he knows.

I say, "no"
Please, "no"
Don't stop him
He's trying
Just once more for feeling
He's good
He's real
He's fitting
To his own cloth
No one must realize
What is real
And most unforgiving
Just lacking
Self assurances
It's pain
It's blush
It's scary
I want to find this:
"Feeling"
I work; I try
I'm reeling
From the false
Sentiments
And security
A landslide
Oh, "it must be"

CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP.

I can see the reason
Close minded after region
Told by the coming father
"You're not my young"
"You're not mine"
Trapped in ballrooms
Dancing on the floor
Like we're standing straight up
Couldn't carry on a conversation
With my shiny raincoat
So I took to drinking
Cigarette smoke
Against a chandelier
Made me feel safe
For what it was
Until I had a premonition
Saw the aftermath
Of all equaled hollowed parts
Left shattered on the dance floor
Like a fallen disco ball
Police storm the gates
As the crows decended on the deserters
Eyeballs out and sucking my stomach in
Dying with dignity
Like a centerfold for cheap magazines
Hands stained with the blood
Of the party guest punch
The host dosed in gasoline
Running the floor
Crumples into a burst of flames
Attractive girl drugged and violently pounding at her chest
Says: "What a great party."
In her last breath

The idealist.

Trick
Slick
Sonofabitch
Looking for an easy cure
Staying close to home
While running away
That warm light
Burning at his coattails
Smiling in the sunshine
Blowing smoke out of parked cars
Trying to settle down
While moving on
Sack on his back
And a bottle in his hand
Lonely train tracks
Filled with people
Trying to offer up some advice
Under their breath
While telling stories of taking chances
Littered like trash
In these bleached summer days
Showing shadows for who they are
A jacket on a skeleton
Small men speaking tall
They've had more than a few
Rope swung into the open water
Just to hit the shallows
Bruised and bloodied
Crawling up
To run home
Like some kind of joke
That hurts
Oh, it really hurts.

ghost money.

80's resurrected like christ at a used car salesman's convention
Tearing the wings off of speckled flies with tobbaco stained teeth
Yield to the east
Yield to the west
Then turn
A false feeling of security while getting sexually molested
By a cheap clown in the parking lot
On the way to my car
Minivan with two kids
And a wife expecting
Pulled flower from the palm of my hand
Broke at the root and bled
Shatters like glass
Sounds like summer 08'
Breaking in my shoes
While breaking someone's jaw
Heard the speakers blow out
Before the band even started
Yelling and screaming
What the hell happened
Post conversion.

Raccoon girl.

Like an illustration in a fantasy story
Sought that castle in the clouds
With it's porcelin prisms & unending arches
Walk the walkway like a galliant figure of glory
A knight returning from a victorious quest
Rescued the damsel - slayed the dragon
Worn armor and bloodied hands
Blackened eyes and weakening smile
It's not this path that enlightens me
Makes me certain that truth in honor prevails
But the murky middle of my past
Chanced upon a lone traveler
Profiteering his own carnival
Magic mirrors and premonitions
Of the future: love & death
His mock mustache and towering hat
Dispelling misgivings with the wave of a wand
Spoke in promises; not honesty
And one look on
Saw the day I'd die
The trials I faced
Chasing raccoon girl down the unplaced path
Leaving a trail of blood behind me
Heard the laughter in the smoke
Annoyomous and vicious
Rushed in a haze
Violent fever
That left me faint
Even as I reached the throne
Where I knelt for the king
As he gently tapped my shoulder with honor
I grabbed the blade - bare hands -
And cut my head off.

The spectrum of dreams.

Flashlight on the glass
Until you couldn't guess no more
Bite your nails & cross your arms
Fell back on the curtains
Took your fall
Left the chaos in leaving
And went back to carry on
Victim of your own conviction
Solving a mystery that's a secret to keep
Whisper the answer to an audience in tears
Boos that were rehearsed
A tragedy in the making
For months and years
You've perfected your incorrectness
Unabashed from the snarling teeth
Put a rose on your performance
And spit on the ground
As you bow
Swept away by a janitor's push.

Lost films.

No more patients
Just empty glasses
Cold sterile whites
And faceless strangers
All against the wall
Seething as you walk by
No different than before
A common stride
Let's a breath go
A ghost in the cold
Tell tale sign
There's never letting go
Bit my lip
Till the last bled spit
Trying to go to bed
Never mention this again
Confusing as the letters
I wrote to myself
Dear, Self
How do I really feel?
P.S. you need help.

Wolf boy.

The gleam of the sun on his tired face
Young boy with too much time on his hands
Raising himself as he was
In the endless vistas; the milked sunlight
Too kind to his tired eyes
Immersing himself in the endless sky
But tethered to a dimming light
A canvas faintly abstract
By weathered convictions
Lost in stories of time
He'd try to free himself
If he wasn't so trapped
In the ideas of glory
The false traditions
The tinged truth of reality
Unleashing a false pretense
Unto his own existence
That confides in him
A burning envy
Unlike that of you or I
May be known as truth
Or scorn
But a trial of ambition
A world, that's meant
To exist
In the minds and hearts
Of everyone he touches
As he keeps to himself
Realizing time and time again
That he's found his reasons
Unfounded, unmotivated
Yet lack for a better effort
In place of a better idea
He's alone in this world
And the faces seems
Blank.

Ghosts being.

I see the painted horses
Mounting on the horizon
Of foreign seas
Beyond the begotten
True to source
They scatter
Like birds
Above the sunrise
Carrying
Shadows as they go
But what do I know?
That in fate
We'll belong to that
Which we cannot define
Some simple honor
Some mundane truth
Cast along a tepid sea
Of dishonest truth
Growing old
In the letters I write you
Truly, seeing my face
Weathered and passed
Made by the worried and morose
Tired beneath
My own strength
True to my own fate
Tied by the twine
That you tied yourself
With feeble, fragile hands
Carefully in contempt
Behind the shades
The shadows
And the hurt
I see the true face.

I wouldn't have you.

There's a place in the hands
And that's where we'll meet:
Overcast and shadowed
It's strange, confused, and new
I carried a casket down the beach
From Maine
The homeland
Unto myself
In a sacred image
Of saint mary
Blistering and glowing
In all her holy honor
Yet fire
Makes her
So cold to
The eye
Like a faint
Memory
On the beach