Poetry

Service

What do you know of service?
You say you're called to serve?
The thought just makes you nervous;
The fact gets on your nerves.

Yearbook

Loudly crying for all to hear,
forever gone is our junior year.
Forever gone, I don't know how;
let's face the facts, we're seniors now.
Seniors now, we can't go wrong,
just one more year and then we're gone.

Yet

Parking brake to hide my fear -
Draw you close and hold you near....
Is this why I brought you here?

Whisper softly in my ear,
Kick me up to second gear;
Shift and clutch and so severe.

Am I still talking about cars?
I still don't know just who you are.
Lost and roaming, don't go far.

Hear the sound of shifting bars.
Back me up and name me Lars.
Never! Nothing! Not so hard....

Yet.

Failed to See

I didn't see the sun come up this morning
I didn't see the moon out last night
It's not like I had little warning
I could see the coming of the light

Why did I not deign to witness
What my heart had longed to see?
Had I been struck and rendered witless,
Left to lie in restless sleep?

No Mere Mass

My hair falls proudly down my back,
The way a man's hair should:
A symbol, in this shameless world,
Of what I know is good.

To bind my pride, I tie it back
In woven braids quite tight;
For pride, like hair, gets in one's eyes
And blinds to what is right.

Hair is honor - Honor, hair;
Both bound with strands divine.
I prune them both; one with the shears,
And one with blades of mind.

My hair is no mere mundane mass,
So view it as a whole:
It is my honor and my pride,
A section of my soul.

Improve Today

To ponder what the future holds
Is an act of hope or fear
However, it is effort bold
To think on times now here
For fruitless planning holds no gain
For those in peace or plight
So then, waste not your mental strain
On things not yet in sight
But if you, rather, bend your mind
To what you say and do
And treat with kindness all in kind
Then you improve Today.

Man of Glass

You claim you can see me hiding behind my mask
But what you don't know 'cause you don't bother to ask
Is that what you think you see is a guise as well
I'm a man of glass; I'm a ghost; I'm a shell

You think you can see through my shell to my soul
You tell me without it I'll never be whole
I doubt that you saw what you claim to have seen
I'm a man of glass; I'm no normal human being.

You see all my colours and tell me it's my heart
But I'm really hollow; I thought you were smart?
All of me's elsewhere, my casing is here
I'm a man of glass, I'm just as I appear

Down Trend

The beauty that I've often glimpsed
Is ugly in the bluish tint
Of many thousand million minds,
And not what I now long to find.

And I must force myself to ask
If this is just a pretty mask
To hide the ugliness below.
But do I really want to know?

For beauty is, I must believe,
Far deeper than I can perceive.
I struggle on, through force of will;
For beauty I am searching still.

America the Ugly

Oh ugly blood on grey cement amidst the choking cloud
Oh crushing roar of twisting steel, oh children crying loud
America, America, God shed his grace on thee
And guard thee 'til we no more kill thy people senselessly

Oh ugly blood of friends and kin upon our guilty hands
Oh shattered peace that pierced our hearts across this sinful land
America, America, God mend thy every flaw
And help us learn to never turn our eyes from what we saw

Oh ugly blood from unstaunched wounds of cruelty and greed
Oh hatred of our fellow man that caused those wounds to bleed
America, America, you've turned from God once more
If we would live, we must forgive, and steer thee clear from war

Mutterings of a Confused Mind

"Forever" is the needless sound
I saw the coolest shoes today
Freedom tuna all around
And drink a pint of nothing gin
Needlessly forever and
"To die is death" is what I say
I sleep upon the bloodied sand
And then I dance my dance again
Forever, needless to be fed
I fear once more for all my feet
The cruel dance of you and red
And nothing but the kitchen sink
Forever, feeling needlessly
And everyone is my defeat
From sea to shining, bleeding sea
And no one, nothing what I think

A Walk in the Night

Did I really call you?
Did you really hear the phone?
Was your voice really that pretty?
Were you really all alone?
Did we really go out walking?
Was it really quite so dark?
Did we really shun the streelamps?
Did we really pass the park?
Did we really go to Murphey's?
Was it really 3 AM?
And if not, could you please tell me
Who you are, and where I am?

A Walk Through the Ruins

In the grandly strange desertion
Of this mammoth place of commerce
Is a curious assertion
Of what has now been lost
Through these halls now oddly lacking
Any trace of human movement
I can hear my footsteps clacking
As I comtemplate the cost
Will these walls continue leaking
Thoughts of countless vanished people?
Is it vain that I am seeking
Through these courts of light and stone?
There are shadows flitting blindly
Cast by sharply-flying pigeons
And their muffled coos remind me
That I still am not alone
And these lofty domes are ringing
With the peals of missing laughter
Like the eerie wispy singing
Of wind blowing through the gaps
Though the morning still is early
I will leave this empty structure
Waiting for the day when surely
It will crumble and collapse

Nothing to Cling to

Please dream of the night where we all touched the sky
Today is the nightmare in which we all die.
I don't want to lose you; you've already gone
With nothing to cling to, I'm still holding on
I don't want to lighten the mood, though I try
Please dream of the night when we all touched the sky

I'm Sick of This

Today I got the shaft again, again I got the shaft
A three-page composition due tomorrow in rough draft
I'm sick of this, I'm sick of this, I wish I could go home
And leave this bed of illness that will waste me to the bone

Government Study Jingle

Powers must be seperated
Ism must be Federated
The Judicial can review
Checks should all be balanced, too
Your Limited Government can go far
When Sovreignty is popular!

Livin' the High Life

Every Thursday noon they let us out to eat
We pile into cars and then we hit the streets
But today I got the shaft because I had no car
So I just walked down to Milky Way; it wasn't that far
I bought myself a footlong and some nachos as well
(With all that chili-cheesin', man, my breath's gonna smell)
They threw in a free Mountain Dew and it just made my day
So I'm livin' the High Life.... the cheap way.

A Leaf That Feeds the Soil

The time has come for me to die
No more to sway and brush the sky
No tools with which to mourn have I
No head to bow, no tears to cry

I fall at last to touch the earth
That gentle globe which gave me birth
But no one wept and no one cried
For one dry leaf that fell and died

An Ice-Crystal on a Window Pane

This morning I was painted here
By Jack Frost as a sign of cheer
To those inside and warm I show
The bite of icy wind and snow

The burning log which warms the home
Has melted all; I'm all alone
And as the ice from which I'm made
Begins to melt, my feelings fade

A Lightning Bolt

I once was great in strength and force
And faster than the fastest horse
Hotter than a flame was I
And bright enough to light the sky

But in a flash my glory passed
For creatures such as I don't last
Beyond a moment, but we still
Are kings of forest, town, and hill

A Cactus

Alone am I against the plain
Woth no one else to call my name
And hear, without a mind or ears
The wisdom of my many years

Alone am I against the sky
A lone Saguaro, thick and high
With no one here to sing my praise
Until the end of all my days

A Barnacle

Safely snug upon my home
I've sailed the seas from Crete to Rome
Surrounded close by all things good
By water, algae, shell, and wood

I know that my charmed life won't last
My time is coming, coming fast
They'll hoist me hight to cruel sky
And there I'll slowly dry and die

Potential

A box of cardboard: brown, unmarked
A fortress tall and strong and dark
A rocket ship or a TV
A house with room for only me

Let's take a scissors and a knife
And chop it, form it, give it life
With crayons bright as any known
This box: a world of its own

Theatre

House is open
Jammin' in the Green Room
Waiting for the show to start
Know it's gonna be soon
Gotta get a good seat
Gotta get there on time
Costume changes furious
"Anybody seen my....?"
Spotlight is center
Now we're gonna enter
Everything is held tight
Yesterday and every night
Always knew you were right
Seat, the stage, and spotlight

Testing

Sitting here, ten minutes to go
I'm way too fast, I'm feeling slow
I'm getting bored; hey, does it show?
If not for you, I'd never know

Booklet closed and pencils down
Looking slowly all around
Silence, silence: not a sound

Beyond the measure of my mind,
A peaceful wreck of wasted time

I've other things to do today.