Down to Earth

An ode to a captured world

We all wear our chains

We all bear our weight

The doctor says it's cancer

Your lover says she can't stay
The world says
You'd better swallow this
It'll ease the pain and
Help you forget
The bartender pretends to listen
Cause she knows you'll leave a good tip
The priest tells you you're forgiven
Psychologist reminds you
Son, you've got a condition
But don't worry, Doc's got
Just the prescription
An ode to a captured world
Where we're all barely breathing
We'll take our medication then
And spend our lives begging
To be free of it
The doctor says it's over
He is finally at rest
And the state smiles and takes
Its cut, from what's left
And all you remembered to pack
Was regret
If only you had
Or hadn't
The ending might be the same
But the journey, certainly, wouldn't.

Goodnight

A soft-spoken breeze

Carries leaves across the shaded grass

Whispers along blades

Fragile as the words

That hung lifeless
On our lips
The sun filtered through
Cloud strands brushed to match
Her onyx hair and
The bony fingers of
Sleeping trees gnarled by
Memories of life

She echoed the soft light of evening
Eyes sparkling with a false smile
Worn by overuse
These days
She swallowed her wine with all the bravado
Of a woman who knew
Just where the sun collapses
These days

And God knows, where the story goes
From here
All hope dead on the riverbeds of long
Dried tears
But I'll remember the unspoken
And the cry of the ravens
The scratch of the leaves along
My throat
I'll remember how my world hung
In the balance
I'll remember the moment our hearts cried out
In horror

She revoked the smile from my own lips
An instant, bloodless and swift
Shorn as if it had never
Existed
She exposed to me my only weakness
That I dared love the treacherous
Preferred it even, to any other that
Existed

We've all got our demons
And I've still got my drinking
And what I can't forget tonight
Will be gone before the bottles
Are empty.

Writing

tap, tap, tap

enter

tap, tap, tap

enter

select all

delete

scratch, scratch, scratch

period

scratch, scratch, scratch

period

crumble and throw 

to my feet

think, think, think

silence

think, think, think

silence

maybe writing's just not

for me

ha, who am i kidding

all these thoughts filling

my head

would boil over like

the ramen on the stove

oh shit, okay

i'm back

what was i

saying?

tap, tap, tap

enter

we're gonna be okay

someday

scratch, scratch, scratch

period

the story's gonna work out

fine

think, think, think

silence

i wonder if she can

hear me

oh shit, it's not okay

with these words as
my only company

it's time for another
drink.

Alibi

Can you tell me where you were

On the night of January 6th

Between 5 and 11 p.m.?

Sure, see that morning

I woke up in a strange bed

There were dark brown sheets and

A rustic dresser, the top covered

Completely

With figurines and stuffed animals, two candles

A pocket knife, and a handful

Of colored pencils

Sir, I asked about the evening

Can you tell me where

You were then?

Take it easy, I'm getting to that

See, I didn't know where I was at first

In the fog of those first moments

Post-sleep

I deduced my location by

The painting hung on the far wall

The care by which each drop and stroke

Sunk into the canvas, stretched across

The imagination

By the half-mashed tubes of acrylic

The glass that sprouted brush-handles

From the top of it

And grayish-pink water that rose

Halfway to the rim

I could have just looked over

Any moment, but I hesitated on the chance

I was still dreaming

And the sight of her might wake me

Listen sir, this is important

I need to know what you were doing

Between 5 and 11

On the day in question?

Well, I started to stand

When I felt her hand

Brush against my hip

And she whispered, still sleeping

Don't go yet, I'll go with you

In a minute

My heart stopped, my throat caught

And I froze, half sitting up

Half held in place

By her fingertips

Still stained with paint, still as soft

As I remembered them

I stayed there, motionless, another fifteen minutes

Trying to draw a picture in my head

Of what had happened, and how much had been

Dreamt

And she kissed my cheek

And one eye opened, and her lips parted into a smile

As beautiful as I had ever seen

She asked me if I

Remembered

I wondered if I

Could ever forget

Sir, one last time

Where were you during the times

I've mentioned?

Well, by then the hour hand

Was approaching six

I couldn't imagine having slept

So late, til I realized we had been

Up til eight, plotting a revolution

Painting and drinking red wine

And laughing, catching up on old times

And wondering when they might have

Vanished

I cooked breakfast for dinner

She put on some music

I poured us each a glass

Of rum and coke, to ease the hold

Of our hangover

She danced like I couldn't see it

Or like I could, and she wanted to send

A message

We talked about what city might be next

What future we might have

What fortune had found us

In that moment

We washed the dishes, around eight

She splashed me with the water

From the faucet

I told her she was the most beautiful woman

I had ever met, she said well,

You haven't met them all yet

And blushed, and I knew right then

It wouldn't matter if I had, the truth was

As it had always been

She kissed me on the lips

Told me I tasted like rum and

Bacon, and laughed, and by then

It was almost ten, I brushed my teeth

We turned on the TV

And completely ignored it

And if you want to know anymore, sir

You're going to have to take me to court

Cause the rest is none of

Your business

But to answer your question

On January 6th, from 5 to 11

I was with her, and I'm fairly sure

We weren't even on

This planet

But somewhere between here

And heaven, and if you don't mind

I'd like to go back

Thank you for your cooperation

In this matter, if I have any further questions

I'll be sure to call your number

So we can chat

Fat chance officer, where we're going

I'm sure

There's no reception.

Love:

Love:

That degenerate;

  unspoken madness

  So often accompanied

By sadness
Heartache
That cold shower that exposes
The filth on your skin
Still cleanses it
  She wears a black dress
  I wear shackles on my wrists
And we dance like our breath is tied
To this movement
Love:That dismemberment
   of heart from mind and
   words from lips
Weighted by the kiss
Of death
Remembrance
That bold power that weakens
All but the strongest
Connections
   She kills my potential
   I draw her in pencil now
That I my erase her regrets
At the final notice
Love:
The eviction of sanity
   that we might move in
   those dreams unspent
By morning
Or sunset
The harsh light of midday
Seems too bright for my darkness
Still welcomes it
   She hears a veiled threat
   I steer for the cliffs
That I may drive us to love's grave
Before we fall for it.

A Window in the Clouds

What stands heavy on the waking mind

Lies gently upon my dreams

So many questions to reconcile

Between the devil and the dreamer in me

I take careful stock of my passions
And the cost they incur upon my sanity
Though I've yet to speak with Death
I know he's surely heard of me
I consider debts paid and owed
Stories forgotten and those yet to be told
I bury some thoughts in the winter cold
To fertilize others that demand to grow
I've suffered karma and happenstance
Emerged stronger than the consequence
Of keeping this lit match
In the palm of my hands
And now I know the light that glows
From deep within my tired bones
And all the love that I have shown
Has me inhaling sadness, and exhaling hope.This is the gift I have for you
Don't open it 'til I've left the room
Merely a poem to those who may not know me
It is everything to those who know the tune

Who stands strong through the prevailing winds
Who extends a palm to the nearly dead
Who begs love, if only that I have it to give
Who offers a lifetime of the moments we've noted
What stands heady, threatening with pride
To dismember those dreams that dare disrobe the light
I would shine on you a thousand lifetimes
If only to show you how you glow to my eyes
I dance recklessly across these oceans
I chance everything on remaining in motion
That you might see, there's no such thing as hopeless
When the devil and the dreamer in me come to bed
I've returned from the shadows a fire still burning
Emerged brighter than the days I was well hid
From a darkness yearning
To conquer all that has made me
I fight in the name of the undreamt moments
If I die, then my corpse will still hold this pen
And you'll know that I've given all that I had
To give you the one thing that can never be broken

This is the gift I have for you
It fits perfect in hand yet still fills the room
Merely a poem to those who know no other view
But you, whose soul was singingBefore the first verse was through
I am here for you.

Ariadne's Veil

Ariadne smiled, said

You're either ice-cold

Or scalding

Beads of sweat kiss the brow

Every time you look my way
And crystallize to raindrops
When the wind of your gaze shifts direction
You're a devil some days
All curses and seductive sways
And an angel others
When your light eyes fall upon my face
Though maybe a devil then
For enticing me to give in
As I sip the water of your words
To wash down the poison on your lips
Ariadne smiled, led
The way to her bed
She's either flawless
Or entirely broken
To tread behind her is glass at the heel
To sleep without her a thousand labored breaths
And where the sins of the grave keep us quiet
She's a come-hither wave from death
All outbursts and spent rage
And a lover like an overcast day
Who promises rain, delivers only the heat
When her dark eyes circle like vultures
And swallow the ground beneath my feet
Though maybe a lover then
As I spare her hazy intoxications and
Wash down yesterday with a glass of gin

Ariadne lied, dead
At the end of a romance spent
Having been either a potent lover
Or a better actress
Having swallowed the bitter pills of life
By the dozen, that I might come in
And regret, the last words before I left
When she said I love you
And I whispered
"Not yet."

The Lover and the Artist

There's a petal lain for every day

We've walked this path

Front door to bed, I remember every

Moment, from Decembers cold and hopeless

Where we were warmed only
By the fire's breath, and our kiss
To the summers' sweat
Where we dared cool off only
After we were spent
I remember the salt on your skin
The crumpled dress
The unspoken invitation
The expectation of unrest
I draw your figure on the canvas
Lay the brush down in deep red
Color full lips, still damp with my kiss
Each stroke culled from moments
Where laughter gave way to passion
Where one look is all it took
To give in, live in that bed
Where fears and clothes were shed
For hours, devouring each other with our eyes
And mouths,  traversing newly discovered lands
Whose hills and valleys kept us climbing and falling
All over this
There's a petal lain for every day
Save this, I and a single red rose waiting
For you to come back in.

Stars

I see her in the stars

Burning bright, alive

With energy

Dancing across the blanket of time

And space
She races across my vision
Rests upon my heart
Sets fire to my convictions
And smiles on the ashes
These nights
I wonder who we are
Who we've been
And why my tongue
Is emptied of her taste
Washed clean
That these words seem
Banal
Dry, and I'm heaving
Wood into the fire
Maybe she'll recognize it
But who knows, I've only
Just begun to face this
Wondered at the spaces
Between the flickers we played in
And why, just like them
She's light years away
From this moment.

Waking Up

"Maybe I'm dying and

This pain in my chest

The numbness on my left

The crack in my bones when

I stand for something

Signals the coming end

Maybe I'm falling

To pieces, and nothing

Will ever change it

And every time I wind up

My fists, my knuckles are ready

To break, every word

That spills from my lips

Begs to be the last, the best

I've ever had

Well if so, here we go

Cause I'm not dead yet."

Live like you're the first

To discover love

Give like these are the only words

That could ever touch

The whirlwind of the mind

The ill-defined, the half-blind

The wave of the ocean when she says goodbye

These are the days to turn into nights

These are the reasons we stand up and fight

The passion behind the depression in our eyes

The fire that burns long after we've died

Shed the weight of the skies

Discern the truth from the lies

And understand why

You told them to begin with

You want them to recognize

You're different

No compilation could be complete

Without your ink within its pages

Because life isn't meant to die

Quiet, we were built to fly

Given the mind to accomplish

To drive ourselves beyond the edges

To survive the god damn consequences

To look upon those pretty white fences

And jump over them

Don't settle for less than

The beauty in the explosion

Of your sentence, the defiance of even

Gravity, we could hide all night

But better that we're free

To own these moments

Perfect and broken

Screaming and singing

To every thought we've composed as

The heavens shake their heads

And the devil smiles knowingly

Live like you're the first

To think these things

To breathe in this noxious mix

Of obsession and compulsion

And exhale a fire cleansing

Every desire we've had, but didn't dare speak

Every brush with death

That comes together to compose

This painting

Take a moment to breathe

If you need.

See, nothing we've accomplished

Means a damn thing if we've forgotten

To keep dreaming when our eyes are open

Take those hits and be stronger for them

Shake those thoughts that you can't do it

In the end, all you've ever been

Is a fraction of your lifespan

A distraction from your purpose

To bleed and fight and scream and die

And smile through every moment, knowing

It is only hopeless if you give up

Instead of giving in, if you turn your back

Because you doubt your own direction

I might be dying, might find myself

Lying in a cheap coffin, someday

Or buried alone in an unmarked grave

But when I am, I will have had a hand

In giving something this world

Is all too often missing

The willingness to step beyond survival

To erase the idea of merely existing

And empower us all

To begin truly living.

The Nature of the Soul

Discussing the nature of the human soul,

Boundless, flawless

And the world we might dwell in

Should we choose to listen to it.

What comprises us

Ego, Id, Superego

Emotions, faults, talents

Passions, dreams, reality?

Love.

It is the only perfection we might know

Some call it God, Jehovah

Yahweh, Buddha

Muhammad

I am agnostic, or atheist, or spiritual

Or maybe I am

All of those, and I don't know it.

Yet the soul, the soul sees it

Touches the center of the mind

And heart, intermingles the physical

With the fantastic.

All perception may be encoding within our complex

Minds, or chemical reactions spilt

Onto the canvas of our bodies

But do we not all sense

Something more, something beyond the veil

Of conscious perception?

To what do we attribute

Our connections, our distances, those fleeting moments

Of abstraction?

I can describe

The touch of a lover's hand

Down to the most minute detail

And yet, without having felt it

Yourself, you would not know it.

We are foreign to each other

Walking within the shadows of

Our petty grievances, daring to step only

Within our carefully constructed

Isolation.

Love, the soul, the indescribable familiar

Within, that which ascribes tears

And laughter.

Our own perpetual motion machine

That which ceaselssly and easily overcomes

Our own science, our own understanding

Of the function of our universe.

That which in giving, is received

Without external need, the propulsion of man

The fuel of our progress.

Love, the soul

Who grows by mitosis

Multiplies through division

Accumulates within ourselves, only through

Being given away.

Some call it flawed, broken, painful

Loss, heartache, grief

Loneliness,

And never realize that what they describe

Is not love, but a life without it.

A life without a soul

A machine, cold and calculating

Whose each step requires

Recalibration, to overcome the sensation

Of emptiness.

Should we take the time to revel in it

Love, the soul, by any name

Is savior, a quantum step

Toward enlightenment.

In discussing the nature of the soul

We enter into a conversation with it

Confirm its very existence

And open a path to empathy

Peace, the harmony we need

To overcome the varied methods we've developed

To neutralize it.

So I ask, my friends, my love, my fellow

People

To open your day looking inward

To stretch your arms out and embrace

The beauty of your divinity

Your flawlessness

By any name you may call it.

Through knowing yourself, your soul

Your love

You will come to expose the beauty

In the billions of others

Who travel this same rocky path

As you.

Absence

Where do we go from here

Sitting back, gathering the years

Like dust on the lens

Filtering out the sunlight

I wish

But I won't say it right

And you won't hear above

The volumes of repression

The sentence of depression

Under dark skies

Where our thoughts condense

Coalesce

Into the sunlight's absence

Where do we go from here

When all I want is

A smile, my children's laugh

And all I have is

This distance

This barren existence

Where they are not

And I am

And I hate it

This degradation of beauty

Into bloodshed

This capitulation of love to

Punishment

I have given everything

And still this is what you've chosen

To take from me

They tell me have hope

Keep the faith

Maybe even let go

If it'll make it okay

Instead I'll swallow the world

And still not fill

The void inside of me

The world cut from my chest

That left me broken

And hopeless

And knowing

The only chance at happiness

Is to overcome this

Hatred you harbor

Through the strength of my love

And I wonder sometimes

When the sun hides

Behind the clouds

And I want to shout

To scream from hell

I can not do without

I am not doing well

I wonder, if I am enough

If I have the capacity

The love

To withstand the torrents

You have rained upon me

To know trust

When it's been shattered

So completely

To live on

Despite the calm in your seas

While my ship is ravaged

By the havoc you've wreaked

I doubt

Sometimes

Though I know life's sublime

Peaceful moments

The beauty divine

And complete

I have my wreckage, you see

My crashes and recollections

Of dreams

Once painted so flawless

Now aged and fading

Quickly

Where do we go from here

I wonder

I can hear the thunder

Approaching

As I sit back, gather my tears

As memories across

My sleeves

And I in my darkness

I in my shadows

I and my demons, well

I know how it goes

I've seen

And I can only hope

Someday, I'll find the course

That ushers me away from the scene

That touches the wasteland

Of my dreams

Breathes life into my seams and

I'll stand, you'll beckon

But I'll not hear

Over the sound of the years

You've stolen

I don't fear

What is to come anymore

For what might bring me to shore

Surely, can't be worse

Than what set me to sea

Maybe I'll drown

Before knowing the beach

But where I go from here

All my doubts and fears

The years spent thrashing wildly

And loving with the veracity

I have, dreaming with the capacity

Of kings

Well, that all belongs

To me.

Acknowledgement

I never stopped loving you

I never turned my back

Never withdrew my hand

I never thought less

Was never unimpressed

By you

And now we're old friends and

Watching the tides roll in

Lamenting how quickly they

Withdraw again

And we're left with miles of darkened sand

And traces of years that should have been spent

Differently

And now the time has come and gone

The skies have rolled over

Into the storm

As we fight and dig and claw at the world

Hoping to unearth what we were

Before the sun collapsed across the horizon

Before the gun went off in our hands

As we watched the corpse of beauty lying quiet

And the wind changed direction

Carried away sanity, left only

The weight of depression

On our breath

I never stopped loving you

I never turned my back

Never withdrew my heart

I never wanted us to part

Never wanted it to end

Like this

And now we're alone in orbit

As close as we've ever been

And your as beautiful as I remember

As unforgettable as ever

We're watching the stars cower

Behind the cloud of a cigarette

Talking like we've forgotten who we were

Like nothing was ever different

Now we're wandering through the world

Pondering existence

Exhaling glass over the song we played then

And for every light that peers from behind

The echoes of our death

We've a shadow ready to dress in

A darkness born of hard-earned lessons

Who could trust us

After where we've been

Ferried away by the impossibility of

Subconscious suggestions

I never stopped loving you

I never turned my back

Never banished these memories

I never wanted a moment's peace

Never wanted to sleep

Again

And now I see these pictures of you

Now I hear your words

And dance around the uncomfortable truth

That where we are is not where

We were

And you're far beyond the corners I've turned

Too far gone to hear this verse

I wonder, what differences might come of a world

Where we might be

What we might see, if all that transpired

Hadn't, and if we might sit on this beach

Old friends, who wrote this poem

Together, instead of lamenting the tides

Or the hidden moon that draws them

Or the weight of the world, that had fallen

Before we ever knew her name

I wonder if love and loss are

One and the same, or variations of a composition

We've both played

And if so, what note might come next

Is it hope, or withdrawal by reflex

Will I know more than words and

Context

When you lean across the dampened sand

And ask me where I haven't been

Will I have the courage to ask you

To come with?

A Moment Misspent

If you ask me
(You didn't)
I'd say you're as beautiful
As you've ever been
(Stop shaking your head)
And if you listen
(Put down that magazine
That you're not reading)
Maybe you'd hear
Why I keep coming back
To this sentence
(Don't pretend you expected
Any different)
I'd say we've made waves
(Tidal, even)
I'd say we've let go
But I still know
Every crease in your hand
(Without looking now,
Smart ass)

If you asked me
(You did)
Why things are different
I might've said we'd been in motion
(No, I didn't miss that)
And if you had  listened
(Look in my eyes
Really, I mean it)
Maybe you'd have understood then
Why the wind kept changing
Directions
(Don't contend it had anything
To do with the environment)
I might've said we'd braved fate
(Conquered it, even)
I might've said we were right here
Right then, and no place
Less than that
(There are worse fates
Than death)

If you asked me
(I wish you had)
I'd have taken it back
And never have lost it
(Sorry I said it to begin with)
And if you had listened
(I swear to God
I didn't even halfway mean it)
Maybe you would've started to believe
That love doesn't leave, even when
It's hidden
(That hand, that was tapping nervously
I'd like to hold it now)
I'd say it still exists
(Flourishes even)
I'd have said that in that moment
We'd nowhere else we needed
To be
(I wouldn't have gone then
Anyways)

But you didn't ask me
(I was waiting for you to cool down)
I'd have apologized first
And never lost this
(Sorry I never insisted)
You can't listen
(I hope the guy who ran you off the road
Knows he killed us both that instant)
Maybe you'd still be here
And you'd wipe my tears away
With those perfect hands
(How selfish that now
I wish I had died instead)
I'd have held you in my arms
(No matter how angry it made you)
I'd have kept you closer than I did then
And you never would have left and
You'd still be here
(I never should have let you go
But, I did)

Violet Skies

The sky hung over

With her afternoon quakes

And tears

Oh how she burned so bright

On the trip here

How the clouds were relegated

To contain their shape shifting

To clipped horizons

Now they stand full-bore

Over her head

Pouring down thoughts

Til something is wrought

From the flood

Hair drenched, eyes wet

With satisfaction

She may be nursing

A head ache, precipitating

Nervously, over the effects of

The morning

But I swim in contemplation

At the whims of imagination and

Reality, shoes soaked through

From puddle-dancing

On my way to the evening

Having seen her

Shed those tears all summer

Cleansing herself

Of constellations

The preparations for a night spent

With the truly mad

The unabashedly

Determined

How she burned so bright

Before this dream

Has readied her soul

For the darkness

In me

The coming seas

Whose tides lap hungrily

At all that is shored before me

The sky hung over

Recovering slowly

Rumbling hungrily

For the satisfaction of release

The bipolar conceit

That all the tears

All the years

Have dissolved into

Shadows on the street

And heaven might mercifully grant

These moments between

I have known her sweet

Undressed her sun-kissed mornings

I have stood and caught

Her tears in my hands

All afternoon

Now comes evening

Where we might see

Those stars she hid

Beneath her sheets

The heart that beats

For fulfillment

I exalt these quiet moments

Pedestal her open wounds

For beauty knows

Many views

I genuflect before

The altar of her heart

She may tear me apart, yet

She may scatter the whole of me

To a thousand disparate lands

Like the blood spattered dream we are

Tonight then, she'll cradle

My collected fragments

In her arms

And ladle honeyed thoughts

All across me

Through to morning

Where we'll move on again

Quietly accepting

The end of this

Journey.