If I Knew

The roads are long, winding, swings of dreams;
forgotten footsteps; and trickling rows of streams.
There’s cash to buy and absent ambitions to trade
in the oceans of the fade where so few dare to wade.

In the rivers of a trodden gulf, little can be bore —
less verifies in the gone markers across this shore.
They are the many and the many are the mass alone
with much to atone and everything is always homegrown.

In the end, the start has been an overlooked mistake;
the troubled lie awake while the troubling partake.
All the while, I’m tripping… stumbling behind the lead.
With lessons I won’t heed, I drown in cider mead.

Some words never spoken are yelled into deafened winds.
Laughter sounds like tears when passing mislaid friends.
I’m as I’ve always been and been as if I’ll never be.
I and I, you see, will, ever true, likely disagree.

I’ve been found. I’ve been confused. Either suffice.
My words are often grey while the thoughts are precise.
How did I suffer the nights of that awful, ceaseless day?
How did I suffer the days of that dire, boundless way?

In those drying oceans and so many saltless seas,
most are contented with doing as the many please.
I do best in the creek when summer rains refuse to fall…
like being a memory recalled — never remembered at all.

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Accord

I would give life
so I might never break,

miss and ache.

I’d surrender
to be nothing I make.

Where’s the line
between raving and mad,

good and bad?

I know I miss
what’s lost and never had.

I pain for some;
have and lost contradict.

Wants afflict.

The hostile day
lets memory constrict

all I have dreamed,
the strength in my belief —

a sneak thief.

Swept to dusk,
sleep allows small relief.

If it takes life
then it all I award,

will afford.

Take wholly
if the lost is restored.

The Melody

Somewhere a note was plucked, began to ring,
and I thought if I could learn to sing…
if I could carry a tune sweeter than mild
I might not sound so much a broken child.

I learned a note. I learned a chord.
I learned so much more than I could afford.
I could key a sound and I could strum;
so, I raised my glass to the drum.

I was dancing to my own wild beat.
Who knew you knew the placement of feet.
Who knew the world knew what I knew
and we were all playing it through.

I wrote my own lyrics, wrote my own tunes.
I sang until my voice was in bitter ruins.
I picked up the trumpet. I mastered the flute.
I even learned to play some pitiful, old lute.

I learned the sounds of a thousand delusions
and to mimic the sanity behind my confusion.
I laughed aloud for all and in silence, I cried.
I lived as if the melody never died, never lied.

Then from somewhere a voice rose across the winds.
I heard the desperate cries only despair lends.
I picked up a pen and I put it to paper.
That fresh rhythm was a crisp new caper.

I thought, if I could learn that spoken word,
I might honestly — truly and really — finally be heard.
Across that page, a broken child darted.
And over it began. And over it started.

Essence In Time

The worst isn’t being over, no,
it’s worse to look back time and again.
When I look back, time is slow.

I see an essence nearly faded.
I tell myself my memory is failing
and a lifetime hasn’t been degraded.

I look back and I try not cry.
I see an essence nearly deceased.
I whisper apologies and I try not to lie.

I grab the ring ’round my throat,
the ring ’round my neck and soul,
and curse the hist’ry we tote.

I curse my empty hand —
as empty as my mind is crowded —
and cling to this silver band.

No, over isn’t the worst in throne.
Worst is having been once…
the time easily, willfully, blown.

When I look forward,
the nearly faded stand all in —
ethereal or almost alive, pointing norward.

I’m pleased — I grab the ring instead —
that my sight is failing.
I’m scared hope lies ahead.

When I look to the future,
time is lost in an ethereal glare
and I know you as my suture.

The worst isn’t being over, no,
it’s worse to look back time and again.
When I look back, time is slow.

Trending

Is it the pleasure or the inclination?
Press the button. Of course, we know.
It’s the ride and the front.
Oh, it’s a helluva lasting show.

We’ve got the disguise. We’ve got the screen.
Vanity is immodesty is superiority
to quality, to that unassuming nature,
we find filled with such inferiority.

It’s a run on… and on and on and on
that stops when the on does end.
We play out these images
that our whims tend to lend.

And Romeo told Juliet
with her very last dying breath,
“I’ve seen the green mile
and kittens stand abreast.”

We swallowed our blood
on cinnamon string. Sniffed rubber
much like cocaine while laughing
at some glorious, southern blubber.

Outlandish and viral — it goes horribly wrong.
Someone dances a dance and how amusing
when a song is sung to dance with the pride.
Somehow, disgrace seems suddenly confusing.

The world is laughing (we are the world, too).
Fraudulent courage knows much less shame.
We are what we aren’t (never)
and that’s the beauty of national fame.

Puppeteer

If I played a part
across screen or stage
My voice would be heard
by none through the age.

I’d scream out my lines
but the sound would rustle,
lost in the display
and crushed in the bustle.

I know the rounding thump
of ever beating hearts.
I am well aware the signs
of the end when it starts.

I’m my own puppeteer
without a story to endear.
All I’ve written
leaves little to revere.

I’ve played the rhythm
and struck it well off key.
To sing along or cry alone
seems all the same to me.

I’ve been there once or twice;
maybe a few times more.
I’ve rigged up my own strings
from flesh to inner core.

Hindsight

The snow fell,
swirling like a beast.
Driving slower,
feeling my life was leased.

Six hours
swelled into nine.
I wish I’d known
how brittle the twine.

From Cinci
to the Caro thumb,
scared and lost
my hands gone numb,

I wish I’d known
how long I’d spend wishing
the car had swerved
with the tail-end fishing.

I wish I’d known
how slight the time;
just how far
the damaged climb.

Modern Love

I would never make a promise
I don’t intend to keep,
but I’ve never been known
to look before I leap.

If you need, I’ll take a job
and toss away my schemes,
if it means I’ll make up
all the stuff of your dreams.

I’ll stop writing stanzas
to satiate a sterile soul
and, instead, sell low cost
to make a dollar whole.

I’ll outsource my art
and draw for the mass.
If it baits your delight,
I’ll be a good lass.

I’ll break open the bank
and blow away the dust…
I’ll revise my very realm
and do what I must.

All you ought’do in return:
close your eyes and leap —
knowing I’d never make a promise
I don’t intend to keep.

Bond With Me

Hello? Are you stirring?
All reason is blurring.
Finally, the moon has dawned.
Bond with me — won’t you bond?

The hours I have stalked,
passions you have baulked.
Listen to my sound.
Believe what we have found.

Damn the dread. Damn the last.
We’re a world unsurpassed.
No matter how broken or shattered,
apart we’re simply more tattered.

Let no life before
paint our next shore.
Across the mile… and sea,
bond with, meld with, me.

Time Is Gone

I know you’re sleeping
and I know I’m leaving.
I can hear your dreams
in the winds of your breathing.

It’s over, I know it’s done.
Forgive me; forgive me, if I run.

I know what I said
and I said I would stay.
I promised through the tears,
but I can’t — not this day…

Not any under moon or sun.
It’s over, I know it’s done.
Forgive me; forgive me when I run.

I know I’ve done it
so many times before,
but I’m so tired
of living beneath the floor.

I can’t be that memory,
the one you love and hate;
I can’t stay in mind
and sit — sit and wait…

Until your dreams are done.
Forgive me; forgive me that I run.

I’ve locked up my doors,
my number’s in the mail.
I can hear your hurt
in the silence you nail.

I gave you the years
I had left to give.
I spent the hours
waiting to live…

While you ached for none.
Forgive me; forgive me, if I run.

If you come looking,
close your eyes.
Don’t take in the darkness
of hope when it dies.

It’s over, I know it’s done.
Forgive me; forget me, when I run.