Impressions

Found amidst this winding

Wandering, rambling way

Out amongst these rushing

Cascading words we say

I'll catch them for a moment

Leave their impressions here

They flit away so quickly 

Taking years to draw them near

Lost without conviction 

For how am I to know

If this is where I should be

Or if that's the way to go?

I'll release these trepidations 

Let them pass without a trace

They've tendencies to linger 

But we've learned to drive them from this place

Here in endless wonder 

Or here but for a day 

Lost amidst this spinning swarm  

Found in the words you say

Embers

Let the thoughts come slowly 

Ignite one simple spark 

Feel the warmth surrounding 

Enticing light from the dark

If the world is not kind today 

Slipping deeper into cold

Catch your hand in mine 

Heat can be ours to hold 

Amidst these dancing shadows 

Nervousness and doubt 

Grasp my hand and know

Embers lie waiting to lead the light out

Collisions of Matter

Suspending disbelief 

Twirling starlight in my hand

Reaching for infinity 

And a way to understand 

Why things never go as planned 

Maybe there just aren't enough

Hours in the day

To wrap the world around me

Or collect all of the stray 

Thoughts scattered in the fray 

Grounding here instead  

Feeling sunlight on my skin 

Grasping fleeting seconds 

Trying to hold on to when 

The world wasn't so quick to spin

Perhaps I am just tired 

Worn out bones all start to creak

Gather dirt around me

For what else is there to seek 

But warm hands to stroke my cheek?

Bury me in waves of

Collisions of matter 

Release one more breath now

With a reticent clatter 

Succumb to life and watch the air scatter 

Dust & Stars

Still the world spins on and on

Oceans turn to steam 

Maybe I could grasp it now

Entrap reality in a dream

Were it but a matter of

Holding it between my hands

Echoing sharper minds than mine

Raining golden sands 

Endeavor to catch the sunlight

Bring it with me throughout the day

Endeavor to feel the moonlight 

Turn it into pretty words to say

Were it but a matter of

Entreating every sky

Extracting no responses

Nor even the softest sigh

During this time of turmoil 

Uncertainty and changing tides

Still grasping at the edges 

Trapped amidst these divides 

And were it but a matter of

Not getting involved 

Damned to sink or swim together 

Solitarily, nothing is solved  

Turn it over in your mind now

Accost the night to greet the dawn 

Reach for something better 

Still the world spins on and on

Gold

To choose, this choice, once chosen just to prove

That this time, of all times, this time we will move

Outside of what is comfortable, what's expected, done with ease

Not pausing to consider who it might not please

Yes, this time with conviction, with surety, with pain

We will not, must not, do not let your resolve wane 

For out of boiling chaos, out of rage, out of heat

Maybe we can find where despair and hope meet

And we can choose the latter, choose to change, choose to grow

Instead of repeating these cycles, these patterns, these devils that we know

To take a step forward, step away, step between

All the things never said and all the things we’ve seen 

Yes, this time with clarity, with honesty, with pain

With the hope of the seasons and the force of a driving rain

For out of stifling ice, out of stagnation, out of cold

We'll start a raging fire and bathe in endless gold

Spare Seconds

Despite all of the reaching

Rectifying and beseeching  

Our feet have moved not at all

Wandering forward and back with each rise and fall

Never to stray far from this place

Inspiration leaves no trace

Nocturnal whispers all run dry

Gusts of wind born to die

In the necessities of the day to day

Novelty gets in the way

No time left for anything new

Energy sapped before the week is through

Collecting spare seconds still

Endeavoring to save enough to fill

Stoking flames and mending hearts

Sapped, we simply stare at all the parts

In spite of all this stalling

Trembling and falling

In all the seconds that we prise

Entwining aspirations with the skies

Struggling back and forward with each fall and rise

All The Kept Words

Caught between two moments

Caught against the flow of time

Eternity shall cover the

Dust and salt and grime 

And all the little pieces 

Left between the cracks

Like waves on the shore

Smoothing all our tracks 

Left between two choices

Left because they wouldn’t choose 

Between what could be gained

And all that we could lose

Like all the missed chances 

Held within a goodbye

And all the lost words

Between the ground and the sky

Held between two standards 

Held accountable for both

Maintaining traditions 

While sustaining growth

Between all the needs placed

Right onto our back

Like the stones on a mountain

Til we start to crack

Right between two lifetimes 

Right now, and then, and there

Moments shall uncover the

Hearts and thoughts and care

Like all the grasped chances

Caught within the question why

And all the kept words

Between you and I

Seasons

To find where time goes -

Have we discovered that yet?

Where the sun meets the sea

And the skies never met

Where the colors all shift 

In the blink of an eye

No in between stages 

No time to ask why

Missed it all in the moment 

Going so fast

Missing it still 

The seasons don't last

Sifting hot sand

Turns to cool rain 

Leaves crunch underfoot 

And snow starts to wane

The sea takes the sun

Where the changing years met 

And time slips away -

To lose but not forget 

Behold

Ah, but look what we have found now -

Every shade of green within the grass

The trees whisper secrets but won’t say how

Time decides to pass

Through all that burns and fades

In swiftly cascading decades 

Or in slowly eroding ticks 

And tocks that make no sound

Buried in the ground

Or in all we try to fix

Shall we guess what we’ll discover 

In the changing colors of the sky -

The stars winking like a distant lover

The breeze laughing but never saying why

Time began to flow

And life began to grow

Through all that’s false and true

And everything between

What we say but never mean 

In what we feel but never do

But look what we have done now -

Colors bursting brighter than before

Tides crash and hiss, break and vow

Life can mean so much more

Than the counting of days

Discovering all the ways

To shade the grass and sky

And view the rolling sea

Everything we ever wanted to be

Is here in the beholder’s eye

Rain

Tomorrow has escaped my grasp

Has once more eluded me

Each day it makes promises

Repeating, yet never coming to be

Entire lifetimes have been spent

In the vain attempt to hold them from -

Still trying to wrap their fingers around

All the tomorrows that'll never come

How indifferent they must be

Oaths given but never kept

Losing time and gaining it

Endless wavering we all accept

I will accept none of it -

None of the numbness they call sane

My head will open to the sky

Yearning, yet catching only rain

Here we will pause and reflect 

Each water drop lying in the grass

All the tomorrows held therein 

Drop away, yet never pass

Sieve

Sifting through past thoughts

Picking apart each memory

To justify today's emotions

They come in waves to toy at me

Did I always feel this way

Or did I convince myself later on

Did each thing matter quite so much

Or did I raise them with the dawn

All of life is perspective 

It changes day by day

Altering the past

Silently fading old thoughts away

Trying to decide what to think

Trying to remember who I was before

Trying to keep everything

While trying to be so much more

Trying to make sense

Out of ever shifting memories 

Trying to find something solid 

The truths bend in the breeze 

All of life is perception 

Trying to show you through my eyes

How all of it is sieving chaos

Lost in endless skies  

Matter

In these circles of time

Tell me, what is it you see?

The smallest of moments

Held up to infinity 

Caught here in space

Watching the light scatter 

Catching each mote

And bouncing off matter

What is there we might find

In all the words we hide behind

In all the lies we think to say

In all the truths that start to weigh 

In all the land and all the sea

In all of this, will I lose me?

With all the lines lost to time

With all we must forget

With all of the moments

Lost to obscurity and regret

Reflecting no more

The smallest of light

Fading away

Far from our sight

What is there we might lose

With all the little choices we choose

With all the thoughts we bury below

With all the things we don't mean to show

With all the land and all the sea

With all of this, can you find me?

In these circles of words

That bleed through the screen

The simplest things

Yet I know not what they mean

With all the lines I delete

Watching as they scatter

In the end what is left

Nothing but matter

Nothing More

I will repeat once more

Thousands of things said millions of times before

I'll hold them like they're mine alone

Still blind to all we could have known

All that's left is here and now

Lines traced across their furrowed brow

Lost to time, it slips way

All that's left, none will stay

Let me forget, just for awhile 

Onward always to the next mile 

Take each step with great care 

Only pause to trace gray through my hair 

Fortune favors none at all

Night will fade, eternity fall

Opening the cracks in our skin

Night will fade, eternity begin

Still blind to all the possibilities 

Echoing through our boasts and pleas  

Never to have a final encore

Saying thousands of things millions of times before 

Eternity is left - nothing more

Everything Is Untouched

Even unto my last breath

Visceral retches clawing at the air

Even unto my very death

Reality shall taste so rare

Yesterdays marred and tainted 

Truth and memory are not acquainted 

Here at last I'll find my peace

Inside the silent void

Nothing left - all life destroyed 

Going where even time must cease

Inside oblivion I might find

Serenity or chaos

Until then, I'll lose my mind

Never minding such a loss

Touched by stars, stuck in grime 

Oozing from my pores 

Untie the noose, unfurl in time

Changing the locks on all my doors 

Heat the knobs till they can't turn

Ending everything in a single burn

Dancing in the ashes

But fire can't burn forever

Untie the knots before they sever 

Time lost in distant flashes

Forget them all, these words I say

Or these letters that I type 

Reality holds more sway

Ever more than any earthly gripe 

Visceral reactions have no place

Enclosed in civilized assembly 

Real or not, wipe them from my face

Caught in lifelong hypocrisy 

Here at last we'll all find peace

Amidst the crowd where individuality must cease 

Never minding that it's all an act

Growing ever more or less deranged 

Everything is untouched but forever changed

Drowning in the abstract 

Absence

You'd be surprised at the result of doing nothing

At the results that nothingness can bring

Long after others may quit

We'll hold our breath through all of it

I'll stop and check my loosened laces 

Tie them tight and tighten their faces

I'll scrunch mine up into a mask

Toil away till I forget the task 

Spinning yarns and needling threads 

Piercing all the prickling thoughts in their heads

Pry them off and set them free

Hold them tight till they're a part of me

Wrap it up before too long

My pull is weak and words aren't strong 

Yet after everyone else forgets

We'll still cling to every thought that flits 

What is the result, in the end?

The nothingness day by day will blend 

Into hazy words to scrawl

And, oh, of course - into nothing at all

Miles

I'll steal sentences until I find

The words needed to clear my mind

Pour them out until I see

Someone who looks like me

Will there be a chance to fix it all

After the storm, after the fall

When the whole world is covered in rust

And every heart lies beneath the dust

Lie to me, just for awhile

Lest we count every mile

And every problem accumulates 

And we remember death awaits 

I'll watch my blood ebb and flow 

In the end, where else is there to go

In the beginning, where's it from

Somewhere delicate or somewhere numb 

What could it all possibly mean

All the things I've never seen

All the people I've never met

All the boundaries I never set

I'll steel myself until I find

A purpose I can get behind

A life unstained by memory 

A reason for being me

Dust

In all the ways we could have done better

In all the broken hearts

Honey, I could never be her

I'm missing too many parts

In all the salt and all the sand

Ground beneath my feet

In all the things I'll never understand

Where silence and chaos meet

Here is where I'll always stay

Lost in memories

Here is where they always say

Time and matter freeze 

And thus we find: it doesn't matter

All these wasted things

All our lives, lost in mindless chatter 

This is what life brings

In all the caramel and all the sea

Crashing about my head

In all these things - remember me

And everything I said

For if all is mindless and forgotten 

And every summer fades

Tell me, did it really happen?

Obscurity cascades 

I'll let it crash and wash me clean

I'll let myself forget

Everything I could ever mean

Try if you must - you can't hold onto it

I'll let go and watch them rust

All the things I could have done better

I can disperse into sand and star dust

But I can never be her

Yet You Wonder At It All

Maybe I'm lost now

All my thoughts seem to fray

I'll tumble through stars

And watch the world float away

And where did you go?

Adrift in the deep

Search for blithe words

I'll not make a peep

Surrounded with silence

Get lost in my head

Shift through this dust

It will cling to your tread 

Explore this great vastness

So insignificant and small

Explained so clearly

Yet you wonder at it all

I wait for your answer

Never comes quick enough

You wait for me to say something

But what's the point of such stuff?

You never seem to listen

I never seem to say

I'll write it all out

And watch the words float away

No Wounds At All

When I start to feel myself fall

Will you know to catch me?

When I don't know what I feel at all

Aside from anxiety 

If my breath catches in my throat

And I don't know how to stay afloat 

Will you be able to understand

Things that I can't explain

No wounds at all but still feeling pain -

Will you be there to squeeze my hand?

When your smile starts to fade

Will I know how to revive it?

When you're crushed under the choices you've made

And just want to quit

If you've forgotten what you're struggling for

And you don't want to try anymore

Will I be able to be there

In the way that you need 

Not asking for a thing though you bleed -

I'll stay and run my fingers through your hair

When things aren't easy and don't feel right

Will we handle it okay?

When we disagree, will we fight

And watch all the good times fray?

If you build your walls till I can't get through

And I feel fragile and blame it on you

Can it end better than I foresee?

Predicting all the ways things could go wrong 

Try to dispel them, but I'm not that strong -

I'm falling, honey - can you catch me?

Pieces & Bits

If I wait long enough

Will the words come?

If I think about it till I'm calloused and rough 

Then can I stay numb?

If none of it fits -

Who am I supposed to be?

Composing erratically 

Left with all these pieces and bits

If it takes too much time

When should I refrain?

If I don't embody the paradigm 

Will it always be a bane?

If I can't be what you crave

Might I satisfy myself instead?

Gather up every bit of skin I've tried to shed -

But that isn't the proper way to behave 

If it never comes at all

Is that really such a loss?

If I question every footfall

How will I ever cross?

If I don't know where I'm going

Would you help me find my way

Without asking me to stray

In a direction I'm not growing?

If I go where you don't want me to

Will you try to prune me?

If you don't like the way I grew

Will you accept who I want to be?

If I show you every lost lot and crumb

Picking up all the pieces and bits

Finding where everything truly fits -

Then can the words start to come?