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Road of Darkness

Through blackened skies a fiery ball shines through an evening bright,
On glittered glass of buildings tall reflecting blazing light,
Where does abide this lumen of horizon’s setting sun?
Not long before, the drenching rain made streets with rivers run,
To set the stage for end of day, and start the maddening rush,
Of churning smoke, and streets that cram with all their snarling crush,
While draining curbs and parking lots of boisterous horns and brakes,
And all the clamour and the fumes a crowded city makes;

And just as swift as it began, in fleeting solitude,
There followed in the traffic’s hum, an empty dream pursued,
By he who disembarks by night, a solitary man,
Who for his fear of fading light, fled from where demons ran,
And all escaped on mirrored roads of flashing blue and white,
Where pools of tears keep languishing in images so bright,
Before a darkened silhouette reflects this road of fear
Rewarding all with emptiness and everything austere

And what is there worth living for—but oath and sacrifice?
While there are things worth dying for—but can just one suffice?
For them exists a shadowed life, beyond nomadic streams,
That will seduce them far beyond their incandescent dreams,
For what is real they cannot feel a life that comes with pledge,
And they’ll not wish to live or die, but travel on the edge;

Don’t follow him, for he pursues his last descending star,
And runs down every lonely street, that wears the deepest scar,
And he will seek the shadowlands descending every stair,
To pits of darkness searching for the ancient lamp-lit lair,
Where thieves and pushers, pimps and whores, flaunt all their wares of old,
Upon the road of death they sell, what death can only hold,
Where visions cannot penetrate each twist and turn it takes,
Of iron scythes of pestilence and pits of writhing snakes;

And while so many work and strive to end their misery,
There are in fact so very few, who want to be set free,
For life is full of winds of change, like shifting seas of sand,
And choices get so very few, when fewer understand
Why they will play so close to death, for this he came to know,
That they believe they don’t deserve a better place to go;

And even if they do escape the clutches of the law,
No panacea drug exists that helps them to withdraw,
Nor can they dream another day that they might stay alive,
For beasts have come, possessed of death, that hope cannot revive,
For bodies ravaged by the storms, of heroin, cocaine,
Cannot for drugs and nicotine, and alcohol in vein,
But count the days that they survive what emptiness had cost,
And live their lives in fantasy, while hope is ever lost.

I Have Watched

Why do they play with scorpions, and snakes and insect life?
Why do they wander aimlessly, the streets and bars so rife,
That pander to all those who dress as ladies of the night?
Why are they so intelligent, with eyes not very bright?

For I have watched them from afar drive up in limousines,
And walk the town in skimpy gowns right out of magazines;
They search the bars seductively for what they cannot find,
The scene is just a shallow swamp, their life to be resigned
To watch their beauty slip away, for years of consequence
Of following delusive dreams that have no common sense;

For all of those who cruise this scene, to search their want of heart
Will only find ‘mid clambered sounds, these lives so torn apart,
For all I saw while standing there, were limos driving by
That stopped in front of clubs and bars, to loose the household fly,
The inexperienced of the night who give themselves to men,
Though nothing ever gets returned for all their acumen;

So little can they know this life where trophies must be won,
Among the wasps that fly the nest when night has just begun,
And this I saw among the crowd of patrons of the club,
They walked the ramp of beauty queens, while good men they would snub,
Yet writhe their bodies close to those while dancing to the band,
To choose the ones who want to score the perfect one-night stand;

And then they try to understand why these men are unkind,
Because the real ones split the scene to search the thoughtful mind,
For they have seen the plastic life, the hollow man and knave,
The emptiness that follows dawn, impossible to brave,
For those in search of happiness imprisoned in this web
Are living life’s great tragedy wherein these roads have led,

For they’re the ones who never searched their heart for recklessness,
To find out what is truly real and flee its emptiness;
So keep your distance, watch them dance, within that vacant jar,
Learn what is real and what you feel is truly who you are.

Truth and Honesty

Why do we strive to live and die, for God and majesty,
While selling off our starving sons, to moral amnesty?
And things we make attainable, to those who take a breath,
And hope none see the consequence, of he who dies the death,
And questions not deep in his heart,
With truth and honesty?

For what is truth that sends a lie at its convenient time?
And seeks no proof in treachery, for reasons that don’t rhyme,
Except when sold to media, for truth made to ignite,
Its love for hate and jealousy, and truth revealed for spite,
Just for a conjured, rumored tale,
That make it seem sublime;

For honesty needs not the truth, in all its detail told,
And honesty fans not the flames, of passions growing cold,
Nor raging love of hearts that hate the truthfulness of sleuths,
Who simplify too great our search for underlying truths,
Which when complete are all we seek,
For honest truth not sold.

Now I prefer such honesty that telling truth conceals
For many are they who resist what honesty reveals,
And know not that there is no key within a heart unsound,
While discontentment does persist for wisdom never found,
Their heart will judge not what is true,
But only what it feels.

Lovers’ Lies

Why do I care yet cause you pain?
Why do I turn the sun to rain?
And break your heart with words of mine,
That leave no answers clear?

Why do clouds grow in setting skies?
Why are there lights in fireflies?
What is it in this heart of mine,
That only I can hear?

Though many are the ones I love,
There is not one I am above,
Dispelling hope that sun might shine,
As when farewell is near;

For wisdom wants where nothing grows,
And empty lands where stormwinds sow
The seedless harvest is the time
That winter woes are here;

And there is nothing quite so cruel,
As lies disguised to make a fool
Of lovers trusting in a word
Designed to bring a tear.

History Spoke

Beyond the hills a shady grove,
Of trees surround a grazing drove,
While pasturelands of misty mauve,
Quell just the ancient breeze,
That once blew pure for all to seize
This golden moment not to please,
A wisdom dormant in the trees,
That whispers plaintively—

“O humankind, you sound so strong,
But mixed with myth and lore and song,
Are all your dissertations long,
And swellings of your souls;

“For bloodlines of the human race
Think nothing more than time and place,
While poised to lie and dare erase,
The truthful testament;

“And who are these that shortly bloom,
In springtime till the stormwinds loom,
To sweep their blossoms to their doom,
And end their foolish pride?

“While we, the rooted of the crag,
Speak weathered truth and do not brag,
Unnoticed by a nation’s flag,
We stand for all we know;

“For truth endures for knaves and kings,
Though played with songs on silent strings,
From just the place where future clings,
Indeed forevermore;”

While we of humankind have cast,
Our knowledge to a sea that’s vast,
We squander lessons of the past,
Till death the toll bells ring;
For history spoke but no one heard,
For all it said they thought absurd,
And hid the truth for just a word,
Of what they yearn to hear.

Distant Love

Your lips are like a warm embrace
That kissed so gently on my face,
Within a heart that fiercely burns
A troubled love that sadly yearns,
Caressed of that not commonplace,
So deep within my soul.

That you, my sweet compelling love,
Are all that I am thinking of,
How sweet the smell of morning air
That drifts around your golden hair:
And flows upon those shoulders bare,
And through your camisole.

So when you look upon the sea,
The wind will surely speak of me,
It sent my heart to drift by day,
With pillaged words I failed to say,
And none remain to set me free,
Returning what I stole.

So hurry to this tortured mind,
And let those fingers be entwined,
To soothe and calm these strands of hair,
With tender lips on skin so fair,
And rest upon this breast of mine,
Vexation to console.

For love is like descending rain,
That rushes down an empty plain,
And finds its way to swelling streams
And hastens to my haunting dreams—
O had there been a time for us,
To live not so calamitous,
Would bring no distant toll.

How tragic would it be, my love,
Should we release what we dreamed of,
That I should bide in a distant land,
Without a way to take your hand,
And walk beneath the whispering pine,
And tell you then that you’d be mine,
And that would make me whole.

How vast it is, this immense sky,
How wide it is, this open sea,
How empty is the heart of mine,
For you my love are not to be;

And starved it be of hungered lust,
For all remains is fading trust,
Of rain kissed mountains from which slope
Ferocious seas that vanquish hope;
To you my sweet, a winsome smile,
To ever dwell there in my soul.

Misunderstood

We are a people of the past,
Of steadfast history,
From first to last our memories cast
To all a mystery;

So when I speak it may appear
That all is absolute,
But since the sum of all that’s done
Makes none that resolute,
All that I speak is incomplete
Of archives undeclared,
For within me you cannot see
This history never shared;

So I may seem a flowering rose,
With roots deep in the ground,
Wherefrom this maze burns mixed bouquets
To some a thorny sound,
For in those distant mists of time,
This hostile memory
Does conjure forth my hatred of
A life in summary,
Which hides the image nonetheless
Of all that you might see,
These visions of my ugliness,
That you thought not of me;

So when I say these things that hurt,
That seem so indiscreet,
Please keep in mind that I, the rose,
Though looking very sweet,
Have deep inside these things that bide,
And are not always true,
But stumble out to cause you doubt,
Though never meant for you,

For had you seen my history,
Things bad as well as good,
I would not be this mystery,
And so misunderstood.

City Lights

Like a rippling wax on a rain drenched road,
Shines a shimmering light of a glistening cold,
Spreading flickering flame on the asphalt mold,
Of a dark, condescending night;

And while the lamp lit piers veil an angry sky,
The seagulls squawk and they call with a plaintive cry,
With only one perched there in the blackening pall,
While the rest wing off beyond the empty mall,

Where the restless sounds from its bustling crowd,
Shared once the hollow rush of the empty shroud,
While upward drifts and billows pungent urban gas,
From where there once rose up just a faceless mass,

And for all they spend with such an insatiable greed,
They need to buy such things that they never will need;
And for this I would watch but I would rarely join,
Because I seldom spend but reserve my coin,

While I rush down the streets of the uptown light,
For that lonesome old jukebox so deep in the night,
At a rendezvous that is just out of sight,
On the mirrored streets of that rippling road,
That lays beneath the drizzle of a glistening cold.

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Trueness

A thousand times the light descends,
Ten thousand it will rise,
With iron wings a fortress grand,
O’er earth it rules the skies;
In trueness will its stronghold stand,
While humankind tell lies,
And build ambition in the sand,
Where all had thought it wise,
Till all the flames of warfare fanned,
A world of ancient cries.