Lost in the Fields

Remember...
when that light shone
inexplicably in your eye
A twinkling promise
of love
life
Forever fading
the orbs of your hope
are lost
Gone back into the fields
rolling seamlessly back
into the timeless
dreams
Echoes like splinters
in fragmented hearts
ringing in empty ears
and hollow whisky glasses
like the ice
so cold
moving across the soul
Inhale the excess
the immovable desire
to run away
back into the fields
into the innocence
the unknowing
the womb
But no, too late now
your straining eyes have seen
so far into the darkness
of you
and her
and the abyss between you
Those old eyes are lost
someplace in the rolling expanse
of the fields
Still watching you run on
with that golden piercing fire
but the only thing you
see
are gaping sockets
painted black with ash
the agonizing regret
of a bright soul
Lost within the Fields.

A. Jaxon

Aristotle's Drinking Party

He sips
the amber liquid,
like fool's gold
amidst the glass and ash,
and the meandering trails
of night's yearning love
for a connection
caught within an escape.
He sits
in contemplation
of his nothingness,
and like the quivering
fingers of smoke
that surround him,
he dissipates into
the stale air
like the afterimage
of a dream.
He is bastard son
to the green hills of Ireland,
and the dark moss
of forgetting
clings thickly to his veins.
He has
the reasoning of Socrates
but the faith of Democritus,
constantly navigating
the hot iron coils
of his questioning spirit.
He is long lost child
to the deep pains of Scotland
but the conquered blood
of the Native
clots like crimson molasses
in his American heart.
He is
the Coyote,
the wise fool,
the wizard clown.
His art
is that of forgetting
what he forces
others to remember,
painting pictures
of innocence
on guilty canvases
and empty walls.
He is
Aristotle's Drinking Party,
and he is forever
defining the Laws of his Nature,
and calculating the
gravitational pull
of his sinking
lonesome soul.

Thought Substance

Bodies of molecules
Constitute bodies of atoms
Bound together in the fornication
Of flesh and spirit

Put your hand through
That wall
It’s the same as you are
Essentially a complex
Pattern of joined particles
Coalescing into the eye’s reality
For an inimitable moment
Of life
Or death
Or a combination
Of thought and action.

Skin brushes against skin
In the frivolous exchange
Of living content
While the eye connects
Image with perception
In a private place where
The atomic illusion of the
External dances with the
Internal electric mass
Of life
Or death
Or an amalgamation
Of tangible and intangible
Realities.

Molecules conduct muscles
That then close the eye
And the mechanism locks
Into the sea of introspection
While the thin blades
Of emotion continue
To converse with outer realms
Of life
Or death
Or a combination
Of reason and faith.

Do thoughts contain atoms?
Does the mind produce
Atomic residue that melds
With the atmosphere of ones
Perception?
Thoughts often transform themselves
Into words spoken on the breath
Of tangible creation,
Often imprinting their matter
Onto the receiving circuit
Thus propagating in their mass
And compounding their existence
Until they become action
Which further shapes
The benign surrounding life
Into a reflection of the initial
Seed.

Bodies of molecules
Constitute bodies of atoms
Bound together in the fornication
Of flesh and spirit

And life
And death
And something in between.

Clear Still Waters

"All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream." T. K. Whipple


Isn't it amazing; our ability to reflect our ambitions upon the land?
The hopes and dreams of those before us sit like lotus flowers
atop the clear still waters of our lives, glistening dewdrops on our fields.
The pages of our history books are written with the blood and tears,
smiles and laughter of many generations, hanging forever in the haze
of yesterday. They are the layers of rock that have molded our mountains,
the winding rivers that have carved the brilliant sunrise of our canyons.
Their ancient cries still echo vibrantly within our modern walls,
intertwining with our lives as does sunlight with shadows.

And so shall our own stories, our own lives and dreams, be reflected
upon the world of our children and their children. We will be the unsaid
names of tomorrow's history books, the silent yet persistent voices
whose words will ring like fading whispers on the ears of those yet unborn.
It is we who will leave our ripples upon the clear still waters of tomorrow,
to shape and mold the realities of that world yet unseen.
Though we are but droplets in the vast ocean of time, our actions
might build the tidal waves of the future, and so as we stand in the
clear still waters of today, let our actions illuminate the night,
so that the darkness of the past is beaten back by the great light
of our realization, that those yet to walk through the trials of this earth
may walk upon a lighter path.

Optimistic Sun

The high ancient cliffs are blossoming
from a velvety spray of pearled blue ocean,
the rough red rocks stretching pillared fingers
into the jeweled eye of the heavens.
Looking west, I see the feathered orb of fire
melting into the glassy abyss of the horizon,
the last tendrils of smoky light reaching forward
and fluttering across my face for one last time.

In the wet swirls of excited air
there are many particles of displaced energy,
filtering through the layered splendor
of the ever-changing atmosphere.
They are searching for a new place to live,
perhaps within the dappled stardust atop the stones
or amongst the windblown trees
with their gnarled purple limbs and emerald leaves,
or maybe in the wind itself, or atop the face
that looks out upon the evanescent brilliance
beneath the newborn moon.

Fading light abounds and dances wildly
with the growing shade of night,
leaving tufts of cloud to reflect the last embers
in the living pools of twilight.
The sunrise and the sunset are very much the same.
They symbolize two polar opposite occurrences
and yet, when caught within the transitory instant
between the world of the waking and the sleeping,
their image becomes unified.
Is birth, therefore, similar to death?

The often-ineffable movement of the earth
becomes poignant in the mysterious hour
when the light rolls beneath the land,
leaving nothing save the intense air of wonder
that pervades the starlit dust of the night sky.
Standing on the tattered edge of the West Coast,
the long-faded reminder of America’s last frontier,
one can see vividly into the ebb and flow of change.

Towers of ghostly majesty now sit
like pharaohs atop what was once
the final breast of the flowering new world,
but light still flickers across the waiting faces
of its vigorous suckling children,
everlasting evidence of tomorrow’s impending sun.

"...a promise that the rock of the world
was founded securely on a fairy's wing."

Headache Reveries

Ughhh, the smoke,
sticky icky beer battered sunrise,
unholy mockery of fun
The ash-laden tabletop
of this burning desire
to ooze into escape,
Breathing in the tendrils of numb,
to become young and dumb and full of cum
Isolated, inebriated,
saturated in liquor-sweat,
beads of amber longing,
Brain-dead, a bed-head
wrapped in black thread...
a pile of human waste,
The bizarre after-taste of heaven,
funneled into the sickening reminder of hell,
He fell into the wishing well,
empty bottles paint pictures on the floor,
reflecting crisp golden sun-beams
onto the back of bloodshot eyes,
straining to close,
Wilted shards of innocence clutch madly
to the unforgiving walls, laughing sadly,
Ticking clocks shatter the well-deserved silence
of the cardboard catacombs,
Sleepers walk with fluorescent eyeballs
hanging limply from their hollow skulls,
The holes in the head ache
with a wake-and-bake desire for one more intake,
One more open door,
rendered whisky helpless on the floor,
smashing dreams,
The nature of the beast is terrifying,
but at least it is fair (says the boy with crazy hair)
Knots tied tightly in the lobes of brain-mush,
a close brush with insanity,
The utter profanity of this so-called humanity
lacks all sense of self and purpose,
Dose and dose you red red rose,
as the moonshine glows and the whisky flows,
Who really knows, oh black charred rose,
from where the need to hunger grows.
The answer is false, waste your time on fantasies,
the truth won't set you free,
This alternate reality has become your actuality,
the totality of your withered life.
Dance around a leafless tree,
oh muse,
and try to be the epitome of serenity,
Sinking ship, swirling in drunken reveries,
break your ties with the dollar-industries,
Climb up the mountain at the valley's heart,
grow fangs and rip your world apart,
Grow fur against which lies deter,
with yellow eyes caress the skies,
And when the beasts inside arise,
hunt them down until each one dies,
Howl at the moon as your world ends,
as your house of cards folds and bends,
And the Castle of Sand at last descends...
into a daydream,
on which nothing depends..

Earth Shakers

Break it apart, crumble it
crack it, smash it to dust.
Let the lust pierce through
and thrust beneath the crust.

Tyrannical lobotomy,
Constitutional sodomy.

Take the life from the words
written by the original quill,
fulfill the undying need to distill
the notes that thrill
from the halls of capital hill.

Become a momentary reflection,
a dissection of spiritual rejection.

Rough warnings written
in ancient dribbled ink
beckon to rethink the link
between the ship and the sink.

Mind/matter manipulation
to result in utter devastation.

The particles build the articles
onto which the atom splits,
the mechanized monster spits
at the very throne on which it sits;
broken, bleeding, blown to bits.

Automated organism
orchestrates the power schism.

Electric winds of change
derange and rearrange,
attempting in vain to save
the hallowed grave of the brave.

Follow the order of the elements
reshape the label of the continents.

Satellite clarity chronicles vulgarity,
sipping the sweet wine of demand
with its iron rod in the crimson hand
standing at the gates to the promise land
with collections of numbers; a mark, a brand.

Unethical assumptions
spawn critical consumptions.

Discuss the model mapping of Olympus
in this destruction we create
an alternate fate riddled with hate;
poisonous retaliation against the state.

Pyramid of pestilence,
let loose your liquid violence.

Take the gilded arrow
from the false prophets tongue
kill the dreams on which you've clung
until your heart is crushed
and your head is hung.

Electro-magnetic fields
wield swords as well as shields.

The mushroom cloud creates a shroud
upon the face of the free and the proud.

The foul taste of the Rat Race
brings fire clouds from outer-space,
monumental earthquakes
blossom as the foundation shakes
and the very third dimension breaks..

...the hour that the beast awakes.

Beneath Shut Eyes

You are walking in the park on a lazy summer evening, feeling a warm breeze roll over your skin like an invisible ocean wave, leaving you damp and just a little salty. You are at the train-station, waiting for a new place and a new time, listening to the whispers of all that you have known but will soon cease to know. You are sitting at a small metal table on the sunlit campus of a nameless university, watching the bubbles of knowledge drift listlessly past you like orbs of shimmering potential. You’re on a high and lonesome skyway, a snake of black asphalt slithering through the clouds, stuck in between lives. You are in a dark, smog shrouded room that you thought you knew, but is suddenly unfamiliar, wallowing in the liquor sweat of misused opportunity. You are on the edge of a dark forest, whose shade is both comforting and terrifying, and you are looking out onto a sun-speckled meadow where small children, who were once you, are playing. You are under water, wrapped in the deep blue of nothingness, and you have forgotten which way is up and which way is down… the light is so distant.

Your eyes are shut. They will remain this way until the dream is over. Beneath the placid surface of your resting face, a hundred clocks are throwing neon sparks into the ceiling of your brain. Time is ticking by, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because where you are there is no such thing as time or death. You are free. FREE. Found Recklessly Entering Eternity.

At first, the only thing that exists is darkness, deep and round and hollow; full of mysteries. When you shout there are no echoes, because there are no walls. Little translucent lights dance and flicker in the corners of your eyes but when you turn to look, they vanish. You can hear many voices mingling with the silence, but you can’t understand what is being said. You forget that you have to breathe, or that you even have lungs. You have no feet, but you feel is a strong sense of movement, like falling horizontal across the sky. Up ahead there is a weak light, like someone ripped a miniscule hole in the fabric of your existence. The marble of illumination seems to grow like a child in its mother’s womb, spreading multi-colored tendrils of lightening across the pitch-black surface of your mind.

Outside, in the shifting air of that other place, you are lying quietly on a bed, like a boat anchored in a still sea, peering down into the world beneath the waves. The only sound is the steady hum of a dying fan, loyally blowing its last breaths across your face. The fan drowns out the oppressive sounds of traffic, flowing like a river of headlights through the night, forever distant yet forever present. The fan does its best to out-speak the real world.

Inside, tucked neatly away in a nest of living wires and organic circuit boards, the machinery is beginning to heat up. Those forgotten lobes begin to send signals through the glossy tubes of your subconscious. Its like turning on a projector screen inside your eyelids. That small sphere of light blossoms into a geometric whirlwind of color. Inside this kaleidoscope you begin to see shapes which melt into faces and ooze into foreign landscapes with buzzing purple trees and crimson skies. You are flying through the air at an incredible speed now. Occasionally you land when you see someplace familiar, you see people you haven’t seen in years, people who are dead back in that old world. You see places from your childhood that you forgot you remembered and relive memories you thought were dreams. But something is always different, some powerful force is always pulling you forward into the abyss; into the next world. Sometimes you don’t even get a chance to say goodbye, you are sucked up into the black air by the vacuum inside your skull and thrown forward into oblivion. Over and over you tumble, like the clothes in a high-powered dryer with no button that says “STOP.” You are free of everything save freedom itself, and this lack of restraint can be terrifying. Demons arise out of the dark corners of your waking thoughts and terrorize you, only to be dissolved by the uninterrupted flow of inner change. You fly through this world for what seems like an eternity, grabbing on to neon lightening bolts. Then suddenly…

You hear a faint noise. It is distant but it is steadily getting louder. You feel the slender fingers of gravity grasping at your temples. The noise keeps getting louder. It sounds almost like… voices. Then it dawns on you; It’s Dudley and Bob’s Morning Show!” Oh jeez, time to get up and go to class. Wah Wahhh.

Artists; The Dead Still Living

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."
Michelangelo

The power of the wilting flower;
all that we are fades away.
The gift of the artist is simple;
to leave behind whispers.
Project that which lies beneath
the placid surface, but only in
broken, often misplaced splinters.
Paint or sing or write with small
shards of spirit; little frosty
windows into that hidden place.
As the petals slowly turn to ash,
try to capture their vitality
in the confines of a still life.
Draw the hands of the clocks
with great care, as they tick
the life from the hands that,
in turn, put new life into them.

"Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail."
Theodore Dreiser

Silence of the midnight hour.
Black lonely boxes sprinkled
by the shining light within,
sit in clusters atop the grey
concrete rivers that connect
this world. In a ghostly crowd
of solitude, the artist grasps
at the wilted stems within.
Stems of innocence and of
understanding; stems of soul.
Trying to taste the sweet nectar
of realization; to create
something that transcends
the frail human frame,
with all of its faults and fears.
It is a form of release, a burning
desire to pour out onto the earth
that which is untainted.

"An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it."
Paul Valery

The ripeness slowly turning sour;
shadows melting into shadows.
Faces disappearing into sunlight,
or into the misty unknown that
watches silently through the moon.
The only comfort is found
in the sun rays or moonbeams
that the faces left behind.
While they are mere trickles of light,
they are quiet proof of the life
that abandoned them. Hanging
on the walls in the empty rooms
where vanished minds once slept,
they timidly reflect the voices of
those passed and gone.

"I could have been rich, but being an artist was more fun."
Jack Jackson

Cluttered Lanes and Broken Towers

The weakest moment is the moment
in which one has to most unused potential
for strength.

And the day turns away from the sun
as its bleeding evening veins
paint fires on the shell of night
and the eye securely strains
to be a part of darkness
and to be beyond the pains
that drip into translucent souls
on an ancient highway's lanes.

Construct the canyons of your insignificance
... and mine.

A shutter leaps from the abyss of solitude
shaking and shivering
intertwined with the riddles of the chessboard memory
which is calling for answers that don't mean a thing.
The gray darkness encroaches from the distilled ink
shaking and shivering
in the cold translucent pools of night's unrealized desire
welded to a bleeding heart by a fallen angel's wing.
And the energy sits dying in the vat of molten oil
shaking and shivering
by the ash laden doorsteps where innocence once played
and the poor fool once rose up and stood a king.

Smother all the doubt with your crazy hope
... and mine.

So these trials have taught you nothing real?
well look again
into the blackness of your unjust and false misfortune
and see the waking of a scant and scrawny soul.
If the hollow mouths of judges turn your heart into cold steel
well look again
and see that the atoms which bind us all into the pattern
judge not between the solid flesh, and the black inclusive hole.
I'll place my bets with tomorrows beckoning
to look again
and see that the darkness has more to do with the light than light does
and that the journey forever eclipses the goal.

Become the rock upon which your wings will glide
... but only yours, not mine.

And the night turns away from the sun
as the fresh blood in its veins
unravels new beginnings
and the eye securely strains
to suck up all of that golden light
and embrace the living pains
that drip into translucent souls
on an ancient highway's lanes.

The strongest moment is the moment
in which one has the most inexplicable tolerance
for weakness.

Soggy Morning Blues

FUCK.

Sunrise splits my head in two
like a fiery guillotine.
The drunken symphony
of meaningless notes plays sharply
on the forehead of the morning.

OUCH.

Shimmering flow of freedom,
why must you torment me so?
Punch-drunk lullaby,
why in the morning must you die?
Artificial happiness bottled
and sent off into the dreamtime abyss,
fabled ephemeral bliss.

SHIT.

Heart of darkness,
spinning in crooked circles
beneath the crescent whisky moon.
Bags of blue-gray
liquor-lust,
sit like tramp stamps
beneath my tired eyes,
last night's sins boldly imprinted
on the pillowed skull of today.

UGHH.

The hot steel vice grip
of the morning
spits shards of liquid glass
into my temples.
Beer-soaked memories
drift detached in the fog
of alternate realities.

FUCK!

Will someone please
get this fucking elephant
OFF MY HEAD?

Ancient Algorithms for a Lost Friend

The most pertinent truth,
poignantly stated each day,
is that the nature of this life
is ephemeral, and all too
quickly fades away.
The clotted cobwebs of memory
are swept aside by the unrelenting
broom of time.

I can almost see your face,
as I once saw it;
brimming with life and screaming
it's strength into the heart
of the night.
I can almost hear your voice,
as I once heard it;
loud like an eagle's call,
fearless and true.
I can almost shake your hand,
as I once did...
almost, but not even close.

The doors that connect us are forever
closing, all that we share and all that
we hold, is only a dissolving dream.
Though evanescent, the dream is vital,
and the seed from which the tree of life
has grown is utterly dependent on the
love which acts as the water feeding its
limbs; black teardrops falling from the sky.

The hourglass sand
has smeared your face,
the falling crystals that
once gave you life
now strive to erase
the memory that remains.
However, the quiet power
of human compassion
fights for you. WE will
never forget. NEVER forget.
One by one we will join
you.
Dear friend.
The ancient algorithms
of lost companions
speak the simple truth
that those who care shall
transcend the shadowed walls
of death...
and find new life within
broken dreams.

Essay by a Deadbeat

Hello, I'm a deadbeat. I'm not neat and I have stinky feet. I'm not the kind of person you'd like to meet. I'm scratching my balls right now. What? No. There's nothing you can do about that. It's a free country and I like to scratch my balls... especially while watching Friends. Is that strange? I'm a little deranged but I can't change. By the way, speaking of change, do you have any spare change? I want what Obama wants; CHANGE. But I'm too lazy to make my own change, I want you to give it to me. Because I'm an American. I'm a deadbeat. I don't care about the weather or the news, I care about the Entertainment channel. Allot of important things happen on the Entertainment channel, not a day goes by when a celebrity neglects to take a breath. I think me and Tiger Woods would be buddies. I'm a deadbeat.

Speaking of chickens, when will we ever run out of them? When is the last time somebody counted our chickens? I have a theory that it is not really all of our excess and carelessness that is polluting the world. It's all that goddamn chickenshit. I think that the fucking chickens have a plan see, to take over the world. They play stupid until people stop watching out for them, slowly polluting all of our great dreams with their merciless chickenshit, and then, when we are docile and numbed by the said shit, they pounce. Cartoons take up allot of my time. Who needs God or Freedom when you have a television? It's great, the soul mate of the microwave. It tells me what to buy for my loved ones at Christmas time... right after it shows me how some terrorist killed six hundred and sixty-six Jews. It can speak more languages than I can and it can be more sexy than a supermodel. Ah, I'm a deadbeat.

I like money. Without money I can't buy fast food. Fast food is proof that God wanted Man to be fat. Whisky is evidence that God wanted to be entertained by Man's misfortune. Money is a golden cow, and I like both beefsteak and gold. I'm a deadbeat and I buy things. Lots of things. Pretty things... and ugly things. I don't care... I just want some fucking things. And there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. That's what we call the American Dream. If I had to be a whore to survive, I probably would be. Wouldn't you? It's easy money. Who needs faith when you worship the Almighty Dollar Sign? Come on down and kneel at its shrine as you sip on the finest wine. Come on. I'm lonely down here. We're all a little lonely down here sometimes.

Speaking of lonely, the opposite of lonely is sexy time. I'm a deadbeat and I think that sex will save the human race. Peace, love, sex drugs and rock and roll baby. That's how we need to fix shit. I mean, sex sells more products than honesty does, after all. And if something sells, you know you have to hook up with it. Maybe if I had more sex I wouldn't be so angry at that bastard that cut me off the other day as I was on my way to McDonald's. Give me sex. Now. Fast and easy, the American way.

I'm sure glad that when you mix Red, White, and Blue together you don't get brown. Then we'd really be in the toilet. I'm a deadbeat but at least I'm proud about it. If somebody fucks with me I will beat them over the head with a large stick and call it even. Carry a big stick, as old Theodore said. If you carry a big stick then you can whack the shit out of communists with it. That's the American Dream in action buddy. Like I said, I'm an American. I'm a deadbeat. Beneath all of my materialistic shallowness, there is something pure and right about who I am. There is some golden principle buried beneath all of my chickenshit. Caught inside the buzzing confines of my TV screen, there is a rare innovation that the world has seldom seen, a driving force which, for the moment, has mesmerized all the world. As I sit in my EZ-Chair and gobble down hot-fries, I am subconsciously taking part in the Great Test of the human character- by far the largest and most diverse civilization ever to attempt Democracy. Somebody smart once said that "a democracy is only as great as the integrity of its people." Well here I am. I'm sitting on a ripe peach in the Promise Land, sucking the tit of the world so hard and so vigorously that soon it will be dried and withered and I don't care. After all, I'm a deadbeat. I don't deny it.

The Eye of the Dragon

Fear.

That tingling sensation;
the breath of death
gliding up your spine.

The unknown
darkness beyond our
well-lit walls,
our false security.

The greatest of all
Dragons,
breeding hate at an
alarming rate,
spinning the fantastic lies
which seal our fate.
Emerald fire, bleeding
ebony teardrops
onto crimson eyelashes,
blossoming grotesquely
from a withered,
ancient seed.

The seed is Fear;
father of our troubles,
bubbling in vats of
age-old ignorance.
It is the Daughter
of many brutal deaths,
giving birth to rage
and searing vengeance;
trapped in a cage-
a cycle of misunderstanding,
demanding and reprimanding.
Until the Dragon is slain,
we shall find no peace.

Here,
in the Eye of the Beast,
at the heart of its Feast,
we can see the reflection
of many lost souls.

Children crying,
frying,
dying.
Rampage and Rape
Priests on Fire
Mutilation,
Devastation,
Utter disintegration,
Total Annihilation,
all hanging from
the petals of a
Blood Red Flower,
streaked with dried
and crusted tears.

The flower has grown
from the ebony seed
that rests in the pupil
of the Dragon's Eye.
If we destroy the seed,
we shall be freed,
and lose all need for
hate and greed.

Unlearn the terror,
useless and vile.

Climb the ladder.
Vanquish the horror.
Smother the seed.
Slay the Great Dragon;

Live without Fear;
Live Free.

Six Street Lights

Writhing bodies,
tightly pressed
beneath the moonlight,
damp with sweat
and liquor.

All curves and lips
and swaying hips,
saturated in neon light
longing for something
...out there in the night.

Rough wood floors,
beer soaked
and vibrating with madness,
swirling skirts
take the world away.

Breath in the drunk,
mingling with body heat
feel the beat,
intertwine with the rhythm
to become nothing.

Drifting on through
the wild whirlpool
of lustful beating hearts,
all exchanging eyeballs
before the next song starts.

As the tempo builds
and the glass is filled,
and the moonlight
caresses bare skin,
caution slowly burns to ash.

Fire starters everywhere
all drinking feverishly
from the fountain of Numb,
yearning for another dance,
another touch, another
chance.

Oozing from one bar
to the next,
men and women alike
become beasts
within the frenzy of life.

Inhale the rich aroma
of togetherness,
eaten by the liquor coma
alive and content
to be atop this wave.

Then, when the bright
light shines down
and the last song stops
boys and girls all disperse
...fodder for the cops.

Restoration

Today is full of hollow pill capsules.
Feet are tapping ruthless rhythms
on the sidewalk paradise
behind the cool blue convenience store
that sits on every corner
of every street
in the city of drunken souls.
Pay the tolls and fill the holes with fantasy.
Broken glass bottles paint shiny pictures
on the still face of the concrete monument,
making a mosaic out of yesterday's dreams.
It matters not whether the glass is half full
or half empty
when in the end the liquid is always consumed.
The flickering fumes of long-extinguished candles
shroud empty rooms
with the lingering smell of evanescence,
of life being sucked slowly into oblivion.
To rely on the lie which is security
is to sacrifice purity for passion.
But there is nothing wrong with that.
There is nothing, after all,
save that moment when dreams and reality meet
and the glare of the sun is no longer harsh
but instead comforting.
Warming.
To warm the heart which beats inside
so briefly
is to relieve the artist of the burden
that tends to melt the masterpiece to ash.
Walking, talking vices are singing siren songs
into the dark caverns of empty ears,
longing to trade tears for glory.
The abandoned highways stretch like lifeless spiderwebs
across the bleeding sky,
trying to connect two very separate states of being,
the jester and the King never seem
to truly understand one another.
Oh how I wish
I could snap my fingers
and instantly ease the aching hearts of this world.
Save the dreaming for the dreamers.
The muse has no time for drug-induced lullabies,
instead it cries
to the sullen skies
for another lunar double-edged eclipse,
where shine the blades of light and dark
meeting in the heavens with a final spark-
the tumultuous sound of myriad screaming voices
all channeled through waves of magnetic impulse,
rising and rising
reaching the highest point, on fire with blazing fear.
Melting, molding, blending, mending,
becoming One for a transitory instant of chaotic bliss
......
...
.
And then there it is.
Long lost silence prevails.
All the cities return to ash.
Quiet figures, suddenly humbled
stand naked in the embers
holding hands.
For the first time in ages,
holding hands.
"As it once was, so shall it be."

Ashes and Dust

Here on the broken wasteland between understanding and utter insanity, a hollow silence prevails. The eyes, while open, see only a pale illusion of what is real. The ears, forever listening, hear nothing save a whispered lie. Shrouded within the misty veil of misperception, the Crafter of the Castle sits quiet amongst the rocky waves of time. Great cities and golden dreams loom transparent in the haze, broken and abandoned, to leave little more than a mere echo within the empty hall of ages. The embers of passion burn bright and hot yet only last for a fleeting moment. The ashes and dust strewn carelessly across the pages of history are all that remain when the fires die. Permanence is little more than a fabled fantasy here. Lucid dreams blanket the warm bed of contemplation, and the azure sky above is ablaze with whispers of a time past and gone. What is this place? Some bizarre hallucination imprinted upon the back of my tired eyes. A temporary vision, clear and beautiful, destined to fade into the vast abyss of nothing from which it came. Lovely sand castles awaiting the rising tide.

Here amongst the endless mountains of ashes and dust, one can almost glimpse a glimmer of truth behind the fog. Soft and welcoming like a mother’s loving smile, it glows faintly in the corner of my wandering eye. Attempt to grasp it and it will disappear into the velvet canvas of the constellations, a marvelous wrinkle on the dark side of the moon. Only when the senses are gone can one see the white light that crackles beneath the surface of existence, a higher realm of consciousness that looks for no one but instead waits to be found.

Here atop the island of understanding, the stagnant ocean of ashes and dust stretches as far as the eye can see, attempting the snuff out the brilliance of realization and choke the life from this Great Energy. After all, if ashes and dust is all that you see, then that is what you will surely become. As so many great dreams before us; ashes and dust. However, the timeless power of our thoughts will prevail. Carried on through the relentless tempest of time, passed down from generation to generation, they will prevail. Though the silver-studded halls of kings eventually crumble, the reality of our notions is ever present, reflecting across the placid pond of perception. Our forefathers failed in their quest; the sandy towers of their castles are now little more than ashes and dust. And yet they somehow live on in the perpetuation of their ideas. The ancient canyons of creation still ring with a tone affected by those who are now gone from this Earth. Their feelings live on in ours, for ours were molded by theirs. This is our power; to lend our contemplation to the cosmos. To free our thoughts from their skull-shaped cage and allow them to swim throughout the rippling currents of life... for as long as they must.