Happy Birthday

I drove out to that park that used to be ours.
It's fall now and all the leaves
have died and fallen to the ground.
There was a young couple parked,
they reminded me of us
some time ago.
I don't know what I thought
I'd find here.
In a way I just got into the car
and it felt like I was driving home,
like the car was guiding me here.
I don't know how long it's been
since we last spoke.
I think about you less,
but a piece of me still misses you.
I wish I could have been better.
I wish I didn't feel so broken and alone.
I always used some clever line
or some song to express how I felt
but now I know it wasn't genuine.
So I'm writing you this letter knowing
you'll never read it, but hoping you'll understand.
And by the way, I didn't forget,
I just didn't have the courage to tell you;
happy birthday.

Jaguar Shark

I remember the days you said
you'd get lost in my eyes.
It was like watching the ultimate
battle between good and evil.
You said I used words like weapons,
but that's how you use emotions.
I know now we weren't
allies as much as we were
just trying to defeat a common enemy.
But I saw things in you I can't explain.
Were they things I just needed to see?
Like an evangelical who sees his
messiah in a piece of toast?
The storm in my soul,
these ebbs and flows,
these trials and tribulations
have me weathered.
I am just a passenger (Ishmael).
My soul, the mad captain (Ahab).
There may be plenty
of fish in the sea,
but none like you.

My Last Fall

I saw this coming from a mile away,
I just couldn't bring myself
to brace for it's impact.
I remember my last fall,
I hid under the pretense
of certain circumstances.
Some nights I get the feeling
you were a balloon floating above it all.
I was your anchor buried
six feet under the leaves;
we were tethered together.
At night I'd dig my way up
and meet you.
You cared about me then
the way no one cares about me now.
I still think about that empty park
and the frozen grass on that
black out golf course.
I still listen to those same
songs but my drives are a lot colder now.
I tried to reach up but the leaves
have become too heavy.
And once I tried to pull your string
but you weren't attached
to it anymore.
My thoughts will always find
a way of manipulating themselves,
but these words are a permanent
reminder;
of the past present and future.

My Aim Is True

"I could really fall in love with you Case."
She prowls those city streets like a lioness;
a jungle cat on the hunt.
"A street walking cheetah with
a heart full of napalm."
She'll take you down with a graceful
precision and devour you.
I was the gazelle at the end of the bar,
who lacked the courage
of his convictions.
And she was my Alison.
But I'll walk away this fall
sipping on black coffee
and smoking cigarettes.
Eventually I'll burn away
like a dying star and forget my way back home.

If You Set It Free It Will Never Come Back To You

Looking over my shoulder,
only half listening she asked:
"Is it better to have loved and lost?
Or to have never loved at all?"
What I say won't matter,
because I don't even play the game.
Letting people in,
letting them affect you,
feelings, emotions...
these are all just inherent
character flaws we're all born with
and only a few of us grow out of.
But I've dropped my insides
and cut the anchor loose.
I'll employ this phalanx
to guard what's left of my soul.
This last grain,
this last fragment,
is mine.
I'll watch it turn to ash at dusk
and I'll bow it away like a
dandelion, like an eye lash,
like my last birthday candle.
Because the further away from me
it gets,
the better off it is.

A Leap for the Faithless

The first word is always the hardest.
It's a leap of faith into the unknown.
I've become the Pied Piper.
I will be Charon,
I will guide you through Hades.
The cover of this book
will read like a divine comedy
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"
This is an Odyssey but I'm no Odysseus.
This is the anti-hero's journey.
This is a journey to a lost paradise.
Follow me home,
to the bars on pleasure island
where you will never be thirsty.
To the whore houses,
where you will never be alone.
To the lake of fire,
where we will sit on it's shore
and smoke cigarettes.
This is the journey of the damned.
Is it in you?
Can you take that first step?
Take a vacation into desperation,
I welcome you.

Eyes Like Emerald City+

They say home is where the heart is,
my home is in your embrace;
in the shining green eyes
that light up brighter than Emerald City.
I'll wait forever for you to come home
to me.
Rod Serling came
to me last night in a dream and said
you were the one for me.
He said somewhere down low,
where we've buried our hurt,
and with what little love we had left;
we found each other.
I was wandering around in the darkness;
a candle with no flame,
and you had a can of kerosene
and a pack of cigarettes.
We used our hearts as flints
and made a spark that never seemed to fade.
The black turned to gold in our light
and the coal in our hearts turned to rubies
that tasted like tropical punch.
It took me 23 years to find you,
but it's just a drop in the bucket
if it means forever.
So take this with you wherever you go
and know that I stay up nights
looking at the stars;
and spelling your name.