Heal

At this bitter cold crossroads,
A body lies naked, broken, bleeding.
A hole embedded in his chest,
once covered with self constructed scars,
now ripped open, helplessly exposed.

The blood rushing out, each faint heart beat,
one step closer to the last.
What was once reality, seems like some twisted dream.
The air that once gave life, has turned toxic,
choking the very life out of what was meant to be.

Such a tragic accident, such a horrible mistake.
Going left, going right, going wrong.
5 minutes early, 5 minutes too late.
The innocent lives, once lived,
now thrown face down, breathless in the street.

The bones, so badly broken.
The damage, so devastatingly deep.
The life that was once lived, now lost.
The body that was once whole, now disfigured, disconnected.
The wounds that may never heal..

Embrace

Before you read this, I wanted to give a brief introduction on where this particular poem was born.

It's a rare occasion that I reveal where things are born inside of me and why I write what I do. I believe deeply that whatever I write should stand on its own and to take on a life of it's own to the reader without my personal interference. That being said though, I felt compelled for this one piece to share a few of my thoughts.

Most people in this world share a common thread. The desire to love someone and the longing to be loved. If you ever find that love then you will do almost anything to keep it a part of your life. Eventually it slowly consumes your life and no matter what you have to sacrifice, it will always be worth it to keep what you have been truly blessed to find.

This is sincerely dedicated to my wife Cindy, my son Sam and my daughter Marlee. Without them, I barely exist at all.

Embrace

The day falls heavy again
A trek through the monotonous
A trudge through the mundane
The sky has been gray for such a long time

Rushing to arrive nowhere
To produce empty, senseless fodder
To once again give life away
Rushing for no reason at all

Why turn time into a commodity
Being sold at a paupers rate
Being spent so rapidly
Why eagerly pour out what is so dear

For the simplicity and complexity that co-exists in life's mathmatics
Two broken hearts becoming as one whole
Two soulful eyes becoming an adoring six
For the complexity to understand existence and the simplicity of not being alone

A life just spent is not a life at all
Given carelessly to the wind to land where it may
Given is a choice, so I choose it wisely
A life well spent is the only life to live at all

I embrace today to carefully give myself away
So I might obtain something that transcends my own being
So I truly come to know what it is to be loved
I embrace today not only just to love, but to be loved by you.

Hermit

He lived his life in quiet obscurity
only emerging briefly
for the ones closest to his heart

His cave was his sanctuary
A place of peace and solace
shelter from the acid rain

He pondered fantastic thoughts
of venturing away
from this cold, dark place he called home

Out into the endless expanse
the universe of the unknown
that lay just outside his doorstep

One small day he left his little sanctuary
to see with his own eyes
what he had imagined for so long

Oh naive little hermit
your innocence will be your undoing
your kindness will become your demise

He was taken by utter surprise
by the wolves that were hidden and lurking
waiting to feed their own disease

Battered and broken
the hermit narrowly escapes
with only his tattered life now to show

He swiftly retreats back
back into his solace, his sanctuary
hoping the wounds will somehow heal.

Oh naive little hermit
Your innocence has been undone
Your kindness, viciously murdered

Go back to your cave
and hide in your quiet obscurity
let father time bring you back to health

For if you ever recover
and dream of exploring the universe again
the world will be waiting at your doorstep

and the wolves will be hiding quietly behind your door

Ever

Heaven, a place of peace or only of dreams
Ever wondering, ever seeking, ever searching
Lost in this abstruse state of reality

Praying for rest, pleading for release
My concrete heart, heavy and fractured
Escaping through the cracks, the life that once filled it

Inside, a deep chasm of emotion
Moving downward, broken spirals
Absolutes and axioms once solid, become shaky at best

Lamentations pour out of my soul
Over and Over, from knees buried in the dirt
Needing answers, longing for salvation

Ever wondering, ever seeking, ever searching

Host

Tick tock, tick tock
it's not much longer now
a body once full of life
drained of it's own essence

How mortally tragic
this broken life falling
slipping through our fingers
the sands of time tossed asunder

We build our kingdom of caskets
never knowing which nail will be our last
carefully constructing a tower to nothing
all the while recklessly and unconsciously
digging our own grave

Our attachments become our assailants
our connections become our coffins
our body, merely a host
our love becomes our demise

Crumbling Memorials

We are but crumbling memorials,

fragile and loosely connected,
to the generations past and to come.


Our ideals, hopes, ambitions and achievements,
once holding immense value...even purpose,
swiftly rise and all soon to feverishly fall.


What will be of matter from today,
A thousand light years further from now?
...or just the mere 10 seconds ahead?


We incessantly chase a fools phantom,
A predetermined vision of de jure,
instead of embracing the self de facto.


Futilely searching for a map that doesn't exist,
to the roads we carelessly wander and stumble on,
Broken roads without beginnings or endings.


A lifetime of knowledge would be gladly traded,
to truly know what lies one second beyond the grave,
the eternal terra incognita.

The Undertow

Waves overtaking
As the tides slowly rise
Labored, shallow breathing
The undertows cold, dark grip

Becoming overwhelmed
Fading, faltering strength
Submersion, suffocation
The undertows cold, dark grip

No air, last breaths
Song for the reaper
Vision darkens
The undertows cold, dark grip

Dissipating into the darkness
The monsters of the deep
God please save me
From the undertows cold, dark grip

5

The cracks starting to show,
A strength once present,
Starting to fade,
Slowly dims,
Destruction.

The cracks starting to show,
From damage in time,
Of lost innocence,
Broken hearts,
Erosion.

The cracks starting to show,
Darkened walls close in,
Hard to breath,
To suffocate,
Ashpixiate.

The cracks starting to show,
Spinning out of control,
Brace for impact,
Ground zero,
Tragedy.

The cracks starting to show,
From the inside out,
An empty shell,
Nothing left,
Hollow.

This Final Moment

The sun is starting to set,
Years of fighting the wolves has taken its toll,
The lion’s strength, now faltering,
As the wounds from the past,
Become too great to overcome.

The sun becomes divided,
As the lion slowly falls to his side,
His breathing has become labored,
A heart beat faint, now fluttering,
The hour of redemption draws near.

The sun reveals its final crest,
The wounded lion becomes still,
His souls rest waits in the wings,
The moment is at hand,
To finally meet his father, his savior and his king.

The sun is now gone,
The air now heavy, deep, cool,
The lion closes his eyes in sleep,
Total silence grips the atmosphere,
The last battle has finally been waged.

Out of the eternal abyss,
The arms of the great father reach down,
Lifting the lion into his warm, saving embrace,
The mighty king has destroyed the wolves,
That had fatally wounded his son.

The arms of the father,
Now retreat into the midnight sky.

It is in this final moment we find strength,
It is in this final moment we find comfort,
It is in this final moment we find healing,

And in this final moment we find a way to carry on.

For in this final of all moments,
We do not hear the whispering breaths of a dying warrior,
Only the sound of a roaring, raging lion,
Fully redeemed, fully restored, fully reborn, Disappearing into the night.

The Unruly King

The pattern is the same, predictable.
The path is mercilessly worn, familiar.
The assent is measured, deliberate.
The destination is predetermined, safe.

For a second I pause, contemplating the unknown.
A quiet moment of wondering, wondering what lies ahead.
To deviate from the matrix, to embrace the beckoning abyss.
To become the lion instead of the lemming,
an unruly king instead of the drone.

I savor the moment, if but a fleeting one.
For reality awaits me just beyond the next bend.
The voices of the innocents softly but constantly compel my direction.
My will concedes, the drone falls back into line.


To be the unruly king, although intoxicating, becomes unimaginable.


...I did savor the moment though.


...If but a fleeting one.

The Black Phoenix

A dove among the flames.
Not aware of the danger,
Laying quiet in the blackness below.

A leap out of the nest,
Delivered into the darkness.
Ambushed from every side,
No life line back.

Pure, white, innocent, fragile.
Consumed by the flames.
Destroyed by the danger,
Laying quiet in the blackness below.

No return to the nest,
Deliverance in the darkness.
The scars reveal,
The only way back.

Reborn black, hardened, strong.
Emerging from the flames.
Destroys the danger.
Resurrected from the blackness below.

He spreads his wings,
Bursting out of the darkness.
The Black Phoenix rises,
From the bitter ashes below.

The Pain

It's what makes us appreciate what we have.
It makes us be patient for the things we don't.
It gives us the ability to have grace when we've been failed.
It affords us the strength to carry on when we fail.
It allows us to cope with today.
It shows us that there is hope in tomorrow.
It's a reminder that we're human.
It's a reminder that we're still alive.
The pain we feel deep inside our hearts...

Destroyed by the pavement

I just watched a dear friend of mine commit suicide today.
I just stood there, helpless in the moment.
He looked at me, stepped off the building and accepted his fate.
As I watched his body be destroyed by the pavement,
I remembered the last words he spoke to me.
He said that he had just made too many mistakes to be forgiven.
He said everything he had built his life on had been turned into sand.
Sand that was being quickly eroded away.
He felt gross emptiness from his own disturbing faults.
He felt completely rejected by the family he chose to let go.
He felt bitterly betrayed by the friends he had locked out of his life.
He felt eternally abandoned because the God he thought he knew didn't exist in the way he was originally taught.
He simply felt like everything he held so dear had somehow been robbed from him in a moment's time.
I just stood there, helpless to stop him.
Even in the sight of overwhelming evidence proving that his life was not how he perceived it, I just stood there and watched him become consumed by the monstrosity of his own sadness and depression.
I just stood there, looking at him, destroyed by the pavement…hoping that this friend had met his demise for good.

The Cutter

So innocently we met,
a happen chance, coincidence.
On a Sunday like any other
our paths briefly met.
I sat down, family by my side
ordered, patiently waiting.
You, polite, kind
but strangely, distantly sad.
You arrive at my table,
cautious arms taking much care.
In a split moment exposing scars,
no one your age should ever bear.
Was it your family?
Broken, battered, dysfunctional.
Was it your boyfriend?
Lying, cheating, abusive.
Maybe just life?
Beating you down every time you finally decide to put the razors down.
We sit there, empty dinner plates aging.
You, so timidly, quietly waiting on the other hungry few in the room.
Should I say something?
...do something?
...give something?
We try to be overly nice
even leaving more than a fair tip for the effort.
...but we do nothing.
...say nothing.
..and honestly give nothing more.
We leave, exchange pleasant smiles.
We pay and simply move on.
You still there, quietly, waiting, patiently.
How I've prayed to have that moment back.
Just to offer a caring word or a simple, heart felt prayer.
I hope you somehow found happiness,
before the blades found your arms again.
I hope you found peace,
before you punished your young skin again.
I hope somehow you found the love you so desperately deserved...
...before someone finds that you're gone

The sounds of feet

I have become uniquely aware of the sounds of my feet below me.
Tip toeing through our tiny house in the morning, over the fake wood floor, as to not wake the slumbering minds that belong to my family.
The sound of my suede sneakers whisping though the morning dew that has collected on the grass, as I make my way into the world.
I can hear heavy feet on asphalt, at times as if elephants were slowly trudging through the streets and every gravels cracking amplified.
I wonder sometimes if time has heightened my senses, made me aware that the steps are somehow slowly becoming harder, heavier, labored and long.
Pondering if the steps I take are taking me to a specific destination or if they are carrying me through just a line of endless circles.
I am uniquely aware of the sounds of my feet below me and as disturbing as it may be at times it reminds me that I'm still alive.

To all of the ones that didn’t make it...

To the ones that had to bow out because they couldn't pay the bills,
To the ones that had to hang it up because touring, the family kills,
To the ones that had to quit because the addiction became the affliction,
To the ones that left because the struggle wasn't worth continuing,
To all of you I say this,
The t-shirts fade, the bumper stickers get covered up, bands come and go.
All that lasts is the music.
You may never grace the stages of the world (or your local club). You may never see your name in lights and you may never be the star you dreamed to be. With all that, you still added color to this life. For moments, though brief, you transended all the garbage that this life can be and created something from your soul.
The music still lasts.
No matter what life threw at you to cause you to call it a day know this,
The music will always last.