Vagabond

I can’t regale you with a sonnet

I can’t play piano or guitar.

I wish I did, I wish I could be 

more than another guy at a bar.

You look me over top to bottom,

curious to see just what’s inside.

Besides the loose change in my pocket,

well, I’ve got nothing left to hide.

    I don’t need to be smart to be clever.

    Don’t need a watch to tell me time won’t wait.

    While I can’t draw, or keep my plotlines straight: 

    My art is in the life that I create.

For those of us who grow up knowing

food doesn’t show up on one’s plate

We hear an appetite that’s taunting, 

biding its time to seal our fate.

And like a gunshot in the distance

it forced me to a running start.

That blast still echoes in the caverns

that love left vacant in my heart.

    I don’t need to be smart to be clever.

    Don’t need a watch to tell me time won’t wait.

    While I can’t draw, or keep my plotlines straight: 

    My art is in the life that I create.

    Why erase a wrinkle, why hide a single line 

    when they chronicle the landscape of a lifetime?

    Like razing trees to better see a barren line.

    A pristine canvas is a song without a rhyme. 

Won’t promise I can buy you diamonds,

and I've no use for fancy cars.

I do swear your life won’t be a blank page

but a night sky peppered with stars!

And I never did like a blank page:

an empty sky without stars...

 

#JohnTravolta

Ashore

Don't care to ask why skies are blue?
Content to say it's somehow true, are you
preferring not to know than know you could be wrong?

You built the rules that wall you in
this prison of what-you-believe, then
you sit on that shore so sure the current's just too strong.

Staying awake leaves no space to dream in,
mistrusting what sits in the shadows.
But those who avoid the unfriendly seas
become captains who sail in the shallows.

You fear a fall, but don't we all?
Why crouch behind a make-shift wall?
Nobody hides from time by ducking as it passes by.

Can't fully numb the hurt you feel.
Life carves us scars to show we heal.

I'd rather see the petals fall, than risk they never bloom at all...

The Get Away

Well, running away is easy 

and driving off is even fun.

If it means anything to anybody

I’d never meant to hurt anyone.

Got wrapped up in my own story.

Started a tab of open trespasses.

Ditched the aftermath for the afterparty

leaving someone else to clean the mess.

  Wind in my hair, got both hands on the wheel,

  I’ve forged this iron will into a heart of steel.

  So many years late but I now I'm ready to be...

  the person I should've been at 23.

Felt good making bad decisions.

Ain't nothin wrong with tryin' to have some fun?

Ditched all the pleasantries, wrote off the casualties...

Nothin' 4 shots of bourbon couldn't numb.

  Wind in my hair, used the regret I feel

  to forge this iron will into a heart of steel.

  I'm 20 years late but I now I'm ready to be...

  the person I wanted to be... at 23.

I thought the open road would always let me get away

but scenes repeat themselves like I'm on a track.

The devil holds a silken leash, he’ll help you have your way,

but I would rather roam free with a cross on my back.

  Wind in my hair, used the regret I feel

  to forge this iron will into a heart of steel.

  I'm 20 years late but I now I'm ready to be...

  the person I wanted to be... at 23.

Fallen Star

How I'd looked up to you
shining down pure as starlight,
beaming in your silk nightgown
a fairy dressed all in white.

You'd read me a story,
the only one you could tell,
with each run I would wonder
if it might finally end well.

   After ever after, there's no genie in your bottle
   to grant the lost wishes you wipe off your lip.
   And all the kings men and all the kings horses
   have left you with me in a sinking ship.

There's no room for dreaming,
can't fit it into my suitcase
for this road trip from hell
up a long winding staircase.

You say we've arrived but
what waits at the top?
A new dragon to chase
then a hundred-foot drop?

   After ever after, there's no genie in your bottle
   to grant the lost wishes you wipe off your lip.
   And all the kings men and all the kings horses
   have left you with me in a sinking ship.

I charted a course chasing you through the sky,
thought you twinkled for me to stave off the dark.
But as you started to fade in the fresh light of day,
I could spy the black hole in your heart.

#DemiMoore_InsideOut

Tug of War

You'd think I'd know you better
I fell for you when we were 10.
This castle built across a lifetime:
a house of cards against the wind.

I missed the signs completely
I'd blindly followed every rule.
Stood on the pedestal you fashioned
and tumbled off a broken stool.

You pull on your side
I'll tug on mine
not quite how I imagined
the bloody end of the line.

So tired of this but I'll hold my ground.
This game's not over 'til we all fall down.

Rich on a pocket of dimes,
we'd both be half-baked in the sun.
Back when "i'm sorry" came so easy
and losing games was half the fun.

You could always make me laugh
even times when I'd be bleedin'.
How could I know you wouldn't outgrow
that old propensity for cheatin'.

You pull on your side
I'll tug on mine
not quite how I imagined
the bloody end of the line.

So tired of this but I'll hold my ground.
This game's not over 'til we all fall down.

Strength is spent and skin is raw, far as hell from what I planned. Do I hold the means to be free? Or is this a noose in my hand?

So tired of this but I'll hold my ground.
This game's not over 'til I take you down.

#olliwood

It's no fun inching on the ground
watching all the skinny birds get ahead.
Those beautiful monsters who don't notice
or would rather see you dead.

Tough life, but keep doing as you're told
whatever it takes so you get by.
Coz it could be any day now,
and they say it's clear as day how: 
     you're meant to be a butterfly

You pay those dues, drink up your pride,
tasting a touch like piss and lemonade.
Come this far, no point in hesitating.
Can't keep that audience waiting.

Tough life, we all stumble in the dark
they've made a stage that's draped in black
tryin' to make that fake sun blinding?
tryin' to hide what no one's minding:
     the hunters circling to attack

The End

Is it the tunnel's end or a flame?
It's never led to anywhere.
There's no dream-come-true exit
to crawl out of this nightmare.

Running running running...
not afraid of the dark and dreary.
Been here so long that
these street-rat eyes can see quite clearly.

Tired of hearing that I gotta walk
and live the narrow and the straight
Try and make a desert man think
beyond pulling his own weight.

Head down, hand out
no one minds if no one bites.
They'll toss coins, crumbs, used excuses
whatever keeps this out of sight.

Running running running...
not afraid of the dark and dreary.
Been here so long that
I've seen rock bottom crystal clearly

I can prove them right about everything or not a thing.
I've seen the floods, the plague with next to nothing on my plate.
So thanks for nothing. I'm done apologizing 
that you gotta walk by and see me survive this sorry state.

Oh this ain't hell, just so you know.
This... is the end of the rainbow.