Battle Cries

Even before the sun
devoured the whole sky,

the ending had begun

and we were left to die.

Over decades with a smoking gun,

the senators idly stood by,

and thinking that their jobs were done,

fell silent, no reply.

The marches of the uniformed men

and their wilted battle cries:

it all comes back around again

until humanity's demise.

The portly politicians' pens

wrote poetry to chastise.

They ended their prayers at night, "Amen,"

and dreamed about their lies.

Their banter and their bicker

and their precious, petty pork

made their wallets that much thicker,

so they popped another cork

and filled their bellies full of liquor:

a little democratic quirk.

It made a planet sicker,

left a people at the fork

of a bloody, barren road:

to rise up and revolt

and heed the warning crowed

or turn away and bolt

and watch the earth implode

as if no one's at fault.

A punishment for us bestowed:

a wake-up call, a crash, a jolt.

The warning fell upon deaf ears

so our blood rushed through the rivers.

It's everything the innocent feared

and we huddled close and quivered.

Then, closer in the sky appeared

our sun who would deliver

the final blow and with a sneer:

lights out for earth, our deathly shiver.

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

"Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth... then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away." - Carl Sagan Cosmos

"Come you masters of war - you that build all the guns, you that build the death planes, you that build all the bombs, you that hide behind walls, you that hide behind desks - I just want you to know I can see through your masks." - Bob Dylan Masters of War (really, this entire song)

"The drunken politician leaps upon the street where mothers weep and the saviors who are fast asleep: they wait for you." - Bob Dylan I Want You

Little Lives

The moon's heart is heavy

as he considers the bevy

of bedrooms into which

his eyes become hitched.

His midnight glances

see all your romances,

all your quiet indiscretions,

and your lapses in depression.

Though he's aged with grace,

there are wrinkles on his face

and he envies the little lives he views.

Their elegant movements are his muse.

A voyeur satellite,

you only know at night,

but he cannot turn away,

not even for a day

and he isn't getting any younger.

So he hovers and he hungers

for a hand to caress,

or a love to profess

or for lips to kiss

or a sweetheart to miss.

The little lives below

do not even know

how lucky they are

when viewed from afar.

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

"The moon hangs like the blade of an axe tonight, and it's poised to drop sometime soon enough on this dump truck where I lie mixed up with the morning's trash. There's a piece of glass sticking in my back and tar covering my mouth." Saves the Day All I'm Losing is Me

"This is the window where I watched the future start. My pupils dilated. The shock sped up my arms. I shut my ambushed eyes  and turned my face towards the heat." Kevin Devine All of Everything, Erased

The Push, The Pull

My autumn air lingers

in your summer sky

like the tips of my fingers

and the zip of your fly.

I breathe you in -

deep and full -

the smell of gin -

the push, the pull.

As the room still spins,

you've no words to say.

This is how it begins

if this is how it can stay.

Not a sound 

nor muscle moved,

I am found;

I am improved.

And for every other,

your eyes say to me

that they don't bother

even to see.

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

Long time no post. Here's a little somethin'.

"I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass." - Counting Crows A Long December

Stories

He woke me with his stare,

but to speak I didn't dare.

The sky was falling 

as his voice kept stalling:

"The air's too thin.

and the world's caving in.

Love is affliction,

a very fine fiction."

So on he went,

never really bent

on any true direction,

always looking for affection 

just to dump it in a graveyard

or leave it burnt or scarred.

Intertwined in love's lacy fingers,

where the scent of sex lingers,

his traces can be found,

but he never sticks around.

Just a ghost with a voice.

His solace is his choice.

His misery is lonesome

like his cold sheets have become.

And all the ones who "got away"

from the boy with miles who wouldn't stay

are tucked beneath their lover's chins

where now their stories can begin.

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

Living well is the best revenge. 

“I know you don’t think you did me wrong and I can’t stay this mad for long. Keeping ahold of what you just let go. You’re just somebody that I used to know.” - Elliott Smith Somebody That I Used To Know

Found

A glint, a glance,
a sigh, a whisper,
and all the secrets
he kept from her 
prevent her voice
from reaching farther.
She huddles herself
in a dark, dank corner.

There, no one can see
and no one can say
and all their bickering
hides away.
And the burning boy
who did betray
and the boy with miles
who wouldn't stay

can't find her with their
fiery hearts
or rip apart
her fragile parts. 
The blood in her veins stops
and starts
and stops
and starts.

And she would stay
in her humdrum haven,
hold up with her books,
cowering and craven,
if not for a friendly,
blue-eyed maven
who found a girl 
in need of saving.



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

I know. It's been a long time. This isn't actually even a new poem. It's one I've been working on for a long, long time. Hopefully, I'll have something legitimately new for you in the near future.







"A look, a laugh, a smile, a second passes by and I regret it. Words just aren't right. Sometimes I just can't explain all the ways you devastate me, always on my mind." Straylight Run The Tension and the Terror

Redact

Her head keeps on spinning.
She sees her ends and her beginnings,
that little devil on her shoulder, grinning,
and her patience ever thinning.
She walks on her wire,
her situation dire,
as the flame of her fire
grow higher and higher
and the blood in her veins
does boil to her brains.
Her heart remains,
for safe keeping, in chains
for it is known to run rampant
and follow a foul scent
without her consent
and much to her discontent.
It beats against its bony bars,
imprisoned far beneath the stars
all because it caused her scars.
Empty wine bottles and out of tune guitars
decorate her bedroom walls.
Her hands shake and no one calls
and, to its knees, the circus falls.
In mirrors in run down bathroom stalls,
her reflection is refracting,
expanding and contracting,
expounding and redacting.
Her time, subtracting.
Her idle eyes rest teary
and her bones grow weary.
This waste is ever so dreary,
but you're out there faking cheery.
In far off rooms you sit and stare,
explaining how it was all fair.
So sit yourself lonely there,
but don't show your face 'round here - no, don't you dare.


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

I've been working on this for a while. Sorry for my apparent absence. Things in the office have been madness since February. I'm not sure if the end of it is really that close either, but I'll still write when I can!

Apparently, I've been listening to / thinking about Counting Crows a lot.






"Waiting here for you, wanting to tell you how I get my ends and my beginning mixed up too, just the way you do, thought if I told you, you might want to stay for just another day or two" - Counting Crows High Life
 
"I'll kiss you again between the bars." - Elliott Smith Between The Bars
 
"My hands they always shake and no one's calling my phone. So what does that make me?" - Kevin Devine Ballgame
 
"This circus is falling down on its knees. The big top is crumbling down. It's raining in Baltimore fifty miles east. Where you should be, no one's around." - Counting Crows Raining In Baltimore
 
"Well everybody knows your name ’round here, but that’s alright and everybody learned your game ’round here, but that’s alright. You told me if I stayed ’round here, you’d find a good enough place to hide, but I see you. I see you. So come on out tonight." - Kasey Anderson and the Honkies (but I only actually know the Counting Crows cover) Like Teenage Gravity

Our Ties

I'm listening to the songs
I shouldn't listen to
in a room near the sky
that doesn't have a view,
so if I close my eyes up tight,
through the fog, I still see you.
You're out there in the world,
whistling right on queue.

You get to breathe
while you let me choke
and you're shiny and new,
but I'm old and broke.
I'll try to forget every word
to me that you spoke:
so I guess that the end
of the world is a joke.

Scars are ghosts
of pains that once were
and dreams are realities
with a filter and a blur.
I feel you sometimes, still,
and my stomach does stir.
I wonder and reason
and plead to infer.

But now I have found
more perfect eyes
and more perfect hands
and more perfect thighs.
I have language
greater than lies.
There's really nothing broken,
after all, except our ties.

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

This poem is about letting it hurt, but not letting it run you into the ground. It's about the weird dichotomy of moving on with shadows and phantoms still lurk over your shoulder. It's about being crazy, but - at the end of the day - still being just sane enough to function. But, overall, it's about those rare, perfect moments when your brain stops stirring and your hands stop shaking and your feet hit solid ground.

Or it's about whatever you need it to be about.







"It's taken so long to feel like a kid again. All my clothes are ripped, my channel was skipped: I was shiny and new back then." Socratic The Critics (Oh, yes I did.)

"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." Counting Crows Mrs. Potter's Lullaby

"Spring blooms and you find the love that's true, but you don't know what now to do 'cause the chase is all you know and she stopped running months ago." Death Cab For Cutie Your Heart Is An Empty Room

"Remember that the only things we need sometimes are chilly nights and warmer thighs 'cause there's nothing like being held." Saves The Day Hold