sounds in the other room.

It would be a while to awake
Caught in a spell of stairwells
Coffee stains, curtains, lobbies
I find myself in familiar hallways
Not knowing the door of the room
They're all identical and have their place
The numbers are constant equations
Never functioning to a solution
Just soul less direction
To a private space that's not so private
Air conditioners and loud lights
Pretend I'm at sea when I'm sitting down
Rocking back and forth till I'm lost
Then found
When the foghorn alarm sounds
And the ship sinks empty
Into waves of distant audio
Like a television heard for miles
Trapped in another place
Must be my imagination
Or the couple fighting in the hall
Thinking to loud
Of a different scene
In a sitcom rerun
Where it's always funny
Because I remember so fondly
Then it drifts out
And it's gone
The lights buzzing
The air condition takes it's break in the cycle
Could be hours
Before I'm sleeping
Again

Do Not Be Afraid.

Lights on the water
Striking a figure
Made of water
Shimmers in the dark
Staggers to be seen
Out of the lake
Unto the dock
With a stern face
And soft hands
He cuts the air still
Like an approaching storm
Carried through the air
By fireflies to the land
Parking lots and misunderstandings
Street lamps make him amber
Children laughing
In the midst of the night
Makes you hollow
Ghosts of the day
Things this figure can't not understand
Mystery that makes us unsure
Timid
Anxious
What makes us this way?
Do not be afraid
Racing through the woods
Following a dim light
I hear the wolves
And they're howling
For blood in the harvest moon
They are silhouettes carrying the landscape
Moving this figure in a strange way
Like we were on the lake
Up and down the hills
In the fields
Where the mist draws the smoke
Away from the fire in fury
The moon a wicked way
Of showing our true surroundings
Something nervous
About not knowing where we are
Yet it feels like we were there
Some time we cannot remember
A dream without dreaming
Do not be afraid
I can hear the shadows
I can feel the hollow
Wind piercing my skeleton
Through my bones
And out of my face
As I breathe
As I see
Do not be afraid!
Do not be afraid!

I'll get drunk.

I'll get drunk tonight.
Call in to work
Some vouched favor to myself
To never stop deception
Like it's a favor to myself
To escape from anything
Likened to: having something
To look forward to
Other than late nights
Smoke stacks and taboo
Can't complain as long as I'm awake
Walk these train tracks till they fade
In a trance I'm not feelin' okay
Just bit my last lip
And I'm bleeding away
Till the lights explode
The sky falls
And smoke does justice to haze
A headache is a purity
To that which I can relate
Some fixed resolution of conflicts
And I can't complain
Let me linger
Till I run away
Escaping the facts
The tricks
The pains
Of an idiot
With not much to blame
I can't complain
I can't complain

Stealing Hearts.

I came around
Last night
Flicking matches
At your car window
Waking up
I see you
Tired but so awake
...waiting for me
Must be some kind of sad fantasy
To find a cure...
For this bored time
Tired words
Said over and over and over
Again.
Love; apparently
Tricked to God
Tell your family:
We're going away
We're going far away
And you're gonna miss her
Nobody's gonna miss me
I used to hold her hand
Now it's tethered
Now you're never going back
To anything
False claims are the memory
Aren't you sad?
But can't complain
Cause I've got a plan
That's not worth anything
Just an untrustworthy
Desire to not be alone
Now I'm not your friend
Now I'm not your lover
I'm a liar
I'm a truth
I'm here.

death in the orchard

blood on the veins
based in the roots
black on the tree
carved out last summer
in hearts and names
letters and dates
bare branched
naked
missing leaves
a stranger lights the night
with a cigarette strung
to twilight
he puppets himself to the thought
of trees
and leaves
lights
memories
cascading down from the last star
a heart carved out
the blood pours out
the last thing he sees
but one last piece of fruit
ripe and gorgeous
red apple
black.

release the starlets

long casts of an evening stride
Mary at my side
Leaving my arms with every summer breeze
And just as the sun sets
The air dies
And I go to sleep
Left too warm to dream
Blank and starved
I wake with the worry
Of what I'm left to see

faded

the shell of myself
displaying most wonderful colors
left in a rocking chair
by the window
with the calm of the ocean
at my grandmother's house
little birds and owls
all carved from drift wood
tickings of old clocks
little feelings
strange thinkings
gone, by gone, left
in the birches outside the door
where the grass is tuned blue
by the light of the late moon
stilling; so still
so quiet and never fleeting
it stays yet I'm leaving
what remains is deceiving.