Where do my eyes drift to when I don't know the words?

The concern falls from the ceiling,

crashing to ground.

My breathing stays steady,

I'm not sure how.

Words and meanings mix in the mind,

Filtered through muck.

Stricken with a weird feeling I can't tell,

Is it all just dumb luck?

I should feel anger and fear and frustration.

There's this deep seated numbness instead.

Go through motions when I'm supposed to react.

Crashed.

Faltered.

Trapped and afraid for the wrong reasons.

I don't know the beats.

I don't know when to change the time.

I only know I'm off somewhere.

There's that feeling that should stick,

But it doesn't.

I know what should happen and shouldn't.

This shouldn't happen.

They shouldn't happen.

But they do.

And I know that, too.

I'm not as surprised as I should be.

The rhythms are there, the drums bear out their beats.

I'm scared to admit that the cynic in me expects this.

And when it hits, I'm sorry.

I don't know what to say or where to go.

I feel like at these points all I can give is my silence.

And wish there had only been silence, and no fury.

Chilled Night

I step out of the dark quiet cold and into the warm din of the coffeeshop. The late night comes alive as the happy chatter of people fills my ears, removing the blanket of a steady chilled breeze.  I'm part of this now, I'm feeling it, enjoying the love and life.  Perhaps I'm just a solitary soul in this din, but it's okay.  Take me in, let the tapping of these keyboard keys add to the distractions from the descent into stillness.

Suddenly I see, just beyond the glass windows, the form of a homeless youth I've served breakfast to. He isn't looking up at us inside, he's quickly moving in the night I know to be cold but no longer feel.

He was only there briefly, he only stopped a brief moment a few feet away from my privileged position, to inspect something on the bench outside. But he's moved on, probably seeking warmth at the shelter.  It's another community, one totally unstable, only suited to saving people stuck at the bottom, but hopefully he'll find a bed. I'm left here wondering.

How quickly this warmth and safety was brought into perspective for me. How quickly I am aware.  I still appreciate this din, I'm still thankful and in love with the life around me.  But perspective, right?

A bed of granite

When you saw the sun set and space come into view,
Did you feel like falling off the side of Earth?
When the Milky Way remained ever new,
Did it really seem to be a birth?
While clinging to the planet with all strength,
I saw the stars all pulling me away.
The light that stretched across my vision's length,
Was burning just as brightly in the day.
And so I stumbled down the mountainside,
Swallowed in the cracks of worth and time,
And wracked with doubt yet somehow full of pride,
I lost myself amidst my selfish crime.

They say, those poets and those knowing men,
That I may lose horizons that I know,
But tomorrow morning I shall once again,
Commit the deeds that stop the nectar's flow.

Frustrated depths drop into blue dark.

Columns of space and mass tower up into the future knowing.

Anyway I saw the flecks of moments and moments all around me.

I swam around but try as I might I could not drop lower into the blue dark.

These particles seemed everything and the clouds of towers were all that seemed.

But never letting go as they twisted and pulled me through the blue dark.

I struggled and thrashed and tried to unwind these arms.

No relative safety remained.

In the moment I watched each fleck sparkle and shine from the glimmers of light above.

The moment was yet another moment.

And that was the time that the sparkles coalesced into these towers around me.

I let go of the nothing holding me.

I swear I let go.

The blue dark held its warm embrace close.

I knew so much more but it didn't matter.

These blue dark depths remained.

You could say that I knew what I was for.

You should feel the weight that kept me in place.

Floating only here, the flecks of being never resting, only scattering fluidly from my twisting arms.

My arms, these hands, my hopes my dreams.

Twisting columns falling and rising away into the blue dark.

It's late and the nerves rattle

It's late and the knowledge is everywhere

It's falling fast into territories as ephemeral as ice.

Wide gaps are calling.

Wild thoughts ravage mental landscapes.

Plentiful meadows and scoured beaches left dry without even bones.

Pleasant hills.

Twisted ravines.

Sweet sweet oblivion.

Falling into late.

Fighting far and knowing fate.

Settling down, but still awake.

Waiting now for something.

From this knowing.

I know where it's going.

Because I let it.

Shipped and sailed and gone to shore.

Far away forevermore.

far afar afield the scoundrels

ravaged towns and ports

twisted in their joyful troubles

broken disregard for hearts

men and boys and slanted beasties

picking fights on ships

sought locales, exotic beauties

died as vicious fools

mothers held them once to breast

fathers they never knew

awash in sorrow, failed the test

o grace wanted their souls

it's a missing light that blinds.

it's these dark spots in my eyes that burn the brightest.

tempted by knowledge,

fooled by secrets,

endlessly struggling against a villain that sniggers with mirth.

I'm not so blind any more,

and yet my steps are cautious,

as if I'm wandering the dark.

I'm lost in hesitation and certainties of nothing.

twining around the finger of fate and flooded in fears.

he's a gentle one,

and she's no rougher,

but the words cut just deeper.

there is that feeling of loss in knowing,

that bleak knowledge wanting to drown.

and cheshires grinning.

and time laughs full out.

but mere sensation brings me round.

knowing that my nerves serve the moment.

and my heart serves the infinite.

and my breath serves the all

in you and me.