Dream #8

You told me what you wanted
When the carpet-bombers rode
I forgot to write it down
And now I'm far too old
What can't be seen is mentioned
What can't be heard is cried
Through tears of crystal daylights
That strangled all my lives
And it would be cute
And maybe trite
If I could hear from you
And know that everything's alright

Your lips were pursed and perched
Upon my anguished curtain call
The prince in rags had borrowed
Everything held in regard
The sleeping giant stumbled
Walking through his dreams
Dancing in the moonlight
And snoring through the screams
And if you could speak
Deep into the night
Just so I can hear from you
And know that everything's alright

The quicksand stands to grasp you
And swallow all your lies
The neon lights of madness
Drag you deep inside
Until you learn the one truth
The horseman has concealed
Speaking tongues all backwards
With his face so unrevealed
As he swings his sword
Thrashing at the light
I just want to hear from you
To know that everything's alright

So the elders of the village
Have hidden all your paths
And threatened to remand you
For some unknown back tax
You can't repeat your verdict
Without the fear of fame
So as you walk in shackles
Your heart bursts into flames
I want you to sing
About your plight
Just so I can hear from you
And know that everything's alright

Dream #7

You're looking for a man who knows
How to look you in the eye
And tell you with a smile
That he wants to be with you
And only you

He's looking for a girl who wants
To laugh at all his little jokes
He'd tell her with a smile
That he wants to be with her
Throughout the night

The autumn introduces lust
Braying, building innocence
A chime within the wind
Echoes as you pray to him
In silent gasps

But he is trapped inside the spring
Blades of grass beneath his feet
Wet from the morning's dew
As he flies to build a nest
From strands of straw

Essay Fever

Symptoms:
-Restlessness
-Lack of self-control
-Loss of attention
-Chronic headaches
-Blurred vision
-Brief amnesia
-Nervousness
-Mild depression
-Irritability
-Recurring hunger
-Drowsiness

Treatment:
-Stimulate nervous system (preferably with caffeine)
-Write for prolonged periods
-Do not mix with alcohol
-Consult a doctorate student if symptoms continue

Dream #6

I know a princess with a crown
Who sits inside her icy tower
She keeps her lips pressed to the glass
Of her frosted window pane
I yearn to hold her in my arms
Her tundra dreams twinkle true
I light my coals and hide myself
Within the dusty notebook page

Ink, my blood, my life, my love
My world is dizzy, blurred, and warm
I seek, I seep with solemn psalms,
I sleep with peaceful, prayerful palms
My feelings dreamed are confessed then
Lit by truth, the distance dies
My beacon, burning, glowing bright
I pray she sees my sacrifice

I know a princess with a frown
Who sits inside her icy tower
She keeps her heart inside a chest
Wooden, lost, and widowed pain
I learned to hold her in my thoughts
Her tundra dreams fading, blue
I stoke the coals and burn my book
For I would give her all I had

If only I could warm her

Dream #5

While riding through my forests of youth
I had ne'er a worry nor care
Then all that changed and I learned the truth
As I found a troubled affair
My father, born a smith, forged his heart
Earning his daily bread share
My mother, dead from my very birth,
Had left him in great despair
His love was mended by a new wife
Her spirit could never declare
That I, reminder of his past life,
Would ne'er escape his cold stare

Dream #4

Crows steal crumbs from the beggar's doorstep
Sorrow peeks through his fingerless gloves
His makeshift jacket yearns for one more breath
And his hands are reaching forth to grasp his love
He can't recall from where he ventured
The night he set upon this path
A rosary shifts between his dirty fingers
As he feels the cold embrace his bones at last

A gun twirled fast in the dim grey moonlight
As prison bars sealed away the lone soldier
A renegade by trade and the son of the sheriff
He fastens twice his gleaming brass shoulder
The sun splashes light onto the horizon
Has it just set or is this the dawn?
As dust begins to whip in all directions
The soldier waits for his death to come

Blood wets the spurs on the boots of the raider
Whose face is like a chimney of ash
His hand is twitching, curled by the gold traitor
He seeks to reclaim his fortune of past
The heartbeat of the sheriff roars out a warning
As bullet holes replace the comfort of glass
The raider knows this is his last morning
But he has come this far and cannot ever look back!

Dream #3

I sit in silence, 'twixt the vellum sheets of wisdom, streaks of felons
Sparked by surly certainty and set upon the moonlit door
Beauty glides across the chamber,
Laughing, twinkling, tasting danger,
Savored and entrancing in the brackish, baying ocean shore
Left alone to their devices, settled, sinning in their vices,
Her love, a dagger resting in my bedroom drawer

I tasted wisdom from a chalice that held my wounded merry malice,
A triumph held in irony and sent upon the dreamer's snore
Her glimmer breathes my discontent,
A psalm and lyre heaven-sent,
Sunken like the treasures of the pirates from the tales of yore
Lilies grow in groves of graves and in the homes of kings and knaves,
Their shadows cling and shun me as they dream, deplore

My lover and her silhouette are cast into a role to fret
Unto the playwright's waiting pen that the king does yet ignore
Poison pointing, pistols pouring,
Teeth and bullets still are soaring,
As the revolution sets a frenzied flame to fallow fields and more
The grass of peasants burns unpleasant, killing both the lark and pheasant,
For they were born of peace and are now dead of war

Dream #2

The light that peeks between the shades
That curtain morning's snore
Have settled on my floor in shapes
Diamonds, rings, and more

I place my hand across her back and
Gently touch her lips
There's something here that has been lost
She wakes without a kiss

She draws in circles on the bed
Her fingers trace a heart
I cannot explain what it is she means
So I sent my mind afar

A Christmas tree sits, out of season
In her sparkling gaze
I reflect upon her fearsome nature
Sprawled across my days

I know that she has buried her
Self within my grasp
We had not spoke of things we've done
We know not what passed

Like prisms, splitting strands of hair
And testing out her lies
I don the shirt she bought for me
And close my weary eyes

Her tongue, it traces simple stanzas
Written from my pen
I go to write her a sonnet, sweet
And walk into the den

Her sister stares from a photograph
Upon the fireplace
Suddenly, I feel a pang of woe
As she sizes up my face

We know not what our future is
As I temper lust with fear
My poems dry up and waste away
My muse just disappears

Her family threatens me with guns
She holds a silver knife
I never thought it might end like this
So tangled up in strife

As she starts in to dealing her cards
And lays them on the floor
I see my shadow quickly crawl away
Underneath the door

Madonna holds the newborn Christ
Close upon her breast
There was some anxiety in her face
That an artist could not guess

Her pencils, sight with boundless rage
A seismograph through art
Never would she admit the truth
And so I felt a spark

You looked at me like I was a fool
And he was standing by
Her hatred, silent, in a dream that passed
They held their heads up high

Our lives began to peel apart, she held
Her nascent pose
I knew you heard me and I feared
You offered her a rose

"Something's wrong," I said to her
And I offered her a grin
The demons clawed across my tongue
And latched onto her skin

I left her in the car to think
On Heartbreak Boulevard
As I took a taxi to the hotel
To look upon the stars

They twinkled ancient wisdom thought
By wise men to present
The beginning and the end of all
That past so heaven-sent

He said he met her in the moment
When she needed him most
I remember what you promised her
As I gazed upon her ghost

And as we looked at memory albums
Positioned, pointing true
My moral compass pointed opposite,
Straight away from you

Dream #1

Your words are vines that grow across
The open mausoleum door
Your tongue, a snake that slithers, slides
Across the dusty desert floor
Your eyes are filled with smoke and ash
A penance, pain and perhaps more
Your wrath, the storm that breaks upon
My misbegotten ocean shore

mobile update (15 minutes ago)

I'm a copy/paste update to your status feed
You can press a button and tell me who I am
With a few keystrokes and a touch of thought
I become your Something or ex-Something
I can't remember which.

Digitized romance should be made freeware
But my cyborg tears exceed bandwidth
The server to your heart is not responding
And I, with point and click precision,
I can't recall your face.

I type "true love" into the search bar
Click the link that holds your name
And breathless, as I feel your pulse
The screen emerges and proclaims:
404 Error: Page not found

A Price Upon Our Heads

The snow and soot are mingled
In a marble meld of passion
Sprinkled in crazy patterns
On the highway of remembrance
You smell a kiss in passing
And manage not to waiver
As a cymbal crashes loudly
Your hands begin to tremble
I hear your daylight rambling
And taste your smokestack languish
Like tears of tawny trappers
Your hands are holding flowers
I peel my weary bootstraps
From the bottom of my sadness
My feet are worn and ruined
And your eyes are filled with madness
Let's preach atop the mountain
To the lepers and the convicts
We'll sever all their spirits
From the coil of moral quandary
Your hands, now quaking proudly
Seize my harp and play it
You speak in tongues of fortune
And fasten strange behavior
I feel your fever climbing
You smoke my fears and anguish
A child is skating past us
Your seismic self is livid
I bleed ink upon this paper
You heal my open wounds
My hands are clasped in prayer
You steal them and remind me
That life, though short and hateful
Can ring like perfect church bells
And hope, though short and helpless
Can fill my life with murmurs
They whisper with affection
That we were meant forever
To be as one united
So that our unsure station
Expels the ancient demon
And as you stand in silence
In awe at my reflection
I feel you laughing, melting
Into the black horizon
The clouds begin to gather
I see upon the mountain
A storm of senseless wonder
With horns of graveyard robbers
That keep your life and rapture
Their angels are like hornets
Who buzz at open elm trees
They sway in utter horror
At what we said was needed
And lastly, as the clouds part
I fear our night has ended
You never once had known me
And couldn't guess the current
A strand of simple lies of night that burst into my heart.