More

All along the riverside
Where waters run in rivulets of red
Washing through the old remains
Of weeping shells and open veins
And yellow-tinted ivory up ahead

Cast as if a skipping stone
Many steps away from any beach
Salt around the fading prints
What came before are merely hints
And what will come to be still out of reach

Floating out upon the peaks
Of water wearing rings of lost intent
Lapping at where lovers were
And nevermore became of her
For permanence, it seems, is only lent

Resting like a running tide
Carving through the bones that came before
Organizing old debris
In hopes of finding parts of me
Beneath the broken bones and teeth
And all the failings underneath
To see if there was ever something more

Left

Drifting on an ocean made of metaphors and dreams
Settled in without a sail to guide
Us to all the places separated from extremes
That the world behind has amplified

Resting on horizons as if stars upon the shores
Lights of all the cities in repose
Blinking in and out so not unlike the eyes of yours
Crafting, in the silence, steady prose

Where the lulling currents offer little now and less
Deep within a canvas of azure
Hearing suspirations getting slower in egress
Such is what it means to find a cure

Gliding on the water where the movement is a clip
Feeling either bounty or bereft
Slipping far away from your departing fingertip
Tracing out a journey to a land that’s far away where no one knows the water deep where you were left

Refrains

Silently leaping away
Till everything tragically falls
Tracing the moon for a thimble of light
When the sun no one really recalls

Speaking of urgent intent
Where actions are painfully pale
Pictures replacing the purpose of sight
Where perception is lacking in scale

Sweeping the dust of disdain
In corners we fail to attend
Set beneath paintings of moments polite
But they never resemble a friend

Casually slipping apart
Till silence is all that remains
Weeping for stars that escape in the night
Where the breath of the evening is tragically slight
And we sing only somber refrains

Sands

I tried to move a mountain with the hope
That doing so would alter where I was
So to the very top of it, I tied a bit of rope
And tried to bind it firmly to the cause

For all of the exertion that I gave
The changes were dishearteningly slim
Feeling as if molecules were being made to pave
A road that led to hell and to its rim

The days became of circle growing gray
A cycle made of moon and fleeing sun
Watching in lament as all the rope began to fray
And progress was an inch ahead of none

I stood upon a mountain holding rope
Within my aching, callous-covered hands
Tired of the mountain and the fantasy of hope
That led me to a place that I was trying to erase
Where there was nothing left below but burning sands

Conclusion

When did all the magic
Turn to menial miasma?
Summer into sad fomenting flurries?

When did all the tragic
Start becoming the expected?
Wonder into winter full of worries?

How did all the static
Start devouring compassion?
Spring beneath the heel of disillusion?

How did the traumatic
Turn to temporary moments?
Fall before the fallen so there’s nothing left but falling into compromising closure and conclusion?

Address

There aren’t any reasons
And there aren’t any rhymes
That live been between the obvious disparity of times

We’ve slowly separated
Till from everything we are
We view it with a telescope and measure from afar

There isn’t any method
And there aren’t any plans
That hold together meaning with our disconnecting hands

We’ve only just positioned
Out of comfort or duress
Like music in a parlor lacking any form of ardor singing lyrics that we’re nervous to address

Leaf

Here beneath a blanket
Made of ashes and delusion
Crawling neath detritus’s allure

Clutching to a morning
Made of eloquent confusion
Fabricating phrases insecure

Settled in the wreckage
Wearing snow as a disguise
Burrowing to find a new belief

Contemplation caving
Underneath the hollow skies
Furrowing eternally as maggots turn to flies
Escaping in the wind as if a leaf

Causes

Walking under waterfalls
And running over bridges
Seeing only porcelain immaculately painted
As my fingers disregard the jagged ridges

Talking over worshipers
And screaming over preachers
Hearing only brilliance in the words now punctuated
By the stuttering reply of failing teachers

Calculating endlessness
And multiplying zeroes
Holding on to pieces of imaginary meaning
Where the world is now forever lacking heroes

Swimming under tidal waves
And drowning in mirages
Where the last reminders of a moment made of madness
Are reflected to infinity through all the broken mirrors
That I’m searching through for temporary causes

Same

I’m sitting by a telephone
And waiting for a call I won’t receive
Part of me is certain that I ought to walk away
But part of me still chooses to believe

I’m ready should the call appear
I’ve planned the conversation many times
Sorted out the logic so I know what not to say
I’ve plotted how to stay within the lines

I take the time to verify
No messages arrived without a sound
Scrolling through the graveyard of a dead communique
Where not a conversation can be found

I’m waiting here to say goodbye
And dreading that the line’ll sing your name
Part of me is certain it’ll never be today
And probably not tomorrow
So within a den of sorrow
Am I waiting by a phone, within the silence, all alone,
Forever worried that you’re doing much the same

Disbelieving

Tell me not to look away
Upon the ebon fields of your departure
Where the words of sacrifice are moving with a crooked sway
And words of revelation are the arrows of a sadly blinded archer

Sing to me another song
And lace it with the laudanum of desire
Here where there’s a chorus slowly crushing every other wrong
So all that I can hear above the din is what of me you now require

Offer me your parting words
Of carefully articulated reasons
So that I can see that we are, all of us, departing birds
And you were merely offering to spare me from the unabiding seasons

Tell me something – anything
So I don’t have to notice that you’re leaving
Here where now it’s colder than the winter years so many bring
And to myself, I’m saying that I shouldn’t look away
Remembering your song and parting words you didn’t say
Where the absence do I fill with disbelieving