Fade2, Poet

CRUSHED

There's a girl I love
Because I can't love
The one I want to
And I can't have either
Anyway

RELATE

Do you feel
The words you see
Do they touch you
Make your chest swell
Your eyes rain
Your lip tremble
With empath's pain
Do you laugh when they jest
Sigh when they pun
Start when they scream
Ache when they're weary
And full of lament
Can you relate
To the song of the solitary
Lost in the throng
Of others who can't

It's okay, friend
If my thoughts were like yours
Our frequencies aligned
Of what use, this pen

SENSORY REPROBATION

I feel like
eating colors today
Isn't that silly
You can't hear
a mute scream
But I taste sounds
of joyful corpses
churning, turning over
in blocks of fiery cream
Why won't they
shut up
and let me smell their
bright light

ATLAS HOMONYMICA

Kerry went through the second door, but where did Carrie go?

To two, too.

HUNG ON PHONICS

Sue
Ih
Side
Uhl

THE REAL QUESTION

What if a fly landed on your head
And stayed until one of you was dead
Who would go first, you or the fly
Would anyone care, would anyone cry

21ST CENTURIAN

How do you live with yourself
Knowing you're the only you
You think of or consider
The solitary entity
You see or hear
Or care about
Seven billion
Only one
Matters
To you
You

STATES OF MATTER

What's the matter
For that matter
It doesn't matter
By taking matters into my own hands
It's only a matter of time before
It's a matter of life or death
It's no laughing matter
Just mind over matter
As a matter of fact
Nothing really matters
No matter what

COMMENTS SECTION

A stranger I met
Chuck, I think
That dude has the knack
Singing songs of forgotten days
When the streets just weren't
So busy or violent
And I was a robot
In a project on the tubes
High upon the acid dais
In a daze of silent listening
To progressive sounds
Yes, we're breaking FM bonds
Of classic radio tyranny
Don't talk, man
This is my boomer jam

SEEKER

He went looking for himself
Upon a rotted dusty shelf

He found a dead mouse in a jar
The poor thing didn't get too far

He found a page torn from a book
With words not really worth a look

He found a broken peanut shell
Where the nut went who can tell

He found a red pen leaking ink
A scrap below it stained dark pink

He found a picture of his love
Who rests in some peace far above

He went there looking for some clue
A helpful hint what he should do

He found only remnants past
Of things once here which didn't last

NO LIMIT

Never believe you are
Truly alone
Because you can always be
More so

SATURDAY MORNING SONG

Yesterday's hate still sits in the stomach
Because nothing has changed but the color of the sky
Otherwise, that stomach's empty
Bland eggs and peppered sausage and dirty coffee wait somewhere
Bitter balms, greasy remedies for grumbling needs, to meet or not
Light stabs at eyes vein-speckled and bleary and weary
They fear what they'll see today will be yesterday
All over again

UNDER THE BRIDGE

I poured a cup of freshwater
into the sea
then realized I was thirsty
and tried to retrieve it

SHOESHINE INSOMNIA

I'm laying here
staring into darkness
two hours left to sleep
thinking for no reason
"What the f**k ever happened to Joe Pesci?"

NAP

Sleep is just
a sweet and splendid
hole in the day.

HUSK

I'm taking off my shirt
Peeling back the skin
Pulling out the bones
Making bracelets with veins
Anklets of arteries
Muscle fibers piled as pillows
Heart a decent doorstop
To help you find your way out
I'm taking out my skull
Juggling eyeballs and teeth
Putting candles in the sockets
Lighting up the gray mush
That sits inside like cauliflower
Pickled in a jar
Go lower, you say
Organs, innards, entrails
A nice hammock, I think
Stretched from post to doornail
Swinging with each pulse
Of a leaking, rotting heart
Femurs and fibulas
Building cages for the birds
Whose songs are shrill and bleak
Wings clipped, like mine
I'm stripping inside out
Upside down and scattered
Splattered, splayed, dispersed
A dead flower, sans petals
Moldy fruit skinned
For bugs to root and burrow
A happy little feast

SELF(ISH)

I'm supposed to know who you are
Who I am
And rework the latter
For the former's good

I'm supposed to stand firm
Unless you say
Where I stand is wrong
Or doesn't serve you

I'm supposed to speak my mind
As long as
My mind is in line
With all your needs

I'm supposed to be myself
All the time
Provided that me
Is what you want it to be

I'm supposed to feel no shame
Shaming no one
Unless I or they
Don't blindly validate you

I'm supposed to know who I am
As you see me
Existing exclusively
For your edification

I'm supposed to make my world
A bright red carpet
Where your feet can tread
On all that's me and mine

I'm supposed to bury my rage
Praise madness
Celebrate your self-indulgence
Because you say so

SWEET REVERB

Sometimes you have to surf
Even if you never have
And couldn't if you tried
Your feet are on solid ground
Miles away from sea
On a board of electrons
Against imagined tides
With steely riffs for breakers
Pounding skins momentum
And sweet reverb the breeze

SUMMARY OF A WASP

Soaring
Sailing
Defying Earth's pull

Construct
Cultivate
Building cities of pulp

Hated
Reviled
Surviving, a villain

Falling
Ending
Swept up, tossed out

FEEL THIS

There are noises spilling from your lips
Like waves eating at the rocky coast
This inevitable nature
The passage of life
Time spent eroding
Under the relentless thrashing
Of you for you
I wonder when I open my soul
Do you feel this lifeless
This endless decay
Devoid of all within
But dust and stale shadows
Waiting for your shell to break

WIDOWED

Places that you never were
I still feel your absence
Songs you never got to hear
I remember us dancing to
Movies out after you left
Seem like ones we saw together
Tears I've shed since you've been gone
Are still cried on your shoulder

DRIVE-THRU, UNREQUITED

I brushed with stardust today
but I missed her
like a thousand days before
and all the rest, I imagine
a firefly alight with flame
in the indigo of day
hanging from the heavens
not low enough to reach
I strove for Valhalla
but came up empty
when she drove away

WRITING IN CIRCLES

Story...
Worry.
Gory?
Hurry!
Whory?
Flurry!
Glory!
Sorry...
And then it ends.

Have you tried verse?

NO PICTURE

Raw words are silent
No sound in the void
Without the flash and color
No heartbeat in the meter
And no reply

US

I dreamt of us
But there is no us
There's only me
And I'm dead within

KRYNN, BOOK 4: THE MONSTER IN THE MIST

Far behind King Faln
Shortcut through Aoreg Forest
The forest guarded

GAZING BACK

Such a small and simple monster
Ugly troll wanting shiny things
In this mirror

KRYNN, BOOK 3: THE SWORD OF LIFE

Given to the mire
It compels the dead to live
The warlock Morg waits

KRYNN, BOOK 2: CRUSADE OF TEARS

My children are dead
King Faln's blade craves innocents
Mine to avenge, save

KRYNN, BOOK 1: NEW HORIZON

Evil has the day
The Mad King holds the Life Sword
And my quest begins

NATURE

man stumbles
bumbles forward
foolishly presuming
he can change
the nature of man
his generation
he naively supposes
somehow greater
brighter, wiser
than all preceding
his strongest suit
arrogance
blood still red
and still spilling
for as long as he
treads the earth

IDEALISTS

Cry for wars afar
Ignore the bodies at your feet
Weep for burning forests
As your neighborhood blazes
Rebel against tyrannies past
While current tyrants reign
Lament cataclysms to come
Overlooking today's pain
Rage against the inequities of then
Conveniently avoiding now

SLIGHTLY BETTER

I wish I could rip open
All of the people
Who boast of controlling their emotions
Who pound their chests with pride
At how they have life all figured out
To lay bare their hidden pain
Their secret shame
Their deepest fears
Such a sweet revenge
For their haughtiness
You're not prophets or gurus
Not sage superheroes
Of cool self-assuredness
You're just slightly better liars
Than the rest of us

CONVICTUS

Let me write a poem of defiance
A rousing anthem to independence
Verse upon verse celebrating my strength
A boastful declaration of my resolve
With rhymes of forceful fortitude
Stanzas proclaiming my will to persevere
To maintain the facade for others
And try desperately to convince myself
I'm not the weak-willed, broken coward
I know I am

MAX

Max
Broken, alone
Driving, seeking, surviving
Gladiator of the asphalt
Mad

HYPOCRITE ANGELS

You live your life
in a self-made spotlight
and mock others
for needing attention.
You paint and decorate
yourself a sparkling facade
then call others out
because they're fake.
You boast of
your own vulgarity
as you condemn others
for having no class.
You hunger for
the deeply superficial
yet decry others
you consider shallow.
You proudly worship
hollow idols and clowns
while saying others
only follow trends.
Your only standard
double.

SPACE OPERA

Why do we dream
Of deep space
When there is cold nothingness
Everywhere here

each day's choice

everything is staring at me
the drawers, with their curved handle mouths
the TV, with its blank black face
the corners of the ceiling, like guards daring me to run
i'm on display in a cage
a zoo animal, a freak
solitary confinement
in an unlocked cell
i can feel myself getting smaller, weaker
under the room's judgmental gaze
the doorknob beckons
but the bed clutches and holds
a soft pedestal for atrophy
i want to flee, i want to surrender
silence, like the tattoo rhythm
of a club to the head
this room, watching and waiting to see
what i'll do

BOOGEYMAN

You grow jaded, sure
Believing you are safe now
Evil closes in

frigid, shivering
becoming acclimated
to southern winters