MUSINGS
These thoughts are cancerous and poetry is chemo
Love is my slot machine and life my casino
Me versus myself, the score is still zero
This battle's bloodier than a film by Tarantino.
It’s all gone to nonsense, it’s a woozy, it’s a wozzie
Drifting off mid-sentence like a verbal kamikaze...
Searching for myself, found you, but lost me
Love is priceless but that doesn't mean it's not costly.
A walking dichotomy of darkness and light
Trying to be successful just out of self-spite
Invisible thoughts blocking my sight
Smothering myself, in the hopes I’ll ignite.
Firing on all cylinders, but I'm the squarest of all
Pushing against myself, Newton's third law.
Tape together shattered pieces, ignore the cracks and flaws
Emotion, like sushi, is best served raw.
THE ACTOR
Red curtains drape down from the ceiling
Lights ready, music, and so it begins
I step forward and whoosh, the curtains part
Like the red sea did for moses.
I speak with a voice, not mine
and with words I can’t take credit for
If I portray this character well enough
The actor will be lost and the character remembered.
The love interest is introduced on stage
I declare my love for her with orchestrated feeling
The audience claps when we kiss, but I
Feel nothing, of course; it’s just an act.
An emotional soliloquy follows,
and with it, conjured tears
We take our bows when the final act ends
The audience roars with approval;
They get up to leave at last and I,
I wash the stage make up off, but look the same.
A fan comes up after the show,
and asks for my autograph
Oops, I’ve signed the character’s name, not mine
But it doesn’t matter, they’re the same.
They think it’s my Modus Operandi
But this performance is my Magnum Opus
Real life is just another stage.
Just another stage where I have to look and act
Like I have everything put together;
everything neat, perfect, and in order,
when in reality I’m slowly dying,
Slowly decaying, screaming and clawing,
at this little box I’ve been put into,
Trying desperately to escape.
I’m just a character, with my face, my name,
my voice, but the words that come out
of my mouth
were put there by others.
I fear that one day I will fall so deeply in character
That I will forget the person I one day wish
To find the courage to actually be.
The crowd screams for an encore;
Heart racing, pulse at machine gun pace,
I step forward, ignoring the withering glares
of the other actors in this play we call life;
I step forward, and for this final act,
and all other acts, going forward,
For the encore and eternity, I promise to be
Myself.
I WANTED TO ASK YOU
I wanted to ask you
Whether you’d ever heard
A piece of music so beautiful,
That it shattered who you are
And glued the pieces back together
Into some beautiful new configuration;
I wanted to ask you, truly
But I did not have the courage
To look so deeply into your soul
In fear that I would, in doing so, find
Things in my own mind I had been hiding
From myself.
I wanted to ask you
What thoughts plague your mind
When you stay up past midnight
And allow your brain to think freely;
I wanted to know, truly I did so,
But I merely wanted, and did not do.
I wanted to ask you
Many a thing, telling it true
I wanted to delve into your soul
And find out what makes you, you;
I wanted to, but I guess I’ll just settle
For a “I’m good, how about you?”
FINGERPRINTS
The ridges of your fingertips match
The ridges of my brain;
Every wavy, fossilized scratch
Is one and the same.
Like a handprint in cement
An indelible mark has been left
My identity has been bent
At the point where your fingers pressed.
Some people leave their marks
All over your identity;
Some leave beautiful art
And others graffiti obscenities.
Some plant sweet fruits
In the brain’s plowed ridges
And the nefarious produce
Poisons and call them riches.
The dust of time reveals these crimes
Where marks were left in dark of youth
Look between these fingerprint lines
As night ends, light reveals the truth.
HONESTY IN WRITING
I find that lately
In the words I’ve been writing
I’ve been truthful
But not quite honest.
I’ve told of deep loves
Lasting scars, thoughts,
And my favorite brand
of candy bar, but
I’ve been holding back.
I haven’t told the world
Of my inspirations,
my idols, my beliefs,
my values, my code,
I haven’t been honest
About the whole person I am.
I’ve shown beauty, but
Held back the darkness, I’ve
Spoken loudly and dropped the mic
But refrained from quietest mumbles,
And truly I believe the difference
Is more important than you
might realize.
If I may dip into the philosophical;
The somewhat meandering,
But altogether more honest
Realm of existence, as it were;
I would say I’ve been showing
The world my art, but
I have not been showing the world
Who I am.
I’ve been writing in stanzas
As they reflect clean thoughts
But held back from the dirty,
messy, inappropriate, but
Entirely honest realm
of the things in life
That go against what you
might expect.
SELF-DIAGNOSIS
I’ve been worried since I left the womb
Like a schizophrenic on shrooms
Like a hypochondriac on crack
Never shy with the panic attacks;
Internal reality succumbs to psychosis
Dreams destroyed by self-diagnosis.
I’ve been alone since I learned to think
Like an alcoholic forced to drink
Like a gambler looking for jinx
Like a broke junkie huffing ink;
Fighting a battle where I’ve already been beat
I unchain my demons and let them speak.
“You were a failure before you first tried
Like a blank shot with no bullet inside;
You’re an offbeat song with no melody
A brain surgeon born with leprosy
You will look upon a failed life and weep
Blood, brains, dirt; at last you’ll sleep.”
I have no response or retort
No defending law
yer in this court
Back against the wall, me versus them all
Fistfight my demons ‘till one of use falls
I don’t have possessions or methods to cope
Just some luck, this mind of mine… and hope.
GRAPHOLOGY
I wonder if future archaeologists
Will unearth these written works of mine
Handwritten, as always
And attempt to decipher
The person I was
Based on my handwriting.
Here we see he crosses his t's
About halfway, they might say
And his writing slants rightward
About fifteen degrees;
Might they think they've
Cracked my code
In all my complexities?
The swooping g indicates indecisiveness
And the looped l a sense of pride;
Double-crossed t's scream of dishonestly
And the sharp n tells of pain...
Is this splotch of water from tears
Or just rain?
Cryptographers may study me
And my writing for a day
Or a decade perhaps, though even then
The truth is equally far away.
Sadly, we have no control
Of what history will think
We were trying to say.
SADISTIC FICTION
I’ve always hated it when authors seem to find joy
In killing my favorite characters.
With gleaming eyes they toy
With turmoil in every chapter.
Just when they’ve got you attached
To the character’s quirks and flaws
To their words and their demons
Just when you’ve fallen in love
With the character’s identity—
With a cruel turn of the lip
The author smirks and kills them off
And at our gasped pleas, merely scoffs.
But the author was God
And my favorite character was you
And I still can’t believe
You’re gone.
WANDERING SOUL
I am a wandering soul
Looking for something more
I feel this constant pull
A longing I just can’t ignore.
I’ve searched the rocks of mountains
I’ve knelt on cathedral stones
Sleepless nights by the thousands
Have left weariness in my bones.
Question marks are met with periods
By people full of arrogance
They have every answer, nothing mysterious
And yet they have no evidence.
Love and hate, yin and yang
Meditation, medication, therapy
Multiverse, strings, the big bang
It’s all helplessness to me.
I am a wandering soul
Looking for truth and meaning
And though my life may never feel full
At least I find solace in searching.
UNCHARTED
I look upon a frigid, empty abyss
Filled with a million human beings
A city whose name is foreign to my tongue
And whose air reeks of cigarettes
Expelled from the lungs of many wayward souls
Each one hastening the coming of death
Seeking the end of fruitless searching.
We are each on our own quests
To find meaning in our lives
But the meaning we seek
Is only a reflection
Of everything we have lost before.
I look up at a dark ceiling.
Sleep is a lover
Who never arrives
When she promised she would
She offers no excuse for her lateness
But nonetheless her arrival is welcomed.
This is one of those nights
Where she has stood me up
For the thousandth time;
But my body betrays my hatred of her
And I give in to her demands
Like a ghost given to drunkenness.
I feel despair from deep in my soul
It is a well of constant outpouring;
Hope tempts from the other side
But it cannot be trusted
Because that's the thing about hope—
It's just despair with wings.
Truly, the worst kind of loneliness
Is not even having yourself
To stand by.
I look up upon a sparsely starred abyss
Having wandered to this street corner
In the middle of the night
Watching the cars and people go by
Wondering
If this deep, black nothingness
Is the sum total of being human.
KEEPING CREATIVITY
The composer Hans Zimmer once said
He felt that creativity was like
A faucet of running water
A source from somewhere else,
The origin of which was a mystery;
He said he was afraid that one day
The faucet would run dry
And this mysterious flow
Of talents, creativity, and love,
Would suddenly run out.
I, too, know this feeling—
I cannot identify within myself
The origin of talents.
But I am not afraid
of the day the faucet
runs dry.
I see it this way;
I have been given these many
talents, abilities, thoughts,
creativity, and so much more,
But they are not mine to keep!
No, they are given to me
So that I may return them to the world
Many, many times over;
Our light was not meant to be kept
To ourselves until it burns down
To ashes;
No.
Every spark of life we hold
Within ourselves,
we must fan
Find the dry, crusty ground
of a parched soul to be
fertile ground in which to plant
A self-multiplying crop of life,
But for every crop and new life,
first something old must die,
And I am willing for that something
To be everything I am.
I will know I have succeeded as a person
As an artist, as a human being
When I have nothing left to give;
When every poem, every story,
every melody, every song has been written;
When every photograph has been taken and hung,
When my ideas have all been brought to fruition,
When I sit down to write, and find
That the pen of creativity has run dry,
When the vitality of ink, my blood,
has been used up, when it has dried up,
and I find myself there, empty,
bereft of talent and ideas;
When I have nothing left to give,
I will be satisfied.
Because I don’t want to look back
And think that I could’ve given more;
I could’ve pushed harder,
bent the universe just a bit further,
into a better shape, as I see it;
I will keep giving away this
living water
To thirsty mouths
Until, at last,
the faucet runs dry
And I am empty;
pure, clean, with
nothing left to give;
poured out, used up,
Even the dust of death
becoming a fertilizer
for the future.
So help me God, I will not die
Until the faucet has run dry.
DISABUSED NOTIONS
When I was six I was sure I would become an astronaut.
I would invent things and become President.
When I was nine I was sure I would design Legos all day.
I would be the next Willy Wonka, the King of sweet teeth.
When I turned ten I learned about death and suffering.
It turns out Santa’s not real, or the Easter bunny, and more.
Disillusion hit me like a six thousand pound truck
Going seventy five in a fifty zone, catastrophic.
All my childhood dreams, filled with hope and optimism
Dissipated like a fog under the pressure of mid-day sun
Beating down with a stern harshness and unflinching heat
Cauterizing these fresh wounds on my soul with a fierce fire.
There’s a reason stories of hope are called stories;
The fiction label should be a bit more pronounced, I think.
I used to look forward to freedoms and making it big;
Now I just hope to make ends meet.
Disabused of all these notions of hope
What can you attain when your spirit’s broke?
BENDING THE UNIVERSE
Steve Jobs said he wanted
To put a dent in the universe.
That is a statement that has inspired me
To want to bend it to my will.
People often ask me, do you want
To be the next Steve Jobs?
The next Walt Disney?
The next Einstein?
The next… and the list goes on.
No, no I do not.
I don’t want to be ‘the next’ anybody.
But I will tell you one thing.
I’m going to bend this universe of ours
To such an incredible extent
That children in the future
Looking upon the stars to see their futures
Will say they want to be
‘the next’ me.
I hold no illusions as to my genius
Or lack thereof, in truth,
But I know anything is in reach
To those willing to go to any lengths
To get what they want.
Everest is a pebble, Marianas is a dip;
Compared to the sheer magnitude
Of the Universe, with its
Hundreds upon hundreds
of billions upon billions
of galaxies;
And with that perspective,
Do not take it lightly
When I say,
I will do whatever it takes
To get what I want.
I will bend the entire universe
If I have to
I will go to every length
If necessary
To mold this existence