In this, the death of a knowable God,
we have turned to seeming absence,
to vacant pleasures; staring up at screens,
inviting opinions as prescriptions,

and living within the squalor
of the new great depression.

We've slipped into poses, robes
of Moses, walking to the reservoir,
the old abandoned quarry of our minds,
we meet him in the clearing;

the clearing of breath and hearing,
of inner thought and all questions answered.

In this lack of discovery: invention of distraction,
we have descended to fractions, morsels
of attention; all worship of the celebrity,
for lack of concrete alternative.

Don't take me back to the past that I crave,
nor lock me in the misery of today;
for, my eyes belong to the future,
to when everything is okay.

Whisper to me upon Valentine's Day,
cool the water of scalding tide.
For, I've been lacking in absence of you,
I've been lacking all twenty years through,
please, lend me your ghost to confide.

Since us, I've been living in weather
turgid and hostile to flesh,
please, send me your songs of the sunlight,
darling, send me your heat through the night,
hand in mine 'till our fingers mesh.

Surviving on the promise of our children,
brown eyes - your living legacy,
their movements of mood mimics yours,
as British rain upon tropical shores;
how little in them, I see me.

Oh, whisper to me on Valentine's Day,
more than memory taken in wind,
for, without you my breath remains stubborn,
whilst all else I know is falling apart,
my appetite waning and thinned,

all because of this long-broken heart.

My voice falls limp,
carried reluctantly
across synapse-space,
landing upon the deaf brick
and insulation. Even this,
this inanimate audience
breathes fog of indifference,
into the speech
I call my song.

They trace shapes,
doodles and musings.
Anything to amuse above
these listless words,
this dead-pan circuitry
of sound, of chorus,
of rote strings, broken chord
and the misery of
unachieved catharsis.

Still, in humble melody,
I mumble through another verse,
fingers rolling in bands of
forever, walking up and
down the root notes,
as if scales were naught but
a busy mind, stilling orbit,
thawing memories
in the motion of music.

Have you ever seen the veins of poetry?
As if born of the nothings in between,
The spaces a story with no setting;
More profound, I think, of thee.

As a kid, I was always told to be the best,
to strive my hardest,
and go above and beyond the status quo.
As a kid, I was always compared to those around me.
Never have I been judged as an individual.
Nay, I was judged in comparison to the success of my peers,
and not for a moment, would I believe that their parents where too doing the same thing.
So instead, let's all be compared to the person we were yesterday.
Instead, let's all be judged by the ability to exceed our own limitations, and rise above them.
Not, the standards of a system.

Give me my body and my lost sanity.
Take away all of this absolute profanity.
The marks on the walls, the knifes and the saws
are used to make me cringe and squeal
the words you always wanted to hear.
You yell at me, and make me suffer.
You make my life tourture and make it all rougher.
My soul aches from the pains.
My body shackled is by throrny chains.
I will not speak to you, you cannot condemn me.
Leave me now, you've enjoyed the insanity.

-n.s.