Penman Lounge – Page 53 – FREESTYLEVISION

Downhill

People taking chances without any rhythm or reason
I can’t help from wondering if every day is a big story
Living gets harder by the moment when you’re going downhill
It takes all I have not to lose myself in worry

I’ve been up and down round and round
And when I believe to understand things
I’m the farthest from the truth

Every day seems the same as yesterday
Sometimes I can’t help from feeling angry with today

I’ve been coasting downhill living wild
I think about the choices I’ve made and the damage done
I’m just coasting along

There’s a child inside and he likes to hide
Don’t know why I act like an imbecile
I’m further from the truth than ever before

It’s downhill from here on out
But I’m not letting it ruin my tomorrow
And every time I think I’m ahead
I’m further behind than ever before

I’m living for tomorrow
And slowly changing the choices I made today
By being here now.

The sun is always shining behind the clouds. In my twenties I always knew how to think from the end even during my lowest point. I’ve always wanted more for others than wanting for myself even if I appeared self-centered at times. It was the only process I knew how to change my life and street drugs helped in that journey of self-discovery. Begin to see the good in the bad and learn to be an appreciator of all walks of life.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
-A.E

Dream Within A Dream

It was nearing sunset
Somewhere in a dream within a dream
As I stood facing the end of day
I felt love whisper in my ear

Within every single moment
Within every whimsical stage
I heard the leaves whirl and wind whistle
I am still dreaming

When you come to know and realize love
This illusion vanishes like a dream in the night

After a timeless period that flows again and again
Where space and time are nowhere I will awake

Bleary-eyed

I’m openly confused and bleary-eyed
I’m waiting for something bigger than myself
Diving for pearls and searching for freedom
Let me drown in the ocean of love

Evolve and awaken me from on High
Merge me with You keep love close
Give me a key to unlock closed doors
Let my soul forever soar

Stand up, reach out, hold on and listen for the call.

Everybody is saying

Everybody is saying
That there’s something wrong with me
But everybody is running
And they never move at all
Everyone is happy
Behind a veil of illusion
But someday from the fence they will fall
Everybody is saying
Without truly doing
Everybody is dreaming
Pointing fingers in blame
Just because I won’t play their game

This was written by an angry man (me) sitting in the psych ward. If we don’t begin listening instead of hearing the cries of the insane there will be endless tragedy within the world caused by the mentally ill.

Salute to Burning

When sirens part the gasoline trees
Salute to burning

Be selfish with your breath & thirst
For pigeon-like companionship

Observing silent the secret
weapons holstered by our nametag-disease.
Hello motherhood & detention.
How are you crystal man & married eyes?

Your igloo box and plastic spork bags will be lonely someday
no volunteer to rescue you. No regret is patterned
fabric and other keys defy our skeletal ways.

It’s the symmetry of this monetary scale and street Dobroe utro Otkuda tys that light and utter the gum mosaic pink and green unbreakable dead cattle feet and sequin eyelashes all elements of a proper burial

Where contentment in placid stone and sand bottom ebbed by storm and soot.
Ripple asymmetrical
catch and release the exoskeletal film
on a lake the patina of our charge and circuitry
we concur our desire to fly finally, but shun the sacrifice
of wind and tail obsessing a skin we can’t quilt together
our stitch is magnetic
unlink and recollect what we spread on our photograph rooms
what we store in our castle buckets and light tables
when we all inhibit
shadows

Who can be as mangled on a park bench or a building ledge—
constructions of sandstone stacked in time
compress the stillness of pre-elementary sight.

Why we fight and chew our words
Expel & askew
Fall apart ceiling and open the floor
we should make a brick house while fastening the cellar doors the shingles the slats the foliage of owls feathering the A-frame
no wing and no chimney can balance this view

What I conclude about your edges is nothing new
only I coax old by living it through
no need for the surface gifts reflected off prescriptive lenses
return all that is given to a thirsty pigeon.

An Arsonist’s Remorse

I know what breaks a Greek plate
And the intent of a ceramic artist
The uncertainty of a kiln
And variables of responsibility
Within accidents going places
To happen and the ones we preserve
In jars for an occasion to spill
And break and slip like the coaxing sparkle
Of a drying marble floor

Masters of Circumstance never test fire
Clip yellow-leafed plants cradled legs in hands
Examining dead the skin mix with sand.

The intellect grows a peach a bit
Brain and dripping sweet a chin mimicking
The edge of what a human can face
A volcano inverted as ash
Before lava or blood before basalt

We suspend our bodies in burlap decisions
And dangle ripe in the trees burning
To bust open our guts to become spectral
Activity and savorily spent

I could have left a couple chipped
Dishes or a few finger dents
In the frosting or one yellowing plant
But at the pavers’ discretion
Without the courtesy of cones
We let the jackhammers fraction
Our tameless terrain

I know the remorse of an arsonist
And the quiet after the crackle
The twisted fate of a toaster taken up in steely flames
I know the accident of throwing inextinguishable matches
Of lovers and time and accidents
Like tricky birthday candles jinxing a wish.

Coming Back (Part Two)

My record’s bad, my love is sad
I long for you, I’m coming back

Coming back, coming back
Don’t you cry babe, I’m coming back

They locked me up for getting mad
So don’t you cry girl, I’m coming back

Coming back, coming back
Don’t you cry babe, I’m coming back

Girl, I’ll never lie as long as you’ll take me back
So don’t you cry my pet, I’m coming back

Hey babe, do you want me back
I need to know the real fact
Let me take you by the hand
Take you with me to see the band

(Bass solo)

Coming back, coming back
Don’t you cry babe, I’m coming back

My record’s bad, my love is mad
I long for you, I’m coming back
I believe you’ve been messing with a number of men
Don’t expect to see them again ’cause I’m coming back

Coming back, coming back, coming back

Too Close

I saw you holding him too close, too close
You had me believing you almost, almost

I’m not looking back on the shadows of the past
But sometimes, I’ll think of you and the love that was too last

Step back, won’t you please your too close
You were my first love and now your back, back again
In the beginning we were shining that made us close
But after a while I could see the rain and the end

I’m not going to follow you through the shadows of the past
I like it the way it is not too close not too fast

Sunday Driver (Part Two)

It doesn’t matter if the forecast is blue
Especially if his wheels are stuck in voodoo
Spinning around until he’s out of fuel

Never seems like the sun will ever shine
While he drives down the passing lane
Leaving it all beyond the beyond
Mentally stuck in the turn lane

May never turn back home again
He doesn’t care (Sunday Driver)
He’s taking a ride lost behind the wheel
Driving for miles and miles

He never smiles as he passes you by
It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing for him to do
He never minds flying too high
It doesn’t matter to him coo coo kachoo

Meth

Sometimes you just can’t be still
and freeze the endless movement of your body parts.
Especially your mouth that’s been running amok
for six hours consecutively without a break.
I know people are watching me at work, in public
and even family when I get a chance to pull away to visit.
The sadness in their eyes tells the story of the death
and loss of a loving son that was on his way to bigger things.

Now darkness invades the best of me.
I roam through life passing my time with no true experience.
I’ve even consciously turned my back to my Master who gives love.
I’ve never needed to breath more than I do now.

This was written during the end of summer 2005 at work high on junk. It was the last thing I ever wrote high on drugs. Shortly after this written statement I found myself closer to recovery. I had been up for five days then fell out for a few hours. When I awoke, I didn’t know if it was day or night. I began sobbing for hours nonstop and I couldn’t stop it. I’m sure the neighbors heard me as I made a chicken sandwich in my kitchen. It was as if I was standing outside of my body observing this event within a dream. I went back to sleep for a few more hour. This time when I woke up, I felt fine and thought what a bad dream. I went to my kitchen and found the mess I made. That was the last day I used streets drugs to get high.