effluvia 5. theories

Arrows bend, rays break

Digits stop unfolding

Something does not click

It's slowly sinking deeper

When a golden sky hangs

Languid over burning fields

And bodies hung on pikes

You'll find me dreaming

And the theories don't always

Match the way they ought

And the reasons aren't as clear

As everybody always thought

And ravens don't descend

Their bodies fall like hailstones

And all the sobbing ghosts

They fade away like fog

The ocean is always near me

And it's too damned far at sea

And someone else is here with me

Somewhere we can't see

So tell me what you think the point is

Tell me what you think my name is

Tell me what you think this life is

Tell where you see the point

Where this heart is, where the light is

Where this right is, where the soul is

Where these roads lead

How to find the river's flow

So tell me where the truth is

Tell me where I have to go.

effluvia 4. enflame (zephyrus)

This place is ablaze with furious towers

Of spiraling smoke and ashes and bits

Of journals and novels and magazines

(I packed up my things

Faced the sunset after all

I should have known better

‘Cause I knew it all along)

You blew out the sun in a meteor shower

Like hailstones, like chemicals

Like messages in gestures

(I loaded my trunk with all the faces I'd worn

And the seed in my chest at a miniscule height

The light stomped dead on a cloudless night)

Streams of amber light

Falling from your eyes

They enflame and devastate

The cities in my mind

(I wanted to say there was someone to blame

But I was the one who built that cathedral

To a god who was playing a whole different game.)

effluvia 3. esper

What did you feel in the pouring rain?

What do you see between flashes of pain?

What did you hear when they stopped calling your name?

What did you think when everyone bled the same?

What are you now but a hurt, lonesome girl?

What did you do when light tore through your world?

Hoofbeats breaking silence

Thunder across the miles

So bring the storm, bring the storm down

From the weeping smoky skies

So bring the storm, bring the storm down

From the shadows in the corners of your eyes

There's a hollowness in me

And I know you feel it too

There's a screaming ringing out your steel

We speak without words for this world's all too real

Esper, I need you now

You're the only piece of me

That's more than a phantom limb

The man in blue, he came for you

To break you and remake you in his image

Child, born of ash, born from the blaze

So the sun's slipping down

And away from the face

Of the world we ride today

And the stars are above

Shedding their light

Every which way, but not here.

effluvia 2. is this still love

What would you give to drown this city in fire?

Would you give up your life to string the world up with wire?

The oceans are drying, the ice caps have gone

The forests are ashes, there's blood on the lawn

What soul can you have in a world with a god?

What meaning is there for your people to spawn?

The sky has gone murky, the sun's just a star

The deserts are glass now, the wastelands all tar

What would you give to drown this city in fire?

Would you give up your life to string the world up with wire?

Who gives you your rights? Who whites out the stars?

Is this still a cage when you can't see the bars?

Is it still rage if I don't want to fight?

And is this still love if I don't want to lie?

effluvia 1. devil's business

God has built a world of strife

Our children have to lie

Mankind's way is of the knife

But the devil's business is only life

I've never kicked a friendly dog

I've never harmed a child

I've not yet tasted alcohol

I've never been on trial

But the devil's business, it's just life

And all I've done is live

The devil's business, well, that's life

And life is all I want to live

I've never meant to hurt a friend

I've never liked to tell a lie

I've never wished for someone's death

I've never started a serious fire

All I have is love to give

And the devil's life is what I live

Jesus died for no one's sin

My own mind is all I have

And I have got no truth to give

'Cause the devil's life is what I live.

transcent 10. wild eyes

It was not right

And your wild eyes

And the knife

And the night sky

And your dark eyes

And my strange mind

By the elephant plant

And the green grass

And the rocks it could not pass

It was not sight

And your red eyes

And the knife

And the lights in the sky

And the pitch black glass

Where I skinned my hands

And the scars on the land

All the things you never had

There was no right

And your black eyes

And the knife

And the infinite sky

And it was night

As you spoke right

I thought I would never

Want to love a girl

I was not right

It was morning

There was no warning

And it is morning now.

transcent 9. starburst (aural fane)

I see through your divinity

Starbursts in your eyes

Burn at the disguise

I am in habitually

I see through the mirror veil

To a truth I will not fail

Reality walks a downhill trail

Toward my fortress with walls of shale

You are elemental

A force of nature loosed

And barreling toward me

I could never run away

This thing is real and powerful

And I long for vibrations

To penetrate me

And I long for vibrations

Fallen from thee

As tanned hides drawn taut over hollow enclosures

Cry out their baritones in earthquakes through my brain

 Earthquakes to shatter this aural fane.

transcent 8. flames of heaven

We were silhouettes

We were backlit

Did we walk hand in hand

Through the pure and cleansing flames?

I was snowblind

I am so blind

Did we walk hand in hand

Through the pure and cleansing flames?

Mouth shut, eyes red

I lied to buy time

Did we walk hand in hand

Through the pure and cleansing flames?

Tongue tied, face white

Held tight by shame.

transcent 7. shred

Holding fast to the littlest shred

Of the cloth that wove itself

From the matters of my past

Holding fast to weather the storming

That came up this cloudy morning

And battered down to the last

You can have my body

You can have my soul

You can have my freedom

You can have it all

So I'm holding fast to the last bit of pain

Before the desert comes to swallow the rain

Before this feeling fades back into same

Before I'm thrown into a bright, speeding train

And made to ride on to the end of my days.

transcent 6. just gold

It was just gold

You've gone old, gone cold

I'll show you something new

We'll push straight on through

This is a long night to be thinking of you

And I've doubts daggerlike in a slew

And despite all the thunder

You're made up of numbers

And you've begun to slip under

It was just gold, and I was alone

And all my equations, they add up to zero

All my intentions, they add up to zero

When you're playing with nothing

You're just gonna break even

And I've a feeling I started broke

It was just gold, and I was just cold

And the great winter coming was ready to fold

And your stupid contentions, all your fucking inventions

They add up to zero.

transcent 5. delusions

I had a thousand reasons to run away

I had just one to stay, but it carried such weight

And I was a monument to lost beliefs

What is a man, but a miserable pile of secrets and fears?

A coalescence of flaws in a faulty shell?

There were so many reasons to be on my way

But I was one to stay, no matter the cost

Drowning and stalling in delusions of loss

What is a man? Just cells to rot, abstract and inept

Just so much offal clinging like rust

To a series of gears in the clock tower's depths

And somewhere below there's a terrible tone

The sky is blood black with the cracking of stone

And a whispering voice that's been stretched far too long

What is a god? Just a light in the loft shining crooked and soft

Fading fast into pools of tar shattered with jewels

And the dust of millenia falling away

A melancholy plucking of guitars

To herald dawn with lonely arms

To shatter all the pawns and fade

Into the coming, wind-blown day.

transcent 4. prophet's words

Full of ideas, faulty of fears, this place is sheer and alive

And your rooms are all right, but they're too dark at night

You go back in ready to run, it's not just for fun

You are callow and thin and hung by the skin of your teeth

You put out the flames and hide from the court

Thirty silver coins to sell yourself short

You've got good friends, you've come real far

But sometimes, kid, things are just hard

It's a beautiful world, but it's real dark at night

We are all bleary-eyed, sick wordless with fright

And when the thunder comes, kid, there's nowhere to hide.

transcent 3. old stars

Come on, we'll break down this state

For once we will not have to take

Just sigh and put down our stakes

Sit some cool place beneath a new sky

Point out old stars, still cold and dry

Put our arms around ghosts

Who've all come this far

Who've all fought the most

Who've tried to do right

Who've tried not to cry

Who've tried to just find

Some small peace of mind

And are laughing from deep

In the back of their throats

We will take to the road

And crash through the moat

And this world will be ours

Before dawn comes with rope

For the balance that's always

Unhinged and rewound

And a silence that seems

Never there to be found

A wrench in the gears who felt nothing but fear

For hands dealt from God's lucky deck

And some dirt that's a speck in life's eye

It's yours, mine, it's everything we've ever seen

Bled from deep in between in hues of some cool, crimson sheen.

transcent 2. let down

I let down, I set down

Broken crown, tearing sound

Zero percent energy

Meltdowns all history

Zero percent energy

Synesthetic dystrophy

We fall down, we fall down hard

I let you down, I let us down again

I have learned that crying

Does not feel like dying

Someone is sighing

I don't feel like lying

But I'm lost, you're found

And I, I let down.

transcent 1. the passing of thrones

What can we say? It's a warm winter night

Somewhere someone's dog is still howling her rite

Growling and slipping on cold marble floors

There are no lions left here to roar

Would you tell me your truths?

Would you let your tongue loose?

There's a wind blowing, but we can't feel it

There's a sword in the screen, but don't trust it

The world has gone hollow and slow

By the gate there's a system of liars and cheats

With their heads all grown heavy with mold

By the window I'll sit here, just counting the seasons

And watching the passing of thrones.

light 12. the spiral

Shut your eyes again

Orange light through the window heralds morning again

And the chatter of birds brings the spiral again

I said, "God damn, show me a way out

God damn just let me let it out"

All wound up with coils of severing wire

Drowned and unconscious

I bind my wounds with electrical tape

I said, "God damn, show me the way around

God damn, just let me puzzle it out"

And a calling of worlds apart

Sound up in spirals of guiding light

While the night calls a warning:

"You'll never see us again"

I said, "God damn, help me make a sound

God damn, I gotta beat it down"

Stealing away

The scenes you wrote and played

And sang and fought and prayed

Away from the places

You might have stayed

I said, "God damn, I will see you around

God damn, I am sick of this town"

'Cause the spiral has come again

For the duration of this dark

That's eating the day away.

light 11. the hollow

Seek the immaterial between deific pillars

Over hollows filled with wrong and right

Over hollows filled with coruscating light

Over hollows that only at night, shine bright

Flicker along the length of a kite string

To power your new machines

Fed on magazines and cracking beams

And the empty sound of tearing seams

Falling through the well, eleven cries:

"I am the way between

They call me heresy

Can you see with your own eyes?

Can you hang on for the ride?

Can you forgive the ones who died?

Can you accept that somebody lied?

And finally find a place to lie

Away from every weary eye

In the light of the crown

Where the highest branches down

Sephirot's shaking boughs

Toward this chaos we call home?"

light 10. the kingdom

We were laughing through dust clouds

Through storm clouds, through ashes

Crawling over broken masts, broken pasts

And echoes etched on the walls

In the kingdom of steel, glass and stone

The kingdom of shitty poems

The kingdom of things that think

And things that think of nothing

That think of everything the same

I know where you are

And I know what you are

So I won't shed my light

Not again, no matter how right

In the windows of millennia far gone

The shaman hopelessly prays:

"Let them make it, oh please

The blood on my hands

Is too much for one man"

And so glorious lambent waves

Of transient meaning from primordial gods

(Leaving lightheaded their papyrus prophets)

Scar lines in the asphalt:

"I AM THAT I AM."

light 9. faces in clouds

Oh, far-flung spirit, how you writhe and sparkle

As you orbit suns of blue and gold and callow crimson

A silent ellipse 'round my whole universe in infinite calculation

Cutting short my limited prescience, it withers and whines

And the futures and numerous causalities flee far away from me

Oh, you far-flung spirit, whispering radio waves

In jigsaw shapes awaiting completion where at last

They meet with me and dance as one

Laying waste to our ruinous fate and

This world gives way to a lasting chaos

So don't lose it to scattered reams

Don't lose it to midnight and lonely sheets

Don't lose it to silence and trampled dreams

Don't lose it to coldness and hollow scenes

Don't lose it, please

There's a better place waiting here

They'll burn it out with matches and smoke

And your window was open all night long

So run with it, run through the flames

Succumb to shade under plastic palms

Masking cell phone towers in Autumn

Where I still dream you are and pointing out

Faces in clouds and the raindrops on your face to me

So don't lose it to everything you fear

There's a better life waiting here with me.

light 8. recievers down

High above the sound

Of telephones and beings

Coughing up their chests

In showers of thumbtacks

Take that bow and arrow and shoot down every satellite

Circling cell phone cities like asteroids

Ride on, fall down

Sing the recievers down into the ground

This poisonous feeling, all mirrors and mist

The price is high but you cannot refuse to buy in

And rise above the ground beneath this town

Fight on, lie down

Sing the recievers down into the ground

The power lines hum above, forever present

Forever radiating the secrets of this city

In words we say we do not understand

But we always did, and we always will

The eclectic sound, the electric pound

Smiling, laughing, hollow voices

Everybody sing the recievers down into the ground

Everybody sing, everybody sing.

light 7. tales of adventure

Let's kick start this tale of adventure

As the night tears away every censure

All in rays of light through stormy skies

As thunderbolts course through your eyes

And a burning man who sought only the sea

Falls asleep far beneath this withering tree

Where a child's cries illuminate corners

In a tomb that winds in the hearts of the mourners

While the earth splits open and torrents of fire

Ride up on high climbing higher and higher

In your surrealistic meandering dreams

As they try to decipher just what it all means

Let us try to decipher just what it all means

'Cause this cipher of silver and studded with gold

Is the blade of a knife from a platinum mold

Falling through tangled clouds of darkening gray

Parting all of our thoughts all unto a new day

And all boys of wood and all creatures of fey

And all angels and demons sigh, fade away

In a cascade of images rising on shining screens

And my hand works in ink and I tear through the reams

And I close off my heart to those echoing screams

Piercing deep through the surface to how it all seems

To spin infinite radiant cloth without seams

As I try to decipher just what it all means

And we try to decipher just what it all means

And in dark cobwebbed cellars the frost slowly creeps

Over alchemist's jars and reagents in heaps

'Neath this twisted and desperate capering clown

Firing off cosmic fireworks for a night on the town

Where the void grows unchecked and the past has unwound

And in cabins on mountaintops new kings are crowned

While spirals of binary flow out without sound

Out to distant stars and then finally rebound

As static spreads 'cross the television screen

And people consider just what it all means

And we fight to decipher just what it all means.

light 6. the knight

With edge of blade she sings alephs

To border the worlds she's explored

The worlds she implored just to start

'Till she can understand her part

And the lines on her palms are faded away

With hilt, laid in pearlescent hues

Sixth aspect allowed:

"In symmetry find ye a place between

Form and force, you will dare to speak"

So she levels her blade:

"I was the one with perfect sight

And I've proven to you I was always right

So it's my might-given right to fight and fight

For the level I want to reach

And the things I need to teach

No less than perfection I have in mind

Unto demise I will reprise

And prise, 'till I've built the prize"

In fuller, rivers of crimson occupy her eyes

And rise, and rise, and rise, and rise

And circle the flies above her destiny

In pieces on the bedroom floor

As through inscription fourth highest endows:

"Rise eternal, exploding

Forth through the channels

In inky metaphor to illuminate."

light 5. the great summer

Encircling in silence, arrow nocked and blade in hand

The light show is over and they are failing like the day

Where tires wear to rims

Broken glass is swept together

In the living room where the angels sit

Perching high on the cabinets

With the window shut in the summer

The hot air builds inside yourself

And the twisting blinds are kaleidoscopes

That poison your whole mind

Until the fire starts growing, and the fire keeps flowing

And your lungs burn out, and your flesh is glowing

I gotta get some fresh fuckin' air

I gotta get rid of my empty stare

I gotta step outside and cut my hair

I gotta walk downtown and pay my fare

But the light show is over

So I sit it out and hang around in growing silence

With the sound of crickets and clicking deadbolts.

light 4. temple of glass

My heart lies always on this altar

My eyes have faded, and still I wander

Some long path of warfare and thunder

To find some feeling long since gone

A new religion to build meaning on

All the songs on the radio are blurring together

Asleep on the rooftops, alone with me

I turn off the TV, so the only sound

Is the white noise of the splitting sea

My heart is a liar

But there is a fire inside

I cannot define or deny

I have got to read it again

'Cause the first time left things open to interpretation

I have got to read it again

Because I feel as though I am missing things

I have got to see you again

'Cause I am losing ground

Inch by inch, wish by wish.

light 3. thoroughfares

Water sound, in and out

Water falling from the clouds

Water sounds

The thoroughfares are all washed out

As water slides along the ground

Eroding beauty, eroding causality

There is no other way, you are fragile clay

Despite what they say the tides are shaping you.

light 2. by the riverside

It's high time I made up my mind

Start this story with fire and singing blood

And reeling, reel it in on a cloudy night

'Cause there's a light on and I cannot see

Through the prism of the window screen

And I do not know what I want from you

And I do not know what I want from me

This strange significance, we feel it in our bones

We draw it to our homes and we play out our roles

'Cause there's a hole in the wall

Through which you can see nothing at all

But whirlwinds and fireballs and a sprawling

Cityscape of shining stars and breaking hearts

We were skipping stones off each other

By the riverside, twisted with lives

Just to hear the music playing in each other's minds

'Cause there's a light on and I cannot see

For the fog that's wrapping inside of me

And the thunderstorms that never clear

From the back of this island shrouded in fear

We were tossing stones into the water

Watching the rings of our gravity

Pull the spiders below the surface

'Cause where there's a light on, I cannot see

Through the core of you or the core of me

And the flickering fires of the TV screen

Are the coughing fits of a dying dream

It's past time I made up my mind

Put the pen to the page and pour out the lines

Casting stones to sink and resonate

In ripples of shimmering light.

light 1. unreal

Labyrinth of raving fears on a shipwrecking shoal

Our coral is red steel with black powder swirls

And the sails are woven from the twisted reams

Of your parents' parents darkest dreams

Breaking waves under moonlight and wells

Reflected in the tidal swells and dewy dells

Where the people are sounding their death knells

And reeling alongside an ocean of dead grass

An ocean of white glass

It is the unreal you cannot defend

It is the unreal you will not repel

You will never be free of everything

You keep up behind your eyes

It's of infinite size

The pealing of wind chimes

Echoes through the waves

Reaching the ears of those toiling slaves

'Till the day they go to sleep in their graves

So scattered along the escarpment of

Azure trails, leering Erebus rails:

"You'll not escape this garden of tears

So bleed your mind dry."

dark 13. silhouettes

Head low, head high

Red lines across the sky

Sold off, bought out

White lights in her eyes

I try, I try

And silhouettes smile

From corner shades

Meticulously cleaned

Our stupid dreams

And I, I tried

Finding lost in wires

Fallen silent spires

Mirror playing mockingly

Furtive eyes turn inwardly

And I, I lie

Fires in garbage cans

She has never fallen in

Spider's line surely woven

Far away and close within

I give, I try

Iron walls, waterfalls

Set in deep, set in low

Numbers cracked and yellow

Empty shopping malls

I fight, we die.

dark 12. children throwing bricks

Take off, soaring through black oceans

Of starbursts and scintillating clouds

Scraping up cosmic debris

From the edge of her world

You are light and shadow and woven tight

And form is extraneous and I'll not confess

To beliefs I had made up for me

Spirit is what you are, and spirit is what I am

And I am trying so hard to understand

You are earth and air and spun so right

And form is a lie they wrote themselves

Over a thousand years and a million fights

Because form is distraction

And life doesn't care what your family thought

So take off and descend in spirals

Of orange to white, lost in streamers of fog

Through cyclopean waves to a city beneath your mind

With walls of sugar glass and a thousand children

Throwing bricks, dripping cadmium red.

dark 11. mercenary

What do you see in my gray eyes?

The light in the sky never seems to die

And is it so wrong that I have cried

Waiting here for one real night?

So pick up your sword

Don't cry, what do you think you're fighting for?

We'll trade blood for gold in the morning light

Fury flashes through dirty windows

But the rain's far away, and I stay dry

The rain's moved away, and I am dry

Grasping hands move through the fog

Don't you wonder why you are?

Light a fire under your skin

And hold it close to carry it in

So pick up your sword

Tell me what you're fighting for

And we'll trade blood for gold in the dead of night

Hey, look into my hollow eyes

There's a fire there that will never die

There is no room to still ask why

We'll ride on to the morning light

Through city streets all fogged with gold

A whirlwind of dull, precious stones

Beneath a new sky, upon an old throne

So pick up your sword

Show me what we're fighting for

And we'll trade blood for gold 'til the end of time

I woke alone, picked up the phone

Dead line, quiet air, no dial tone

I found a bottle on the shore

Red sand and the fading glow

But those words were empty

Just old tears turned to snow

I felt the cold come from far away space

And I said to myself, "We are already home"

So pick up your sword

Tell me what's worth fighting for

And we'll bloody our souls 'til the day we die.

dark 10. miscommunication

Call it miscommunication, exaggeration

Sensationalist appeals to her preferences

So it goes and so it went

And so it never ever relents

Because it means too much

Posturing is something I cannot prevent

In the light of reason, I rewind the tapes

And I curse and regret

It's a firefight and I have no cover

A battle of wits and my weapon dull

All those faltering rationalizations

Fall flat as I draw my hand

And this game may not be mutual

But I do not know how not to play.

dark 9. daat

Your nightmare screams from the tops of the trees

"It's time to unleash all the things you have seen

Where the water runs deep and the darkness is clean"

Somebody screams from between the ripped seams

"It's time to complete this work so replete

With sorry complaints dressed in new coats of paint"

In a world where they lash out from hiding between

The pages of books and the lines on TV

What do you do to get by?

Lying and writhing on cold concrete floors

The world swaying loosely above and below

Are you afraid of the ocean's tow?

You wax and wane, depraved light of the moon

Dancing where voices are indistinct and indiscreet

Weaving masks and hollow poetry for all those

Who intrude to dispute of these truths

Coughing up thunderstorms every day

To slip away down the dirty sink drain

And flow fresh from the shower head

Suffused in the rotting fruit I've sowed

Lacking maps reliable or encouraging

Barred by doubts that can't be occluded

Or assuaged with some miracle salve

No, I'll drown in a shower of snake oil and amulets

And hold fast to a silence that's burning inside

That boy from the old town, I don't like his style

He's hanging from ledges and lying inside

Punching numbers into the wide, silver screen

Watching footfalls echo across cracked black plains

A thousand, thousand thirsty ghosts who pray for rain

On a pilgrimage to no place that's ever been seen

Aglow with the moonlight reflecting off the shards

Of broken glass and the plastic hopes and dreams

Cast off along the way

Take my hand

Let's walk on through the scattered ash

And grave dust of the worlds that came before

Setting store in a destination nobody really

Believes is waiting any more

Seeking just some shallow reconciliation

Rolls of paper spitting straight into the shredder

Soaked in double-speak turning back on itself

Just excuses for another transitory state

I will never, can never conclusively escape

That boy from the old town, I don't like his style

It's falsehood upon falsehood bursting out every aisle

Folders filled with files that have lost their relevance.

dark 8. steel towers

Steel towers sigh, lightning falls from darkening skies

A city born of desperation becomes a shivering mire

I will climb across gold glassy eyes soaked in brine

From the depths that one day they will rise

By the window with the shades half-drawn

Watching shadows moving on the walls

As bodies pass the sidewalk by

The patterns from the bars and the blinds

Checkerboard my room through the night

And I cannot let go of every single slight

I've committed without thought, and might

On a sandy hill unsafe above the snow

The ebb and flow of throbbing emotion

Runs the spectrum from high to low

Steel towers rise, rain storms come to lead our lives

Wheeling through the wind's blank eyes

And reeling for a lifetime of quiet lies.

dark 7. floorboards

Beneath your clothing

Everything is dead and bloody

In dark cellars where bodies move

Everything's reduced to motion

Sounds and sticky fluid choking

Love that turns to rust

The floorboards are creaking

In your house and in your heart

The floorboards are giving way

To a world that reeks of reality

Beneath your clothing

Everything is cold and clammy

Everything is wrong and broken

Everything is low and broken

The floorboards are creaking

In my house and in my heart

The floorboards are giving way

And I can't feel you any more.

dark 6. the meadows

Cleared for takeoff, I left it behind

High in the sky, out of my mind

The beaten wing climbed and climbed

The in-flight movie was broken

And everybody cared but me

It made me want to cry

The city was dry

The people were dying

In a haze of empty vice

The meadows were a memory

Just dust storms and red thorns

And liquor spat up in the streets

The tears of creatures' broken dreams

Evaporated swiftly in the searing heat.

dark 5. ragnarok

Midnight slips by one, ten thousand times

I lie on the floor and open to the roar

Just ringing in my ears, just caught up in fear

Curtains on the mirrors, my heart's arrears

I know I will disappear someday

Headphones are all you need

Life grown from a sallow seed

A single callow mind at sea

A single heart split out to three

Just ringing in my ears, just catching up on fears

Hanging curtains on the mirrors

Running from my heart's arrears

I don't want to disappear

And midnight's past, the morning's cracked

Daylight filters through the blinds

Numbness never greets my mind

Just a sense of nothing there to find

And the terror of being one of a kind.

dark 4. monofilament

You lie cloaked in ire

And monofilament wire

You are absent of fire

And a talentless liar

You speak, still asleep

Weighed down words to keep

Unkempt and mossy green

Left down deep to dream

You rose from the ashes

As some thing still debased

Not far fled from home

Your crowned hollow throne

You write without irony

And words spin away

But I see the irony

You've nothing to say

And you lie every day

There is no game to play

Can near pull you away

From whatever it is you may be

I am difficult to see

It's getting difficult to breathe

I have no secrets left to keep

I am feeling strangely weak

I am waiting for one slow week

To catch up on this lost sleep

To roll over and sink in deep

And forget about you

And forget about me

And I will forget

I will forget you soon

I will dream and die

But I will not lie again.

dark 3. mechanical pencil

I am not an island

I am waiting to fall into orbit

I will fall down to earth

And ocean drown this fire out

My mechanical pencils

Trace dulling senses

Boiling down everything

I've no hope to express

And I frame my mind

In dark ink and lead

Lines of fire running

Through my hollow head

I am not an island

I am risen from the cold

I will part these lonely waters

And rest in depths untold

White fire, sleeping waves

Silver eyes and ragged glow

Oil fires on the seashore

The blowing salt and smoke

Branches and lines

From death down to life

The kingdom grows bright

On a life's empty highs

I am not an island

I can find no archipelago

I am long fled from land

And long used to writing

With trembling hands.

dark 2. carbon

Diamonds are carbon

You are no wise man

There lives no woman

Who dares fill this void

Hearts fall in silence

We fall into rest

Hearts burn like pyres

We fall from the nest

Diamonds are carbon

We are not heartened

God ran from its garden

In the dust we lay down low

The churchyard is silent

Dawn opens no doors

I have no answers for you

I cannot save you any more

Diamonds are carbon

I am no wise man

You are no human

And this is no soul.

dark 1. golden hands

These crowns weigh down

There is no more doubt

Fate flees her throne

And the gods are thrown

From grace into some frenzied state

(And Apollo fades out

Apollo breaks down

Something transient

Gilded leaves and circumstance)

These mountains are cold

And the meadows are stone

Fate flees her home

And the heroes are sown

As seeds before some weary scribe

(And Apollo fades out

Apollo breaks down

Something intangible

Open arms and golden hands)

Muse, I will drown

There is no more doubt

Zephyrus cold sighs

The lights all go out

Muse, I will drown

There is no more doubt

The cypress reaps

And Apollo fades out.