Throwing Up Tape

Throwing up tape.
Putting down tentpoles
Trying to keep up the roof
Of these stifled ambitions
The stranglehold of giants
Crushes this windpipe of life
And the self aware notions
Of the useless savant
Gives rise to motionless dreamers
Immune to fulfilment of wants
Standing idle in condemned houses
Counting down destruction
Plastering convoluted solutions
Up against foundations settling into obscurity
Attempting to maintain functionality
With bouts of normality
Ignoring demolitions
Scheduled for futures too near
The charges strapped to unwitting casualties
In the reconstruction of tomorrows
Not included in these fantasies of dreamers
Existing solely in their heads

Too late for wonderlands
When triggers fill their roles
Still throwing up tape
Putting down tentpoles
The shouts never rise from the unprepared
The truth of ruination
Dies buried in the wreck
The night falls quietly
And lies to us all
The lots will be cleared
When these dreamers come to call

Sky Blue?

Back when my heart pumped with a vigor
Know only by the youth of yesteryear
And the road stretched before me
Back when soft earth rustled underfoot
And the true color of the sky was known
We were told the world and consequently
Forced to wade through misconceptions and biased constraints
These eyes confuse me, yet this heart forgives them the things they see

Dying too quickly
Living too slow
Through the fire
And down the drain
Was the only way to go

Spreading the seeds of ourselves
Through our bluffs and our tells
The wandering walk on
To their graves and their cells

On the histories of the future
We were never more wrong
Our hopes manifest
We perpetuated so long
Trading ambition for expectation
As we clamor through the throng
The twilight of the morrow
The banging of the gong

On the precipice of fatal contradiction
Holding out hands to receive what we were due
Sits a child of every generation
Thrown the remains of all that they knew
Awash in acceptance of deterioration of faith
What is failure in the face of triumph
Mere Maybes tumbling from grace
Thoughts entertained for torturous results
The What-Ifs and Coulda-Beens
Both well established cults
Holding captive the masses
In prisons of self-pity and defeat
We fall victim to the game of society's greatest deceit
The lie proposed
The rules served us all
Equal and fair
We all took the fall
Into a barrel of crabs that we all became
My eyes watch the massacre
In the name of money and fame
The treachery forgotten as we scrapped at the walls
The tender scars on my heart cause my soul's somber call

The sky no longer breathes its tender caress
On the back of my neck I feel only death's excess
I look up at at ceilings of washed out white
Motionless and unchanging
No more flight just fight
I can hardly remember the shade of blue
The brilliant sunsets
The tone or hue
The vision of sunrise so strong and new
The misty fog and morning dew
Back when the true color of the sky was know

Blades Of Grass

I want a reason to fight convenience
I want a passion to burn me to the core
I want to reject that which I know I should accept
Because acquiescence would crush me completely
I want to stand on something bigger than my own two feet
With more than just fingers in my hand
I want to set something on fire in the metaphysical realm
And watch it burn into my perceptions
I want to kick the constructs of man
Till they sway to the beat of the world
Till my boot print stains their walls
I want armor crafted in the bowels of my insecurity
I want to whisper my truth through a speakerphone
And watch it travel from my grasp
I want you to love me as much as all the things I could never say
I want to bleed something other than quiet cries for help
I want to know that someone can hear the words I've talked into the moon
Even on a cloudy night
I want to look into a strangers eyes
And make them believe in something other than what they know
I want to spin the tangled mess of the world into a fine golden thread
And stitch the holes in my head
I want to hold someone's heart and know they would be content with me never letting go
I want to know that there was more to the story of
The Beginning, Middle, and End
Something no one could guess
Something no one could break
Something no one could comprehend
I want to know if me missing you does anything at all
I want to know if my pensive thoughts change anything at all
I want to know if the ground is real
Or
If I can fly and just don't know it
I want to know what happens if I hurt and just don't show it

But mostly I just want to know what was on your mind
'Cause we're all just blades of grass
Bending in fields of time

A Note From Elsewhere

May our souls wash upon shores
Speckled with gold and the like
May our bodies wear with grace
And wither with a softness
May our smiles be recalled fondly
With bright distant eyes
Staring into heydays fading to gray
May the histories of our days in the sun
Be recounted now and again
Accurate and forgiving
May time be good to us
Like it has to no other
May these years be not in vain
May the wind whisper reminders
To our loved ones to keep us close
Lest we slip away
For if we are to be forgotten
The church bells ring for naught
And the tears of beloveds
And the ambivalent faces of youngsters
Staring into open graves soon to be undone
Will be all but empty rituals
And the somber fears of the unknown
Creep swiftly on

We took ungrateful breaths
And wasted away
Aimless we walked
Now buried we stay
We've passed through the ether
Through six feet of sorrow
We've broken the halo
Everyday is tomorrow
We drift and we drift
On your memory's shores
We were beyond your reach
Forever more
But if we may offer
Just one last request
These words whispered from Elsewhere's address

Remember us.

Pawn's Wrath

Like purposeful opposition
I flow against the grain
Against the currents and the masses
Swimming against tides of thick molasses
Throwing fists of fury
Cursing kings and gods alike
Pounding a chest full of anger
They will cower at the sight
Once called a tantrum
Now called a break down
These are the fists of the contemptuous clown
I'm building ladders to take me higher
To heaven's peaks I do aspire
On Yin's and Yang's battlefield
Lay the legends I have sired
To the greats that I admire
I dedicate this empire
Built upon the words and actions
Of those in unassuming attire
Like most of what I dream
We all must end in steam
Evaporated and cleansed
Like the puddle
On the corner of Queens Street
And the boulevard of Kings
A shallow little thing
Where children of pawns play
And unsavory knights stay
Where the bishops have claimed their day
To take what they want and convert who they may
And the castles stand empty
Except for ten percent full
Because the drawbridges have been drawn
By avarice's fool
And the front line advances
All during the meanwhile
And the children stay playing
Not knowing that their tile
Has great forces impending
Upon its position
I rush behind enemy lines
With rash imprecision
And make it in time
Miss the slaughter of the front line
And weep for my once friends
I have become that which I would have never been
The new temptation
So intoxicating when
It seeps under the skin
Forgetting what I meant to do
Forgetting who I am
There was something I was fighting for
Sometime before the fray began
A long time ago
Way back when
Something so utterly important
Colossally intense
The long lost origins
The warriors repent
I see steam curling up from the battlefield
And figures tilted to their sides
While the back lines sit contentedly by
Happy to watch us wage their wars
On the corner of Queens Street
And the Boulevard of Kings
I remembered what it all was for
I dart across the battlefield
Now with ease and grace and thunder
Much to their awe, disgust, regret, dismay, and wonder

They will say that I had lost my mind
Or somehow become unhinged
But what you've just witnessed
Is simply pawn's revenge

Reluctant Adults

Reluctant adults
Dumped into the real world

Still children at heart
Wearing grown ups skins  
Uncomfortably held in place by needles and pins
Because imagination dead ends
Where adulthood begins
At the bottom of a crapshoot        
Your future depends
On the alignment of stars
And the rulings of men
You'd never care to meet
And who care less than too little about you
From the tip of your top
To the toes in your shoes
Because you stand alone in the crowds of the many
Numbers running through the Perfunctory administration
At the bottom of a crapshoot
You find no willing participation
No cohesive indoctrination
On the challenges ahead
Or the pitfalls to come
Just the dazed and confused
The shaken and numbed      
The rattled and concussed
Reluctant adults
All empty shells
And shriveled husks
To start new lives and create new worlds
At the bottom of the crapshoot
     
We begin                            

Freshly from the ashes
And newly from the trash          
Baggage in hand
Fleeing from the  past
Kicking up debris
In the wake of our beginnings
The folly of the future
Stays clouded in our eyes      
Stays wandering in surprise    
The great shadow of doom
The pessimist might surmise
But we hope to stay hopeful
The crapshoot's greatest trick
Was stealing wonder from the young
And hope from the innocent

Applause For the Valiant

To all my once upon a timers
To all my dreamers in the sky
To all my long lost familiars
To all those who dared to try
To all those who wished upon shooting stars
In the midst of propitious nights
To those who twisted middle around index
And tussled with maybe and might
To those who swayed with the ball
Hoping it might swing in their favor
To those who clutched at their beating hearts
And still chose to move forward
To those who excluded rhyme and reason
From their bags of tricks
And stocked up on Why Not and Just Because instead
To all of you
Who looked out at bitterness and pain
But still never said die
To everyone who whistled a happy tune
Whilst the ground cracked and trembled beneath you
To those who sprouted wings
To be better than circumstances intended
To those whose spines never curved
Under the weight
To those whose passions
Still burn bright
Even after the world has since declared checkmate

To the ones under the starry starry nights
With twinkling eyes and good company
Unknowingly hanging on for dear life

I applaud you

Blink

From dust
To sleep
To waking hours
The shutters close every second
Recycling your view

Lifetimes spent in fits of darkness
What do these blinds really do
Hiding visions of the future
Or tools to fix the past
Portals to these neverworlds
Glimpsed through one-way glass
Seen and then forgotten
In a literal blink of an eye
The spaces in between
Are what I'm keen to understand
Gone until the next time
Gone within a span

I am just getting around to feeling
Utterly and completely lost
The darker shades of destiny
Stay floating at the bottom
Waves pressing on the bubble
Rising by any means
Crawling to the surface
Tearing at the seams

Eyelids like low bids
On this one reality
That was once concrete and cemented
Struggling to make it back
Eyes opening to inconsistencies and
Cracks in the facade
Holes in the veneer
Salted poison in this droplet
One might call a tear
Rolling down a cheek
Sourced from a sealed window to the soul
I am still lost
This escapade will take its toll

In this propagandistic sphere
My bubble is shrinking ever so near
The infallible crumble
The blinders tremble in fear
What seemed like a second
Turned into more
Forgetting the surface
I am too far from shore
My vision is darkness
Heartbeating, the chore
And then, there I am
Back like before
And all in the blink of an eye

Traveller's Confession

Reckless vagabonds
On the road to damnation
Stay twisting in the wind

Disappointing prophecies
Fulfilled with time to spare
This life was forfeit
We were always headed there
Forks in the road
That converged into one
Still twisting in the wind
Hanging in the sun
Deals brokered by a man in black
Our friend in function
Our foe in fact
An obvious endpoint
On this roguish adventure
Vagabond choices
Picked our route every time
X marked the spot
From A to B we drew the line
We saw what we could
From ocean, dust, to pine
We licked the curves of Route 1
On the California coast
Breathed the Tuscan gold
With all we could hope for
We stood atop the world
And saw that it was flat
We walked the grounds of forests
Whose trees stood to the sky
As if they were pillars
Keeping space from collapsing in on us
We wept
Underneath a green twisting beyond
And lost ourselves
In the great falling forever

We were never as we appeared
Spinning lies to control fear
Weaving deceptions
To shape perceptions
Holding candles up to these dead men
To see what's left after rotting ends
We lived in confusion
Contradictory amusement
Perpetuated by a ubiquitous force
A constant abusement

Help me
I am drowning
Our adventures, they are crowning
For now until the foreseeable
These ending terms
Are less than agreeable
Holding hands at the grand chasm
Of these deserted lands
I just wanted you to know
I still had fun

Guardians of the Long Forgotten

The tired call
Of these unreasonable apologetics
Stretch on long after the dust has settled

Defending barren fortresses
With purposeful determination
From phantom spectres
With familiar faces
Custom made
In these personal factories of guilt

They stand guard atop
The remnants of a war
Raging from the past
Taking bullets and blades
That already hit their marks

Keeping them alive
Through sheer force of will and memory

I can feel your agony
From a continent away

You can move on
No further than they
An avenging vendetta
Posed to relics
Aged to dust
Your feet have set planted
Something must come of this
Or like well oiled rust
You have waited stagnant in decay
Taking cups of water from the ocean
You did nothing on this day

Outside

Let me in

I am ill equipped

Everyday I worry
I am falling apart
Loosely stitched seams
This is pain not art

Let me in

The cold is sapping my strength
I am ragged and disheveled
My suffering goes on at length

I am a bird with no flight
And the ground is crumbling beneath my feet
I am looking to tether myself
To some kind of something
Otherwise
I am just falling through space

Let me in

Logistics are the soul crushing
Weights of adulthood
Senseless action
The sole outlet of contents under extreme pressure
I fear the passionless bitterness
That spawns from repeated failure

Let me in

Please

Verse: In So Many Acts

ACT I

So much
So far
Painful beauty
In the world we are
Living like lonesome
Nomads
And fallen ones
These restless soles
Yearn for
Western gold
And baking suns

Tearaway straps
On the shoulders of the wandering
The inclination towards stasis
Frequently a haunting theme
That burns the shackles on my back
Wait for winds of change
The strong will react
In these hollowed cities
The strong will attack
Outcomes uncertain
The decks will stack

ACT II

A series of innovations
Followed by a return to form
Critical mass
Today's norm
The loving landscapes of nature
Divided by man
On this side of the gate
I've raised a hand
To signal an army
Armed with more than enough
To win a one-sided battle
On the scale of legends and stuff
Land of the lesser than?
Bred by the best of them
We are the strong
And we fight for the shifting winds

ACT III

Thus the battle rages on
Through bureaucratic blood
And bone shattering stone
Fighting for better
Fighting for home

ACT IV

Settling on the dusk of day zero
An end of an era
A goodbye to heroes
The intolerable acts
Of your comrades in arms
Terroristic tendencies
We have raised the alarms
Sit down
Behave
Do as we say
We are your protectors
This is the only way
Relax and inhale
Your insurrection has failed
No more of this
Your chances have staled
Quiet your minds
Step back in your lines
Pay your respects
Straighten your spines
Our order remains uninterrupted
The constituents that have
Become corrupted
Were removed and disposed of
And wiped clean from the slate
These flights of fancy
Must be crushed with dead weights
This is how it will be
From this point on
You cannot be trusted
You're too far gone
Speak your goodbyes
To the setting sons
And now here we find ourselves
At the dawn of day one

The Tragedy Of The Misguided Crusader

Masterful workings
To balance the scales
The intricate complexities
In comparison we've paled
Fistfuls of courage
I raise above my head
For The good people
I have left in my stead
The undying crusade
Of which
I take the lead
Libra my guide
The justice I seek
Karmic Retribution
Who's blessing I hold
Systematic Constitution
My actions are bold
From the firmament
I have received my instruction
To protect the Good people
My only function
Blessed be the man
Who walks a righteous path
Forsaken be the man
Who incites a pointless wrath
Mindless steps they take
For debauched and wanton tasks
The Honorable outcomes
I reach for
With my fearsome holy mask
I am merely a servant
At the bidding of
Something more
Waiting for monsters
To knock down my door
The Filth
I am called to wipe from the floor
Vehement distress
I detest and abhor
Drawn swords
Licked by flames of pious fire
Those in my way
Will burn upon the pyre

My enemies now vanquished
Their blackened souls will languish

Headed home
My legend grown
Written down in every tome
The scales now settled
The world now equal
And I did it all
For those Good People

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Square 1

Back to the drawing board
Scrap the last plan
Throw out the script
Signal the band
Turn in your badge
Schedule a flight
Fade in from black
And then cut to white
Retrace your steps
Eliminate the prints
We're starting from scratch
No tips, tricks, or hints

This is round two
It belongs to you
Take what you need
And do what you do
Fight the good fight
For as long as you can
Rally the troops
Call only good men

We have now entered
The land of last chances
Filled with inspiring speeches
And last stances
This is square one
For the final time
Claim your endings
At the front of the line

Bleeding tears
From the broken heart
This is where we make our start

The Missing Link, For The Desperate Seekers

Envy the content

For they know the secret

That which escapes you

They have trapped like a rat

With wide grins

And stomachs full of satisfaction

These Cheshire cats

Run rampant with glee

Purity that we spite

Role models floating at an immense height

This
The total

In the grand scheme of things

The content have a grasp

On the shapeless rings

These fulfilled kings

Sit upon thrones

Built with answers and wings

While the rest of us

Muddle through

Our thoughts befuddled

Our questions many

Our answers too few

Our wants undetermined

Our needs unattended

Our neighbors

The content

To a higher plane

They have ascended

Envy the content

But pity the rest

Even with it all

There’s still more to our quest

The goal is not the end

The incentives

They blend

The pointless ambition

We crafted

To win

But Why?

And For what?

We ran

And for what?

We swam

And for what?

We crawled

That’s enough

Decades and decades

Multiples of ten

Years and years

Will this come to an end?

Why did we do this?

Where are we headed when we begin?

Are we running in circles?

Or is this just the purpose of men?

To search and to search

And to search some more

Envy the content

Repetition is our lore

Their quests seemingly ended long since past

They smile easy

And they smile fast

They never need much

So they always have enough

Never prone to restlessness

They never bluff tough

How is it, they don’t give in?

To the rush of the world

Its instigations and sins

Its incessant barrage

And Unnecessary roughness

I just want 

To be 

Content

Sad Tales From Yesterday's Youth

The sad stories
You were all writing
With hasty decisions
And washed out lighting
Misguided transitions
From bright beginnings
Diving down dark rabbit holes
It seems so fitting

No U-turns on this one way street
Your failures famed
Your successes discreet
Your path a mirage
With illusory simplicity
Veils the difficult demons
Prepared with hurtful intentions

You were once
But no longer

The story you never knew you were writing
With ink in years
Turned out ever so frightening
With misunderstood fears
Distracting from the rest
It all ends in tears
Subtracting from the best
At zero you appear
Ending in a mess

Like fading shadows
Cast by dismantled structures
Yesterday's youth
No shine
Lackluster
Looking at their tales of woe
And bibles of regret
Notice small things strewn about the pages
Is there Happiness to detect?

Impossibilities
Thrown away
Smiles are beaming
On the old and gray
Content souls
Birthed from pain and suffering
Questionable emotions
Confusion and compulsions
What is going on?
Your sad tales should make you weep
Not bring you close to home

We now write
Our first chapters
Today's youth
These early pages filled with laughter
Best to leave the old
To their own devices
Their tragedies not our problem
Age is not our vices
Our tales will not be sad
Or marked with any pain
Our futures are bright
We are not the same

Imaginative Nonfiction

Kids are like Kings

With advisors and thrones

Kingdoms stretching from here to there

Holy knights and impenetrable Bones

With the world at their feet

And shifting scepters in their hands

With imagination

They rule

The entire land

The long lists of battles

They have won

With hands tied behind their backs

Goes on Ad infinitum

Of gilded glory

They do not lack

If left to them

Their legend would include

All the dragons they have slayed

All the curses they elude

All the maidens they have smooched

And all the armies that they’ve led

These are not just whimsical tales

Read before bed

No

This is a world existing three feet off the ground

A beautiful thing

Where adults are not found

Because their skepticism

Always bears a heavy weight

This is fact not fiction

Children’s truth

Exists in gaseous state

It cannot be easily trapped

Or forcefully examined

But it holds strong

Sitting just three feet off the ground

The Cutter's Bloody Questions

What do you bleed?

Is it thicker than water?

Does it stick and cling when it’s spilt?

Does it echo with memories?

Does it sing?

Or does it cry?

What really pumps through you?

Is it laughter or disaster?

Wood Oak or shriveling plaster

Is it melodic hopes?

Or just sanguine ropes

Hanging you slowly with the veins of life

Splitting open

At the drawing of dull knives

How does it run?

Slow or fast

Dripping with poison

Weighed down by mass

Drawn from the heart

Out through the pipes

This Life hinges on liquid

This liquid flows throughout life

What do you bleed?

Is it love?

Or is it lust?

Is it wet?

Or is it dust?

Does it flow because it wants to?

Or does it flow because it must?
Does it bubble and clot?
Does it twist?
Does it knot?
Does it wriggle and writhe?
Does it buzz like the hive?
Fresh or stagnant
Dead or Alive?

What do you bleed?

Wayward Whisperings

I bridge the gap between second and third
The intrinsic value
Of a flightless bird
A hole within space
Infinite and abysmal
indescribably undefined
I grope for my soul

An imaginary man
With invisible footsteps
With no past and no future
I sit here on doorsteps
Doorsteps leading to doors
With no passage
Just doorknobs, hinges, brick walls
And static
I move with the grace and the pace
Of a man with no purpose
Devoid of objective
Amounting to worthless
I glide through the cacophony of life
With no one on my arm
This yellow brick road
Is tattered and worn
My eyes make no contact
My breath marks no air
my voice makes no sound
I withdraw to my lair
Where I simply exist
Although debatable that
Like mist in a cage
I choose to be trapped

The Sculptor's Storm

The hailstorm of being
Flings boulders of ice
Whilst words are whispered in my ear
That the sky is falling

The pitter-patter of a gentle summer's rain
Used to be the beat and tempo
To which I set my refrain
My chorus
My bridge
My whole composition
But the storms have set in
And my pitter-patter now booms with thunder
And crashes with lightning

Like crumbling monuments
From those of us
In centuries past
I've seen what was, what is, and what soon shall pass
Like the sculptor
My actions etch shape
Into the makings of my own future
He, who I will be
Watches me
From inside the block of stone that is my life

I'm chiseling away
With expert precision
But the hailstorm marks my masterpiece
With threatening imperfections
Relentless
Unceasing
Unyielding
Increasing
Frequency and intensity
The boulders now fly
With malice and spite
My song skips a beat
All bark and all bite

Some demon unleashed
This salvo upon me
This sculptor is broken
My stone falls around me

I've ripped a hole in the sky
And shouted out into space
The lead I have lost
In this mad dashing race

I'm sorry
Forgive me
Clip the madness quickly
I watched these cities fall down
Quickly and without sound
The monuments we built
Barely stand at half mast
Wondering if this was truly the last

Predictions of God's little fingers
Playing games of chance with blindfolds
We linger

In ruins of home
And wastelands formerly know as tomorrow
My masterpiece
Now the infinite sorrow
My old vinyl slips
On the absence of pitter-patters
The hailstorm of being
Deals its blow

The Rebirth of Magic

Little globes of vision

Blink with design

By the hand of a magic man

Or by generations in time

Little digits of curiosity

Grip for everything that they can

A marvel and a wonder

Awe-stricken for a span

Fingers touch to fingers

Like a twig to a stump

Dryness in your throat

Swallowing lumps

Little life is cultivated

From somewhere in the beyond

The mystery is showing

Koi circling in a pond

This is the infinite

Wonderment of the innocent

Playing the roles of gods

With no knowledge or forethought

With mere seeds

Grows the world

With time’s passing

So do we

Just enough days

To be jaded by miracles

Faded to cynical

Death is never the pinnacle 

Forgotten majestics

Pushed to the backs of our heads

Monotony

With which we fill our lives instead

I urge you to remember this moment

This one right here

Hold it in your mind’s eye

Keep it crystalline clear

For all those instances and times in this life

When you doubted magic

It got lost amidst the pain and the strife

But this here is proof

You are holding its hand

The mystic call of the world

Believe it if you can

Glance into those globes

Of everything pure and enchanted

And know in your heart

Magic exists