Living Jewelry

Cold water diamonds forged in ice
not fire
Resting on rich black felt
like eyes floating in shadow
watching you from just outside
the edge of perception
recording your sins and victories in equal unfeeling measure

Who is that in the corner
waiting on, but saddened by your arrival?

This city of ghosts
polluted crowded dirty and old
this highway to perdition
this yellow brick road

This box we're in looks just like sky
except it's always shrinking
always getting a little older

Digging into the frozen earth
Earnest vampires just trying to get home
How ridiculous they look
How nostalgic they feel
Someone should let them in on the joke

Love is a shovel
and I'm digging again
trying to find what's left of the fire
an ember flickering in the coming dark.

Mea Maxima Culpa

I howled hoping hell hounds might hear it

Shoved bloodless white hands through black ink

I handprinted blame on my spirit

Chose not to be change, but to fear it

Pushed what I knew to be true to the brink

I howled hoping hell hounds might hear it

Found virtue but would not go near it

Made heavy what rivals may think

I handprinted blame on my spirit

Met cruelty and thought to revere it

It hid with a grin and a wink

I howled hoping hell hounds might hear it

Over precipice steadily I steered it

Hoping the longing might sink

I handprinted blame on my spirit

Gained wisdom but failed to adhere it

Allowed deep down inside me to shrink

I howled hoping hell hounds might hear it

I handprinted blame on my spirit 

Repellant

i want to sing in my chains like the sea

i want to smash the servo-mechs

i want to be the new messiah
a humbug magician of the rational
welding wizardry and science together
until a new form is created
an eyesore the peasants will fall onto their knees before
unable to control their laughter and tears and bleeding hands
spoken of in hushed tones while ancient mariners' fingers fork the sign of the evil eye
some rusting, oily, engine of destruction that will hold the acolytes in thrall
something the people will dread

i want to leave everything behind
escaping on wings of some diaphonous material
seethrough but strong
a very real toad in this imaginary garden

i want to burn it all down
being born again in the fire
born unto new worlds through the healing flame
somehow surviving the heat and scars

i just want someone to draw a yellow plague circle around my feet
to cast me out
to point and stare with their lonely forgotten eyes

Waking

Suppose you arose from repose in your clothes

impaled through the chest by a dream

the ache of the stake keeps your memories awake

in both sleep and the space in between

you struggle and scrape try your best to escape 

shut the doors to the horrors you love most

but no matter the maze of the paths that you blaze 

you still stand face to face with your ghosts

travel you do, for you must

no use looking back in disgust

the sword of your pride must stay sheathed at your side

only drawn at the cross of your trust

don't poison your mind with the blame

it's nothing when it's not the same

no matter how strong you built it, 

what's wilted is wilted

drift along same as you came. 

suppose you arose from repose in your clothes

impaled through the chest by a dream

the ache of the stake keeps your memories awake

in both sleep and the space in between

Adams and Marie

We'll wait until dark
to move you
Let me try and move you after dark

Lights blur into lines
Strangers getting stranger
searching like the mob
we get stronger together

Things fall apart
the center does not hold
holding the talisman in my hand
I reach for the ace up my sleeve to find
the only constant

your face in profile
diamonds in freckles
hair calming the breeze


Only you


Mulholland waits


Cleanse the hurts denning secretly in my secret heart
This sacred agreement holding us on these roads forever broken
Mulholland watches and waits until the sun turns red
and the sea reclaims the land
In the hills, the cities, schools of fish
That's right I can see the future now

I can see the future
In lights, our names together, ten feet tall
Brightening the lives lucky enough to brush up against yours
And all of those unlucky enough never to know you

Mulholland waits
like no one else knows it exists
At hollywood and highland
the strangers act like we're not even irish
even though we're drunk
the big 5 snarled like knots on fingers
the 118 and 170
the 101 all the way to the water
the 10 coming all the way back to the wine

So if the world ended in darkness
I would feel around for your hand
Until I hold it in mine
We'd search for my car, the color of darkness
And speed into the black
and pray
we've got just enough gas left to get us home



Don't leave me alone

Don't



Soft touch you and me
trying so hard to be hard
We see through each other
into what's been left behind
by the users and abusers
and by the dogs chasing their tales and howling for blood

What they have no use for
what doesn't taste like flesh
but spirit
and white light
compassion and courage

Sun blasted, road tested, bruised and broken
but still here
and still alive
at the center
soft and sweet
this beating, bleeding heart we share

I'll protect you if you shelter me

Desolation Park (Princess of Denmark II)

A molding horse
catches flies
their eyes
shades of aqua and green

Squirming under its screaming gaze
Strange, dirty children at play
In a meadow filled with rusting war machines
Petrified titans, alien forms; hideous and frightening

Death? Or maybe only slumber
Dreaming of silence
Dreaming in the void
Whatever dreams the ancient and insane
vampire gods dream
to console their trapped and gibbering minds
Forever licking the wounds that bleed black water
onto feet made of clay

What turned the old gods' eyes away?

Who hung this rotting horse?
From the dead tree (which gives no shelter)
In the shining meadow, where poison children play

Who beat it so mercilessly, so long after its wicked demise?

The Ritual of Chud

Dirty words on dirty walls
Above the black, wooden door
a symbol that singes the eyes
and stokes the flame
in your heart's dark center

Hold me here
Don't take me inside of this familiar place
Let's stay out in the frosted night
And celebrate our meager belongings:
the mementos of a season long over

I'll bite my tongue, and you will loosen yours
Laughing and bleeding, I finally get the joke
Heaven is empty
The turtle is dead

No one can stop the slide

I dream

I gleam in your eyes
Even with the dust in them
Making me a blur

And androids can't be trusted