Nature of a Falling Sun, Pt. 2

I was leanin’ on the house today and saw some folks starin’ at the sun

I was thinkin’ to myself ‘Well shit, you can’t see nothin’ with the sun in yer eyes like that’

Anyways, they started scramblin’ and screamin’ that the sun was gettin’ bigger

They was yellin’ the sun was goin’ to hit the Earth soon, you know, shit like that

I looked up yonder and sure ‘nough that sun was gettin’ bigger and we was gonna die

Them folks was carryin’ on about WHY and WHEN and how big the sun was

I thought to myself ‘Well hell, why are you worryin’ about them insignificancies?’

I mean it don’t matter ‘bout why that sun is fallin’ or when it’ll fall out the sky

I just know myself that the sun’s fallin’, it might as well be now, and we’re gonna die

That there’s just the nature of a fallin’ sun and that’s how it’s gonna be

Them folks need to quit their cryin’ and yappin’ and quit givin’ a damn about that sun

I keep thinkin’ ‘bout what my neighbor John Ezekial Rice said when we was talkin’ about it yet

‘We all’re gonna die and I’d say in these last units o’ time we all do what the fuck we were here to do all along and love and care and forgive and forget and remember and chuckle and pray and share that community we all done forgot all them years ago; goddamn them self-indulgent folks and goddamn that fallin’ sun.’

Nature of a Falling Sun, Pt. I

In a dark room, in the biggest room of all

My house is slowly coming to an end

Ideas are empty in a room with so much darkness to fill, so much space to fill

I can’t begin to think how big this room is...

Only how everything is smaller than this room

The space is so empty, like the cosmos is a vacuum

My self wants to fill the space and I stretch to try

But cry in pain and scream WHY is this room so big?

WHY is this room so dark?

And the most pertinent question is WHY is the chandelier not hanging?

Well, that is the nature of a falling sun...

Keen to fill the space in the biggest room of all

Keen to fill the darkness with the brightest light of all

But this room is just so big and the energy is stretched thin

Stretched thin like I am, trying to fill the biggest room of all

Of course we cannot and WHY?

Nothing is bigger than this room (it’s the biggest room of all)

Instead of asking WHY, though, I ask WHEN

So it goes, WHEN is this room so big? WHEN is this room so dark?

And the most pertinent question is WHEN is the chandelier not hanging?

Well, that is the nature of a rising moon...

Keen to empty the space in the biggest room of all

Keen to empty the darkness with the dimmest light of all

But this room is just so big and the efforts stretched thin

Stretched thin like I am, trying to empty the biggest room of all

Of course we cannot and WHY?

Nothing is bigger than this room

It’s the biggest room of all!

The Monochrome Orchestra

The barrier has been broken

Old growth that was past felled and has given life to new

The barrier has been broken

Burning leaves are blistering the branches

The barrier has been broken

Even the slightest breeze has been born anew as a firestorm

The barrier has been broken

Black and battered woods, carbon blends with the carbon below

White ash and black carbon

Shaded neutral by the gray pall of the smoked and smoldering air

A monochrome orchestra fills the outdoor hall with explosive silence

And the audience is blown away

A paper floats carefully by

And according to the level of my eye

The path of flight is just below my horizon- and why?

White ash and black carbon

Shaded neutral by the gray pall of the smoked and smoldering air

The article flies, yet hides, and was hiding until now

Finally, my finale has itself shown

Even the slightest breeze has been born anew as a firestorm

I went out to see the Monochrome Orchestra on a windy Friday

An open mind made to let in the fireplace again

With a fire whipped and stormy in its own weather

A newspaper in hand (I loved the music so much)

The monochrome orchestra plays again

And the music is like words on a printed page

“Charred Forest Gives Relief to Local Town”

Continuity

The room is quiet and it outperforms the sound of my movements

A quick glance out of the window

Has daylight arrived?

So a tree fell in the forest today

And I heard it

So I stood on the shoulders of giants to find the source

And I found it underneath the dull orange of a reflective cloud cover

A glassy, silvery pond bordering the roots

This building is empty so I attempt to fill it with sound

It’s a full sound but it only fills so much

And I expect with a building so empty

That someone could hear it and join me

But everyone has no ears... or I can’t play loudly enough

It’s so wonderful to see you

I love you, yes I do, just listen

And hear he comes of course to crack the atmosphere

Oh yes, jump in his arms! Celebrate his arrival!

He crashes his plate to the floor with obnoxious intent

So everyone applauds his actions when I am allowed only mindless conversation?

A daily occurrence

Almost as if daily within a daily occurrence

A short to long list creating an ephemeral turbulence

Rattling around in my head, lit by square light

I can’t keep opening the envelope, it changes nothing

Only changing seconds to minutes and making me suppress

Suppress, suppress

I’m depressed

When will she open my envelope?

I’m waiting, and I continue to continue waiting

Continuity is said to be grand in art but it isn’t here

If she could make it that would be nice

But an early warning would suffice

Ideally, though, a long drive would end with a longer time

With her as she is and myself as I would be if I could be who I needed to be

Anyway, right, Locke’s blank slate

We would be free for Night’s taking

Suddenly, a knock on the door to my right

A door that opens to a past hallway

A past hallway. Right.

Like the hallway ever left the present or future

A quick glance into the curving lens of my false sense of privacy

She passed through the lens, like light

And danced on my eyes until the image was burned into my reality

A virtual image of the real one in my mind’s eye

Soon a playful hello and a smile to warm a hardened core; I’m taken

And it’s a pathetic combination of excitement and dreading

That sends my mind reeling and soon threading

A world in which we are possible and failure is a failed concept

Four days equal four months and theres a steady breeze to blow her hair

The air is warm so her skin, her legs and shoulders are never concealed

The sun is setting and the breeze ripples her shirt, a little skin revealed

The world is focusing, buffering, and is soon interrupted

My friends have arrived and it’s high time to head inside

And So It Goes, The Audience Knows, But It's Alright 'Cause You're Happy!

And so it goes, that’s life, cést la vie, they would say

It’s a round and a cycle that ceases to cease

Other than the occasional weekday or reflecting moment

But it’s all alright, you would say

Just because you are happy

So he’s walking down the street and talking to himself

Luckily he’s a good listener and has the same ideals

Singing about creaking doors creaking shut

Telling her to remember who she is and to shut up

Singing in a voice not his own, a ghost to despise!

And its an ugly voice being shown, its host a disguise

Talking with a whisper to the walls and the air

Stinging words with malice and intent, into the air!

Talking in curses with spices of Cynic and Arsenic

Rattling the chains of his illusion and changing characteristic

And it all flows endlessly, coherently, evenly, without a single break in character

You could say this is who he really is, or really was

But it’s not!

And the audience knows, because they wear the same shoes

Brand new but with the colors fading

And the lighter shades shading to a shady grey

Hell, they’re only shoes but he loved them and he knows it

And the audience knows, because they wear the same shoes

It’s a round and a cycle that ceases to cease

Other than the occasional weekday or reflecting moment

But it’s all alright, you would say

Just because you are happy

But I’m sure nobody is listening anyway

And so it goes!

As an Antipathy from Jacques to Jacqueline

And so, it seems, nothing has changed

Pensive outside a new home, by night

The sound is limited and the air is strangely familiar

Here I am, with thoughts unbalanced, an altered medium

But my mind is still the same

It’s as if the sky tonight reflects what my mind has always been

And what it always will be

A dark, dense, old-growth forest

Roots so bound, the trees, established and anxious

Try and fail to grow beyond their forging;

Beautiful, but tortured, starving for water

Ageless, far-reaching, but starving for water

A southern thunderstorm, a welcomed disturbance

The rains came suddenly, falling fast without warning

And the heedless flora yearned for more, begged for more

It was given mindlessly, without question, from the lasciviousness above

Power lines erupting sparks, afflicted transformers;

The night was alight with the brightness of the ageless

And the rains would slow, the water flowed, and the trees could breathe again

Only once again, for the next day arrived, and the cycle began again

And suddenly it was no more

Flora, as if with a sense of self, yearned for more, begged for more

Wilting slowly and forced to implore

The sky which responded only as it does tonight

Silent, sable, beautiful and illuminating; goodnight, --

Clouds would gather, and rather than rain

Would drizzle, making miserable the flora

Who yearned for more, begged for more

El Niño arrived and with him the drought, a painful realization

Like a broken meditation

To know the welcomed disturbance was fleeting

An ephemeral bridge between spring and fall

And only that. That was all.

And so, it seems, nothing has changed.

The Woodland, the Urban

Coupled with a vacant silence surrounding the area

A hapless man met voices in his head, few and far between

Stumbling through a darkness only God could pierce with His eyes

The man was alone, and even the Woodland around him, dense with mass

Seemed to fill no volume of his surroundings

Fathoms away was a city with a nightly pulse

An egregious man met his friends, with more and more joining

Walking with a swagger through the blinding lights of the Urban

The man was in caring company, and the city around him, brimming with life

Filled every sense and crevice of his mind

The man soon came upon a path, well worn in a wild Woodland

He was faced with a decision to follow north or wander pathetically

Looking above for reassurance from God, he wisely chose the path

And, for once, was seeing with heavenly eyes through a lighter darkness

Sensing a voluminous setting far ahead

The night well over, the man walked the long sidewalks home

Finding himself suddenly at the edge of the city: to turn south or wander pathetically

Looking around to see he was alone, he foolishly chose to wander

And, for once, found it harder to see through the blinding darkness of the Woodland

Sensing a dense emptiness far ahead

The man soon reached the end of the worn path, terminating in trees

He hunched with his eyes, his sight fading to a familiar darkness

Moving to sit and finally rest on the ground, he drifted in mind

Transitioning to a dream of a pulsating city, the blinding lights of the Urban

The knowledge of never going home

A long night, searching for something he knew not, the man found the end

He stood straight with his eyes, his sight sharpening to a familiar clarity

Keeping his stance and staring the trees down, he drifted in mind

Transitioning to a dream of where he was, the stifling pall of the Woodland

The knowledge of never going home

A flash, a bang, the man on the ground was looking up at his counterpart

Both men staring, wide-eyed at the enigma before them

They wasted their breath, questioning every aspect of their meeting, their environment

Captivated by the strangeness, and yet the predictability of this fateful night

Both men feeling what they lacked

They soon asked questions of each other with incredible depth and detail

Each man narrated his experiences, interpretations, and feelings

Filling a half of themselves they were sadly unaware of, that was always there

Slowly transitioning to a dream, each of them was satisfied and slept

They awoke alone, where they had been, each of the other: the Woodland, the Urban

Bitter and Pensive (Night's Taking)

A nighttime fallen ill

An unusual event in my life

Full of voices unloving, arrogant, and exclusive

And so it’s time left for me to wonder why I’m in this place

With answers unendingly elusive

Why do such things come in these pairings?

Why must they be joyous and myself callous?

As I find my way home, are these questions worth their mental weight?

I can only glare as I look behind me

Lost in a bitter paradigm of hate

Past grievances dominate my thoughts with anger

As I sit in my home in near darkness, unable to handle brightness

Jaws clenching tight when a light is in front of me

Am I tired or have my dreams returned too soon?

These lights make it too damn bright to see

I sleep to dream, I sleep to dream

My body needs no rest in form, but from waking

I lay alone with eyes to the sky

In near darkness, with layers to protect me

I let myself go in the most vulnerable of states

Falling from the ragged cliff where I live in waking

The eyes fall shut but the sky is clearer than ever

My mind opens, with my soul, free for Night’s taking

A Chromatic Tetrad

It’s been a long, introspective, tired, long night

Although each night seems to grow longer

And the days turn short, as if summer’s gone to winter

Summer’s heat stayed but the trees fell ill

And the color, the life, turned to a winter still

The trees’ life returned by night, to my surprise

A real image of my thoughts, my mind’s projection

Resolved and ended with closing eyes

Hello, moon giant!

Here I am talking to you again, as if you want to hear

But hey, what can I say, you’re all thats left

After all, my mind isn’t clear

A pall is descending and your light is fast fading

I feel like I have no time, but I have so much time

And so, moon giant

My troubles are thus:

It came with a bang, and my thoughts got to thinking

Those times were stressful, my mind wasn’t thinking

So I left my own thoughts, took a view from above

In parallax: my love; there it was!

A story kept secret, I found she was unsure

But now it’s too late, I think, anyway

I stole to the fields, the meadowlarks singing

I could not decide, my ruptured ears ringing

With a pitch of confusion, a chromatic tetrad, and dissonant emotions

Emotions pitted against “better reason”

Beyond that I never reached a solid conclusion

So I listened to the birds

But their songs were never matching

I ran from the fields crazed as I’d ever been, scathing

Then night came around and you stood to wake

So I just stood here, and decided to wait

Now, still, you know the feelings I harbor

They fill me and drain me, all of this at once

Confidence brimming, I’m knowing for sure

And suddenly shrinking into my thoughts again

Even around her each night

All I can do is play the fool

Thought I might let my feelings go

They belong to the space between, the air

Outside of my body, and yet too much I care

For the relationship we share

But I care for what could be and that

You see, is what’s eluding me

Symphonious Cataclysms

And so, to begin, let's take a step back

I always try to understand my mind's attack

After all, the slack I left earlier was bound to resurface

And without a straight, calculated, coherent purpose

So, without purpose, I'm left to put pieces together

Of a love that once kept me vibrant, but weathered

So I find myself at night, the haint of a day passed on

The nights always unsnarl my gnarled, old angst

As if God himself pried apart the roots of Angel Oak

My downsides open up and my rightsides slip left

Down a synchronized slope of meditation

To a silent refuge of rehabilitation

If only my love was as clear as those nights

If only she would open for me as I do to those nights

A mellifluous cataclysm of passion-fed forces

Halting only to witness each others' blushed faces

A clash so illuminating, the moon's light it graces

And what about the day?

As much as the heat would melt away the toxins

It's actually hard to say

What really goes on because a large collection of discordant information gathers

In my mind, to my displeasure, and fills

Kills, fills, kills, and still finds itself lodged in the deepest recesses of thought

Processed and overcooked

Until I find myself doing nothing, and sitting with vivacious nature

As I do with night's lamenting tempo, hours later

Under a moon so damn bright, you'd think the old moon giant was happy again

But that old mistake, that's when his tears flood the James River again

So I find my love, and then I lose it again

With each gain an unwanting look

And with each loss a potent refrain:

When the sun sinks down past that dark horizon

And the blackguard's lighthouse shines once more

I'm gonna find my love in those cold tidal depths

Of the turbid black sea 

That took my love from me

All One's Alone and to Wander (Fill Me, Elliot)

I declare, I swear, the brain is merely a myriad

Of pertinent images and feelings

Bottled up and unable to buckle down and let me think clearly

But oh, it's only a passing episode

I feel like I've grown too fast

Desiring more than my age can sustain

More than my friends can comprehend

A lack of an end to my older desires

And I desire parts of the past

The present has never satisfied and never will

But after leaving such a harsh environment I feel my creativity flow

So if I desire the past, and desire aspects of the future

Is there a life for me yet?  A constant limbo with body akimbo

Trying to fit myself through smaller and smaller rings

Shiny things, they are, and they catch my eye

While my mind continues to pass by

After all the summer has yet to arrive

Why am I so envious?  Why am I tortured by what others possess?

To be happy with what I have seems to dismiss my love

My love is important to me, fill me Elliot, and I need it, I need her

The idea of her

Both?

Both.  Two, two, two, ONE, two, ONE, two, two, nothing at all

And then there's my self, next to nothing, on the far side

I tried, I did, and what was I given but the grapes of wrath

And the wrath and the rage bestowed upon me gathers the dust

And I can't help but leave the human spirit behind as it left me behind

I am myself, and my self needs, you see, a matter of integral desire, longing

John, John, can't you see your own flaw?  Your very own?

But I digress...

I desire the future

But when the future becomes the present it becomes the antithesis

Of my desires

So if the future is nothing but the present later on,

I need a time machine

My escape is my downfall

And it leaves me satisfied but full of want

What can one do when one's escape takes one back to reality?

Especially when one is landed alone

To find one's way home alone

And arrive in one's bed alone

To sleep alone, to dream alone

All One's Alone.

Years: Seven (I've Stopped Counting)

From a valley below I rose to find you

And you led me through the forest way

A path overgrown but visibly trodden

I was led astray

A metaphor, of course, I found you citywise

For a while thoughts surrounded and pervaded

You had found my place of little relevance

And invaded

Seven years left to time

Night and day ran together as twilight

The Northern Sun does rise

But nomadic as I am, I move with the night

I found you alone in a coffeeshop on Sunday

Only to walk into a wall of oppressive colloquy

"I'm waiting for Thomas to sweep me away

It's our anniversary and we plan to route astray"

I spoke as an infidel and announced my resignation

The speech was delivered to an audience in my head

"I've done my best, but my hours have dwindled

And so I will soon retire to my bed"

Seven years left to time

Night and day ran together as twilight

The Northern Sun does rise

But nomadic as I am, I move with the night

Thomas was a vagabond with iron eyes

And the metal seemed to quelch the love

She fooled herself time and time again

And would back down when push came to shove

But soon he left her and she was alone

Hiding in a corner at the coffeeshop at closing

She melted with the dark until the others would leave

And would painfully and slowly heal the bruising

Seven years after rising from the valley again

I returned for coffee and there she was

"I'm waiting for Thomas to sweep me away

It's our anniversary and we plan to route astray"

Seven years left to time; I've stopped counting

Night and day ran together as twilight

The Northern Sun does rise

But nomadic as we are, we move with the night

Dream #3 (Nightmare)

Why would anyone want to destroy this?

I wandered about the city and observed

Everyones face straight or frowned 

And it seemed happiness was unheard

A chance encounter, mask on, nice and tight

Please, stop talking, my muscles are tired

I scanned the concrete horizon; this isn't right

Why would anyone want to destory this?

I gathered them all and we filed on a bus

And I took them; they saw the last wooded land

I told them that this land was for us

The trees were lush, the rivers were pure

The land seemed holy, it was virgin

I knew it was here, but never knew for sure

Why would anyone want to destroy this?

We moved, but the land stood still

As if acid was on the vulnerable mind

My eyes were gluttons, never getting their fill

A chance encounter, yes, how are you?

You're right, you look different, how do you feel?

Ah, you feel better, relaxed; I do too

Why would anyone want to destroy this?

The last wooded land of the world

I was looking at it longingly, crying, eyes wide shut

I had heard the plans unfurled

And the greedy bastards planned so efficiently

They decided to leave no green behind

To save the most green possible, proficiently