The Wind

sounds like


forgotten names


being spoken


all at once.

Midnight Candles

burning through the house.
the acrid smell wafting
through the dining room.
a picture of grandmother,
flowers laid down.
"what are the candles for?"
I asked. "they're for
your grandmother,"
he said. I breathed
in as the wind howled
outside the windows.

Through the fog

a beacon shines.

Becoming the Archaeologist

Exploring the past 
through a personal 
archaeology.

Moss grows upon the trunk of the tree.

The artist grows within the lesson learned.

The Lesson of the Grandfather Clock

Watching the pendulum

swing

back and forth

through the glass

in it's body,

watching time

in the same way

my grandfather did.

How endlessly

it repeats itself,

again

and

again.

BELIEVE 

IN 

PAUL

PROTEUS

Bruised and Aching

DON'T EVER THINK
IT COULD HAPPEN
TO YOU


HAPPEN FOR YOU


PUSH IT DOWN


PUSH IT DOWN


...DROWN.


LOSE HER,


LOSE HER,


....LOSER.

Embrace the inner light.

Recollection

Do we still recollect our thoughts in tranquility

or do we cobble them together word by word,

phrase by phrase, in the fleeting moments in be-

tween all the other falling grains of sand?

Love doesn't understand distance.

Grateful To Be Alive

It could all be so different,
our lives hanging by the slenderest of threads,
the scissor ready to cut
at any moment.
One second makes the difference,
but that's all that counts.
If not for that second
I wouldn't have been there
to see your beautiful faces
and radiant souls.
In fact,
it'd probably be me
that would be looking down,
wondering if you could see me.

Racing Against The Rain.

The secret heart of hidden sin
will always decay the soul within.

gripping dirt

Roots run deep in this soil.

Coming up from the dirt like

gnarled and cragged fingers

they grip tighter with each

passing year.

THE ONLY FACT I AM SURE OF/THE MOST IMPORTANT THOUGHT I'VE EVER HAD

MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION

MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION
 
MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION


MUSIC IS THE ONLY 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION

A Good Source of Laughter

The biggest laugh comes from

seeing how ridiculous a thing is

unto itself.

The biggest cause of this is a

true understanding of the self.

The End of Memory

The tangled years of memory
grow knotted with each passing
day. Memories become fleeting
thoughts brought on by random
sights, words, smells & touches.

If you destroy the photograph,
my memory of it, too, shall pass.

The Old Man & the Scene.

The dour exercise of (our) love.

The Uneasy Peace

You were much nicer before.
Who the hell do you think you are now?

I guess it's my fault for caring.
It just wasn't much fun at the end, was it?

Might as well move away,
forget it all, pretend we died

and returned in a reincarnated
form that is ready to move on.

Do I have it all wrong?
Was I the one that changed?

False Starts & Broken Hearts

fwd/bkwd

forwards can seem backwards
at times but that has only to do
with our perception.

the energy needed to move for
ward at any given time requires
much motivation to move from

an inert state. this can be either
 the changing of mind or the
motion of moving space to space.

I Wrote Her Something

but I never showed it to her.

I showed it to her friends

and they loved it and thought

it be to a great work of fiction

(it was a poem).

It wasn't fiction,

it was about her,

it was about the night

we went out together

to the heart of the city

in one of her old rooms

insulated from the world

by the darkness and drinks

that filled every inch of that space.

I still see her every now and

then but

the moment has passed

when it could have made

a difference

when it would have made

a difference

but that was then

and this is now.

Perhaps I'll see her

again soon someday

and tell her I have something

I'd like her to read.

What she'll say then

I don't know

but it won't matter.

The inspiration was the gift

the failure to act

was my own.

Late Nite Free Write

There are no doors to open and no barriers to break down
there is only space around and within us
it is there for us to fill with whatever we see fit
if we can will ourselves to be free of constricting constructs
we will find that there are modes of thought and expression
to be explored that we have as yet left untouched
I turned the knob with my left hand to open the door
but as soon as i opened it there was nothing
but a feeling of regret
regret at not knowing what was behind
but also the knowledge that was about to be mine
there is no one path to any destination
to limit ourselves to one fixed route
to any physical destination or to any life goal
is to reduce the amount of imagination we
are capable of
when we were children we had no worry
no use for limitations placed on our thoughts
we wandered as freely as the buffalo once did
across the vast plains of the american frontier
those days are long since past
there is nothing there now but the smoldering ash of
good intentions that became preconceived ideas
of greed and domination that came to define
generations of people in our nation
a history built on half truths and deception
we make due with our historical hypocrisy
because that is all we can do short of becoming
blind and indifferent in much the way that many
of our fellow citizens have
where has that idea of good citizenship taken us
where has it gone from our lives
is it living in a fictitious world or has it
entirely disappeared or perhaps it was never here
it was never ours to have and to hold
it was a shapeless ideal that we held to be true
true enough to believe but not real enough for us
to act and make it so
so much passes us by these days as information
sails in front of our eyes moment by moment
our capacity to comprehend has stayed static
while the world and our capacity to innovate
has grown exponentially our poor heads
are like tea cups with fire hoses pointed right at them
ready to break as soon as contact is made
or they are launched and they shatter upon the ground
did i have a dream yes
i had a dream such a strange dream
that I was with someone as we drove our way through and
found ourselves in the company of some famous rock bands
rehearsal space hidden in some dark alley hidden from the world
and we felt alive some how some way that we couldn't entirely
believe or understand we had been drinking in that dream
and were drunk already when we met them but
it was a dream and only a dream
and when i woke the sun was there
and the morning was cold and there were things to be done
placed i had to be but i wasn't sure if it mattered
did any of it matter as
all of it because patterns
recognized and analyzed to no end
and there is no end
there is no end to the cycle of death and creation
but what is there to learn
what is there not to learn
the words all write themselves they find their place
among the page as my fingers fly and give birth to these
children all hoping to find the eyes of an audience ready
to look and to read and to understand
and to close this gap between us
to close these rift to
fill this grand canyon that we have made for ourselves
and between ourselves
there is a space that can be filled
and we can be fulfilled if we can only let go
let go of these notions that bind us and constrict us
and find a reason to wake and to love and to
see and to feel ourselves alive in the way we idealize
those in the past to be but there is a false analogy to the past
there is no past there is only now there is only us
there is only me typing these words out late at night
and there is only you reading those words in another time
and another place perhaps close or far to where I am
or when I am but I am and have been and will continue to be
in some way shape or form as I continue as you continue
as we continue to change our thoughts shapes and forms

Love is always an afterthought to fleeting impulse.

Neither Created Nor Destroyed

What is there to say of us once we are gone?
Does memory persist indefinitely
or does it dissipate
like the particles
of all matter?

Late Night Waterfall

Paralyzed by your words,
you have my full attention.
I sit here
waiting for a waterfall.
It always comes alone
and
late at
night.

Twilight Sounds

When I was living in my old apartment I would often hear
the woman upstairs start singing and playing acoustic guitar
around 7 o'clock most evenings. That's also around the time
I ate dinner most nights. At first it was a bit of a nuisance
since I would get home from work and just want some peace
and quiet. I sometimes thought about hitting the ceiling with
the broom to get her to shut up but I never did. I've never been
too into music. A lot of times I would put the radio on and just
flip around the stations to hear whatever randomness seemed
the most pleasing.

After about a month or so of her doing these evening performances
I began to listen to her. I would just sit there while my dinner
would begin to get cold. Her words were heartbreaking, her
voice strained over certain lines, I could practically see the
tears streaming down her face. I can't really pinpoint what
it is that made her so different than all those other voices on
the radio or TV, it was just a feeling that I couldn't shake. It's
like her voice had set up residence in my chest.

After she was done playing it was almost always quiet upstairs.
I began to wonder about her and her life. Were all those songs
about things she had lived through? Was she a professional
musician? Did she only play for herself? I stopped myself
many times over from going up and just saying hello. I
remember when she moved in, I saw her lugging her boxes
up the stairs from the rented van. I don't remember seeing a
guitar case among her possessions but she obviously had one.

I was in too big of a rush that day to stop and say hello and
introduce myself. She had shoulder length strawberry blonde
hair, she was slender but not frail. There was a certain kind
of resilience in her motions. She had the kinds of movements
that only someone who has lived through hardship can know.
She wasn't the kind of woman who you would say was a drop
dead beauty, but there was a natural grace to her that was
greater than the images on the tv and magazines.

I began to think about her more and more outside of those
evenings that we shared together apart in our apartments.
I had never seen or heard anyone else but her come in or
out of her apartment. She had no boyfriend that I could
tell, or girlfriend for that matter.

One afternoon at work I finally decided that when I got
home that night I would finally go up to her apartment and
introduce myself and tell her how much I had been enjoying
her music. I prepared my dinner in the same I always had
and waited for that familiar sound.

I waited and waited but it never came. Was she running late?
Did she stay late at work? Was she caught in traffic? Was she
visiting with family? Had she gone out of town? It floored me
that the one night I finally decided to meet her she would not
be there. Once I realized that she wasn't coming home to sing,
I turned on the radio but I quickly shut it off because it wasn't
the same, it wasn't her.

The next two days passed in the same fashion. Each night I
got my dinner ready and waited to for her to come back but
to no avail.

On the fourth day as I was walking to my door I saw her
at the bottom of her stairs with an older woman at her side.

Her arm was in a cast and her face looked bruised. She had
her castless arm over the older womans shoulder. They moved
up the stairs one step at a time. I could hear the pain in each
step by way of a groan escaping her lips.

I walked up to the base of the stairs and asked "Do you two
need any help?" They paused and looked down at me. The
pained look on the older woman's face said everything.

"Could you open the door for us?" I walked up a couple of
steps to join them.  The older woman had produced a key and
and put it in my hand. The young woman looked exhausted
and still in pain. "Thank you very much."

I opened up the door to the apartment and waited for them to
reach me at the top of the staircase. In her apartment I saw
her guitar sitting there on a stand next to a loveseat in front
of TV that I had never heard once.

Once they reached me I gave the keys to the older woman
"Thank you once more." The young woman looked up and
feigned a painful smile. "Thank you for getting the door."
"No problem. I just want to introduce myself. My name is
Jacob and I live in the apartment downstairs. Let me know
if either of you ever need anything."

"Thank you Jacob" the older woman said. "My name is
Sylvia and this is Nancy." as she motioned to the fragile
frame in her care. "Have a good night you two." I walked
down the stairs and into my apartment to prepare my dinner
like normal. I sat down in silence and wondered what could
have possibly have happened.

As I lay in bed that night, my conscious mind fading from
this realm, I could have sworn I heard an older voice singing
 quietly, sweetly into the night.

Phrases Written in a Ten Minute Span

Thoughts spill out like seed fertilizing the drain.

Cut off your face to spite your heart.

Her hands speak the anguish of her soul.

I can't help but believe every word from your mouth.

Every story ends the same.

The values of the masses don't interest me.

All candles burn out.

Sunsets prepare us for the Sunrise.

The sound of shards of glass funneled through
an amplifier and played back at peak volume.

Your face befits an angel, your tongue bathes in acid.

There was nothing left once we came.

Everything becomes lost once we leave it behind.

My thoughts towards you are bound between a previous love
and loyalty and an uncertain path.

The wait, the wait, the weight of it all.

When you find it, you will know.

There is no defense, only offense.

A-ttack...Con-so-nants-and find-where-it all-comes-to
-ge-ther-and-falls-a-part.

Languishing In The Pony Corral.

You were more beautiful when you didn't know how ugly you are.

hold on a little longer

just hold on a little longer.

it'll be fine.

just give it time.

The hallowed tree grew hollow

in the dying forest.

The Falsehood of a Romanticized Ideal

Spoon sat on the living room coffee table alone.
There were no cups or plates nearby to keep her company.
They were all sitting in the sink or cupboard waiting
for their usefulness to be called to action.

A cheap cigarette lighter sat next to Spoon
like a lover fallen asleep on the bed on top of the sheets.
She was sick she said. Doctor said to stay at home
for at least 90 days or so.

Spoon just sat there looking at me and then
looked away. We said no words. We just looked
at each other and wondered how we got there
on such a nondescript night.

As I got up to leave
I kept wondering if she wanted to come with me.
Spoon remained there, silent.
Her face caked in dirty white. 

For Everyone Drinking In A Bar Listening To Music Alone

When I find the right words
you always find a better one
that pierces my heart through.
Your voice is an arrow 
sharpened by the sorrow
you sing so deep.

When You Found Me In The Junkyard

maybe this loneliness

will break

through the ceiling

of glass above it.

maybe I'll find you

on the otherside

waiting for me,

wondering where

I have been.

The Journey of One Word to Another

there is only one thing you've been looking for all these years
you've gone in blindly knowing that when it presents itself to
you that you will know that the search has at last come to an
end how quickly the years have passed by in this pursuit they
fall away like so many hairs caught in a comb skin ages like
parchment as memory cracks like a windshield with a rock
lodged in it obstructing the view of the road faces become
raindrops passing before a green screen like a scene from a
movie yet to be made picture of yourself from your child-
hood you can barely believe that to be yourself how many
lives ago was that what has happened to all those memories
lived that have now been forgot add another grain of sand
to the beach before the tide comes in and carries it out to
sea the clouds have gathered at the coast and blocked out
the sun the bathing beach bunny beauties have all gone
home to their apartments in the outlying inland areas their
beach towels left to remember the summer past there is only
winter now for all of us we have found ourselves once more
at the mercy of the cycle of the seasons how strange it would
be if they were ever out of balance if spring lead to winter
lead right to summer but fall wouldn't mind if it still held
its same place but the seasons can't think they can only move
to the motions prescribed to them but our doting mother who
wonders how we could treat her this way but she loves us still
her prodigal children come back to her her embrace as full of
hope as it ever has but we've grown up so fast and she wonders
whether or not we can make it on our own oh mother have we
disappointed you have we broken your heart mother mother
please forgive us all father was never around to show us

that which we stand to lose

your sliding glass face could hide no secrets
once the glass revealed the contents of the house.
it was all apparent then, and what appeared to be
a true image was nothing more than a reflection
of a long lost ideal. all these distractions came
so easily. it is no wonder that the game was lost.

Drop some knowledge and run.

We are all so enraptured at our own 
narratives to see that we are players 
in those of others as well.

The Gilded Age

Oh Sweet One

flitting forth in

your gilded cage

shining bright.


Your wings beat

restlessly as your

pained heart trembles

in the passing wind.


You can hear the cooing

of the rock doves sitting

near, only to have their

voices disappear in flight.

You Are Free

If there is no God and all Religions
are as false as the glint in a cubic zirconia
you are then Free.
Free to make and act and do and say
and think anything you wish.
There is a burden that rests solely upon
your shoulders
with every choice cast,
with every love broken
with every promise kept.
If, for example
this idea is wrong
and there is a God...
what assurance do you
have that yours is the right one?
We can suppose it better to not
think about this too much
or too often and just
keep the blinders of the daily
routine steadfastly in place.

Interpretations of Other Lives.

Parentage

Mother Earth


Father Sky.

Candle Light

Let the candle burn in the center of the room,
it will spread its light against the ceiling
and the walls. The flame will warm your hands
if placed over it or burn the skin if pressed too closely.
Let the candle burn bright, it will shine upon
all that needs to be seen.

indictment

Must there always be a delay
between thought and action?
Or is this merely the fault
in my process that
seeks to sabotage me
at every turn
with my own weakness?

Something to Notice

There is always space


in the darkness


of night.

impasse

What do you want to talk about?

Anything. It doesn't matter.


Like what?

It doesn't matter.


She looked at me like I had lost my mind.
I just didn't get it.
I just didn't get her.


Just forget about it.


She walked to the bedroom and closed the door.
I wonder what she was thinking.

Ageless

Heartbreak never gets old.

We are loathe to experience it

but we can understand it.

When a song comes on the radio,

or we read a novel with a sad ending

we know. It is a common thread

in all our lives. Very often

it comes by more than once.

When we think we have

forgotten we are drawn

back in to the memories

that have pained us so.

Heartbreak lives in an

eternal youth.

Foundead

( )

I bleed tears

as we resume

the custom of

the countries

we find our

selves to be

in. We have

always given

freely of our

selves to each

other. Our

choices have

been made

and the paths

have been set.

There are pass

ing moments

between the

seasons where

we can close

space once

more, only to

widen it again

with the pass

ing years that

age us. I found

grace in your

hands and

cannot believe

I let them go

once more.

The History of the World

As human beings 


we love nothing more


than to hurt each other.


That has been 


a summation


of the history


of mankind.

Music is a language beyond words
when it achieves its intended effect.