Dreamwake

In memory of Doug Uselton; you are dearly missed and your life celebrated. RIP

Just the other day, I had seen you jubilant and proud

Just the other day, I heard your voice bellowing and loud

Just the other day, I didn’t think twice about what was to come

Just the other day, I thought to the sounds of the raining drum

I thought it was just yet another day bestowed

An eerie feeling of worry washes over me

A knowing feeling fills me and those around

But we shrug it off

And we tell ourselves otherwise

It is just another day

And another day is to come

But we are called in

Confused, we follow

Step by step towards our seats

Unaware of what was to come

Taking our seats still like any day

We quiet down and face towards the front

Then is when reality hits

We are told, we could no longer be in the shadows

Ignorance swiped to make way

For knowledge and acknowledgement

Silent gasps, teary stares, breathless sobs

Embraces around long and tight

Wishing to hug away the pain and injustice

It wasn’t meant to be this way

Crying and shaking, words barely audible

In person and in spirit

We comfort and need comfort

Awaking the next day hoping it was all a dream

But reality stays a truth

And in our dreamwake we need to realize

That each day is not just another day

Cherish your moments

Cherish your friends

Cherish your family

Cherish strangers

Because everything around you is beautiful

And you should not wait until it is too late to realize

And life goes on, but memory lasts longer

Legacy holds and love holds further

Do not despair and feel disheartened

Do not deny and feel distraught

Reasons though unseen or seemingly unjustifiable

Exist amongst us, despite existing unanswerably

Celebrate life that was and is

Forever and to eternity

Rusty Oil Rags

Wrestling and restless

Tossing and tumbling

Hands slip and loss of grip

Body come crumbling down

Head crashes flat and loud

Rendezvous with table corners

Jagged point stabbing pound

Instant assault and rebound

Rusty aromas paint the room

Metallic and gory

Splash and slash the skin

Scrape the skull

Shredding soft spots

Opening the floodgates

Bloody droplets mat the hairs

Follicles clinging tight and bound

Together in messes drying solid

Rags pressed on head

One new after yet another

Band-aids sticky and watered down

Would do naught but stick to the hair

And bring more tears and pain

A painful hurt that cannot be patched

So simply as an open first aid kit

Soaking up the liquid rust

Eating supernatural fluid rushes

These rusty oil rags tainted

These rusty oil rags dizzying

These rusty oil rags tear-inducing

These rusty oil rags tossed aside

These rusty oil rags hidden

These rusty oil rags secret

We cannot let it be found

We cannot let them know

We cannot let death win

We cannot let anger hunt

We cannot let fury attack

Instead these rusty oil rags must burn

Instead we light the evidence

Instead we inflame in turn

Instead we’re infernos in this instance

Instead these rusty oil rags will churn

Ink Bleeds

As my heart wrenches in pain

I write it all out, paper and ink

There is nothing left to do but gain

At a point where I just can’t sink

No more, no more

Tears dried up and gone

Long gone, a long time before

Waiting for a new dawn

Across the snowy white sheet

Single strokes hatch their way across

Flowing streams across paved streets

Into the frail, thin body, I emboss

All along the once clean slate

Ink cries and weeps from wells we once knew

Dancing out the figures our words cannot state

Ink bleeds, coloring everything we’ve been through

I write until I can write no longer

I draw until the ink bleeds dry

Empty, at a gravely end and danger

Tired and resigned, can no longer pry

Listen to the ink’s bloody tears

Dripping and soaked

Watch as it paints splattered smears

Burning and eyes cloaked

Allowing the music box too unwind

Twisting and turning again and again

Playing out emotions deaf and blind

Gushing the gore, of the ink, of the pen

Moonlit Stroll

Evening has fallen

And we’re just talkin’

On our moonlit stroll

Our hearts on patrol

Stopping to stare above

Surrounded in our love

Watching the white silver moon

Wondering what is to come soon

We’re at a perfect place to start

But we have to part

We’re under the endless sky

But it’s time to say goodbye

Stars laughing and bright

Such a wondrous sight

Almost as lovely as her eyes

When she looks up at the skies

Night whispering and sweet

Such a calming treat

Almost as lovely as his smile

Making each day worth while

We’re at a perfect place to start

But we have to part

We’re under the endless sky

But it’s time to say goodbye

Walking this moonlit path

From decades of aftermath

But each second new and novel

She still seems just like a model

Walking this moonlit path

From decades of aftermath

But each second novel and new

He still wins my heart right on cue

We’re at a perfect place to start

But we really have to part

We’re under the endless sky

But now it’s time to say goodbye

We’re under the endless sky

But now it’s time to say goodbye

We’re under the endless sky

But now it’s time; it’s time to say goodbye

Stale Stepping Stones

The walkway crumbles in cracks

The driveway plastered time again

The stream sings a song of sorrow

The river roars at the loss

The tiptoe stepping across each

Brings a note of music

Recalls a walk with euphoria

Before spiraling into nebulous

Nots and knots

Staying clueless and ignorant

Staying that happy child

Skipping across the waters

Dancing across the front yard

Tripping and laughing

Smile upon smile on the floor

Giggling up fits over nonsense

Oh how ideal that distant memory sounds

But reality you must make it seem

Kept and never lost between the ropes and stones

Stumbling and tripping upon rocky decay

The staleness gathering moss and mold

Musty messes caress the innocence

Of the stepping stones

Walking upon a crack

Fearing you’ll break your mother’s back

Watching the cement and gravel

Deface your neighborhood street

Listen to the songs and gurgling of waters

Happily flowing before the destructive maelstrom

Stomach knotted from all the nots and cannots

Placed and piled before us as we age and mature

Past the simple bedtime and vegetables

Tapping upon the hourglass, turning the tables

Ignorant bliss up in scorching flames

And drowned in hailing torment

Before noticing the older beauty still existent

Beneath the crusty face of stale stepping stones

By taking out some patience, time, and a moment

Building up each day, holding us up, our life’s bones

Staring at Corners

Knowing life’s wandered far

Knowing death has come to where you are

Learning the things potpourri

The living weren’t to ever see

Learning of before the birds and the bees

Learning of after catastrophes

Staring blankly at that single spot

Certain that certain things just can’t be bought

In that silence and solitude

A smile breaks the mood

A single smirk

On your face, it shall lurk

Timid and strong

You fit yet don’t belong

Captive yet free

Blind and yet you can see

A mass of contradictions

As you lie there without restrictions

What had always held you down

Seems insignificant this time around

Staring at corners

Wary of mourners

Because death shouldn’t be feared

As you know once your mind was cleared

The pulling at your heart

The worries from the start

The questions in your mind

The problems you left behind

The ticking of the clock

The future you must walk

The walls and ceiling meet

The embrace become your corner sweet

Backed up against it

You are split

Banished to it

You are unfit

But from where you lie

Staring at it by and by

You are stronger than you’ve ever been

Feeling no regret nor chagrin

At the time which you should be the weakest

You finally understand the deepest

Staring at corners still

You have regained your will

As death encroaches

A new life approaches

A light for your darkest hours

No need for tears and bundles of flowers

Because in this moment

You know your life was potent

And you smile and close your eyes

And you and those corners say your goodbyes

Violet Hour

My thoughts so colored and vivid

Everything out and exploded

My reality highlighted

Knowing things unsaid

Acting this way, no reason why

Saying so is such a lie

Shaking those thoughts away

No time for this play by play

Feeling oh so surreal

How do we deal with this ordeal?

Falling back to fantasy dreams

Away from the extremes

Into the violet hour

No need for any superpower

Because here I’m complete

Nothing can compete

Floating up in bliss

Each moment one to miss

Up at cloud nine

Watching for the sign

Each passing day

A proud display

Held in the heart

Every part from the start

Staring at the ceiling

Just reminiscing

Some may say

To forget that day

But hold on to it

In the dark, it is lit

Bittersweet memories

Thinking of what would be

But won’t stand the pain

We’re in a new lane

Life will go on

As the past’s spawn

Into the violet hour

No need for any superpower

Because here I’m complete

Nothing can compete

A new day has come

To that I’ll succumb

Another time has arisen

Won’t stay in this prison

Breaking from this place

But leaving my trace

Before escaping free

Into lairs of fantasy

Into the violet hour

No need for any superpower

Because here I’m complete

Nothing can compete

Into the land of dreams

Following the stream

No longer struggling

Against every little thing

Unlocking the jail cell

That kept my heart well

Locked away by fear

Scared of pain and tears

Knowing that it comes

Like the beating of a drum

Sweet and sour alike

The soft and the spikes

Taking it as it comes

Adding up the sums

Feeling new and alive

A rejuvenated drive

Into the violet hour

No need for any superpower

Because here I’m complete

Nothing can compete

Standing so royal

Proud and regal

Turning it around

At last, feeling sound

Elegant and graceful

No longer so dull

Life in perspective

So much more prospective

Into the violet hour

No need for any superpower

Because here I’m complete

Nothing can compete

Expression

I am a lugophile, a lover of words

The words that accompany my darkest hours

The sayings that voice my bliss

The angels that hark the tacenda,

Things not mentioned

This epeolatry, this worship of words,

Lays completely founded

They exist and are to express

My thoughts, my opinions, my emotions, my experiences

Their feel, a baisemain, a kiss on the hand

Their sound, a psithurism, a whispering sound

Their scent, a petrichor, a smell of rain on dry ground

I am a lugophile, a lover of words

They satiate my wanderlust,

My strong, irresistible impulse to travel

They bring me to new heights

And create new sanctions

I travel this world and all others

And in my times of lethologica,

My inability to recall a precise word,

I can turn to my art, the art which I love

My drawings and paintings,

My lines, curves, and dotted dashes

My colors and that there of or lack of

My spectrum, my rainbow, my photograph

To capture those thoughts, opinions, emotions, and experiences

Which words cannot explain

That only vision can express

That brings pictures to life

That explores everywhere and elsewhere

Alongside the words, the words which I love

As Seasons Change

Oranges, browns, blues, greens

The spectrum of the year

And the pantomime of its seasons

The sounds of ocean breeze

Mix with the sweet showers of rain

The clash of thunder

Booming with the gongs and drums

The whistle of birds

Entangled with the sounds

Of wind chimes and glass bottles

The melodies of the wind and world file in

Filling the soul with passion and freedom

Cleansing past pain to dull

And rejuvenating life in inspiring ways

Stronger with each turn of the cycle

And each month past

Following and leading through the seasons

Heart’s song weaves through

Sweet smells with each note

Memories created and unfolded

Silent understanding in each

Tight embrace,

Light touch,

Quiet glance,

Loud laugh,

And fond seconds past

Watching and loving

What many either cannot or will not

Wafting in the beauty of the seasons

Wishing naught despite what

Wandered through the past

Wallowing in regret won’t make amends

Work forward and find yourself again

The rain showers pounding sweetly

Upon water, pavement, and brick

Singing stormy stories

As thunderclouds hover

Dispensing thunder’s tremors and tales

Lighting lashes the length of the sky

Bolting brightly, breaking by the grey

As people hide under their covers

I sing with the song and run outside

Arms thrown wide, head thrown back

Laughing as I spin

Loving as I live

Circles upon circles

Twirling and dancing

Insane and perfect in every way

Ripples trail along the surface

Cold air nips at my nose and fingertips

Water droplets all around

Atmosphere clean and anew

Wind whips my hair

Behind my head then

Across my face

Hands move to push it back

To little avail

Let it be and let all be

Listen instead and focus instead

On the secrets of the breeze

Listen to the sounds of the seasons

Shifting each second

Taste the colors as they melt to one

Creating new days overlapping old

Feel the difference of the atmosphere

Morphing to something better

Observe the storms and winds ahead

Challenging your every step

And listen to that song of your soul

Moving to the changes of the seasons