2

I dreamed a dream the other night

I dreamed a dream of flight

And in this dream I dreamed I dreamt

There was no ground in sight

I dreamed of gold and shiny wings

Made from all the finest kings

Wisdom passed through all the ages

I dreamed my wings were forged of sages

Made of magic, woven light

I dreamed I flew throughout the night

And in the morning when I woke

I dreamed my wings were curling smoke

Wisping off into the sky

I dreamed my dreams were all a lie

That I found my wings were made of wax

That I was sleeping on my back

And that I could not fly.

Then at last I woke.

1

Everything begins
And so everything must die
Thus as the death inside us ends
We start to come alive.
Everything has an end
For even God must die
To bring to pass the very ash
That holds the spark of time.
To bring to pass the very last
Moment of our demise
And let everything begin
Indeed, begin again.

We tout our generosity
Ignoring animosity
For what does mere calamity
Know about magnanimity?
We think that anonymity's
More horrible than infamy
'Tis better dealt in treachery
Than fading to ignominy
Blinded by our impotence
We mistake it for magnificence
And amble with due diligence
Toward our own impermanence
Sightless for thinking we can see.
Undaunted by our arrogance
Unhaunted by the whims of chance
A game's  a name for a lover's dance
Addicted fools are we.
And should we ever realize
That our very soul is atrophied
We only pause to wonder why
We did not exorcise (it sooner)
For what is conscience but a disease?
So we sit among the petrified
Entombed by truths we told as lies
Alone but for unbroken pride
Unaware we're on our knees.

I am a god
Relentless and powerful
Unfettered and free.
I am the king of all that I see
All I am now
All I ever will be.
A leaf on the breeze
Blown toward the sea.
Tiny and dead
Forgetten in deed.
I am the sea
Tumultuous, changeless
Changing and free.
Blow by the winds
And pulled by the breeze.
Held by the moon
In a lock with no key.
Controlled by forces still greater than me.
Trailing along in gravity's greed.
A wake for a wake
There are no good deeds,
A little man with cut strings
Is no mystery
Just floating along on the infinite sea.
Not a god, not a lake
Not even a breeze
Just a leaf on the wind
'Neath the King of all see.

Coward

If you're the sun, surrounded by your stars
I sit outside alone, counting passing cars
If you're a light, to everyone you meet
A neon green to everyone you greet
Then (yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow)
I'm red, even when no one's within miles.
All I ever wanted to be:
Was just a whisper passing someone's lips
Just within someone's outstretched fingertips
Just a face forgotten in the crowd
Instead of outside, begging to be found
(A fellow, fellow, fellow, fellow)
Always surrounded by
(yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow)
Red, whenever I'm around.
I only wanted to be:
Just another breath, burning through your lungs
(hello, hello, hello, hello)
Just a song, hoping someday to be sung
Those are my hopes you're crashing on the shore
There are my dreams, now dying on your floor
Can you even hear me knocking at your door
(hello, hello, hello, hello)
When all I ever wanted to be was nothing more
Than just another breath.

Everything has passed me by
In the sea, in the wind
I'm left without an alibi
For everything I don't begin.
Darling look now, look away
Ignore the shifting, swirling fray
And do not look me in the eye
This man without a face.
Oh love, so misadventured
Expired before its time
The pleasures now indentured
The duties now a grind.
(Darling, I'm a lie)
I thought perhaps another try
Would gift another face
But I remain unchanged
A man without a place.
(Darling, I've no face)
A yellow streak
From cheek to cheek
Is all that dwells above my neck
If you seek my features,
Darling do not trace,
You'll find nothing there,
Well, nothing good,
Only more mistakes.

A hallway,  iridescent neon glow
Eyes that burn as bright as snow
Doorways beckon, to stay or go.
A fingertip, tracing down a cheek
A glance that's making knees go weak
Desire that turns the bold to meek.
A picture branded in your mind
A dream you thought you'd  left behind
Love is patient, love is kind.
A city, nestled on a hill
A light to douse, a right to kill
A baby born in twilight's chill.
Become became became
Hist'ry grew without a name
Choices made endure in shame.
Thresholds burn the endless fire
Ev'ry weary soul more tired
The ling'ring of the final ire.
Upon that ilk, the finite ends
Upon a child, the mystery bends
And in a babe, real love descends.

On a night in January

A child is born at last

And half a mother's fears

Lie dying in the past

And half a mother's fears

In her arms are newly born.

Mid-day in February

A baby breathes his last

And half a mother's hopes

Lie scattered as the ash

And half a mother's tears

Will never come to pass.

One morning in March

A baby comes to life

A father grins and grieves the same

The happiness, the strife

A father grins and grieves the name

Of struggle come to life.

Lunchtime now in April

A child begins to crawl

Her parents cheer and hide their fear

Knowing one day she must fall

Her parents cheer and hide their tears

Hoping one day she'll stand tall.

Suppertime in May

A baby fights for breath

A mother cries, a father tries

To barter life for death

A mother tries, a father cries

To fight fear's blackest depth.

Twilight in the Summer

Turns Midnight in the Fall

And parents cheer and fear and grieve

The mystery of it all

And parents cheer and fear and grieve

That their child was born at all.

For fear grows ever stronger

And faith grows hard to find

Hope's eternal spring a trickle

And death isn't far behind.

Dusk in late December

With a cry, the night is torn

A real mother and a foster dad

Weep as a veil is rent and shorn

A real mother and a foster dad

Now seeing what has long been sworn

The death of fear they now adorn

The dark of doubt now lies forlorn

The dam that held back hope, unmourned

As the death of death has now been born.

In hay, with cattle, and wholly scorned

The death of fear and death is born.

I'm right here beside you
We're so far apart
Though as close as your heartbeat
You're hiding your heart.
You know what you want
But you can't face yourself
You fear who you are
Don't know how to tell.
If you're a spark
I'm combustion
If you're a cinder
I'm flame
I'm your end and beginning
The giver of names
The author of story
The wielder of time
The essence of glory
To your muck, toil and grime
In your pride you find fears
And in your hopes, tears
Yet I am the keeper of all of your years.
Behind you, beside you
Below you, above
I am the holder of all that you love
And your doubt keeps you arms length
Even as you would draw me in
But I am greater still than all that's within.
In your pride you withdraw
In your fear you withdrew
Can't bring yourself closer
So I come to you.

Cloudburst
A bearer of fury
An ominous bringer of rage
Ferocity
Raw, undiluted
Suspending this minute-less age
The world is an oyster I'm told
The irritants within bought and sold
You're never too young to grow old
Damn, ain't that a shame.
Slipped between two sides of shell
The insignificant swells
Into greedy little white hells
What's in a name?
What once was worthless now prized
What cost nothing now priced
If irritants are valued as nice
How much greater the shame.
Typhoon
With tsunami waves
Aggression, depression, insane.
Unleashed
Undammed in the fray
Uncoiling our desperate pain.
What will our folly create that remains?
What if true beauty's not human in shade?
Storms in a teacup
Rage in a cage
Are we changing to pearls
Are we better with age
Or are we too many to be truly appraised?
What if life's but a storm, quickly comes, quickly fades?

I often think I'm more afraid of heaven than I am of hell

Eternity

Lights blur down the runway
Until life un-sights my eyes
The flash before, the desp'rate roar
Blood pressure quickly skies
And I wonder if the distant shore
Is just another lie.
Darling, though your eyes should seep
Though your fears should quickly steep
Ignore the brewing, rumbling deep
And look to leave the lights behind.
Ignore the doubts that follow you
Oh love, ignore the skies
Ignore the clouding weep around
Though it strip you to the rind.
Just keep your eyes affixed below
Just keep one thought in mind
That all the dreams you careful stow
Are now sown amid the grind.
For we were never meant to soar
As though heaven were an open door
So baby, dry your eyes
And spurn the runway evermore
For some things should never fly.

How many questions equals an answer?

Driftwood

I'm an analog man in a digital age
A wind-up toy in a digital maze
A long-forgotten soul in a time out of place
Another pinwheeler searching for grace.
Anachronism beckons, history begets
A fog, a haze, a riddle, nations full of debts
Fools bereft of substance with hearts full of regrets
What if I change and I find nothing's left?
If I awake to pain, am I awake at all
If shame could wear a name, oh, who would it be called?
If I should never change, there's nowhere left to fall
If I remain the same, am I the same at all?
I'm a square wooden peg for a robotic board
A lone rat in a maze in a digital hoard
Trampled by doubts, then drawn, quartered and gored
If life is a movie then death is my score.
I'm drifting alone on whatever's come late
Out of time, out of place, out of love, out of hate
Just floating along in the great empty space
Are we what we are or can a man change his fate?

Oh, should good tomorrows remain but a dream
And should promises fail to be what they seem
Then I'll be your winter and you'll be my spring.

Should triumph last minutes, and failure endure
Should heartache come swiftly, and doubt without cure
I'll follow you certain, and I'll lead you sure.

Should brilliance be blinding in it's holy light
Then I'll be the darkness that holds you at night
And I'll be the shadows that trail from your sight.

Should I stumble and falter, trip, fall and fail
You hold me and heal me with hands strong and frail
If mere love is a breeze, then we'll be a gale.

Forever my balance between two extremes
Holding together world apart at its seams
Folly of all follies, yet dream of all dreams:

I'll love you for always, and you will love me.

The Tarzan soundtrack is pretty slick

Arthur

In every child there dwells a king
A horse, a knight, a sword that sings
A shield burnished until it gleams.
In every child there lives a queen
In formal clothes with a crown that seems
To be made of light and formed of dreams.
Tales of talking animals and castle moats
Of ivory towers and pirate boats
Of soaring gracefully through the sky.
We start to grow and we cease to hope
Make our first mistake and learn to cope
By forgetting we once thought to fly.
With each mistake we're less a child
With each failure we're growing wild
While our dreams are growing tame.
And everything that once we knew
Has become more fable and less true
And slowly we've become the same.
Because the problem is, as problems go
That what once was truth, now stories told
To children just to keep them still,
Our worldviews shrink in depth and width
Thinking heroes mostly myth
Yet still thinking monsters real.

Blue Oyster Cult

Cloak

Alone I sat, alone I watched
Embraced the feeling of life botched
Beyond any hopes of repair
Though lurking, could not find her there.
Alone, contemplated swallow
Purposeless and feeling hollow
Yet still I wait alone, alone
I wait in prostrate, wilt alone
Just this side of my surrender
Lone, alone, without defender
I sense her lurking out of sight
She's stalking through my dreams each night
I wait for her to capsize me
This lonely boat on lonely seas
But come for me she never does
Regret all that I ever was
For she lingers, just to my right
Won't step forward into the light
And I can't walk into the dark
So we circle, and so we spark
I beg her come, she makes me wait
I'm desp'rate, wish life would abate
In depression and in remorse
I feint and feel her alter course
I throw my life upon her scythe
Despair for what would never be,
Upon her blade, this last charade
Played out for all the world to see
Death fin'lly came to comfort me.

The rains that beat down the flower strengthen it in time

Wilt

Looking for myself, I went
Searching for some peace, I found
'Ever else my soul was sent
'Twas mere running of the round
Circles upon circles ran
Riddles piled on riddles there
If man changes what he can
Then all that moves is the where.
Seeking my lost dreams, I left
Hoping upon hope, I drowned
Hands once so deft, now bereft
Floundering can't save me now.
What once was well now sickens
Seeing are become the blind
Despair's dark mist now thickens
Empathy chokes on the rind
Of the fruit of agony
Ripens in this harrowed hell
There upon the killing tree
Look for blood to make me well.
Yearning for myself, I fled
Desp'rate for belief, I lied
Took both truth and false to bed
I laid with them and I cried
In that twisted symmetry
I lost all I had reclaimed
I knew then there was no me
Save in one without a name.
Hide behind the robes of doubt
I creep softly near the throne
Hoping Love will hear me out
Place it's heart upon mine own
Lay bare, follies of my soul
Hear the ancient chorus sung
There to find myself in whole
Come, oh Lord, my Lord, I come.

Imagine

Porch

No freedom from this chrysalis
Can't break from broken life
Caged inside the endless wish
Singing pain from down the strife.
Ain't no new and shiny wings
No flitter, flutter, ain't no fly
No shape appear remaking things
No fly away, no by and by.
Can't stop my dreaming with no noose
Fingers scrabble for release
Done pulled it tight, let it loose
World swings beneath my feet
And they done think it's through
But someday won't be coccooned
Someday life be born anew
Somethin's changed, and doom is doomed
And they ain't see what it be they do
Think killing part done killed the whole
But ain't no trigger kill a soul.

Squeegee is a fun word to say

Mute

Adrift within the mist and haze
Wanderers trapped within a daze
A daydream of a coming
The rains, they fall in green and gray
Softly heard, the pull and sway
Of ancient psalms now humming
Through floods and through the drownings
New buds and blooms come crowning
And hope, a hymn now thrumming
Does not seem so very far away
But for now the world is bleak and gray
And the rains they sound of drumming
The steady beat of yesterdays
The rains have come, are here to stay
Nature's hopes stop strumming
The flowers droop, are beaten down
Leaves are wilting toward the ground
Away from rain's incoming.
Blackness rears it's feral head
Thinking endless hues are dead
That monochrome is numbing
Dumbing our minds, dulling our senses
Yet operating under false pretenses
It could not hear the humming.
For every wilted flower has a beauty of it's own
As if through a veil, before a throne
We'll stand tall, embrace the sunning
And for forgotten shores our souls will sail
All will be well, all will be well
All will be now, with no more coming.

Kaleidoscopes/Collide-oscopes

Sistine

Everything starts with a spark

Even darkness came not from the dark

Even sharpness came not from the blade

But from all that would break it, afraid

As they were of the spark, yes

Afraid as they were of the dark.

Death did not come from itself, no

It did not arise and swallow us whole

For death is merely a rest stop

A halfway house in the dead drop

A place between burning and cold

A place between owning and sold.

A gateway joining souls young and old

Is a bridge that's worth burning I'm told

For each generation's insistence

Is that all the others were senseless

That conformity is the new bold

That the past is best left in the cold.

And everything crumbles to dust

Diamonds turn fragments as ore becomes rust

For none of us stand for a thing

No one is armed with a stone and a sling

As ignorance is the new trust

Tolerance is the new just.

Political correctness became the new right

Safety in numbers, right became might

Strength of arms, loudest voices

Now the blacksmiths of choices

And the armor we wear is too light

One blow and we're out of the fight.

Life now a pointless purveyor

A foolishly hopeful surveyor

Selling well-packaged half-truths

As we lustily gaze from the roof

Our hearts, the unspeakable traitors

Our hopes became our betrayers.

Nothing makes sense in this push and shove

Save the idea that this clay that we're made of

Still holds a spark of resistance

Still hopes that the whole of existence

And all that is spinning therein and thereof

Is kept holding on by your love, by your love.

Sunsets in the dark

Labyrinth 

In a house bereft of windows
I sat upon a dusty floor
I watched the changeless changings
I sat wishing for a door.
In a room without a shadow
I slept upon a dirty floor
I breathed the ash of ages spent
Dreaming there was something more.
Within a vacuum, in a void
I drifted lonely in the dark
A shell without a shred of soul
A soulless husk without a spark.
In an endless circling hall
I wander through the bleak
Everything is colored grey
Obscuring all that I would seek.
Upon infinite winding stairs
I climb without a reason
For nothing's ever here or there
There's no changing of this season.
In a life without a prayer
I live my solitary part
Breathing in my recycled air
Lives a man without a heart.
In that dark abyss of chest
A wish still fans the pyre
To breathe just once untainted air
And see the world on fire.