January 2011 – brandon the writer | author & staff writer for sir swag

Dear Fantasy, 2010

Dear fantasy
remember me?
our hopes and dreams that died?
the charcoal floor and ink-drop skies
The child a light that never lit
but no eraser can erase it
for its place, behind a face,
across a damsel’s neck;
Lux Aeterna I’ll never forget.

She was a make believe child for us
a surrogate child, I thought it’d be,
another miserable orphan like me,
perchance a real child, with
the listless friend miss make believe
The world was but a wall between us
halfway across the world
I knew some other type of man
had found the only girl
the only girl who understood
who left me in the dark, who would
allow me to learn for myself.

The light of Lux has darkened now,
and left the once fair-flowers, how
met by chance but yet through fate
the connection of a life so intricate
a life with patterns as the seams
moods that idle as the leaves
of August at the end of spring
where sublime angels walk my dreams.
They tell me of a world where there,
Lux is a girl with golden hair,
her father’s eyes and mother’s cheeks.
The vibrant child looked right at me.
You’ll never see me in your life,
a dream too fast to catch.

The face, appeal, intellectual zeal
Perfect for a wannabe
who could not be the slightest reel
a reel of clapping birthday parties,
letters in the mail.
And one from me,
a book colored white.
And I remembered then the night,
I clipped a strand for my fair hair
and sent it out to Cali, where
it wound up in a box of dreams
a box long crushed and lost
When first I heard about the loss,
of the elegant box and strands of hair.

Into the woods behind the house,
I stole away to find the plot,
where had been buried my dear box.
I dug about the cornfields where
I found no luck in the soil, no where
until the thought arose:
The reason for the outfit
is more important than the clothes.
The hair in the box the long frayed lock
sent across the land
For why it went, from the hart it was sent,
two people saying alive you
in gestures with their hands.

The King of Nowhere, 2010

If you’re like me then you’re alone,
staring at the clock, the phone,
one wish the voice might come back on
to say, “Won’t you be with me, today?”
The call will never come.
My heart is on the windowsill
and constant still
hitchhiking like a thumb,
but no one wants to pick it up,
“Too high a cost,” they say.
With their happy smiles they fade away,
a reflection turned down dull a phase
a phase malaise a stage erase and smudge
a burnt cigarette like the day.
Another act our tragic play.

The King of No Where sleeps alone,
no queen, no crown,
an opiate sea he used to drown
the melancholy was his own
his own to fret and pine for days
like the actors in those tragic plays
No queen, no crown
no up, no down
The King of No Where lays.

He’s up, he’s down,
too few the ups around
fleeting vision dreams,
when hope is not at home.
Nobody there picks up the phone
and nobody says you are alone
it echoes back and on the rack
another sad nobody song.

Nobody hears the old king cry,
“This my tired alibi to stay,
to live, too long for light to see,
to touch,
but to embrace,
the glow of once so fair a face
like sun
like the rays of the moon when day is done
There’s redemption, not for some.
The King himself will never pardon.
There is no redemption, not for all,
king and slave messiah falls.
there’s room enough for us below
back to the earth
whose silent birth
we weren’t there to see
no eyes to look up to the sun
the dance as sol’s lone day begun
our blue marble not so far away
in time a line and then inside
one creature comes a thought,
a thought that leads to woe,
can often end as often well,
the mind it’s world rejoice;
to live and die is not our choice.
God gravity our tragedy he cannot see,
controls the silent destiny,
he hums and hums and hums alone
humans the subject of the song
the only song divine the dream
can in the silent tavern ring.
Some don’t even care to hear,
the lonely screams of nowhere’s king
his shouts dissolve and go
where the smoke goes when it blows.

The King without a Castle who
a thousand empty walkways through
on the coat tales of empathy
under a glass eye sympathy
children laugh and merry round
the king again in circles down
whirlwind leaves a shadow show
the children move in circles slow.
“Should I go and just slip through,
to that other country to,
where royal all the roaches go
Kings and clowns the same path down,
where all ends and begins,
no where to nothing once again.
Will the story end
begin again
or go,
across the stage a song, a show,
a bow before the eyes
the kisses blown the judges sighed
the curtain sewn to close.
The actor walks the empty rows
ghosts of cheers and jeers
climb into his hollow ears to speak,
bravo, bravo, t’was quite a show
and now the curtain falls;
when the director curtain calls.

Does father time in narrow lines
do a circle on the track
and screaming brings us beings back
Time may fly but does it end
and sometimes then begin again?
Wind the breath of God goes by
tears the angels when they cry
In man’s great songs
those sing along
the beauty is to know
where do our silent moments go?
A bit player on the strange, a sigh,
to talk the human alibi
the infernal why
answer one another rise
answer it another dies.

The saddest line of all is bye,
a second is infernal why.
why be?
to just the show one season see?
turn the page, the volume down,
and let us read in quiet now
about the king the crown and how
he came to wear them well.
He lay to watch the sky
as blue halos in the sun went by
round the sky the windless aisles
up and down just like a frown
under a blanket made of night
through which peers few specks of light,
the holes of light their eye peer through
the veil of darkness and for who?
another implication tossed
another generation crossed.
into songs, our hymns and chants.
Why do we love?
Why do we dance?
Just because we have the chance.

We have the chance to toss the why’s
look at beauty with our eyes
then rest,
out of being to the nest
the mind itself will manifest
the world of present, future, past
as silent figures wave bye pass
the streets of words and tones
under a streetlight, night alone
faces, places, words and things
one act of contemplation brings:
a bus stop and a girl, dark hair
the color copper, umbrella glass,
see through like a mirror cast.
just like another from the past.

Another on a lone bench waits,
for the king to come and take
their tears and pains and make,
all their tears turn to a smile
when the king of nowhere sad walks by
to beguile
with but a smile
one lonely lullaby
Letters in hand walk in a row
side by side and toe to toe
one says yes and one says no.
One says why and one says who
a poem shaped like déjà vu
Lost loves look at when those who
a lullaby languid sang or two
so some words could somehow soothe
and fall like curtains close the show
in sphere shape tendrils in the snow
the dream to be awoken from
further rolls as time is spun
and character’s act their part,
their lines were written
act by act the lines dispersed
after long have been rehearsed
the bouquet to offer who
déjà vu the record stutters
time the bird has hours fluttered
and started to repeat.

Some day the page may write itself
and the pencil might as well
of my grip tell sad a tale
in the end I wish them well.
Wish them well along with you
the king of no where no one knew
it’s been nice alone with you
if my page goes under eyes
if one alone to their surprise
sees a page return a glance
not just empathy, but chance:
to touch another on the soul,
the mind the body and the whole
what disappears the sense fled
these words of mine the heart has bled,
for you to read, for you to see,
the king of nowhere on his knees
saying help me, someone please,
before the king turns off the screen
those colored bars
whose stolen stars
turn silence into screams

Another Yesterday, 2010

A little stroll
another day’s assembly rolled
Off the line for but a time
And La, de, da it goes.
Sunshine
The quilt of day
Under which the children play
Breathe
A walk
A little talk
It cannot last they say
and our tomorrow will become
another yesterday

Sunshine, the quilt of day,
Under which the flowers lay
Breathing, a walk
Nobody’s talk
It will not last they say.
All tomorrow’s in the end
are our dead yesterdays.

Light in strands bejewel the lawn
The birds red morning’s wake up song
The crickets chirp away
Languid sky the clouds sail by
Around a carousel of why

Laughter, someone’s in the room
Flares through the night like fireflies
Amidst the pearl studded sky .
How long is the song before,
the sojourn life our last detour
The door creaks shut and
there, alone,
Into our silent catacombs
Our Sleeping Chamber just below
To go
The undiscovered country and the row
Turns nothing day is gone
Back where we beings all call home
Those silent dust filled catacombs
Into that category gone
Jump rope and etch a sketch
And songs
Barbershop quartet sing alone’s
Children’s laughter, rum-tum-tum
Daffodils and bubblegum
The flowers fall under the Sun.

Goodbye in Falsetto, 2010

qGoodbye in falsetto,
tempo, tempo:
slow melancholy allegro.
too many times the song has played
over and over they muffled fade
when that dash between the dates
the hyphen of our life relate
Love or hate
but don’t forget.
Not you, my friend, the page,
writes the word farewell and waves
like petals in a dust storm rose
the jasmine lay and jasmine grows
does not compute
Nobody knows.

Does not compute
and that’s not fair,
machine breaks down again in err:
saying error saying error
NO SIGNAL blinks amid the grey
the program loop that syncs to say:
failure window door less caves
golden hair bright eyes the maze
its treasure on it’s bed to throw
another of its kind to grow
The living story incomplete
the hands behind it obsolete
the thoughts and constructs line by line
abode their hour, all their time,
and crept below, nothing to say.
That’s how it goes like wind that blows.
Around again like merry go.
Another goes away.

Don’t let me write the word
goodbye, to play pretend:
Want to feel?
just make it real;
chamber click
and chamber spin.
don’t let me write that word again,
the final word goodbye.
don’t let the pen commit sin
chamber click and chamber spin
would you like to play again?
gun to the head
let credit go.
buried in a grave called hope.

The words like worms
crawl out and squirm
rotting apple the bouquet
living funeral flowers
for the dead although they die
All the words once spun go bye.
When that bye comes to my life
when I know that I will die
the page whose bars
blot out the stars
are the lines for me,
in a cage no sympathy
shouting at the wall goodbye.
Just relax,
it echoes back
who are you? I called,
and, who are you? I heard.
the echo of some mocking bird

The brain again that tried to cry
to have to tell the body bye,
again only to see:
The bouquet of words like empathy
That is what the Wizard said,
there would be none for me.
so no more doors wait for amours.
the bleeding brain,
it’s tear to cry:
vague the shapes will sail on bye
and now it’s crystal clear:
wave bye they languid go
past the dead who’ve often said,
this is no place for why.
and the whisper of the wind
is the dead who try to cry.
as those who loved them once walk by
is always with them, in their ear,
who walk by wither cannot hear;
don’t forget me, say the dead.
amazing grace I’ve seen the face,
as blood in dropper blooms
sometimes though
why for? don’t know
say goodbye to an empty room
and then I go.
Outside the cage and merry go
to crawl into my room below.

The scroll is written,
outside time
and by the door we wait in line
Don’t forget me said the dead,
amazing grace I’ve seen the face
and sometimes I say goodbye
to empty rooms
a bye will go
again it echoes back
Say hey, alone
a pen at home
again the pen will write along
and ask me to explain
the goodbye song
about the brain that tried to bleed
the blood is what you see and read
brains bleed mutates into a page
behind the line I sign, the slave.
the love bleeds through a pen.
Chamber spin click END.
The Memories That Die

I sat to take some time to write
I don’t know what to say
A flight of fantasy perhaps, some tale,
of angels and demons
of heaven and hell
The heroes, and villains,
the shallow who dwell
the fake birds flutter by
into the pale translucent sky,

Or write about the real world where,
brief memories we strangers share,
the lives we’ve lived,
the dreams we’ve had
the days that woeful silent pass
there’s a crack in the servant’s looking glass
The dreams of Eden, dreams of home.
It’s not too late to die alone.
no need to bring the pen along
just smile and say Goodbye-
Descend into your bed below,
and silent sleep the eons by.
her eyes forgotten
the sins erased
I look forward to my death
more than any other day.
I’ve already arranged a will
and scripted out a play.
I can’t wait to die.
I’ll finally get to meet my maker
and look deep into their eyes
And present my list of whys.

Why do we love?
Why do we pray?
Where we made to act this way?
to fight forever for our lives
If there is no chance of winning
Why should we even try?

I believe when Death sees me
my life will flash before my eyes
I’ll see my father,
and my mother
smiling at his side
my little brother’s drawing
a cake with candles red which read
Happy Birthday, Brandon
Shouts and breaking bottles
ups and down
a set of eyes, a crying clown
A ballerina with a song
all these things that I have known
gather in one second, flash
and are forever gone.

I stood in the door way, and
sobbing held my father’s hand,
I love you too, he said.
I blinked her eyes and he was dead.
I stood there shivering in the room
where shadows from narrow trees eerie loomed.
crossed the body from the blinds
and streaked the dead in narrow lines
I stood there for a moment
and begged and prayed to God,
Keep my love, lest I go too,
I cannot leave my father who,
saved me from the suicide booth.
He did not close his eyes
I held my father’s arm
until my mother stumbled in
smudged make up and mascara drunk again.

I felt the stiffness of the limb
and hummed my father’s favorite hymn:
He used to say soul shine,
Its better than sunshine,
Its better than moonshine,
Damn sure better than rain.
Hey now people don’t mind,
We all get this way sometime,
Got to let your soul shine,
shine till the break of day

The quivering epithet was set
in stone after a day
I sat in the second row
and heard the preacher pray.
The good Lord Lives,
he gives and takes;
and all of us will meet Destiny
that one appointment we can’t break.
I remember the look when his life left his eyes
his muscles eased off and he sighed.
He might have saw the soul shine,
and surely saw the moonshine,
he often saw the rain.
But he never saw the sun again.

On the elevator to the lobby
I knew what I called God forgot me.
Then I understood the fall
Our only God forgot us all.
I look at people
cats and dogs
I look at them and sigh
as beautiful as they might be
someday they had to die

Some for crimes and some by chance
some for money and romance
but they all walk the way
in a singing row
they listless go
to dim when dies the day.

A thousand tragedy’s a day,
Romeo wasn’t the only man
who had to die that way
For Juliette’s whose auburn hair
stole Romeo’s soul as would a snare
on time the hour came:
Their words of beauty
languid lines
fell to pieces and with time
withered away with the page.

My romance has been a dance
with words and tones and rhyme
I’ve lived more on the page
than I have outside the lines.
All of my skies are ink drop lies

The gravel roads when young were long
Hank William sang we sang along
then later in my life I roamed
the dirt roads in the night alone
when he was almost five years gone

I ride those dirt-roads still
and play
Mad Season, Long Gone Day
We fall with the rain and wash away
to a place where all who go
never return and never know

will they blink out like a light
a lightning bug on a summer night
or leave the confines of the mind
leave the body out of time
into a golden field to find
the faces of the deathless still alive.

I thought of my childhood when
in vain I tried to find
The holy grail, some peace of mind
some genuine happy memory
a joy filled day of mine.
When I was young, when life was fun,
but when I ended up alone,
twenty and on my own
Between the needles in the silence
a voice inside came on:
and in my ears, I heard the song
that once with my father I sang along
The song had faded with the time
and turned into the sound of Mozart
as heard by a mannequin mind.

On that obsolete 8 track
a lilting requiem came back
in the song the old man sang
a simple and elegant melancholy refrain
The tape slowed to a stop.
I looked at the hourglass
prepared another shot.

The face comes back, the day he died,
I sat in my room and cried,
and felt an empty, vacant spot
like a man whom God forgot
The day he passed brought up the past
The same old man, whose loving hands
had saved me from an orphanage
I vowed that day to prove
to my acting family
they didn’t adopt a fool.

The hollow spot
filled with a shot
fake happiness and then
nodded off and often thought
of loves who cared who often shared
their laughter and their fears
who with the leaves of time,
they change
they ran together in the rain
and passed in but a breath
and left
naught but an urn upon the shelf.

A Song for the Forgotten, 2010

On a little ride in Caroline
a dead cat lies in dead grass high
as knees
and soon too cold without
the chance to die too old.
And sad it is a story told.

Sad it is a story where
There is no pen to show.
No little bird in all the world,
could dispel death with just a word,
So fray the strands of hair.

She cannot save
or take them there,
To show them care,
Forever, where,
They run and sing and play;
With kids and cats
both night and day,
Forever’s way,
There’s nothing left to say,

And no one will ever know.
Nameless, spectral, no one goes..
No tragedy,
Like those we see,
are worse than all the words,
which be,
For glitz and fortunes rare.

The ones which are with unknown star
out of hand and long too far,
is too strong and rare.
She’ll walk alone until she’s gone
And no one will even care.

No one will look—
Or read or that book,
No one alive but me.
And that would take
My heart and break it,
like a piece of stone.

The tragedies,
the kind which be,
are different and played on;
the screens, the stage,
from quill to page,
Where go:
The role they know,
The dice to show,
Their fate before our stare.

Tragedies,
the ones not seen,
Where no one seems to care.
Those true to life,
outside the page,
where no one stands
no actors played,
those are the worse there are,
worse than those in fancy clothes,
And far off places, where—
In the sky some sing, some cry;
Some bend with ages, tear.

Tragedies when make-believe,
have a bright shining star.
Tragedies, the ones unseen,
By no one, all they go.
Without a star to go too far,
No one will get to know—
The nameless ones
Who sing, who sung,
And crept back down below.

No one alive will get to know,
the nameless ones who stole the show.
And brought down all the house.
Sometimes will glow a picture show,
With Golden lights and Romeo.
Juliette in the window all day;
she waits and waits,
and combs her hair,
Looks in the distance
with a stare
and pines the day away.

The sun goes down without a sound,
the curtain closed the page.
The sun goes down,
the moon runs ‘round,
and so has died the day.
The light inside the lover’s eyes,
who kissed the lips of Suicide,
Will wait until too late to die.
Sadder still are those who will,
Sing along the tragic song—
Of those once lived now gone.

The car arrived with death inside,
The Maiden left her ring;
to cross and ride the great divide,
and in the unknown sing.
Where kids long gone,
who died along
the road with cats will play:
deathless in the sun all day.
Nobody walks and no one talks.
There’s nothing left to say.

The dead there now just look, just nod,
and watch the children play;
They bide their time, pull in the line,
The dream will fade by day.
The song plays on, in silence on,
The Channel just to say:
Goodbye, goodbye.
No reason why,
the song will end someday.

Desolation Dr., 2010

A short detour one might suggest,
the poor and sorrowful know best.
It’s always raining there,
and grey,
endless lifeless pale grey days.
There is no sun to shine upon
the body shape that’s penciled on
the sidewalk where one fell.
Where endless are the pointless days,
live all time’s slave in great malaise,
with a blank stare on their face,
and waiting for the sun.
One minus one,
and then they’re done.
the figures fall like figs and plums,
on Desolation Drive.

All of those alone in pain,
call it that unfriendly name,
the Desolation Drive.
There long gone drones blow out their minds
queens live alone in broken hives.
Abandoned houses, empty lots,
cracking sidewalks, needles shot,
a place the word spelled hope forgot.

Yawning houses, knob-less doors,
empty crawling corridors,
hallways lead to dark rooms more,
unmade beds and tattered sheets,
crumpled paper roaches eat.
Empty plates and vials around.
An empty fridge, nothing inside,
turned yellow like the Queen Bee’s hive
where she mourns alone.
on a black board through a cello,
handprints in the dust.
Crayon paintings, postcards,
yesterdays now needed gone away.
Forgotten in the cigarette haze.

Silent empty corridors
identical catacomb rooms
Dirty towels on the floor
used jeans fraying used no more
a dropper in one pocket
love letter in the other
a burnt bottom rusted spoon
they fit so well together.

Clotted blood in droppers turn,
spread rose shapes in the grey.
No time and nothing left to do
like all the other days.

Hope is down.
The chips are low.
Looking for an exit-
and there is nowhere to go.
No signal.
No way to call.
“No refills,” says it all.
Empty bottles, no medicine now–
the Letter is unread;
in empty clothes where once was froze
another of the dead.
Spent and yellow cigarette butts
human stumps fall in the tray.
Broken clocks and broken robots,
the ones who love and break a lot,
they sing those sad old lines:
“Wrong place, wrong time,”
their lonely little nursery rhyme.
There is no fix for them.

There is no fix for those who lie
alone and look up at the sky
numb and dumb the day is done
and for them there is no why-
just how:
to get the fix that they need now
their only little fix to be
A normal person, to love, to hold,
like they do on other roads,
by desolation drive.
Where happy people live and smile
their dreams fulfilled the Miracle Mile.

Another day, the same old song,
chocolate wrappers on the lawn,
burnt up spoons and bodies gone.
Coffee cups long drained have cast
a stagnant halo on the glass.
Another day to waste away
puppets for the monkey play
Their tragedies and pass.

when Hope is gone.
The Chips are thrown,
across dirty tables slow.
They load the gun,
the barrel, spun,
gunshot silhouette shadow show.
No song, no mass,
no life, no past,
one lullaby they go.

Two Tragedies, 2009

There was a tale about a Queen–
Whose real name was Kathryn.
She was a broken flower,
Unable to be picked, or helped,
And by her dead king lay;
And one day, walking,
Came a talking,
Peasant and he said:
“I could take your pain away.”
Queen Kathryn turned her head.
By her King’s old grave,
chained like a slave,
she wished to wake the dead,
though restless silent as she lay.
she saw him in her head.
the king, once spurned,
his body burned,
Now dust and ashes out his mouth.

There was a tale about a King–
a Noble man for sure;
A bit eccentric, strange indeed,
Though held a strange allure:
He drank some wine,
Smoked Chinese pipes,
And chased the dragon’s tail.
He lost his mind,
and lost his chips,
and the King was thrown in jail,
pale bars of the mind and looking out,
for a broken flower by his cage to sprout.
The poor King was locked behind,
The bars he called himself–
his body detached,
a ventriloquist act.
And as he suffered,
locked inside,
He ran from dragons in his mind.

The Ghost of Yesterday, 2009

When last had fallen all the embers,
of that December, I remember,
walking through the long dead leaves,
and through the woods in random turns,
through the thickets and the ferns,
o’er hung a madman moon who
howled back at the madmen, who
stumbled through the woods to find,
a golden locket lost in time
under a high oak leave strewn spot,
blanket of leaves a perfect lot
the time was off and gears to wind,
the locket empty, and both the sides,
no man or woman, no happy child,
just a reflection, a collection,
of mine eyes staring wide.

No pictures of the lover’s there,
as though no one had thought to care,
to place a portrait in the folds
and seal it in the golden mold
to preserve a face to grace,
the fate of lovers once embraced
instead to find an empty place.
No face, no smiles, just empty, while
in my eye a firefly
listless lilting fluttered by
and when I turned my head to see,
I saw instead a memory;
a man alone lost, who would,
whittle at a piece of wood,
of cherubs, angels, and a cross,
a sheep amongst the rest who’s lost.

The lost himself while somehow else
thought it was a different man,
between himself, between the hand,
the hand that held the locket, felt,
the emptiness inside the gold to hide,
into the star-strung night he turned and spied,
a string of pearls ’round Hera’s neck,
elegant shoulders of the night whose tranquil light
a shimmer on the empty locket set.
He put the pocket in his pants and left,
then he placed it on the shelf, to stare,
to wonder when and wonder where,
someone once who must have cared,
left it in the woods to rust,
to end the end like all to dust.

I sat it on the kitchen mantle
walked by it twice inside I rambled
what a tragedy, to see,
a loveless lock without a key,
without two loves, with such a smile,
a loving glance and for a while
I sat in my Evening chair,
staring at the locket, where,
I thought of it, where it would go,
when downward falls life’s autumn snow
lovely sat two faces who
cast a glance that empty grew
a woman’s eye bright wide a smile
the man a kind embrace, and while
i thought it through,
as time past grew,
the last roll the slots it grew,
until the day decided who
I would place inside the locket
random facing faces, lock it
two random faces whose
eye contact to darkness lose
the same two people, never met
even though they both I set
and ambled to my chair alone,
and think about the loveless shown
by the iridescent abalone.

I fell into a dream-world where,
floated rosy cherub’s chair
where angels tired nodded off,
I walked about ’til I was lost;
the locket closed as I walked up,
and turned into a sea, a cup,
swallowed me and as I went,
by a phantom giant silent sent,
into a world where down was up,
when I came to I then sat up
and looked around the room to see
some ghostly faces stared at me
they said as though they read and too
to me told of myself who,
sat on the couch and oft called out
I don’t know who
It’s true it’s true
I have no clue what I’m to do

if I replace the sockets where
supposed to sat two loves that cared
and fake it with two alibis
their eyes as dead as static skies
who looked into another and for another bother
the wall of words to brave look through
to see the face who nameless drew
this facade to somehow show
the empty locket’s figure show
where it sat calm on the mantle
I often thought and when I rambled
the empty clock, whose tick, whose tock,
empty struck him and the clock
struck two and again he drew
back into the mind, who knew
he walked inside a dream world mild
sublime and false and falsified,
such figures held, and held, so high
Babel rises to the sky
and walk we up that slope to drown
in the sea of time and down

we go away again to where who knows
another seed the garden throws
into the soil whose liquid rain
harvested the golden grain
where danced two people long forgot
whose empty locket they forgot
whose empty locket sat ignored
on the shelf a barren board
of books and tracts and almanatics
of data and science in tracts
nothing like art hung with tacks
of two loves through all the world
came in together and they twirled
laughed together danced and left
a golden locket on the shelf
that with time pride open and
spilled onto the shelf like sand
the pictures and the laughter gone
just an empty locket now
empty slots were faces once
populated emptiness in slots
an empty circle long since locked
the lovers in them gone
who sat before a king alone
a king alone who on his own
went to the past and while there took
smiling lovers by a brook

the water cold they sat behold
a smile to fit right in
the river ran and wan they swam
while they lingered in
the edge of the pool
the queen and the fool
sat and languid lay
without a care their life to share
under the sun they lay
hands held and flowers too
smiling lovers lovely who
divided in to two to face
the opposite, the others face
the smile to match and open wide
a way to get in and to smile
and sit as they take the picture while
to put it in a locket where
alone when left without a care
that sank into the ground
two silent screaming faces stared
but never spoke a sound.

two fake faces in those places
bridged that loveless gap
where hollow holes turned lifeless roles
held by chance like dice that rolls
into the corner and what luck
one against another struck
snake eyes shakes the dealers head
and looked to me and gravely said:
would you like to play again?
a game perhaps, or make pretend?
believe you’re loved, they all adore,
the louse that screams along the floor
to the beings giant that
dance around, and tit for tat
moves with one another, more,
the cluck struck twelve and then they tore
into the pieces faces in
the golden locket now my friend
where lonely faces found their end
the darkness of an empty locket
sighed again and then I locked it.

It sat there on the mantle while,
I sat and saw the covered smiles
of strangers who had never met
inside the locked and though I locked it
I often saw their face.
They came alive, their plays, their gyves,
their memory charade.
It played aloud inside my head
like a chanting mad parade.
Alas it was too much to bear
and I took back there, where,
I first found it in the woods
found the tree and understood
the locket filled I placed it down
and buried it, and underground,
two lovers faced to never frown
two lovers who had never saw
the man whose story showed it all
and that was it, though oft befalls
black a silent curtain call.

That December I remember dying embers burn
until they wilted, when they turned,
to ash alas when they were spurned
and left again where once they lay
empty and alone just like that sad day
long long gone
when the locket’s empty slot,
had long forgotten of it’s spot
of the pictures once that were
arranged to face another where
when the locket long had close
and wilted like the milk white rose
and turned to rust and froze.
Again they lay quite tucked away
under a garden grove.
Sometimes I go to that old place
where I found the empty place
where a face was meant to see
another love to smile with glee
another love to see and smile,
to tick and tock just like the watch
and fret the hours not
under a tree once found by me
a place I’ve long forgot.
What sunshine stare set in,
shallow graves of yesterday, back when,
pockets were lined by smiles–
what bosom bore such joy begun,
alas as a knot undone,
catacomb now away,
visited in the mind each day,
painful tether to the past–
obscures the light, which, narrow cast,
windows to the mind where there,
rewind again to find that when
sang the stereo sun,
rolled round and round and two was one.

Subtract one alone again,
Karma’s divisions penciled in,
the tether and the and equations calculate,
and deduce the current state,
where a lazy sun bobs in the morn,
shadow of a love stillborn.

A love for which fair maidens swoon,
in that grave of yesterday,
though to the tether tied;
if only she might look ahead,
she’d see the word love red,
only to look behind, that day—
behind again, to that one friend,
another stood before,
those in the grave of yesterday.
The same to give, the same to take,
the unhappy tether its love to break,
those eyes like Christmas light again,
thought instead, what Mara says,
there is no love for me.
I had that once, and now it’s gone,
the love of my life a brief time loaned,
only to whisper bye,
bye another alone on the bridge,
between then and now, the past,
the current mood persistent fugue,
though turns to face both ways,
the right a bright sky, pocket full of smiles,
to be left on again on the endless road, alone, with melancholy ties,
that which lives no more, not now,
the maiden turns that way—
walking instead back to that place,
the grave of yesterday, where,
how long ago its opportune to love,
once did, no more,
the mind a bleeding cellar door,
the love enslaved, and tied,
to a ghost that won’t reply,
though one with flowers stands before.
She sighs her head and then, instead,
says, “Sorry,” shuts the door.

Back into the long gone grey,
fugue we all call yesterday,
to be where once a sunny place,
happened to pass by your fair face,
And there it froze as though a rose,
alive and blossomed falls—
back into the grave again,
those melancholy halls;
where tears rain down and sad face frowns,
wrap around the wall—
where happy times and sublime rhymes,
are painted, a portrait but remains.
And one alone, a fragment, gone,
can’t stand and long to lay,
alone again a mannequin grin,
in the grave of yesterday

The Embers of December, 2009

The Bed is Made, 2009

I remember once upon
a time not long ago,
when I woke and saw the sun,
it’s golden hue and glow
And when I rose, my eye, a gleam,
welled up once a childhood dream
When all was well with me, with life,
with family and friends,
but as time passed,
we got together and we laughed,
and laughing left the wind,
as once bright smiling faces end.

When aunts and uncles and my dad,
one by one they turned up dead,
and left a print on me, to say,
enjoy your youth, enjoy the day;
the day you wake to see the sun,
smile another day begun,
enjoy it while you can because,
it cannot last and that’s the clause,
the blessing and the curse of life,
to live and struggle through the nights,
transient it all goes by,
like the sun across the sky.
It turns to night and then it fades,
a sonorous cascade parade.

Faces smiling, saying, “Hi,”
same faces fading, saying, “Bye.”
Just to cross the great divide
and watch us from the other side,
the Earthen urn that opens wide—
until we’re tucked away inside,
a cement stone above our head,
while we in silence lay in bed,
with wilted flowers overhead—
They kneel before the stone each day,
mumble I love you, walk away.

Three to One, 2009

I could’ve been that kind of child
who smiled and laughed a lot
I may have had a purpose, but
somehow I forgot.
Now I’m a man, I think back when,
I was just a child
when life was fun, when I was young,
then I forgot to smile.

When I look back I see a glance
of myself in the view
a distant look by happen chance
eyes closed as though in a trance
who to me never drew
When I see a mirror
face to face I ask it who
why and when and what are you?
The mirror never answers
I wash my hands and go
Asking far more questions
whose answers I’ll never know
No redemption, not for me,
and suicide is blasphemy.
I’m on my way to hell.
The pad is my confession box,
the pen is just the same.
Sometimes I think that I should stop
and play the jaded game.

Why this world and why right now?
Is the question never why, but how?
The plants grew in the field and rose
and blossomed in a garden grove
lilies in the bush, the sun
splinters through a web just spun
so beautiful the day.
The garden of Eden,
a glorious season,
before the wilted trees delay
when summer ends the autumn frays
brings December, and the days
when the wise men through the night-
by starlight made their way
to fall before a child, who lay
naked in the manger’s scattered hay.
What do we do Lord?
Did he say?
No such revelation came
the child looked up
and smiled, then waved
the Wiseman knelt before him prayed
then silent turned and walked away.

I couldn’t understand the silence then
that’s why I’m here with my old pen.
Like dandelions in elegant lines
scatter the words in intricate rhyme
my hope but to relate:
the man I am, my current state
is that the story told of old,
The cards I got, I had to fold.

Of one wise man, who young, and bold,
lit a light for all, behold
the lilies in the field and summer pines
the dying stars in twisted lines
a staged event, some yesteryear
when Goddess Hera shed a tear
when a hole consumed a whole
pearl amidst the necklace night
from far away, to us, the sight
is another in an endless flight
of images and golden lights.

I often see these in dreams
where walk a group of listless things
in shackles, shuffles
in delicate rings
slaves they go around and sing
that song might somehow solace bring
this little light of mine
a little light I’ll never find
the path illumined for the blind
That light I’ll never see.
I’ve always looked, and tried to find,
the truth behind the great divide
Too much time, too many why’s
too many secrets, too many lies

Look! Oh look; the drugs again
talking to myself, my friend
who often bickers to no end
about the world, about the skies
about the listless pale blue eyes
A question I have asked myself
my face pressed against the glass
seeing a younger me who passed.
from one world to another gone,
who left behind just one sad song.

I looked into my pale blue eyes
with no idea what resides
beyond the mask made as a smile
the reflection a collection
of fragment forms that threw
into the loop of Déjà vu
asking the question why, and who;
standing there, my glasses, hair,
the mind behind the eyes that glare:
caught in a tragic feedback loop
no way out, there’s no reply
a lone drone shouting at the sky.

What meaning is there, in the world?
of mother’s with their children curled
in quiet embrace their soft hands trace
their fingers in the heart shaped lace
the birth, a child, our life, and science,
what of the place we go to, silent?

A flicker in the night that dulls
a passage to our deathbed pulls;
the pain, respite, the fears, the night
and flickers in the dark, a light
once lit left to die, and cry,
it all comes back, the same word, “Why?”
Why what? I asked and then, why now?
Why am I alive and how?
That same question
all the time
the forever recurring rhetorical line
that drags us to the darker half
the same as we all through it pass

Forever in an ending row
the words as snowflakes softly flow
from the clouds down to the ground
with muddy footsteps trod around
a path into the master’s house
where sits a piper with his clay
the porcelain rats designed to sway
to follow all the sublime songs
into the Sea, where all belongs
where life forms grew, for eons, died
and washed up silent in the tide.

Forever in an ending row
the conveyor belt of faces ago
A man a wife, some saddened face
passes through the silent waste;
and a man with all his plans
and a perfect practiced face
shuffles in with gaudy grace
the path to shuffle, once a while
before a stage of no one smiles
in his twists, his twirls, and whirls,
the knot of human life unfurled;
what are we but creatures who,
crawled out from the ocean to
walk about the land and in disguise
underground when rained the fiery skies.

I could’ve been the prodigal son
when life before me laid when young
before I threw it all away
against the grain and here today
For a man like me:
no sympathy,
no empathy
I’m so empty
That I’m fishing in the bowl of my past
the world and lilies whilst they last
taking notes to understand,
what to some is just a plan
passed down through the ages to,
prophets and the madmen who
spoke of love and life forever
the same old answer, always, “Never.”

That’s the point, of my who life,
my troubles, madness, and my strife
place a bet on Destiny’s dice.
to find myself amongst the mass
with more poor players of the cast
when the curtain closed at last
in return to bow and smile
and wave to friends lost in the aisle
Thank you all for coming out
to read these words which I surmount
by a tower made of Stone
high into the nimbus rose
in the shape of Kings and Kings,
diamond rings and golden things,
though both will disappear
over time, the time is near,
the clouds break up and dissipate
and when we see it we’re too late.

To save our world, our friends, our loves,
and bring aboard the arc a dove
to scout the land and them know
the conditions of the world to go
and if the flooding reached the Isle
when Moses left the ship he smiled
the rains, now light, subdued,
a rainbow in the rain peeked through
and through the journey all was lost,
the lives were saved, though at what cost?
the end of the road is but a dead end
just a door, and wooden floor,
silently walk in:
the door, when opened,
to their dismay;
were first their footprints on the way.

God’s right hand man is not a man
but yet a vessel that commands
Love thy father, though he’s gone,
my mother left; I was alone.
left in rags without a home.
Now I’m a man, I often glance
at memories in the past:
and in those pictures, as a child
I never wore the slightest smile.
It wasn’t in the cards, I guess
just not my destiny.
There never was a hope for me.

Behind my eyes and in my mind
I see the vultures in the sky.
I sometimes see the game of Chess:
when the queen had gone, the king had left,
alone a lone pawn by himself
himself to march against the world
no one behind him, no sword unfurled,
encountered by a blockade that,
forced the frail pawn to attack
a kind of violence, spineless, cold,
but fortune favors pawns, who bold
turn from the battle, walk away
to in a corner quiet pray.

I march for me, and on my own,
and I’d prefer to die alone;
when word shaped bars,
blot out the stars
and word shaped tears
will oft appear
behind my eyes so crystal clear,
I try to sleep
and it would seem
I never catch her in my dream,
so I wake, some pills I take,
into the living room.
beside a candle, book in tow
reading by the muted glow
philosophy, theology,
books that had forgotten me.
So in my words I wish to say
enjoy the moment and the day,
when all is well a heart can tell,
but never can respond;
of all the beauty in the world,
into the Sea, beyond,
Every song we hear on Earth
is Mother Gaia’s song.

A sublime song of loss, confusion
when friends have long since been illusion
the umbrella in the past
whose pale fabric narrow cast
sunbeams scattered during day
when on the beach shore lone we played
until the tide came in to sway
sand castles and my love that day
and dragged them out to see to die
foul buzzards over head went by
when I looked up and saw the sky
a tear-drop formed within my eye
to see the one I always loved
succumb to time and die
to leave me on the shore with, “Why?”

I wake up in a fever often
and sometimes cannot sleep
my mind returns to that black urn
death my love forlorn would spurn
and dissolved into the whole
of memories and songs of old
to be reprised amidst the skies
when seagulls sing sad lullabies
and raises her and in the form
a golden child alive reborn.

A golden child to grow to see,
the wonders of the sky, the sea
the wonders of the springtime in the morn,
when light in raveled fleeces, torn
through twigs and sticks, these limericks
with letters paint the world
not the world at large but less
the world that has subdued the best
Fast cars and fancy clothes
Eve in Mona Lisa’s pose.

Tragedy to man the plan
for us to try to understand
is but a joke and to respond
one attempt and just a bird
scatters in the shallow pond
as stones across the surface skip
and drop into the sea, a blip
and for those along the shore
with no rocks left to throw no more
pack up their bags and seal the door
honey birds above them soar
the phoenix falls, the curtain falls
and turns back into ash:
the ash like night though obscure might
be a prelude to the morning light

And when it rises, man shall wake
and on his feet his first breath take
to look across the range to see
to one path mountains, one path sea
with his friends the man agrees
to climb the mountain, face the sea
to take control of destiny
Destiny the blackjack shark
behind a veil who deals her cards,
twenty one or bust, one must,
hit again or lose the pot.
His fortune gone his life forgot
he wanders in abandon lots
in circles through the city where
he often laughed and live, no care,
now to return his fortune spurned
only to go again;
the cards are dealt, a nine and twelve
Victory! he calls, what else?
A five card Charlie, twenty-one,
lost again and drowned in rum
In his defeat the gamblers run
but never paid the price.
Two days later unpaid debt
had cost the man his life.
This is how it goes, you know,
another comes, another goes.
The procession is a winding road,
though we all walk it, we don’t know,
to where it is when we all go.

A Flower Without Sunlight, 2009

The flower without sunlight
Forever longed to grow
Though never saw the day
Or spotlight on the show
That show performed for empty seats
Those silent empty rows
Nobody knows, he knows,
Where the smoke goes when it blows
Over the sea and into the sky
Shines then dies in the blink of an eye.

And that flower in the dirt,
Alone in need and broken hurt
Never knowing why, and
Never knowing who
The flower without sunlight
In the darkness never grew.
Nobody knew about the flower,
When it was there,
When it was gone;
And why it grew for someone who
Left it underground,
In a hole under the sky
The same man without wonder
Left it in the dark to die.

The flower without sunlight
Was born to die no why
Confused in the darkness
Watching slits of light go by
The flower without sunlight
Never saw the sky
And never saw another
Flower left to die.
Instead the same dark jail cell blind.

The flower without sunlight
In quiet did not know
Nothing of the magic sun
Or the magic shadow show
The flower without sunlight
Knew that it needed light
Though it knew not what light was
Or why they lived to fall,
Or where it went to in the end
If there was an end at all.

Tears of Reflection, 2009

Sometimes I see a crying child,
When by chance I catch a glance
Of cracked a looking glass;
I plead, I beg, and turn my head,
he will not disappear.
Then I’m the child and when I see,
The bitter husk I’ve grown to be
I want to scream, tear out my teeth,
When I see what I called me.
For a man like me,
No sympathy, no empathy,
I’m so empty that I’m fishing
In the cracked bowl of my brain
Whistling a little tune
Just trying to maintain.

Trying to remember how,
Trying to remember when,
I gave up on myself, and then,
Gave up on the others, too
Then in my head again withdrew
I’m not sure I’ll ever know
Regardless of how far I go;
What is there that I can do,
To reverse the past, so I, at last,
Can be a person too.

Temple of the Rat, 2008

The notebook with no mouth,
In the dresser cannot smile.
For those who dance,
a fading glance,
Will linger for a while.
Sometimes they say,
whispers in the nighttime, who
say that it’s too good to be true.
The wind goes through the trees,
that swayed:
the overture of Nature’s polonaise.

Their sonorous dance, soliloquy,
the sound as heard by you and me,
the dice rolled by a blind child, Destiny.
The tendrils are the shapes around the line,
these pirouettes inside the mind
under a glass blown chandelier,
a faux pas nocturne in your ears
Close your eyes and just lean back,
put on a smile; try to relax.
I’ll take you to the hallowed grounds,
Where pitter-patter infant sounds,
in the ruin of the Hierophants
blind children by a fire dance.

The temple of the rat, they called,
a rundown shack with mud-streaked walls,
skies of gray that overlay
the skies that looked like TV static.
The clouds themselves have formed a frown,
when we looked up, the sun went down,
and sighing went another round.

Another comes, another comes,
the piper plays, the rats must go,
and follow in a narrow row,
to the melody of life transposed.
Rustling pages in the breeze,
are poems I wrote last summer’s eve;
where oft it rained off-colored leaves,
Where ruins and rumors of a child,
walk amongst the papers wild.
Then turn red when falls the light,
and glimmer in the newborn night.

The silhouette of figures strung,
dangle from the trees like plumbs,
a young girl’s Hope hangs from a limb,
whose suffocation sings a hymn;
Like scribbled notes across a page,
the undone etude never played.

The temple of the rat is where,
a children in saffron dress runs scared,
through leaves and empty houses bare,
who in the mirror caught a stare:
a girl in blue and ivory stairs,
returned to him a gentle stare:
with cheeks that blossomed like a rose,
winked and smiled, away she goes.

That same old story and the urn,
the same girl in the blue dress turns
which now is faded, withered blue,
long it’s luster loss and grew,
a shadow of the pallor on her face,
and hangs above a shallow grave.
Where follow kings and nameless knaves,
when the cards are dealt.
The black card upturned ace of spades.
beside it a suicide king was laid.

Nocturne in C a moment’s spoke,
and violins and flutes arose.
Dancers rose their hands to meet,
spin and dance then obsolete,
when there’s no where left to dance,
the world a wreck of cause and chance.
There’s no where left to dance, the mind,
where the melancholy dig their graves,
a vacant face when one’s alone,
the ceiling swells just like the walls,
when silent footfalls softly all—
to the pipe,
the Piper’s call,
that song again–
a song we all sang once back then.

Those who loved and those who made,
the passage of the light bulbs through the gray,
at the end of road, the end of the way,
just a room of nameless graves.
When I go I tend the path,
of friends and family from the past.
And someday in the temple,
I’m sure to lie as well.
Though in conclusion this illusion,
is my own private hell.
Once my mother told me,
when she saw my crayon art,
from the corner, at an angle,
“You see hell through the eyes of an angel.”

In the dream-worlds of my mind,
there are two who dance inside
the window of the soul with open blinds
and in the head it’s hard to see,
the Temple of the Rat is me.

That’s what I call it, all the halls,
all the black floors, mud-streaked walls,
and milk black floors,
those sickly empty corridors
and in that light of sun we see,
dusty specks dance in the breeze.

Goodbye Hanalei, 2008

For Hanalei, a non de plume,
who outward passed alone too soon,
and in mind, time after time,
and all around the world—

That lovely face, so full of grace,

before tired eyes unfurl.

Across the plains, those misting rains,

a glass umbrella in soft hands,

under the sun, with no shade, none,

pitter patter in the sand.

Inside bone walls when time rewinds,

an angel is the double in her place,
froze on the screen,

where plays all the dreams—

that nothing can erase.

Oh Hanalei, my Hanalei,
alive inside the mind.
Oh Hanalei, lost melody,

Alive inside the ballroom, where,

Once was a dance without a care.
If along the lonesome shore,

you washed before and smile once more,
one hopes to behold there;

miss make believe, here is for who,

a digital kiss for you.

Hitchhiking to Nirvana

He waited on the shore for her,
his thumb in the air.
Watching free birds,
bye, they fly,
and with the water lullaby,
kings and queens and pawns
walk on,
blind with outstretched arms,
their life long gone.

A man, a child, vague shapes, a blur,
stumble into Earth’s wide urn,
a place from which no one returns.
That caravan back to the sea,
the rats behind the piper sing in glee,
blind alone, behind the song,
the hopeless rats walk on.

Children of the Sea, soliloquy,
sonnet for the dead.
Faces in a mirror, first,
a portrait by the light rehearsed.
And at twilight, later that night,
they’re tucked away inside a box,
the procession of the lives, nonstop:
one after another down the mount,
by Sisyphus and his stone, too gone;
a memory of slavery on his back,
when he went up, the stone went down,
and Sisyphus, alone on the mound,
casts a sour downward frown,
and sits to sob, and cry, lament,
another stone is by him sent.
Sisyphus shrugs,
and then says, “Bye,”
and goes.
For why no knows, and gone, like then,
each time a rock slides down again,
Sisyphus walks again.

Into an empty sea beyond,
that category gone,
the name of all our deeds,
the tome,
One Summer in the Sun,
in it our simple little songs,
of those who in despair still long,
for what they cannot reach,
the fear of death, cold on their feet,
never to act or cry;
and like Hamlet, all alone,
will sit and wonder why.

Perhaps one day I might go face,
Karma and her chalkboard and erase,
all our sins she’s penciled in,
so all hitchhikers can get in.
I’d cheat them all, on our behalf,
sneak into Heaven, lay back, laugh,
as the wicked, good, and bad,
laugh and love the same.
I’d take the slaves and make the way,
sneak convicts to Nirvana,
and when we’re there,
without a care,
we call can cry, ‘Hosanna!’

He waited on the shore a while,
while seagulls plucked the pearls.
The tide comes in, and once again,
he heard a laughing girl.
Glass shatters,
in reflection—

a sea of life in all directions:
birth and childhood, women too,
disappear into the blue,
urn of our mother, stole,
another down the memory hole,
erased.
Hitchhikers to Nirvana,
don’t always find the place.
If I could, I surely would,
take every child and parent there,
where they can sit, and laugh, and love,
forever without a care.

Vanessa’s butterflies,
one broken wing,
try to fly, but can’t;
they go in a desperate circle,
one wing beats against the ground.
When I saw that butterfly,
she sang without a sound;
to me she said, ‘Why do I have to die?’
and I said,
‘Because you live.
There is no why.
Now easy rest,
and shut those eyes.’

Old man, move on,
and just look through,
the prison bars that you call ‘you,’
and look outside, with happy stride,
look at the prisoners inside,
in love and lust and hate.
Karma’s divisions separate,
but in the end, they’re whole,
behold: the divine ratio:
One point six one eight,
oh three nine nine nine.
Eight eight seven,
on and on, a million dots—

infinity on the spot.

III

He stands on the shore once more,
and there appears a far-off-door—

a satin sheet, and blood-red, spread,
along the corridor,
and at the end, again, again,
God’s black limousine pulls in.
Roses are thrown along the carpet,
for him to walk.
Around the car Nobody’s talk.
‘He has returned,’ they say, and smile,
‘God is here again!
To save our souls,
erase our sins,
and stay for but a while!’

A long procession eulogy,
to the car on roses leads,
the open door, an old seat, empty,
a thousand peasants shout in frenzy.
Another man, another land,
to take his place, instead:
‘Alas, alas,’ they cry, at mass,
‘Our loving king is dead.’

The children and the parents cried,
as puddles in the sunlight dried,
and now another long lost face,
has on our Earth now been replaced,
for someone to sit.
By the time the good king died,
another waited,
to take his place, put on his suit,
loyal subjects to recruit.

He waited on the shore for her,
watching kings and queens and pawns,
walk on,
into the sea, their life long gone.
Into the Sea I visit, day and night,
so I might see the dead.
I see a girl, my childhood friend,
and sometimes I see my dad.
He tells me he forgives me.
I hang my head and sigh,
“There’s no need for you to cry.
Be who you are, and that’s enough.
If nothing else you can that trust”

His pardon won, now to lay door,
on its side, and in his stride,
he’ll smile forever more.
He sticks out his thumb,
just another bum—

another plaything in Samsara,
trying to Hitchhike to Nirvana.