Gearbox

Grinding

Grinding through the gearbox

Flying

Between birth and dying

Dreaming

Sanctified, the miles scream by

Goodbye…

 

Well the gimlet days and pain pills

Lay the backdrop of regret

But one forgets and falls back smoothly into vice

And learns to rest between the rounds

And when he meets the waiting ground

To contemplate those falls on down from his own height

 

What I’ve learned I keep forgetting

What I’ve seen I don’t believe

What I laughed at once has since become my truth

And of plans, permit me state

That they were never mine to make

And though I theorize I dare not try conclude…

Bongo

I’ve seen life

Through two sets of eyes

And come to realize

Both brandishing the blade

And staring down the knife

That it was you then it was me

But it’s now both of us, you see

So the blood you spill

Try not forget it’s mine

And the course we set adjusts itself with time

 

I’ve seen life

I felt the broken pieces

Shifting ‘round inside

Though the face and form you showed

Said everything was fine

So the mask remained in place

Till you’d forgotten your own face

And the blood I spilled

I can’t forget was yours

And the course I set came close to rocky shores

 

I’ve seen life

And for all its splendid scenes

The single great surprise

That the universe devised

Was your providing me

The means to gracefully accept

With neither outrage nor regret

That the life burns bright

Might burn with little heat

That though occupied such lives are not complete

 

I’ve seen life

And my vision’s gotten better

With you by my side

The weight of things much greater

Brought to bear on pride

And begin to comprehend

An expression without end

Till the faces we’ve forgotten

Cease to be

 

Till I look at you and my life’s all I see…


Eradicator

I can see

The measure of contempt in which you’re holding me

For all these mediocrities

A vibrant son, a stillborn grown man become

Whose words, unheard, his silent requiem have sung

Looking back

Over all the wasted years

These eyes of mine

Have witnessed through a veil of tears

Sincere regret

That strung between each passing breath

An empty pause; a moment lost; a glimpse of death

 

And now, the days yet remaining

Like blood from between

My clutching hands raining

Of moments flow, of years elapsed and decades lost

Of cruel effect superseding placid cause

 

Now I feel

The tentative denial of a last appeal

Of mercy that I’d hoped to steal

Reprieves conceived to stay the executing hand

Of triggers pulled

And blades brought down at my command

 

Unnerved, withdrawn

A criminal marched out at dawn

I’ll wait, grow old

Behind my cigarette and my blindfold

I’ll stand up straight, enmeshed in the affairs of states

That I, alone, oversee and populate…

 

Seasons of Life

Meanwhile down the line

In gray classrooms

They’re doing fine

And what they’re learning of life

They learn on Saturday nights

 

Credentialed, qualified

Hired, retired, worked and died

They’re always just getting by

Through the seasons of life

 

Try, apply and fail

Cynical, criminal, probation, jail

Another season of life

Another twist of the knife

 

Rehab and relapse

Grinding ride on a pedaled ass

Through a season of life

And a shift to the right

 

Tragedy takes handfuls

Boredom takes the rest

All-in preferential to folded and depressed

Church and state, love, work, debate

Unraveled, undermined

Crossing up the wires, there’s tension on the line

 

Reworked points of view

Shell out, sell out, make it through

Neither black, neither white

A dismal season of life

 

Center’s where they stay

Vision, decision, gone to gray

A final season of life

Leaning into the knife

The little shift to the right

The turn away from the fight

A thousand Saturday nights

Just a will left to write…

          

Erudite

I never asked for

Never wanted yet received

Insights and opinions

Pertaining to the few beliefs

By which I define

What’s the world’s and what is mine

 

Fearful of silence

Dying for the final word

Frequency gridlock

Static, oh, this shit’s absurd

Tired, we’re wired

Arcing, sparking, to the switch

White-knuckled, hard-driving

Burning in the digital ditch

 

And so I go

I go to try and find the silence

To claim the soul

That in youth I gave away

Become again

One with universal silence

A laughing ghost

At the far ends of the day

Where the old night fades away

In the dawning day’s embrace

Forever haunting that place

 

Oh, for the mornings

That I spent in quiet dread

Ruing debuting my tired act

How in its stead

I’d love nothing more

To play the king and not the whore

  

Oh, how I asked for

Wanted, needed yet received

Neither compensation

Consolation nor reprieve

For and from the times

Life, it seemed a string of crimes

 

Stick up, pick up

Thrust my hands into the air

Hoping my groping

Fingers find some purchase there

By which I can haul

Myself far above it all…