cavalier cowards

what other sort is there where a human can speak?

nigh dead, but not, else we couldn't bespeak

we tempt our souls nigh, but not closer than that brink

convinced that oblivion will yield what choices will not

some kind of repose o'er what all our rivalrous desires have bought

we tire & bore of all the seeking & searching of aimless sights sought

we throw in the towel & sail our bloody, white flags

wrist-cutter scars & purply, noose-neck toe tags

once we've looked over that swift, precipice fall

it's a drug-like high that then summons a precipitous, beckoning call

we, with our hearts so beaten & battered imagine these shorn wings a little less small

we, the cavalier cowards that fear sunsets & stars lest the beauty of life tempt or enthrall

in the rain we feel safe, like nothing can lure deeper feeling than a beckoning fall

the labrynthe of maize

a fragment of a broken toy — some piece awry & amiss

i'm sure it's hiding in the garish, glad regions of stupefied bliss

or back in the damp, dingy darkness 'round the abyss

somewhere obscure, someplace just a little bit dark

that's where that grey matter must be, that catalyst spark

the reason why i'm a little bit peculiar & far off the mark

mostly, the piece matters little to the larger scale whole

but sometimes, when i'm with the herd, that shard siphons a toll

maybe its name is called hate & we'll say it's like chalk

twisting in a labrynthe of empathic layers — a climbing corn stalk

it's the labrynthe of maize — that's where the shard stays

that's what we'll say & that's how we'll amaze

& we'll wow them 'til no one can tell that we're out of place

naught but what man's lust has made

a man lurks poised before a pristine window
he's devouring the sight of flesh over bone
how can a child comprehend that men can know—
their evil hearts are carefully tended & sown?

that man's set out to warp a heart brutal & wholly
he's stealing all a soul & every store of dignity
ravenous blue eyes reducing a mind to a cyncial crumb
those cold, blazing eyes shearing a child's wings numb

now marred & dazed, exiled from an ever-after faerytale:
a man is witness & culprit in the sinking of a ship meant to sail
now, a child is a helter-skelter aftermath of one man's poison policies
this same man now flees from the fruitful, sour seeds of his diseases

his gift was broken, bruised, & blundered love
forced & bound down a throat with twisted twine & rope

years now past—
so many extant corpses rid of men who bate & lure,
but never rid of ghosts & gales lurking 'hind every overture

the living dead are naught but what mans' lust has made
& they walk everywhere, enduring a pastel masquerade
a boy with lots to say so he can talk above his wrenching soul
& maybe he'll run from the shadow whose face knows the whole

~

in memory of my father