And There- Love Was Not...

And there- love was not
In the crowded rooms
like overloaded tombs
In the busy streets
where time retreats
In the arms of strangers
and their unstable mangers
Inside their church
where many search
In eyes that stare
but never dare
In souls that yearn
but never learn
In all these places
with all those faces
Here and there-
  Love was not

In the time of need
In the kindest deed
In the greater good
In the understood
In the freely received
In the always deceived
In here and there-
  Love was not

And what love was where
was all forgot
And the will to care
was all for not
And then, and there-
Love was Not

And just the same
with all to blame
what will be next
in future's text
  The love that was not
  or the end of no plot
     where Love was Not

Little/Little...

Little bits
that mean so much
So much
that means so little

Little by little
It's so much
for so much
Then so long
to so long

Little by little
It all adds up
as it all comes down
Then it's time to pay up
(End of the count down)

Little by little
Given and taken away
Little by little
Living and passing this way

Little/little
The division of all
Little/little
The division from all
Little/little
Until that is all
...

Man Made...

It wasn't nature
that built
 hospitals
 skyscrapers
 cities
 sewers
 cemeteries
 cathedrals
It was men

Nature made
 famine
 drought
 flood
 plaque

It wasn't nature
that made
 agriculture
 business
 sanitation
 prosperity

Men live
as nature kills
and though nature claims the end
men continue to ascend

Heard It All...

They talk about music
or what passes for it

They've heard it all
 all the singles
 all the albums
 every band
old and new
On the radio
On CD
On Vinyl
On stage

They mention them all,
confirm they've heard,
mention others,
etc, etc, etc...
They announce passively
what they are waiting to hear
once it's released
Band after band
album after album
they have heard it all
or soon will

I can't help but hear them
I can't help but wonder
Have they ever listened, or only heard?
Hearing is an impersonal exposure
  with awareness of sound
Listening is a personal engagement
  in awe of the sound

I hear them go on,
and on,
& on...
Saying nothing of their engagements
to what their ears have discovered
Nothing is personal
Nothing resounds
  in the sound of their voices
  on the sound of the songs

But it's almost impossible to listen
For me to them
For them perhaps to anything
We've all heard it all before
Will we go on to listen?
  -for something new
  -for something else
  -for anything at all

I keep my ears open
and remain quiet
patiently waiting
for something
 a voice
 a song
 a sound
for my ears to listen
for my soul to more than hear

When I hear it
my voice will be full
 of words to praise
 or silent reverence
And if other ears are there
they may hear my
 rhetoric or reticence
and maybe some will listen
and maybe I will too
or no one will hear at all
as they've heard it all before

Modus Ponendo Ponens (the way that affirms by affirming)...

If things are to survive,
then they must change
Things are surviving
therefore things are changing

And In The River Sleeps...

A song fades into silence
as a voice is deprived of air
Waves crash on shores with violence
but the sands & time can't care

And in the river sleeps
what once swam through its deeps
Committed to the depths below
the lighthouse dimly weeps
into waters far below
And in the river sleeps
the light that will not glow

Shores sigh with the echoes of the tide
as waters fall and rise
and the anchors must abide
whatever water tries
And in the river sleeps
what in memory slowly dies

And in the river sleeps
the song without the sound
and the silence that it keeps
is the loss that's never found
And in the river sleeps
the past of the profound
with the folly that has drowned

To What Shores Your Sirens Sing...

To what shores do your sirens sing
In what spirit do your church-bells ring
Are the beaches where the shipwrecked gather
or where the pirates spread their chatter
Are the sounding towers a cause uplifting
or prompts to keep the ashes sifting

Are the songs you sing of freshest air
or the putrid smog of flatulent flair
Are the lyrics affirmed by virtues sought
or mindless blabber devoid of thought

To what shores do your sirens sing
What do their songs intend to bring
Are brave and valiant explorers called
or rouges to which you'd be appalled
Are treasures there to be deserved
or haunts to make the brave unnerved

To what shores do your sirens sing
What is the nature of their king
Are the rules and rulers meant to make
more than waves on shores to break
Or on the shores of songs like these
is there much more upon the breeze
than stagnant airs of desolate ease
like dancing winds that flow through trees

To what shores your sirens sing
May there you find the treasured thing
and in your voice of triumph sing
for all the hope the tides may bring
to the shores of which your sirens sing

The Decline...

All good things end too
This is really nothing new
The meanings
reduced to leanings
Then the absolute
is no longer resolute
As the truths self-evident
become irrelevant

Self-made-man
devised a plan
but blinded fools in wander
forsook it all in squander

They said someone else could
or someone else should
because they never would

They pointed and waited
delayed and belated
as the weight compiled
by all they defiled

and it all collapsed
as time elapsed
but they looked at the heap
and continued to weep
as they made refuse of gold
and bought what they sold
doing just as they're told
till there's nothing to hold

Things as they are...

By proxy
and thus removed
In use
or just decay

Severed selves
detached
dissolving

As is
as in
honesty or demise

Where and when
related
realized or relinquished

The truth
or folly's fiction
To deceive is to
despise
to confess
  to realize

Head, Heart, Head...

The street to cross
The ways to look first
Right, Left, & Right (again)
No coin to toss
No spells to curse
No luck to distrust

If you're going to make your own way through
It's going to be all on you
and only one way will likely do

Head, Heart, Head
The way across the dread
To dreams beyond your bed

Think the world on through
till it means something to you
then feel what your heart would do
and plan to make it true

See it through with the light within your mind
Search wisely for what your heart will find
Don't just rush through the darkness blind
and you just might leave the dark behind

Head, Heart, Head
Think twice as hard as you feel
and feel for what is real
Head, Heart, Head
The path of your ordeal
deserted with this ideal

Head, Heart, Head
Beware, but move ahead

Refusing To Regress...

Battles won & battles lost
All the wounds & all the cost
With little left & less to gain
Questions used to just remain
The refusal to regress
as substitute for progress

The smallest victory can cost more than all
The only souls live enough to fall
will be considered standing tall

One bullet in a chamber waiting
with countless threats encroaching near
Surrender too ingratiating
and suicide presents no fear
To regress towards death becomes the pull
that tugs upon the triggered-soul

How do you live when it's to the death
How do you fill your final breath
How do you refuse to just regress
What will is there one might possess
beyond the doubts the dead confess

From the first word spoken
to the last rites read
From the petty token
to the nourishing bread
The life that lives will not be dead
despite the horrors and fearsome dread
but refuses to regress instead

On A Night...

On a night
when everyone you see
looks like someone you know
but you don't know anyone
though they all seem to know
  each other
and maybe even you
but none of them do
and all the sentences
  run on
along with the hours
through the vacancy of time
in the crowded/empty spaces
that fill your thoughts
with their emptiness
as you pour yourself
into each drink
of whatever it is you're having
even if you don't take so much
as a sip of anything more
than the glass half-emptied
that drowns your silenced breath

On a night
when the distance
from you to anything
is farther than the spaces between
and even the distance
from you to your own thoughts
is as infinite as the void
between two opposing dreams
and all that vapid nothing
is tightly closing in
as if the whole world
were one collapsing-lung
afflicted with emphysema
and choking on itself
as it tries not to gasp for air

On a night
when the only word
that you can feel
is the numbness
of alone
but it means something
vastly different than
being on your own
as you're stranded
without your self
and therefore more
than just alone
in the least of all
you've known

On a night
when everything is disparate,
too hopeless to be desperate,
and all-together desolate
there's still the faintest hint
of a promise to be broken
that is the rising dawn
that brings the light
you'll see through
even if it's lost
before you're gone

On a night
when you've lost yourself
and found yourself lost
all in the course of no events
it's hard to find the words
that silence themselves
in contention with laments
and hard to find ascension
till the rising sun repents
and the dark of night relents

Tender Torments Of A Callous Heart...

No artillery pierced the shell
as Cupid's arsenal struck & fell
from a callous heart, forged in hell
that knew such battles all too well

no pains were felt
no signs would show
no markings left
no blood to flow

The saboteurs could never near
the vicinity of a heart so clear,
so calm, so callous, & strangely dear
to all the usual torments here

Even as the earth would shake
the heart held still amidst the quake
of dreams from which it thought to wake
and leave for other hearts to take

Tender torments of a callous heart
kept at bay before they'd start
to cause such callous parts to soften
like rains on some unfinished coffin

Confined to this by its restrictions
Consoled alone by its convictions
Its only hope to be secluded
To not intrude or be intruded

Such torments tendered with so much heart
Such callous torments of tendered heart
Such tender torments of a callous heart

Surrendered To The Losing Side...

Surrendered to the losing side
Captives with no place to hide
Accepting things that won't abide
Depending on what can't provide
A life-long grave to stay inside

Die silently in eternal decency
Accomplice to complacency
Accentuate incompetency
Consecrate the death to see

Composed in decomposing
Assuaged into espousing
Reposed to merely posing

The dead that claim the living
In this life opposing death
The thefts that pass as giving
The cough proposed as breath

Let the damned be lost
and pay at their own cost
Deny their futile demands
Refuse them your right hands
and reclaim the prosperous lands

Zhuangzi Butterflies...

As kings dream of butterflies
and butterflies of kings
while flapping their fingers
or extending their wings
their dreaming lives go on
with all these fading things

The truth and the fiction
are converged in the dream
the heat of the friction
propelling with steam

As fading and waking
can each bring an aching
As time is all-taking
the dream's in its making

The kings spread their wings
and the moth wears its crown
the archangel sings
and heaven comes down

Kings of the air
and wings on a throne
these dreams that they wear
are the truths they'll have known
though it hardly seems fair
when all dreams rest alone