A rusty cage conceals me
Deep beneath the waves, of another passing day
The blood inside my veins
Is laced with warmth, that erodes away the pain
The needle scratches vinyl
As the pills provide the music, singing sorrow in my brain

Lost on the lamb
Searching for the touch, from my own callused hands
A wind-up ballerina in her box
Doesn’t spin and twirl like she wants
Damaged dancer
Standing still, inside my antique heart

Youthful exuberance never grows old; I suppose, until the creeping ivy cradles your gravestone.

This life; to me, is a passing train that always makes its way back around. Just not for you.

Every stop lets off the lost and picks up a child; weary, on their first day of school.

The hero in my mind rides, toward the destiny where he dies.

The wink inside his smile; resigned, for one more longing look up at the deep blue ocean canvas, where he penned the story of his life.

In his fading grin, he whispers one last nothing to wind. A cool breeze carrying his freedom. The silence, his last season.

Hope here is dead. Man in a box, Cobain in my head.
Court me some love and spin on my throne,
Of brittle remorse.

Sick in the womb, the silver spoon pollutes.
Tiny tadpole in the pool, grows to patrol the Black Lagoon.
Devouring the newt it once knew.

Fearful men, conceal their worries, in tall tales of courage.
Ironclad, Iconoclast. Kings and heroes alike,
Plant their flags in fields of ash.

Baby, it's me who taught you how to love
Out by the docks. On the Puget, where we found Sound
For all our secret thoughts.
               Deep into the night, slurring silence, sipping wine
               We let our feelings talk. A disheveled bed
               Was heaven then
The door was hell, comin' round the bend. Baby,
It was me who taught you how to love,
And it was you who taught me how to stop.

Supersonic thoughts seem to speed up the passing of my life.
Just yesterday; it seems,
love and luck laid bare next to me,
like loaded dice on a Vegas summer night.

Now I cradle the ghost of unforeseen catastrophe.
Blood from bullet wounds
prove false my bravado.

Beneath the blackened circles of my weary eyes,
sleep calls to me
like a string quartet of warped wooden violins.

My wordbook’s scribblings are just a pale excuse for my silent sins. Like neglect and
blatant disrespect for the stacking of the deck against me.

There it is again. Quiet qualifiers to mask my true intent.
Heaven sent its hounds,
to drag me down; hell bound, for ignoring the silent sounds

Of tears that grace the ground before me.
An honest mistake for rain. Pain,
is like ****** for the insane, shooting through my veins.

Feeding the flowers you think you see, blooming
in the graveyards of my brain.

The litmus test for loneliness, is the approaching dark
and the clawing hand
that pulls you closer to your resignation to become engulfed in it.
An empty café
bustling only with,

The screaming thoughts that stack up in your mind like poker chips. The same expression frozen stiff makes you fake a smile
when least appropriate.
A jester at the funeral,

Human touch just strikes you as unusual because an open hand is like
subtle subterfuge, syphoning your soul for personal use.
Emotional exposure erodes a stone demeanor.
Loneliness is like an open road with no street signs pointing home.

Only here till’ morning, so the night’s an open road and,
the beaten path only leads to mourning. An off-road traveler,
who escapes the chase of a pursuant sun.

Slow walking through river reeds.
A cupped handful of running water reinforces his state of being;
all but free.

Marathon of miles between, the first date on his gravestone and
the last number his mother reads at the bottom of his eulogy.
The hyphen shorthand for life and,

Missing the meaning through the seams, that connect his first day
to the day he leaves. An often-bereaved purveyor of shattered dreams,

Who stops to smile at every waving tree because,
even in despair he found belief beneath
the bared teeth of the machine trying to syphon from his peace.

A flower born from concrete.
Escaping through the cracked city streets;
out past the horizon line.