Monday, December 28, 2009

Fallback Plan

Keep your eyes shut tight ‘cause they won’t let you out
Once they know your name, there’s hardly use breathin’ anymore
Stealing hearts to keep inside little boxes in your room
The faces are reminders of what lies behind that closed door

Watch so sadly as the strings become all tangled up
In the place where our dreams are set aside for safety’s sake
Don’t they know the bandages have all fallen off
And that’s not how you fix anybody’s heartbreak?

Your look is paralytic
Your look is paralyzing me
You seem so sophisticated
The way you’re hypnotizing me

Keep your mouth sewn shut ‘cause they know everything
Once you were a hero, but now you’re just an addict and a letdown
Stealing prayers from the mouths of children to hide in books away
The faces blank as answer sheets to the only question that still matters now

Watch so sadly as the screen turns to static attacks
In the reign of a long dead king lies the secrets of your own escape
Don’t be scared of what waits beyond tomorrow’s exit sign
And all the tiny toy soldiers, laugh along as they all fall away

Your eyes are analytic
Your heartbeat’s cauterizing me
I’m entranced here in an instant
With the sound of its uprising beat

Hear the war drums of expectation
The only certainty is mutually assured
And as we gather, like ants, our wealth
To please ourselves with more and more
Can anybody hear the crying child
Can anyone stand up against the storm
I’ve been living with my back to the wall
But I don’t think I can take it anymore

Your song is catatonic
It’s rhythm is infecting me
My blood is racing supersonic
Till your voice is resurrecting me

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Solipsistic Hypochondriac Must Feel Somewhat Hopeless, Huh?

I’m so sick of silence that I keep on screaming
Even after the sound is long gone with the dreaming
Deep inside the quiet just to reason out a riot of woeful whispers...

And are we just symptoms of your sickness
Just victims of this thoroughbred thickness
The space between your eyes and thoughts and lies and the lot you’ve bought yourself?

I don’t want to be another pawn in your game of dark and light
But I still try and try so hard tonight
You’ve got me, you’ve still got me here holding on...

And are we just liars who are trying too hard
Like burning tires in your bashful brain’s jaded junkyard
Living out your reckless dreams and happy nightmares?

I held your hand through the first steps of this falling out
But even now the ghosts have handguns, and I doubt
That you or I and certainly not myself will make it out of this alive...

And are we just hyper-vigilant reminders of
All the inadequacies we’ve been taught to so easily find in love
As a generation is drowning to just call the cops and hold your tongue?

I am all of them, but they were never me
So cast aside all your regrets but don’t forget who you want this to be
If we’re gonna make it, it’ll take a longer rope and fewer steps apart...

And are we your last hope for redemption
I’ll fight till my dying breath and baby you’re no exception
But are we gonna have to shut up and be honest about it for once?

Monday, December 14, 2009

"Psycho-Socio-Politica-Mental"

Quoting passages from a book you’ve never really read
Think up all the sermons that still sleep soundly unsaid (and dismiss them)
Teach the children how to lie and cheat and steal
Then claim you’re a prophet and tell me which one of the above makes your faith real

Are you a sinner or are you a saint
Are you perfect? Your answer to the first question will tell me that you surely ain’t
Politician, what are you selling here today
Another cure for the uncommon calamity caused by listening too closely
to what you say
(Hey, hey)

Making up metaphors to mesmerize and captivate with cliches
More money on the top of the charts ‘cause of a scandal at the VMA’s
Call yourself an artist one more time as you count the dollar bills
Singing songs you didn’t write about societal ills auto-tuned to avoid how much your influence kills

Are you a saint or a sinner
Fight for your right to compromise, ‘cause immorality makes everyone a winner
Politician, what are you selling here today
Another cure for the uncommon calamity caused by listening too closely
to what you say
(Hey, hey)

No wonder the kids are scared, when will the fighting ever end
Never even tried to listen, but to get what you want, you know just how to pretend
Unfaithfulness that leads to breaking, try to justify it, but you can’t deny it (it’s happening again)
Now everyone feels alone, another broken home, another stat for this self-destructive trend

Are you alive or are you dead
Trying to rationalize whatever did or didn’t go through your head (like a)
Politician, tell me why are you smiling, what are you selling here today
Another cure for the uncommon calamity caused by listening too closely
to what we’re all too scared to say
(Hey, hey)

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Quiet Riot

Let me help you keep the sky in your eyes
As you’re out there on your own tonight
The very first steps from death can seem to carry you away
But all is quiet now as they take the breath to lie and say...

“Take a walk around the boulevard
Take charge of your life before we make it ours
Ask yourself how it all became so dark
As you try your best to find out who you really are”

One to the next
The pitch can changed but the voices stay
Believe you’re better off and maybe all this will up and go away
Fall into quiet now as they take the breath to lie and say...

“Trace your steps around the cemetery
Win the bet but with it be wary
We’ve cheated others out with less than scary
But are you scared, don’t tell us, we know...very.”

The battle, then, will rage inside your mind
What’s lost is never lost, what found cannot then find
Red and black and white flags waving as you sway
Breaking the quiet now as you take such breaths to hope and pray...

And I will say this in your plight
Let me help you keep the sky in your tired eyes tonight

Confabulate (a sonnet)

Ain't nothin' like I thought it could have been
Reminiscin' about yesterday's lies
Melodious voices speak where and when
And captivate me with unblinking eyes
In truth, I hold no bitterness inside
And begin just now to write you away
Though I have yet to find a place to hide
That doesn't make me face myself today
Whose tears that fell are buried underneath
But who knows if I'll outlast this new fight
'Cause sometimes it feels like you're here with me
And guilty or not, I can't sleep tonight
But I won't call you up on this cold phone
Even if I did, I'd still be alone


Saturday, December 5, 2009

Chapter One?

One unordinarily warm weathered, though as per usual quite cloudy, afternoon, Zeith took shelter from the humidity in a small, nameless cafe across the street from the Harrison Building, and found himself sitting at a high table staring at a goateed man who wore large sunglasses in spite of the low lighting and sipped absent-mindedly from a coffee mug in between a river of words.

"Well, you see this book," said the goateed man, suddenly taking a sip before continuing to use his mug for gesticulation, accenting every word with wild, swaying hands and sloshing, hot liquid. "This book was written by someone who calls themselves the Chronicler, but see the Chronicler guy isn't just any ordinary person...it's like he's..." The man stopped for a second and leaned in close to Zeith, looking suspiciously around the mostly empty cafe. "It's like he's an alien or something." He leaned back and stroked his beard, his train of thought speeding past a couple stops before sounding off again. "Though that might not be quite the right term for it..."

"Now see the Guardians are what interest me the most," said the man, pulling a beat up old manuscript from his trench-coat pocket and flipping to a dog-eared page filled with marks, side-notes, underlining, and highlighting, the original text was written in a language Zeith had never seen. The man tapped his finger incessantly on the page, shaking his head excitedly back and forth. "See here, I've read through this part over and over and it always gets me. They had this philosophy about sentient beings, cultures, you know? (Hmm, this mug has a very unique scratch on the handle here, see?) Because they have to always struggle in their own species' way between the natural instinct and the logical, intellectual checks and balances that all affect decision-making, there will, according to the Guardians anyways, always come a point when the species destroys itself, either with some kind of ultimate split between its technological advancement and its natural, well, personality...as a species, I mean...whatever it is that makes them, them, y'know...either that or they take the struggle so far that they just end up destroying themselves and their world entirely, through something like a massive war or not-so-natural natural disaster. Following this philosophy (and a whole lot due to the fact that their own worlds and species had been mostly destroyed anyway) the Guardians set out to confront civilizations and save them or prevent disaster or intervene, whatever you want to call it. The chapter's fairly short; as you'd imagine they were never very successful at getting through to entire species about their imminent doom, and as far as relocation or reeducation goes, my own saying is that once the ball of doom starts rolling, the pins of society are certainly coming down. It may not be a strike, but it'll certainly be a spare, somehow, someway...things fit together like that. 'Course that was the case with the Guardians, too. Sometime, everything has gotta break."

The man took a long swig and threw his mug. It travelled through the air, spinning, hitting the far brick wall and smashing in slow-motion into a thousand porcelain pieces, which fell to the ground as the young lady who had been reading a magazine behind the counter looked up, wide-eyed. The goateed man got up from his seat, threw a gold coin on the counter, and went for the door.

"Um, sir," said Zeith, turning in his seat and standing.

The man stopped and looked over.
"Do you really believe that," asked Zeith, nervously kicking himself mentally for the words even as he spoke them, "about the life and universe and everything, that it's all just inevitable, that it's all gotta break."

The slightly cracked door closed again as the man raised his hand to stroke his goatee. "Well," he said solemnly, "maybe not all of life, the universe, and everything, but, sometimes things, things with people, they break and they change and nothing is what you expected."

"Oh," said Zeith, still unsure and nervous, "oh, okay..."

"But sometimes," the corner of the man's mouth raised just slightly, "when things break, when people are broken..." he raised his hand and straightened his arm, pointing toward the far wall where the mug had shattered. Slowly, the porcelain shards crawled across the floored and then floated up the wall, retracing their steps exactly, only slower. Before the cafe occupants' eyes, the mug came back together piece-by-piece, in perfectly reverse order of how it had broken, and floated whole into the man's extended hand. "It may take a little bit longer in the binding than it did in the breaking," said the man, mug wholly repaired and in hand, "but if there is even one willing to take the time, much that is broken can be mended." The man lowered his shades and, grinning, winked at Zeith, for a split second revealing eyes swirling with a thousand shades and hues of the most brilliant and unusual colors.

In that same instant, the man was gone, the unbroken mug sitting on the counter. Slowly, warily, the young lady set aside her now very wrinkled magazine and got up. Picking up the mug, she noticed a very unique scratch on the handle and cynically, smugly shooed away all the magic and questions of the previous events in her mind, quickly forgotten amongst the worlds of fashion and consumerism that were hers for exploring in the colorful publication.

Zeith simply stood in his spot, lost in thought as the man's words swirled through his mind like the colors of those eyes. All very bizarre, he thought, yet somehow utterly captivating. Zeith soon left out of the same door that countless customers had also gone in and out of, yet he to a very different destination, most likely, than the majority of them.

And the only other occupant of the cafe was a quiet observer whom none of the others had noticed observing as he sat there behind his newspaper under the shade of his round, bowler derby hat and heavy eyebrows. Unsure of whether to cry out in protestation or jubilation, the man had simply sat in silent contemplation, never once previously imagining that anyone would write anything published, much less an entire chapter of a book, about himself and his comrades. The man finally decided on a smile. Why not, he thought, few better things to do before the end of the world but grin and enjoy being the ravings of a lunatic in a nameless cafe.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

"Lacerations"

the point
the break
the shot
the instant
the slip
the rip
the tip
the lip
the skip
the impulse

the fallout
the fallout
the fallout
the fallout
the fallout
think about
think about
think about it
ponder ponder
ponder ponder
ponder ponder
wonder
wonder wander

take a second
and think, think, think
think about
think about
think about it

look out
and see
sometimes
we fall
sometimes
we crawl
sometimes
we get burned
sometimes
we learn
sometimes
we make the choice
sometimes
some
times

"In the Uncertainty of Beating Hearts"


I don’t know what to do
In all honesty
I’m shattered by it
This hurts
So much
And I knew it would happen
But I don’t know what to do

Have I been
Lying to myself
This whole time
Filling up my heart
With chemical emotions
Just to watch it shatter
And to spill its contents out
In pitiful and unpitiable recitations

Because it’s not
Not just
Not just this time
Not just this time around
Not just some small issue
Something new
Upon which
To agree
To disagree

No
There’s something here
Under the surface
That hurts
So much
When we’re standing
On two opposite sides
Of the mirror
And something
Is fogging up the glass

So, yeah
I don’t know what to do
I never knew about much of anything
You surprised me
You surprise me
Every single time
Every word you say
And I love you for it
But this
This hurts
So much
And this was a big surprise
That I kind of expected
But I just
I don’t know what to do

Monday, November 30, 2009

"Terraforming"


I have
Come to the edge
With thoughts in my head
Of a world without so many cliffs
Off which to jump
And less regrets
Or empty threats
And I’ve knocked on your door
A thousand times
And I’d knock a thousand more
If I thought it would do any good
And for all I know it would
But I’ve been walking this long road of uncertain ends
And with these thoughts in my head, I’ve come to the edge again

I have
Forgotten the light
I knew just last night
When the stars were shining
And I was finally finding
Meaning beyond
These empty songs
And I’ve been losing my sanity
Like heroes lose their humanity
The more their stories are told
Getting colder as we age
And I think the stories are growing old
So burn the memorials and tear down the statues
Erase the memories of another generation that you
Have kept as I’ve been walking this long road of uncertain ends
And with these thoughts in my head, I’ve come to the edge again

I have
Left behind
What was never mine
The hurt I caused and the burden
Of healing you
Just trying to help
‘Cause you can’t save yourself
But I know I can’t save you
And something I’ve been thinking lately
Maybe you never wanted me to
Just wanted a hand to hold
But I was young and my heart was cold
But I’ll leave behind excuses as I’m walking this long road of uncertain ends
And with these thoughts in my head, I’ve come to the edge again

I have
Found hope in a mystery
Absurd bits of symmetry
Like a candle-flame flickering
In the dark of lost identity
So reach out
‘Cause you’ve been looking down
At all the scars your hearts been bearing
And now I’m calling you
Believe me, it scares me too, this bit of caring
But I can be your hand to hold
No matter what you may have been told
There’s a light at my feet as I’m walking this long road of uncertain ends
And with these thoughts in my head, I’ll stand by you at the edge again

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Songwriter, Poet, Heretic