Post American Greeting Card Association

Don't say your heart is broken
Don't cry because your toy got taken away
Don't weep because your doggy ripped the leash
And dug under the fence
And isn't coming back
No really
No big salt tears
For the waves that washed your sandcastle
With its high walls and bright shining future
Forever away
But remember who built the castle for you
And who was there every other time
When your other towers fell
And weep then
Because you never even cared to learn the name
Of your one and only friend

If this Voice is Heard

If this voice is heard
On what walls would its echos resound
And would they sound more
Like an old world market trader
In the wares of hope
Or a back alley black market dealer
Of hard truths and bitter pills
When all that I can promise
Is my most brokenhearted honesty
And all that I can aim for
Is that rarest of moments
That most daring of chances
When greatness comes to visit
The weak and undeserving
Forgiving my viridescent vanity
And perhaps shaming me
Into a happy accident
That's more than a catchy tune
(though that would be nice)
Or a perfect rhyme
(though I wouldn't mind)
But if this voice is heard
I can only with stumbling whispers pray
For something of some worth to say

Considering Narrative

Considering narrative
The stories with which we fill our lives
Our minds and hearts intertwined
The moments each in sequence
Building
One upon the other
Filling up the space
Like answers to the questions
We exhale
And inhale the action
The color and description
And the symbols
The layers and the way where
Each mirror to our lives
Mirrors back upon itself in our eyes
And before we know it
We're shown the path
The Hero's Journey
The vILLAIN'S dECENT
The relationships forged and broken
I know it all too well
And still am entranced by it

Yet now, in my own way
I stand a part of a story
Mine only a chapter
With each line expanding
And sometimes
All the emotion boxes itself up
And stone-faced
My eyes glazed and calm
I try and fail to empathize
With the characters
But I can see the pages turning
And I know a book has two covers

What is destiny?
It's not that I can tell the future
Just a bit of probability
And sometimes
Hindsight is blind
While foresight is predictable
But now as I read slowly
Perusing the delicacies of language
And syntax
I lost the fact
That my actions matter
'Cause it all seems a bit inevitable

To My Dad

On the phone alone somewhere
He made me promise
Like any good father would
Whose son has a tendency to react
...harshly
"Promise me you won't do anything."
Anything being, of course,
That
That which I've attempted
And failed
If success is failing
And failing success
And neither really matters
Anyway
Because, well...

What would I do...

I don't want that

I don't need that

Not anymore

I've always had so much to live for

But now

Now it's me that's gonna be living

I think

I hope

I promise.

Did you...

Did you eat today?
How new are your clothes?
Pockets full of change
Can I borrow one of those?
Don’t mean to complain
After all are we not rich
What we have to pay
Simply to scratch an itch

Did you eat today?
In the US 1 in 4 kids did not
Not much left to say
When you look at all we’ve got
Is it greed now laid out plain
Or just a way of life
But what kind of life is it
And how is any of this right?

Did you eat today?
Even just one meal
I’m not saying that you’re privileged
I’m just asking how you feel

Today, I Feel Collapsable

It's not what's missing that is gone
Not the other side that's come around
Not the bars to the cage that are bent and descending
Not the ladder that reaches
nor the dark pool colliding
Not anywhere in between here and there
Not foresight or hindsight
Not the square root of some new personality
Not the happiness I've found
Not the way the door swings
Not the shelves lined with reprints
Not the ambidextrous power outlets
Not the line in the sand drawn by the waves
Not the point that reflects the cube
Not the sun in my eyes
Not the immense realization of the little things
Not the underfunded research of earthworm philosophy
Not the strange imbalance of the perfect chair
Not the spaceship with fins
Not the intentions being good in spite of the results
Not the introductory remarks at the beginning of a eulogy
Not the one apple sitting in an otherwise empty fridge
Not the giant elephant tied to submission by a string
Not the third grade report card your parents never signed
Not the decision they made after the chamber doors shut
Not the crack in the glass that first emptied it to the halfway point
Not much else but this, right here, today

And today...well
Today, I feel collapsable.

Bridge of Bodies

Our bridge of bodies falls to ashes
But again we build and try to cross
The journey ends the same as it began
Call it progress and forget the lives lost

Don't we all just want to live softly
Try to sleep easy in the comforts of our toil
Pave our streets on the graves of the fallen
Drive on the bones of those who died for oil

You say you're ready to die for me, sir
But did I vote for that, when did I vote for that
You say it's all for my freedom, my liberty
Since when did I vote for that, when did I vote for that

Murder in the name of a cause you claim
Is it my nation's aim to be the bully with the big guns
Would we walk in shame if we saw the plan out plain
Realizing that our fame is starting wars that are never won

credit where it's due

1- you don't know me

2- you don't know me

3- i don't owe you any kind of explanation

1- you don't know me

2- you don't own me

>how 'bout you apologize for what you've done to my generation

Suffocation Accusation

What am I doing?

These strings tied to every finger. In what ways do I pull and am pulled?

Is it enough to say I'm wrong and move on and be done with it.
...done with what?

Face to face to face to face the facts and react but I can't...not yet.

Maybe i'll just wait this out a while. See what comes of the one cloud on the horizon.
Hope for rain...?

Am I criminal now or then...?

Little Soldier Doll

I found him in the corner
The little soldier doll
Fallen out of luck and out of line
Gathering dust

Once used in the games of youth
Sadly finding out the truth
That the kids in this room always throw away their troops
When they've outplayed their use

I found him at the corner store
A mountain of rags
Shaking a cup for coins and hope
Gathering time

Once used in the games of kings
To fight their wars and kiss their rings
To make sure that the mute don't sing until the axe can swing
Like it never meant a thing

I found him at the bus stop
About to give his life away
For a cause made up by richer men
Gathering compensation

Letter to the You that's Really Me

Don't know what to say
Don't know who to be
To help you understand
To make you believe

That I would if I could
But I can't so I won't
And that's all that I have to say on that
Yeah, I would if I could
But I can't so I won't
No I won't, no I won't, not anymore

It seems like we've found a way around
All these climbing walls
That seem to find a way to bring us down
It seems like we've found a way to fall
Even after all
The time we spent trying to stall the inevitable

Don't know what to think
Don't know how to feel
To get over what
I'm not yet convinced is real

Though I would if I could
But I can't so I won't
And don't worry, I don't expect you to just let it go and understand
Though yknow if I could
I'd be all up on that
But let's be real, I have no clue how I should act

It seems like we've found a way around
All these rules and regulations
That were obviously only made to bring us down
It seems like we've found a way to break
Every promise we've made
Without any clear intentions to change

And what do you expect from me now
I'll watch as your castle walls crumble
Is there more that you had wanted
The list goes on and on

But I'm not who you thought I was all along

It seems like we can't find a way around
All these empty thoughts
That only ever serve to bring us down
It seems like we may never find a way out
You are my shadow of doubt
And I am standing in the sunlight now

The Man I Met in Boston

Does objective truth matter as much as humans like to believe? Certainly, having the facts about an occurrence make it somewhat easier to respond, but could it still be the case that we place too much weight on the tiny details of a happening and not enough on the meaningful consequences and subtext for those things taking place? In the relaying of a narrative, is there potentially more to be learned from overarching themes than what a simple list of concurrent events can teach? After all, do our presuppositions and the connotations about situations and the words used to describe those situations overly inform our way of looking at the narratives presented to us, blinding us from the story behind the story?

The summer before I started college, I was working as an intern for a music school in Watertown, Massachusetts. Everyday, my commute from Quincy would take me through Boston, and one particular afternoon after work, I decided to exit the T early and walk around for a while.

The streets of Boston swarm with beggars, but only if you’re looking for them. Usually, you’ll see a few folks who look homeless and one or two may ask you for change during the course of a few hours on the street. If you allow yourself to be caught up in it, though, you’ll see the dirty, broken-hearted faces everywhere, tear stains on suit coats and sweat stains on flowery sundresses and the like. Think about it and every dollar is drug money.

That day I drifted through a crowd of wanderers and tourists. I watched the faces, every one of them wanting. The numbers seemed to swell around food and entertainment, and plenty was to be found if you had something to trade. For a while I followed along as the current swept around me, through shops and past fancy cars. Graveyards saluted the violent heroes of a nation long pretending, and a red brick walkway led me past churches on whose steps the shut-outs sleep at night.

Faneuil Hall is technically private property, though it fades into the rest of the city like just another clown at the carnival. This is where everyone puts on a show, and some of them even perform for the crowd. Somehow, one man, inconspicuous, got through the invisible security of the urban center and lurked in the thinnest of shadows. Everything glowed with an artificial sheen, and yet he was still somehow obscured. I would never have noticed him had the change in my pocket not suddenly become heavier at the sound of his voice.

“You folks got any money?” a voice like sandpaper scratching the bottom of an old bucket asked somewhere behind me.

I turned to see a finely dressed couple, young and beautiful, take flight like startled vultures. What they left behind resembled a disheveled and dusty pile of old clothes and hair with tree trunks for legs. Though the creature was at least eight feet tall, hollow eyes looked up and blinked expressionlessly from behind matted dreadlocks at the pair as they made their escape.

Something inside me must have cracked and out of some ill-considered sense of duty, I dug deep into my jeans and quickly ripped out a few coins. Suddenly I was in the shadow of the behemoth and dropping what little change I had onto the plate-sized slab of muscled leather that appeared from inside a patchy sleeve.

My legs began to turn, starting at the hips, but my hand would not return to me. Without my knowledge, it had reformed itself into a welcoming gesture and reached out toward the afeared. My breath caught in my lungs by this momentary trespass as my small, pale hand was wrapped in three-hundred sixty degrees of a greasy, calloused bear claw.

An unforeseen courage took hold of me and I directed my shaking solely to the friendly and originally unintended gesture. My eyes slowly ascended and my voice somehow found itself. With a slight squeak, I said hello and told him my name. In that instance, it became a “him”.

I think, somehow, he shrunk and I was looking him eye to eye then. Not quite as dirty or unkempt as I had originally thought, Harold (as he told me was his name), slowly began to describe how he had wound up on the streets. I couldn’t look away as his voice rumbled built the story, yet my peripherals caught glimpses of birds picking up scraps of forgotten food from the ground, seagulls and pigeons mostly. He hadn’t been here that long, out on his own, but it wasn’t the first time. It had taken a toll, he told me, but it was his own fault. He had a wife who didn’t like his drinking.

I should’ve pulled back then. A voice in my head began to shame me for giving money to a drunk. Yet just as he was beginning to transform back into the beast, relaying the tales of his abusive husbandry and many mistakes, there was a simultaneous regret and sadness between his words. A tone overtook his voice that was all too familiar. How many times had I looked back upon my life, as comparably short as it was, and felt a similar vein of regret and self-loathing about this or that faulty step along the rough road of life. Here in the midst of consequences, was this man much different than I? Perhaps, probably, practically...sure, but something in me begged to keep listening, to find out the truth.

He told me about all the things he loved— talking with his kids on the phone, reading books, going on walks in the park with his wife in the summer. And then he told me about all the ways in which the world had done him wrong. A veteran who had been lied to and cheated by a government that doesn’t keep their promises and a son-in-law who had never been good enough could never seem to hold onto a job, especially as the economy fell apart, and now the bottle, his one last friend in life, had finally let him down.

“What do I have to live for,” he asked me and then pause, “...‘cept to tell you to do different.”

His eyes seemed to catch fire and his huge hands found my shoulders and shook me lightly.

“Promise me,” he pleaded, “Promise me, kid. Promise me you won’t do like I done. Promise.”

“I...” I simultaneously felt drawn in and repulsed, “I uh...I promise.”

I blinked and there were tears in my eyes. It wasn’t a long blink, but when my eyes opened he had disappeared into the crowd. It was so much denser than it had been only moments before, suddenly full of people, real people, complex and full of life and stories. I was suddenly lost in a place I had been thousands of times, lost in a city of folks who suddenly became not too unlike me.

As I made my way back to the T station, a blurry line drew itself between my tears and the soft summer rain. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about the man, Harold.

This is a true story. Did it happen exactly like that? Does it matter?

Out of Body

Walk a mile more yet
With the rose petal once set
Adrift on the river bed
As you’ve already stumbled
Another five in your head

Carry it closely along
In your hand, once so strong
Now weakened by the path
Of traversing many winds
And their unencumbered wrath

Yet amongst the stormy gales
The petal somehow has prevailed
By some power holding tightly
To your open and coarse palm
Which would not hold well or rightly

This beautiful flake
Of a winter fake
Cast down by a tree
Incorporeal in disguise
Did float freely

But for some odd cue
Sticks now like glue
Without reason or rhyme
Though with wit and melody
And most curious time

So walk a mile more
In this mystery adorned
With an effervescent plane
And a circumference quite fair
For an eye of any range

Tease the truth from the edges
Or drop down from these ledges
For even fair things have locks
And angel wings beating fast
Count off beat from clocks

...about that...

Who are you and where have you been hiding and why?
Behind all these personas you claimed with such close association
Did you ever imagine that maybe I've been waiting for you?
I've been running around, killing myself since the day I was born,
All to find you somewhere in the midst of this mess,
And then only to realize, upon discovering you
that
1) it was really you who discovered me
and
2) you really aren't much after all

I mean, I suspected you to be
More question than answer
A handful of uncertainties
For every one certainty
Instability over stability
An hour glass, perhaps,
Over a clock...

But this...
What are you?
What is there of you?
Of substance?
Of roots?

You're a very malnourished idea of a thing, aren't you?
Hollow and bony and sickly and stretching
Your giant eyes staring up as if I
(and of course I mean "we")
Have something of worth to offer you

But after all this time, honestly
I'm sorry but we've collected a lot
Though very little of it useful for you

I guess just take these open roads and
I don't know
Maybe don't make our mistakes
Become something apart from us

And if you must follow this legacy
If you must fall into this cave as well
Remember the shadows on the wall
Are mere images
And perhaps only shadows of puppets
And those who pull the strings are lonely too
And regret is our problem, not yours

I'm sorry we've starved you
I'm sorry I've starved you
Who are you, again?

Oh yeah...

woops...

...about that...

Looking Glass

There is a shape
With something like eyes
But I don't see what they do
(and they're probably blind anyway)
With something like I mouth
But I don't listen to what it says
With something a nose
But I just pretend if it's turned up or not
With something like ears
But I assume that they're shut
With something like teeth
My guess is they are sharp
With something like hair
That I'll never approve of
Containing something that could be a brain
Though honestly I doubt it
Doesn't look like my shape, this shape
So how could it be a head
If it dares to raise itself
I'll shove it down again
Cover that ugliness anyway I can
I've got an army of the like-minded
Doesn't matter if I'm a friend
Or a friend of a friend
It's easier
It's popular
Nothin' about opinions
But taking the time to understand?
You're not worth it
Not to me...not like I care...
Why should I admit I'm scared
Why should I admit how unsure I am
Why should I admit the contradiction I see
Simply because you disagree with me
I won't be convinced
But I can kill you with arguing
And you know it
Drop by drop
Drip by drip
Snip by snip
Tear by tear
Tear by tear
Choke on air
Bleed your fear
Listen
I'm the one with the rules today
I'm the one with the fist in the anus of the culture
It's my puppet
I control the zombie hordes
This is my respect for them
I'll let you in on the secret
Because you know how weak I can be
And you can't do a thing about it
Let's just keep pretending I know you


...Besties?


Thought so.

9511220012011

I was 11 years old when they gave him name
Spoke of the flames and said he was to blame
Now at 20, they say they'll lay him in a grave
But I look around and don't see much that has changed
Thousands more deaths, more wars, more shame
My generation lost wondering what's been gained
Running for our breath, all our lives living lame
These debates make my neck crane
Once again, it's the same old plate
Enemy of the day, but it's always about hate

The Mirror and the Hammer

How dare you tell me
I'm not the one who knows
How dare you now condemn me
With your shaking fists and empty words
Citing excitations and accepting exemptions
He's your guy so you wave him like a gun
And tell me I'm never good enough
But you don't know 'bout what I did for love

I'll hear you out, I'll listen close
You label each moment
With a shiny new diagnosis
Then you ask for my explanations
But call them all excuses
And tell me I'm never good enough
But you don't know 'bout what I did for love

Everything was lost and forgotten
You don't listen and you don't know
I tried my best to help another
I fell for a moment and you weren't around
Tried to help you heal and forget about the pain I caused
So tell me I'm never good enough
But you don't know 'bout what I did for love

So let the guilt flow in and own me
Tell me you trust me then hide away
Be honest for once and make up your mind
Do you blame me or not, let me know
and tell me I'm never good enough
But you don't know 'bout what I did for love
You don't know 'cause you never cared to try
Yeah, I did it all for you
And I did it all for love

Today the Sky

Today the sky
Is the kind of cloudy
So indiscriminately bright
A sheet of white light
Only just hindered by shades
In very subtle differentiation

Though for the most part
Resembling a screen
Over top of which
One could hang an x-ray of the day
Diagnose the break
And suggest a method of treatment
If one were trained for such observation

The kind of sky that weighs down
While still being obnoxiously out of touch

A sky so juxtaposed
With anything that could possibly happen
On this particular day of the week
That of course it's Sunday
And yet
If it were any other day
Would you even notice the sky?

I woke up enough last night
To have seen all the shades of morning
To capture a fair preview
Of the weather's presentation
From safe behind weary window glass

Yet the waking I remember
Neck and throat sore from yesterdays
Is the one that took me by surprise
Your voice on the other line
As we spoke of tomorrows
With skies of their own, I assume

But today the sky sat there
Staring at me
Waiting for me
Knowing it mocked me
Contradicting itself
Mimicking the heaviness of my head
The weight of the week

"It's not a clean break,"
Said the doctor
"It will have to be set."

Of course it will,
I thought,
Of course.

Don't Leave

Lonely is a callous word
With which I've become intimate
These shadows are my only friends
Though I know that they are counterfeit

Clinging to this metal shell
That single sock you didn't mind
I hum a dirge then trip on air
That chokes out what I've left behind

These missing spaces in my mouth
Bring medicine and mellow talks
Truer pain in the elusive ache
Where misery casts careful clocks

So run, my dream, run back to thought
Confuse what's left of my waking eyes
Then when I see an image of my love
Every part but my head will realize

Miles are the murderers here
And the distance ever grows
But justice comes to those who hope
And love, in patience, shows

So digitized and deconstructed
Communication learns itself
I keep every thought of you on my pillow
And put my own fears up on the shelf