I
purpose and performance
ready for
disbelief
and some of this
magik
is lost
lost in
a waiting withdrawal
as knives are raised to the sky
and voices cry out for more
but receive less

the pink-orange fire
of a perfect morning melody
creeps toward the horizon
but it too is lost
lost to coming of rain
under hours of stale passion

slowly we shift the soul
and crucify
this callous
and camouflaged culture
as nicotine warriors
remember fallen friends
and another chance at love dies

II
forgetting to ask the question
fear ravages the brain
and our broken and immortal songs
drift like dry leaves
at the end
of october’s revelation

so embrace the birth
of another green death
fire the guns at midnight,
we refuse to wait
for 3 am to arrive
tired
we build
lonely monuments
to moments of
ecstasy and despair
and compare
cards stolen
from a sorry game of solitaire

summer’s ransom is spent
burned in random patterns
and illusions are always beautiful
in their last hours
but slowly we swallow
disaster
and quietly agree
to romanticize
these enduring obscenities

III
focus without depression
riding on some pale form of
rapacious release
luck is blurred
and blind reason
deletes this
feeble emptiness
till temptation
rescues us
from awkward anticipation

the spell is almost over
riding a radiant radio sky
we accelerate toward a
final, fallen star
and cry
breaking yesterday’s mystery
into coherent pieces
that we can carry
in pockets of private poetry

when the world finally ends
will you be naked
and ready
to light the ashes on fire?