"He chose . . . poorly" ~ Raiders of the Lost Ark

Choose

The story goes, or so I've been told
That humans once had souls of gold
And then traded them for apples
Thus ever since in varied chapels
We've pleaded, begged for their return
But nothing can ever be unearned.
We put our trust in everything
Yet nothing found could make us sing
The song we were born into
Before humanity came unglued
Before our love was misconstrued
As lust, as governmental trust
As coveting all that we had just
Seen in those around us.
Before we thought that money must
Hold the keys to happiness
Instead finding only loss and stress
And endless, vacant emptiness
As our love turned to duress.
We tried loving sex and loving land
We tried loving spitting in the hand
Of everyone we saw in need
We tried loving words and deeds
Governments, kings, came back to greed
Tried loving ornamental jewels and beads
But there was naught that did not kill us
Everything that once did thrill us
Now placed daggers in our backs
We watched the world now fade to black.
But one man came, and one man said
What you've loved has left you dead
But my love is stronger than all attacks
And when you fail, I can love you back
To life.

hmm

Big Ben

Tick

Someone’s having children

Tick

Someone’s finding love

One

Descending like a dove

Tick

Is all they've ever dreamed of

Tick

Two

Are now united

Tick

While I am unrequited

Tick

Three

Moved from company to crowd

Tick

That sound is growing loud

As the hour approaches

Four

Another closing door

Tick

And time is spinning fast

Five

Ticks are tocking past

Every time I blink

Six

Teeter on the brink

Tick

Effervescent joy

May have sprung a leak

Seven

Perfect lines

One above and one beside

Tick

Eight

Another one escapes

I don’t begrudge a kinder fate

Nine

Tails, a single lash

Tick

Another leaking ash

As they explode into fulfillment

Ten

Times what they had

Tick

More bittersweet than sad

At your quick reversing fortune

Eleven

The hour growing late

The desperate giving in to hate

But I alone will wait

For Twelve

A lifetime ticking past

Die is always for another cast

Tick

And I shall always be the last.

Abyss and the Rise of Monsters

Cain

Maybe I have killed my brother
Though I never knew his name
For now of the whole of us
Just one of us remain
And I, I stand here weeping
Though I know I weep in vain.
There now this mark upon my brow
Upon my cheek, my hand, my neck
Come now this blemish on my vow
As I'm salvaged from the wreck
Still I never knew his name.
This mark exists protecting me
From vengeance of the same
Or perhaps reminding me
I shall always weep in vain.
Yes perhaps it is a stain
A sign denoting God's mistake
A symbol proving God is great
To others as it mocks my fall.
For no one answers when I call
No one comes to light my dark
A mistake created on a lark
Now bearer of the murd'rer's mark.

Thump Thump Thump _____________________

DNR

Should ever my brain stop ticking
Should my heart cease its pulsing dance
Neither charge nor clear for I'm not clicking
Back into this happenstance.
Should this pain at last contort
My mind beyond it's will to cope
I'll be gone, so please resort
What's left to those who still have hope.
Do not come looking should I be lost
Found vacant in the the tides of time
My soul is burnt amid the dross
I've at last escaped this pantomime.
The strings are cut that kept me moving
I'll no more twitch to another's hand
I'm free, I'm free, I'm past reproving
I'm ash and dust. I'm rocks and sand.
When someday this last ache consumes me
Let my tarnished soul to rest
Take what you want, then let me be
It's all a lie, and I told it best.

Satirical Evidence

Grumbles

I told you I was lost
And a light shone up ahead
A blaze that filled my soul with dread
And I knew you had not heard
So I turned without a word
And walked the other way.
I told you I was scared
When suddenly winds came howling
The winds they came growling round my sides
And I knew you thought I'd lied
And had left me on my own.
I told you I was hurt
And healing waters sprang around me
Rushing flood waters quickly found me
And took me far from help
And I knew I was by myself.
I pleaded I was hungry
When birds came flocking near
When birds came pecking near
And I was filled with fear
I knew I had complained too much.
I told you I couldn't find you
And a shove came on my back
A wind came moaning it's attack
A fire blocked all the pathways back
Rivers came and pushed me on my way
And birds sang of the coming day
And I held my head and sighed
Said, "I'm still not sure which way to go
And I wish you would stop mumbling so."

2 ways to lose yourself

amnesia

blue
on blue
on white
hue
upon hue
upon sight
rings
upon rings
upon light
concentric circles
spinning
and grinning
spark with delight
i see
my own face
know it not
i see
to your soul
mine forgot
your eyes
hold the whole
of the world
i'm
just a boy
seeing girl
universes
dance and tremble
and collide
for i
can count stars
through your eyes.


Stocks

How can I be forgiven
When your blood still stains my clothes?
When your face still haunts my vision
And your eyes stare through my soul?
How can I e'er be shriven
When I remain the one to blame
When I cannot shake this shame
When I cannot forget the same?
How can I have I name?
How can I have a name
When I don't know my own mind
When I've forsaken you for my own kind
As I'm drifting through this paradigm
How can I have a name?
How can I claim I saw your face
When I know I'm still the same,
When I still play this dang'rous game
And make blasphemy my claim?
How can I be named
If I cannot face my faults
If I'm too afraid to bare my path
With it's stutterings and halts?
How can a wayward soul be tamed?
And how can I ever be forgiven
If I cannot be named?

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, the English language would make less sense than ever

If

I am not who I should be
Who I could be
Who I would be
If I'd ever give myself a chance.
I'm not who I thought I'd be
Who I ought to be
Who I was always taught to be
Though perhaps that one's not so bad.
I still believe in destiny
That the best of me
The rest we need
Lies somewhere up ahead,
If only the life I lead
The path I knead
The words and deeds
I make will let me find it.
I live most days to hurt me
Beg others to desert me
If I only would not curtly
Dismiss everything but my pride.
Most days I doubt myself
I tout myself
I out myself
As a hypocrite of the first order.
I'm paralyzed the rest of times
This nest of grimes
The best of crimes
Is this inertia made of guilt,
It robs me of myself
I'm somewhere on a shelf
I've locked myself in hell, if
I could only find the key.
Will I ever see the rest of me?
Have someone to lie next to me?
Believe that I can be made free
From this incaptivity that captivates me still?

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

Kludge

I'm broken, I'm bleeding
This violent conceding
That I am but a glitch in the code
A streaming infarction so old
I'm accepted as part of the plan
I've accepted that's all that I am
A one with the lights turned out
A zero backwards, flipped round about
But a zero nonetheless, just the same
I'm supposed to be glad that you came
But I'll blink on or not either way
I'll flick, I'll flick flicker away
Until one day I'll flicker no more
I'll drift off to that endless shore
Where I'll cease to exist
Still hanging about, forever un-fixed
Just too warm and worn down
Just wait, wait, waiting around
Till I'm returned to the sand . . .
Or stuck in a reef with a can
Floating between the remains of the seen
As all that we are remains stuck between
The glitch, the code and the core
The drill, the bit and the bore
The screen, the glass and the door
What we are, who we've been, something more.
Just a zero that fell to the floor
And the line streamed on anyway.

"Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck, some nights I call it a draw" ~ fun

Damocles

I'm a cube in a world of spheres
Wondering why I'm even here
A typo from the hand of fate
A tragedy that came too late
To e'er be put to rights.
Lock the door, turn off the lights
My reflection keeps me up nights
I'm insurrection in a cape and tights
Against everything that once was good
An arsonist with wet firewood
I cannot spark myself to change
Back to beam, move down the range
Position set, now aim and fire
Or strap me to a funeral pyre
For every wrong I've ever done
Add another bullet to the gun.
Alone, alone, always alone
And even God forgot to phone
For I'm not fit for service
Nor suited for a single purpose
Save this, to be mine own disease
The hanging blade of Damocles
How I wish that it would fall
That Death would finally come to call
I brought forgiveness to it's knees
Beneath the blade of Damocles
And I begged it not to fall
Though I surely knew it would
For I was never made for good
And I wish I was not made at all.

Current

The lights stay on, they always are, no current breaks, no shades to draw,
just running, running, 1's and 0's,
visions, villains, ghosts and heroes,
Information banks and swirls,
filling corners of the world,
With options, possibles, and maybe's,
the information highway is lost in me,
I scramble, grasp and flit about,
Sorting all the stories out,
Gasping, groaning, in a frenzy,
Frothing, foaming, too fast to see,
The lines are drawn, the plots unfold, there's life, you see,
living, breathing, inside me.

The Flick, The Drop, The Squeeze

He's here again, I feel the breeze,as my heart's engulfed with his disease.

The tendrils loop, they weave and tighten, I am caught.

Now comes the squeeze...bastard embrace, bile rising, I have no space. I'm lifted up, the light flickers and dies, and I'm replaced with truth.

I see my fate with cold resolve, all blackness, no blue,
And now I see paths to end it too.
A flick, a drop, a squeeze will do, If only I will see it through.

We dance and sway, one as one, in and out, we move with ease.
But always still....I ponder the flick, the drop, the squeeze.

The fire is low, all is ash, and all could end within a flash.
But he grows tired, and down I slide,
his sneering all that's left to reside,
Inside my mind, my heart, my being.

I push up, and walk for air, holding railing for support,
Collapsing soon, my walk is short,
For ever whispering on the breeze:
The flick, the drop, the squeeze.

Title

Shriving

When I am lost I beg

Whisper you've found me

Even if you cant yet

See right where I am.

When I am blind

Say you’ll surround me

Protecting me most

From what I already am.

When I am deaf

Hold me and hold me

And keep holding me still

When I’m whole again.

When I would die

Say you’ll die with me

Over and over

Until time should end

If only I’ll wait

For just one more moment

And witness the miracle

Of another begin.

When I am drowning

Come and drown with me

Come and breathe love

Deep into my lungs

Tell me my final chorus is empty

There’s one more line

That has yet to be sung.

Tell me this story

Doesn't end with my failures

That my sins don’t keep my angels at bay

That I won’t always be afraid

Of the actions I’m taking

Of the man I've become

From ashes and clay.

Tell me I’m worthy

When I think you’re lying

And tell me again

When I think you’re insane.

Help me forgive

Myself my unmaking

And hold me tight till

The shaking will end.

I’m lost and alone

God I’m so far from home

Not in place

But in peace in my heart.

Hold me strong

Hold me fast

Hold me right to the last

And carry me through

Everything I have torn.

Don't let go, Don't let go

Come even crownings of thorns

Just carry me, carry me

To every new morn.

For unto us a Child is born

The Glorious Forsaking

What can hold life if ev'rything life holds?
Is there meaning if ev'rything's purposed?
Can there be depth if ev'rything's surface
Or bravery if the world's made of bold?
Where is the still that accompanies know?
Where now the flower and where now the Rose?
When cometh grace for the follies we chose
For endless gestures with nothing to show?
Come now the hour, yea it comes in the night
The star is upon us, burden so bright
The Oath of the ages laid at our doubt.
So come and step softly, come with steps light
When ev'rything's said, 'haps silence is right
And silent the night, hear rocks crying out.

There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun

Uluru

How do you start what shouldn't be started?

How do you break what should never be bent?

How do you win the wholly unwanted?

And how can you stand your own face at the end?

Who will you be, when ev’rything’s rusted,

When age wears the varnish off of your skin?

Who will you be, when your world’s combusted,

Broken in strips, never matched right again?

What if your scars tell more than a story,

And what if your pride wears better worn thin?

What if your wars were fought without glory?

Would you be more than the scope of your sins?

With luck, a glance, a chance, a game of dice

What if your actions cost more than your price?

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

The Lamplighter and the Candle-snuffer

Running amok, adrift in the endless

Lost in the inescapable expanse

The tyranny of distilled disbelief

Swimming in daydreams of dying

Drowning in visions of flying

I cannot escape and I'm lying

The truth is I'm too scared to try

For behold, the extinguisher comes!

The imbiber of animus here

He seeks to consume your glimpses of flight

To come and devour your will to fight

Exterminate your ev'ry spark of delight

But who's the real enemy here?

He, me or thee?

It's no use, for there in his chalice are we

Indeed, in his goblet I'm me

Slowly approaching his vast, gaping maw.

To live, such ignominy

To die, such unholy glee

Is this how it feels to be he?

I forgot how it felt to be me

To fly through the water-less sea

I'm drowning in oxygen

For I cannot recall how to breathe.

Sometimes quotes from movies I haven't seen in a decade pop into my head

Toy Soldiers

Green: with envy at those chosen before us
With guilt at those who fall behind
With nausea at the violence of our movements
With hatred at our usage so defined.

Stiff: with courage as we face what lies before us
With valor as we race against the times
With rigor as we're parted from our futures
With fear as we're frozen in our minds.

Armed: with hate for whatever we are facing
With guns for approaching battle lines
With everything that can be found and gathered
With nothing that can't be left behind.

Rigid: with confusion at an ever-changing purpose
With respect for the whims that call us forth
With terror at the giants that surround us
With pride at the valuation of our worth.

Made: of necessity to broaden imagination
Of plastic to handle uncertain tides
Of misfortune and explanations for our children
Of the hope that we'll one day be undefined.

Stored: in boxes, in closets and on shelves
In recesses until brought back to the fore
In fingers and behind eyelids and bright smiles
In trash cans when there's no more need for war.



Egg Salad

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty wished he was tall:
Tall and valiant and brave and tough
Humpty Dumpty had it rough
Because he was short and round and eternally fragile.
He'd never be quick, and he'd never be agile
He'd always be shorter and thicker and wide
He'd always be better off as a main dish or side
But he couldn't accept he was made for a plate
So he wished for a more palatable fate
And he climbed a wall to pretend he was tall
And escape the poachers that he thought he saw.
But then he smelled slaw,
And thinking he'd cracked
He turned, thinking mayo would ooze from his back
He thought he was hurt, that he'd never win
So poor Humpty Dumpty did himself in.
And all the kings horses thought "we have no hands"
So they snorted and stamped and ignored the demands
From the king for Humpty's repair,
For they thought with some relish, if out of the air
He'd make for a quite tasty snack.
The king's men agreed, so they crept round the back
And gathered his innards under the pretense of grief
Then took him home, fried him and paired him with beef
And named him in honor of kings
Thus the royal was born, and a tastier thing
Humpty couldn't have done if he'd tried
So while it's sad that he died
All nursery rhymes end rather badly
(And most are geared around food)
So if you don't want your kids hungering madly
(And you don't want them in a bad mood)
Remember poor, dead Humpty and say
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"
And you'll probably be glad that you did.

I dream of knights and dragons

Candlelight and Torches

Is there a place for perspective 

In a world without points of view

Save for the grasping

At whatever's deemed true 

By most recent consensus.

In worlds made of screens

We live out our dreams

Vicariously through others

And sometimes through you

Oh, Did that room have a view?

Somebody gets injured

And fantasizers get mad

Someone's arrested

And daydreamers perjure themselves

To dream on

And ignore the twelve shades of blue

In this fading twilight of souls.

Another glowing soul goes dark

Only to blink bright thirty seconds later

Revived before it even reached stasis

Reaching again for what truly matters:

Me

For everyone must know how I feel

At every single moment in time

Yet if my soul's in my pocket

Am I even real?

Or is it back-lit because

There's an abyss in my eyes?

"I built this city just to bring it to its knees" ~ Anberlin

Sand

 Walking ‘long forever shore

‘Neath the azure sky

Found a bottle made of glass

With everything inside

Promise of impossible

Her hair a wreath of flames

A banquet there from shore to shore

At this place without a name

A face I cannot forget

With a name I can’t recall

A freckle there, beneath her hair

And a joy enough for all

This world’s ceaseless violent dances

They did all but fade away

A distant, long forgotten cloud

In a world less shades of gray

A home of love and meaning

And a dream I can’t deny

I begged God I should never blink

Lest beauty vanish from my eyes

The hue array impossible

Her smile perhaps even more

And there I stood ash to dust

On that nameless, placeless shore.

Yet blink I did, eventually

And the present world restored

Beheld a bottle made of glass

And a message bound with cord

Out it fell, it unfurled read

“If you get this, I am dead”

And here, I could read no more

I fell and wept in growing dread

For a dream I can’t ignore

Of a nameless, placeless shore

Broke the bottle, burned the note

For the dream, it was no more.

Yet once upon the other day

As of empty try I tire

Girl ‘neath midday glass and sun

Her reflection made of fire.

Who needs enemies when we've got friends like you? ~ Anberlin

Lovers 

We're on the run
Our tail lights reflecting
Off hood whites we're leaving behind
I can almost smell the sunshine.
Telling your lies for power and fame
Hiding yourself for whatever you gain
Baby, come clean, just tell me your name
And I swear you'll sleep freer tonight.
I watch your fingers stroking the keys
And how I wish it was me
And I don't even know who you are
Better yet, I doubt that I care
Baby don't stare
Cause I see sunshine in your eyes
But I can't taste it yet.
Don't worry, I won't forget
I'll leave before you wake up
So your image remains
And maybe one day I won't
Maybe one day I'll stay
Just let time slip away
Just see what the future may bring
If this means anything;
And maybe you'll hate me
And maybe you'll take me for all that I have
Just so long as you'll take me at all.
Oh baby, I don't care who's between your sheets
Just tell me your secrets and I'll be complete
I see the border and smell the sunshine
I reach for your love but I know that it ain't mine
Cause we're still on the run.
Just stop hiding who you are
We can almost taste it, it isn't very far
Just to love and be loved in return.

The Destroyer of Worlds

Void

I  am twilight
A temporary state
That has lingered on too long
A momentary passing time
Made better when it's gone.
I am seclusion
For all that I'm so long without
I'm better left alone.
I'm stood alone on endless hope,
Hear foolish call my name
"Madness" I argue
"Madness" I scream
"Madness" the echoes answer back the same.
Pray the Lord above
Forgive uncertain hearts
In these unfaithful times
"Madness" the echoes answer back my crimes.
I am void
The endless unremembered, unforgotten vague
The all-consuming absence, the all-consuming rage.
I am blood
The dripping, oozing abscess
That tarnishes your gaze
As my glass eyes do pierce it
Quite literally, I'm afraid.
Though you don't believe me yet
Don't know sorrow is its name
I beseech you, don't find out the same.
I am the lonely soul
The empty heart
The vacant, absent stare.
I am death
For we all know I don't belong.
I am death
Though I cannot find my way home.