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

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