Confiding Voice
I am the one whom you come for aid
I am omniscient and have no name
I am a voice and nothing more
Feeding advice to those who want
More, more, more
So tell me something I didn’t know
Have you a picture you can show?
Or a song that you may sing?
That I haven’t already heard
Or over-seen?
Daymare
I’m having nightmares while I’m wide awake
And while I’m sleeping, they come to me
Pleased to meet you, my most saddening fear
It’s been a while since I’ve shed any tears
It’s time for me to waken into sleep again
It’s time for me to fall into more bad dreams
When you leave me to cross that river
I stay awake upset, daymares invigorated
Afraid, I hold a knife under my pillow
1000 thoughts bombarding my fragile mind
Chaotic thoughts, I’m feeling fine, though
It’s nice to know that this head is mine, you know
While you sleep and rest, carefree at best
I’m up so late to stay in control
Then when I finally succumb to sleep
I wake up terrified, and begin to weep
It’s like my future seen from the past
Every nightmare feels like it’ll be my last
I’ve dreamed of me as a very old man
And even he can’t remember he’s had bad dreams
I struggle to see the lines, of seven billion lives
As I wander through another shapeless day
I stumble and crawl through night and day
And right now I wouldn’t have it, any other way
Doubleshot Promenade
Saturn was out
Energy was surging
To my eyes, the stars were drifting
In the truck, the music was banging
My casual-formal attire
Of the night, would never tire
Faces I didn’t know before
Awoke and became more
The people were talking
Dresses were shimmering
They were lancing, dancing
Alive, and proud to be prancing
Everything was… trailing.
Ghosting
Meadows were empty, and lit
The lights were mocking me
Double plasmid shots
Kept me breathing
Everyone else was masquerading
I was the only one not fake parading
Do not wake up
The others wear make up
They are not that scary
Under their plastic finery
Where did this wicked sensation come from?
This tingle up my spine like the onset of a night terror.
Was it my pipe dreams and lavish nightmares coming to life?
Or was it something more, like a dueling emotion?
Six-shooters bang in my head
Mouth and lungs were leaking lead
The music spilled over and jolted
Stars above sank down with voltage
Lead melted
Bloodstream… trailed
I tried to think
Nerves failed
Everyone was committing atrocities
Integrity was dying
Others are crying
All have stopped dancing
Have we all descended to the rank and file of brutish animals?
Was there no communication in this Luna-lit promenade?
This lavish terror was kept at bay
By an altered state of lead foray
I’m glad I planned to not enjoy everyone else’s reality.
I made my own in two shots, perfected truth is glory.
Sleep
Sleep, damn you
Am I asleep already?
Was this the borderless world?
I can’t tell anymore
If I wanted to, I would explore
But these limits are here for reasons
So we mingle, drink, and walk laps
Limited, in this place we are trapped
Everyone else is dressed in masks
Tonight’s dances will be our last
Beast Town
Waking up bloodstained
Strange garb adorned
After a lengthly dream
Becomes a real nightmare
Droplets of viscera
Run down my clothes
Patches clot
And pool beneath me
Beasts roam outside
I can hear the roars
People are yelling
Fires are burning
I can’t tell
If this blood is mine
Or from
Some thing else
I don’t remember
How I came to
Be laying down
On this bed
Where is this place
I’ve awakened in?
I can’t remember
Anything
I can feel
My head is clear
My hands are able
My feet are grounded
Now
Stumbling
Foggy movements
My head is clear
I need to find where this is
But what’s that?
Oh god what is that?
Droning wheezing
Getting louder
Heavy footsteps
Getting louder
A tall man
Head almost to the ceiling
Covered in hair
And some scrap of clothes
Pushed-in snout
Large protruding fangs
Dog feet
Meaty paws
He carried a torch
Illuminating his terrifying face
In the other hand
A massive blade
A massive blade
As I’m gathering myself
He appears in a doorway
On the other side
Of this room
It’s a beast
It’s terrifying
It sees me
It’s walking towards me
What do I do?
What can I do?
I need to defend myself
But I don’t have anything
To defend myself with
Wait, no
Yes I do
My hands are able
Defend, I will
Until it folds
Or until I’m dead
A flourish of red
And then
I can no longer tell
What blood really
Covers my clothes
Bottom
Where is rock bottom
Where am I
Have I not yet sunk and fallen
To the lowest depths of mankind?
Oh, where are the rocks?
Pressurized and cold
Where is my mind
In this sea of gold?
It’s restless, pretentious
Setting itself up
To be
Endless
Phoenix
Come on, crow
Let’s leave the dove
We have much to do
We must get acquainted
The other bird must dwell
In its own misery
She was growing
Tired of your calls, anyways
Let her have fits
Let her cry
Let the dove flap about
Over nothing to crow about
Let her regret
As we fly away
Let the dove think
Of what is lost
Oh, let her suffer
Let her lose feathers
And may we drift away
Into the sky
Let me take you away
Into the sky
You asked me for my hand
And I hid it away
You cried my name out loud
When you thought I was lost
My beak is made for yours
My plumage is what you yearn for
I am a phoenix
Let my ashen garb consume you
So come on, crow
Fly with me
Forget about the dove
Fly into the cloud sea
Deneb Kingdom
There was an artist
Held captive in a castle
Hidden away from the people
High above the next-tallest tower
He wrote and drew
The things he knew
Converted his experience
Into wondrous art
His captor took this art
With no hand to its part
Publishing it as her own
Making her very well-known
One day the artist
Looked out at the sky
With most forlorn eyes
With no malicious guise
He yelled
“Is this suffering enough for you?”
“That which I once only knew?”
“You’re the one who showed me bright lights,”
“The one who opened dead eyes.”
“I once called you my love,”
“That was gorgeous as a dove.”
“You know these things I inscribe”
“Will not stop me from thinking!”
Yet he drew, and he did
Inscribed the words he did
Still captive far away
Held away from all the others
His captor continued to
Make a profit
From the man
She thought she knew
One night midnight struck
With no change in his luck
Castle ghosts appeared on walls
Past fragments not yet absolved
“Is our suffering enough for you?”
“We’re the ones you used up who”
“Would only like to see you,”
“Would only want to feel you.”
“We’ve haunted these abandoned halls,”
“Wearing medals and torn up shawls”
“Waiting for arrival”
“For you there is no trial.”
All these
Medals and pictures
And symbols and trinkets
Appeared to the man
A fake dresser
With the best of
The frames from
All over the land
Stocked with families
And gatherings and
Pivotal histories, and they all
Talked to the man,
Who yelled once and for all
“Is this suffering enough for you?”
“You all who watched and knew?”
“This plight I’ve been going through”
“Has not made for a spectacle.”
“I’ve been to hell and back for you,”
“Seen heaven and left it askew.”
“The ghosts that haunt me now,”
“Are the angels disavowed.”
Looking out
From his window
With earthly possessions
Adorning the room
On his easel was an
Unfinished painting
At his lectern was a
Work in progress writing
The orange earth
Sprawled from the castle
And he in the tower
Who watched the seasons change
Was comforted by
Those who watched
The stones crack
And the moss grow
Crystals
I was stupid to trust a swine once more
My heart and mind could never agree or decide
So you did for me
I saw it coming
I knew it was near, but ’tis an odd shape it came in
Formless, unbounded, the fog rolled in
I look up at the clouds sinking lower
And knew that above them
There you were
Moist air aerosol crept into every pore
My mouth dried in the cooling air
Frozen into place were my mind and my veins
The mist rolled and the clouds descended
Walking on the grass to reach a destination
On the frosted dew that crunched
Under my feet with every step
My shoes grew wetter by the step
The rhythm in ice unfrozen
Friction collapsing crystals in bone
It’s growing harder to see
Through this thick fog surrounding
It is comforting
Every step fighting frost
Heat generated and dissipated
Winter clothes on as I take more steps
Towards the ever-declining air
Hydrated bronchi were never
So beautiful
I can only see my feet
And the ground just below
As I walk through the
Field that I know of
All fades
Grass remains
Every step
Nearing something
Then a wind
Compounding the chill
Through my jackets
Reaching for bone
The wind
Curtains away the fog
Revealing to me
The field I knew
Undercast overhead
Trees on all horizons
Walking towards something
Something I knew
The fog was gone
Yet the air was crisp
It
Stayed
Behind and left with it
Dewdrops from thin air
Floating in suspended animation
Silver Ants
There sat a reservoir
In the mountain desert
Where an oasis of artificiality
Sprang an ecosystem unlike another
Mythical silvered ants
Colonized the creek beds first
Followed by families
Looking for a new society
So this oasis
With the silvered ants
Sprang clusters of tents
In addition to trails of the county
Dirt patches on the people’s feet
Ants crawling all over
The small grain soil and
Infiltrating food caches
Mythical ant trail marches
Were followed by Benny’s footsteps
Mr. Johnson was an outsider
With malice on his bronzed mind
Casually dressed, wingtips on
He stalked remote trails
From slopes beyond
And lurked and watched
The ant trails flowing
With the silvered dirt grains
Made of carcasses and carapaces
From dead insect ancestors
Families in their tents
Were ignorant of this
Living lovely picturesque lives
In the countryside and new frontier
Benny Johnson was there
A foreigner in this land
For reasons unknown
Enacting deeds most foul
In the sky above
Those silver ant trails
Was the man in his dress
In the silvered creek beds
Hot Snow
White seeds hit windscreens
Nostalgic clusters, floating free
Carry cities paved with gold
Letting roots catch our folds
Trees above rain down these
Cinematic offerings
Leaving streets paved with snow
Stuck to gutters, no where to go
Above trees, sun does freeze
Whisked away, sky a release
Caught in time, they flow in air
Particulate breeze, everywhere
White silken string weaves
Tumble through branches’ leaves
Tufts of cotton falling down
Onto the peaceful place, indolent town
