Compassion is the cruelest curse
a painful defect of my birth.
Day after day it just gets worse,
it floods me like a dam that's burst.
An endless dirge, a tragic verse,
a starving babe without a nurse.
Like new seeds sown on salted earth.

New fallen snow on an icy road,
this path I stumble along.
I shake the branches,
I can't take any chances,
but still I fall beneath the serpent song.
Two weeks pure, sacrificed,
a single day to purge my vice
to lay my flesh upon the ground.
Two bluebottle flys, saved,
and two stinkbugs, revived.
Seeing the dead, curled up things
come back to life,
I am certain I will survive
any trials that might assail me,
in the frigid gray sky days to come,
before I finally lay this body down.

Never trust a man
with clean, and baby smooth hands
unless he is a corpse.

I have no alms to give
a yoke is set around my neck
I serve a different master now
I serve my master until death.
I have no coins to share
This poverty is who I am
Now you must learn to love yourself
and I must kneel before the lamb.
You cannot understand
for you still sit upon your mount
and I lie on the ground
too many blessings yet to count.
Remember what I said to you
you're lovely and forever loved
there's nothing more that I can do
I serve a different master now.

All the blood I've shed,
all the fears I've fed,
all the paper hearts
with these boots I've tread,
all the sacred smiles,
I have dashed apart,
all the burnt up files
all the slashed up art,
all the tearful pleas
I have laughed right through,
are a burning bridge
between me and you.

On the stormy seas,
sailors go to die,
in your tiny hands,
mated dragonflies,
share a sweet disease
seen through lonely eyes,
on a moonlit strand,
in a land before time
moved and left you here,
stripped of your disguise
I only hope my dear
you'll forgive my lies.

I know it may sound queer,
but I still can't stand
to see of you in pain,
a severed wedding band,
my phony alibies.
Yet you cannot see
your beauty in the mirror
and you cannot hear
 all the melodies,
 I sung right here,
before the memories
 all disappeared.

If I could tame my tongue,
coil it back up
put it back in the basket,
snap my flute,
and chuck the basket in the river,
I would.
If I could rewind every time
I threw a barbed dart,
or struck out with my hands,
If I could repair the bruised facade
of every temple I have marred
in my misguided wrath,
and make whole every soul
I have carelessly ripped apart,
I would.
If I could recant every callous oath,
If I could retract every snide rant,
If I could heal every wound
and soothe every mind
I have ruthlessly injured,
time after time,
I would...
But, I cant, so I will have to settle
for saying I am sorry,
and hope for your forgiveness.

Steel still feels cool in this balmy room,
while rain spray spatter paints temporary patterns on the table outside.
The droplet wreathed pines seem eternal.
Sentinels offering shelter
from the wet curtain exposure.
Cloud sprites cavort in the open
reaching under the meager cover,
like the cold wet fingers of a long dead lover, or a drop of regret
from another life...
I'm glad I am warm, here, inside.