door
Put the gun out of reach
'Cause people that preach
Got bullets for eyes
Razor blades hide in their smiles
Church clothes hide holsters
All-American teeth
Hide the daggers inside
Everyone lies.
They'll always lie best
When there's no time for rest
When they know that you're dying inside
To trust is divine
They say as they lie.
They weren't kind enough
To buy piercing rounds
Just shot
Beaten down
One nick at a time
Just petty crimes
Killing you slowly
For fun.

46 (2.0)

Amethyst's treasure was spent
His casing irreverently rent
Pyrite was placed
At the feet of his grace
Gravel knew not what it meant.
Or so they said
Though it filled them with dread
To see Ruby falling
And hear Onyx calling
Amethyst unto the dead.
Sapphire turned Slate
The world insensate
Rumblings, rumblings of fear
Then Silver appears
In Amethyst's place.
Marble had sold
For thirty odd cold
Everything here
All that was dear
And now could not be consoled.
Here energy fades
As Quartz eyes turn Jade
Envying Amethyst's power
Not knowing this is the hour
When the world is unmade.
For without Amethyst's craft
Ore veins, a simple mine shaft
Turns into a tomb
And into the doom
Onyx stared darkly and laughed.

46

Gravity
Working against us
Pulling and clipping
Our wings.
Saturday
Is made of such things
Stumbling around
So much falling down
Covered in mud
Mingled with blood
Our veins filling with dust
There's no wanderlust
Only dépaysement
Debasement
A crown with no king.

45

The end
And so it was
All's now before,
because
Nothing remains
Only midnight
Encased in black-tipped flames
A world unnamed,
Save death
One name to call us all
Light is given one last call
Now blackness claims.
Friday
Written on our graves.

44

Dark soul enters black cave

Re-emerges cloaked in cape

Thinks clothing makes a hero

When all he wants to save

Is himself.

Dark man with a platform

Finds new populist pursuit

Thinks volume makes a hero

Instead a violent storm

In a suit.

There is never such a thing

As a violent path to peace

People think a thought police

Will make them heroes, kings

But among fools.

For where violence breeds

So follow darker things

What follows darkness brings

Chaos on four steeds

Apocalyptic deeds.

With eyes bright and heavy hearts

We must sheath our swords and march

To death, to end the silence

Shout as one to end the violence

That tears a world apart.

43 (2.0)

I know the color of fear
The hideous shape of a sphere
That we orbit around
For there is no ground
There is no breathing room here.
Fear is a cancerous rot
Turns us to what we are not
We must look in its eye
And see through the lie
And tell it we won't be forgot.
Though fear be the face of the times
We will not trade dollars for dimes
We won't give into hate
Won't embrace fear as fate
We will not simply follow what shines.
Does freedom not make our blood burn?
Does it not our veins to fire turn?
Does it not burst from our lungs
Make merry our tongues
Is it not the song we've all learned?
No, fear cannot have its way
No, hate cannot keep us at bay
For we are born free
And will not bend our knee
And darkness will not have its day.

43

Headwind
Strip me away
Come scour my face
Strip my disgrace
Show me the shade of my skin
Headwind, please come again
Headwind
Strip me away
Come and rip clean
Come and rip up the seams
And I'll stand facing your strength
Gale
Strip me bare
Every step stops despair
Strip me until I am new
Headwind
Take me with you.

42 (2.0)

There is an ethos in normal life
Says to those a-sleeping, cause no strife
If ill is done when backs are turned
Many bridges have we burned.
But of this thought, child beware
Of often finding trouble there
Adheres not war to cordial rules
And those who will are played for fools.
If evil sleeps, child kill it there
For should it wake, so much despair
Yes, if evil ever turns it's back
Child, strike and strike, against the black
For in ev'ry place lets darkness lie
They find it is the good that dies.
Should evil just once look away
Child aim true, and haste the day.
Wherever hate should rear it's head
Truth is always left for dead
Its wicked tongue and dragon's teeth
Many will be those who weep
Child, do not, do not let it sleep.

42

What costs the most is worth the least

Best-sellers about inner peace

Ain't worth a walk among the trees

When spring is in full bloom.

Pollen eyes and yellow feet

Annoying, but a simple treat

The makings of the world's repeat

Mean life is dawning soon.

Every truth that's ever told

Will never be as brave and bold

As a flower after winter's cold

A dream rises from the gloom.

And every single living cost

Can never match the beauty crossed

With each step over stones and moss

That once made up a tomb.

It seems however far I go

However fast, however slow

The road before me only grows

And to stay is surely doom.

41

Eight peasants protect lords
For turf with checkered past
Through light's incessant forays
Dark often answers back
All king's rise and fall
On the courage of their pawns
Many kingdoms lost and earned
Upon a daring queen's return
On a peasant's strange ascent.
Men with swords on chargers
At odds with men of prayer
Peasants with their broken backs
Crawl forth through open air
Though no one guards the peasant
There are no shades of gray
In wars of black and white
It's not lords who sway the day.

40

Winter is becoming spring
Everything is turning green
Winter's paths are overgrown
Cold's tyranny is overthrown
Darkness rests his weary head
Hope finds newer roads to tread
Once all that was in reach was dead
Now life is sown in golden threads
Woven through the budding trees
The world is young and we are free.

39 (2.0)

My God
I claim you falsely
Others I have sought
God
This prayer it haunts me
Knowing whom I've fought
Savior
I don't know you
I have not learned your ways
Often I forsake the days
And embrace night's bitter comforts
Her feckless, wanton play
Embrace night's feral consorts
His hedonistic fray.
Shame
Thoroughly courted
Doubt
I know it well
Death
I have consorted
With things both foul and fell
Sin
I know most clearly
Vice
My resting place
Destruction
Holds my heartbeat
And Hatred
Wears my face.
My God
Can I still name you
Can I still call you mine
When I have wandered farther
Than I thought that you could find?
Lord
Do I still know you
When I have left your side
When I have failed on purpose
Just to widen our divide?
Savior
Can you claim me
When I've loved being lost?
I have been a thorn upon your brow
And held you to a cross.
My God
I do not know you
But I see you everywhere

39

Short drop, sudden stop
Tension, then release
Short drop, sudden stop
Black and ivory keys
Short drop, sudden stop
Reverberations cease
Quick drops, sudden stops
Thoughts full of jumbled pleas
Quick drops and sudden stops
A heartbeat and then peace.


(Note: Normally I leave poetry to the mind of the beholder, but as this is part of a Lenten piece I feel I should explain. Yes, the phrase came from a hangman's rope. No the poem isn't about death or suicide. It's about the end of a song, that final note. And because my mind is strange and I like to misappropriate things, I ended up with this)

38 (2.0)

Moonbeams stream
Through new spring leaves
In trails of scented color
Night time calls
As moonlight falls
Beckoning each other
Dryads dance
A moon dust trance
Descends upon the world
Filtered light
A kiss at night
And thus the earth was hurled
Spinning space
The moonlight trace
Casts heaven on your face
Revving cars
And shooting stars
In moonlight's touch of grace.

38

There's a stone around my neck
(I didn't know that stones could grow)
For every promise that I've kept
Why does freedom seem a burden?
Every vow I've  ever made
(Even some I did not mean)
Seems to drag me to the grave
What is commitment's shape?
Why do I only tie myself
(Why do I tie myself at all)
To tunnels that I dig to hell
Where did heaven's stairway go?

37

I have never seen perfection

Nor even the reflection 

Of things but what my eyes can see

Of course this means for things to be

I must conceive of them myself.

The world we live in we create

And all the things we love and hate

Are stretched before us, vine and juice

One meant to bind and one to loose

Are we wise enough to choose?

The world we live in we create

With every step we write our fate

Can we be noble, free and brave

Or will we dig a shallow grave

With our foolish petulance? 

If the world we live in we create

Then it's monsters are the ones we make.

36

Agony, insurrection eyes
You tell the truth by speaking lies
What comes will come, in shape or size
Buzz and hover, here danger flies
"Safety" black magic mirror cries.
Opposites, reformation dies
Infamy, revolution's prize
Wonder what a penny buys
Witness resurrection's rise
See anger in convention's eyes.
Insurrection always tries
To unveil truth amid the whys
Amid the doubts status denies
See there our soul, wrung out it dries
But for insurrection eyes.

35

A gasoline sky just begs for a spark
Don't go looking at me like that
It's an oil-soaked canvas painting
Just waiting on a match

Sure there are billions, nay trillions of stars
Little pinpricks of fire in the dark
But they don't excite, because they don't ignite
They'll never hold human hearts

A gasoline sky just begs for a match
A tumultuous yellow-tinged flame
Not far distant white, with their icy light
Not moonbeams silhouetting in gray

It's deep and it's dark, just begs to be burned
The perfume of it's oily bouquet
Lulls us to sleep, and that's all that keeps
Us from bringing our matches to play

A gasoline sky is a damp, cold parade
The show catches our breath in our throats
But though we applaud, we think it a fraud
For it doesn't take place in the light.

A gasoline sky is a vast sneaking thief
It's aroma keeps goodness at bay
For what prowls in the night, is seldom delight
To beings who live in the day.

And then morning comes, and gasoline runs
For what else can night do when faced with the sun?

34

We built a cross.

Two planks of wood and some nails

The work of billions to get it upright

The work of a lifetime to take it down

Only no one ever can

We hung there all our hopes and cares

Our dreams of valor and sacrifice

We hung there all that we could not make right

And we turned and walked away

We came back later to strip it down

Thought the break would make our burden light

Found it had grown beyond all we could bear

It was covered in vines wrapped with thorns

So we took a knife to remove them

Tried to smooth the rough edges away

And make it a palatable task to be faced

And we found that we could not

So we placed rocks in careful patterns

To hide our disgrace in a tomb

To cover our failures with stone

We could not admit we were wrong

But three days of guilt was too much

We came back to uncover our shame

Only to find that just stone remained.

33

I'm out of things to write about
I'm out of words without a doubt
I've put all of my thoughts to bed
There are no dreams inside my head.
There's nothing left, I'm emptied out
No more ideas to use as grout
To fill blank spaces in my mind
There's nothing that's been left behind.
I'm flies and holes, strands of string
I've no tune to hum or sing
Can't bring a single thought to bear
Can't bring myself to think I care.
I'm out of words with which to rhyme
All that I have left is time
And time is all that I don't want
A ghost without a place to haunt.

32 (2.0)

I confess, I'm a mess
I'm self-mutilated
Selfish and full of self-hatred
A bed of nails and roses both
A dreamer's dream
A hangman's rope.
I feel deeply what I won't speak
My eyes burn but never leak
I long to be loved
But hate being touched
And nothing I do is ever enough
I'm so fully diluted
That I'm self-deluded
Into thoughts that turn spirits tame
The more I do different
The more things are the same
I'm so lost, gone crazy
Yet insanely sane
If I contradicts me
Then how can I change?

32

We wear in our eyes the story inside

A smile says my soul's on my sleeve

Every laugh line and scar, a puzzle of art

Every face tells a tale, don't you see?

A touch conveys trust, love hate or lust

You speak volumes when locking your knees

Every shift every lean, and I know what you mean

Every move tells a story to me.

Time's a tattoo that no one escapes

Some would hide it, some wear it with grace

I want a story that grows with the years
Not a story that stays in one place.

31 (3.0)

I feel like a worm
A contradiction in terms
I live in the the dirt
But I'm afraid of the germs.
I feel like a freak
Every time that I speak
So afraid to be brash
So afraid to seem weak.
A life of lost socks
The same paradox
In love with grass
But I won't leave rocks.
I feel like a stone
I like it alone
I'm in love with love
And with life on my own.
How can I always be wrong?

31 (2.0)

A solitary bulb, a solitary spark
On in company, but mostly staying dark
A solitary sound, the cacophonous pound
Of blood pressure rising, all that's unbound.
Heart rate is lifting, it's all that can
Even eyes are stuck downward, I cannot stand
Shackles and chains, knife wounds and pain
I wonder which color is shirt, and which stain.
Though there's blood, I smell only sweat
I finally nod off, wake gasping and wet
Courage and guilt, form my threadbare quilt
Will cowardice win the day in this tilt?
I speak when I must, even I cannot trust
What I say 'round these mouthfuls of rust
They say I'll be free, that they'll let me be
If I'll just give in to these demons in me.
They don't know their art, they misread their mark
They don't know that I like it here in the dark
They think that they've shown they can render me prone
But the truth is I like it in here on my own.

31

Staring at a wall, the numbers closing in
One two three, five, and one again
The glowing red a haunting dread
I know I'll wake up bright and dead.
Staring at a wall, the numbness creeping in
You close your eyes and count to ten
Open them and the nightmares begin
Sweat stains on sheets, one two, five, ten.
Staring at the ceiling, numbers coming close
Night passes quickly, day's passing slows
Sleep is a wretch, miserable and wet
Huddled in corners, trying to forget.
Staring at a wall, don't see  a thing
Moldy coat dripping a bottle of beam
Madness is just a skipped heartbeat away
Daydreams turn nightmares on such a day.
Staring at a wall, feel the numbers closing in . . .

30

A ghost, a gasping ghast
A phantasm of fantastic
Appeals, appears to appraise
Swivels, swiftly swims away.
Whiskered whispers wash
Onto strange shimmering shores
Melancholy music massed
Piped and played it's prayer parade
Chandelier charades
Swooping shadows shift
Trip tumble toward timeless rifts
Rife with reverberating reverence
Pale, impaled into insignificance
Washed white by whitewashed wounds
Curled comfortably, coiled in cocoons
What's inside must be set free
Come out, come out, come out and see.

29 (2.0)

It's burning up, boiling out of me
The steam is rising up and I can't see
Fire runs under my skin and I can't hold it in.
The pressure builds it's close within
Its searing through my skeleton
I'm charred through, I'm well done
Still the surge has just begun
It's rocket fuel and I take flight
It's a wildfire that wakes the night
Words brand me with an eldritch flame
Can't bite my tongue, can't stay the same
Boiling, roiling words stream out
Rivers of thought, without doubt
Without the pause of conscious thought
Without the feeling it's all for naught
It's seeping from my very pores
My hands are burned, my flesh is scored
If smoke's escaping, there's your proof
That what comes out must be the truth
I held and held and held it in
Till it burned free through my very skin.

29

A wilted stem, I can bear no weight
With every gust I slowly break
There is no hope that I can see
The path ahead is for the dead.
There is no road, the way is shot
Overgrown and under-tread
At once reclaimed and long forgot
The path ahead is for the dead.
Detritus of the cracking leaves
Is a never-stemmed riptide
That pulls us ever farther down
This path ahead that's for the dead.
At every turn I'm glancing back
Have I walked this path before?
I hear the Styx hit blackened shores
Just on the dying path ahead.
How can I be so truly lost
On what was once familiar ground?
This used to be the long road home
And now I don't know what's ahead.

28 (2.0)

I want to:
Memorize what I already know
Tap patterns on the hands I hold
Watch your features growing old
And more perfect all the same.
Say things I've already said
Lay in silence on the bed
Watching dreams safeguard your head
Play these wordless little games.
Repeat sentiments you can't forget
Hold you till our years are spent
Feel the caress of fingers bent
When your hand is holding mine.
Say the phrase I've said before
And then again, and still once more
Discover new things I adore
As our stares entwine.
Uncover things I thought I knew
And find that they are always new
Find a better me in you
And love you till I die.

28

I set out to feed a family

Became a slaughterhouse instead

Set out to help the living

Now I cater to the dead

Butcher blades and chopping blocks

And my hands are always red.

All these inconsistencies

This making into pharisees 

Of everyone who disagrees

This makes no sense to me.

We're all made of energy

A strangely surging synergy

We're all contained infinities

That I have severed here

So sincerely insincere.

What makes a man? What have I done?

Why can't I be another one?

All these thoughts trip through

And none of them are true

And yet all of them are

My hands the whitened scars

Of too long with these blades

Of years lived in the shade

So many years afraid

Why can't you understand

That I don't know who I am?

27 (2.0)

I'm so tired
I can't sleep
I can't read
I can't think.
No breathing
Too deep
Or I might drift away
Shallow breaths
Blank thoughts
Are the fish
That I've caught
The rest have slipped away.
My stomach quakes
I can't eat
My eyes pace
I've no feet
A white wall
Is my mind
The rest is locked away.
I can't see
I can't hear
I can't grasp
What's happened near
Or even to me
I must have gone away.

27

A cracking jaw
A gaping maw
An endless appetite
Some sparkling teeth
In grimy sheaths
Expressing their delight
I'm unrestrained
I'm uncontained
Unstiffled, impolite
I'm a blip amid
Two ways to live
Laid down or still upright
A cracking jaw
A gaping maw
A yawn 'tween day and night.

26

Solid, liquid, gas

Ember, flame, ash

Useful, used, trash.

People, places, thing

Graveyard, gravestone, sing

Going, going, gone.

Music, lyric, song

Morals, right, and wrong

Future, present, past

Beginning, middle, last

Were, are, will be

Blind, blind, can't see

Left, right, or straight

Choose, love or hate

Mother, father, child

Wild, tamed, still wild

Pattern, rhythm, rhyme

Circles across time.

25

I'm so tired of it all
So tired of the straw
Of these visions of corn
Pecked, tattered and torn
So tired of the crows
Of the neat little rows
Oh why can't it grow
Indoors, on a train
I'm over the rain
I'm done with the pain
Of staying in place
With scars on my face
From crows pecking at eyes
I'm even sick of the sky
It's so free, so why blue
Cause know something true?
I'd much rather to be you.
To be free, over sea
Anything other than me
To see crowds, be a cloud
Wear anything but this same shroud
Of mildew and crap
Oh, I'm so sick of that
And so achingly tired of me
Outside and pinned in a "t"
Seems whatever I choose
Always ends when I lose
How come I never win
Guess mannequins
Get no escape from the pain
Now go stand in the rain
Or be nailed to a beam
'Case you split a seam
Scratching your itching insides
Ain't no room for pride
In a body of straw
Ain't no room for anything, really, at all.

24

What makes a soul a soul?

What drives a soul to twist?

Love of dark or fear of light

That makes a wish, a wish?

What turns a thought to act?

What makes an eye to blink?

Squinting eyes growing dry

Are we afraid to think?

What if we delve too deep?

What if we swim too far?

Shooting for the moon oft

Ends gasping 'mong the stars.

Is it the thought that bends

To let a man stay sane?

Or does bent thought make bent man,

And dare we ride that train?

Why does a soul grow cold?

So sinister does it twist.

Do we wish what we've turned?

Or do we turn what we wish?

23

I stand here at the crossing bridge
'Twixt who I'll be and what I did
Eternity a chasm underneath us.
Facing forward means looking back
And I dare not, my soul was black
'Twas love that I exchanged for lust.
Is there yet grace enough to atone
For lives derailed and Kings dethroned
By carefully cultivated vice?
Moving onward means letting go
And I'm now old enough to know
That I've denied Truth more than thrice.
Here in the moment mirrors fail
I expect my face and I see hail
Destroying everything in sight.
I can't undo the damage done
I cannot face the rising Son
When I've been living in the night.
I stand here on the crossing bridge
'Tween who I'll be and what I did
Eternity envelops and surrounds us
Knowing I'm not able on my own
To choose to stand before a throne
To find my fading heart unjust.
Yet you tell me I must move
If I move, can I choose You
Without ever having seen myself?
Is there a place for my mistrust
For my pride, my sins and all my lust
With the broken things You fix Yourself?
And still someway the rest of me
These tiny parts, the best of me
Can end up in Your arms?

22

Strangely shaped, round with corners
Sometimes I feel that love's a thing
A mystery with no clues for solving
Because the answer's in the questioning.
A solid cloud of upward rain
Sometimes I feel that love's a game
A shadow with no birthing form
A well known face without a name.
An echo with no voice that spoke
Sometimes I feel that love's a vice
A strength that makes us weaker still
A gamble played 'gainst loaded dice.
A valley with no mountain peaks
Sometimes I feel it's love I seek
Ironic, whole yet incomplete
You spend a day to pass a week.
Sometimes I feel that love's a ghost
A parasite that kills the host.

21 (2.0)

Spiderglass
Intricate cracks
Appear on frail facade
Sometimes I find it very odd
That anyone should weep.
Spiderglass
The spreading rash
No longer bulletproof
Escape hatch on the roof
We could not hold the keep.
Spiderglass
Infinitely small and vast
Shattering what had been whole
Slowly comes the creeping cold
Speak not of eternal sleep.
Spiderglass
Frail beings cracked
And what was inside's seeping out
The silence is sneaking about
And from God there's nary a peep.
Spiderglass
Circadian rhythms turn black
From where death oozes in
Through these cracks in our skin
I understand now why we weep.

21

I see you
Is this just a chance
Just moving
And I'm so entranced
You're there
And I can't move.
I see you
Would be by your side
You're perfect
So I always hide
You're there
And I can't move.
I feel you
A mere brush of hand
You're near me
Suddenly I can't stand
You're there
And I can't move.
I watch you
Trace the timeless dance
You're perfect
And I'm in a trance
You're closer
Than I've ever chanced
You're here now
And I can't move.
I hear you
One soft whispered word
I'm frozen
Not sure what I heard
You're near me
But I can't move.
You're near me
And I want you.