A Crooked Crutch

From savior to son,
from holy spirit to the one,
to whom repentance is owed in full
and forgiveness is a sober tool:
when all is said and done
does it really matter who's lost or won?
Whatever you hold true
is yours to hold true
from the landscapes of Eden
to the edges of Hell or even
the space in which coming clean
leaves you buried and unseen.
War, Famine, Pestilence, Death,
a thunderous gallop you wish to forget:
don't look twice; we're well on our way
to a judgment which will wash us away.
That heavy gavial, that heavenly judge,
that holy jury: will they hold a grudge?
Will the gates open wide or slam in you face
the day the clouds fall and earth is displaced?
Oh, Sin, you say you know me well,
because my heart, from Heaven, fell.
You keep me far from home and love,
and from almighty God above.
And yet you don't appear in space
or occur in any single place.
You are nothing but an abstract fiend,
a crooked crutch upon which I leaned.
You are Fear without Faith
and I think I like your taste,
but I hate your big steel bars
and - most of all - I hate your scars.

********************************

It's about a fall from grace.

I'm not sure whose.

It didn't make an impact.






"I don't want to talk about Jesus. I just want to see His face." AA Bondy Rapture (Sweet Rapture)

Spin

When failure's not an option
you spin inside your head,
finding faults in every detail
like you're wasting more than breath.

Each frame of every film
and each smile laced with guilt
reveals a shining, desperate quirk,
a secret you died for, but kept.

Like you're racing more than time,
you clinch your fists and grit your teeth
as if such empty gestures could compete,
as if you don't just want to bleed.

It's the debt you earned and owe
for writing less than what you know
and letting that which saves you
break, shatter, scatter, and blow.

***************************************

I wanted this to be a lot more than it became. Then, I just got annoyed with it. I'm out of school and I just feel like I'm floating. I could be what I have been. I could be what I was. Or I could try to be something different if I had any idea how to do that. I feel like the magic 8 ball would say: "outlook not good."






"Keep looking, but get any inkling of 'failure' out of your head - you're doing the right thing by enjoying your free time and the weather..."

Begin

You tried to fix me,
but I broke
free and fell
like stars from Heaven.
There are footsteps beside mine
so I must be going mad,
but He whispers not to worry
and takes me by the hand.
"I don't know you,"
I say with a stutter.

And He doesn't reply,
only raises a mirror to my nose.
But I don't know
whose eyes look back anymore:
there's no reflection without light
and it's all the same with eyes shut anyhow.
So I won't see the world
and I won't taste the sun,
but I'll hear the songs
and I'll feel them through.

But can salvation be sung?
Can it be lost or won?
Is it written in ink?
Can it dissolve or shrink?
It's something like faith
that keeps me awake.
Hazy eyed and terrified,
I wonder if he knows I lied.
Forgive me, Father, I have sinned.
Don't even know where to begin.

******************************

Abnormal poem. Especially for me. Stanzas that aren't four lines long? Haha. I don't do that. It also only rhymes in the last stanza, which is something that would normally bug me. I like consistency. I decided to tell myself to shut the fuck up on that, though. This time.

It's sort of just about how you can't know "God" or you can't have faith or spirituality until you know who YOU are, until you know what you're all about and what you stand for / believe in. It doesn't have to be "God" in any religious sense. You can't have any idea about what you're life should stand for until you know who you are. If the light's off in the room and you can't see who you are, you can't even begin the process. If you can't be honest, you might as well live in the dark.

Don't worry. I'm not converting or dedicating my life to Jesus. Just because I've had a Bible on my desk opened up to Revelation for the last two days doesn't mean shit. I'm just studying. Thinking.





"I hope Jesus is the one, but what if we're wrong and he doesn't come? Who will give us love?" The New Frontiers Who Will Give Us Love?"


"I'll take something to believe, something with long sleeves 'cause it's unpredictable. Now Jesus said He'd fill my needs, but my heart still bleeds. He's just not physical." - Pedro The Lion Promise

The Joke's On You

Caves and Earth's crust
and crisp, clean air:
breathe better before
the Fall.
Preparing at night,
those false saints
for their judgment,
their last triumphant stand.
Divinity swings on her cloud
watching the cars pollute the sky,
the lit factory lights
shown through haze towards Heaven.
Gates closed:
no more admission today,
no more deserving souls,
just weary soldiers.
"And it's not enough,"
she sighs.
"Spare me your prayers,"
her lamentations trail.
A mocking laugh,
a mushroom cloud,
a menacing eye,
a machine gun blast,
and all the rumors
(lies we spread),
the paper thin promises
(ripped to shreds)
create a world of nothing true,
nothing real, and nothing new.
"This time, kids, the joke's on you,"
Divinity heckled, her rage grew.
Melt away, regenerate,
retell the lies you swear you hate.
She'll have you realize your own fate,
but only once it's much too late.
So, go on about your mission of might
and how - for freedom - we have to fight.
Remember well the words you write:
they haunt the rest of us at night.

**********************************

This could probably fit in somewhere with the 'Emperor' series, but I don't think it quite makes it there...but maybe. It's along those same lines, but dealing more with morality from an innocent omniscient point of view. It's about the end of the world, about doom, about someone 'up there' saying, "Fuck you guys; I'm tired of you and your useless bullshit." It's about all the ways we kill ourselves. It's all about the end because, really, nothing and no one is forever and when all our bullshit is said and done, does it really matter who's won? It's about: "Can we all just get along?" and "Can't you just kiss and make up?" It's about wishing that people would actually do what's right, what makes them happy (while not hurting anyone else), what makes them tick. It's about Divinity and she wants you to know that "life is what it makes of you." (Yeah...I've been into The New Frontiers for a week and a half and I've decided I'm awesome enough to quote them.)


"I've been writing a lot about God," I told him.
"I've noticed. You write about God a lot for someone who doesn't believe in her."
I snicker.





"It's not what we're owed, but it's what we've earned and it's closer than we realize and it's time now to burn." Kevin Devine Time To Burn

"Once there was a time to join the army and once there was a time to hear the news and once there was a time for easy silence, but now the jury waits for you." AA Bondy Witness Blues

Landing

A pretty paradox:
perfection and detox.
I lost the words I meant to write
to mist and shadows and a vacuumous light.
I tucked them away in a box
and weighed it down with rocks.
They were too weak to win a fight
against her eternal, omnisent right.

And in their deep sea dungeon,
that place so foreign:
no screams are audible,
no sylables recognizable.
While her heretical surmon
acts as more motivation:
this urge, insurmountable
and the mark, unmistakable.

Scribbled lines on tattered pages
left forgotten for ages and ages
are my only hope for understanding,
redemption, love, or landing
on my feet through these changes
of hearts and minds and places.
And through my staggered planning,
erase all evidence of my branding.

*****************************************

"...
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:

Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,

It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain..."

- P.B. Shelley, "The Mask Of Anarchy"

He Looks Away

But you never said it, did you?
And you never made a sound,
and the words that passed your lips
were always only partly true.
So, there's no one left to blame
except that sorry, misshapen sap
whose empty eyes gaze back
from behind your mirror's cracking pane.
I picked up the pieces that I found,
but they didn't fit anywhere anyway.
And falling, they landed and
looked more whole apart than as part.
Of a larger hole
where passions are misplaced,
perfectly prim paradoxes
play with forced-quiet tongues.
It rages in your skull until you burst
or tear the seams that suck you in.
One day, all the things you should have said
will poison you and take your breath.
Folly's in the silence reached
when fear controls you voice,
when Love bats his eyes, but you refrain
because you swear he looks away.