people with matchbook eyes
can’t understand which way we tick
seven strikes on film
like the broken bird upon your chest
now I know
stumble through sober breaths
collapse those mirrors
matchbook eyes (old lyrics)
Category: writing
“when we met on atonement day”
this fire burns deep inside
every sea we cross at dusk
i’m the blindman walking through the sand
you try to reach for me but I see myself drowning behind every emotion
whisper every secret lost inside your head
whisper every perfect dream
to build a million castles in the sand with you
in the distance children watch to pin-point the sky
in my dreams you read a thousand books to find them standing still
to walk across the bridge and see the laughter splintered against the wall
escape the darkest hours with you at my breath
latch on to every last voice caught in this nest
the fisherman keeps running from the lighthouse
the spider man spins a new web
i know when you carried me to find peace
every sin dropping away
when we met on atonement day
like a wishing well
to wash every sin away
a fortitude of lost silence
you alway made me see in the dark past eternity
stay in my mind behind every ghost
when we stand against the sunlight I know I will always stay past eternity
“bleeding knife”
I hear you whisper three times against the dark
catch a piece of photography from your hands
strangers listening to the screams across the floor
(when we watch them disappear behind secondary reflections)
a new aspect without control of our senses
shout the hidden secrets to a lifeguard waiting to be saved
(if we could disappear before their eyes)
burn a new meaning through your skin
(press this reflection before we choose to make sense)
scatter the paper flowers across the maddening forecast
break the bleeding knife through the mirror
dance across the blue and green fields of lost memories
“emotional split screen (secondary glass)”
Break the mind across the shelter when they witness silence
Translating the words paralyzed
Knocking on the strangest parts of heaven
Pressing paper against secondary glass
Fusing wires inside and out like chemical dreams
Pushing past times sparkling confusion again when dreams were so epidemic
Safe inside this world one more night
The brightest light amplified to the upper limits of your heart
Now that the turmoil breaks ocean waves
When they got a hold of the everything pushing emotional split screen
“stand in the form of Christ”
I’ve heard a hundred hours breaking from the inside
crushing a choice left far behind
i tried to understand the future
lay still across the sky
drop apart every word of regret
still i stand still as a witness to God
trapped at the table where my voice is discarded
but still I can’t forgive myself
ask for absolution to stand in the form of Christ
to be my guide into the future
when the disciples burn the candles
look towards the sky
are you every dream in my hand?
beyond every inscription from Heaven
we walk to stand still
children lost in the parade
every innocence pinned deep in value
to ascertain the turmoil written in my eyes
to glance at the table towards perfection
did I burn my prize too hard?
stories hidden with too much truth
when lies can’t be hidden in the dark
I can’t forget my mistakes
if they shine the light from heaven
will you ever listen?
“the lanterns are made of gold”
Try to find a way out
Tears so violent in yesterday’s youth
substances painting windows across time
A carriage mirrored across the sky
Fire shouting in a match to regain solidarity
Precision of a witness on the stands day in and day out
Past the motorcade men marching up and down their drowning faces
Try to sleep through a memory picked apart by broken needles silencing the truth
Voices crawl through the walls
Voices break every last filament
Shaking the stain of regret
A dose of pain
a dose of hope running thin
Lost in the faith of memory gone astray
Faces of tomorrow drink from the laughter burning through the crowd
Breaking the ice in my heart day in and day out
Spinning around and around in the dark and light
Visions to guide past the violence written in their eyes
A sacrifice breaking the bread behind cathedral walls
The light shinning brighter and brighter
Forgiving the sins written across their eyes
Memories numb my
“wheels under your skin”
Faces blind colorless
Running through the basement knocking between voice to voice
Witness the pattern
Monitoring the day in and out
Step into the detection scripts
Carry vices on their broken backs
Catalyst igniting the wheels under your skin
Tires burning to witness and withstand
Breaking free from time itself
The flames ingulf substance ahead
A dream faster and faster
Search for survival on the stands
Collapse bridges numbing confusion
shaking the red from saturation
when the mind is damaged
“the thin people” by Sylvia Plath
The Thin People
They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people
On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:
It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we
Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round
Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice
Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle
They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,
Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,
But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea ridden donkey skins,
Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore
The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,
So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims
In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate
Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline
Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wall paper
Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,
Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!
We own no wildernesses rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff
Battalions. See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns
If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp’s nest
And grayer; not even moving their bones.
Shattered Mind 