Light

For grace did shine
Upon the retched and despair
Forgotten chimes
Hidden within the shadows
And backrooms of the heart

Small and flickering,
Pretty little light of thine
Hidden from the cold, shaken soul

There sits the basement of chapel
Bells singing
Choirs reciting
And the promise of a child's faith

Not forgotten
Just forgotten
Waiting to spring spring
On a weary and wasted wanderer
And I recall
Oh, I recall, it all

Generic Cut & Paste Take 6

It's her spaghetti strap
In an overlap
Falling down the banister
climbing up both legs

It's in the back room
In the back store
In the closet
behind the box of

Everything within her hands
was lost before
the night began
to worry
What's that look on her face for?
Everything that's come to pass
was bottled up
inside that dance
together
What's that's look on her face for?

It's with the minister
with his barrister
And he's very stern
Watching it slide on by

It's in the words he says
What she doesn't say
For a moment they'll
think back to what was

56

Today,
I don't think I wanna be me
Okay?
So just let me drift on the sofa
And I'll be anything
Anything,
But what's in my head

When I say
This world is an envelope
Containing a letter I'd rather not read
I swear,
I didn't know that it could be past due
For everything I know
I swear

Cloud cotton candy
Day dreaming dizzy
The back porch is rotting
Out in the sun

It seems that we never
Talk silent
And I am
All that's too blame
For the words in my head

When I say
I'm down for whatever you may possibly throw my way any way whatever you say
I swear
That I lied
I swear

18 and laughing
6 years and running
My heart is no more
Nor shadows nor stone

Dandelion Wars

When I was
When I was
Sixes and Sevens
Seven-Eight-Nine

It was the years of my summer
And I was still new upon this earth

I held a stick for a sword
The battlefield laid out before me
In my back yard
With an enemy
-Damn fierce-
Armies in the dandelions
Marching all day long

With only me to take the fight to them

When I was
When I was...

Here I am,
31 years old or so
At sixes and sevens
Already set in my ways
With sicknesses and syndromes
Soliloquies on serviettes
I cannot help but wonder
-Drowning from the inside out-
In the space of two dozen summers
Where the hell the warrior went?

No blade as sharp as time

When I was
When I was

Soon I'll be older than you

It's been six years
Feels like forever
For a mother, daughter
Sister to two brothers
Could it be another?

Twelve years
Where did all the time go?
Watching all the grass grow
Forgetting all the in-jokes
Wonder if I still know

It's been ten years
Now we're getting closer
Now I'm getting older
Salt over my shoulder
Am I getting colder

Eight years
Finally the truth
And how can it be,
I'll soon be older than you?
Older than you.
With memories fading
You're never aging
Ageless and retaining
Youth

It's always appropriate when it rains today.

Ninety And Nine

The neighbors are quiet
Everyone's gone inside
On a sunny bright but forgotten eve
Satellites are catching rays
In bursts of sound and stratosphere
And I'm colliding with the rest of them
Colluding with the unescaped
Collecting fragments of ourselves
Our past.

There's a whisper on the lips
Of demigods and debutantes
Fears and conflagration
And pastels on the walls

With a Sunday shade of worship
We all concede the field
It wasn't what we hoped for
Wasn't what we asked for
And we're colliding once again

She needs to wash her windows,
He's got to change the oil
There are pine cones in the pool out back
There is family coming in from Perth

Carefully, and constantly pushing further on

I never understood
How it can be
When ninety and nine of the world want peace
Ninety and nine just want to be left alone
How one can end it all.

Let The Drama Kid Die

Now I'm starting to worry
And the sentences aren't coming so easy
Anymore

The music doesn't seem to turn up loud enough
To drown out the thoughts
Anymore

Where did I go right now?
It's hard to tell
Hard as a God-damned man

Broken English
Dropped expression
No heart left in the thoughts
I'm left wondering again

The street lights don't offer a sanctuary
To a broken heart
Anymore

I'm not some stupid kid
Tripping over his own clumsy feet
Anymore

What am I right now?
I'm not, anymore
I know that
But it's hard to tell
Hard as a God-damned man

drowning from within

Forgive me if I go on
I'm only diseased
I'll smile and I'll play nice
From behind the scenes

I'd really rather feel
Anyway but how I feel

Spent the last fifteen holding onto dreams
That were foolishly calculated
In my idiot teens

I want to fall back, laugh, and run
Get away and maybe then
I won't play foil again

Maybe just end up back here roughin' it

Running in circles makes me dizzy
Makes me want to scream
"It isn't ice water
It's something else in his veins"

To live afraid of drowning
Even I can see the humor in
The irony of a man
Drowning in his own skin

To say what?
To say I say the least
If no one else wants to
Why should I want to be me?

God Save Mr. Partridge

Where?

The question we have in common,
Though you'll probably never see
It's the one that's been there since the beginning
Infecting the creation of everything

One more stanza,
How could we refrain?
I'm not questioning the cobwebs
Not who or What forms the rain

All I ask, is what we all want to know
Where did we come from,
Before anything came to be?
Where did that first moment
Exist in our reality?

You can keep your big theories
I can keep my God,
Ultimately we're both believers
That we're here at all

Your Eyes

Green,
Like two peridots they gleam.
A shade of envy,
For affections, I'm envious to glean.

Green,
The color that looks best on everything
And that's why I gotta keep,
Gotta keep your eyes on me

Is it an affectation,
If my words never find the intended audience?
Or is it just indicative
Of a soul that's somehow lost?

Green,
The color that looks best on me
So you know I gotta keep
Gotta keep your eyes on everything

.5

I'm not her
Anymore,
Than she could be we
I'm not selling the customer on the misinformation
That seems to be feeding me
I'm not dazzling brilliant
Softly array
Not head and shoulders
Standing tall on the backs
of your prey
I'm not 'I haven't felt this way in so long'
I'm not the final verse in her favorite song
Everything I am seems to be
Thin lines transparent
Covering other's transparencies
To say I'm in over my head,
would be like repeating an old line:
These days I feel over all the time
Recycled words in my mouth
Like pulling oil
Swishing it back and forth
I don't know how much more I can take of this non-profit
Just point and click,
upsell respect,
Turn your head,
Deep, deep breath,
now spit.

.4

Telling tales never got me anywhere
Just a drop off point in the middle of exclamation
With words that pour from the faucet
Ideas that cling like static
Hopelessness even as I'm hoping still

In the end they tell me - in the end all that matters is what came before
In the end they tell me, nothing really matters before it all

Comes crashing
Blasting
Like a shadow chasing a ball
Caustic
But not causing it
Like the acid corroding away us all

In the end they tell me, nothing really matters before the end

.3

You be in charge of me
I'll be in charge of you
You can grab my coat
And I'll help you with your boots

Oh, I, think it might rain today
But between you and me,
That's okay
I was never really bothered by rain
It's the days without weather
I can't take
And anyway
I think I can handle anything today

.2

Where with her, he thought suddenly, solemnly
She's just another angler, angling
Dangling the dream
She treats life like it's just a facsimile
Indifferent to say the least

She wears her smile like her press on nails
Breaking when scratching at a surface
Twin spirals
A Gemini pushing through the outside
Two sides to every story
And she always has five

415

She's charging around my heart,

Like a bull in a china shop

Just a quiet girl, at the bus stop

She takes the 4:15

Every day it seems

Sits across from me

I don't know why it is

I always feel like such a wreck

Sitting on the 4:15

She walks across the parking lot

A mile from where they drop me off

Just oblivious

There's an ocean tearing at my seems

A mouthful of words I can't release

Every afternoon, when I'm sitting across from her

On the 4:15

I'm exclamation points and capslock

When we pull up to her bus stop

My eyes resting on the clock

When it's 4:15

Yeah, Again

Sorry mister, seems you just missed her
The girl with the too-long sleeves
Is unraveling at the seams

Should have been there
Had to be there
To get the joke

Not that it's in or out
Not that she's in or out
We're nothing if not extreme

Until they dance again
Fabled misery
Twisted hearts
Entwined, but unwinding
The girl with the too-long sleeves
And the boy with the headphones on his hip

Tell him how you feel
If you can pry the music
From his cold dead stare

Starry Starry night
He cuts his heart
Like others cut cocaine

No more mystery
Too much history
Behind his eyes

Until they dance again
Like they did eleven-ty years ago
Bowing, then promenade
Unbound, but binding
The girl with the too-long sleeves
And the boy with the headphones on his hip

Surreptitiously

"If it's a mistake, we're making
I'm happy it's with you..."

Bet you didn't know she cries at night
When the lights go dim
And the laughter's gone

Bet you didn't know
She only smiles bright for you

In the end, together in the end,
All the loose ends get tied down

Bet you didn't know she lies all the time
The melancholy she hides
Is closer than a friend

Bet you didn't know
You're all that separates her from herself

For "all the right reasons" sometimes
Is the worst reason of all

March of the Centipede

When I die, bury me on a hill
I wont roll down now
But everyone will see
Make it under the shade please,
Of a tall, old, bent birch tree


And now I see it, see it
Sunshine around the eye line
Just a fading back
Now towards the downtown,
In a frosty not quite spring

Fire up an old fashioned comet,
A star to sail over me
I'm out of wishes,
But I wish just one last thing
When you think of them
Don't think of me.

Dinosaurs in Lithology

Misery is misery
I never quite seem to find
When I'm pretending to be happy
That solitary peace of mind

People tell me to 'enjoy life,'
'To be happy with what you have'
'After all what's the point of having anything
If the little things don't make you laugh?'

My mind's just never worked that way
I always seem to feel the dark
Clawing out through spiderwebs
And eclipsing mind and heart

I feel like apologizing all the time
Though I don't know how to begin
My head is so full of thoughts
Everything just feels like an end

Grayscale

I won't do

The avenue, windswept, darkened by time
The whole damn street is wiped
Bled away the light
While the comets crashed overhead

Now it's like flowing backwards
Floating in a pool on a sunny day
When all I could see when I looked to my left
Was you

How it came to be? Reading too much
Into stars
And the day after Valentines

All life demands change
It's the nature of nature
Burning our bridges for us
Without even having to be asked

But I'd still dance with you,
Even if my card was full