Circadian Crash

Put on my black shirt to play
A Sunday morning concert
Coming down after orange juice
Walk into the bright light
Fantasy fantastic circadian crash
Biscuits and kettle drums
Blankets and boredom
Tranquilizing dreaming screams
And a note from the ever after
Telling me to close my eyes
I respectfully abstain
From breathing on queue
Don’t tell me where to do
Just lay down and let me
Stand on the ends of your hairs
Until the sky spins around
Like the shine
In a fly’s eyes
Take this time to thank you
For all the things I’ve done
Disintegrating to the beat
Of a song that never played
Longing for the chorus
Of waving grass
In a wind
That cannot see the ground

November 29, 2009

I’ve Been Judged

I’ve walked a mile on a railroad rail
smelled the sea all green and pale
Ran away from hopes and fears
and cried my share of happy tears

I’ve said things I should have kept
Laughed when I should have wept
Never had on a suit and tie
And I’ve got this mote in my eye

I’ve slept at night on stars and clouds
Tasted rain and hid from crowds
Expected less than I’ve been let down
played the hero and the clown

I’ve made mistakes and let them go
Walked fresh tracks in virgin snow
I’ve been judged if anything else
Guilty of this weight upon myself

May 28, 2009

Hold the Door

I want the world in black and white
I need snowflakes in contrast
Against this colorless climb
Ask me to do the impossible
And when I do you complain
About how I got it done
I used to know that I could make it
Almost every time I did
But now all the confidence I had
Got sucked into this blurring
Of smallness and oblivion
I never got to sing with the crowd
I still hold the door
For the world that ignores
Anything I’ve ever done
Swept away with a viciousness
I’ve got one more left
Run until I bleed
Try until I burst into the next
And for one moment
Someone somewhere will say
That I’m the best

November 29, 2009

Bleach

I dream of things you cannot see
and see things of which I'll only dream
a list of everything I'll be
was not as long as it seemed

Don't have to hesitate to try
just to remember to let go
first a child and then we die
life like a pyroclastic flow

All these memories in my head
won’t define what I've lost
yet to envy all the dead
clinging to the path at any cost

Death wipes pain like a bleach
color won't escape this white tar
reach for the light we cannot reach
and fall among forgotten stars

I wrote a song about this life
painted it with sounds of joy
though the dull edge of this knife
didn’t cut the heart out of a boy

Blue Skies Are For Everyone

Sorry but this poem definitely needs this introduction.

One of my bestest friends Aaron, just got back from a mission trip to Peru. They built a house, well actually a shanty, for a homeless family. They also took gifts and supplies to an orphanage where they stayed and bonded with the children for a little over a week. Aaron is a great guy anyway but you can just tell this experience has changed his life.

Anyways, he showed us these pictures of him and a little girl he met standing alone watching a pick up soccer game in an area where it's quite common for people to just abandon their children. She wasn't part of the orphanage and she didn't speak English so Aaron's only connection with her was a game of catch with an old ball.

The poem of course is just my interpretation of something that happened a world away and though I fear it's not, I hope that the reality is much better.



Blue Skies Are For Everyone

She won't speak of the night when she sleeps alone
on the stones with dreams she doesn't understand

She just wants you to throw her the ball
so maybe she can catch a piece of who you are

She finds it in your smile as you find in hers
things you have in excess are things she's never seen

But for that one frozen moment in the journey
you are connected by the ball that hangs between

And of all you want to give her before you go
tears will remind you there is nothing that you can

She's not thinking of tonight when she'll sleep alone
on the stony ground where the shivers keep warm

She runs off to dream of things you've seen
while you wonder just who's life was changed

And later in the day the clouds part for the Sun
Gently reminding: God made blue skies for everyone

When We Rode Stars

Strange Photographs

I am only aware that my feet are cold
bit by bit as I make my way bit by bit
shuffling toward the blur reaching back
hand me my prescription and urge me on

I understand what she says better than her
so why can't I fix me - this broken tool
Hammering the future with past nails
I'm losing what I was in the white noise

And as the snow lays in my dreams
God lays the white quilt over all we've done
but in my wake the field is parched
nose to the glass I forgot the smell of rain

My feet are so cold in this icy grass
strange breezes whip and wail and tease
into my tender ear alle alle auch sien frie
all I ever wanted is to fall down and cry

I realize the pictures I've taken aren't mine
The people I've been are only ghosts
my spirit watches me from somewhere else
and the mist in the laurels have yet to decide

Inverted

There is a switch in every human
operating purpose
random moments approach and fade
and once in a great while... collide
Sometimes the breaker is thrown
bumped and blown by an uncaring
yet infinitely affected world
In many more an instance
the button is merely grazed
by chance careening into self
leaving unchanged
Fairness does not exist
in the natural place
nothing is deserved
and we'll never get it right
that we've all got it wrong
In the rarest of cases
a man might find that switch
be it through his own pain
or that of someone else
and want to give instead of earn
no longer slave to the fear of loss
toiling not to gain
but gaining through his purpose
the smallest light shining through
while the rest of us remain
unaware, inverted

monday january 12, 2009