03 December 2009

Old, But Still the Same

I find it funny how I heard your voice
When I was the farthest away from you
A simple whisper
The breath of kings
But it echoed across time and space
To a memory
For a future I cannot forget

Yours was a simple word on the wind
Seemingly as lost as I
But you tracked me down
Through the sand and the storms
To the deserted desert town of my soul

This life of the real I cannot express
But you formed it from shadows
And to dust I return

So take my hand now
For tomorrow I'll ask for it

This week I may have forgotten
I may have set life aside for a rainy day
- how often that occurs -
But today the sun is shining
And this time the time doesn't matter

I've been through fires and earthquakes
You led me through the storm
The quiet moment came at last, then passed
Now I'm in the desert of the dream
The other has come to lead me away
So don't let go of my tired hand
I'm not like you
The temptations would lead me astray

23 November 2009

To Those Born to Triumph

Light fell to darkness
The shattered bonds a rain of crystals descended
Wrapping the shadows in a glowing despair
From depths the night ascended
To meet the traitor in the air

Hope fell to anguish
First of the shadows born from light rejected
Turned crimson shade as glowering dusk appears
Son of evil now perfected
The Maker weeps His bloody tears

Peace fell to anger
Dear child formed of hate to bear neglected
The torment of battered nations none redeem
In Sheol burn those infected
Pain to make this life a dream

Calm fell to chaos
Destruction birthed the breath of those intended
Now bereft of death 'midst bands of tattered fiends
Souls of those who once defended
Somewhere in the silence scream

28 October 2009

Double Dactyl

Rickety, nitpicky,
Double-dactylically
Lines are a pain but I'll
Give them a try.

Nonsense begins them,
Two stanzas, strict rhythm,
Easy, if I could just
End with a rhyme.

23 September 2009

Its All Greek to the West

[note: "dikē" is Greek and pronounced like the word "decay"]

"Titled"

Tear stains bleed away these glittered eyes
These forgotten faces brushed aside
(Identity genocide)
- grief besets us all -
Self divisions
Mind and nature
Sky and madness
Man and body
(oracle visions)
- FATES -
And none to rule them all

Dikē decay, Justice arrayed
And shivers, blinded in the formless cold,
The chaos void, where none can see
Away and fade
- These sutured seams -
The Shadow dances
And turns to face the killing light
(Formless)
No shape silhouetted
(Formless)
Shapeless nothing
For belief defines the anchor
- EXISTENCE -
(the question remains)

And fury transformed to Figures
Constructed idols of society's guise
The Kindly Ones lie
bent, beset, broken
- vows -
temple priestess, goddess, pray
Ritual schemes establish puppet brigade
(Dikē)
Nothing comes from Nothing
Dangerous games they play
- the gods -
Dematerialize materials never formed
Dust to dust
To chaos we return

Deconstructed structure
- the center cannot hold -
Aeschylus to Yeats?
Suffer into truth, dear child
Laws precede the gods
Paradoxical center
(illusion)
Labyrinth or maze,
No truth resides within
(delusions)
The Curses of a thousand tongues
Herald, Bacchus, revelry Lord

Lord chaos reign
(rioting)
dream intoxication loose on the world
spit on disintegration
- repeated crimes -
Father forgive
Father forgive
(survival)
Helios rise!
- desperate -
Baseless words hold no sway
ANARCHY

Language collapses
(discordia)
- unexist this lawlessness -
Reality


(cannot hold)

14 September 2009

California

From West and East you were the desire
Rush the golden palace to stake a claim
Where refugees gathered
For new life and new hopes,
The pursuit of happiness and land

You're the West to which the gateway led
The dream for which a generation bled.
From gold rush to a silver screen,
You're a fame-seekers wet dream -
An earthquake that moved the world

Going to California
With a wish on their breath
An aching in their hearts
And a desperate prayer
Seeking that promise of a fresh start you deny

You're everyone's dream, baby,
So why can't I care?

Now your skies are blue and your sun scorches
Over manufactured houses and manicured lawns.
Your plastic dolls lie on crowded beaches,
The stars you wish on slowly fall,
As we all play the game that shows the world
How useless we are.

Lines of exhaust fill the veins of the city,
Clogging the blood of us all,
Waiting for the heart attack that never comes
To this body without life

But I hate these acts,
The people who use you as an escape
Like cheap alcohol and whores,
When you're my prison
From which I seek escape but will always remain;
You're my abusive relationship I think I can save

But soon your skies will fill with smoke
- the billows I miss -
The red sunsets and lights of a thousand fires
I'll blow smoke rings in the fading glimmer
And I'll return to
The cold nights and starlit mountains

I'll return to the desert where this all began
To a struggle for life, not lies,
Dreams don't matter when you can barely survive.
Be a real desert for my heart,
The burning sun and scouring sand
Will scorch away my tears
And maybe I'll escape this desert of the real

31 July 2009

To Blog or not to blog

To blog or not to blog, that is the question:
Whether 'tis truer to existence of man
To sacrifice individuality for the sake of belonging,
Or to bear arms against a sea of cyberspace,
And by opposing, gain self? Defy to write,
Once more; or for to write to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand unnatural shocks
That technology imparts, 'tis an assumption
Devoutly to be sought. Defy to write;
To write: perchance to live: ay, there's the dream;
For in the written word what life may come
When we have recorded borrowed thoughts,
To give us pains: there's the regret
That makes calamity of so long reflection;
For who would choose the shadows on the wall,
The super flat world, the desert of the real,
Transcendental idealism, the mirror stage,
The simulacrum of truth and the signs
That sacrifice of the physical makes,
When he himself might his identity take
With a blank leaflet? Who would philosophies bear,
To grunt and sweat over weary lines,
But that the dread of something after self,
The undiscovered country from whose confines
No dreamer returns, puzzles the truth
And makes us rather bear those symbols we have
Than fly to Other that we know not of?
Thus self-consciousness makes cowards of us all;
And thus the native view of ontology
Is transfixed with the collapse of civilization,
And simulations of great existence
With this regard their individuality turns away,
And lose the words of action. - Soft you now!
The fragile Absolute! Noumenon, in thy script
Be all my being remembered.

Nothing but Voiceless Words - the Beginning

How strange a thing for written language - all we read are the ghost of thoughts. The graveyard of the mind. The only reality is past. By the time sunlight reaches us it is six minutes old. By the time I hear you speak, you've begun a new thought. By the time you read these words, years will pass.

With every moment the world is remade. Every moment the present. Every moment is a new beginning. With the smallest movement of a proton or neutron the universe is unmade and remade. Time is of use only in understanding past and future. We cannot comprehend time in the here and now.

We have memories. And to keep those memories as clear as possible (for with each moment they fade and change), we record them and hope. Hope when we read these words again we can reclaim a piece of self as we once were. Hope that when someone reads these words, maybe we can share a memory. And for a moment that passes as it happens, we can connect.

That is why I write. That somewhere in this mess of thoughts there's a moment of clarity. And maybe we won't be standing alone. You'll be with me, and words will be the bond that holds back the tide. More than just me. More than just you. Connected in the past, we shall touch again in the future.

Nothing but voiceless words. A pattern of curves and lines on a screen that somehow translate to an understanding of a human soul behind the lines, behind typing fingers, behind imageless eyes.

"Ah, but we die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger."
- Cocktail Party