Driven to Madness

Dear loved one

When I was broken, and couldn't stand the taste of life I'd had, she'd kiss me, gently swept her hands over my face to brush away my tears.  With her gone I have nothing, and I don't know what to do now, without her grace.

Spent years since then burning in sorrow and pain.  What is there, tell me now, but to leave it all, because I can't start over, without her face, without her healing embrace.

Ready to die, really ready, not giving you a reason why, because I can't tell you everything.  The days are long, and my life's gone wrong, and every breath I draw in echoes and rings.

I was sent to the asylum, but the group sessions felt like they were piling on. I hid the pills they gave me in my cheeks and stayed silent. Kept them for another day, if I saw my time on the horizon.

Why can't I just be quiet, read a book with my tiny light in the darkness?  Can't I cry without you complaining, what I'm doing is so harmless.  You don't realize, without her here, my life is dead flesh without a carcass.

Life can be lived without questioning others for their choices.  Not telling you that I'm going to kill myself, I wouldn't burden you with that, and no I am not threatening.  But the silence when I ask you why I should instead live is deafening.

Her name is tattooed upon my soul, not just my heart. This is the end, I'm shutting down, never again be in a position to restart.  I'm falling apart, and will never be right again.  Welcome to this world, recently departed, never forget, forgiveness is better than regret. 

Sending my finest regards

“A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.”  Guy de Maupassant

A blue green globe

For those upon it, there is no escape

It spins, woven perfectly, a planet 

However dangerous there is lavish grace

Plentiful, opulent, there is life abundant

Even if death will make demands

Still it is beautiful with every taste

A blue green globe spinning in space

The life so verdant, so rich, so full

It fulfills life's needs, relentlessly

The hunger passes, life endures

Even as pestilence shows his hand

The harvest begins, as the reaper culls

Life ends for the newly damned

For those remaining

They know that there is a cycle

Life ends, but more replace it, embrace it

Existence offers no survivors

Only generations to come

Crops once in drought

Now washed in rains

The cycle isn't lost or won

It endures

It grows

And it remains

“I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can be kept up only by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother-region to which it remains firmly bound throughout it’s whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will and feelings, its own death. Here indeed are colours, lights, movements, that no intellectual eye has yet discovered.

Here the Cultures, peoples, languages, truths, gods, landscapes bloom and age as the oaks and the pines, the blossoms, twigs and leaves - but there is no ageing “Mankind.” Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression which arise, ripen, decay and never return. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematics, one physics, but many, each in the deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar blossom or fruit, its special type of growth and decline.”   Oswald Spengler 

Hymn to the Creator

This exquisite genius can only be found in depths of your essence. Your perfect will is manifest.

You are the architect, the master artist, the divine creator.

By your will was birthed all life, all forms, each and every celestial body.

We cannot aspire to be you, we are the created.  And yet, we have desired from birth to possess the ability to create: perhaps children, perhaps art, perhaps artifice, perhaps knowledge.

We desire, we aspire to reflect our lord as yours is the highest form.

Limitless dreamer and maker, from nothing but your will came existence, came the word, the languages of love and destruction.

All of these were wrought, filled with perfection, because only you are so able.

Behold your pristine majesty, to call all things into being, perfect beauty exists there.

In every corner of every realm of the lofty heavens,  every atom of the universe, every beast of the field, by your simplest thought comes to be.

You who spun dust and fire into a globe. filled it with life, abundant, verdant, setting forth dynamic forces, and hung it there by a thread in orbit to circle in a precise path around the celestial light, burning with vast fires.

Such great wisdom from words delivered, universe and world builder, poet of equations and logic, weaver of math.

You are the magnificent, beautiful creator, fully able, loving redeemer.

Singing the song of creation you made  all of the material realms.  With a thought of your perfect mind you created eternity.

Who is there but you, oh great I Am?

We long to sing your song and create, as well.

You gave wisdom to Akhenaten and to his brother Moses, and all who were chosen. You sent perception and empathy to the one called the Buddha. You sent your child Jesus, to save us. You lavished love upon and cherished your beloved Gaia.

We exist, but it was you who created every thought and dream.

You are able to call the dead from their sleep

All of those who were created share the world and every step is made in shadow compared to thee.

For we are simply dust and still, we long to know everything, all things, and your being.

We seek to know I Am, for there were none before you.

Your being stands upon a line of demarcation, where behind you exists only truth.

Hebrews 1:1  And: "In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.

lifted from the tomb

Your soul lifted me from the tomb
As I heard the voice of love
It was so soft and gentle
Far from shallow, great depth within
Reaching out beyond the shore
I was struggling to be redeemed soon
In my heart I felt I'd never get enough
Your beauty made me tremble
To become souls knitted as kindred
How I longed to know you more

Ashes of regret

I spent the last years hiding in the basement
After losing everything that mattered to me
Repentance was not enough
I spent all my remorse and regret
All the same, it means nothing but pain and shame
Forget the future after hearing your grand statement
I've nothing to lose, nothing left to redeem
Forgetting my reasons
Remembering how to pretend
There is nothing that can make me feel human again

Bleeding black

Bleeding black from my frozen veins
Toxins pour out, flee, as my tears bleed
I've become numb, and left blind
The world is cold, wrapped in chains
No, I've never known what I need
But I need to feel better inside
Than how I feel now
Separated and entombed
Back into the shadow I will fade
The bitter fruit is from the bitter seed
I've planted, planning my suicide
I keep saying some day
But that means nothing
Because some day
Never changes into today

Guilty

I have waited for the end
Of my 2o year sentence
I could never be exonerated
Of the charges
To remove the finding of guilt
Since I was fully at fault
There is no pretense here
I'd do it again
If a man attacks my friend
I'll defend that friend
To the end

The enigma beyond

The fields lay moved by wind gusts
Bowing in the direction
Of the one who plants
The one who created all things
All plants
All stone
All beings
And soon
Will come ashes turned to ashes
And time follows, as dust turns dust
Wheat fields harvested
Kernels separated from chaff
Ascended spirits lift
Rising above gravity's pull
Down below, are the grounded
They cry and now stare
The angel of death begins to cull
Cries go out that the harvest is unfair
But the cry is hushed
Because death goes on,
And endlessly on
With our spirit entering
Oblivion or Heaven
Our spirit stuff transformed
Our flesh crushed
Time taxes all monuments and flesh
Steel mills and great statues rust
Impermanent, lives rushed
We are measured by a standard
We might not perceive
We might not believe
We are released once the end comes
We have no say in the matter
Decisions made by a higher judge
From a manifestly different place
We no longer must overcome
But accept the judgment
And place our trust
In the creator's hand
As cosmic star stuff
And the holy spirit embrace

Sorrow burns like morning mist

When I see your face
Sorrow burns like morning mist
Upon the rising of the sun
When we finally embrace
I feel soul kissed
By the perfect one
By some kind of ecstasy
As the angels sing
Breathlessly
I am about to fall
Into a final state
Where I'll never leave
Because I've found love
And always believe
In the worthiness
Of every being
To love, to simply love
For a lifetime and more
Death is but a door
To a place
Where we will be
Perfected
Forever be
Together
In the state
Of exquisite ecstasy

honey

We wish for joy, every life wanted

Pray our children live lives unbounded

We hope to survive but we doubt

Hope to dream but are shut out

Humans trade their life for money

Bees work all day to make honey

All your desires are unfounded

Flakes of gold, sands of dust

Souls are sold, lives of lust

Hearts are cold, there's no trust

When our lives are worth

Only what can be counted

But

What if the accountant cheats

A perfect dream

A life without you
I'd have been nothing
Without you as my wife
I'd have found nothing I could do
Nor would I want to
As I remember all the time
We've spent together
It seems a perfect dream
To imagine life without you
Forever, a nightmare
The depths of sorrow
Lived over and again
So I'll just close my eyes and sleep
Hoping to dream
Instead of a waking life
Praying to not fall apart at the seams

Love is life

Love is the highest place
But we choose lust
Becoming sucked into a whirlpool
Where all that exists
Every thought amiss
Every tiny kiss
Leads to something meant to be
A precursor to the event
Of sex
Of passion and heavy breath
But love itself
Is all there is
Every ecstatic kiss
Lifts us from the pit
Because it reminds us
There is more than this flesh
We ascend with every moment
We are redeemed by the presence
Of love in our being
Love is life
Flesh is death
Forever and thereafter
Amen

Mend

I don't regret, I repent
I don't pretend, I mend
Instead of crying, open the books of our past
Stare at the pages, of a time that'd never last
Never stop trying to fix what is broken
Through hope and prayers unspoken
When I realized the end had come
He was disappointed in his only son
And I couldn't change a thing
So never let hurt go unhealed
Whoever we are, there is just this one life
No one knows the amount of time
With no seconds or minutes to throw away
Every morning could start our final day
So endlessly love each other
Make your heart a blanket to cover
Keeping others warm from a frozen world
However much the globe turns
We have nothing but love
Of that there is never enough

Tempt me

You might tempt me, imagining
For a night with you, in embrace
I remember when I was young
My fears were so strangling
Barely allowed myself a taste
Awash in my sorrows, but you're the one
Because I was broken, unchosen, hated
Your form the creator's masterpiece
I longed to very simply know
A longed for love consecrated
You gave me hope, reason to believe
Now yours, I no longer live in shadows
Of my solitude
And fears

Black Rose Blooms

I don't remember the last time
I caught your scent upon the air
Such as entering into a room you'd just left
Time together makes time apart
The worst sort of alone
Love isn't easy, and life is manifestly not fair
I had believed myself in heaven
In permanent ascent
Just sitting next to you in our home
But God needed you more than me
I keep telling myself
Or I'll go insane
I shiver but not from the cold
It comes from an emptiness
Inside my heart
Since you were taken away
I know I'll never love again
I couldn't endure the pain
Of loss, of hope
What is there to make it alright
Nothing
So I'll just go out and walk in the rain
To wash away these regrets
To repent
I am filled with abject remorse
For the fact that I didn't fight harder
To stop Charon, the boatman
Of the river Styx
From leaving shore

Tempus edax rerum.
Time is the devourer of all things
Ovid

When I hear people fret and moan
Shocked to hear that the people who lead
Are so broken
Not necessarily evil, nor even self aware
Everyone has the traits that should prevent us
From allowing them into office
It might shock you to know that thing that they desire
Let us call it power
They might speak well
They might be pretty
But the thing called power  is going to lead them
To do, to say, or to think certain ways
Not good for them, not good for us
Humanity is wrought with flaws
We long for but will never receive justice
We must find our own path, no longer trust
For the way we've walked is dangerous
Leaving our sovereign being
In their hands, to be controlled
More than slavery
But only just so
 In the end they'll have everything
And all that we'll possess is our soul

That you've said that you love me doesn't inspire a response
If you do or do not does not matter you're in a world so surreal
I am sorry if this is nonchalant I don't owe you a reply
I don't owe you my time
Even when you threaten suicide
I can't tell you what I do not feel
You are better off to know what's real
I don't love you and I think you should know
I care but I also know love isn't fair
If you feel it inside
It is like a disease
And to overcome it
You must burn in agony
Repeatedly
Until there is nothing left
But memories
And regret

Before the Crash

Let me spread the seed
Oh my God, let me be redeemed
As if I were Johnny Appleseed
Bringing the young into full adult
As I had some hand in the result
Oh lord I fail, I am flawed, oh God
Who am I, why do I bother
How can I live with the sins that smother
Oh me
My flesh decay
I am dying lord
I wish to flee
Oh my
God forgive me, let me be free
Let me lay in grave
Next to my mother
Let me see
How my words lead
In manifest prophesy
I might fall
I might be doomed
I might answer the call
I might be consumed
Oh lord
Oh God let me see
Let that Freedom ring
Lord let the Freedom ring
Shall I delay my flight
Only if I am accompanied
By my tribe
In darkest night

“Do I, then, belong to the heavens?
Why, if not so, should the heavens
Fix me thus with their ceaseless blue stare,
Luring me on, and my mind, higher
Ever higher, up into the sky,
Drawing me ceaselessly up
To heights far, far above the human?
Why, when balance has been strictly studied
And flight calculated with the best of reason
Till no aberrant element should, by rights, remain-
Why, still, should the lust for ascension
Seem, in itself, so close to madness?
Nothing is that can satify me;
Earthly novelty is too soon dulled;
I am drawn higher and higher, more unstable,
Closer and closer to the sun's effulgence.
Why do these rays of reason destroy me?
Villages below and meandering streams
Grow tolerable as our distance grows.
Why do they plead, approve, lure me
With promise that I may love the human
If only it is seen, thus, from afar-
Although the goal could never have been love,
Nor, had it been, could I ever have
Belonged to the heavens?
I have not envied the bird its freedom
Nor have I longed for the ease of Nature,
Driven by naught save this strange yearning
For the higher, and the closer, to plunge myself
Into the deep sky's blue, so contrary
To all organic joys, so far
From pleasures of superiority
But higher, and higher,
Dazzled, perhaps, by the dizzy incandescence
Of waxen wings.

Or do I then
Belong, after all, to the earth?
Why, if not so, should the earth
Show such swiftness to encompass my fall?
Granting no space to think or feel,
Why did the soft, indolent earth thus
Greet me with the shock of steel plate?
Did the soft earth thus turn to steel
Only to show me my own softness?
That Nature might bring home to me
That to fall, not to fly, is in the order of things,
More natural by far than that improbable passion?
Is the blue of the sky then a dream?
Was it devised by the earth, to which I belonged,
On account of the fleeting, white-hot intoxication
Achieved for a moment by waxen wings?
And did the heavens abet the plan to punish me?
To punish me for not believing in myself
Or for believing too much;
Too earger to know where lay my allegiance
Or vainly assuming that already I knew all;
For wanting to fly off
To the unknown
Or the known:
Both of them a single, blue speck of an idea?”
― Yukio Mishima

Ask the question, what does my life matter
When in the end, every single thing shatters
Like the blood stained glass of a church of the past
Every hope and accomplished deed scattered
On the floor like blood splatters
My choices placed me in the lowest caste
I was never first
But now I am last

Warrior of the Desert Waste

For a decade I spent my life in this desert
Never leaving sight of your solitary minaret
I've walked forever a seemingly endless waste
When the echoes of the wind called your name
I scanned the sky, and looked to every side
I found out that I was alone, like I am inside
I can taste the tears as they fall, bitter and dust
I never looked at you with a hint of a bit of lust
They sent me away, thinking me an odd stranger
But they didn't know, for you I'd face any danger
Both sword and flesh are yours to command
For you I'm even willing to be the damned
Because my breath, my heart, my dreams, my home
All are yours, you are my holy land, even if I am alone
This I promise you my love, please never forget
My life is oath sworn, an act I will never regret

“Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide or current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song.”  Lord Dunsany

A simple process it isn't.

Everything I do falls short
Because of my wounds and regret
They get in the way of my efforts
To be ready to forgive again
My pride remains
It is powerful
Relentless
It burns in me
Until I change
There will be no comfort, no way home
I know though
Nothing can make me feel
Until I choose to be redeemed
By giving the debt of anger, the debt of sorrow
Back to the world
There is release
Holding it in is toxic
Poisons my soul and consumes it whole
By forgiveness I am freed

 “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi

Fate denied

You gave me a command
You demanded my allegiance
My obedience
To be all things to you
I sang your anthems
You heard me sing
Emptied my flesh of vitality
Where is the salvation
Found through my own hand
If I pray to your god, to renew
Would I be doomed
Will I doom the future generations
If I learn the truth, who am I to say
How may I decay
As final as burning dust
Or wind through the sands
Faced with never having children
A moral and spiritual castration
The future would taste damnation
What is the next taste of catastrophe
Appearing upon our damned horizon
I will not carry the seed to save the day
Human extinction might well be the perfect way
Have I earned this hate by my lack of hope
The destiny of one who refuses
To retaliate, to deny fate
Who am I, who would be my children
That I will never have
I condemned you by not creating more humans
By never having children to name
Going down the stairs
To the molten rivers
This horrifying beauty desolate
Makes me shiver
Have I entered the end game
Or is this the demon's lair

For Far Too Long

For far too long
I prayed
And continue to pray
Begging to be released
From the misery
Of going on
After she is gone
You cannot accept something bad
And call it good
You cannot call something right
When it is so wrong
And there remains nothing you can do
To make it better
Only pray
And keep praying
I've never been bitter
Only aware
There will never be another
Like her
Until she returns
Or I leave
I cannot be redeemed
My life is stained
Like blood down the sink
From a dangerous cut
I refuse to wonder
Can't bother to think
What will become of me

Never lasted

Every sweet kiss, every mile I carried that weight 
In your mind it didn't help, never meant a thing
To you, I was a tiny insect, manifestly annoying
Preventing you from doing your important work
I don't begrudge you for this task, you never asked
I just believed love meant working together
You don't believe in forever
So then you are to be first
I am to be last
The facts fail to give me comfort
They cannot be read wrong
So no matter how much I try
No matter what I do
In the end you'll be gone
We lived a lifetime of today
But didn't find our way
To enter in tomorrow
My life will go on
Trying to overcome
My love you are my deepest sorrow
I have loved you for such a long time
How should I have known
My time was wasted
On a love that never endured
I hope you achieve the fame you deserve
While I fade
Alone
Obscure

Uncaged me

I know I say I love you many times
But I speak what is most upon my heart
I can barely imagine life without your kiss
Where would I be, without your presence
Inside I shiver, a passionate connection inside
You've healed my heart, I have no more scars
From the simple connection with your lips
Loving you tells me that there is a Heaven
I took absolutely no time to decide
The truth was that together we'd go far
Loving you leaves me transfixed
I dare not leave, I've begun ascent
Your love completes me, absolutely
The time together has healed me
I am moved even by your scent
Jasmine and lavender made perfect
I can barely stand to imagine
Life before without such passion
I love you and you know that I do
You've caused me to be healed because this is so real
I am more than I was, in so many ways, you saved me
Confidence from being your love has uncaged me

“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.” Charlotte Brontë 

I saw a star falling

I saw a star falling
I prayed it was the end of everything
How long must we wait for the play
To finally be played out
The drama is long over
We are ready to go home
How am I to be willing to live
If the shadow of death ever hovers
I believed the end would be quick
Perhaps merciful, certainly fatal
I was a believer,
No, there was never a single doubt
I sat there waiting
First with company, then all alone
And who I am to complain?
Over there are two lovers
They've just fallen into ... something
They'll never be able to finish
No happy ending
No ring
Just fire and red skies
Announcing the final act
Cue the angels, now sing dammit sing!

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."  Matthew 24:36

This black place

Maybe today, maybe tomorrow
Black clouds never clear
The storm is drawing near
Away flies a murder of crows
Crying doesn't mean the pain left
It means the emotions are out
Where they might no longer burn, in
With my heart bereft
Filled inside with doubt
What an apocalypse we are earning
My loved ones preceded me in dying
My loved ones left me behind
By leaving before me
So if you don't like the fact that I'm crying
Why don't you taste some cyanide
Or at a minimum, ignore me
Maybe even hate me to the core
I might be releasing my tears
At least I've no more fears
To drown me in sorrow

Demand from your life victory

It is the moment when you are stopped cold by a child's comment

Pointing out what you'd done, but hated when it was done to you

That moment when your soul crashes down, and you cannot pretend

All of the world doesn't matter, and that there is nothing true

You grow up with manifest dreams, and try to salve your ego

You can't become what you need, because you didn't know

This world doesn't need you

Special to you is what they throw away

No one remembers your name, 

Nothing you did will echo for the ages

Unless you can perceive, understand and believe

This is a long lonely path

You will never be redeemed

If you can't help but count the cost

If you never try, if you fear the wrath

Of everyone who doesn't care

Of everyone who wasn't there

When you were suffering, and lost

Ignore the world, at your peril

But there is life to be lived

Epic victory is possible

With perseverance, hope and faith 

You might see how your efforts matter

Otherwise your life becomes a goal 

To simply survive

Refusing to try, because you might fail

Means that you can never thrive

If you believe that life 

Is the hammer

And you are the nail

On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir 

à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage.  

Andre Gide

The Word

More and more it seems
That the cry of Racism
Will be horrible to one
But it comforts another
Hatred is not always shared
If meanings are as individual
As the user speaking the word
There will no longer be an edge
The power of the word
Leads to it being used in a way
A nuclear detonation to eradicate an ant hill
Or to kill a criminal for a parking violation
The word smothers the depths of our spirit
Kills the idea
Of One people, nation, flag
If we use the word for anything we dislike
It disallows greater understanding
Such a fool's game, to use a cover all word
For a dying world
Fighting over things like terms
When the system is going to fail
And everyone will disappear
In a million years
There will be nothing left
To argue over

No Cause To Accuse

Leave nothing behind, give me your punishment
I'm alive inside, and never violated our covenant
You've given me an ultimatum
Even though you share the morals of Satan
I know that this will not be fatal
Your words mean nothing to me
I climbed Jacob's ladder, and now I am waiting
I'll not fall to your level
I am innocent of your implications
So go home to your den of iniquity
Where your family believes your lies

A wounded child's father

You thought that his love should suffice
To cover all, to protect, to uplift my being
But it smothered me, left me vulnerable
I was left unprotected and wounded
I was prey for the cat, a family of mice
You saw perfection, I didn't see it
He was perfectly violent, intolerable
You saw discipline, I was left doomed
Hold up your hero high to the heavens
Pray for his placement there, I am contented
Knowing, your prayers will not help
He knows his crime and if eternity exists
He'll do his time until eternity ends