36 Ghosts

Memories         are                like           ghosts:

some need                  to               be exorcised

if we are             to            be more

than the hauntings

of our past.

*

Lost,

they lurk

within the labyrinth

of lobes which lace together

in a lattice of long lingering languishes

and languages,

all looking and longing

for a logical, logistical

lamentation to lay off the lame

and laxed locomotions

of a loosening lunacy

laid down like a lie,

latent and lustful;

loving and lashing out

at all that can be,

to be, or not to be,

and to become what we will all be

in the end:

a memory.

.1

The Muse

It starts with a single note;

a single grain of sand

in an hourglass;

a single raindrop before a storm;

a single step before the journey

of a lifetime.

Small, though not insignificant,

everything compounds and composes

into something greater

over time,

just like the passing of time itself

along the fields of history.

Whispers of words

echoing wisdom

of what is to come

and what has come before;

ghosts of the past;

ghosts of the present;

ghosts of the future – 

all have their place

and everything is right

where it belongs.

.2

The Witcher

Evil is evil:

lesser;

greater;

middling.

It doesn’t matter

what light you stand with,

evil does not care.

The degree is arbitrary,

like a wraith;

the definitions get blurred

as all are cut down.

If I am to choose

between two evils

in order to do the right thing,

the good thing,

then I’d rather not choose at all;

I’d rather move by my will…

alone.

.3

The Bard

Here is Heaven’s dark harbinger:

losing myself with every self-repair kit,

sitting in-between with all of the beggars and rejects;

reading the lines between texts

as we wake up from sex.

I’m perfect, or imperfect,

I know what I am,

though I have no road map;

it’s time we all got lost on purpose.

No reception to these bars

but the signal is clear out here:

you may not have been a perfect soul,

but your soul is perfect –

there’s no need to apologize.

There’s no need for forgiveness.

.4

The Prophet

Martyrs!

Losers!

& kings!

That is all we are;

endless,

deftless,

death defying acts

of selfless self-preservation;

what are we,

but the fleeting dreams

of washed potential?

Martyrs,

losers,

& kings;

leaders,

winners,

& queens.

Rulers of the abstract,

forever clinging to the past;

forever grasping to the future;

barely hanging on to the present.

.5

The Stagehand

Bounce and jump,

finger and romp,

find a way to delay

the oncoming day

and be awake in the ever present now.

Newborn satyrs satiate themselves 

upon salacious steaks of salaries

sought after by the salivating

succubi of so many starving souls,

searching for a start in a stranded

and stationary station upon a

solitary cross;

sanctifying Solomon while

stigmatizing Saul,

scorning those who speak of truths,

while stripping those who slyly slither

between the syllables

of our swan songs being sung

with stinging stagnation

within sulfur-filled sounds –

But what does it all mean?

Clearly, I don’t know.

.6

The Pianist

The piano keys strike

like the rain drops dripping

upon the stone pathway outside;

like the raindrops pattering

against the window of my home.

Strum, barum, Barathrum;

snap, crackle, and pop

the water spheres go,

violently erupting with each impact;

all coming to a sudden

and inevitable halt.

Drops drip.

Sound echoes.

Ghosts haunt.

Lonely, but not alone.

The water reminds me

of the mortality I must acknowledge

day to day;

the water reminds me

of the vitality I must acknowledge

night to night.

.7

The Poet

Free-quencies

reverberate between molecules,

moles digging through wormholes

through the void:

portals without postage,

gifts of parting thoughts;

alive for just the moment,

then dying the moment they are let go;

reborn when remembered;

murdered when forgotten.

Come, drenched in mud

so I can drown you in bleach;

so I can see you as I want you to be,

as an old memory;

neither friend nor foe,

yet a part of me

and who I am yet to become,

and who I am yet to be.

Colors emerge as vision blurs,

what revelation seeks to be born today?

I am coming to be;

becoming I am, too.

.8

The Lover

I am finding a certain level

of difficulty in wanting to move

forward in life, to see

what has yet to come.

Why should I do anything at all,

if it all comes to an inevitable end?

No, I don’t want to fall in love,

because this world,

I,

will only break your heart.

If the skies are for the living,

then maybe I can be forgiven

for the mistakes I had made

and for thinking this way.

But I just don’t want to fall in love

with you,

for to love you

would be like loving the stars themselves;

you can’t expect a sunset to admire you

in return,

to expect the Spring

to love you back.

.9

The Friar

Behold the envelope

as I push it beyond its means,

as I envelope all I can be

to feed my will to push

and reach out beyond the random,

for whatever Heaven may come.

Come – embrace me;

come – witness me;

come – embrace my desire

to be felt in the rhythm of connection;

to be felt in the unfathomable phantom powers

of the beauty within the dissonance

of being human;

of being divine.

Falling in deeper,

the experience brings us closer

than dying does to Death;

I was wrong –

this changes everything.

.10

The Jester

Plucking strings

to the dew drops

of a brand new Spring,

accepting the light

before my fears could crystalize

into action.

I am hearing voices

through the cracks

in the mirror.

O – how great trauma must be

if it can rob us

of the ability to be awed

by mere existence.

So I wait in a sandstorm,

waiting for a single grain to fall;

like a tempest in an hourglass,

my hopes wax and wane;

useless in waiting, I have become;

useless in waiting that someday

the hourglass will be turned over,

and that the end I so fervently dread

has not been written yet.

.11

The Knight

There’s no need to make threats

when a kind word cpi;d yield

the same results.

Would you kindly?

Don’t look at me like that,

you should really keep it down

lest you wake the dead,

and we all know

that the gods hear

no dead men.

O – I have rid myself of hate

and that should worry you;

I have rid myself of anger

and that should bother you;

I have rid myself of spite,

remorse, anguish, and despair,

and that should give you pause,

because I was born

in the wake of wrath

and have awakened anew

as vengeance itself.

.12

The Drunkard

Your words ran

as if your feet were in your mouth;

bent over so far backwards

you had your head up your arse;

brown-nosed and black-eyed,

the guiltiest of the innocent.

Waving your finger

and paying no mind

to the depth of your debts,

but I digress,

for ‘free speech’ doesn’t mean

‘just keep talking.’

Falling in deeper,

this longing is unbearable;

experience can bring us closer

or further away from the truth.

In the end,

I was wrong – 

this changes everything.

.13

The Executor

Me, I’m not,

I cannot stop;

swallow it down,

spit it back up,

digest it out,

become something else.

Find me balking

and stalking

the haves and have-nots:

the biggest problem of standing for something.

But I am judge,

and jury,

and executioner too.

The reflection is in the window;

clean on the outside;

dirty and cracked within.

Am I who I think I am?

.14

The Alchemist

I met a man once

who smelled of Death

and Destiny.

He told me,

that in life,

there was only two lessons:

the first was that

you should never stop moving forward;

the second was

knowing when it is time

to stop moving at all;

there was no third lesson.

.15

The Diplomat

Behold the fallout

of all of your ‘good intentions!’

For history is not kind

to those who akin themselves

to God.

Your Eagle of Freedom

has been replaced

by a Vulture of Fear;

the frontline of conflict

is now the backyard neighborhood,

spreading like a disease,

and no infects everyone everywhere.

Dropping dead like bloated botflies,

all of our fears cauterize

in the fires of destruction

wrought by our endless desire

to bring about our own vision

of peace.

.16

The General

War – it never ends;

the battlefields change,

but the ghosts never disappear;

the hauntings remain.

Echoing drums pounding

the hearts of the soldiers;

mortals rushing with the tide,

rushing to the waves of conflict,

crashing against the shores

of Death;

weapons out,

shields raised high,

bellies sucked in,

heads kept low,

all for the impossible chance

to become immortal

through their own invincible

memory.

All I wish for

is to be worthy

of my sufferings…

.17

The Bride

I love the way

my lipstick rests

upon your cheekbones;

the way my glassy fingertips

glide along your shoulders

as we make love;

the way you prop yourself up

like the last mountain range

to be conquered by humanity;

arch and reach,

O – did I mention

you have a lovely skele-tone?

I just love the way

your skull rests in my hand,

how your hips hang 

in the air;

how your spine bends over backwards

all for my eyes to enjoy.

But the cheekbones are connected

to the deceitful,

and thereby connected to lies.

Come now, and lie with me.

.18

The Teacher

Aggravate Fate,

because sometimes its hand

must be pushed;

annoy Destiny,

because sometimes its path

must be bent to your will.

Take control 

of your potential;

take the helm

of your future,

and steer it across the endless seas,

let you decide

where to go

and what you are to become

under the stars,

over the stars,

be the stars themselves!

.19

The Groom

I tried to capture the sunset,

screamed at the mountains

to move out of my way –

nothing’s going to stand

in my way,

but the truth is that I’m falling,

but no one can see it,

for I’m still soaring

high above the crowds.

O – tell me you can see

that I’m my own enemy;

I’m falling faster

than the sundown at dawn,

I could use a hand

getting unstuck from the sky.

Hear me crashing under

the unholy thunder

as I shatter the sky

and break the shackles

which hold me up so high.

.20

The Witch

Tell the Devil

you’ve got a proposition,

because there’s nothing

that cloven misanthrope

can offer to you;

force his hand to make his mark

upon the dotted line

of your power.

Don’t get cold feet now,

pick up the crossroads

and place them upon your back –

the battle is the journey

and the burden,

but that’s alright.

Turn out the lights

and grab his wretched hand,

make him beg for your mercy.

.21

The Hermit

Striking the stone,

without or with you.

Feeling the shattering blows

through my bones,

but we must practice patience,

we must treat one another

as we would our dearest lovers.

Let us be the prophets

to our dreams,

the oracles of our epilogues,

neverending.

Hear the song,

hear the glory

of the silent sounds

of our patient and blessed mother.

Hold each other’s heart

as you would a newborn;

color in all of the white noise

and leave behind a wake of color

in the prisms of your voice.

.22

The Condemned

…only I could smash myself to pieces.

I could break it all down.

I am the only one who could fuck myself up.

I am sifting through the ashed

of what I have become.

I gave myself away –

now I’m nothing.

I let it slip away

into nothing.

…only I could bring it all down to this.

I could burn it all up.

I am the only one who could throw it all away.

I am drifting through the oceans

of everything I used to believe.

I bled myself away

down to nothing.

I let it all grow away

into something.

Yet all I can do

is break myself in two –

time to wave ‘goodbye…’

.23

The Mother

O – but what is weird,

but the unspoken side

of normal?

A precious crystalline gem

hidden in the shadows

of an underwater sanctuary.

O – but what is normal,

but the spookier side

of weird?

The everyday sunrise

dawning time and time again;

magnificent in its mundaneness.

All I want

is to show you all of this beauty

within and without you

before irreversible damage

can be done.

I just want to move

beyond the feeling

of all the things

I think I believe in.

.24

The Gladiator

O – run away,

the past will catch up again,

no matter where you twist.

Here we are again –

a captive of the now;

as loyal as the full moon rising.

Arching backs grow

with tension’s pain;

claws digging deep

into the walls of the heart;

tongues lapping up liquid flames

from the torrents of war.

Sharpened eyes seek blood and flame,

gleaming through fog and rain.

Coming tides soak up anger and wrath

leaving behind the wreckage of rafts

that used to be.

Feel the skin stretching far beyond belief

as I scratch upon your door;

calling up the past in the now –

Am I a savage?

Because I don’t recognize me anymore!

.25

The Friend

Every time I need to see you

I just close my eyes

and there you are;

a dose of happiness

and I reminder of who

I am to become.

A memory of what came before

and a memory of what has yet to come,

you are my constantly moving goal

which constantly moves me forward

to the shadows of love;

to the seas of passion;

through the clouds of Heaven itself.

.26

The Best Man

You’re thinking about the snow again,

I can see it in your eyes,

your longing for him.

I was foolish to think

that when you came to my door

a few hours ago,

that all of my prayers had been answered,

that you had finally came around to me,

but instead you asked

if I had seen the one

you had been ignoring you.

My heart sank like the temperature,

because deep down inside

I had been hoping

that for once

you’d be coming just for me.

The fire is crackling.

I rotate the logs.

You snuggled into my chest

and continued to cry

for someone who isn’t me.

.27

The Heretic

I walk through the Valley

of Snakes and Kings,

proudly standing with Death

and her kin;

the shades and shadows reach out,

leading the way

through the light way,

but that doesn’t mean

that the Devil can’t take you away.

And as the clouds part,

and I finally see

the gates of the Ivory Spires

of Heaven,

shining through and above

the cosmic seas;

the gates will open

like welcoming arms,

yet leaving me silent with a question;

silent like the hallways before me –

there’s not an angel

to greet me when I die.

.28

The Father

Time to come clean,

fess up.

Peel back the layers

and spill your guts.

Let it all 

out of the bag,

this is not a time for mercy,

the cat is out.

Off to greed, break the seal;

all is hidden for a reason,

but now there’s no holding back,

there’s no mercy.

Swing the noose again,

and pierce the apple skin;

seems like you’ve bitten more

than you need,

now you’re choking on the bad seeds

left behind by the memory

of all you could have been.

.29

The Doomsayer

Seeking out the burning seas,

I witness the waves boil and bubble.

The wine dark waters crash

with the tormented lullaby

which keep the cosmic horror

eternally dreaming.

Watch as its fantasies

turn your fears into action and stone before you.

Suicide and redemption

become the only means of salvation

from its awakened torment.

The end is coming;

the end is near;

the end is nigh!

Heed these words

and be enlightened by the end,

for the end has come

and is drawing to take it all away.

Here comes the reign of ash

raining down upon the ruins 

of razed memories.

.30

The Slave

The sun rises like it always does,

blazing hot, like a lightning furnace.

Crosses paved through fields of grain,

hoping to accumulate something to gain,

but the foreman approaches,

footsteps bombarding our brains;

I pray every night

that he won’t take her away,

but with a whisper

he whips her,

taken to his coven of shame,

to turn her to nothing,

no one,

nobody,

no more – !

Raining blood blinding the eyes

and blotting out the sun:

rise, fall, just to rise again,

broken, beat, and not unscarred,

but I can feel the victory upon my lips.

Conquered everywhere, but in my heart.

.31

The Emperor

Cut your teeth upon my heart,

and feel the flesh tear.

Taste the blood of the broken,

of the beat,

of the scarred;

drown yourself in the sweat

pouring from your insight.

Burn the clouds

and fill the skies with ash.

It’s all for my taking.

Watch as I take the heart

of your life, of your story,

and cast it into the abyss

of your fears;

in the lands of shadows and shades;

burning in a cold fury

of rejection and isolation;

in the place where all you have

are the memories

of ruin and remains.

.32

The Wanderer

If I let you,

you would let me destroy myself.

There’s no other choice

than to go far inside, like I have now;

too far to lay down and let you win.

I must arm myself,

for there’s no other choice;

I’ll make weapons

out of my imperfections,

for I have no other choice.

I’m fearless now;

nameless now,

shameless now,

nothing to no one now,

but you see me now –

cold as iron,

hard as stone,

because I was left down inside myself,

but now the void

has turned into my armor

and turned my fears into weapons.

.33

The Exile

I have grown to know you,

so dangerously close, to you,

entangled, twisted,

one and the same,

feeding off one another.

You held my head straight

even though I twisted and winced,

you never let me tear away these tears.

You have my eyes,

and you wear my genes,

and clothe my skin,

yet I voice your screams.

Falling, or floating –

I can’t find the bottom.

Panicked, I gnashed my teeth and flailed,

but I’m nowhere near the bottom.

I see that you’ve got my eyes,

yet I still voice your screams.

This skin is stretching,

the air is tight,

here at the bottom.

.34

The Bridesmaid

Pack up straight,

we’re not strays,

but let us stray nonetheless,

because they don’t love you

like I love you.

Leave off,

don’t stray,

we’ll stay together,

and that’s all I came to say

as our arms sway hand in hand,

while I sing my song:

they don’t love you

like I love you.

Hear me say it

time and time again,

they don’t love you

like I love you.

I love you…

Why won’t you notice me..?

.35

The Lie

Keep  you in the dark

where we can all pretend;

keep you in the dark

where it will never end.

Send in the skeletons,

cry as their bones march in

to nature buried deep beneath

your skin; secrets always at the ready;

everything is finished making sense,

yet it’s still the same old story –

you’re just a pretender,

a fake, a fraud,

a persona upon the stage;

temporary memories in this place,

yet even in the dark

you still pretend to be like the others:

another soul to be sold

and taken,

molded and broken

to be whatever they want you to be,

or not to be.

You’ll just surrender like before.

.36

The Truth

I have so many

self-destructive qualities;

friend, please make sense of me.

I know you can,

you always have,

friend, make sense of me –

I don’t want to be lost

in my own memory;

to fall in a hole in the sky,

please, make sense of me;

find the pieces to guide what I lost,

what I destroyed,

what I lost control,

what I sold to the void –

please, make sense of me,

friend, I beg you,

don’t let me be a memory;

I don’t want to be a memory.

I will never be a memory…