I stand before me as a golden child,
born in the right place at the right time and
ignorant of my birthright
but always prescient of my life's crimes
i came up out of doors
with a front lawn as my frame of reference,
and from that grassy knoll i knew a world
i could encompass at my preference.
so then how did it come to be that I missed a moving train,
skipped a track or two and spun my view
till the window was my frame?
It's a function of my methods.
you see I was a golden child, and i was given a rock to roll on,
but the first time i fell i decided i'd play the center like a proton,
so the world rolled on but i kept in a stationary position
and figured when the time was right i'd figure it out
and then make my grand transition
but, for those considering,
this might be not a safe proposition
like a fool i squandered my gifts until
the sun was damn near in remission.
and i'm sitting here in decomposition wondering...
how?
how did it come to be that i missed a moving train,
skipped a track or two and spun my view
till the window was my frame.
the same window i used to view from the front lawn of my glory days
became my frame of reference with just a simple twist of phrase
and i went from liquid to solid in what seemed a trivial shift of phase.
i mean, just for reference, i didn't think that self-imposed sentence
was a passage to where the end is.
i knew it was just a distraction like an endless round of tetris,
but it's hard to not be distracted by mindless, repetitive methods.
so i played that path close in what amounted to a game,
and by the time i stopped to look i realized
the window was now my frame.
and i'm looking out this window,
with its four bars crossed like a coin toss,
glimpses of my own face reflected in its polished gloss
running circles around a track of thoughts like,
"what kind of knife could i use to cut this loss?"
when i realize...
...i haven't been as sedentary as i suspected
there's a skill to waiting i find i've damn near perfected
and while those around me test tongue-tied convictions
i've been scripting tongue twisters just to upkeep my diction
cause...you can't start moving without at least a little bit of friction..
so i figure the best thing for me to do is:
tonight i'll light up and ink an epigraph
an ode to recycled words and explosive laughs -
the very things that cradle me from the present to the past.
and once my passage through time is thus secured
i'll dedicate a split second to considering the direction in which I'm lured
but ultimately, i'll just have to trust...
...i'll have to trust, because the future comes up from behind you.
trying to plan a path is like hoping that death won't find you.
and if there's one piece of reality i really don't need anymore reinforced,
it's that things will find their way,
and the way of things will find its course.
so...
what ever happened to my prison bars /slash/ window panes?
they went the way of measured breathing and birthing pains -
to a space in the past where events lie like grains of sand,
waiting for rebirth along the path of a master plan,
and somewhere along my convoluted path to salvation,
i dropped a spliff and the fucking walls burned to the ground.
and i stood and i watched, and i didn't notice till the charred wood turned white
that no one came to put out the flames.
and no one came to rebuild that house.
and i walked free.
tonight i ink an epitaph
for the switchback seeds of demigraphs
we'll see which dreams were meant to last
as they burn the city down
oh yes!
be not mistaken!
tonight they bun the walls of jehrico!
oh yes, they burn the walls of jehrico,
ancient fortress with iron tears-
the candle at both ends
is burning through my fears
can i evade this righteous first,
balled to smash my haunted vision?
hunted in the night,
all bombs posess too much precision
aborted infinite, they'll burn till morning comes
the city walls have failed us, now must we our fettered fears expunge
the city walls have fallen, our ray of light diffracted through the sand
this is not what we wanted, but this is what we planned
tonight they burn the walls of jehrico,
in technicolor and replay-tv
and though they've burned my city's walls
i'll see death before they scorch me
there exists a forest in this world:
an immense grove of reddish-brown trunks,
dispersed unevenly across the soft, loamy earth.
These trees spend their days vainly painting the sky with their bushy heads.
Before we go any further,
It should be noted that this forest does not actually exist:
it is, in fact, merely a figment of my imagination - but no matter,
because the metaphor must go on.
Anyway, this forest is a peaceful one,
and it came to be that on a particular day,
I found myself wandering its sprawling expanses.
On foot, I was enjoying the solitude, contentedly allowing the day to slide by.
In retrospect, actually, I had absolutely no fucking idea where I was going.
Apparently, though, it was my lucky day,
for at length, I came upon a place where the forest opened up -
it was a clearing in the wood, as an oasis in the desert,
and it called to me with a siren's song...
...and of course, as the story goes, I felt compelled to come closer
I approached, and found it to be a rather well-defined clearing -
it was as if the stately trees, in their never-ending march across the land,
had come upon this spot, decided it was too hallowed for even them,
and gone on growing around it.
I, for one, was enthralled -
the place was like a heart in the grove,
pulsing gently with the rays of the Sun
which streamed down from above in thick, visible beams
In the middle of the clearing,
there was a massive millstone, which positively confused me -
I am unused to foreign elements in my personal metaphors.
Perhaps for that reason,
or maybe for another,
I was drawn to that millstone.
some inexplicable force was inviting me to take a seat at its center, and,
feeling both weary and intrigued,
I gladly complied:
but just before I sat down, I experienced a sudden moment
of apprehension and insecurity.
I ignored it, sat down, and was promptly blinded by a violent flash of light.
It lasted only a moment, but may well have been the single most intense moment of my life.
For in that instant -
that infinitely short period of my life -
I, for one ephemeral, fleeting, pure moment,
knew both myself and the world inside and out.
I saw myself standing in a void,
and at my side, I saw a woman -
and I dare say, I gawked at her.
She was beauty incarnate -
she was amazing - gorgeous -
like an earthly manifestation of divine architecture.
She glowed!
She was hyperreal and overbright.
She appeared in deepest perspective,
flowing throughout manifold dimensions and
infinite spaces.
She carved through the atmosphere that surrounded her,
splitting it away and peeling it back like an old skin,
and stepped outside and throughout the world,
draping herself in the fabric of space.
I was taken with her exquisite simplicity -
the promise of everything in nothing.
Drunken with some thing deeper than emotion.
So that there, in the center, the walls came down,
and for once,
I flowed freely, partner to a shared existence, fluid and amorphous.
But it was just a moment -
just a bright flash of light in my little metaphor.
I soon felt the inevitable become imminent and inescapable,
and as I came back into my forest, I was sent scrambling to regain
the pieces of me flung far to the four corners.
My vision returned, and I found
that the sky had darkened,
and that I was in danger...
...I ran headlong through the trees, with each one taking the time
to reach down and lash out at me,
lacerating my haphazardly collected body.
There exists a street in this world.
Like other streets, it is black and smooth.
Along this street runs a series of street lamps,
each evenly spaced and casting their cones of white down
to the street below.
It came to be that on a particular evening,
I found myself spinning around in circles,
staring up into the blinding light of one of those street lamps...
...and as I turned slowly, my face tilted up and drenched
with the sky's springtime offerings,
I was surprised to find that the warm rain felt good
upon my freshly opened wounds.
Though the mountains
May in time
Cede their
Foothills
to the
Sea,
I will hold you,
Forever.