Zero Hero

i suffer just to breathe
and only pull in my own razor blades
down my throat
and through my teeth

we bomb the shit out of
our enemies
holy airstrikes, batman!
just like them,
we slaughter the "bad guys"
and with them the fear,
allegedly

we kill the "bad guys"
and lots of good
guys, and gals
who could have been friends.
we're bad guys to them.

another epidemic turns pandemic,
the wars will kill us first
faster than the virus
and dehumanize us
and an immune system shut down
to beat out a government shutdown
is still prettier.

the american dream
is an expensive suicide
go broke for your diploma
a receipt
then papercut yourself with it
til you bleed

and suddenly my wallet rules me
I am not what I love nor what I create
Suddenly I am defined only
by the numbers in my bank account
(zero, nada, nothing, zilch)
and by the grades I make
(failure, incomplete, below average)
Zippo Zero

When will society realize
that happiness is not quantified
that freedom is being free from the material
(not this illusion of freedom)
and all our imagined problems.
We occupy our minds with useless
Bullshit, most of our "problems"
aren't real, and
the more leisure time we have,
the more we don't have time for anything
or so we say
or so we think
can someone please explain that
to me?

Dear Sam

Mischief finds those that fly
from place to place and time to time,
Echoing through the chambers of our heart, we
beat on, against the current, racing minds and the
Organized chaos of us whirls round
and round and round
To stop,
Who knows where, why, and how
This discord will bind us or destroy
Yet either way, we anticipate
the outcome, despite
the drawbacks, we
stay.

But you're still lighting fires and I,
armed with lefty scissors,
still go
berserk
from time
to time.

Memento Mori

Dead men tell the finest tales
they echo in our hearts
and burn our lungs from the inside
like the smoke from the cigarette you light

A dead man walking is the finest thing indeed
When you read my words you watch me bleed
A curse held by those who leave a legacy
Drowning in sorrow and swimming in tragedy

Profundity comes with a price
Your soul flees early if you roll the dice
to make it big, to win the game
To gain your glory, fortune, or fame

Dead men rot before they ever hit the ground,
Misery by the mile and headaches by the pound.
No matter what their hearts desire and eyes seek,
Madness for the brilliant and boredom for the weak.

But even dead men who seek no success,
Locked in a room - o'er page, under duress
May find their disposition has sealed their fate
A minute too soon is a second too late

In the world of the living, the dead men wait
Break down the door and open the gate
to find freedom from their earthly bounds
Rebirthed from our sighs falling flat on the ground

Desperate to find another way,
All that we gain is what the dead men pay.

River Rats

Shine and Smile
Smile and Shine
take out your trash with the night before and
carry your baggage with you
since no one wants to keep it
what are we but a series of mistakes
all a mess so 
what's one more?
The accidents, a promise
The potential, possibility
Tired of being told no 
being told what to do
being told anything other than
you are loved 
and you love
happiness is just a mistake away
and with these weak words 
I set the stage

To hold interest for long is not 
my habit, get bored and abandon
or jump ship before I see sails fly
into the horizon yet
I'd let the gangrene set in before I'd say no
to you
before I'd get bored
of you
before I melt in
to you
A strange addiction yet
what isn't
and why wouldn't 
strange be the case with you
when all else is spastic stories
and oddities,
another lost soul flying into the night, looking
for a reason 
Yet falling short time and time 
again, never finding
Another gypsy heart
as free and so as lost 

Until 
Now? 

Tick Tock Motherfuckers

i have too many thoughts in a day,
too many wants in a year
i drive myself mad with
contrived dark alleys and silhouettes
waiting in the shadows for another punch drunk love
climbing out of my wreckage just to make some more
hating it all but enchanted by it still
too reluctant to admit it
a stone cold bitch hiding a melted heart
but the Music, 
oh the Literature, 
holds me together and tears me apart
yet keeps me running like a broke down engine
with a false start and rusty wheels
creaking along old faded Time 
yelling in the streets as i wander on
itching for the next explosion 
an interest
a passion
ambition
relentless and unguarded as a war
an untainted and curious infant
who has not had the imagination 
the creativity
the life
beaten out of them yet
by that relentless bitch Time
which, though invented by us all,
still commands every dripping second of the 
dying clock
murdering us back
throwing caution 
and laughter
to the wind

Mess

You harden your heart because you have to
sift through the wreckage of the world and
tear apart everything you once knew to be true
we're all just a mess 
yet who'd expect any less?

Ode to Nikola

You
with your Electric Heart
it tore yourself apart
while you were listening on your
Cosmic Phone
sending signals to the stars
receiving messages from mars
more powerful than zeus,
You forge those bolts and
command them, they are your own
birthed amidst a storm with a
fire in the sky,
foretelling your future while
lesser gods sit on olympus pondering
why they have never created anything so great
3 by 3 and 9 by 9
Pigeons rest on your veins, telephone wires
AC lit up with your Light
and you still live, all around us in the static
and the energy of the Earth, you knew
No one ever did any better
Not any money mongering fool drooling over dollars
while you stayed awake at night to craft
the next Advancement of man
We can never repay you enough
But to speak your name at any chance
Shout it from the rooftops like a lover mad
Part of me now and part of me soon
In heart then in Ink
Permanent
Unrelenting
Real
Electric.