Cut The Noose (Suffer for sinners, not self proclaimed saints).

Cut the noose,

The gallows give.

How many months

Have you been

Strung up like this?

Two souls, one love

The other unknown -

Lust or affection,

But something further

From True North,

The magnetic pull of

Faith's direction.

Martyr, Sinner -

Hangmen are never

Victims in innocence,

But I've paid my penance;

It was always mine,

But I can't hang

For your crimes too.

Not when you won't

Admit the truth.

Two souls burden,

More than a man can bear;

But you know,

I would die for you.

To this day,

As the rope unfurls

And my body is taken

Wrapped in bandit

Shrouds, dirty, drab, gray.

If I had two lives,

One, it would be yours,

I know you don't

Believe me, that's ok.

I'm a liar, thief and

Fool and ashamed,

But not of this.

The crimes locked

In your indifferent lips,

My execution kiss.

Cut me down,

Over and over,

With inciting,

Hurtful words.

I would hang,

For your sins,

But not the

Paltry whims

Of a self

Proclaimed

Saint.

You Are The Ghost (You are not alone)

You are the ghost

In the machine,

My sanskrit muse -

Dead languages

We used to know to speak,

Whose cryptic

Presence has me typing

Out long forgotten epitaphs -

Poems, prose all my pretty

Bloody, weeping words;

Fingers dance more these

Days with black keys than

Strands of hair or lovers ears -

All the pretty girls,

I caught and consumed

Trying to chase away

The memories and taste of you.

Well they still call

Unaware that this is the winter

And they were summer and fall.

Because hearts have roots and

They burrow deep,

The crown of leaves may change

But those tendrils still seek

Nourishment in the deep

Of once fertile ground

Even when days grow short

And the woodlands bleak.

So quiet now, listen to the wind

The ghost that howls,

Heralding great storms that

Rip oak and willow from earth,

Cast into the sky,

That once lovely voice within

With beauty that once wove

Gossamer through summery dreams

Become the shriek

Of forlorn medians and tundra,

The great white waste

Of lush lands, everything dies,

Kings, kingdoms, language and lust -

Everything risen up in fury

Is laid to rest in peace and solemnity.

The phantoms that cling,

Haunting bone, soul and memory

The angels and demons that seep

Out of haunted fingers onto

Computer screens,

Hoping others wandering

In this vast and great obscurity

Understand words written

In arcane emotions,

The story of roots, ghosts

Wind and bone.

Poems scratched into fallen trunks

Half buried in fresh fallen snow -

Sign posts to find your way home,

Whomever that may be,

Even as you're lost in the cold

Know that though you may be fallen

Just beneath your feet

Are all the humbled trees toppled

By once warm spirits in the biting breeze-

Everyone who ever dared to venture out

From blinking screens and glowing hearth

Has lost more than they could have known -

You aren't alone.

Let's Just Buy A House (But baby)

She begs me, baby, eyes all brown and heavy-

Let's just buy a house, settle down,

We'll slip into a new life without

All of this pain, without the city lights.

Everything, everything can be all right.

That would be beautiful

If it were true,

But the sea, it caresses the sand

And baby, my calloused hands

Were never meant for you.

I know you love me dearly,

But baby, I just don't want you.

Oh I know, how you could think this is love

Because when I hold you down,

Hand pushing back that auburn mane

It feels like the angels are lifting us up.

But baby, the angels, they don't give a fuck about us.

Life, girl, it's not a pretty thing,

Not like you,

But flowers, they reach up toward the sun

And we both know I'm not the one.

All you ever wanted was a simple thing,

But I'm a puzzle, baby, we both know

If you solved me, you'd find nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. . .

Every Goodgirl (Just wants to dance)

You are chains.

That don't give a fuck

If I'm weighed down

By my love

For what's dead and gone.

Tell me, tell me

I'm supposed to be

Ok with your transient

Disposition and motivation

Watching fascinated words

Fall from your painted lips

For another while you're

Glued to his hips

With with sweat

Poured into the lust

Of your forsaken kiss.

Fuck you Rasputin.

She say's I'm bad,

Maybe even evil,

But she loves it -

Every self professed,

Saint confessed

Goodgirl just wants to dance

With the devil.

So don't protest,

Say that sin isn't beautiful,

Because the pit

May be filled with demons,

But that volcanic crown

Rests on the brow of an angel.

Fuck you Rasputin

All the little heresies

Popping up like daisies

In the not-so-white

Bed sheets that run wet

With sweat, tears and

What remains of your dignity.

Well, we're all just trying

To feel like we're still alive,

Like we did tugging along kites

Through the adolscent skies

Of cerulean youths.

I swear, swear I don't blame you

But I don't pretend, won't pretend

I don't hate you.

Fuck you Rasputin.

Where are my blue skies?

My alabaster wings and

Golden halo? My genuflections

At the throne of our grace?

Knees weeping, forehead

Pressed into the dirt,

The antechambers

Of parting skirts,

My burning brow's reflection

In the sounds of seething

At innocence seduced and

Screaming out I'll never

See the throne again.

There's no home for me

In the eaves of heaven.

Fuck you Rasputin.

A song in progress

Let's Be Honest (Drinking for you)

Let's be honest.
Candid for a moment.
We all know how
This ends.
With a kitchen knife
And a 5th.
I've nothing left,
Can't try again;
Only hollow for so long
Before I find some misery
To swallow.
Only sober until
Everyone's gone
And I can drown in peace.
I loved you all,
I hope you know,
But all the bad words
Are in capitals
And that one's so damn small.
Maybe, if I were better
At playing my guitar
I'd get a wall too,
But I won't,
Just a toast to a ghost
At some shitty ghetto bar.
We all fade away,
Everything you capture escapes;
The moment,
The light
The fickle flame
And the sun
Creeping through venetian blinds;
Passed out in cold
Sweat and shame.
It all just fades away
Beneath the bottles
Lined up like fallen soldiers
You kill just to feel OK.
So drink to me, Elliot and Chris
Everyone who ever saw the truth
And was broken by it.
Because right now,
I'm drinking to you.
Right now,
I'm drinking for you.

Flint and Steel (The Ember)

Ochr and azure

The autumn sky

So godamn beautiful

As day fades to night,

I watch twilight rise.

While your smile

Begins to fade,

And the flicker,

The ember,

Of love that I

Kindled in your eyes.

I'm flint and steel,

A hard handed man

Worn from making sparks,

All the nights

Spent writhing in sweat,

Grinding me away in the dark.

Just don't look for fire

In my lips or heart,

I don't make flames

Or build fires

Only funeral pyres

For sad girls

With pretty eyes.

Because I only want

Women in love with their lies.

I only feel,

When I know I could rise

Above the broken

Way your hands make fists

When you seethe and despise

the way I see weakness in you.

I'm flint and steel, hard, solid

And painfully real.

Everything you want, fear, hate

And feel.