Cagey

What is happiness but a moment, dull,
where the pain does not seep?
Moss grows green in the shade, full
of love for the dark and deep.

Letters sent via irises maintain
I saunter unrelaxed.
Peregrine affections deign
to exist; my heart redacts.

My fresco-violet words, richly endowed
with fantasies resembling cirrus clouds.
Hardly mysteries are my mistakes;
no memories can give solace or slake.
Don't you often wonder what could be
if being natural, too, meant being free?


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It is not that I haven't been writing, though I haven't been as much.  The words have been hard to mouth and equally as hard to pen.  There will be more words soon.  Maybe I'll even edit these.

I used a lot of wordplay in this.  Meaningful colors and words that sound like those colors.  Enjambment, rhyme scheme, makeshift words.  There is a theme of struggle between true freedom and the acceptance of restriction.  There are no definite answers, as the story begins and ends with a question, though questions betraying the presence of knowing.  Beyond a rhyme scheme there is an occasionally obscured syllable restriction on each line in a pattern, playing back into the theme.  Anyways, that's all I'll break down for you.  Feel free to break it down your own way, because after all, art belongs both to the writer and the reader.

The Accident

Listen, here lies the body I should have died in
It's cold and covered in sweat
I swear I never knew I'd meet the hospital
She was just a foot in front
His feet felt heavy in the heat
He was speeding

And now

Please let me decide
Fever's not the enemy
I fight not only death, but life
Don't stay by my side
I've heard the word of God
And he's died
So why'd you slave to save my life...
You, His understudy

Now

Never in my life have I seen such pity
Such fury
In the eyes of dreamers
You'd wonder who'd blame the doctor
In the case of strangulation
It's been done in years past
So why rehash old demons
This bread denied merely tastes of grandmother's ashes

Over her body
She stares
Says, "You, yea, you're just like a saint"
I don't care
Ha, you'd swear I am capable of great things

I've wanted to love her
An escapade undercover

Karamazov plays somewhere across the street
Determines my fate;
Expectations to meet
"Theatre...or you don't love me"
An imitation of what you used to be?

Ahhhhhhhh!

There too will come a time when
You! will never see the light
You! will never see the dawn again

If my heart stopped at 80,
Would you shatter my ribcage to save me?
These vaccine victories are fleeting

Not every body is a dying soldier
Fighting for his life
His country more
Ah, I've fought my war

Bayonets and bandages to repair the damages
Burning portraits to rekill the dead
Ungrateful; hateful for a blessed gift
Such is man alive
What becomes of humanity
Once it fantasizes its demise?

(interlude)

When you put me under...I
Fought on the side of the dead
To know kills your pleasure
So I lie instead, though

You! will never see the light
You! will never see the dawn again

Frightened by suffering
They shrink away at the sight of this face
Not that saint with the name
Sarah
Never forgotten

Karamazov plays somewhere across the street
Determines my fate;
Expectations to meet
"Theatre...or you don't love me"
Imitations of the living


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This is heavily inspired by the book The Accident, also known as Day, which I first read in high school. It messed with me then, and when I read it again it still messed with me. Anyways, I finished this shortly after Workforce (Jennings Bryan). I don't know why I worked at them at the same time, but it turned out alright.

Workforce (Jennings Bryan)

Roads to the gallows
We buy our houses on
They're all paved in gold
Never cold; withstand the stocks and bonds

Days long; nights hollow
The holes are black and cold in my mouth
Swallow
Pride of past
Prince of inner casts

Beyond these hills we've bled
Our countries we have fled
For what but all these caustic images

I'll pull the trigger
If it will get me by
Like moths; now cinders
A healthy alibi

Living life with deep lucidity
To know that which does ail me
And write just like Thucydides
Embark in prayer honestly

Beyond these hills we've bled
Our countries we have fled
For what but all these caustic images
Mirages.

Subsidized each lie that'd break the least amount
Of bones and though the thought that twists my soul
Does certainly wax brave
I nevertheless obey

This broader class of businessmen - my brothers
Has our government turned backs on us?
Who must repair this progress?
It must be us.

Oh...

Built on immigrant bones and arrowheads
Taken back promises
Built on immigrant bones and arrowheads
Taken back promises
What will become of our children
Too young to know this?
Sacrifice...

Assault to prosper
When slumber leaves you dry
Postage paid bullets
Dead letters; paper lullabies

Beyond these hills we've bled
Our countries we have fled
For what but daydreams and nightmares
Beyond these hills we've bled
This country we have wed
For what but all these caustic images


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This is the first finished version of lyrics for a untitled song Abe wrote on guitar. Almost all of the melodies and patterns are worked out, but things are subject to change as I continue to sing it. Working on The Accident still, and have been rather concurrently with this one; they are very different songs. A new and strange writing process for me...

Oh! And this song takes the same line from the last post: broader class of businessmen. It's from that WJB speech, you know? It stuck with me and found itself in my writing. And there's a Moby Dick reference in this one! Oh man, I have to stop making allusions so vague, but I just don't care; I'll put them anywhere.

Custom Circles

When were the moments?
I've forgotten them it seems
Meant to hide; couldn't control it
What separates dream from day

Seems it's here to stay
This lingering feeling
The blanket that connects us all
Is quilted to decay

Where were the house fires?
Where were the ghosts?
I called out their names
They've forgotten them, you know
Revisionism for amnesiacs
Trading textbooks for heart attacks

Drifting
And sleeping

Drifting
Slipping

Bison and beasts wander the light
They shake your hands
And take your wives

Broader class of businessmen
Worse than dogs; they have no day

Handpicked history is all I need
Handpicked history is all I need
Objective thinkers 'fore lobotomy
Constant selective memory


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Definitely a reference in there to the "Cross of Gold" speech, I'll give you that one. I wrote this pretty quickly yesterday, and it didn't really feel finished. But I stopped writing anyways; I may change or add something to it. Bah! Bah.

Saturn Skyline

Out the window through the winding of the path
Betwixt the stones and twigs (what motive?) in shaggy grass
Each moment lost in probable particle patterns
Disjointed rings and all these celebrated things
Of mechanical motion - tied, we are bound
To be more than these compounds

I take back what I need for me
And within every fucking fallen leaf (to dance undone)
Is a right

Calloused by the heart
She's got curves like space-time

Were the window to open now
We'd be spread
Just melted butter under sun

I shake my fist at the forest
For it never knows the misery
That is everything in its vacancy


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It happened again. A quick, impulsive poem. First one written in Virginia!

Web

To close my eyes and dream again;
Of clarity spawn anew
A web! - express the thoughts I brew;
Conform the messages I send
To falter without care is not
Possible after planning
Wrangled are my hands, confounding
Signals never got
Survive, each round a proving ground
Surround me, I can fight
Like he who weathered 20 abound
Ragged; home ne'er in sight
Truth be told, without a sound
We habitate in "might"


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Fully aware that habitate isn't really a word, but that never stopped me before. I don't like the word inhabit. Ok it's a fine word, I just prefer to say habitate. It's closer to habitat anyways. Ah yes, to butcher the language. I ne'er thought I'd say ne'er in a poem, let alone a sonnet, but it happened. Jeez, what next?

Glamour and Glitzkrieg

You look so swell in your drawstrings
Making me feel compelled to
Open up my sleeves to you
And this house is coming loose
You're flowing, you trust in these
Devils who never level with you
(They feed on rise and fall)
Nothing imperative but
Glamour and glitzkrieg
Enter the idle and you'll smile
Until your wrists bleed
If it matters that these bodies lie
In shattered glass from
Chandeliers that glisten like
The pearls of our last dinner, dear

Fall!
Coalitions crumble if you stall!
Constricted parliament
So! So sleep it off
Slip! Slip!
Slip - Sleep it off
Slip! Slip!
Slip - Sleep it off
I'll follow you...

Common sense
I taste the elements
And her breasts are relentless
Nourishing the stars
Economies are endless
I slide down
Underground
Vote of no confidence
Stolen, time is a liar (you're a liar)
So sit yourself down
By the fire
In the gown so loose you think the fit admires you
Yes, honor(s) you
We encircle the square proclaimed to be yours
We dare
You swear the swift destruction will impair our solidarity
But these days
This ring
This room
Feels like our waiting tomb
And all of mankind would return to the womb
If welcomed back by mothers
With hearts intact
Though only crushed and cracked
Under empirical facts
Nothing imperative but
Glamour and glitzkrieg
The chemicals don't ever let us feel weak until we...

Fall!
Coalitions crumble when you stall!
Constricted bullshit, I get it
So sleep it off
Slip! Slip!
Slip - Sleep it off
Slip! Slip!
Slip - Sleep it off
I'll follow you to...

No longer pretending to offer an open hand
We just stare and blink
Can't understand
Why we are all compelled to think.
Fuck it, you can.

Just how am I supposed to
Exploit you
Nickels and dimes can buy me priceless
And I know that you don't like it
I don't mind it, yea

Are you feelin me?
Conditioned all to the third degree
I know
That constantly proven right
Means you're likely
I know
That constantly proven right
Means you're likely
You're likely to

Fall!
Coalitions crumble as you stall!
Forever malcontent
So! So sleep it off
Slip! Slip!
Slip - Sleep it off
Slip! Slip!
Slip - Sleep it off
I'll follow you so...

Step down!


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Yes I said glitzkrieg, a made up word I'm proud to keep. I also said breasts and parliament in the same song, and also got to swear a few times. Somehow it ended up working though, which pleases me. I wrote almost all of this a couple weeks ago, or something like that. But I finished it enough I think to post it. I might have to change some stuff later.

Shh

Beautiful mystery
Captivates all of me
And I hope that someday
Knowledge won't confine me
Common sense tells a different story
I read it all in the open book
Remember how this dance began
Gotta act on what I can

Beautiful mystery
Please tell me everything
Tried to think
Could only blink
Over and over until
My conscience made bail
Turned loose
Thoughts flow twisting meandering
Contemplating asphyxiating
Breath caught
Thank you for waiting


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Shhhhhh. It's a secret.

Infest

in the shadows of towers
we rage against the sky
call out the cowards
who avert their eyes

this twisted structure
erodes from within
clings to its foundation
until the bitter end

you will never know my name
until your paper castles
all explode in flame
then you'll know that it's too late
you will pay the price
for how you fucked the human race

We've died for liberty
Eyes fraught with defiance
You commit forgery
Infest to force compliance

In our very own homes
Retake the swamps and hills with stones
For flags and fathers we die young

pull the wool
Over thine own eyes
the shepherd is the piper
leads you to your demise
(Life lives as I decide!)

All the time
We lose the sight of your disguises
Simplify this plan to bring upon the demise
Of this STATE
Of emergency we're in
We got to rip out this corruption
Rethink the bliss
We're blessed
Forever sleeping, heading West
Replacing carriages with chests
In jest? No!
We just know
That we are the people
And we will not quarter kings

break the silence
the promise
the balance
the separating walls
the windows of the palace

downpressed, united
nothing left to lose
to the enemies of man:
"we will not bow to you"
"we will not bow to you"

The secret dossier
That holds us to this blade
Exposed with cyanide,
Silk, and plots from the shade

Your knaving, raving hands
Grip one last neck
You stand
Behold! Behold! (gang vox)
E pluribus unum

in the shadows of towers
rage against the sky
call out the cowards
who avert their eyes

infest
infect
infiltrate
obsessed
no rest
no rest till we annihilate

you will never know my name
until your paper castles
all explode in flame
then you'll know that it's too late
you will pay the price
for how you fucked...
you will never know my name
until your paper castles
all explode in flame
then you'll know that it's too late
you will pay the price
for how you fucked...
for how you fucked the human race


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Figured it may as well get posted. Finished the lyrics that I wrote for this a while ago, but the other part was written by EKP. This is the product as it currently exists, but that's not to say I won't add or alter something to it. Most of the altering I do with songs is on the melodic level and is in regards to HOW I sing it, not what I sing, which goes unnoticed when you just look at the lyrics anyways.

Switchboard

It was harder than I thought
Sunken eyes but a sunkissed face
The hurricanes have passed us
Relics; we are now misplaced
I pulled aside thy company
To where we stand unthreaded
Commit 10,000 fouls against myself
For endings' mend
"言うようにして"
But these fingers failed to work
I can't hardly wait or stand it
Paired against what makes men lurch
"息を吸う夜中まで”
Yet somehow this world exists
Where I can toss within the earth
And to myself resist


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Ok, sorry if you don't speak Japanese or know how it sounds, if you heard me read it it would go a little smoother. But it felt really natural for those parts to fall there, so deal with it. I wrote this yesterday.

To This Siren, I Heed

How can it be?
That this silence of the sea
Persists despite waves
That come crashing over me
For there never is just one
Just one warning sent to me
From my siren of the sea
Through each breeze a century
That I've burnt under this sun
Of the sun that shines for none
But is simply set to be
The torch for all of us to see
Just how can it be?
That this silence of the sea
Persists...just ask me
What it's worth to be free.


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Well would you look at that, it's St. Patrick's Day now. I dream of corned beef.

Trill

Though summer is all I see
Winter slips up my sleeve
I'm back where it began
Complex conjugate of "in command"

I celebrate the undertaker's plan
To prepare our rotten lives for land
Take it in
Just breathe again
I tell myself
It's not a game to win

No, it's not a game to win

The creamy white that ice blue hides
- I'd surely rather die the night
Humanity could take my life -
I'd purely love to hold that knife
I'd certainly control that knife
But rapture ready, standing tall
Ha
We'd never improve at all


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I had the overwhelming urge to word vomit up an exact moment. If it begins and ends too suddenly, deal with it.

The Earth Hangs Loose

On this heightened autumn
I break free
And all of me hangs loose
The ribs of my body
They crack harder than the earth
To fight and to die for this truth

For the darkest hours
Through the pain, sweat, and heat
In the heaviest showers
I will not admit defeat
There can be no limit
For the lengths I will go through
Cause every time I close my eyes
I see you

Holding fast this hope
I collapse
This grass reminds of my youth
Scream, I scramble
I thought I'd made it somehow
But the path I'm on now
No longer looks like a trail

I am blessed
And just in case I give all my gifts away
Words go unspoken
I must rely on actions to say

For the darkest hours
Through the pain, sweat, and heat
In the heaviest showers
I will not admit defeat
There can never be a limit
On the lengths I will go through
Cause every time I close my eyes
I want you


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I'm so tired. Got to find what works. Passion precedes execution. I just know dearly what I want - with no luxury of a plan I can rely only on luck, hard work, and confidence. None of those alone can get you where you need to be without the others. Days feel so long.

Staggered

Even in the minimal
The infinitesimal
The firm founding blocks
Of me
Are not to be

And this pride has passed its prime
No longer feel sublime
Instead to be wrecked
To be tested and tossed aside
Is me

I've stood, stayed, and waited
This game, I've played it
And I've made some changes
Yet still
My will
And hope
Is killed

So I swallow these pages
Block out the faces
Try to focus on nothing but the breathing
Can't stop from simmering in my seething
The peaceful covenant within is leaving

So I pull inside to recollect myself
Stay strong tonight, enough for them to tell
Cause I'm staggered, with no control
And I've got to find my ground
Quiet, and poised, and bold
A fox that makes no sound


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I keep catching myself holding my breath. I don't know what that thing is, I think it might be some type of song, but I don't think I'm going to do anything with it. I just need to write.

From the Vein

I've been thinking 'bout the way you think
How it only makes sense when I drink
And I've waited so long now
And I hate that I miss you so...
I'm older, though the gap persists
Still baffled at what this is

I've been thinking I'll change my face
See who loves me, oh how I'll be displaced
This torment, silent slaughter
These fathers, losing daughters
They can't teach me how to act
Just love me less, don't have a heart attack

Don't toy with my puppet strings
They're derived from my veins
Pulls on my heart till I scream
I'll be by your side endlessly
If you let me
If you let me

I've been thinking 'bout the stress we cause
Each other when our happiness falls paused
Such longing seems unreal
No tourniquet stops what I feel
Someday I'll tell you just what I mean
For now I don't wish to make a scene

I've been thinking 'bout what ain't mine
Seems I focus on it all the time
Ah, don't worry girl
Ah, how do I assure you?
That every time I think of you
I adore you?
Your laugh and your smile
Oh so etched in my memory
I'm locked in your love-cell
And I swallowed the key

So don't toy with my puppet strings
They're derived from my veins
Pulls on my heart till I scream
I'll be by your side endlessly
If you let me
If you let me


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It's hard to describe, but everything is different now.