Desperate Distraction

There’s a fading pulse

I’m trying to recall

I can’t quite remember what

Like waking from a dream

Or remembering a program between all the commercials

Perhaps that’s just me

The one the previews make me forget the movie

I wanted to see

I just want to sit still

And listen to the waves crash over me

Not the waves of static and media and opinion

That bombard me daily

But real water. An ocean

Who’s salt can clean these wounds

And the tide can drain all the stress away

But those moments would seem wasted

Amidst the rat race, where we keep chewing our legs off

For all the traps in our midst

And on bloody stumps we scream and cry

Trying to go faster

As the finish line gets further and further away

And we’re lost in this maze

An experiment of the elite

Wondering which way we’ll turn next

When they’ve only left us two directions

I press my hands to my eyes

And breathe through my fingers

Hoping the world will stop spinning

Time will stop moving

I can stop moving

I’m too young to be this tired

I’m too old to be this confused

And I’m used to difficulty in life

I was born poor, with no advantages,

No birth rights, no helping hands upward

While being reminded by friends

From wealthy families, how lucky I am

To be me

I want uncostly quiet and reflection

That doesn’t cost me another work hour

Another pay day

Another way to get myself out of

Where I never thought I would end up

But here I am

Living the dream

Realizing the dream

Wasn’t meant for me

I was meant to believe

So someone else could achieve

And give me hope

Not know hope is a four letter word

That curses the middle classes to always strive uphill

In a mudslide

A torrent

A circumstance most abhorrent

For you’re meant to ignore it

And go on believing

This is how life should be

Closing In

Shifting walls and closing doors
Back to where I was before

A different map, another name
But inside still feels the same

I call out to ask what's ahead
My own voice reverberates instead

I find a new path, hope alights inside
But as the halls grow dim, doubt slows my stride

So many paths were open when I was young
Yet each new turn, they fade, one by one
The halls now shrink, the ceiling slopes low
Not sure what to think, much less where to go

Each step feels uncertain, in each turn there is loss
The darkness a chasm I can never quite cross
That chasm the distance between my dreams and me
Even as I'm racing forward, I watch it recede
My pace then slowing, disquiet closing in
Narrow tunnels constrict, panic begins

Do You?

Heart’s beating too fast

And my feet can’t keep the rhythm

I can’t keep up

There’s too much going on

Did you know?

Didn’t you read?
Didn’t you see the news on my feed?

No. I fucking didn’t.

I’m not everywhere at once.

In the omnipresent stampede of

False information and updates

I get lost in the shuffle

You do to. You just might not know it yet.

They don’t see you

They can’t

There’s too much to see now

A cacophony of sea how

To believe thou

Can somehow

Seethe now

Believe how

Your opinion matters

In a sea of belief

And shifting tides of what truth and information

Even mean

It’s all about spin

And can you even begin

To understand

All they can

Do to keep spinning

This top under our feet

Information is false

News is entertainment and advertising

Pushing uninformed agendas

That the companies don’t even understand

So long as the right hand

Is greased

And not least

Of us

No longer believes

What is really real

Which is we are the sources of information

Did you see it?
Were you there?

Do you know someone who was?

Get to know these nameless faces
A world a way

In the age of the information superhighway

A highway full off road blocks

Meant to keep you ignorant and apathetic

While a whole world spins

And you’re given the narrow filtered lens

And the next Hollywood Wives

In order to contrive

Your sense of reality

Or hopelessness in it

While the bars are built all around us

And we hand over the keys

Because we’re told this is what we believe

The polls say

Everyone agrees but you

Do you?

Do you know what to do?

Do…

Do what you have to

To find the facts

That make sense to you

If the puzzle seems jagged and broken

Perhaps it’s not as the moving pictures

Would lead you to believe

Ermine Dance Floor

On this ermine dance floor
Silhouettes of memory
Spectres of my longing
Stanced in poise of recollection
Just as they were
These book marks of my passion
And in these dreams we dance again
In back drops we have never been
To hold this ethereal reminiscence
This fleeing opiate gauze to my heart's suffering
Once more let's take to the dance floor
So I may step in time with you again
While away the fancy with these ghosts of reverie
We lilt, one by one, as I forget to hurt
And smile in a hall where joy of past convenes
Then I blink my eyes and the hall is empty
I stand here alone once again
But if I could dance with you, just one more time
And feel alive again
Close my eyes and hold this moment forever
Even if it's just pretend

Drifting

I walk these halls beneath the ocean

Through these tombs of memory

Drift along within the current

A thousand miles deep

Hot one ventricle, cold aorta

Pump through these ancient coral streams

Exploring the passages pure and sordid

Of my fantasies and dreams

The phosphorescent spectral reflections

Of all my memories

Then turn the path of recollection

To luminescent fantasy

I traverse these passageways to enter

Vestibules of relic ghosts and those that will never be

I need these moments to find my center

When ethereal’s more real than the world around me

And I just need this moment so I can breathe