Round room, with padded corners

Walking through the madness 
                                                 I 
                                                   Am 
                                                       Lost
                              In the rhythms of life
Disassembled, panic strewn with fear
                As my mind cannot focus due to pain
Lack of order, amidst the chaos
Until they bring the next meds to take
To quiet my mind
My room has no corners 
                 The walls are padded
Every edge is covered in white
Cushioned so I don't injure myself
The time to worry over that
For my safety or for others
Is beyond recall
                 My insanity remains
Sedated by meds
I suffer wounds
I'll not rise again
After my last fall destroyed me
I can't bear it
I've no perseverance
Only pain
I can't explain my current state
A mix of anger and sorrow
With side effects
Of anxiety
And exhaustion 

Your love Healed me

You had healed me and my heart in what you said
It was totally unconditional and non transactional
A soul restored by your words, reaching my heart
I was willing to die, now I've no desire to be dead
Finding joy in having hope, the summit is passable
Still I'm waiting for your return and there are scars
For love in the distance can feel magical, but hard
A love left to linger, if silenced, leaves only pain
Quench my thirst, please call my name
Again and again

The Last Stand

Around us, the villages burn after war
And every battle has ended in failure
My armor is ruined, body has wounds
To save a realm under golden banner
But I can't surrender, I cannot give in
Trained for battle until it is concluded
To live or die, there is only one savior
I serve him, that no others shall fall

One Called To His Service

 Upon April 30, 2025 a great moment came 
As a portent of the hero's arrival on Earth
Called to serve and to make a difference
For as a Marvel he'd made an appearance
The greatest potential, bright, with honor
He appeared on our silent planet of Earth
 Where we'd received a mass deliverance
For he was sent by God, indeed a marvel
His mother volunteered to be his light
Marvel was to be blessed and baptized
His life thereafter would correspond
With the call of God to serve and lead
The bright trail of leadership followed
A future composed of honor, and hope
The world didn't deserve his presence
With holy water, and prayers, he arrived
God sealed his calling as a warrior 
His armor was special, chosen for him
A breastplate of armor as righteousness
His shield composed of faith within
His helmet was forged of salvation
Beneath a belt of truth his way prepared
Unlike others on earth, bound in flesh
Sealed with the most holy of water
Called to his quest, carrying a banner 
Bearing the call of the highest King

"You once spoke in a vision; to Your godly ones You said, 'I have 
bestowed help on a warrior; I have exalted one chosen from the 
people'"   Psalm 89:19

Hope in the Burning Pyre

No one lives forever, no one of mortal flesh
No one lives without sin within, only breath
I fail every day, calling out to be saved, but...
My life will be poured out, like spilled wine
Not wonderful nor perfect, crossing the line
I am lost, but can only be saved by the divine
Jesus I surrender, let my foul spirit now burn
Give me hope, and let my joy in you return
I beg please, I am unworthy, but need mercy
Embrace me, and let me survive by grace
That I will only find, in you

Shattered Mirrors

In the deepest depths of collapse, with no hope to rise
I've been broken, torn from the root and begun by seed
God gave hope and birth, offered hope through sacrifice
Life does not guarantee more than existence, or victory
Why do I try to answer all of those rhetorical questions
We're given intelligence, can we not know answers
In madness, I need survival and heard abstentions
Life sees disease, disorders, syndromes and cancer
 And we're faced with the reverse of a mirror
There are glass cracks, filled with color red
But we've chosen to become blind
Never to see the collision ahead
What do we have, what can we do

To Try and Fail

The depression's song, a poet's dying pen and ink
As if there's nothin' worth remembering, knowing
Love soon disappeared as all my hopes fell fallow
A sound of me hitting the surface, splash is small
As the rope had broke, the ink blackness growing
I'd called for God to save me but the same time
As I'd tied all the restraints, I couldn't break free
My body was cold, becoming numb, I was blind
As I felt life leaving me, I couldn't hear the voice
Telling me to come back, as fear and pain collide
Foolish act, thinking life or death my own choice
Eyes were open, unseeing... screams unspeaking
Refused to beat, as I could feel sensations chime
A new breath taken without remembering
But I know I'd chosen my own path
Lost in the emptied quiet
Sorrow had chosen to let me live
Fear made me no longer want to die
The world sought and received my silence

With very little left to find out

I never took an illegal drug but used many of a legal kind
I'm a depository for side effects, yet I still have all my pain
Do I care about every day life? Do I expect life will change?
Not truly, I've no prophetic vision for the life I've experienced
I loved my many friends and family, I love all deeply, stupidly
Legal prescription aren't more safe, nor are they even helpful
Repeating our world calls out asking, for hope to civilization
The wise will see me as an empty, savage fool, even obscure
I've met and tasted of a finest, cherished, glorious vintage
A future unwritten, destiny unpromised, life immutable
It goes on but not outside my hand's tightly held leash
I can't see when my vision is blocked and obscured
 As everything is distant, dark, I've found surprise
Some things good, some bad, some indifferent
I walk down the corridor with no anticipation
Yes, there it is, the odd level of satisfaction
Before me, experience is still powerful
With each corridor walk as ignorant
Somehow I try to retain my hope
My chapter of life finds an end
Something deliberate, worthy
Saved by grace, and mercy
For reasons I don't know
Nor will I ever

“Orestes beloved. as you die you destroy me. You have torn 
away the part of my mind where hope was.”       Sophocles

The Sea Ice is Thick, But We've no choice

Called by my tribal memories, my ancestors crossed oceans
Leaving these frozen lands, barren and the tundra and fjords
Following our pantheon, giving sacrifice, called by prophets
Left to ask, let our tribe starve or invite others take our home
Our great discoveries of new lands and global trade followed
Called to appease the modern ideal, we have earned our place
We never sought to lead the world, only to expand our reach
Our Homeland will always be covered in thick ice and snow
The future is uncertain but surrender or inaction are death
And our children and families deserve far more than that

"(the vikings) It saw life as being ultimately 
doomed to tragedy, but with the opportunity 
for grand and noble heroism along the way" 
                                   
                                               Daniel McCoy

You can't take what I never had

You said you loved me would do so forever
And said this all without ever having met me
Addicted to being wanted, you needed a fix
Hunted for a broken person with a heart open
Your beauty would then lead one, on so far
So ugly inside for a person so very beautiful
I was screaming, still alone, silenced in sorrow
Don't tell me I was an equal partner, I wasn't
I didn't know you, didn't want to, I was a fool
Wounded, bleeding inside, I'd nothing to offer
But you'd played the game so long, a veteran
The world owed you, just a cruel performer
Then you were revealed behind your mask
An addict of emotions, and cruelty to others

Hubris new generations

All who've lived before us and walked the quest
Living and dying long before today ever began
To those in memory we thrive due to your labors
As sacred shadows you're modernity's lynchpin
Nothing we do now wasn't preordained by you
Today is ignorant, arrogant and full of hubris
Somehow think we deserve the inheritance
Life isn't a repeating cycle of inevitability
Our current generation, however earnest
Believe we've reached a perfected state
We are anything but perfect, unworthy
Our excellence is mental illness
We hold upon our naive hopes
In ignorance's splendor
We somehow muddle forward
Letting the machines think for us
Letting the government decide for us
Letting drugs and personal choice live our life
We're unable to be inevitable in our inheritance
For we are the makers of our own catastrophe

In a Perfect Voice, Words of Power

I stood above them, that gathered crowd
They spewed a hatred, calling for blood
Fear meant absolutely nothing to them
They'd anger rather than fear, and bled
Showing arrogance and falsely proud
My maker made me to call his name
My creator spoke those words of power
Calling down lightning, bringing floods
Filled earth with fear horizon to horizon
The day time runs out, seen by the hour
Many will fall upon their knees, seeking
I've brought peace, love as a high tower
All are welcome to change, be redeemed

Watching from above

No I don't care, I gave in long ago
My eyes are tired but the ink flows
Whatever words escaping as blood
Mind is screaming in a silent flood
A shimmer of reflection in darkness
I had fallen, failed every single test
Emptied sockets, solar flares burnt
12,000 year cycles and the reverse
Watching in orbit, the planet waits
We all need hope to escape fate
Or a map to our future destiny

After the Event

Dried blood on my back and in the creases of my eyes
The medical techs claimed these meds would help, lied
I came into the room, formed into a circle, I'm broken
They applied restraints, across my mouth and four limbs
The flesh was my own, applied when born or fallen off
I'd nothing to offer but a broken mind, then removed
The world outside of my own is a final, toxic reality
With nothing at all that I can do to change a world 
Now they want me to pay, for the inconvenience
 Offered up to be slain I am open to that thought
Life itself is good, hard, the future wrought
With no pain, nor tears and nothing more
I've no hope left nor dreams, I'm torn
If I knew better, I'd just fade away
Hoping for less pain for others
Let me sleep for now, I pray
Just let me be the stain

The Machines of Nature

In every breath, we recycle the oxygen we need
It's ever moving, ever creating yet again, again
Every breath taken has been inside other lungs
This breath in Plato and this breath in Aristotle
We breathe and share, not knowing or noticing
Who we share the world with, we have a way
The breath is more than an act, but a response
The perfect system shares all mutual benefits
Then as we die, we will again become miracles
Entering a complex system just as machinery
Then we feed the hungry bacteria and worms
We make certain that we reenter the world
Others will surely live again and will know
The world and system are miraculously good
Without them we'd never understand the call
To learn more and then to believe our destiny
Is more than to live, eat, sleep, and reproduce
We have a purpose, one that we had to find
And now, as we step forward, and we act

Fleeing the Storm

Violent thunderstorms and lightning both strike
Bodies will get soaked, catastrophes hit earth
Minds reach inside, hiding, souls avoid touch
Thunder crashes, atoms sound, and they'll burst

The Silent White

Wrapped in the evening fog
Cloaked in soft white flows
Sound is quieted and serene
One cannot know it enough
To ask all chance to find this
I wasn't looking and found
In the moment, I knew this
The mysteries that we find
Aren't created by us, for us
They're a voice in the dark
Muted by a cloak, by quiet
Watching for our reactions
Watching our fears grow
An otherwise gentle place
Turned into a mystery

Watching the day as it rises

He is seated, watching dawn as it breaks
The human world is an exquisite beauty
Life and light are offers of glory so pure
The being sits and swallows the moment
Calls out to a living planet, no more fear
Everything wondrous was given to the land
By the maker of the world

Survive Long Enough to Escape

I had called out, save me, I can't save myself
For my deeds of the flesh led to full sorrow
The world hung upon the margins of death
My species had now despaired, survival narrow
And as I opened my eyes for the final time
The scene before me was red sky and screams
Surrender sounded sweet like sweet relief flesh
All my fears fled, my limitations now inside
My heart and mind survived, in my dreams
I've lingered in hope, oh it has delivered
Now I've finally escaped, a path beckons 
In great hope, I've taken my first free breath
Counting time leaves not even seconds
The clock of time in existence endures
Even as I do not, even if I do

Escaping rage, by mercy and grace

I'd learned early in my life not to believe in miracles
Miracles offered one solution to all so miserable
Life was worthless, painful, and never appreciated
Yet, I've more to be thankful for, in the joy created
I now know existence has value, by tasting mercy
Dwelling in hubris, mire of hate, instead of grace
Staring eternity in the eyes, in gratitude's embrace
Losing my beliefs that were based on entitlement 
My life rescued, being able to escape my cage

Thanks to love, grace, mercy and eternity

Attack failed, Warriors fallen

The bodies were bloated, gray, and covered in blood
Floating on the surface, after invading Saxon shores
The Viking ships burned to the waterline, no escape
Slain at the shore, bodies now still, and stuck in mud
Failed attacks a reminder, to all those who'd ignore
Wars between tribes no way to live, all hope forsake
Let the wise make use of knowing the Saxon shores
No place to wander as they destroy ordinary men

The End Cannot Be Avoided

The world has watched, from the heights and depths of civilization
Knowing a battle's going on, violent, society destroying damnation
Earth's religious beings and doom seers see we are all in starvation
Whether from all of the nuclear weapons, comet impact, or toxicity
Earth has been poisoned, by hand or by misbehavior, pure futility 
We have nothing to do to avoid this, the end comes, immutably
With nothing left by choice, the path we've taken was disaster
If we're alive until madness, who will bring the silence

Silence in Darkness

Slept a week until you returned, my heart stopped in pain
You came to me in dreams, and in messages kept me sane
I was dead asleep with no perceptions, frigid in cold rain?
Ink darkness, quiet but for dogs barking, knowing shame
As I open my eyes and wake, wonder what may remain
I called for you, and gave prayers until you came
And then heard you call my name

In the Silence of Self Doubt

I know how I've been wrong, intentional in my sin
Yet, my days of anger are gone, I've peace within
For the torture of self hate and madness have fled
My spirit is alive again, even as my soul has bled
I'd stared into mirrors of doubt, I dreamt of more
I feel a rising in my core, fear cast out, restored
Oh, where there is peace, there's hope and life
And my soul is sustained, I have survived

No Gravity

 Floating in space, gravity has lost the will to fight
 My being lives born with a spirit longing for flight
 The closest world is dark not from stasis, but life
 Into the indigo, hunter green, deep pockets alive
 Watching for hope, swiftly, descend into paradise
Safely land upon a world no longer untouched
By the human species, how we have searched
For a new home, to create a new civilization
Let us never let this planet be damned

Questions for the moment

Who will speak without knowing, because a time seems rife
The echoes swallow up the moment, time is liquid and clear
I cannot imagine a greater event than a mother has delivered
Destiny calls that child to somehow do better than we have
Living through waves of great dysfunction, hunger and fear
Will we rise to meet the challenge or will we fall like others
Is our generation last, will we see it all end with tears?

This world is not my own

I was lied to, I was deceived, told I could choose my own path
Attacked by fate, subject to abuse, zealous martyr of the wrath
I believe in a destiny, my future was to become so much more
A knight who lived to serve his king, armored and able to fight
A life dedicated, alone worth nothing, serving one who is right
Even if I bleed or I'm subject to torment, I must and will stand
The maker of this world and beyond, called me to understand

To Reach With a Dead Man's Hand

Flying over the Arctic sea, a field of white below
Flying at speeds immeasurable to any who see it
Immeasurable to all radars and technical gadgets
A world so tired of war, unready for a final grasp
Clashing ideologies live on, colder wars endure
No one can accurately guess the casualty counts
The number is less important than an actual fact
Both sides had assumed the other side as dead
But no one was dead, asleep now awakening
And as they have not died by now, just wait
By their final strike, both sides die instead
Dying as they had lived, by the sword

Begin Again

In another place, another time
We embraced and loved sublime
The world forgets, we remember
Lives changed, once was splendor
Along a path, we'll find the other
And begin again as we are lovers
Loving and spending our forever
Without others to interfere

To Reach the Pinnacle, One Must Become Dust

My life has never been over, born in spirit, made in flesh
I live knowing, flesh is weak, dying by minute after birth
Freewill guides my path, but I'm limited by every breath
If soon, by context of eternity, time reveals it is the curse
Exist with great existential question, I have few answers
My flesh dies, my spirit fades, until I'm able to transcend
Doom comes, my temporal experience ends, not existence
Seek to know if life is to learn, or to Earth we are cancer
Standing before the host, nothing to lose, eternity to gain
I am here, cloak of flesh surrounding my spirit, revealed
Upon a celestial plane, one I could never earn, I'll remain

Battles in the Dangerous Baltic

In a freezing Baltic Sea, whims of nature provide violence
Different tribes now meet, not for trade but for the tribal feuds
Whether they're Balt, Rus, Finn or Norse the wars never relent
Baltic Sea's so frigid they kill by exposure or something worse
Violent climate, dangerous waters, with tribes over ascendancy
But none can challenge and best the Baltic, it is pure in danger
It never forgives, it never remembers, it simply exists

A World Afire, A Soul in Pain

As all my fears overwhelm my mind
I've no courage yet I still need to find
For my path is one of flesh, not divine
Seek the way of spirit Heaven sublime
My world presents temptation and sin
In emotional starvation and end of time
We suffer damnation, suffering within 
Offered no hope, only more chagrin
Alive in a lake of fire, leaves one blind
For I have sipped upon the bitter vines
I need courage to go on, yet I decline
So I believe and hope it is truth
And if it is, I will renew

I knew that once but lost it

Struggling with each day's events, I forget
Each day when I begin, I face a blank page
With no prompts from others, I'm emptied
Unimportant thoughts announce themselves
The important thoughts are hiding, silenced
I'm tired and drained, I despair in darkness
All the while my important memories flee 
Untamed, just like children upon caffeine
With no particular patterns, but far away
I'm left wondering, what have I done 
To deserve this end of life and dreams
No, now I'm present but still gone

As a Warrior I serve

The days of hope, seem to be measured differently than others
Without hope, a spirit is aimless, without focus and smothered
To have hope is a weapon defeats the enemy and circumstance
For coincidence and malice, either slay by purpose and chance
A world now watches and witness to an example you've become
Your words and flesh as warrior, draw the line beyond oblivion
Your wisdom guides you into battle, and then wars will be won
By your hand, by your heart and by your desire to serve the one

Some may Judge

I've been told that Vikings were evil
That they slayed innocents in attacks
Burning down villages for their pleasure
Spreading their brand of malice, mayhem
Without purpose but to kill and steal
But those people do not understand
That they raided, explored, discovered
Because they were amazing, driven
Having grown more mouths to feed
Trade would help but forced to fight
Growing numbers in a marginal land
Meant instead they'd die, a cruel fate
Unless you can travel through time
Convincing the Vikings to migrate
There is no honor judging the past
As nothing was the same, nor easy
Vikings aren't the only false subject
Being judged by knowledge of now
Instead of the easy answers of today
A generation 300 years away will say
How dare we, now, have done it all 
We'll be accused of not knowing
Not having trusted the correct source
Or by way of morals, be chastised
Not knowing the difference between
Being forced to act in the moment
Or having the leisure time to decide
From years of sacrifice or disaster
All those deaths by others
Learning so we may not
Ourselves do the same

Knowing the cost

Today I learned that my life has a cost beyond my ability to pay

Today I experienced pain beyond any measure, the spirit tamed

My mind is burning, memories lost, I pray he calls my name

Time remaining is nothing, suffering in time left is my cost

What is Reality

Medical droids prepared me, dropped in a tank
Filled of the solution, for an antibiotic purpose
Burns were healed, but the scars wouldn't fade
And being unconscious for the stay in the tank
I then slept in ways, that made me fear waking
The dreams were without ability to ever wake
As nightmares that replaced dream, flourished
When I was healed I opened my eyes in horror
The world I knew gone, only artifice remained
I've no desire to know whether I'm real or fake
I can only hope that in waking it isn't a dream
Or one calibrated to perform inside my brain
No longer wholly organic, nor machine

Contemplating my Future

In a corner too dark to read, too unsettled to think
I would sip slowly from the glass of iced bourbon
Ice made a rattling sound, announcing it as empty
The silent corner was ideal, allowed loss of burden
Can't forgive my flaws, I can't change them either
My mind loses all focus, so endure, with courage
My life a catastrophe, I kept reliving my tragedy
Drama and separation, existence erases a legacy 
To live in a present, I must escape the black hole
My soul is sufficient but my flesh grieves the toll
I'm an organic machine, all offering no portent
Disease, infection, pain, dreams all evanescent
This is the end, I've no future, fear is in control
If I'd more bourbon to face, embrace my future
Bourbon poured over ice into a glass tumbler
I'd have more courage but not the true kind
It comes from a bottle, it is aged for flavor
So that the end of this story can be honest
When I wake it tomorrow I'll have dreams
The rest of my time, in this dark corner

Led by a woman, the people refused to submit

Through famine and poverty, seeds were well planted
When the few people of the land were told to comply
They'd refused to do so, the struggle began in earnest
Men of the land had been devoured by the royal wars
The elders and young, were working the fields instead
When a widow, wore the armor and carried the sword
Of her slain husband and turned that sorrow into battle
She then led a stubborn resistance, the seeds bloomed
Those with power now shrunk back in fear, of justice
As the harvest of righteous anger brought them doom

The Seed of Malignancy

In my madness, I'd planted seeds of disease
This was a harvest of anger and malignancy
Some who bullied me, do not own me
And as the seeds planted come to bloom
Each of them will fall
I lingered in my anger, such an empty state
I am my own jailer, owner of my hate
When Jesus came to me in dreams
I mocked him, he made offers, I scoffed 
He offered hope with but one condition
But I was the source of pain, of my anger
Far from worthy, but offered redemption?
The life I lived offered stagnation and pain
Instead I held hard upon my hate, waited
A harvest came, I was still insane 
A cleansing fire fell from above
Then dead with my flesh gone

The Refuge

You chased me, never letting me leave your reach
In a world of other names oh you were never meek 
I hungered for hope to hide my heart in a quiet place
And yet you gave me refuge, within my confession
I knew your perfection, in your aura I had a taste
In that safe place, I have found healing, Heaven

Infection and shadows

Simply drawing breath is not living
Within our life is an infection of flesh
All our interactions, convulsive writhing 
We're having complex reactions to reality
With no more feelings, we enter shadows
Every day forced to live in red level pain
We've lost interest and control of the future
Still, we will misremember all of our past
As infection rages, a darkness is blinding
Destroying all the good that we've become
These days are lived without distinction
We'd lost our minds trying to be enough
We no longer understand life, nor love
We will simply endure or simply exist
Until our time is up, and we do not
I want to live, to be infection free
I want to dream, I want to sleep
Instead I live among shadows
And wait to become nothing

1961-2022 Memories

I am feeling sorrow again, with the arrival of my adoptive brother's birthday. He passed in December 2022 and for reasons I won't dig into, someone made it difficult to chat while he was alive in his last 5 years. His loss is amongst the worst I've endured. Thanks for reading this.

Random Circumstance

My love, we met there late, morning was about to dawn 
If my body was weary, my mind so tired, my soul's gone
You offered a smoke, but I couldn't without falling again
But my hardest addiction to kill wasn't a drug, it was you
As my first thought and my last memory, I had not a clue
Then I saw you, my heart shattered, all scars broke apart
I could breathe again, I started crying, for all that trying
Sucking my life from my lungs, made me feel like dying
Because I learned to live without you, and I can't restart
Understand, I truly love you, but can't live with the truth
Breaking again, upon my knees, beyond feeling pain 
If you love me help me and simply, please leave me

Becoming Gray

I'm impoverished, begging for the day's daily bread
My flesh will die, losing my mind, fear as my starvation
Our planet Earth is a vast, a vital green blue world
Yet, we find ways to poison it, drain it until we're dead
Our single species is one among billions in purgation
I wish you all good night, we'll soon no longer dream
Knowing that, we'll not sleep nor even know more
Flesh loses function in decay, skin turns gray
Can't breathe, coughing up blood and bile
Death walks the earth, compiles a list
A man could walk many miles but still
We've nothing that proves we exist
We've no proof of concept or being
None, no elder, no adult, no child
Our extinction is banality in loss
Like every other species lost
No one will live any longer
Without knowing the cost

It Begins, It Ends

I am a spirit, wrapped in a cloak of flesh
I am life, driven by day to taking breath
I am new, no one's wore this cloak before
I am alive, as cells grow, my spirit soars
All I desire to be is unlikely to happen
I long for the events from what I imagine
I'm lost in a world of pain and suffering
Pain will end with the shroud covering
Life Begins and Life will End
We fill in the rest of the time
In desire, imagination, dreams
With extremes rarely fulfilled
But we've hope and free will
It begins and it ends
We breathe in, and out
We believe, we doubt
Existence in the abstract
Is the only portion promised
And even then, with margins
That can be erased as error
When equals seek contact
It is the truth of life
Sip upon the nectar
And be grateful for that

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but 
the parent of all others.”  Marcus Tullius Cicero 

The Rising Heat, In a Cold Place

In an abstract of space, this world is beautiful
In the bright polar sun high over an Arctic sea
One can feel a powerful rhythm of surging tide
For the sea level will rise, the melt soon begins
The world silent during the coming catastrophe
We are fully naive to assume we've more time
Memories of cold, have no power to stop heat
Once we've lost, there will be no place to hide
The terror of unleashed change, holds power
A world of confusion, no one knows the hour

Surrounded by Persistence

My will to resist yet mocks oblivion
Buying my time as I desire existence
To love those with hearts of obsidian
Challenge fulfilled, by my resistance 
To know or scream across a meridian
I will endure, due to my persistence
For I am not divine and live by rules
In return I'll die by fate yet so cruel

 “It does not matter how 
  slowly you go as long 
as you do not stop.” 
                             Confucius 

Requited

To love someone, one must be grateful
For love will inspire and gives courage
My world found hope when first loved
Choosing to live as my heart emerged
Having a requited heart I've enough