the curtains part to reveal a boy worn by the travels of an unforgiving voyage. his course has been set by a pattern of time as senseless as the skipping of stones across unending oceans, passed on by the hands of a thousand silent soldiers. he is an actor at the expense of a theatre of apologetic eyes, forced into a role of relentless repression, a soul that merely seeks solitude, wishing to roam as a ghost between the words on a page. he is the hero of a tragedy carved into the walls of a subway station bathroom. the actress, assembled into the role of the heroine, has abandoned the actor and left the stage to settle as a spectator in the ocean of the audience, which waits with contrived prediction the ending of the final act. it cannot be determined as to when the story had begun, due to the frail memory of the first steps of infancy, but it can only be told of how it will end, undoubtedly through an apologetic action of martyrment, in which the protagonist will suffer his fatality at the hands of a hooded executioner. but perhaps hope still lingers in the held breath of the heroine, counting down to exhalation. as for the boy, he waits for the delivery of a delayed deus ex machina, and can only hope that after the curtains fall, his story will remain as more than merely a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture...

in its struggle with the sun
the moon is exiled among the stars
as it surges through the sky
against the shatter of daybreak

and you may find it easy
to become lost in such a human world
but you cannot stop the river's rage
until every drop of it is spent

close your eyes and let the poison run deep
and i will find it within myself
to teach the soldiers how to breathe
to teach the hungry how to sleep

but why must we walk against such winds?
when the winter that lies at the mountain's peak
can quiet our hearts
and leave us to stagger in the journey down

but i would much rather leave you
with this world in your grip
and i suffer the silence
of a closed casket service

for when i am buried beneath a bed of soil
i will not weep
but smile to know
that roots will grow from whence i sleep

and perhaps someday a tree will tower
from over an unmarked grave
a tree that will age through undying years
and teach of what i gave

but what i must beg of you
is to continue to dance as the golden child
and to look back
to the scenes that flash across a broken projector

and if you've not gone too far
remember the gifts that i have given
and the skin that i have scarred
and smile to see my life
as a constellation, an exile among the stars.

and perhaps i will return someday but for now i am content to settle in the ground, as part of the earth, and take with me the peace of the black that i have carried with my all this time. for i know that when the darkness takes over and the animals sleep that i shall rejoice in such jubilance to see the sun rise once again.

Infants of the Earth

and the sun sets on another pair of starving eyes
a thousand lost children, praying to the skies
trading curiosity for regret
turning in their candy for cigarettes

these are the godless children
rejected at birth
nutured in nature's bosom
infants of the earth

and the young ones fly their tattered kites
beneath pale broken skies
and when in their bed during restless nights
await the acidic sunrise

and the young men rise to the hunt and thrill
as the wind howls it songs
their tongues await poisonous pills
and they depart like a wolfpack at dawn

as the soldiers who cry themselves to sleep
shut their eyes on foreign skies
their children dwell in recurring dreams
of them coming home alive

and as for the unheard women
with such high hopes and bruised hearts
that they claim their places on the ladder
and their voices sound from the top

and as for the lost boys
clawing through their youth
one hopes they may step from their father's shadow
and rejoice to find their is no truth

but for all of earth's godless children
whose legs were made to run
that they'll see the world will merely turn
and realize they cannot chase the setting sun

their lives skim such merciless timelines
as the babies are born and the elders die
just as lovers burn through their beds
and the sun scorches through the sky

but now again the young ones gather
beneath the sun's waning light
to release their caustic kites with laughter
and watch them spin in endless circles out of sight