The Secret of a Feather

Picture credited to Shannon Freer

They will tell you
the best way to see through
darkness is to keep moving.

One step at a time.
Defeat the beast—for eyes
to focus through strobe black

up the spine of an elated
conscience, shun shadow
and pluck the feather

of a crow which seeks forgivness.
But residue resides, an offering
able to burn white with light,

hotter and brighter
than eyes can withstand.
And there will be a choice,

sound of caws from altar rafters,
demanding confession,
or redemption—

a spiral that will never be
forgiven nor whispered—seven crows
a secret that never will be told.

Unhonorable Discharge

It's times like these loyalties,
I feel, are a waste of time.
A trusted friend once said to me,
"Honor is in the dollar kid."

Once spoken, it is hard to retract
a statement so bold and unbecoming.
Though he often blurted random
movie quotes - a localized version

of tourette syndrome if you will.
It probably took an obscure
pathway in the brain to vomit
such vile wordplay from his lips.

There is no green in my wallet;
it must mean I am honorless,
though to pay homage to anything
these days would be akin

to shooting fish in a barrel.
What does one worship when
the world respectfully declines
to honor the nature of humanity?

I guess he had it right:
a greenback, gotta get that paper,
bling bling.  Of course in order
to get that bling today it requires

the use of unhonorable tactics;
once obtained you may buy
your way in to life—to humanity.
What then becomes of those

who knelt down and hoisted you
on their shoulders to ascend
in rank and stature?  In these times
we move backwards instead of forwards

to measure the character of a man.
Those coming from the bottom pay
their loyalty to those who once
helped to rise them above, a gilded

and infectious way to view the workings
of the world.  As we rise, like Christ
on the cross, to be resurrected at the top,
we are reluctant to feel anything but disgust.

We spit the world back out, dry heave
until the violent entrails of our
becoming make their final escape
from within us.  Herein lies

the loyalty.  The loyalty of upchuck;
to feast on the famine and regurgitate
the fawn.  An honorable discharge
to the underdogs who managed to shine.

A Backwards Dance

A tepid glance from across the bar
draws me in; I block it out
willingly, instinctually.

There's no need for conversation,
our eyes met and told our story
like playing a record backwards.

Tracks that skip and moan
at different intervals
reciting an untuned melody

which somehow managed to force
the needle in such obtuse
measure to play the tune correctly.

It's strange to say, for me,
when two hearts align,
it could be for the better.

Yet I am reluctant to wind
the phonograph any farther,
lest I be responsible for the dance.

The Lens of Life

I'm speaking through a lens, looking through a lens - it's how I picture the world—through a lens.  My Grandmother claims when she sits on the side of the dinner table facing the patio doorway she cannot see the person sitting across from her.  She has cataracts and describes it as though looking at a silhouette with fog in between.  I reconcile this to driving down a dark and winding road at night where the fog dances in the trough of curves and oncoming headlights mask traffic into black boxcars passing by.  I see this through the lens of my eyes - without cataract but with fog just the same.  Sight - an obligatory sensory phenomena that I obtain and hers wanes, like my hearing—completely deaf in the right ear, as the lenses of her eyes are laden with steam.  These sights and sounds, all heard and seen through a lens - a lens of life:  the lens that captures thought and emotion in a time and place.  I once took a photograph of a lamp post with the words "Trust Jesus" painted white with a drunk hand and in the background was an accident with police, fire, and rescue services—I thought: how ironic.  Just a time, and a place, and a scene, and my lens, leading to a thought, a feeling, the sight, the sounds, all captured on a tiny piece of film, a silent shock to my hippocampus slowly forming a permanent neural connection that will indefinitely affect me in some way, shape, or form, for the rest of my existence.  These shocks, however severe and reoccurring, wiggle themselves through the prefrontal cortex, changing us, shaping us, into some being, some identity that we consider a "soul", guiding us, preconceiving our judgments and our actions, never without a second thought—it would be unwise to test the limits of the human brain, hitherto, it may lash back at us in force:  in psychological impairment, mood or multiple personality disorder—schizophrenia.  To label us "damaged"; to throw us into the lion's den to be tested and broken—at best given one last chance to retain that one singular piece of humanity we were able to hold onto until the end.

Shades of Gray

All I am is cold,

cold as the curve
of granite formed of a face
from forgotten times,
dead in the chill of winter.

Lost in a darkness
of dancing diamonds
beneath a blanket to sheathe
the surface of a testament
to a time of surrender.

Deprived of thought,
viscerated to feel numb
rather than blinded,
I see all shades of gray
in the shadows of my statue.

Slide Show Skies

He was haunted by a diminuendo
that would not fall;
a pristine face casting shadows
onto shadows.

Under a slide show sky
they sat on foreign doorsteps,
always anxious to escape,
reverberating their demise

in due time. He would ask
for his pink lighter back
while she slipped it behind
her to provoke a flirty

charade. She spoke of how
she wanted to get out,
leave everything behind,
and he would placate her delusion,

throwing gasoline onto the fire.
And inside he was growing old,
as the slides faded with age.
A wistful echo of unfinshed resolve.

Early Morning Reflections

Picture credited to mygloriouslybustednose

I long to brush away
sun sutured red hair,
to trace dots
on unsheathed shoulders,

to kiss a bare blade,
and hear a soft sigh
or breathless intake of air.
As morning comes I would awake

still dreaming, a carnival
blurr, like early morning
reflections across the lake;
I crave to finger beneath,

to move aside a tangled mess
and reveal eyes that stare back,
unimpeded and full of sleep.
I yearn to move closer, palm

cradling cheek, nose to nose,
to breathe in breath
and finally feel the heat—
to rest in the moment of a dream.

Without End

Broken and disaffected
I lay naked, unearthed,
bathed and battered
to be abandoned
from abandonment.

Displaced hatred misplaced
and erased form my congenital
bonds—molecular structure fused
with a fuse
so someday they may scatter.

Identity is an idea
for the demiurge, born without,
I lay naked, and wasted,
awaiting to be awoke,
or finally rest asunder.

Presence

I was alive once,
filled to the rim with ambition;
social cognition was a fallacy
to be proven innate.
Three years at University

and I was becoming transparent;
I was going to change the world,
instead I ended up at Psych services.
I am part of a lost generation
beyond Hemingway's realization

of the concept, like many before me;
like the young adults I see today.
This is fact not fiction—one day
they'll be out creating ultra-violence,
listening to Beethoven's ninth,

and calling each other 'droogies'.
Or maybe that was my generation,
lost in transition, bred
for recognition of failed architecture.
We are the Zoloft era,

and age is unrestrictive at this point;
fed pills and coerced onto couches
to be treated by doctors
with more problems than our own.
It's nothing that can't be learned

by looking to the night sky.
While the stars may seem to move
in relation to one another,
they end up in the same place,
as we claim presence to our dawn.

Infinite Song

Imagine being in a dark place
a thousand years of constant disgrace
an absorbed toxin may last an hour
granting its ephemeral power

but in this nightly solace you breed
there entails a sacrament you heed
a golden chalice of right and wrong
tormenting with an infinite song

a haunting presence you must ingest
to endow a heart such needed rest
and upon the waking hour you seek
the disease in question may seem bleak

though beyond guise of good and evil
I assure there will be upheaval
for inside the time of greatest need
there must be something that will precede

the brightest splinter of hidden grace
will finally show its truest face

Unrequited

I started at seven days,
when umbilical meets embryo.
Seven days for seven sins;
nine months to ponder the ways

society will cast me out.
Abandoned before I crowned
the first thing I did was spit
on the nurse's shirt. Passed on

to Mother, I gleamed the elusion
of love, or hate - I can't remember;
I was one minute old, but the cord
had been cut, and I was set free.

Or so I thought, until my mind
began to wander. Oh, the insanity;
it had taken over me. No thought
left unrelinquished, nor action

was predestined until
the age of seven, when my mind
split, and half went on to heaven.
So I am stuck with the greater

of two evils, a puppet for the play,
trying to do what's right
and keep the puppeteer at bay.
But if I'm to die, do not delay,

or kill me in any conventional way.
Burn me at the stake and pray—
I do not make it back someday.

Emptied

I sense you here, in my secret place,
feet dangling from the breakwall,
your red tossled hair lost in reflections
of the sun dawning onto the lake.

I bring you with me to release you
into mist—for you to be free,
at least until I return and breathe
you in again to be reminded.

I wonder if you have a place too,
where you forget, like in the picture
of you gripping the rails of a fence
in a far off land, eyes emptied,

buried in thought. I wonder then
what you were thinking,
while I stroll down to the mist
to exhume the remnants,
and exhale my latest sadness.

Up the Stairway

He lies there in fixed position,

blue footy pajamas,

grasping his green glow-worm—

it lights when you squeeze it.

But these were not his thoughts

this evening, as he slowly

heard the footsteps creaking,

from where he thought

no man surely should be creeping.

His eyes soddenly archaic,

tugging at the firm snugged

blanket, in hopes he was sensing

something false. So to alleviate

the trauma, that for certain

must be fixed, he reached his head

below the curtain

only to be affixed. The blood red

eyes staring from beneath hastened

his heart and gritted his teeth.

Upon present premonition

he darted from his post,

sprinted down the hallway and away

from a treacherous hoax.

Up into Grandma's bed

he sprang, in the middle to be safe,

and as he awoke, he felt a poke,

and saw Grandma's candid face—

Solace in Structure

She called me her ultimatum

as I took on the role of demiurge,

ignoring law and the heavens.

I was baited

for our American dream, an ideal

passed down and lost or ignored each generation.

For there is no dignity in death

in the here-and-now—honor

has tucked itself away in a cabinet on Ellis Isle.

Still, the heart of this machine forces blood

through placid eyes of youth

condeming them to write the future

with that dusty feather pen

who has long since lost its identity.

Past and Present

She held me up,

mirror to face,

goddess to god.

And I stammered,

not out of reflex,

but curiosity.

How the smoke filled the room,

mirror to mirror,

untied sneakers to red stiletto heels.

Our histories swirled

around darkened corners

reflecting back what once was

one night stands,

trips to the women's health clinic,

and roses on doorsteps.

Mirrors fracturing,

shards collecting on cold pavement floor

reforming into something,

something that was not meant to be,

not meant to become,

but did.

She shoved the mirror closer to my face,

transparent, I saw the goddess behind the frame,

yet it was not her, it was me,

and I reciprocated,

the white fog dancing around us

like freshly lit cigarettes.

My only thought was the dismay I saw

in the reflection staring back at me.

Unlike my own, her past and future

traveling down into my lungs.

I reached out but felt only cold glass,

tracing the lips of the angel

from my contemplations.

And as we both closed our eyes

it all disappeared.

Love is Dull

Love is dull;

blind as the brick

in my crumbling walls.

Your hair black;

black as the night,

pale skin and hazel eyes

sends comfort

down my tingling spine.

And I would waste my lupine plight

for you to find a way

to see the beauty in every day.

Our concious attempts

to find the good in repentance

leaves blank slates

and reciprocated hate

to a pallet that should not relate.

Easing in and out

of a violence that shouts

when all we want is the peace;

a peace that keeps us from this world

so bold and misunderstood,

and in the midst of sadness

grasp a piece

that silences us from the madness.

Beginning

I tiptoe around the casualty of your violence;

pray not wake the beast - pray let love live,

let sleep heal forebodings of yester-year.

Silence sows itself into a wild bed,

and I witness your chest rise and the fall of seasons,

head nod through a fantasy and come full circle

to a new world where eyelids part in ancient sadness

wearing the wounds of tiresome dreams.

I slink back to the selvage of wood connecting

two worlds to watch the huntress wake - give space,

and solitude to healing rain and look up

to see the pallet change. The dew glows around this shapen

figure and I am taut at means for an escape lest

I become new prey, fresh and meaty. The wind gusts around me

and her body stiffens to the scent - I take leave

to let love live, and let happenings heal

the heaviness of new footfalls.

Lost in the Sun

Memories resurface

like ducks on a pond - pitter-patter,

ripples scatter,

try to catch them with my net before shore.

Stop the engine, load my gun,

just one round then it's done.

Pull the starter - unleash the beast,

go get your trophey - it will be a feast.

Set the table, there's room for one,

lost all the ripples while on the run.

One round, one dog, one duck,

one gun, a hundred ripples

lost in the sun.

Running Away

Take me back to the time

of our first disclosure,

when poetry was simply words

strung together forming childlike tales

of hand-me-downs and days gone by;

when sentences were sterile and metaphors

lovely in their innocence.

Take me to the time of budding flowers,

when motivation was something to be sought after—

a time for living, heart-strung

on sleeveless t-shirts,

working the fields, and minimum wage.

Send me back to the place

where creativity was boundless

and stifled silence from gaunt tongues

did not yet exist;

a time of heartache and heart break,

whimsical fantasy lore

and creatures of comfort.

Usher me back to the place where I began,

a place of stainless pleasure,

when bike rides were just bike rides

and sex was naught yet found.

The place where abandonment was a lie

and the future still held all her stars in the sky.

Convalescence

Picture credited to rjinrhee

You silence me with deafening presence

and I would waste my romance on you

had I the will to step ahead.

These words are just casualty

to the gripping realism of pretense

and ignorance.

Neither side has passed their banter

onto a wasted soul, nor wet their lips

at the forthcoming of a guided kiss.

How can the venom sting

if it was there from the beginning?

Convoluted bodies reaching for an answer

where answers can not be given—

and actions become louder than words

when words have long lost their meaning.

When sentences become fragments

inside the twisting nether

of a poor lost boy.

And as the boy begins to collect

his lost remains, the worst parts of you

are just entertained.

Two Lives

Two hearts beating, two minds dreaming,

under severed skies lie two lives fleeting.

One stays north while one flies south,

connected they speak in unison

however far silent mouth to mouth.

Through oceans and storms the tidals

and quakes, their bond blossomed stronger

across the breadth of paths gently taken.

But distance and time was forever unkind

and their roots slowly were shaken.

A new face here and a new sight there

had ushered them to far off planes.

And experience would show

that it takes more than snow

to douse the heat from old flames.

Unfaithful

There was a spark

at the end of his dim lit tunnel.

He saw it so readily;

some say they never see it,

comatose or a moment ago revived.

Day in and day out

a flicker that would twinkle

like a star through lens-scope,

and he could almost reach it

through earth spiraling fade to dark.

Demonized he felt,

claw marks through tunnels grasping

past thin air at illusive mythology.

At best this was the closest

to faith a man could be bestowed.

Yet it was never enough

to satisfy half-filled attempts at validity;

a charge he placed at the world's feet,

to grant him reach

and be fulfilled.

Ramblings

This silence is deafening. I walk the floors of this place I call home and feel abandoned. Up the stairs, circle in my room, down the stairs, around the family room - sit down on the couch and turn on the television. I stare aimlessly at pop culture and false prophets, they seep through me like dust to a window screen - collecting, and just passing by.

The clouds are setting in - it looks like a rainstorm as I open the front door. The breeze whisks around me like a large stone on the surf and I feel comforted by the sheer magnitude of their colossal form overhead. They've some story to tell after traveling hundreds of miles collecting, as I have, waiting to share their abundances with a world below. I wonder when they will cry, or if they will, as they creep along the atmosphere in solitude - each one their own brother or sister - cousin or aunt.

The house seems empty and these clouds are my only companion for the time being, so I watch them with glee and hope they stay for a while even if they must pass without sharing their indulgences. I reach for my favorite orange cup and fill it with water, sit down at my computer screen and get lost in infinity. These are the times of my life - but these times are so boring and lonely.

Direction

The blaring of the engine and roaring of the horn instills the peace I need to get through each day. Every hour a different clamor rattles the foundation of the place I call home; a unique vessel on its way to a destination with its own precious cargo on board. And I think to myself: this is me, going in one direction and then the next, my chortle echoing throughout the silent night.

Does a train ever have a destination? I want to say so, but I fear not--endlessly it will travel the tracks with new arrivals and new package. To what then is this destination? These things and folk are but mere cattle to a Conductor; he herds them like his own daily bread and does not mind. But what then of the Conductor, his destination--the train - his vessel.

And what then of my journey's end? If I am to live on the tracks I will cease to exist with a conclusion, yet my demeanor will match that of the Conductor - herding my mind's eye in the direction it will along lonely and darkened rails.

So I listen each night, about my business, awaiting the deafening peace that will ensue as the desk softly shakes and I am taken to a new place--my destination.

Darkest Days

The white blanket

now ravaged—a victim of conformity,

lay wasted heaped in a corner

of the cellar.

My only comfort in darkness now gone,

fatality to my own vices.

Vanity and greed, and lust—

lust.

The lust found only at a brothel

during midnight hours, where men

prance like packs of outcast lions.

And I alone in my room tonight

am left with nothing to cover these sins,

the sins of regret and vicarious nature;

sins even misplaced solace

could never cover in its brightest hour.

Spark

I am the medium, and you the spark;

I have yet to feel the heat

from these flames.

Pour a little gasoline on the pit,

make it sour so it will spit;

a little turpentine and lawnmower oil

should do the trick.

I want to see the glitter, the lightning

show I've been waiting for;

so I'll just gather material

to soak in this menagerie,

the filthy games we play. I am not a god,

nor do I follow religion,

but this bonfire is growing

and I'm in the middle of it.

Set me on fire and spread the ashes.

I only wished to make you feel

like this was worth the fuss,

yet you stand here with your matches

and I'm left waiting to combust.

A Ghost's Tale

A sea bound romance

washed ashore leaving ripples in the sand,

melancholy, the lighthouse giving way

to no direction.

She sees me like an apparition,

void, and devoid; a ghost of a sailor

that's lost his way from a sunken ship.

His lover trapped in an oyster

below the depths of blue, a pearl

without a cause or hope.

He walks the sand

leaving no footprints

searching for something he's lost,

that something, buried beneath the tales

of Moby Dick - through time and distance,

his obsession—lethargic.

What once was his one desire, now defeated,

emerged a love of his true tale.

And he will continue to walk this endless beach

until he finds that pearl,

washed upon these silken sands.

Time and Distance

I thought of you tonight

as I witnessed your face on a crystalline portrait,

puncturing the mist of an oversized screen.

Through the discrepancy of time and distance

I moved from the chair to the bed

with thoughts that swelled and jolted me

from one side to the next and back again,

never leaving a moment's rest.

A hundred different scenarios

played out in an over shocked mind,

and in each one I ended up falling out

of the feeling that was so familiar.

They called it love but I call it nothing.

Twisting me back and forth choking

back the salt stains dripping from my eyes

I got up once again and paced.

Pace—pace. What good is it to dwell

over something that could have never happened.

I made it up in my mind.

But you played along. Another notch in your belt;

another crease in my heart.

I am Atlas

I am my Grandfather's wristwatch,

still-framed - reaching my left hand

across into eye's reach

the weight of the world

unsteady across my shoulders.

I am a bloom in the shade

stretching my neck

towards sunlight waiting

for rain to fall on fresh petals.

The droplets strobing down,

I am the time it takes each splatter

to move under foundations

of the stone beneath

your cellar--I am the mortar

holding your insides together,

safe from the downpour.

I am the lock and I am the key

on an old wooden frame.

I am the light illuminating your shame;

I am the crooked chair you'll sit on

when it rains.

Untuned Melody

His words like ice,

swords that slice the center

of my gravity--devoid of meaning,

weighing down like a rain covered tarp.

"Win some, lose some," he says,

as I pick up the paint brush,

making delicate strokes along the baselines

of a room meant for his lover.

But I was there, I swear I was,

splitting wood in the sideyard,

mowing lawns, and going to golf outings.

He erased me every chance he got.

I was a mole in his basement - blind

and without a place to hide, open

for all interpretation and malice.

His smile was like a full moon

on a star filled night, blocking out

the serenity of everything surrounding it.

His chortle a constant beckoning

for me to bequeath some misplaced vanity

between only the two of us.

The way he chewed his gum, mouth slightly open,

mashing two sets of dentures together;

the way he softly hummed the lullabies

of his favorite country tunes

reminded me of younger days--

rides in an attached seat on vintage bicycles.

Removing training wheels and falling

asleep on his lap while mowing the lawn.

I was there; I swear I was.

But our song sang like an untuned melody,

chords that would never sing in rhyme.