In the vaulted cathedral of night
An endless chandelier of stars
Dangles brightly overhead
Where bedded oceans
Speak whispered waves
Upon a shore of bronze-grey
Sometimes in the recompense of chance
Two hands pass
In fleeting grasps along parallel lines
Where neither gravity nor time
Stays long enough for tea
And neither do we
Surety for a pact yet unfulfilled
These glimmering fragments
Of twinkle-eyed enchantments
Blow in on the offshore breeze
For a dance on the hem
Of secret seas
Beneath the chandelier of stars
Where all we are
And all we ever were
Is a blaze of torn sky
Trespassing the atmosphere in night
To write initials
In a constellation
Visible for one millionth of a moment
To be held on lips too small
And kept in safes too thin
Before the breeze returns
And claims its stray sand dancers
Beneath a chandelier of stars
Dreams Of A Flightless Bird
A wisp of scented breeze
Over gently stirring fields
If time is here at all
Then it must be standing still
My heart escapes my chest
A balloon without a string
The body that it left
All the evidence it came
I want to drift away
Where the mountains meet the sky
Ascending on the storm
Like a bird
I want to disappear
Without waving a goodbye
The sun to keep me warm
On my way
A wisp of scented breeze
Is my harbinger of grace
If pain was ever real
Then it must have been erased
My dreams escape my head
Like a flock of winter geese
These endless numbered days
Are the path to my release
I want to drift away
Where the ocean hugs the shore
The tide beneath my wings
Like a bird
I want to disappear
Like the early morning dew
Alive again and new
On my way
Like this:
Band of Gypsies
What are we
If not a band of gypsies
A ragtag parade
Of patchwork serenades
And I, the minstrel
In reverberating strains
Building chorus from chaos
And bridges from pain
What are we
If not a tribe of jesters
A knick knack collage
Of midnight sabotage
And I, in makeup
Performing for the stars
Stealing laughter from disaster
With a silicon heart
Like this:
The Darkness
The darkness
The number of our days
The black abyss of dreams
The emptiness reluctantly I crave
The silence
The absence of a flame
The sacrifice of love
The solitude of losing it again
The anguish
The soft mortality
The ticking of the hands
The suffering that never will be seen
The distance
The place you used to be
The disarray of life
The questions we will never understand
The darkness
Is suffocating me
The accident of hope
The disappointments woven in our eyes
The darkness
The wreckage of belief
The vacuum in my soul
The sovereignty that could not be denied
Like this:
When I Get Tired Of You
When I get tired of you
The leaves on the trees will have died
All the flowers have folded
And the forest have withered and dried
When I get tired of you
Singers will run out of songs
Lovers will have no more passion
Streets will be rid of their throngs
When I get tired of you
Books will be blank without words
Seasons will cease from their turning
Dawn will be failing to stir
When I get tired of you
The sun will have melted away
Earth will be frozen and barren
And colors all faded to gray
When I get tired of you
The stars will have burnt out their light
The heavens plunged deep into darkness
And angels have long lost their sight
When I get tired of you
My body will lay without motion
My heart will be still in it’s beating
My mind be devoid of devotion
When I get tired of you
Time will have slowed to a stand
All of the elements shattered
God lost the strength in his hand
When I get tired of you
No one will be there to see
Because I can’t get tired of you
So please don’t get tired of me
Like this:
A Question Is An Answer
A question is an answer if the answer is a question
A mystery is ruined when the secrets are all told
A moment is a lifetime when you live within the moment
The past was once our present but the future never comes
We love to hate the things we wish we never had to know
We hate to love the things we know we never can possess
We seem to be the best as seeing all the worst within us
But often we are worst at seeing what we do the best
I wish I wished I never knew you though I know I don’t
I’m glad to say I’m sad to know I never will forget
The smiles that make me cry inside and tears for which I smile
I’m proud that I’m ashamed to say I cannot find regrets
You’re always here when you are gone and present when you’re missing
I couldn’t do the things I could for fear I’m not afraid
A question is my answer when I ask if we are asking
For changes we would like to think we thought we might have made
Like this:
Black Lake
Still, like death
The lake awaits
Unbroken glassy surface
Like a mirror peering wickedly
Into a soulless sky
Swaths of mist
Arise and drift
In loosely woven curtains
Just beyond where earth and water meet
Across the silent tides
There beneath
In waters deep
Entombed upon the bottom
Lies a remnant otherworldly fleet
Forsaken by the earth
Biding still
Their time until
A winter swallows autumn
And the ripples wake this blackened lake
To lend their corpses birth
Like this:
Damaged
Heightening the voltage
Call it current circumstance
I am tightening the wires
Buried deep beneath my skin
Plunging in the dosage
Call it getting to the point
I am ready for sedation
But the needle must have bent
Strap me down–steel restraints
Hold me back from what I want
Everything is damaged in the brain
Pardon me–it’s just the pain
I was once…no, never mind
I have always been a bit this way
Like this:
Sarcasm: The Last True Language Of Love
God so loved the world
But the world so loved itself
Strike a match and start it up
We could use a bit of help
Everything is broken
But we play with it just fine
Keep your hands inside the circle
Keep your things away from mine
Oh, they call it falling
Call it falling if you like
But we fell before we started
And we all are brokenhearted
Dissonance is bliss
All our comedy is free
Light up this apocalypse
And save a seat for me
Amorous and oh-so-coy
Inflated with the words you say
If love is indestructible
Then plunge it through my arteries
Perhaps the silver bullet
To a world full of intelligence
Is found within the confines
If our cynical romanticism
Just when I thought arrogance
Could be the death of us
I took a chance on sentiments
And got shot right through my gut
Like this:
Marionette
Tugged from the box where her wrappings protect her
Carefully placed on the stage
Strings on the joints that will make her an actor
Fit for the part she will play
It’s a clever surprise
It’s a perfect charade
Not a soul would suspect
All the nights she has cried
With this sturdy disguise
And a smile that won’t fade
She is dancing in time
But she’s empty inside
Held up by ribbons and strings to support her
Well rehearsed lines and replies
Looking so much like the girl they have ordered
But for those colorless eyes
It’s a masterful turn
It’s a desperate act
To protect what is left
Of a magical life
But she packs it away
When she exits the back
And the smiles are gone
When she’s down for the night
Little marionette, you don’t have to pretend
You were made without strings
You were born into tears
Little marionette, you have color and skin
You can mount up with wings
You are stronger than fear
Little marionette, let the audience wait
They can come back again
You don’t have to perform
Little marionette, it is never too late
If you really must dance
Would you dance in my arms?
Like this:
Mimic
You lie
You lie
You evil thing
You look so much like one I love
But you are only pixels made to mimic what I crave
You lie
You lie
You wicked light
A mockery of smiles and life
You useless substitution for the things I fight to save
You lie
To me
So bold, you do
And I, too desperate to see
Am taken in your faking like a starving little wretch
You lie
You give
Me plastic food
But still I grasp it hungrily
This tiny morsel of the thought–the last of what is left
Like this:
Tense
What tense are in you in?
Do you have? Have you had?
Was it ever so good? Is it ever so bad?
What tense are you in
Where you are? Where you were?
Was it nice? Is it right? Was it him? Is it her?
What tense are you in?
Can you think–Have you thought
That the feelings you feel are still felt from the heart?
What tense are you in?
I have, had, and will keep
A love for you there that is present and deep
Like this:
The Night/The Open Road
The night–the open road
Where hand-in-hand the lovers go
With quiet eyes and hungry souls
And in the lights, a path is shown
But only to the end of where
The beam illuminates the way
And to their darkened fate they plunge
With hands and fingers wound as one
The night–the open road
Where fading in his arms she hung
Against the still receding songs
From newly smoldered wreckage sung
Now overturned, the spinning wheels
Of those whose light can see just far
Enough to drive them further on
Into the dangers of the dark
Like this:
The Greatest Advantage Of Formal Attire Is The Ability To Conceal Heavy Weaponry
Tip the hat
But we can see behind your back
Where you are brandishing your sword
To strike the tragic little masochistic amorists
And in fact
I slipped a tray beneath my slacks
In case you had a sudden urge
To take a shot across this heavy sided playing field
But we are not the petty little thieves
Stealing hearts and leaving roses in their places
We are calibrating spaces
No, we are not the foolish ones, it seems
Waging wars and leaving cratered devastation
Like some morbid recreation
Take a bow
But are they clapping for you now
It seems the crowd has turned around
To read the teleprompter leaking through the velveteen
Faking out
The loyal masses with their doubts
Is getting harder with so
Many who believe in sewing hearts upon their sleeves
But we are not the decorated whores
Selling beauty in the dens of conversation
We are tracing desperation
Oh, we are not the serpentine parade
With our tongues around the fruit of policy
We are the uninvited free
Like this:
If My Pen Were A Friend We Would Not Be On Speaking Terms
Black
The ink is so black
The words are so dark
I must be writing from the heart
The stains are so deep
The lines are so weak
I must be writing from the heart
Sad
The thoughts are so sad
The quill is so sharp
I must be writing from the heart
The strokes are so bleak
The notes are so scarred
I must be writing from the heart
Like this:
Elegy For A Cell Phone
Each time I look at you
Your face so bright and smooth
I see the world within your glance
And I could hold the view
For hours if you choose
But I may never have that chance
For time has taken you
And love and it’s demands
Have dimmed the vibrance of your light
Left you in colors blue
Here lying in my hands
Slowly to slip away tonight
Please don’t leave me here
Alone without your glow
Don’t leave me silent by myself
To see you lying there
Lifeless and so cold
My only, there is no one else
I want to turn you on
I want to make you speak
I want to warm you up inside
I want to feel you move
And bring you back to me
I want to take you for a drive
But I will lay you here
And wait so patiently
I will caress you back to life
‘Till I can touch your face
And take you out with me
To keep you safely by my side
Don’t delay your strength
And don’t forget your words
I need your messages to send
So please come back to me
Give me all you have
And I will charge you up again
Like this:
Migratory
So delicate against my palm
My pretty bird
I held you close
And cradled you when you would come
To call upon me
With every note your precious song
Awakened love
Inside my heart
A symphony of open sky
And clouds below me
I curse the cold that drove you out
A banished form
A faded tune
To come no more against my ears
Or cheer the lonely
And pray someday you may return
My migratory
Little bird
I paid your passage with my tears
And miss you always
Like this:
Protest
Clutched, I find our picket signs are
Painted hearts on wicked minds
Graffiti love–this sleepless town
A neon drug with wired sounds
The weak, the few, the scattered are
The warriors of tomorrow’s coup
Indifference: the enemy
The power: us. The weapon: you.
The cause is what we make of it
With future eyes’ unsilenced gaze
Across the codes we write of love
Across the viruses of hate
We pen a history to come
A melody as yet unsung
And cast our vote beneath the sheets
Of being free–of being we
Like this:
Quite Warm
I found you
Arms pulling knees in to shield off the dark
I found you
Crippled and broken–collapsed on the wall
I found you
Clutching your chest in a bid for your heart
I said “there you are, love”
You said “this isn’t me”
Something happened out there in the silence
I said “come to me, love”
You said “I cannot breathe”
All these bones have been crushed from the violence
I found you
Wounded and lost with those marks on your back
I found you
Cold and abandoned with shivering hands
I found you
Shrinking away from the thought of attack
I said “trust me, my dear”
You said “I cannot move”
In the corner where you had retreated
I said “do not be scared”
You said “what can I do?”
With the strength in your muscles depleted
I found you
Helpless and cold on the untidied floor
I took you
Up in my arms from the shadows below
I told you
“I will not leave you. You needn’t cry more”
“I have a heart that could keep you quite warm”
Like this:
Tale of the Vanishing Artist
His footsteps, once upon a time
Struck soundly on the paved walk
In steady, even beats they rang
Into the crowded streets they sang
A chorus of ambitious thought
They did before, but now do not
His fingers, once upon a time
Performed their craft for crowded rooms
To raise the spirits of the saints
And soothe the souls of those who faint
A glimpse of hope to them impart
They did before, but now do not
His eyes, oh, once upon a time
Were brilliant blue and spoke the truth
Believing in a better plight
Believing they could set things right
Without the fear of falling short
They did before, but now do not
For once upon a time, it seems
He vanished into nouns and verbs
And faded into distant dreams
To still be seen but never heard
His soul translated into rhyme
His heart converted into poem
No more to walk among the world
But now, at last, at rest–at home
