Ode to Death
Death, the Silent Messenger.
The one thing feared by all man.
The passageway to eternity.
The only one who opens the doors,
The doors to heaven or the gates of hell.
Death, the Harvester.
Reaper of souls,
Not pleased by wealth or power,
But by the mortal souls,
Which he takes without prejudice.
Death, the Great Equalizer.
Race, status, position, religion…
None matter to Death.
All are equal to him,
With no exceptions, but the One.
Death, the Guide of Life,
Out of this world and into the next.
With his icy grip,
He takes your hand,
And leads you there.
Death, the Reveler of War.
Devouring the souls of thousands,
Those who choose to fight,
Those who die for no righteous cause.
Those souls he feasts upon.
Death, the Powerful Master,
Is also mastered.
Mastered by One greater than you or I.
One so great, so mighty, so righteous,
That Death himself lost his key to Him.
Torment of MineThis torment of mine,
Not like any normal torture,
Not pointed at my physicality,
Nor to my personality,
But to my mental will,
My ability to hold to my own.
This torment of mine,
It follows me.
It haunts me,
Stalks me throughout my life.
A constant shadow,
Walking in my footsteps.
This torment of mine,
Some might think that it is a thought,
An abstract thing.
But it is worse, much worse.
It is a physical entity,
Something I can touch and see,
Something I can love,
But cannot return my love.
This torment of mine,
It is a person,
A person of great personal value.
But this person has crushed my heart.
Why? Why does she taunt me so?
She gives me hopes, only to crush them.
She seduces me, only to push me away.
Why? ... Why?
This torment of mine,
Is a friend.
A friend who now sees me not.
A friend who no longer acknowledges me.
She knows me,
But does not know who I am.
I am now left with a friend with ears as stone,
Never listening, not wanting to.
I now sit in my lonely corner,
And attempt to drive away the sadness.
Puppet MasterHe watches,
As each twitch of his hand,
Has the power,
The power to animate
Entire bodies.
As he watches,
Eyes aglow,
Mad with power,
He does not even notice,
The strings,
Placed upon his own body and soul.
Two Roads
Looking back,
One may see two roads.
One road only a foundation,
The other on its way
To an undecided future.
These roads are not unlike
You and I father.
I, in my aspiring youth,
And you, on your collision course
With a future of inconceivable result.
You always warn me
That the choices I make
Will haunt me all my life.
And looking back,
I can see.
I can see that
It has already begun.
As it did in your youth,
The beginning of your end.
The decisions you made,
They put you on your road today.
I can only hope
And pray
That I can make the choice,
That I can find the way,
To make it all right,
And to end the curse.
The curse that haunts.
Haunts you and your father before you.
But I, with my road,
Will stray from the beaten path.
And forge my own road
From the fresh earth.
Walking Tall
However noble my humble task,
They never care, they never ask.
I willingly sacrifice,
Though I know it won’t suffice.
I travel far and risk much,
But they obviously don’t see it as such.
In danger I sleep, in danger I wake,
Never knowing when life will take,
Its final flight into the sky,
There, forever more to fly.
They spit on me in my homeland,
For me to die is their command.
I risk my life so they may sleep,
They are the ones my soul must keep.
Even though their hate runs hot,
Through their veins, this is my lot.
Why do they hate me?
Why do they hate us all, we,
The protectors of the state,
We, the ones they hate.
I am a soldier. I am a man.
I am the only one who can.
As they stab me in my plight,
I am the one to take up the fight.
As my friends free their dying breath,
I alone stand against Death.
And as he makes his way to me,
I finally know, I finally see.
The GuiseWhich is the ruse?
Which is the man?
Which to confuse?
To understand?
Time in Time’s TimeTime in Time’s time is true time,
Purest time, simplest time,
Time in Time’s time is perfect time.
But even Time doesn’t know the right time.
Time can only flow the way Time wants,
And Time is constant.
There is no time like Time’s time.
But Time in Time’s time can only be but one thing,
And that is time.
From One Soldier to AnotherI saw the old man,
Sunk into a recliner in the middle of the room.
His white hair was a shroud about his head.
He began to speak to the air,
His conversation startling the others.
He was speaking to no one,
Or so it seemed to them,
But I could see.
I could see.
I could see.
He was reaching through time,
He was looking in the past,
Looking at people and places long since visited,
At a face faded,
Back in the deeps of Vietnam.
He was speaking to a man long gone,
Fallen in the field of battle.
And yet he was there,
Sitting before him,
Plain as day.
Seeing this man,
Who didn’t let go,
Made me think of myself,
As he closed his eyes for the last time.
That’s What Happens When Time Runs OutGod blinks,
Lives perish,
Shells fall,
Upon them all.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
People come,
And they go.
Some will live long,
And some now go.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
In the night sky,
The souls of the dead roam,
Ripped from their bodies,
By hooded Death.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
The cracked face of death,
Smiles down on the battlefield.
His festival of carnage has but begun,
Many more a bloody night will come.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
Mash flesh,
Splinter bone,
The jaws of death,
Swallows all.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
Things go dark,
I can’t see,
As those ice cold hands,
Take hold of me.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
As I am raptured,
From this life,
I join the chorus of souls,
In that deep, black sky.
That’s what happens when time runs out.
War Song
Crack, pop, hiss.
What is left is burning bliss.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
What we will. What we must.
Before our eyes,
The ashes’ lies.
Our unseen foe,
Our perpetual woe.
Tongues of flame
Give utter blame
To the face
That wiped out our race.
Take up your arms,
Raise all alarms,
Call up your men,
To the lion’s den.
Here we will,
Where others still
Lie dying,
Electrifying
The night sky,
Screaming, “Why? Why?”
We take up our battle,
To replace the rattle.
And whilst we fight
With all our might,
At home they hear,
Awake with fear,
The sounds of war,
And scream, “NO MORE!”
They spit on us,
They make a fuss.
They start up trifles
And take our rifles.
They hate us now
And we wonder how,
They hate us all.
And when we fall,
They laugh at us with an evil frown,
They take their arms and beat us down.
When we finally make it back,
We rejoice in the news of a refreshed attack.
No going home for us now,
We get to die, “pow, pow, pow.”
But we crush them then,
So we take our men.
Home we march,
The country road starch
Contrast to the battlefield,
On which many lives did yield.
We enter town,
But there is no frown,
As we would expect,
But instead, respect.
We are greeted as heroes,
Not like the zeros
That we were when last here,
Which we did fear.
We were given
The gift of livin’
In stead of death,
A final breath,
Like the ones our brothers took
When they had their final look
At this place,
Such an intricate lace.
Now we can see
Our countrymen free.
Now they know
That our greatest foe
Was they,
Who made us pay
And not those we face
So far from this place
On that field of death,
Where our brothers took their final breath.
What’s It Like?
What’s it like
To be a part
Of something
Worth being a part of?
What’s it like
To have
A friend
Worth having?
What’s it like
To be wanted
By someone
So special?
What’s it like
To live
In a world
Where you are someone?
What’s it like
To be,
To exist
Somewhere?
S.O.S.Save our souls,
Send our ship,
Stop our suffering,
Suspend our spirits,
Salvage our secrets,
Supplement our sovereign,
See our smiles.
Atop the Flaming Spire(Dedicated to the Great Leaders of WWII) I
Atop the flaming spire,
A hero’s funeral pyre
Burns brighter than a thousand suns.
His countrymen gave up their guns
And took up the arms for peace,
All because his blood, sweat, and tears did grease
The coarse edges of opposition.
They set aside their violent disposition
In the hope that his loss will lead
To the peace that they all need.
II
Atop the flaming spire,
Lies the ashes of a man
Who wrought the destruction of his country.
A man who fought to raise his home
Out of the ashes.
Here lies the man whose efforts it was
That cut down the lives of his countrymen
In senseless conflict.
A man who lost.
A man who could not see far enough into the future
To see that it is better to bend
Than to break.
III
Atop the flaming spire
A man of great honor and position
Has been given his funeral rights.
He stood his ground, looked Death in the face
And laughed.
He rallied his people,
Stirred their hearts.
And because of his resolve,
They stood up
And defeated the evil.
They survived night by night, one at a time.
IV
Atop the flaming spire
Lies the man
That, with his own hand
Threw his country away to the dogs.
As they pass
They curse his name
And spit upon his corpse.
They don’t care that he did it for his homeland,
All they care is that he did it,
And it will never be forgotten.
V
Atop the flaming spire
Lies the man
Who brought his people equality.
The man who brought his people to greatness.
He brought them power,
A power that the mightiest of nations
Would tremble before.
And tremble they did
In the bright future
Of his countrymen.
My PhoenixYou are my Phoenix,
My passion,
My fire.
Your Beauty is white hot,
Your smile brighter than the mid-day sun.
Your voice is the sweeter than the chords plucked by King David himself.
You are my Phoenix.
Together we burned out,
Long have we lied a pile of ashes.
But today we rise from that ash,
A creature more stunning than ever seen by eyes of man.
And we defy that ash that was once us.
You are my Phoenix,
My queen, my dream.
You keep me safe when I am gone.
You pick me up when I fall down.
You soothe my pain and heal my wounds.
You are my everything.
You are my Phoenix,
My hero, my savior.
You take me out of the sea
And place me on dry land,
Where I can walk again,
And be myself.
You are my Phoenix.
Yet you are not mine.
I cannot take you, for you are too precious
For any one soul to claim.
You are beyond myself,
Beyond, even, my wildest imaginations.
You are the Phoenix
Of man.
You keep him straight,
You keep him right.
You keep him clean.
You keep him.
You are the Phoenix
Because you are not my Phoenix.
You cannot be my Phoenix
For you cannot be mine,
I cannot take you for my own
When you have so much more to do for the rest of the world.
You are my Phoenix?
You will take me?
Oh, how my heart sings the joyous jubilee of a thousand years
Traveling ninety-nine million miles an hour
In one second, before the wall of doubt
Sends me crashing back to zero.
You are my Phoenix,
I hope,
I pray,
I wish,
I want,
I dream.
My Soul Cries
I
Can’t
Feel the
Pain, for I find
My blood is ice.
My heart is stone.
My soul is dead wood,
Gnarled, stripped, and warped
Beyond the magnificence of life.
I am an empty shell, marked for death.
I have no future, no hope, no home. I am alone.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death,
I will fear no evil, because I’ve got nothing left. I’m the baddest ******** in the valley, and I’ve got my scars to prove it. I’ve fought my battle,
I know what it is to wrangle Death to the ground and beat him into a bloody pulp.
My hate, white hot passion, can carry me through anything. They can beat me down,
Put me away, hide my face and ignore my words. They can destroy my body, put
My flesh upon the pyre. They can close their ears, shut their eyes, hold their
Tongues, but they can never crush my spirit, for it is far too compact
Even now. Countless blows, innumerable crushings, they all
Come down to now, when I believed them most
Harmful to be my one saving grace.
My soul is gone, my spirit will
Live on forever, Amen.
IfThe most asked question of time,
“What if?”
What if is a part of me,
It is a part of us.
What if,
If.
Control
They’re afraid.
Their grip around me tightening,
Afraid to lose control.
They don’t know me,
Just what I am.
The storm inside me rages.
My paranoia is out of control.
I can’t find myself,
And it scares me.
They are coming for my while I am coming after myself.
My iron resolve
Has crumbled in the rust of time.
Fear makes me stumble.
Something inside me moves beneath the surface
And pulls me apart.
I am consumed.
Fear and paranoia eat away my mind.
I watch from my mental fortress,
As from a distant window,
As my proud self decays to nothing.
Glass
Inside my fortress,
Behind my walls,
I am a king.
Invincible,
Immortal,
Powerful,
I am strong.
I am the storm that rages in the east.
But in the west the wilderness cries out.
The people have bent and broken too long.
They rise up against me,
The Western Zephyr has become
A mighty Tempest of Rage.
Might I have gone too far?
Have I not made these people mighty?
Perhaps I have made them all too strong.
Might I have given rise to this revolution?
What have I done?
My kingdom cracked,
The streets run with blood.
My own people,
My subjects
Have changed me
From my self of stone
Into a man of glass.
I hide behind my walls of steel,
My Iron Curtain.
I am afraid, I am paranoid.
I am a man of glass.
They will shatter me,
And I am alone.
I try to run,
I try to hide.
I round a corner and they are there,
A pack of savage wolves
Ready to crack, splinter, destroy me.
I turn to run,
I slip and fall,
I…
D
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M
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PowerEyes of ice,
The freeze cometh
On my wings.
The hearth of the humble home
Cracks and splinters in my cold heart.
Fingers grip in the chill of death,
Bodies closed in a tomb of ice.
Hands reach for life, eyes empty and fixed.
I smash them, crush their bones
Their blood runs on the earth.
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