identity crisis

earth-shaking fears and the feeling of strangulation
by such recalcitrant tears that i hid like a child
and i didn't just hide but hid what i found sacred
in a thousand curses and blasphemies of pride

pride that grew from the rejection of my place
well, you can reject it, but it never goes away
it gnaws on your bones like a feral child inside
it fights for life in the space between my compromises

and it is with great pain very often sublimated
with great shame that i know who i am
that my name stands proud on the tip of my tongue
quickly bitten back into bitter subjection

and i taste the bitter blood in my mouth
listening quietly to my heartbeat slow, soften
i know that this moment is a respite
the child never goes, just fights to let me know

i'm not me at all, but the one i fear to show--with affectation
pitiful, vulgar affectation

Strange is the Night

Strange is the night, through skies stranger still. 
Where the song of my soul, seeks the right words to fill.
Pictures of conversation, burning and curious.
Where the silence is deafening, and the love most furious.

Where I find myself before falling down,
On my knees beneath the shape of sound,
Where I find myself before falling  down,
With dirty hands clutching cold, cold ground.

And strange is this life, and my love stranger still.
What are the words I believed ? What is the math I can feel?
Blisters on my tongue, and the faint taste of blood.
To sink or to swim? Or be swallowed by the flood?

Strange are the clouds, holding fast the tears of God.
Where the labors of men , never count for a lot.
And you found me where I'd fallen, on my knees still crying out.
And you found me where I'd fallen, and the words kept spilling out.


So is my own head my own to bow ?
Are my own thoughts my own to say aloud?
So is my own head my own to bow?
And are my own thoughts my own to say aloud?

I am the Blind Man

I look but do not see
I feign to shadows
My heart pounds
Confusing sounds near me
I have weak hands to grasp
I have no teeth to bite
I crave food always
And it fails to nourish me
I live like this
In a city unknown
I am rendered thus
I am the Blind Man.

In Equality

How can you & I share the same space & time?
Are we only foolish, immature, or completely blind?
On a planet where things should be more than "I" alone,
It's hard to understand the structures & functions imposed.

I saw a little kid, in passing, maybe sometime last Tuesday...
And I could feel the hunger & hope of his heart starve away.
In eyes that screamed with pain & rage & need,
He saluted the flag, said a prayer, & died. Inequality. 

Something Never to Be Confessed

Every step is cautious
On a slippery slope
When you find the right vein
You'll take any dope
And with sweaty palms
You'll try to hang on
What you thought was here
Was so suddenly gone.

You painted a bull's eye
All across your heart
Every con man and archer
Thought to take a shot
You can only live so long
But it takes a lifetime to die
And you have to risk it all
Every moment to be alive.

You calculated every move
With quantitative precision
Only to look backward
With a coward's indecision
You measured carefully
A full length of rope
Then cut it inch by inch
With such pious hope.

I guess it was happiness
That made such a mess
With armored tenderness
You needed less and less
Because you had this
One ungrateful weakness
Don't ever confess
Your happiness.

A Play of Words and Action

Out of two was one
In a moment unchosen
Out of darkness blind
Into a soul unfrozen
And once being known
In the presence of light
There's only one question
But I can't ask 'why?'

Because I don't get to know
Just wander on stage blind
It all seems so improvised
I don't get to know, just
Stare dumbly into the phone
Just words not truth or lies.

I searched out shadows
A place to hide ignorance
I built a character to show
The scale of my indifference
I wandered into different sets
Put on different clothes
I parroted some new words
Kept my head always low

But I still I don't get to know
Just wander on stage blind
It all seems so improvised
I don't get to know, just
Stare dumbly up at drones
Just words not truth or lies.

Once more two made one
In a moment of intention
This is how it goes on
In acceptable convention
And once seeing unknown
Biological invention
So the word on her lips
But I dare not mention...

You won't get to know
You'll wander the world alone
Among symbols and science
Still you will never know
Even balanced equations
Are words not truth or lies.

And after all, it's only living
Your worst is still your best
Because you'll never know 'why'
Instead of nothing you exist. 

paying for attention

the darkness out there
just outside and out of view
of unknown depth and dimension
i might reach out and touch it
but the weak electromagnetic force
prevents this farce
across space
across time
lives carried like crabs in a bucket
each one seething with trapped hatred
drunken or wishing to be so
lost in conversations to be forgotten before the cab fare is paid
no one is paying attention
paying attention
the cost of attention
the price of attending to the moment
the work required of being here now
when i could be somewhere else
some other time
right now the past
right now the future
and reaching toward
the darkness out there