Things That Make A World

Five young men set
Out to stand

In the rain awaiting

The coming of a new

A shimmery gold veil

To set the stage/ Dismiss

The darkness gath’ring sly

In corners like spider webs

Built of broken hearted tears

Twelve white umbrellas

And other irrelevant things/ Glist’ning

Here to ward against the fire

Fury of dragons/ bellowing

‘Cross the city heard/ The twinkle

Of sunkissed diamond/ the scent

Of broken promises heavy in the air

Darkest scorn and vilest kisses

One white dress weighed down

A shot fired/ ‘Cross the bows

Against the water/ the bridge at dawn

‘Tis time to bid goodbye to shame

Time/ Time to/ Time to/ Time time time

A world of corners where danger lurks

In glass, in cloth, in wasabi

Nazgul built by charcoal and love

Succumbs to death by no man’s hand

Luck ran out/ Brought sorrow back in

The lost and confusion/ shrieks so loud

The world shattering/ ears pinned back

Make it stop/ make it/ make it stop

For all the gold/ and all the pain/ all the love

Left in the world

One lone prayer sleeps in the rain

Make it stop/ Just make it stop

Unconcern

The night rushes past 
Unconcern/ Filling every breath 
Of wind/ In my hair 
These familiar roads 
Dark and silent/ masking 
What I fear the most 

These shops loom tall/ Shadows 
Of memory lengthened/ Many miles 
Behind them lying/ These posts could tell
Tales of what I seek/ And wish 
Never to find/ I choose 
Not to ask/ I cringe 
Before the wind/ I hide 
And close my eyes/ I pray 
They will never find me again 

This city has been burned to ashes 
In my mind/ This city died 
But I have no home 
Left to go/ Have nowhere 
To turn to now/ I must 
Snoop/ And pray I'm hidden 
Must shy/ Away 
From joy unbidden 
On that road lies pain unfolded/ Pain 
Untold in a thousand knives/ Pain 
Unending in a million lives 

The Nameless

We speak of her from time to time
I hear of her likes, her loves, her cruelties
I know what she was like in bed
I was told of her priorities, her anger, her shame

Not once however
Was I told her name

How many suns had to pass
Before he forgot how to speak it
How many sandstorms fought
To erase the way it sounded
Falling from his lips

What rivers carved
Their way through rock
What night fell
In a silence that held
And failed to end

And what is the shadow that remains
After they have both passed on
Casting gray 'cross memory's threshold
Stark, mute, and nameless 

Shades of Blue

Vengeance writ 
In shades of blue 
These cuts strike deep
And ink bleeds through 

The maelstrom fades
Time slows to a halt 
Anger crystallizing/ The better
These wounds to salt 

Would have grown
Apart/ Memories dissolving 
But the fields ran red
With frozen hope shattering

Cobalt calls/ Ruby restless
A growl emanating from the depths
Of ages past/ Of process thwarted
And Azure shifts/ while Copper flows

"Do I Have Worth?"

At home in a bubble room 
Made of broken faces and dying voices 
Safe, unharmed, walking the knife's edge 

Balancing on a single foot 
Blade digging deep 
Slipping on the blood/ Holding on 

No, I tell a lie
The knife lies buried in my abdomen
The bubbles fall red-tinged
From the whispers of my lips 

Don't flirt with danger 
But danger is none but folks 
Normal/ Passing me on the street 

Folks I reach out to touch
Eyes wide in disbelief 
My fingers pass right through them 
My words float past their eyes 

I am impossible/ We
We are impossible and know it 
How can deserving live with the nonexistent?
How can a scream change the world 
When it dies on its way to my throat 

I hunger for your false words 
They don't understand why a lie 
Would be worth more than nothingness 
I hunger for everything that cannot be mine 
I weep for what does not exist 

I run to the lies 
I smile I dance for them 
A brief window into a foreign world 
A taste of what isn't meant for me 

Living and raging is for them to revel in 
Not for those that lost their way 
Even before they found their path to life 

Grasping at wisps of fancy 
Of broken dreams borrowed 
From other backyards/ Wandering 

The last threads of sanity 
Unravelling/ Expelled 
In the dry heaving/ Listening 
For a death rattle that fails to come 

- Title, Quote by Mr. Nutt, Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. 

Songs that Died

Sing to me 
Across all pain 
Past the shadows I strain 
To dance to the notes of forgotten songs 

Sing to me 
As the hour strikes eleven
Ghosts from the past converging 
On that house of darkness 

Sing to me 
Of stolen kisses, soft hands 
Of shoulders grabbed roughly 
Of thoughtless silence in the night 

Sing to me of regrets 
Of the poisonous reptile under the stone 
Sing to me of promise 
Of a teary dawn held up by whispered love 

Sing to me of all that was good 
Burning bright now, ashes carried 
In the wind/ With soundless sighs 
Of mute disappointment dropping like a stone

Into the pits of our stomachs
Pain undivided, grown twice as strong 
Sing to me of unspoken desires 
Of a mind obscured, crushed under fear 

Sing of lost kittens falling over precipices 
Of hands that long to reach out
To save/ to treasure/ Yet not knowing how 
Of three little dark assassins blending into the black 

Sing to me of wind rushing in my hair 
Tears stinging my eyes 
Sing to me of how everything would end well 
As I raced back home to where my love waited

Sing to me of how we acted as though we didn't hurt 
How we bore our burdens separately 
Past all pain and through the shadow 
Sing to me of songs long lost 

Sing to me of cruelty 
Sing to me of blank walls 
Sing to me of mice and men 
Sing to me of words long dead

Sing to me of an enemy I do not wish to make 
Tell me your stories, let me tell you mine 
Call to me from beyond the mountain 
As I wait to run, as I whisper this faded song 

The Good Stuff

“You haven’t drunk the good stuff,” they say.

They make me smile, think back

To all the times with strange sounding names

All the times I was young and lost

All the times I drank to impress

The years that passed never-ending

In a parade of the good stuff

Back, to all the boys pretending to manhood

To each their preferred obsession

With each new man, a new strange name

A new definition of the good stuff

Absinthe reminds me of fairies

High on floor cleaner

Grey Goose was a short boy at a high bar

BP was false advertisement

Talisker a drunk elephant rampage

Captain Morgan guiding a ship

Through giddy honeymoon waters

Only for it to wreck on the rocks

Of elite Screwdrivers in lonely elite clubs

I close my eyes to the sound

Of Jaegerbombs bragging

Of Old Fashioned being pricey

While Glenfiddich sings of unfulfilled longing

And Hercules of alcoholics passed out

In the backyards of their prime

Ballantine was acceptance bought

A bad investment carefully paid for

Black and White a hateful freeloader

Smirnoff was a classy girl

While Tequila danced on tables

Romanov was a homeless drunk

Crying on the stairs with nowhere to go

Old Monk was always drowning

In the darkness of the most dangerous nights

Mug after mug

Of being forever a Kingfisher freshman

Millers a tantalizing world of strangeness

Dreams that came true

Leaving a bad taste in your mouth

A dangerous door did Corona open

All the slamming wouldn’t keep it shut

And Long Island Iced Teas are always a mistake

Never should they be mixed

With Death by Chocolate

Kamikaze and blue shooters help

You forget you’re not having fun

RC was how the stoners pretended

They were interested in drinking at all

Cosmo was a skin made

For somebody else

Mojitos mean choking on mint

JD was a friend’s birthday request

Jim Beam a wife beater

While Johnny Walker kept on walking

Along the glass doors of cabinets

In a home I’ve ceased to remember

Fenny was the triumphant taste of invisible rebellion

Russian vodka was the first sip in time

From fruity cocktails and coke floats

To unnamed paper cups of whiskey-vodka-beer

I’ve been around the block

Down the memory lane of the good stuff

The bad stuff, the mad stuff

“You haven’t drunk the good stuff,” they say

I smile, because I’ve drunk all the stuff.