Coil by James Lange

Coil By: Jimmy Lange

DEDICATION: This book is dedicated to an old flame of mine who still burns brightly. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d also like to give special thanks to all those who read these words and give me their honest opinions, both before and after the poems are done.

TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.................................................................................................................... 2

COIL I. PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF LOVE ................................................................ 6 Drunken Misdemeanor.................................................................................................... 7 Sweatfall.......................................................................................................................... 8 Tongue To Tongue .......................................................................................................... 9 Breathless...................................................................................................................... 10 Guided By Desire.......................................................................................................... 11 Stammering Heartbeat .................................................................................................. 12 Indirect Motioning ........................................................................................................ 13 A Peck on the Cheek ..................................................................................................... 14 Gently Bent.................................................................................................................... 15 Swallow Hard................................................................................................................ 16 Silently Slipping ............................................................................................................ 17 Dreamscape Kisses ....................................................................................................... 18 II. JUPITER CRASH ........................................................................................................ 19 Drifting.......................................................................................................................... 20 The Oceanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pull........................................................................................................... 21 Gravity .......................................................................................................................... 22 A Flame......................................................................................................................... 23 Wound Down................................................................................................................. 24 Semi-permanent ............................................................................................................ 25 Peace............................................................................................................................. 26 Jupiter Crash ................................................................................................................ 27 Open Ended................................................................................................................... 28 A Feeling of Regret ....................................................................................................... 29 The Child....................................................................................................................... 30 Stardust ......................................................................................................................... 31 Wonder.......................................................................................................................... 32 Locked in Prayer........................................................................................................... 33 Rude Awakening............................................................................................................ 34 The Window .................................................................................................................. 35 Sun-dried Reflections .................................................................................................... 36 III. THE FIELDS OF SORROW ...................................................................................... 37 To Rid The Disease ....................................................................................................... 38 Dramatic Happening .................................................................................................... 39 A Rising Calm ............................................................................................................... 40 The Field of Sorrow ...................................................................................................... 41 Windswept ..................................................................................................................... 42 To Meet The Maker....................................................................................................... 43 Quiet Night.................................................................................................................... 44

Haunting(s) ................................................................................................................... 45 Unmentioned ................................................................................................................. 46 Prior.............................................................................................................................. 47 Time Passing................................................................................................................. 48 Moving Images.............................................................................................................. 49 Ill-thought ..................................................................................................................... 50 Subjugated..................................................................................................................... 51 Ghost Reveries .............................................................................................................. 52 IV. THE PRAYER SEEKER............................................................................................ 53 The Prayer Seeker......................................................................................................... 54 Deliverance ................................................................................................................... 55 Sworn ............................................................................................................................ 56 Fire Burning.................................................................................................................. 57 Mixed Memories............................................................................................................ 58 Fulfilled Request ........................................................................................................... 59 Unending Request ......................................................................................................... 60 Queasiness .................................................................................................................... 61 The Outspoken Devotee ................................................................................................ 62 Unwritten Codes ........................................................................................................... 63 Rapture.......................................................................................................................... 64 V. COIL ............................................................................................................................ 65 Devastated..................................................................................................................... 66 The Current................................................................................................................... 67 Morningrise................................................................................................................... 68 Coil................................................................................................................................ 69 Kiss The Angel .............................................................................................................. 70 Goddess......................................................................................................................... 71 Undying......................................................................................................................... 72 Circle............................................................................................................................. 74 Devil Woman ................................................................................................................ 75 A Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Recollections............................................................................................... 76 Traces............................................................................................................................ 77 Dissipating Madness ..................................................................................................... 78 Meditation ..................................................................................................................... 79 A Fragment of Her Being.............................................................................................. 80 The Circle Completes.................................................................................................... 81 VI. DEADWATER ........................................................................................................... 82 She Awakens.................................................................................................................. 83 Delusions and Fantasies ............................................................................................... 84 Unworthiness ................................................................................................................ 85 Distraught Heart........................................................................................................... 86 Seeking Slumber............................................................................................................ 87 A Mournerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tale.......................................................................................................... 88 Half-Alive...................................................................................................................... 89 Ancient Riddles ............................................................................................................. 90 Deadwater..................................................................................................................... 91

Blood For Blood ........................................................................................................... 92 Songless......................................................................................................................... 93 She Reenters Him.......................................................................................................... 94 VII. HOURS OF WEALTH ............................................................................................. 95 Isolation ........................................................................................................................ 96 Tainted Reflection ......................................................................................................... 97 Dirtied ........................................................................................................................... 98 New Words .................................................................................................................... 99 Meditation II ............................................................................................................... 100 Watershed ................................................................................................................... 101 Displeasing ................................................................................................................. 102 The Heartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Realignment ............................................................................................ 103 Blindness ..................................................................................................................... 104 Change and Chains..................................................................................................... 105 Defying........................................................................................................................ 106 One Last Lullaby......................................................................................................... 107 Perfected ..................................................................................................................... 108 A Leper Made King..................................................................................................... 109 Hours of Wealth .......................................................................................................... 110

I. PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF LOVE

Drunken Misdemeanor Passion-filled lips Press against the empty-hearted Full-minded body Of a struggling, Awkward speaking Man, who, in a moment Will break away From the sour kiss To explain the reasons Why this is not the time Nor the place To try to light a new flame And mislead the heart Toward a new obsessive thought Of possible love It’s only a drunken misdemeanor The alcohol in the blood Producing the teasing sensations That make the body desire flesh Any flesh, as long as it is willing To connect Joining together with The battered, unstable mind That speaks aloud Quietly in the night As the body sleeps And dreams restlessly Of the lives that can only be lived And maintained In fantasy Brushing lips together Doesn’t strike the chords of guilt To the logic able to overpower the heart As it is able to still pull the body away From what could soon turn to a felony Breaking the connection Partly out of the other’s soberly seen undesirability And the sweet calling Of solitude Who waits patiently For her lover To return

Sweatfall Two interlocked bodies Move together Like a seesaw of passion The softer, gentler lover A poet of words Observes the exchange Of a man and a woman breathing in each other Through the steady motions They learned of From their own innate primitiveness And the sweetness of the experience Propagated by their blessed motherland The poet is consumed By the imagery that arises from lovemaking The dampness and humidity That comes solely From the lower parts of the human form And makes the room smell of sex And fleshly desire There is only what the poet can pen As being sweatfall The hot rain that pours down Off the skin As the two animals Push forward and deeper Into the maddening heat Of each other Awakening a core of the self That had slept patiently Until wakened By the flooding ocean Of pleasure That cannot be feigned As climax is met And the two return from their heavenly venture The poet That sweet, gentle soul Can only recall the word he has stumbled across In trying to capture the idiosyncrasy That falls from the body Like summer rain

Tongue To Tongue Two red muscles That lay in wait During the hours That the body need not speak Press against each other Trying to tangle And choke the other In a form of oral pleasure A sadistic and masochistic ritual That has been deeply ingrained in the memories Of the human flesh Each person, no matter who the creator Desires to find A tongue to press its own against So that it can start its travel Down the saliva-river Of pleasure That past scholars and poets Have tried to label as being A kiss The wizened kisser Who has opened gateways By experiencing on multiple levels The sweetness and sorrowfulness Of the river that travels from the mouth to the soul Knows that sometimes When the kiss is about finished And the tongue has reached the end of the river Only the moonlit night of the soul Is able to greet them Luring them close to the emptiness That dwells within another By having a maiden in a white dress appear Singing softly to the sky A song that reawakens memories In the heart of a fallen angel Who grows more devilish Each time his lips part To try to relocate or discover anew The saliva-river that could lead his heart To the place of redemption Where maidenless He will lay with his beloved

Breathless A sensation like drowning And breathlessness Overpowers belittled lips That never sought to kiss The hungry mouth Grown fat From its insatiable desires The lesser of the two Still a child Jumping from stone to stone Prays that his youth Will not end As long as he continues to step gracefully Remaining dry and unscarred From the greater Who seeks to undermine And absorb His delectable flesh Attempting to reassure the child That the moments may seem pleasureless Only because the body is experiencing them for the first time The child cries And his fragile mind tries to recreate the happening As if it were only a nightmare to be wakened from The boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands wrapped tightly around his blanket The nightlight still shining its warm green glow Keeping the demons away But the child stirs from his delusions As he feels the real cracks upon his lips Put there by a harsh lover Who sought to render him powerless By introducing the child To the wicked ways of the flesh That cause those Who have been absorbed, consumed, and forgotten To meander dreamlessly Back toward the river of childhood Where the stepping stones Remain unmoved And the child who intended to stay and remain young forever Now finds himself blue, choked, breathless Sleeping on the watersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; floor

Guided By Desire A half-fortuitous Puddle of blood Belonging to a endlessly dreaming soul Whimpers in its hopefulness That it will either Be soaked up By the shawl of its beloved Or have a semi-permanent desirer Come to step in its wetness Allowing the blood to cling temporarily To the shoe of the passerby Who is unaware of the delightfulness His small, unnoticed touch Is able to have For a broken soul And though the blood May become mixed with sand And dried Upon the manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sole The blood Still linked to the heart Of its misguided owner Maintains its dignity From the simple pleasure Of having been stepped on By the foot of a Brahman A man, who if not separated by class and caste, Would surely reach out To soak up all of the precious blood Belonging to the soul Who does not cry aloud because of its sadness But rather from its forever escaping dream Of being able To join hands And sway in heavenly motions With its should-be-lover Yet the blood is Left only to experience The secondary heart-lifting Moments that arise from A man who is too busy looking in front of him To have a single thought concerning Where his foot will fall

Stammering Heartbeat A gentle unspoken request Pulls a sleeping mind From its rest And the sudden wakefulness of the body Sends adrenaline Rushing through the loose Heavy-feeling limbs that still half-consciously dream As eyes open and search desperately To reaffirm that there is no unfamiliarity Within the sanctuary Of this angel’s safe haven The senses becoming aware Of the closeness of another, Another who has become so commonplace As the other dimensions of the room That he can sometimes be overlooked In his ability to exist independently Outside of the four corners That structure the sleeping grounds Of his beloved Wholeheartedly he seduces her Having the first sleepy kiss Be the bodily transition From dream into fairytale Where he is able to envelope her Forgetting the unimportant notions of his mind That try to convince him He is not taken seriously By this woman, god’s perfectly sculpted beauty Whose form can create living poetry With the most delicate of embraces Causing those who are of mortal blood And simple flesh To fall to their knees Desperately pleading For even one of her fingers To touch against their forehead So that the mind can be cured from its deliriousness Caused from having set eyes upon a beauty so fair That the heart cannot stop its stammering Whether or not It’s awake or asleep

Indirect Motioning Standing still like the long forgotten In a sea of people that wear a blank expression A woman goes unnoticed, the music continuing to play on The rhythmic beats that swing and sway The bodies that are no longer of their own possession As they belong to the song And the unseen composer Who sits, silently watching from a distance In his box seats The simple moves that must be taken In order to transform a civilized nation Into dancers whose greatest pain Is knowing that closing time must eventually come The long forgotten With her green dress Ending only a few inches after her knee Looks up and across the swarm of people To see hands beckoning her Calling her for the most intimate Of dances Under a starless sky As she approaches closer and closer She sizes up his figure His classical dress and elegant wavering of hands Knowing that he must be of some richness Even if it only be of his own self-worth Adorning him With the most delicate glance Her forgottenness dissipates And she feels sweetly again Her heart beating with the desire For another Now wishing to dance Every dance possible Until closing time Yet as she arrives before him She notices in his eyes an unawareness As his body, as if on a timer Beckons her again With an indirect motion

A Peck on the Cheek Her first attempt is too forceful The words from her mouth Not trying to cover up her intentions To ravish the body Until it is drained dry of its juices And weakened so that it struggles to stand Without the support of a concrete wall Constantly by its side The second attempt is poorer The other body having kindly stated before That it did not have similar wants Or intentions, Desiring not to kiss the mouth or the breasts of one so seeking self-gratification Finding the figure To be unattractive Bearable enough to be friends And have a mild Association with This creature of sexual deviation Who would most likely never finds its mate Due to its unpleasant bone structure And inability to carry its own weight The third attempt is pitiful The brains of the woman Too small to comprehend rejection Causing for the heartfelt poet To reach out Not to grant the wish Of the frantic body But to offer A sympathetic kiss A simple peck on the cheek To build the barrier That limits the intentions Of a figure that further decreases its appeal With every desperate attempt To try to embrace A mate it is unworthy of As it fails to strike The chords of desire Needed to make Love happen

Gently Bent Her neck is gently bent Too proud to be lowered to the same level As the animals Slaughtered at the guillotine For wrongdoings That cannot be considered human She knows herself To be a woman of intellect A fly-by-night Irreducible, unlike the others Who fall Like the stupid creatures they are Unable to rationalize Of the soul that shall persist After the body falls and decays Transcendence, to them, being nothing more Than a word spoken by The overeducated Unwilling to bring themselves To the same level As the beasts that till their soil Keeping beauty as it is Yet remaining an unseen Disregarded shadow Never granted any more Than the table scraps and breadcrumbs That their masters are willing To let fall into their mouths On this day of death The executioner Reads the crimes for the Pious heart about to have Its red river shared with the world Because the most sacred of moral codes Was broken For the sake of a kiss Delivered upon the gently bent head Of a noblewoman But as all in the land know Nobility is not meant To fraternize With animals

Swallow Hard Skipping a stone Across the reflective waters Of a peaceful pond Her eyes set upon A light figure Surrounded by darkened clouds Looking gently down Trying to determine If the man looking back Is the man that should be there Inhabiting the skin She tries to meet his gaze Attempting to get his attention By skipping stones further across the water Closer to his morose mind No longer able to Find pleasure in being alive Because his feet only know how to move forward His head, now a constant ache Unwilling to free him From the memories that bind him To regret and sadness For not standing by his beloved Because his heartache grew so large It turned his heart against her And against himself Saddened She takes her last stone And skips it, unnoticed Being left with the unspoken understanding That she must either go to him Or accept that he is merely a man Standing across the same pond as she, Troubled, retracing his past Hoping to discover The first hurt and first wrong done unto him So that he can resurrect the memory And bury it deeper Than it is now Allowing him to swallow hard one last moment Then move forward To where the new day waits

Silently Slipping Falling, silently Unnoticed Into the well-deserved darkness That calls day after day An unavoidable void Making its way up the body Like the vines of a tree From the bottom of the feet To the blue of the veins Reminding the heart Who the real master is Each tick-tocking throb of life Pumps blood To the temples of the underwritten Composer of each and every moment Conducting as a maestro Every image and interpretation The body sees and reacts to Yet forced to accept The consciousness of its own consciousness Unable to merely exist Without contemplating what it means To be a brain within a skull Capable of performing any action Even producing hallucinations And guiltless deceit The vines of the void Gently wrap around his ring finger Treating delicately His most precious memories Of a now barren, long forgotten Dream that had bloomed into reality From the chemical productions of his brain That sought to make its other half happy The half that was temporarily made unaware That everything thought and felt Was produced by endorphins And nerves that could be Interpreted as being deceitful If emotions And the soulful part of the body Got too involved

Dreamscape Kisses Lips that are softer Than they were from memory Press against the desperateness Still residing In the heart of one Seeking to move forward While never turning his head In the proper direction Seeing just how small The object of his affection can grow Before it disappears Completely from his sight Prior to the ending That comes now every time The two meet eyes and share bodies He offers her A dreamscape kiss A temporary lapse Back into the past Where the two lay Unmoved and uncaring As to if the sky would fall And the world would crumble Fire falling like pretty lights from the heavens A small show is put on To mark the beginning of a life For two soul mates United in flesh Holding onto each other without fear And without interruption Of their conversation He reaches for her again now To solidify What seems to turn to water And slip from his hands Again and again And she, though changed from their lives together Allows him to kiss her again Bringing to life One final dream to share As the sky falls

II. JUPITER CRASH

Drifting Out by the open water That seems endless With its peaceful waves Moving out farther than the eye can see Even when strained There floats on the surface A piece of driftwood Separated from its other broken pieces Knowing now In the middle of the ocean The true meaning of loneliness Unfeeling Cold waves Crash against it And as human eyes Temporarily spot it Admiring it for its ability To float unharmed Among the ice cold water The driftwood whimpers Trying to stretch out its remaining branches In the direction of others So that possibly it will be retrieved Out of curiosity Or the male desire To claim a piece of wood for chopping and burning The wood offers itself To be taken and crucified As if it were an earthly messiah Yet the water Is too cold for human skin To venture out with its curiosity And male idiocy To try to claim The wood drifting Unheard in its silent tongue Due to humans limitations From the five senses That are able to hear and see Into the distance Until their eyes water And sound fades away to quietude

The Oceanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pull The water stirs Around bodies rendered lifeless Dead weight Settling in like morbid stone At the bottom of the ocean Where above-water eyes No longer have to look upon Their once-living, Once-treasured friends Who now lay Buried beneath the sands With no desire to be rediscovered As their eyes only flap open to give them sight When the water current pushes their lids up A small reminder that at one time When their bodies were full of life And not discarded waste To be disposed of In a place where they could sink And rot Without the smell of their flesh Bothering the noses of their beloveds An earlier time When their friends were full of care And would have spoken to them with deceptive concern Saying that life is full of dangers But it should never stop you From doing what you want to do And in these moments prior to death The soon-to-be-stone friend Would have been able to take a breath Above or below the water Still conscious and able to resist physically The oceanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pull And the inevitable end That comes once one hits The sandy bottom Where bodies collect like memories Never to be thought of again Rotting from the deceitful nature Of those who only halfheartedly Call themselves A friend

Gravity The sky is stuck Somewhere between purple and black As a woman’s hair is highlighted By the glowing stars Looking in admiration At the tangible dream in front of them The material makings of the body Curves that speak through body language Welcoming those of the same form To partake in the comforts of the flesh Simple beings Bound by the inescapable ties to humanity Gravity and the angled, turning world Remaining the only place To truly call home Her partner An unwavering romantic Finds security in the idea That the heart is more than an organ It is the center of all human emotions The maker-and-breaker Of life’s purposefulness For without love… She speaks to him as she is Free-floating and not yet ready To swear herself to one and one alone Seeing that there are many flames Able to light her fire She requests that he come beside her Putting his words and dreams to rest For the time being Allowing each other to merely enjoy The knowing that the two can unite As they lay amongst the stars Looking down upon The familiarity of home Watching as gravity and time Pass them by As if the flames they lit when together Could leave them untouched By the clock’s delivery Of a new day and night

A Flame As he enters her She feels it rise up From the depths of her inner longings Red and yellow Burning like the sun The forcefulness Of the natural world Pressing against her Treating roughly Her soft skin Reminding her In an undesired yet irresistible whisper That all pleasure comes with pain And her body cannot argue As the flame burns brighter Flooding her with the fire The sick-sweet sensations That must be godly Otherwise they would not feel as good as they do And the mind would be able To keep its thoughts Rather than having them Fall away Replaced by the sweat-stained desires of the skin Making the unthinkable Now desirable And necessary For the body to experience The discovery of the flame That undresses mystery Revealing its bloom And color As the body meets with extremes That used to only take form As the body slept and projected images That left the other half Frightened as it awoke Knowing that what it had experienced in the dream Was a fleshly nightmare As there are limitations For a flameless body That has yet to embrace And uncover its own fleshly Mystery

Wound Down The crystallized memories Once horded by their possessor Are now shattered by the same hands Previously unwilling to conceive Of letting go of times So precious Yet growing upset And bitter When the present Could not remain to be like the past As moments are not meant to be captured Only experienced Falling away into the black abyss of forgetting Where the mind tries to explain To its poor self-deceived heart That sweetened memories arise from lust The body playing games with its inhabitant While it is full of the intoxicating feelings Of a new body designed Solely for its pleasure Pressing against it And pressing into it The sweet, sticky memories Soon to haunt the body As it shakes at night In its cries Without its mate The withdrawals from dream-like memories And cruel realities Hitting hard The body that is forced to wind down And accept That it was only real For the hours that the eyes were closed Reality having nothing grandiose To offer to anyone For those unlocked from the arms of lust Are forced to look upon the world For what it truly is And those who are still gaga for another Awaken each day with their soon-to-die dream Making sure to pull the wool Tightly over their eyes

Semi-permanent He would become a pair of sunglasses Left on the table Never to be worn again The trash that didn’t get taken out on time Because the morning hours Always came too early The story left untold around the campfire Since all others Crumbled from the fear Of telling a story that would lead to embarrassment The climax never arriving For the ears of the listeners or the mouth of the teller He would be remembered as The hand that would take a child’s And lead him through the moonlit night To show him how the water reflects And the entire world Can be seen sitting atop the water And the wondrous proof Of what it meant To give your word And stick by it Only allowing for death When he came bidding To break vows That were as permanent As the body’s flesh And the heart’s beat The same heart That would weep for its master’s passing As he crossed over Hand-in-hand With the black-hooded child Who never had a father Or a friend To show him How the world can be seen in the water And how the body’s frame And breath of life Is as semi-permanent As the people able to recall From a story told around a campfire The memory of their father

Peace A thousand blades of grass Hold him up from the ground As he allows the heat of the sun To burn away The old skin Of an previous life Causing the eventual peeling away Of scarred flesh Flesh containing the memories Of a life sought after That now requires its erasure from the mind He does his best to embrace the pains of his current life The limbs that never cease to ache Hoping that some day soon He will awaken Wide-eyed Seeing like a child again Everything new Every image intriguing Yet indiscernible In its meaning Requiring that the body awaken from its slumber Pushing back the physical pains So that it may experience Learning what it means To be reborn like the phoenix Able to look upon past broken-heartedness As if it were a memory Formed from falling asleep While reading Blakeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Songs of Innocence and Experience Where a boy laying in the grass In the world of consciousness Would awaken as a man With a changed perspective Discovering a sense of peace Where heartache had laid And made home In his aching limbs That had bled for months and months As he looked in the mirror And accepted the consequences Of surrendering dreams To reality

Jupiter Crash The rays of the sun Are disheartened By the empty space They once knew To be Jupiter Her orbit And atmosphere The planet Having been sucked quickly Into a black void The event happening so fast That fellow planets and stars Were unable to a lend assistance To a stellar sister As she passed into the deep Too shocked and scared To try to scream from her Planetary lungs A word or phrase To be remembered by Or offer as closure For those who were there to see Their highly-thought-of-sibling On her deathbed As she accepted the inevitability of fate The sad, bitter, twisted truth That you can only have so much control Until the omnipotent Waves its hands And brings the titans To come and collect The figure and soul Soon to be judged As it finds itself now On the other side Understanding that the void Was just the next passage To a place unknown Somewhere it was destined to go Since time is always allotted And a schedule is always kept With only the slightest chance For one to have an extension Or a second go-around

Open Ended The darkened need For an answer To a question That lays awake Plaguing the mind For the should-be-hours of sleep Capable of restoring the heart Giving new breath To the lungs that feed the body life As it moves toward its next destination Forgiveness and retrospect Both stand in the distance Hoping to meet the eyes Of a fallen, misguided, manipulated child Who has been made to fear his own reflection Unable to ask an open-ended question Well-aware of the answer already given by the other Whose answer is the determining factor In shaping his emotional and mental outcome The body able to carry on No matter what takes place The vessel, though tattered and attacking itself Now a practitioner of self-hate Feels there is nothing to question All things are as they should be And all things are a result of cause and effect Each move put into motion Having now led to these bitter black awakenings Where dependency is the only form of life Because being alone without an answer Or a comfort for the mind Has the child forever falling Looking into the darkness And calling for its mother or father Repeating again and again His apologies for not believing That there were monsters in the darkness And that anyone can lose themselves From asking the wrong question Or coming to a realization That permanently alters existence And dirties the air That allow for the lungs To provide life

A Feeling of Regret In a moment of reflection His life becomes simplified Every action comparable To choosing the right piece of candy at the candy store Yes, there will always be the same candies And even new candies, in the day to come But when you are young And given money rarely It is essential To choose the right candy On the right day Otherwise, the money has been wasted And the child continues on Disappointed by his choice His rushed decision And inability to take it back. He is left with a sweet candy in his mouth That tastes sour from his lack of desire For the sweetness of the purchase As a child, he is already aware Of the labor and the pain That made the coin and the candy possible Now experiencing a deeper feeling than just disappointed He feels he is a traitor Having turned against the angels Who have done nothing But traded their time and effort For his happiness and indulgence. Knowing now that he was not, and is not As wise as his providers He deserves rather To be like the animal that lays Under the table Unworthy of any affection from his beloveds Yet hoping to be fed Any uneaten or not properly cooked food Avoiding all choices and decisions That approach him Because he is unfit And unwilling to experience again The taste of a soured, sweet candy And a haunting feeling Of disappointment, misery And regret

The Child Yearning for a time That is not due for another twenty years The child hides between the legs of its parents Looking upward, dreamily Thinking of the physical changes His body will undergo Waking one day, No longer small But as the tree That welcomes him home Each day, Standing in the sunlight Fruitless, but only because The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creator Did not design the tree To bear more than it was meant to Yet, the tree in time Had branches that grew Turning and twisting Into the most beauteous Of wooden structures The boy could not help but think How he was like the tree Soon to turn and twist Growing upward, straight As mother always corrected his posture Joking him that he did want to be a hunchback like Quasimodo When he was older Forced to live a life In a bell tower As it was the only place The deformed creature Could seek sanctuary He straightens his back After having this thought Half-listening to the chatter of adults Dreaming blissfully Of the day that he will be grown And his body Will find itself Eye level with the heavens Taller than the twisted trees of childhood

Stardust Frighteningly The newborn star Sees its father Burn into oblivion Leaving a small trail of dust Soon disappearing Into the night that now grows a little darker From a light gone out Yet still welcoming all Just the same To enter into the final chapter of living Where no further action is necessary Only the acceptance of a simple unity Between the something that is soon to become Untraceable and unknowable The master of ending and final breaths has No demands And desires no promises Or expectations that usually come along With the innate selfishness and greed Of every living thing It merely holds its hand out Beckoning softly to those Who can no longer maintain themselves In the living world Of sight and sound Explaining as a siren does That it is time To join with the sightless and soundless Where existence is primordial Not complex nor bound up In filial expectations Or relationships Necessary to ease the mind Always in search of what it feels It does not have. The acceptance of the final chapter Melts away the desire For connection with others Finding stability In the solitude of oneness That comes with the ancient sleep Of stardust and the acceptance That all stories have an end

Wonder The child scratches Onto soft parchment That yields no judgment A thoughtful question to a friend Why is it that we look to the unknown In fear, rather than in wonderment Of what we don’t understand? We build walls of prejudice As high as skyscrapers So that there is absolutely no chance For intruders to scale the wall And wander into our minds Even our subconscious thoughts We work against Every should-be-attempt At making ourselves more open Buying more heavy duty locks “Because the primitive beasts Have developed new weapons And when their physical strength fails them They use mimicry Manipulating civility So they can try to sit among our tables Conversing with us On the struggles of the day The lost livestock and blistering sun When they, in fact, Are the very beasts Striking down Our well-made investments That allow us to further ourselves And fill our pockets So that we can live Earnestly and honestly Among the challenges Of those unable to rise above Their social limitations And embrace the true beauty Of civility” The boy stops writing And wonders when he will become More than a beast among humans

Locked in Prayer Hands are interlocked Tightened around each other In desperation Speaking in a spiritual tongue To a creator who is always above, Unseen, the same way Love is unseen Yet still takes the hand And heart of the bitterest soul Unexpectedly leading the scrooge Toward a light never beheld Since his eyes were always lowered Looking at the ground Trying to determine how many commonalities were shared between His heart and a piece of coal But the scroogeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being demoted To a follower Permits the optimistic Well-intentioned leader Who bears a striking resemblance To a small man with bow and arrow Takes our once-ice-cold friend And brings him to the gates of heaven Where the creator is willing To put down his hands of creation To stop and wave At one of his children Noting to himself How he really should spend more time With the troubled ones Who grower darker and dress in all black Not because they like the color Or because greed as stolen their light But because love has been absent from their hearts too long The laughter and smile of a child Seeming a cruel beauty To bestow upon their ears and hearts As they have no one To share the sidewalk with and converse pleasantly about the day with Left alone like terrified children With their hands in prayer Repeating a mantra Praying god will heal their lonesome hearts

Rude Awakening His tattered coat Sleeping as peacefully as its owner Is wakened by a prodding stick Used by the authorities To push further into the darkness Those who have no place of residence The manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes Become alive and look Surprisingly upward Toward the elegant figure That desires, partly because it is his job And partly, because of his superiority To motion to the man That his time of free rest Has come to an end And that the night waits for him For the journey he must take To become unseen like a specter His feet required to never stop moving Until morning and day return And he is permitted To reform himself in flesh and poverty Still undesired to be seen But also a necessary evil To be kept and used as an example As why education and civility Are essential to human life Because without it One is required To live in and with nature Forced to build illegal fires to stay warm And never again have a good nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rest Since there is always a man on patrol Keeping the city clean and safe From vagabonds Those who would rather live With the smell of alcohol Forever on their lips And their breath More concerned with having another drink Than trying to re-climb The social ladder That could be their redemption

The Window A small figure Holds his hands behind his back Looking outside a window Onto the long green hills of land Falling under his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name Nature having been tamed And put into the possession Of one able to wheel-and-deal Like the best of them Not conniving or deceitful Simply a man who knew the business And desired to leave his amassed amounts of riches To the child who would Become the spitting image Of the man he was Having a small piece of his soul Forever intermingled with the very blood Linking the two of them As more than just relatives As the younger was a reproduction of the original Bearing the same name with a suffix Denoting the slightest difference between the two Mainly the year of birth And the more prominent appearance of youth As the Jr. did not have the same sweat and blood Held within the wrinkles of the skin As his father had From the constant work required To build the very structure Supporting his sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feet Holding him above the ground Offering him a view Of his great estates A physical proof and glimpse of his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth Through the window of life The blood on his hands Leading him to a place greater Than just another part of the field Where his labor would continue With little profit And even lesser hope For an achievable greatness That could be left behind To his son, his secondary flesh and bone

Sun-dried Reflections Though he is a man now The dirt beneath his fingernails Still reminds him of his childhood When his father would finally let go Of his bourgeoisie nature And fear of dirtiness So that he could embrace The same freedom as his son Enjoying lying and rolling In the freshly turned earth As if it were a greater treasure Than the coins That lay strewn across the vault Steel proven to never rust And age The way that the bodies Of these two men would Feeling the toll Of the clockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ticking Wear on their skin Bidding each of them At his destined time To make peace with his actions And to seek redemption While not forgetting to designate The next heir to the throne To stand and look over his kingdom Seeing the sun-dried reflections Of those who came before him In the perfectly flattened dirt Where each would play with his father Teaching an elder The art of remembering what it means To let go and fall into a world of freedom Diminishing the darkening structures That one human will place on another In order to reconfigure the brain So it always thinks in terms of hierarchy And puts to rest its days Of finding pleasure in playing And dreaming Of all the lives and worlds The mind could make for itself

III. THE FIELDS OF SORROW

To Rid The Disease Half-awake eyes Peer into the darkness Hearing the alarm Chiming deep in the soul of the distraught As his mind and body are still not one with each other His precious organ still drowning Unable to rationalize its own existence Without the one it has tied itself to Loveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s becoming the very disease The body must rid itself of In order to waken in the night Without sweat upon the brow From a dreadful dream Of a life past unable to be returned to the present Where angels and demons Watch silently, taking bets As to who will prevail in the battle Between rationality and the unfading desire Arising still, even after the flame has flickered Forever diminished by the actions Taken by oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s other half In the name of love His body Before reentering into a state of rest Peers out onto the ocean waves Where he can still hear her voice Speaking to him Always coming in the night Light a disembodied siren Trying to coo him into returning To the dark coldness of the sea Where she promises to make him king As she rules as queen Believing the same lies Ingrained into her from a false superiority The wind awakens him from his half-sleep Now realizing that he has been standing against a rail Victimized again by the disease He cannot rid himself of His conscious mind never sure Whether he is awake Or dreaming

Dramatic Happening He struggles to find The stable ground Between the dramatic happenings Of the peaceful life He once lived Each breath in and breath out Measurable in only A smile or a laugh Now, haunted by the ending results Of letting oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest desires Come too close and turning the flame of the heart Into a forest fire Showing the innocent and the pure-hearted The destructiveness of love Passionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s acting as the main ingredient For the madness that makes the body Strike out in a rage No longer able to maintain its civility As thoughts of loss transform the already unstable Into a monster that no human was meant to be The skin growing harder and colder Than that of the nymph That used to so delicately Lay beside her mate Telling him that of all things she was thankful for It was the softness of the two of them And the strong soulful connection Existing between their hearts Roses wilt He thinks Re-searching his mind As if it held the answer Or deducible reasoning For why sweetness turns sour And the tales that parents tell their children Of the sweetness of meeting that one person Are nothing but bitter lies Used to cover up The dramatic happenings Sworn to be forgotten and forgiven For the sake of the family That would come in time From passion-driven loins

A Rising Calm Like a vessel aimlessly floating With no set direction Or ending point The body heads toward a rocky cove The water treating the flesh gently As if it knew it was the only one who could Enact a proper funeral procession For the recently dead Who though, having every appearance Of being fully dead Was still able to feel the water As it moved against its body Desensitized to the coldness And the physical pains caused by the rocks As his bodied was motioned into the proper position For the only spiritual rites of passage Known by the water goddess Who was able to feel from the bleak White, pale, battered skin That this body was worthy Of a sacred respect given to those Who were meant for greatness But died prematurely, surprising fate And the predestined course of action Each human is unaware that he or she takes Because the thought of freewill Was such a intoxicating idea The creator of the world Allowed for humans to have their delusions If it were to produce for them A rising calm Leaving his subjects Less needy Seeking fewer answers While on their knees in prayer Becoming more like intelligent creatures Believing they were free to wander Though in the end Each found themselves As dead weight Floating in the river Discovering death to be The most sacred rite of passage That follows after their final freewilled decision

The Field of Sorrow Memories grow like flowers In a field of sorrow Where dirtied blistered hands Reach down into the thorny soil Hoping to discover beneath the dirt A memory growing as a white light Able to begin diminishing The darkness that rules supreme In this plantation of the conscious mind Where the master has become A slave forced to return again and again To the unkempt un-kept garden That has turned against itself Developing an outer wall that protects itself From ever thinking or experiencing A thought outside the darkness The man plucks some of the memories In order to reflect on them And try to turn them to light Yet he is left hopelessly Looking into events That could have only been constructed By the devilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands Showing that love Is fated and controlled By minions stronger than the heart As the mind is wired To set limitations for what it can take And what it can forgive Allowing the past to serve as a reminder For what the present and future can never be again Preservation rooted in Every forward action Taken by the mind That can speak of selflessness But cannot withstand Too many strikes to the ego Self-dissolution leading to A field of sorrow Where only bittersweet memories grow Of a time that once was And can never be Again

Windswept The gust of wind hits hard Knocking to the ground The finely dressed figure Seeking to have his aristocratic appearance Show his worth He, unlike others, who would continue on with their day Unconcerned of how the wind has changed them, Is forced to assess the damage done Seeing the scuff upon his shoe And the wrinkle now visible at the very bottom of his pant leg His eyes naturally look at the signs above him Searching for some type of store Able to remedy his ailments For the thought of trying to tend to himself Is so appalling and middle class It frightens him to think That as his current struggle goes unnoticed The people continuing to pass by him Daily waken and are forced to have to tend to others And themselves Never knowing the true beauty Of what it means To not have to work Because the labor has already been performed By anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand At another time The fingers of the aristocrat Only tasked to learn proper etiquette and superiority To be used among his own peoples As it is their custom To allow for elegant actions To substitute for meaningless words and chatter For it is the lower classes And the beasts Who desire to talk amongst themselves Laughing and smiling At the simplistic beauty of humorousness Attributable to one that has been windswept While walking along the sidewalk Hoping that the sheer fashion of clothes Is able to maintain His place in the world The well-defined separating lines between man and beast

To Meet The Maker The blood pumping Like a torrent through his veins Seeks in its hyped-up state of Passing through the body To achieve a metaphysical level of consciousness Where the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s form and identity Can transcend upward To meet the maker Who sits patiently wondering When one will discover To follow the Christ will lead you to a secondhand salvation But to follow the Buddha Unlocks the troublesome, ever-changing Puzzle pieces of the mind That often lead back to the same unwanted feelings Of faithlessness, unable to fully trust A man never met, only heard of in stories Water turned to wine Doing nothing to provide Comfort to the body that the tingling feeling That sometimes flows like blood Is in fact the soul, the egg to hatch And release from it, the individual Unharmed, fully mystic Ready to pursue the second life Where the entirety of the world and beyond Is opened to exploration That leaves the earth unturned And unaffected By humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curiosity and desire to know What the Christ and the creator Said needed to be accepted Rather than questioned Discovering a greater transcendence The knowing that, in time All questions are answered Yet leave the questioned Unharmed, as it is the physical body Able to do damage And hurt those around it Always aware that it can attain A secondhand salvation From a man they heard about In stories from the good book

Quiet Night Swaying trees Sing the softest of songs For the sleep-deprived Well-intentioned Resting their eyes For the first time since the fever broke And they were able to rise Without the misery of the night Being filled with dreadful, loud thoughts Of wrongdoings and broken promises Always leading to the second-guessing Of eventual fate But knowing that any further attempt Will still lead the healing heart Toward hateful words And cuts deep enough To scar and never heal So rather than rise And attempt the impossible The heart is given a chance for hope and recovery As the quiet night continues to sing its song Gently picking up the body And rocking it As it had once been rocked as a babe Unaware and unthinking of The travesties to come From fate, freewill, and choice For the romantic will always be battered And almost dead Before he tries to turn his back On a sworn oath Even when the dying thing Continues to drain him Seeming unfeeling as it does so Uncaring as to how low he falls As his self-worth dwindles And he is forced to become a child again Yet a newborn without ignorance Aware now, of the cruelties accompanying Giving oneself to another And trusting in them Believing their words to be true When, in fact, all words are Just meaningless sounds made by the mouth

Haunting(s) A torn shirt lies half off of a dresser Where its wearer will never return A bottle of cologne, still potent Sits in the far left corner Never to be further emptied of its content Or picked up and held By the gentle hands of its owner The blinds remain half turned So that light can enter But the contents of the room Remain un-discernible To outside eyes looking in Who, if unknown, to the inhabitants Passes by wearing a smile Where smiles are no longer kept By the hearts made bitter from loss Letters written by the once alive Are discovered in a dusty tin Intended to be delivered To each member of the family For the upcoming Christmas A time when love could be unveiled No longer kept a secret Behind the closed, silent mouth Of one misunderstood For his choice of attire and music His family preferring judgment Prior to any attempt at understanding Now each day promotes thoughtful awakenings Realizations and discoveries Arising from the darkened hallways And haunting(s) That come along with the loss of a child Knowing the saddest day to not be the day that he died But his day of birth When a special scent was to be purchased in honor of him And remain kept, unsprayed by those still living As if the potency of the cologne Could capture him perfectly And make it seem as if He had never left

Unmentioned Writing a letter to its memory The mind tries to move forward From the bittersweet recollection Of a time not yet far enough into the past To be completely forgotten Telling the memory That if the heart had not been so filled with cowardice There may have been a chance For the two of them to have fallen Into the arms of a woman Who would have cared for them Even if it be only for a night Underneath the stars They could have exchanged more than numbers And maybe she would have called If he had used more persuasion Touching her skin in desperate need Of its softness and its warmth And then after sharing a kiss And conversation so deep Even time would have tried to stop its forward motion So it could catch a few words Of the two speaking in voices Sweeter than songbirds All along taking in the pleasure Of having discovered another To be close to And form a bond with The mind induces itself To fantasize these things To try to explain to the heart The things that could have been If time had not passed so quickly And a drunken body Had not gotten caught up In conversation With every pair of eyes it made contact with Knowing that because Actions went undone And words went unmentioned The mind is left to wonder The would-have-been-moments Formed from a greater attempt

Prior The writer with his words And ability to bring into being Those names that were left unconsidered And unthought-of until the day He brought our attention to their importance Secretly knows that every character Has cried a thousand tears And laid with an arm draped over a lover Prior to their creation In the sense of words and narrative The characters Before being led by plot In a set direction Favorable to the story And the teller of the tale Had unplanned days Of running desperately to the train station Calling out again and again For his beloved to answer Hoping that by this act This display of what she means to him She might stay Might depart from the train And realize the foolishness In trying to be without each other For their two hearts Were bound deeper than love Yet as he approaches the station He sees that she is not on the train But rather in the arms of another Her every action having seemed to be premeditated She did not want to leave him She wanted to break him The clouds offering a perfect grayness To the scene playing out before his eyes Love was just a mere melody That softly sings the truth to its listener Prior to one loving them They had loved another Morbidly embracing What the heart is apt to do

Time Passing An aging man Fighting to keep his mortality Removes the hands of a clock Bending the metal Making it unable to progress forward Creating a standstill moment The he can live in Forever, no longer withering Like a spoiled fruit Left out in the sun to long And subject to the weather The hard beating rain And the unforgiving sun He tries to convince himself That soon a reversal will take place A reclaiming of youth His skin will no longer be coarse But be soft again The way it was when he began His first search for a lover In an ocean of fleshly bodies Each seeking his or her other half A compliment to their desires Whatever they may be He tells himself that it will all be different With time out of the picture he can patiently weigh his choices Making a decision not in haste So that he can walk , hand-in-hand Through the rest of eternity With a woman who will not turn away from him As the passing of days are reduced to the simple value Of a sunrise and sunset shared between a man and a woman A man who is amazed by the results Of what can be achieved by removing the hands of time And a woman who is unaware Of how much time has passed As she only notices The lost softness of her skin Wishing that she could be as her mate was Unchanging, forever young No longer affected by The passage of time

Moving Images The realness of the moment fades And she can see it all Being acted out on the big screen Moving images with accompanying sounds The words spoken in desperateness Becoming more comical to her From her new view of the situation She kicks back in the red velvet theater chair Feeling the comfort of the seat As she watches a relationship fall to pieces before her eyes Thinking over and over again I’m so glad that’s not me Observing the way the girl’s eyes on the screen fall Low to the ground And after the man makes his exit The water falls from her eyes Small puddles forming all around her Her makeup, running down her face So dramatically, the way it always does In these types of movies And a part of her knows If she rises now, then she can still stop him Before he is gone completely… And then the lights come back on There is no theater No comfortable velvet chair Only a brokenhearted girl Sitting and crying No signal for “the end” No “Fin” to add classiness to the happening There is only the closed door And the fresh white walls Of the room surrounding her Offer her every symbol of purity Though she knows she is the image of dirtiness The irremovable stain on the carpet A child who has cried Too many tears To be a child anymore Now rendered An unwanted Heap of lost hopes And unreachable dream

Ill-thought The ring around his finger Burns his skin with the regret and solitude He is surrounded by Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence slipping in through the small cracks of the blinds Offering a distasteful warmth When his heart is icy As he sits in a state of contemplating Wondering the point to keeping vows When it is only the other who changes Refusing to stand up for her spouse Showing that an ill-thought Is often an unchangeable truth An un-kept promise brought to light As soon as the gods chose to have The wool removed from the otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes So that he could see the actuality The death of the dream The other half of him Who would rather compromise his well-being Instead of trying to heal A shivering heart Emptily promising to do all things possible To maintain the bond between the two As the rings comes off And is melted down into forgotten memories The man only sometimes still looks up at the stars Wishing to return to a moment in time Prior to the spoiling of precious love A death of beauty Brought on by an ill-thought Transformed into a bitter realization Night and day becoming a continuous Unsteady, unreleased breath The body trembling from its inability To release all it has had to hold on to For the sake of the other Being granted the ability to live A delusional fantasy Instead of accepting and trying to change The sad truth of a reality Able to crumble to dust A love bound by two rings And heartfelt vows

Subjugated Beneath the mire of yesteryears And a people forgotten A dirtied breed of human Associated with wily beasts of night Speak in foreign tongue Of the day to soon be reclaimed The sense of subjugation being diminished As the light of day is reintroduced to eyes Grown too used to the darkness Parents and children alike Feeling their eyes look up past the overhanging dirt ceilings That keep them as cave-dwellers Dreaming of a brighter future Where all negativity and doubt Is replaced by the mantra of the heart Onward! Onward! Onward! The vital organ screams Moving the feet forward Out from a dirt-filled life And onto the paved roads of progress Where night and day are measured with instruments And man and woman alike Can eat without having to track Or make sure the hand is kept steady when the shot is taken Rather the animals have already been slaughtered And the warmth of the sun Has been captured and trained To keep itself at the temperature That is to its masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liking It is this day of great happenings Marked by the onward march of a forgotten people That cause those above ground To come face to face With ancestors they believed to be Mere myths Improvable stories Told by forefathers Out of fancy For realities they would rather Turn to fiction To ease their troubled minds

Ghost Reveries Fallen into the final prayer His mind pleas with desperation For a full return Reverting back To the first day of life And the bliss Of being subjectless Unable to discern Oneself from all surrounding things The dividing lines of individuality Yet to be drawn The only foundational marker Is a collection of sounds Unable to be interpreted at their signified value Allowing the newborn To remain deaf and dumb To those who call his name The distance from sound Is a heartfelt blessing To the mind seeking ignorance Preferring it to the nonsensical Preconceived ideals of human existence For in silence, form overtakes All transparent values That words will put upon a thing For the sake of manipulation Taking hold of the object unable to articulate Speaking in its turn Claiming to know its desires As if the two shared the same thought process And were of the same blood and soul The righteous action taken by a responsible Older and wiser brother Who explained for his deaf sibling That what he sought was to be known And defined by those who knew him All other wishes falling by the wayside For who could ever find peace In soundlessness When each person needs to hear an explanation For what their eyes have come to behold Looking outside of themselves To understand the forms of others

IV. THE PRAYER SEEKER

The Prayer Seeker He presses his hands Into the dead soot From a ritualistic burning One moving him farther toward The divine light Of a half-hearted god Recollecting from memories Chained to the walls of his heart The tears return to his eyes Redemption feeling like a mock joke Played on him By the master of all A mute, unseen puppeteer Seeking prayers and worship From the mouths of those he created Desiring to hear another Speak his name and of his greatness Blissfully unaware that the thoughts Forming so genuinely from the heart Are merely preinstalled and preprogrammed A dishonest manipulation Of the human mind Creating children not out of love And hope for their future But only that the word fatherhood Could come into being Allowing the man pulling the strings To find greater meaning in himself By creating a false sense of importance The hymns being sung Nothing more than a physical manifestation Of his superego and id Each child of god looking upward to the sky Praying that those below Will one day be worthy To meet eye-to-eye With their creator The birth-giver Whose ancient wisdom and compassion Created the heavens and the earth So that all things could come to be And come to pass According to plan

Deliverance Upon the longest branch Of the tallest tree During the darkest hour of night There sits a white dove A metaphorical image of deliverance Its wings drawn in Relaxed and calm, it seeks not to travel any farther Taking in the beauty of peacefulness Flooding its eyes As humans rest, though their world still breathes And still functions the same without them The necessity of human life Merely propaganda produced by minds Unwilling to accept their place in the world The dove has watched a thousand nights Just in this manner Made calm by the fact that there is no dependency on humans The earth preferring to open itself up To try to swallow them whole Or having the waters rise And the winds rage So that those deemed so very overly-important Will become deadweight Left to eternal slumber Or a proper meal for hungry fish Humansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; gaining a use in the world After the slightest alteration To the food chain The children of god being moved right below The bottom feeder Where they are able to be Returned to their proper position The earth taking extra precaution Now fully aware of the consequences Of what happens When the lowest of the low Temporarily maintain a place of greatness Achieved from a surprise attack, False promises And power hungry hearts Chanting that ever-so-common phrase Kill or be killed Eat or be eaten

Sworn The actions of life Come to be like fallen leaves Slowly dancing through the air Landing where the wind leads them From time to time The ownerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes Will stand from a distance Behind the window of a house Looking out upon the scattered actions of his life Wondering if the wind had taken him And led him further in the direction Of the endless waters Would he have drowned Or would the coldness of the water Awoken him from the deep sleep of his mind Causing him to look more closely At the warmth that surrounds him Willing to embrace him and cling to him So that he need never sleep or walk alone Moving through life gently As if the stream and the babbling brook Were the controllers of his pace Having it so that his heart never sped nor trembled His footfall angelic in a way that made it seem He had known all along that his heart would find peace in the water But fateful winds had to lead him there Staring outside the window He dreams of the day that the winds will come And the sticky heat Of these current moments Will melt away Into the coolness of the life-giving water That some have sworn able To heal the broken limbs of the fallen No matter how great the injury His heart believing that in time If angelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s permit He will rise from this solitary grave And reassume his days of dreamlike realities Swearing to himself To never return To this place of mourning

Fire Burning The steady flame Burning strong like a child does in youth Flickers only every now and then During time when the wind is most violent Having the intentions to try to leave the world in darkness The absence of light causing for the sight of man To struggle in discerning What it is that lies before him And whether or not it is friend or foe Or some illusion played on the eyes A trick performed by a trickster To remind mortals of their bodily limitations Deception simple and achievable By the merest alteration to how something is viewed The ordinary become extraordinary From changing the angle it is seen at And dimming the lights so that the rods and cones of the eye Gather differently, interpreting the same object differently Due to the unchangeable mechanics of the eye The flame burns on Through the darkening night And battering rain Trying to strike it out So that those living by its warmth And illumination Are struck dumb and blind Wandering aimlessly Like halfhearted and doubtful pilgrims Who no longer know The right direction to take In order to arrive at the holy city Finding the rain to be chilling A cold that sticks to them With no warmth to chase it from their bones Causing them to look blindly into the darkness Cursing their lord As he has taken the light And left them to wander As either a test of faith Or a proof of faltering love For a people once treasured But now led to a torturous life Of ice-cold faithlessness

Mixed Memories A sudden stirring of memories Brought about by the chiming of the clock Unglues a man From his deeper consciousness Returning now to the surface And the sound that has broken his concentration Creating for him a puzzle to try to piece together As his mind will not let him rest Until he finds the link Between the sound and the faint memory Flooding his eyes in the most in-explainable images The objects presented to him A riddle he must try to solve Wondering what makes a vase fall And a child cry As the clock cries out To the injustice done To those who are simple and young And those who are unable to handle the responsibility of having a child From the depths of his memory He hears his mother’s voice Cold and cruel and unwilling To let him return to his toys Taking the blocks he built dreams with Making sure to destroy the foundation of hope Lying deep within the boy Making him a captive of his own mind Bound eternally by his mother’s disapproval Of the cockamamie thought That a child’s dreams Can never transform into reality The boy’s being able to learn A more valuable lesson From the truths of the world That everyone is out for everyone else And those who haunt your dreams From day-to-day or from time-to-time Take pleasure in doing so As it releases the pain They buried long ago Because their mother took their building blocks And made sure that no dreams Would ever reemerge from the rubble Of a heart broken by its own maker

Fulfilled Request The white pages Cast a spell on the hand With pen in hand Motioning its tightened fingers Over the appropriate lines Fulfilling a request For a failing love And a dying heart Black clouds and thunderstorms Form in the chest of the heartbreaker Who does not want to lose But realizes her unworthiness Of the heart that was given to her In trust and sacred vows That came to break apart And disintegrate From empty promises And eye-opening experiences That brought to life The true meaning of the word vow He sees her tears Hears her pleas But she has made him anew Unfeeling, un-healing, unable to wake And reunite himself To the soul he was once mated to In wedlock and spiritual moments Of the deepest and most physical intimacy He thinks of it similarly As to the way she sees the task at hand He merely fulfilled the request She was really asking him to perform With her coldness and empty actions His inability to find comfort in her arms Or come to her so that she could bring light to his darkened path From bliss he awoke to discover She had transformed from light to dark And she was weaving a web for him to be kept in So that he could never leave And would be forced to remain entangled Made to experience a dark and sickening love

Unending Request A thousand roses Were laid down at the feet of a muse Her poet, captured eternally By the beauty of her body and soul Bargained with the gods And had them create an extra star To shine in the sky Solely for her to smile upon As the rivers of the world Formed a choir Singing to her a song He had written her Between the hours of their togetherness And the rest that came after The sacred meeting of their flesh She looked down upon him Inspiring a thousand more verses The sweetest, softest proof to him That she truly was the muse To inspire him to do more than write verses As his lips parted and words came to form An unending request Bound to a ring worn on the fourth finger Signifying the love and promise of love To exist between them always Her acceptance of his proposal Got her lifted from the ground With two strong arms As he led her through a field of flowers That would each bloom to reveal A dream turned reality A day spent together From sunrise to sunset Each kiss shared, planting the seed of love For the next day In their garden made from Holding hands and sweet embraces Watching as new stars filled the sky underneath them As they lay looking upward toward heaven Trying to guess as to what the next day will bring them Bound eternally By rings worn on the fourth finger

Queasiness His stomach churns Creating the sickening sensation Of insides coming back out Reentering the world In a less definite form His mind flees to meager prayers Believing that maybe god would be willing To push away these feelings That leave this poor individual Sickened by himself Unwilling to look in the mirror For fear that his skin color has changed A pallor color replacing The once sought after body Of a man half-human, half-god Now rendered to frail flesh The body fearing itself Because it has grown self-conscious Of its own destructive nature Each breath seeking to find ways To disrupt the proper flow of the human form Desiring to leave the bones brittle And the heart disenchanted Preventing the man from dreaming Leaving him to the tired wakefulness of reality A place so cold that he is apt To feel remorsefulness As his memories become plaguing ghosts Torturing him playfully With the days of his youth When nothing affected him And his frame was not so easily twisted and broken His years of greatness Now seeming short-lived The sensation in his throat Rising again The feeling of queasiness Forcing his body to bend over To try to release The darkened spirits That have made home in his body Slowly destroying And weakening What once had made him invincible

The Outspoken Devotee Interrupting the thought of another He declares his love for this newfound religion The deity running through his veins Lifting him skyward Somewhere between the stars and the galaxies Swearing to reveal to him More than the secrets of one world Unweaving the strands of human makeup So that for once The body and soul are simplified The mind an easily comprehended organ Wired and manipulated To only understand certain concepts Rejecting all out-of-the-box possibilities Determining them to be brainwashing lies That could possible alter A flawless consciousness If given any consideration By the entryway he stands Psychically knowing that one more step forward Will put him over the edge Transforming him into another To have eaten from the tree of knowledge He finds himself bound to a standstill moment Remembering the story of his forefather The desire for all-knowingness Appealing to everyman Yet remembering from a set example The fullness of the deityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wrath As he has no desire for an understudy or a sidekick As well as suspecting that maybe The burning sensation moving through his body Is of the devilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand Mere trickery performed by the Lord of Demons As he slivers invisibly and unfelt Into the heart of an outspoken devotee Who underneath the skin Remains a doubting Thomas While he stands amongst Faithful lambs, who only praise The fine creations of a maker Who was able to challenge the faithful with demons Well aware of who would conquer evil And who would be left standing still

Unwritten Codes The upturned sand Reveals no ancient tablets To the eyes searching for recordings Of how hierarchy and social codes Came to exist for the humans now in bondage Due to their structural, naturalized history Simply reducible to being explained As “that’s just the way it is And the way it’s always been” The man’s mind wanting to dig deeper To discover in tangible form These lived-by and well-accepted rules Leaves no room to consider That the tablets sought after May not be in the same written language The person has learned and adapted himself to Knowing only different combinations Of twenty-six characters Unable to decipher any other code or prior language… Sickened by the acceptance that This one soul-searching individual Has no ability to authenticate any tablet Requires that the ancient history Be turned over to the hands of another Or accept bitterly That some stories will remain untold As every decipher is sure to bring into the words’ meaning His own history Knowing that a piece of himself Will continue on In the way that the story is read All history Easily reducible To who wrote it down And the words he chose to use For the image of the moment Is never able to be captured Exactly as it happened Humans forever limited By their meager ability to decipher And retranslate Unwritten code

Rapture Her heaven falls from its stand Where his love had once held it Swearing that the enclosure Was so strong that no harm or danger Could ever come to her For he would be her knight of words of romance Reaching to her in ways She had never been touched before His poems feeling like the rapture to her Divine words spoken honestly Telling of a love that would never fade As the sweetest moments of life Became intertwined like two hands Refusing to let go of each other As it was a small physical gesture Signaling to each passerby That those two hands And the bodies they were attached to Had chosen each other As lovers and soul mates Fated together by heart and body The most vital parts of each humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity Yet as his heart weakened And the reality of true identity Was uncovered like one of the Gnostic gospels He pushed away from her Seeing her true form Cursing god for his deceit As he had protected the heart and heaven of a devil And let her tear apart his righteousness And the inner beauty he had once prided himself in Yet standing by a still and silent pond He cannot help but recall the sweetness Of the now twisted memory When the two of them Had lain together Beneath a twilight sky Counting stars Each able to symbolize A proof of love They shared for each other And would continue to share Until their final setting sun

V. COIL

Devastated His pre-thought of words of seduction That had been tested aloud in a house with only one inhabitant Were recorded carefully onto the page To be printed, studied, and looked over So that when he and his desired Perfectly sculpted soul mate Came to first exchange words There would be no chance For flawed words The charm of each consonant and its pronunciation Spellbinding to his listener Each word leading him closer To taking her home and making her his possession As he returns to his words He discovers an error message and a loss of data His elegantly constructed conversations Now a blank page Where the success for his deepest desires Had bloomed into dreams soon-to-come-true But now his mind races To try to remember and reconstruct The lines he had perfected Only able to capture one or two unforgettable phrases His fears rise and his body sweats Now picturing himself mute During their first date Each question she asks him Receiving only the reply of pleading eyes Trapped wordless within himself Overanalyzing the words he could speak Feeling that each would be a linguistic disaster Hoping that maybe by some holy graces She will remain in his presence Out of sympathy for a mute man So that he can try to remember her body and form and soulfulness Though she had already admitted to have fallen for him Swept away and into him because of his way with words But the dreaded knowing Of having words that are not properly constructed And have gone untested Leaves him in devastation Willing to put to rest his dreams For the woman he desires, he can no longer speak to

The Current He is a young boy of seven Speaking to her romantically of their love In a manner that is long beyond is years He looks soulfully into the water Taking her hand and holding it More delicately than he had ever held it before Treating her for the first time As if she were the most precious and fragile creation The hands of God had ever made She tries to see as he sees Allowing the water to take on metaphysical value As he points to the current Explaining that just like the water The two of them are pulled in a certain direction Having little choice In some of the decisions that needed to be made He takes full possession of her hand First balling it up in his And then moving it over his heart Uncurling the fingers And holding them against the steady beat in his chest The touch, spiritual Yet erotic As he desires to join their flesh To become young Long before the destined time Impatient in watching The entire plan unfold Knowing from his dreams and visions The softness of her lips The warmth of her flesh And how the sweetness of her form Keeps him intertwined with her Tangled up in the sheets Hoping that for once Morning will never come And their night of togetherness Will last for as long as their passion-struck bodies Continue to meet As love-words flow from them In a current that they cannot resist

Morningrise She unlaces her clothing shyly As if beneath the covering she is nothing but poetic verses Covered by a thin layer of skin Touchable by the human hands Searching for her As if she were the key to some mystery never solved He cannot help but look upon her Feeling the trite desire to compare her to the rising sun Yet looking longer into her fiery eyes He discovers that she is more like the morningrise The creation of a new day for all The movement of her gentle hands Bringing to life the beauteous light That warms of the face of every person And welcomes them softly into the start of the next day And the continuation of life *** Naked before him She looks into the eyes of this poetic man Contemplating what false sense of beauty He beholds in her Each time she breathes or smiles Or slowly moves her hand from side to side The entirety of his being Captured by the simplicity Of her common and meaningless actions She desires to wake him from his musings As her body becomes overtaken by lust Wanting to push him down upon the mattress So that he may ravish her and set free his dark wishes In physical form Something she will be able to feel Rather than forced to read and only imagine The idea of being someone’s “morningrise” Not as satisfying As feeling a lover’s breath Hot against her skin Reminding her of the pleasures A poet’s words Will always fall short of

Coil A strand of her hair Is discovered wrapped around An old, grayed, rusted key Used to open a chest that they had used As love-struck fools Who sought to keep contained Promises that would never be broken Consciously he tries to convince himself He no longer knows where the chest is buried And that the promises inside have already suffocated and died The woman having gone and faded into the night As if she were merely a temporary blissful delusion Brought on by his inability to accept The rooms of solitude and loneliness he built for himself Having conceptualized oneness as being A way to simplify having to lose others The line connecting from one heart to another Never having to be severed For there was never a connection to begin with He discovers himself uncontrollably weeping Holding the key in his hand awkwardly The cold metal pressing against his eyelids As if they were going to give him a deeper insight Into this rediscovered emotional turmoil Forced to feel the softness of her hair Coiled around the key The same way it has remained Wrapped tightly around his soul Constraining him and keeping him silent When he has gone to speak to another Hoping to chase away temporarily The black clouds and darkness Refusing to let up Ever since he and his beloved Sought to discover new hearts To wrap themselves around Love being rendered to a rational understanding Rather than some simpletonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s misguided emotional assessment Because all love â&#x20AC;&#x153;really wasâ&#x20AC;? and would every be Was the tight wrappings of hair around the heart Promising than any great disobedience Would cause its beating to cease

Kiss The Angel The boy suffers a fatalistic punishment Being forced to kiss the angel After having his mortal body Drowned in the holy water He is unprepared for her dry, calloused lips And the displeasure resting in her eyes He, not expecting her to be unforgiving Fidgets uncomfortably with his fingers Imagining an even more unforgiving God Waiting to speak to him As soon as he has received proper punishment From an angel who truly respect His love and glory and greatness The boy is unexpectedly taken a hold of His lips forcibly parted To take a kiss he has never had before The angelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tongue moving down his throat Quick and slithering like a serpent And looking into his eyes As if through the kiss she were transferring herself Into him The perfection that he should have attained With his allotted amount of time on earth When the angel pulls back from the kiss The boy finds himself desperately gasping To fill himself with oxygen Yet feeling suddenly as if he does not have lungs Dreading that maybe Instead of giving him something greater The angel, with her calloused lips Took from him all the elements that made him human So that each breath he took Felt unknown to him His body and the memories of his life Now seeming foreign His human form now bound anew To lungless breathing Heartless beating And mindless thinking All brought about From an angelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kiss

Goddess Her smile caused a chain reaction His lips spreading from side to side Looking back toward her godliness Like a thankful pilgrim Having seen the light During the darkest part of his journey Once, then twice She touches the skin of his arm Tracing her fingers Up toward his shoulders Where she pauses for a moment Smiling wider and laughing the ecstasy-filled laugh That had woken him from so many a-dream He feels he should try to say something To make eye contact and share words That will surely transform the night into a memory Of when the two of them had first met Two pilgrims on the same journey She stops his mind from thinking With the passion of lips upon lips And her dark skin touching against his light Each move making them closer More in tune with one another The swing and sway of their bodies Becoming the sweetest, most sacred, poetry His mind no longer thinking of human trivialities He is free to enjoy wholly the flesh before him and all around him Taking in each part of her by pressing his lips Against her delicate frame And though he knows he does not need to speak The word â&#x20AC;&#x153;goddessâ&#x20AC;? escapes his mouth Then feeling again the waves of pleasure Drowning him in her beauty and their fleshly motions He falls back into the swing and sway Of desire, desire that cannot be contained within memory But must be relived By these two same bodies Joining together On a night where the hopelessness of pilgrimage Moves through the skin Turning light to dark

Undying Thousands of verses Still sing like the heavenly choir Though her body has been buried beneath the earth He, still writing Cannot turn away From his task at hand To resurrect her again and again From memory His prior experiences with her Undoing the laws of nature To bring her back to him Feeling her breath against his neck Her whispers upon his ear The familiarity of her smile The bittersweet memories Fueling his heart and keeping it beating Through the darkened days And lonesome nights Where the sound of her beside him Is replaced by the creaking ceiling And the hum of the refrigerator That should have been replaced years ago Back when they were both younger He has a reflective thought Linking memory to undying A simple play on words Memory being a link to the past Remembrances of younger days and younger limbs A re-livable moment that erases the present Returning the skin and bone of the person To its glory days When all things were doable (undoing the dying of the body) He stirs his tired mind from its musings Knowing that there is no time for re-attaining youth When there are verses to be written Poetical ways to resurrect and immortalize his beloved Who could not discover a way to un-die Prior to her last breath, outlining to her poet The limitations of human life

Inheritance His inheritance was not a black and white declaration Recorded on aging parchment Nor was it a treasure contained within an old chest Always seen in passing Throughout the years of his father’s life A chest remarked upon By its current possessor Saying, “Son, one day, you will learn of its contents And the riches that can never be taken from you” His inheritance, instead, was a recording Of a time that he had thought was surely forgotten The tape not of the greatest quality Yet the voices distinct and recognizable His mother being heard For the first time in a decade Her voice as crisp as it once was When he was a boy Sitting at the breakfast table Considering whether or not Wendy, the girl who sat beside him at school, Really had fallen for him as hard as she said The butterflies in her stomach Refusing to stop their fluttering So that she was made to lose sleep Yet, her beauty seeming unaffected By her restlessness His father’s voice Booming, as it always was, Up until his final days of old age, Cuts through the room Shocking at first By how much louder his voice was During a time of life His son is unable to recollect The sheer power of the voice Causing for some of the glasses to shake As a man expresses the joys of becoming A newly-made father Shouting to all those around him Again and again “That’s my boy, my boy My boy.”

Circle The dirt and dust of the road Still seem unfamiliar To the eyes that have looked upon them And the feet that have trodden on them For days and nights that cannot be measured As time becomes a mere imagining To the heat-struck wanderer Victimized by the very light Guiding him until the moon rises And the coyotes call The traveler, each time seeks A sign for where to turn So that he may begin moving in the right direction Able to make out in the distance Familiar landmarks That bring hopefulness To his weakening body that has been reduced to Muddied skin, calloused hands and A pack on his back that loses weight Yet only seems to grow heavier upon his shoulders Wanting to return home To the bed and shaded room That is his and his alone Knowing exactly how it will feel To open his eyes in safety and security After a long rest from an even longer journey To hear a certain singing Arise from the kitchen As he receives a proper welcoming The sweetness of her face Unchanged since he has left Her red, flowered dress A treasure so great He immediately rises to his feet Unaffected by their ache As he circles her again and again Waiting for the proper moment For when he can lean in And kiss the lips That he swore to return to No matter how lost he became Or how far he traveled

Devil Woman Inhuman flesh Greets his eyes with an erotic dance Her serpent-like body Moving to a rhythm Known only to the darkest parts of the soul Her smile is made of heavenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bliss With teeth as white as the clouds That have circled him for twenty-three years Her motioning finger, calling him to follow Is longer, more delicate, and slender His mind races to thoughts of witchcraft and voodoo Knowing that to follow her Or to set one more step in her direction Is to surrender his soul Giving up his redemption For the sake of a night of godly pleasure His mortal body will be able to recollect Until the day his bones to turn to dust The devil enchanting him With sightlines that will continue on After the flesh and muscle Have been picked away By the scavengers of the night Meeting her eyes, prior to taking a step forward He lists his own demands for the loss of his soul Desiring more than just this one night But a lifetime of indulgence Not limited to the bare standards of sex As he desires to kiss her skin from top to bottom Feeling the smoothness of her stomach and chest With his soft lips and wet tongue Knowing that he must taste all of her And discover her every inner and outer beauty For unless he can make his life Heaven on earth His conscience will stand in the way Of giving the devil What is due to her Attempting to convince the body As to why the soul has greater worth Than the principle of evil Turned to fleshly desire

A Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Recollections He would stand by the fire With a stick in hand, uncaring to the pain Forever haunting his limbs Holding his hand out As if being free was as simple As taking anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fingers To hold, walking together Away from bitterness Letting the mind concern itself With petty, childish beauties, Instead of adult complications Drawing in the sand An image of a man and a child He smiles to his father Feeling the coldness of the elements around him Well aware from what the angels have said That life is short and even shorter for some The grandfather clock ticking in the chest Of each being Only able to last as long as the parts can last And though there are repairs Able to be made to the mechanics of the timekeeper The heavens and hells Of the human mind cannot be slowed Every breath and action Recorded down in accordance with fate The boy even now, in this blessed moment Hears a whisper from his guardians Those investors who deal Wholly and solely With the frail bodies of mortal men Who out of the creatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s compassion Are given the exact date and time When their clock will stop completely The chiming of the twelfth hour Signaling the dreaded moment When a father hears a single cry And finds himself clutching the lifeless body Of his most beloved child Who sought to never worry his parents Of the end Knowing that fate and the guardians of time Cannot be reasoned with

Traces Tears fall with the mind’s rational That a night of sorrow Will leave behind no traces Of the current day soon to fall into memories Unworthy of being kept for recollection Since the heart’s ache Is a parasite Rather than a prerequisite Depression feeding of the body’s Strength for survival Turning every thought Into dreams of breathlessness And eternal stillness Hope’s voice becoming a whisper While the reaper Speaks at a perfect pitch As he describes the wonders Of the other side Where all that has been lost Is no longer thought of Nor need be a worry The heart and soul’s power diminished As the essence of the person That once was Now begins free-floating Unattached to the materiality of existence The once sought after tangibility Of what was really there Now a mock joke of what was unimportant Even during days of fleshly living The newly dead’s eyeless sight Much more clear now that bodily desires Are no longer of any concern The person’s becoming able to dedicate himself Solely to meditation Uninterrupted deep thinking On the subject matters That used to cause Physical displeasure If they were not thought of In the right mind The frailty of human life Traceable by how one Thinks and feels

Dissipating Madness Diving underneath the cooling water Desperateness turns to answered prayers As the heated anger Of inconsolable wounds Fades into the clear blue Granting the underwater visitor A momentary break To clear his mind completely And meditate upon the upper world Where men walk erect Convinced of their refined value Promoting the false notion That they are more than beasts The soundlessness of the water world Meets him kindly Causing him to contemplate The idea of not returning Allowing himself to have Undisturbed peacefulness No longer bothered by the hustle and bustle of bodies And the loud cries of sirens Alerting members of an overcrowded blue planet That a fellow comrade has fallen And will soon be buried In a place where the sight of the rotting body And the smell of the decaying flesh Will not be a bother to anyone Holiness and sacredness not as treasured As the simple necessity to be able to breathe without the fear of vomiting The passage from life to death Merely a question of where to put the body Reflecting on these thoughts He rises to the top only to breathe in fresh air Convinced now that nothing will ever return him to The upright world Where humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all chase the same dream Of being of enough worth To have their bodies placed in the finest boxes Underneath the freshest, richest, upturned earth Where they can rest in royalty Thinking deeply upon The link between madness and pettiness

Meditation Green mossy trees Hang their branches down The willows weeping in the distance Feeling from the footfall of a fragile man The emptiness he searches for Because his cup is full Of wine turned to blood Bittersweet memories Of a love faded to panged looks Shared between eyes no longer sharing The gateway to the soul Hurt revealing its true power To erase away the passion and love Formed from vows and sacred bonds The heart’s voice on the matter Becoming completely drowned out By the mind’s rationale The body’s self-defense mechanisms Refusing to let the same thing happen twice Sacrificing the sweetest pleasure It had ever known And could recover For security And endless nights of nightmares Combated with meditation The possessor of the body’s attempt to Try to reconcile himself So that his own reflection does not feel foreign to him The paleness of the night Seeming to now effect The tone of his skin A cruel joke, because as he grows as white as the light that will make him warm again Returning his skin and soul to their natural color His insides only grow darker The blackness within him Thick like tar Slows his blood Making each step he takes Heavy with depression Leaving an impression on the ground Able to make willows weep For a wandering man without his mate Possessing now Only a blackened soul

A Fragment of Her Being She returns to life After so many restless nights Close to death As she now sleeps by another Yet, returning to him in verses He recaptures for a moment The scent of her And their lovemaking Still able to feel through memory How he would keep her Held against him After the climax had passed Having her continue to feel Him pulsating inside of her Refusing to let go Of their entangled flesh Intoxicating her with the deepest pleasure Each time she tried to remove herself from him Though she did not plan to go anywhere Nor did she want to It was the flirtatious part of the game He refills his glass Catching the reflection of her As he moves the bottle back Where it is far away enough not to be knocked over Yet close enough to comfort him if he needs it The joints of his fingers older and more achy now Then they had been when he would have her As his captive Unwilling to let her save herself From what he knew She truly desired He parts his lips Half-expecting To still receive the kiss That reminds him the game is not over There are still moves to be made The skin and scent of his playmate Awakening again The pulsating rhythm Of his hips against her hips Pushing toward the heavens

The Circle Completes Still water stirs Forming ripples upon its surface A new life emerging Breathing its first breath Genderless and without identity Knowing only the innate actions Wired into it Unaware of its prior death And the ashes that turned to dust Carried away by the winds Removing all traces of the physical form Once named and valued For its compassion for life Commitment to family And willingness to help aid the community “More than just a man” Planned to have been written Upon its tombstone If only the body had been produced and buried Rather than destroyed unknowingly By the heated elements capable of leaving Nothing but bones Taking the flesh and muscle As if it had always been The rightful property of the fire god Who arose to claim the body and perform its ritualistic dance Unaffected by the screams of a man apologizing to the family he will not return to Picturing their first-worried, then spiteful faces As he turns from a missing person To a deserter His children soon to learn Of their father’s faults Faults their mother had always seen But kept tucked away And overlooked For the sake of the children As the fire’s dance Brings an end to his thinking His lips can’t help but bitterly smile Thinking of how even after Twenty years of love and commitment A woman’s pride Will always reemerge To complete the circle

VI. DEADWATER

She Awakens A life-giving kiss Is placed upon her eyes Awakening her in the realm of stars Looking down upon the darkened earth She sees the globe no longer as lively as it once was The running rivers Now muddied stagnant ponds Reeking of decayed beauty Where once perfect natural creations Had lived peacefully Never in need of being cleared away Or relocated By human hands Feeling it their responsibility To make more space For their master’s desire The human heart never capable Of getting its fill As one’s current greatness Is belittled by the mind’s imagining Of what can be accomplished next Satisfaction and gratification Growing lesser and yet more and more temporary Though the planet’s available resources diminish Forcing man’s heart To look skyward Where each person can gain their endless fill And no one need be denied Their eternal longings Seeing this sad state of affairs She breathes a breath of hope And watches as a star falls Into the hands of a man Still able to feel the ancient magic of natural wonders And staring up into the blackened night He remarks like a soon-to-be martyr That he will walk amongst those with leper-souls Trying to heal their sickness Restoring their sight By revealing the damage They have done to the fragile, Helpless earth, That no longer has room to breathe

Delusions and Fantasies Proof turns to pleas As a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience with the divine Is determined to be delusion and fantasy His own mind getting the best of him As if he were the same Jack Who traded a cow for beans Then was beaten servely As the seeds never sprouted A single leaf While his family starved And his brother died Unable to forgive the idiocy of an underdeveloped mind Still believing the day can belong To creatures and tales of myth His faith in magic Stronger than his love for his family Going against their wishes For the sake of having the chance To dissect the secrets of irreproducible elements Come across only in times of utter despair When one is forced to choose what is known And what could be known His heart shatters Unheard and mocked The message from the people of the stars Undeliverable to ears that desire To only hear their own thoughts Feigning love for the sake of social codes And moral regulations The grass turning browner And the falling water levels Cause his body to shake with fear Knowing that soon the earth Will be nothing but a brown crust Preparing for itself a petty death Its selflessness And willingness to aid humankind Continuing up until the moment Of the final break When lava will flow like the ancient rivers of blue And all will be erased as if it were A mere dream or delusion to be wakened from

Unworthiness Measuring now for the first time The frail frame of his body He pinches the muscles of his arms And concludes that he is too small and weak To try to save the world With a fallen star from the sky And though his heart is metaphorically large It will not prevent the trees from becoming bare Their branches falling ill From a lack of nutrients No longer able to stand with strong trunks Or be climbed or challenged by human limbs Any unexpected weight or pressure Liable to make the tree Take its one and only fall Victimized twice by mankind First by their greed And second by their inconsiderateness For all those around them and not like them Each thing not human Has its eyes opened To its own unworthiness As each natural creation Is worthless without its use to man The trunk and branches of a tree Severed from its place of residence So that they can be cut to shapes Able to be used for the greater good of a people Who in their heart of hearts Want nothing more than to provide shelters for their families And shopping malls for their ever expanding desires Knowing only so many courses of actions They themselves can take Before they are rendered useless To their own race Being buried or hanged prematurely For their unworthiness Unthinking of how their weight Has become too much to be held By the brittle branches Once climbable by man When the grass was green And the waters were blue

Distraught Heart The misalignment of the heart Forms from the conflict between Wanting what canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but be wanted And trying to push away The bittersweet desire to perform actions of righteousness The body defending itself By forcing sickness upon itself Signaling to its owner a fair warning That though something can be done for nothing Every human still requires his or her indulgences The sweet, intoxicating pleasures Capable of turning some to gluttons Wasting their riches While others stretch themselves beyond their means And then are left as petty men and women Willing to sacrifice their self-respect Groveling on their knees, begging For a temporary return to the pleasures Treasured by their bodies Convincing themselves that indulgence alone could maintain the strength of the body And would do so, if they could only Hold again in their hands, the sweet addictions Consuming them and making them forget Life before the sickly sensations of What the body deems necessary Overpowering the will of its personage To attain what it claims itself worthy of The mind unable to overcome its needs, being reduced to Its original form as an organ Programmed to move the body As it desires to be moved Too undeveloped at the moment To try to make a stand By using rationale Or setting blockades To refuse the addict The drug that consumes the core of humanness Replacing it with a mindless zombie Seeking to feel the high Of lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lifelessness As each step away from selflessness Leaves the person without an identity Begging on hands and knees amongst crowded streets For someone to tell them their name

Seeking Slumber The yellowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sun Turning to a fire-red Then purple sky Clouds his eyes With haziness, the oncoming night Transparent and thick His each step Weighed down by the delectable thought Of entering into the blackness Of unconsciousness Where dreams will ebb and flow Held onto for only the first few moments of waking When the body feels ready To restart its task The many miles to be walked for the day Waiting patiently for the first step to be taken Knowing that the traveler Is still semi-drunk from sleep His stumbling and low, groggy speech A sure sign to the people passing by That his still-tired mind requires a quicker return to the living world An ailment easily remedied by the cocoa plant Yet, wakening from his dream of dreaming His feet move forward into the heavy darkness As his heart trembles from the thought of lost time Each moment lived of greater value than the one before it As he much reach the top of every hill and every rooftop Hoping that from every person he speaks to The possibility of someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s listening to his words Will arise For when he knows He has a follower A true believer of his prophecies His eyes will close peacefully Entering into the well-deserved sleep Of a man who chose to deliver the message of the divine Before tending to his mortal needs Believing with his whole heart That by never wasting a waking moment Or spending any time with his eyes wide shut He would catch the eye of a soul Who believed the same way he did Unafraid to sacrifice mortal needs for godly divinations

A Mourner’s Tale Truly unknowing To the amount of days that had passed His mouth made poor conversation With the ears of a stargazer Who claimed to have seen The strangest phenomenon On a night where it seemed A woman made of stars and the elements of space Had stirred from her resting place into the heavens To send to the earth A falling star containing all the secrets Of each possible future for humankind However, the man’s claiming to have seen such a sight Rendered him to be spoken of in terms of senility His great finding Becoming a mourner’s tale As his heart new the greater underlying value of the message The earth crying beside him silently Growing accepting of its inevitable doom Suddenly, stirring from the simple drone Of human communication The trusted deliverer of the goddess’s message Stares wide-eyed and open-mouthed At the elder standing beside him Struggling to breathe calmly As the sheer, overpowering joy of finding Someone to share his proof of the fateful night That the gods intervened Overpowers him His hands reach desperately to his pack Ready to unwrap the leather protecting Of the star holding the secrets of their world While the other man, first confused, then understanding Silently breathes words of thanks For the reassurance that his senility Was merely an improper label put on him by the nincompoops Who refused to believe in the possibility Of holy stars falling from the sky Warning man that his greed must be put to rest Or such a great price would have to be paid That not even the makers of heaven and earth And all other worlds Could intervene a second time

Half-Alive Across the world He awakens Speaking of a dream Laced with blasphemy Two men standing together Talking in tongues Of the great changes that must be made In the heart of each human being In order for the world to continue Otherwise the skies will turn Black and birdless As blood rains down from the clouds above People growing fearful of stepping outside their doors As judgments similar to the plagues Are hurled down upon them Hiding like fearful children Believing that by remaining In the lowest levels of their homes They will remain untouched and un-judged Yet, as the earth crumbles And god appears to softly say that he had no part In the current destruction The stars will shine visibly to the eyes of man For the first time during daylight hours Giving humans the slightest inkling That something has truly gone wrong The atmosphere no longer seeming to hold Causing for humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to gasp for air Half-alive, like the mother they drained of milk And disrespected after they had grown Strong enough to fend for themselves Yet, now wishing They could revert, and turn back the clock To find themselves In the womb again Convincing themselves that this time When they are born They will not drain to the bone The mother that still requires Blood and muscle To pump life into all those Seeking to live On a planet believed to be The land of milk and honey

Ancient Riddles ‘ Sitting on his grandfather’s knee The wizened man speaks to him In ancient riddles Of days to come Every word a conundrum Questioning the child to ponder What rises like the sun Yet falls like the moon Into an empty space Untraceable by the human eye Yet fully visible To the panicked soul His grandfather offers him a hint Taking the child’s hand and resting it against His whimpering heart Beating like the very key to the puzzle Yet stumping the child Further complicating the riddle That if answered Sets every man free Making him a master of himself *** He wonders if his grandfather saw him now Aged, and wizened, No longer a young boy Hoping to conquer the world And now sympathetic to the tragedy Of having to watch the planet Crumble apart more and more each day Would his answer to the riddle be correct The starlight in his hands Feeling as sacred as his grandfather’s heartbeat The timepiece used to measure life He wonders now Like a child again If the starlight could be used Like healing blood To fill the earth’s cracks and crevices The man becoming a boy again Rushing with the few medical tools he has To try to dress a wound That could prove fatal If not properly wrapped and bandaged

Deadwater Standing atop The cracked and dried mud Of a giant crater He feels the momentary shock Of having to see with his own two eyes The sight of dead water All thirst Now unquenchable Human’s awakening to the bitter realization That every possible option for survival Was drained too low and too fast To ever be replenishable There is talk of rewriting Human’s genetic code So there framework does not need To consist so much of water While having the replacement elements of life Consist of elements so common And inexpensive That not even one of the seven billion people Upon the earth Will need be left behind When the race evolves globally Human’s greediness not stretching so far That it would refuse life to those already alive And each new child Born into this waterless world Will never have to think of How things have changed Only having to listen From time to time To his forefather’s and foremother’s remembering The distant past When something called grass Grew abundantly Giving the earth its green tinge A time when if hot days Were to roll around One could find pleasurable relief In dressing in less clothes Submerging his or her body In the cold wetness Where a crater now resides

Blood For Blood The earth’s last remark Was to seek revenge After accepting its’ having been betrayed By the empty vows of inhabitants Who had taught themselves A language of meaning Developing words and phrases such as love and always and forever To draw in others of a foreign tongue So that they could learn the words And not only speak them But experience them as well Becoming windswept by their meanings Left head over heels and goo-goo gaga The earth’s having believed That words were enough to live by Allowed itself to lower its guard While finding every possible way To make sure that humans would awaken each day To a sunrise While a sunset would follow After a day of hard labor Offering as many natural beauties as it had In order to try to win the hearts Of those who swore to only love Even when love was pain And the earth was forced To bleed itself For its lovers’ needs and gratifications Humans’ reassuring the earth It needed to be done For their hearts would break without it Having nothing now But an irreparable body And the strongest feeling to never trust anyone Not of the same making The earth opens its every healing wound To claim the lives of liars and backstabbers Laughing like one who has stepped into the darkness Never to return Repeating like a mantra Blood for blood….. Blood for blood

Songless As the mountains fall before him And the birds tumble Like warriors slaughter before battle He feels in the pit of him A songlessness As he is no longer able to rise Like the prophet Who sees destruction Not as a present happening But a godheadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forewarning The deadness of the earth, nothing more than a farce A covering that humans cannot undo Until they see the wrongfulness of their actions Taking a hold of their damaged lover and friend Who has stood beside their side Sacrificing themselves even as death came To stand beside them, whispering the day and hours Left for them to live Holding out an hourglass That measured the remaining time more realistically With the blood of the dying Each drop a familiar sight To the weakening body Whose eyes have to strain while the mind tries to discern The meaning of each passing moment Exhausted, he lays down Upon the fragile, crumbling ground To drift into the hopeful sleeplessness Wishing to believe that when he awakens He will not be on the other side Standing hand-in-hand with the reaper But rather, reawakening to an earlier time A long lost youth Where his arms were draped around The body of his loved one And a steady stream of life Flowed always within reach His soul, no matter what the time of day, Singing a song of thankfulness For having been given the chance To live on a beauteous green and blue planet Where he discovered love And could live dreamily whether asleep or awake

She Reenters Him He awakens to find himself Tangled in the sheets of a bed Her lips pressed against his cheek Smiling curiously Asking him what he has dreamed Her body is made of stars and space Her scent containing all the secrets Of what humans call “God” She positions herself on top of him Motioning her flesh so that he enters into her And unknowingly, she reenters him The heat of the their bodies Reconnecting them in ways Mortals and gods were not meant to meet He wants to speak her name aloud And use the words of his heart-language To explain that he has failed her and the world has ended The earth’s becoming nothing more Than a memory to those who saw the destruction from a distance She catches his thoughts and forces them away Sympathetic to his lack of understanding Rocking back and forth In the rhythmic motions of passion She has him forget The troublesome tasks he set himself upon For she had not considered His fluency in the language of stars So now, as they lay together He, her chosen one She speaks to him In the language he has always known Explaining delicately As if she were the petal of a rose All the things he should come to know of himself Touching him gracefully Feeling the physical desire for her mate rise high again She whispers into his ear Even if the blessed planet holding so many lives in the balance Is to turn to deadwater And crumble to forgotten dust The real world is inside of you

VII. HOURS OF WEALTH

Isolation From the empty waters of his eyes He prays words of isolation So that as his body dissipates He will need not worry of those Who would have called to him In his passing away Trying to convince him to stay And breathe another breath Rather than allow him to disappear Into the dirt of the ground Joining with the natural world He thought so fondly of As he stood upon its many surfaces Overtaken by the sweetness of a breeze Or the elegant beauty Of a falling leaf, who unafraid Looks down upon the ground Accepting of the fact that he knows A childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feet will trample him Or his fingers will pull him apart In small pieces, the boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s joy Escaping his lips in small giggles As he is only given three months of the year To feel the crinkled leaves Between his fingers and against the roughness of his hands He smiles, melting away Into the thought of a life Of formlessness His body no longer necessary On the other side A world where each is in isolation Though they are free to watch and listen to the bodies Making chatter, blissfully unaware Of their eventual need and desire To leave secretly in the middle of the night To a place where no others will follow And there, they will lay Peacefully upon the ground Ready to be taken Unnoticed and unaccounted for Into a world Where one can always look But never touch

Tainted Reflection Moving his fingers across The dirtied mirror He hopes that by washing the glass His reflection will change Becoming less tainted and darkened His eyes now having a blackness to them Never there when he was his younger self A spry, love-struck, romantic Finding around every corner The awe-inspiring beauties of the world That were so perfectly mixed With humans relation to them Yet, now he twists and turns his own skin Trying to rediscover the self He had come to think of as his identity Scared by the bitterness of his own voice Secretly wanting to run from himself If it were only possible But as his own monsterly shadow Waves at him mockingly His mind sinks into the reality of his situation Knowing now that he has the mind of Jekyll And the body of Hyde Slowly becoming swallowed by his splitting self No longer able to be one or the other Forced to wear a monsterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin Trapped, unheard within the mind Screaming desperately like a child Experiencing the reality of his fears His parents having been wrong When they said it was all make-believe A mere production of an overactive imagination His hands shake desperately As he wishes that he could reach into a nearby drawer And take a hold of the only thing That could bring an end to this madness As he falls weakly into the hands of another Who seeks to do him harm Hyde transforming himself From a parasite to the host Granting himself full control Of which he felt he always had a rightful claim to

Dirtied Though the hands of a servant girl Dip a clean towel Into hot, fresh water To rub against the skin of her master No matter how much he is washed Or how gently or roughly she touches him His skin remains dirtied Having the grime and the horrors of his experiences Unable to be removed from him His eyes well with tears That turn to blood Re-covering his aged face With the guilt of the lives He has taken in order to keep his own Breaking down unexpectedly She feels fearful to see him As a weeping child Reaching out for her, the arms of a woman The only thing capable of keeping his fragile foundation From crumbling completely His words come out as unintelligible cries As he whimpers against her sky Trying to explain how he can never truly be himself again After violence became a necessity His mind still remembering Slamming the skull of a villager Against the ground until his brains splattered Or when he tackled and beat a man Walking peacefully through the night For the sake of guaranteed safety Telling the frightened father and husband That if he were to tell anyone He had seen someone, his body would be left Floating in the stream Outside his familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house His child wakening to see That his breadwinner and protector Was now a lopsided, floating object That even when cleaned and prepared for a proper burial Would never again have the same attractiveness Before becoming dirtied and bloated from the cold water of the stream Where servants gathered the necessary ingredients For their masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bath

New Words As if un-writing Each page of life He had recorded so morbidly In order to keep a perfect account Of the misfortune bestowed upon him From god’s fateful hand He finds in himself now A momentary lapse Of restful awakening Where his flesh and bone remain the same But he is reborn within Pushing aside the foolish desire Of reclaiming his old youth Deciding to start anew instead of holding onto the past Declaring the breaths he breathes To be his first, the world A sight to be seen for the very first time And as the heat of the sun touches against him Without his prior understanding Of what man has deemed it to be He experiences without thought or rational The wonders of the world around him The grass beneath him feeling like sharp blades Unable to cut his tough flesh His speech being what humans would deem “prattling” The words unintelligible Having the utmost value only to the one speaking As he assigns each object of the world His own word, constructed from thought-sounds Not preordained syllables He alters the mortality of his human frame The possibility of an end seeming unattractive to him When daily beauties are created in his place of residence He does away with death And institutes something like immortality But called by a different name For what he has made himself into isn’t a god It is merely an endlessness A refusal to let the body age Keeping it in its prime As the man laughs in his own personal tongue At those accepting their fate Borne from another’s mouth

Meditation II From the numbness Of deep breathing and pure relaxation He sees her arise from memory Reliving one of the many darknesses clouding his mind He finds it difficult to forgive himself Hearing her tears and her utter desperation As he slips away further and further into a different skin Unable to recall for her the man she fell in love with Once soft lips, now rough and hardened Unwilling to kiss her, but rather ask that she quiet herself And silence her despair, because she was disturbing his peace And he was angered by her despair As she was not the one truly in pain All her miseries being of her own making He reflects upon his feelings of rightness in those moments Utterly disgusted by the person he was And the person he may quickly transform back into If close to her under those circumstances again Hearing his rising voice And bitter remarks of love turned to hate Echoing in the back of his mind He always so cruel, she always weak and powerless Only breaking from his madness, sadness, and broken dreams He assures himself that though the heartbreak and separation Drain on him and plant seeds of impossible hopes and dreams The distance between them as lovers And the continuing bond of friendship Is enough to keep them both enough above water So that they are not drowning And the two of them are still able to make eye contact Smiling at each other through tears Of a once lived dream that has now turned to a haunting nightmare Forcing each to wake from a time that once was And can never be again Breathing deeply and trying to reenter his place of peace He imagines opening his eyes To discover a strand of her hair Laying delicately against his pillow A sweet and sorrowful reminder That though sometimes there has to be an early ending to the story Life can never un-write the lives we have led

Watershed Similar to an old, paint-peeling boathouse The watershed stands as a building Containing need-to-be-forgotten memories Bringing more tears than sweet reflections Of a time once lived Drunk on misery He fumbles for his keys So that he may unlock the door And lay in the echoes of his old flame Feeling her words take form Like the ending verses of his life Being sung to him in a whispering voice That makes him want to reach out again To a place he once called home A perfect image of her face Reflects on the surface of the water The ripple around her Becoming the strands of her hair As she tries to coax him into the water with her sirenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song Waves rising to become the arms and hands That once held him so delicately Throughout the night When they would lay together During the months of summer heat Letting the outside world melt away So that all of existence was simply Their two bodies pressing against each other Unaware of the dangers and hardships That would tear them apart From the heart to the mind to the soul The darkness traveling quickly Anxious to claim another thought-to-be sacred love His eyes blink at the sight before him Having fallen into a state of hypnosis He is now frightened to see that his body Is half-submerged in the black pool of the watershed And if he hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stirred from dreaming at the very moment he did Her watery arms would have pulled him completely down Where she would have made him lay with her Convincing him with sweet words and soft kisses That there was no world outside the two of them

Displeasing Seeing him now As a wilted rose Her mind is overtaken By the sickening feeling of satisfaction Realizing that there will be nothing more To come from him His mouth forever parted, yet wordless Eyes looking heaven bound Unconcerned with her presence Her hands wish to enter into his coffin To resuscitate his lifeless, peaceful body As she now discovers the deepest displeasure From having to live without him Though underneath this desire To return him to life Their lies the counteracting desire To take pleasure in watching him die again An endless cycle of wants and needs Leaving her like a dog Chasing its own tail Unthinking of the reasons for her actions Too caught up in the heart of the matter Reverting from a creature of elegance and logic To a tamed pet, entertaining her master With her antics He smiles sweetly in the other world Feeling as if he has received what he was long overdue Her crumbling without him Something he always tried to explain to her Out of love for their soulful bond During times when she had only looked to him With distaste for their dependency on each other He wishes he could place a rose by her window A romantic gesture to calm her heart But now limited to his formless body He can only look down upon her With a feeling of pleasure and displeasure As he will never be given the chance again To try to show her How beauteous their lives could be If she could only accept that she needed him

The Heartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Realignment In deep sleep The heart returns To ancient magic Existing prior to its first beat Inside the chest of Adam It repeats a mantra of sacred prayer To have the blood and body Realign themselves after having been Bruised and pulled apart From where they had once stood As a testament to a perfectly constructed being The heart laughs at the madness Man forces upon himself Convinced that solitude and isolation Will surely lead him to his own destruction Fearful of the inability to express to anyone The deep pains Swelling inside of him Making him look back in time To see if the ghost of himself Will make a different choice Saying the right words this time around While being less concerned with keeping hold to the money in his pocket So that he may awaken again Into the life constructed from chance And maintained from the unwavering desire Of two seeking to become one Wrapped in blankets and arms Sleeping through the reality of life In order to maintain the dream Able to be kept alive as long as the doors never open And the days remain undistinguishable Love blending each moment By turning each thought and feeling To a kiss or a soft caress Each attempt to rise from their grounds of lovemaking Met with a tender laugh As the legs remain weak And the heart is overpowered by its own indulgence In the supreme, intoxicating pleasure Of believing that love can last As long as the days remain outside of locked doors

Blindness Well beyond the hours of rest His eyes remain closed Even when opened Refusing to look anymore Upon the scenery of a life Where the green grass and bright sun Are only a mocking gesture Given to those who can afford nothing else As life refuses them every richness Swallowing them up in days strung together Like bitter proof that some truly are cursed Never having a good day To recall and chase away the madness Of having to look into the mirror Seeing only a struggle reflected back at them Trying to explain as gently as possible That the roots planted in hopefulness Have long been dug up And tossed away for the sake of another Who sought to reap more joy and beauty Uncaring to the life destroyed and falling by the wayside As if he were nothing but a nuisance Needing to be removed by any means necessary Not counted as one of the many peoples of a society Being considered only as an asset Property of the town With no one desiring to claim direct ownership Unfeeling as to what he has seen And how his eyes have been left in eternal blackness His own mind and body abandoning him Resigning themselves from the duty Of having to try to create hopeful delusions From despairing sights Where if the ears are left unattended The darkest song of sorrow Will creep in and climb into the brain Planting seeds of sorrow Humming merrily At the beauteous destruction Leaving the hopeful blinded Reaching out in the darkness To try to find something to restore a sense of comfort Yet finding only the familiar figures Of those who never sought to possess him

Change and Chains A stream of blood Only flows in one direction And any passengers coming along for the ride Can try as they may To backpedal toward uncharted territory But the quick movement of the current Proves to the curiosity of the mind That there is no way to stray From the heartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s charted course Freewillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being a mere dreamscape The mind allows itself to fall into After spending too much time With the binding chains of reality Clamped around the hands and feet A twisted smiling having marked the body of one Who truly believed that by changing his way of living He could re-assimilate himself into life And feel again the warmth that accompanies happiness and peace But stirred from the delusion and dreamscape He sees the grey lighting Of the surrounding world Welcome him a second time To the way things really are It not mattering who is banished From his line of sight For giving up the battle and submitting To the same cowardice of every other weak-bodied and fragile hearted man Shall live with him always, floating amongst The foggy thoughts that meet him With bleak considerations and propositions As to how life can still be rewritten So that every choice made seems rationale Rather than cold and cruel The fickleness of the heart Able to be melted away and replaced By a flawless thought that takes the body and soul And sends it soaring upward and outward To where it can fly free Amongst the birds of the blue sky Unbound by the chains of a life Only thought to have lost its ability To choose its own direction And taste again the warmth of happiness

Defying He could not bare to stay on his knees and longer Being controlled by a sadistic angel Who sought to reveal to her father The true meaning of the word love Showingthe sickness of the body Formed from the promise of the heart Loyaltyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flawlessness being a myth As selflessness proves unwise As the body is mutilated For no other reason than testing the limitations Of what one heart can handle Until it turns on its partner Defying every oath and sworn proclamation Having its eyes opened to unrecoverable hurts Memory becoming burdensome as the thought of moving forward and forgiving The person who broke the spell of love to ease their curiosity Causes the soul to turn black toward the one cherished so dearly The world outside of her presence seeming so much brighter And willing to hold him close as if he is now seen to be A greater man for his strength in staying And his strength in leaving, truly knowing That underneath what he will sacrifice for his loved one His true self still breathes and lives Waiting to reemerge, unattached to the foolish promises Made on a day when love had just transformed From a sleeping creature into a butterfly The entirety of the world now discoverable By the light, free-flying creature Whose existence was void of all darkness Defying the laws of what could and could not be attained Knowing that with its partner beside it Every want and desire was within reach All it took was the flutter of wings Moving toward a soon-to-be-achieved goal Where the reward was even sweeter Because a best friend was there to take each step as well Never deserting or straying from its partnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s path To pursue a greater desire lying underneath The sun that reflected the same redness of a heart That beat only for its beloved The two of them interlocked Flying toward the end of one day and into the beginning of another Defying the odds of when and where Love begins and ends

One Last Lullaby A child lies on its back Wrapped in white, arms outstretched Hoping to be met with the singsong words Of one last lullaby Before being sent away To the thoughtlessness of early existence Too young to dream Finding the blanket of darkness placed over its eyes To be the strangest of magic As his vision melts away And his body refuses to let him Continue his tests of audible sounds and controlled mobility She meets his starry-eyed gaze Taking in his supreme beauty As a human form without a set identity The only thing holding any possession over him Is a name, changeable if he so desires When he comes of age Proving his ability to survive The trials and tribulations of existence Those labeled unable rise to the task Becoming marked as dead weight Able to be removed if extermination becomes necessary The earth only granting so much space to its inhabitants Leaving no reason to waste space On those unable to contribute to the greater good of the human race Humming, she holds him to her chest Feeding him the milk that will guarantee his ability To overpower the others he must compete against His mouth forms around her Extracting a liquid that warms his flesh And causes him to make an unexpected sound As she pats his back and lays him down again Giving the carousel-world above his head a spin The colors distracting him from his intellectual work As the pure beauty of colors is overtaking Having his heart feel uncaring to what will become of him When his bones grow and his mind develops Becoming forced to dream Overpowered each night by the subconscious That plays for him again and again The lost lullaby of his youth

Perfected The page calls to him As if it knew no other Playfully begging to be filled again Each recorded word A perfected moment of poetics Tense, tone, and emotion Intermixed like tongue-locked, flesh-locked lovers Sweeping up each other In new and reinterpreted sweet nothings Her skin, his destined place of worship The beauty of their togetherness Captured as she lays herself down for his taking As if he were a god of the sky And the ancient world she heard about In childhood stories told by her mother Recalling that any form of love between them Will leave her immortal and eternally fought for His love, turning to words, and petitions to the council In hopes that he may return to the upper-world with her Where they will live forever amongst the stars Her eyes open to a new lifestyle where mortal worries Become fickle and blissfulness is taken in with each breath Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s becoming no longer a thought of wrath or love or nonexistence Rendered now to be an another passerby seen When crossing the galaxy arm-in-arm With oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beloved She is astounded by the way of life That he seems to meet with commonness and normalcy The entirety of her being overtaken each time she breathes in Feeling nothing but joy rush through her body Turning the memories of her old life Into a mockery of what life can truly be, if perfected She half-expects to wake on the dirt of the ground A dream and deep sleep having worked its magic upon her feeble mind Yet as they circle the sun and move towards a red planet He turns to her and asks if she minds stopping for a moment So that he may sit to compose a new verse in her name Leaving words to have read and remembered by all those who have limited time And only fantasize as to what it means to live amongst the stars Discovering the creator of heaven and earth To be a fellow god, a passerby, who can go unnoticed When walking arm-in-arm with his beloved

A Leper Made King Handless, he rises to the podium Speaking of future days Where water will lap against their skin As if it were falling rain And the small and able-bodied servants Respectfully silent to their disfigured masters Have become the blackened people of disgust and avoidance Their perfectly crafted bodies gone to waste Working tediously in the dirt, on hands and knees Reaping the produce of their masters’ vegetation While being spit upon by the now free, cruel-hearted rulers Who speak disgustedly of the new untouchables Who are without mind, unable to understand how the tables were turned And the lepers of the world who suffered millenniums of misery Suddenly grew backbones, walking slowly and steadily To their rightful place, striking down the powerful With illogical fear concerning the loss of limbs And becoming all that they made sure to separate themselves from Pulling the tight weeds from the ground One untouchable thinks of his days of superiority Of when he was able to think and spit freely Knowing that as long as he was not touched by a leper They could do no harm to him Yet now, his fingers shake as they uproot the vegetation properly As any mistakes or improper pulling is met with lashes His forefathers’ each hanging in a darkened cell Taught the cruelties that they uncaringly enforced upon those Who were already cursed and disfigured by the will of the maker Their simple-minds unable to discern why one would treat a leper Any differently than they did an unwanted creature Trying to get its fill of sweet nectars from foods it did nothing to grow A leper’s being nothing more than a parasite Easily disciplined or disposed of Eyeless, he rises again Speaking into the darkness Words that would bring about change If all his comrades had not fallen already To a distempered sword Belonging to a child who fearfully dreamt Of an uprising And refused to see the day When a leper would become king

Hours of Wealth He fell asleep With no desire to wake Until the poison in his heart Had melted away into a dream within a dream A subconscious thought had by the mind Of what tragic love would have been Had he desired to walk that path in real life Where what is done has consequence And a heart forced to break itself Must face the hours of wealth Brought from separating the soul from its mate Each day awakening fevering and pained All possible accomplishments and goals Void of their value Smiles and happiness seeming as meaningless as the vows that still force him from sleep And make him look again at his reflection Questioning what love is And why the heart tortures itself with such sadistic yearnings He stares at the sickened body reflected in the mirror Only to see The endlessness of a day He has spent years attempting to escape Praying for a new sun To fall upon his eyes And waken him from the bitter sleep Of nightmares that crossed over to a realm Where they did not belong His mind wanders To the possibility of survival Of coming to a time where he is all right And his heart and soulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hatred for each other Is overcome by the attainment of something greater An unthought-of and almost forgotten musing Planted deep within the roots of his blissfulness A drug-like happiness moving through him Promising to never leave him And as he begins to welcome the feelings of joy The smallest remaining trace of doubt Stirs within him Reminding him that it is better to search for neutrality Than fall back under a spell that will leave him With hours of wealth and an unrecognizable reflection