Alienation 2005
Close enough to touch
A breathes distance between us
Closer still than dark memory
Stretched backward over time
In my head, on this clear cold day
Never soo close
Yet a million miles away.
Meaningless words falling unheeded
How I once hung on each one
Leaning forward to catch their meaning
Elusively swirling up and away
Uselessly they fall empty and dying.
In a crowded room we should be happy
Casually breezing with laughter and sound
Cluttered lives to busy to notice
Straight rows and columns to fill
Days and weeks committed ahead
Overwhelmed with drudgery and dread.
Everything different yet somehow the same
Separate yet together we live
Divided by demands of repeating needs
Chasing after glimpses of better lives
Thrashing in all directions.
All days equal the sum
Laid out and dried by the sun
Strung together in horizontal lines
Upside down
And dead on the vine.
Hungry for more than food or drink
Thirsting for something beautiful and real
We never remember until the end
The soft echoes of love once known
Or a last embrace
Muffled with tears.
Looking backwards through the green glass
Shattered in my throat the tiny shards
I keep going for what I don’t know
Standing still and absorbing the blows.
The voices recede in and out of hearing
The words diluted in parts per million
Trying to find what’s fake or real
With no time to lose, cajole or steal.
Racing against the insignificance of being
Raging against this meaningless pursuit
A purpose and reason or maybe something more
And wondering if it matters at all.
Into the cold wind I walk the street
Either on purpose or by chance
I live and plan the next day or week
Any circumstantial reason
Is enough I think.
Through a landscape of doubt and dread
Apocalyptic thoughts in the back of my head
Hard to fake interest in this trivial debate
When around the corner
Lay a thousand secret fates.
I wish I could go back
And start again
Because I feel hollowed from the inside out
With nothing left worth keeping
Or asking for.
We can’t go back or move forward
Not without losing something first
Forgetting what’s behind and dead,
Even though we cannot know
What waits for us ahead.
This alienation I know and feel
Estranged from the man I was
Indifferently separated from the world I knew
Ghosts of the heartland from which it grew.
Wild blood coursing through our veins
Immortal words from mortal mouths
Falling on the page in haphazard code
Flashing in my brain
As my heart erodes.
Lasting longer than sense or reason
Longer still than what I felt or said
The smallest words much less
Than the half whispers or tears.
The greatest acts of life are lost
No one will record the secrets held
Thinning with time and distance
Expanding backwards in a loop
Rolling over again at some point behind
And falling earthward.
Words of love, and the quiet moments between
Unintended consequences we never knew
What we gave that no one knows
Unseen the fruit
From the dead seed grows.
Once we loved and then it changed
I can’t remember how or when
My thoughts undone fall useless
Upside down and rearranged.
Too tired to try and keep this alive
Worn out and empty from what I gave
Used up and spent day after day
And not much left to do or say.
No hate or contempt to stoke
Faded love like a memory long ago
Hanging long after the feelings gone
Expecting too much, even though it’s wrong.
A long distance between then and now
The colors are fading in shades of gray
Hidden emotions ready to ignite
All in my mind
This darkness and light.
Once the answers seemed soo clear
Taste, sound, and color
We stopped too short to see the sun
Always elusive
The perfect season.
Wasted the heart to no regard
Given to work, ambition and gain
Looking back across the missing years
Meaningless gaps filled in with tears.
Knights in crimson and white 2004
On chargers white they gallop to the fight
Banners held high in the air
To a distant battle in a land of blight
Straight to the Beasts hidden lair
Gleaming armor and swords at their sides
Trusting God to lead them in the fray
Waving farewell to those they love
Resolute and solemn.
Far away in the windswept desert
The enemy lies in wait
Other men in desert lands to the south and east
On horses they fly
Not contemplating their fate.
Quickly does the day of battle come
Dreaming of ladies with roses in their hair
Stouthearted they vow not to break or bend
In the beast’s pitiless stare
Stopping not, for regrets, nor a future held fast
Knowing God’s rewards do forever last
Some will return and some will be lost
Shields of white with a crimson cross
Far from stony strongholds
They try to forget their worries and cares
Faith, hope, and love for ladies fair
Through thorns and thickets they cut their way
Bloodied and beaten before the fateful day
To the desert land they head
A pit of darkness in the serpents grip
Ever moving despite fear and dread
Determined not to falter, fail or slip
The battle lasts for days in the blowing sand
Blood shed willingly at a terrible cost
Friends and brothers side by side
Shields of white with a crimson cross.
Cries of wounded pierce the sky
Swords, axes and shields clash
In a cacophony of sound
Dead and dying
In heaps of chain mail
Drenched in bloodstains.
Few were the victors in this battle found
The smell of death permeates the air
Pale bodies lifeless on the ground
Armor rusting on men
Once bold and fair.
Lives offered up for brothers, friends and wives
Knowing the victory
Already won
Defeating the men of the beast
And souls rising on wings of iron.
In tunics stained in crimson
The few survivors return
Telling tales of gallantry and heartbreak
And their is weeping in the hall
And tower stairs.
Bonfires for the fallen silently burn
Gone but not forgotten
But for men of honor
None could ever live.
If to the desert you must go.
Remember the knights of old
Bravery and noble deeds
To others must be told
Victory is ours
Blood bought and won
By the cross of God’s holy son.
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