Songs (1999)

Crickets chirp in the night,
A song of nature you cannot understand
Or perhaps mere words,
Meaningless save to those
Who seek meaning from them.

The wolf howls it's sorrow
Across the lonely moors,
But only the wolf knows
If it is a cry of deep sadness
Or anger about missing a meal.

Words flow through the world
With meaning for those not deaf to their sounds
-- Is this Babel's Tower? --
Where in all the sounds of the Earth
Can we hear the voices of our gods?

Lament (2001)

You never hear me laughing
And you never see me cry,
Has it occurred to you
To ever wonder why?

I used to be seen smiling
But now all I do is sigh,
Sometimes I speak to you
But all you do is lie.

I am not fond of touching,
I flinch whenever you try
To say that I loved you
Would be worse than to die.

You think that I am living:
I just wait for you to die,
My hate holds me to you
But all you do is lie.

You never see me laughing,
You will never hear me cry,
Has it occurred to you
To understand just why?

Untitled (2001)

Words form in the air and rush past,
A storm of meaning drenching me;
Lost as I shake myself off,
Knowledge flowing down the drain.
So much said is never recalled,
Wisdom imparted to those who
Will themselves deaf and blind.
Mistakes are remembered clearly
As jokes told to friends and family
But never learned from.
We walk in our own footsteps
Following roads we've walked before,
Desperate to change our course
But unable to change ourselves.

The Truth of Words (2001)

The words in the mind cut into the world
With rational explanations, logical precision.
The world bleeds as we slice into it.
A is A, B is B, this is this, that is that:
Tad etad.* Truth hidden by being visible.
Logic tells us there are only two answers
As if a question was not its own answer.
Like math, it is truth as long as reality is ignored.
Math will tell us that between two points
The shortest distance is a straight line:
Intuition tells us this isn't real,
Recognises obstacles, and denies
The purity of the equal sign
or one answer to problems, right or wrong.
Reality tells us that the shortest distance
Between two separate lines
Is a downward spiral.

* Tad Etad is a Sanskrit phrase meaning "this is that."

Biographies (2001)

A net reaches out, fragile words
Trying to capture a still thought
Or find the unbroken moment
And turn memories into words.

Grammar meets with stanzas,
Meter collides with rhyme;
We force the memories
Into patterns of rhyme.

When we force memories that were
Into forms we feel they must be --
Those syllables, this type of poem --
Can we ever capture it then?

Or are recollections
Just words turned into lies?
Then perhaps when we write
That truth we once knew dies.

A Reason To Smile (2001)

Tortured fireflies in the air,
Words thrust like adders from our tongues:
We converse, wishing to ensnare --
Speech comes but the truth remains dumb.

Our words come out, bright whip-lashed lies
Shining brighter than the truth will.
Inside, something unspoken cries
As our eyes meet against our will.

Truth is shown somewhere in your stare,
And before it my tongue grows numb,
I try to smile but my heart's bare
And something in it comes unstrung.

I speak, but all that comes is lies.
Loves speech is lost as hard words drill
Into you and part of you dies
As my heart is - blessedly - still.

Playing In A Sandbox (2001)

I sit and sift the sand
Alone in the cold rain,
Remembering your hand
Teaching me the word pain.
Fine grains clump together,
Sand forming into mud.
It oozes through fingers
As I wish it was blood.

Blather

We speak, but all speech is based on lies:
You dare not see through my disguise.
No matter how deeply they delve,
No one can know our inner selves.
We stay hidden behind raised walls
And walk, alone, in shrouded halls.

Voices (2001)

We become these words we say:
Unknown truths may underlay
Everything that we might be,
With language - a poor tool -
All we have to try, and see,
And not take the path of fools
That leads to no open way.
We become these words we say:

Scribbles

The click fills the air, the same old despair:
Who I'll kill today words can't unsay.
A scratching noise, now, wondering just how
These pains will be caused. So much is uncaused,
but still it's my fault. Oh, yes. I could halt,
Stop this scratching noise, put away my toys,
But ... it's just like skin. Wasting it is sin,
Surely? Is making this like tattooing?
Is it a true art? I don't have the heart
To stop these motions; my contribution
To the comedy called life that I see.
Another click sounds and something rebounds
Inside. The sound strikes something in me, strikes
Like flint on tinder. But I'm not under
It's spell anymore. I leave, close the door,
Leaving it behind like part of my mind:
Paper on a desk, the pen now at rest.

Seeking

Those who seek to know forget
The sought comes when it wishes.
A mind opened to the world
Or one closed to everyone
Shall be found by what they seek
Even if they've never sought.

So why spend time reading books?
Learning isn't becoming.
Not only those we call wise
Are enlightened by their thoughts:
Why would those who are wise need
Wisdom they already have?

So forget all you have learned
And be open to the new -
If enlightenment shall come
It won't matter if you call.
Just live life as best you can
And wait for whatever comes.

truths

Everything we think is true
Is just another story.
History is just our tales
Divorced from mythology.

Or perhaps we just don't know
That every truth someday dies
And then becomes something new,
A lie among other lies.

Yet we hate lies for changing
The world into what is real;
We claim no lie is true and
Forget what truth won't reveal.

Exactly Expressive (August 2002)

Every word is a weapon
Edges honed with steel
Exhaled knives cut into me
Entering my heart like scars
Ending whatever friendship we had
Embers are all that remains
Even you (perhaps) are appalled
Exhumed wounds fill me
Eyes burn with tears unshed
Ekphrasis that I have become
Entered as your work of art
Exhibited (a broken mirror)
Echoes of words whisper true
Every word is a weapon

Talking (August 2002)

All our anger, all our hate,
In our words they copulate.
From them we may hope to glean
Truths and lies and things between.
Love is kin to jealousy,
Friendship may lead to envy:
We reach out to each other
And our words tear asunder
All those ideals raised so high
In our hearts they slowly die.