Why is the wind so cold? Shiver and shake, then shut the door… I don’t need friends like that much anymore. Why is the sun so silver, shining in the sky like a dime? I must have lost track of the time.
Where did I put my glasses? Knocking the jars down with my hand Spilling the corn meal and the sand. Three legged stool, I think I’ll sit down on you just for a while… Head in my hands, I’m crying now.
Time. Sky. There must be somewhere nice where all the birds go when they fly. Space. Darkness falls casting its purple on my face.
Where is my cane, again? Oh, I see it leaning by the door. Perhaps the two of us will go explore. Just take a walk and let the wind try to hurt us as it will… Friends that can bleed but cannot kill.
Time. Pain. Blood dripping in the mason jar- but not in vain. Need. Planting us painfully with a golden seed.
And when the moon comes up we’ll capture it silver in our eyes… Just a man and his cane walking side by side. And when the moon comes up we’ll follow the silver it unrolls… Just a man and his cane going for a stroll.
Why you want to touch something so warm
When you know life is cold and it’s back to the war?
Why would you want to see ribbons tied to the tree
Every spring? Life is flat. Ribbons don’t mean a thing.
Or else maybe they do and the problem is you
Watch the kids sing and dance. What’s the matter with you?
Don’t you want to play play? Smile and dance the whole day?
No I don’t. Let me sleep till I gather my strength then I’ll weep.
Obviously there was a time
I believed in the sky, I could dream, I could fly
Then he came to my life, a man fresh out of prison
I thought he was wise like a purple magician
Well, I never believed, but I had to pretend or
He’d lift up his big log and that was the end
Flat on the ground with my face in a ditch drain
Watching the water flow learning the language of pain
Learning languages darker and deeper
Learn how to play dead and be a mind reader
Giving a hand job with only your hand
Was it Shakespeare who said “Villainy- your name is man?”
Maybe he said it, but who would believe it
When nothing has happened till no one has seen it?
Too many things that have never occurred
I saw with my face in the water, the images blurred.
Scenes of night murders, black powder voodoo
Family and close friends cooked into a stew
I did not want to see it, much less to believe it, but
Water in my ears would not let me leave it alone.
Then one day I arose he was gone, and
I was not the same, but the world had marched on
Full of fair-weather friendships and white powder smiles
Won’t you tell me your story, sit down and stay for a while?
I would prefer not to, when you’d never believe me
I walk down the street and there’s black things I see, but
No one else can see them and they’d never believe them
Doomed to walk this earth with only one single friend.
So do I believe in the white unicorn?
Yes, of course, for he saved me with his silver horn, and at
Night we lie down and discuss all the black things
My finger, his horn, with eternity rings.
Until one day the black will reach it’s highest power
We’ll steal all its secrets in that final hour
Then maybe I, I’ll believe I can fly, so
We’ll smile at each other and we’ll turn to the sky.
He thought there must be some lines in the earth he could follow, Hidden by snow, but he’d possibly find them in spring. A grid made of brown that would lead to the crown of tomorrow…
Hail to the rose! Hail to the sky! Teach me to live; Teach me to die.
In the snow it was cold but some hope filled his body; Golden liquid that quickened the fire in his brain. He had a theory the earth was surrounded by knowledge; A shimmering library accessed by unbearable pain.
When I close my eyes- Ah! Like a flame through my fingers it burns, like a fire through my heart. When I close my eyes- No! It eludes me a pain in my shoulders, a dimming echo.
Hail to the rose! Hail to the sky! Teach me to live, Teach me to die.
His blue eyes scanned the skies though he knew they were empty; Only fools look for schools where the airy birds fly. Something told him the brown of the ground held the answers; His desire for the fire left him willing to die.
Won’t you take me inside of your library Prepared to hurt, lay my screams in your dirt? Won’t you take me inside of your library Prepared to bleed for the answers I need?
Hail to the rose! Hail to the sky! Teach me to live, Teach me to die.
Another song from the Odyssey… Odysseus travels to Hades to seek guidance for his journey. Hell is a place we all visit at some point. Perhaps by visiting Hell while still alive we don’t have to go there when we die.
What is Hell? Hell is a place so black we can only look backwards.
A place where the light of the future has been extinguished by the shadows of the past. Suddenly we are engulfed by everything we had forgotten- lost opportunities, suppressed humiliations, mistakes we can never erase. We realize that what we thought was behind us- our past- was actually closer to us than our present- standing between us and the present like an atmosphere, a cover of clouds, and in Hell these clouds thicken and swallow us up. We are confronted with the ways we have hurt others and the ways we have hurt ourselves. We come face to face with the dark sides of those we loved, the ways they betrayed us, the love that existed only in words but not deeds. We see the ways we were overpowered by life and shaped by forces beyond our control. We realize we cannot change the past- not because it is behind us (it is not behind us at all!)-but because we never could have changed it. We did our best, but it was not enough. Our will was just a tiny candle in the big wide world, barely illuminating our own hand and bound for extinction.
Some dreams were fulfilled, but still they were hollow. Some goals were achieved, but still they led nowhere. Best friends slipped away, one by one, like sunsets. Ideals that seemed so tangible turned out to only be concepts. Right and wrong, success and failure, struggles and surrenders… in the end it all led to the same place… nowhere.
