Joyous Gard

The woodsmoke girl in yellow

Changes her mind

At least a hundred thousand times

Her name is Sylvia (head in the oven)

No, Margaret (cold corpsy lips)

No, just the letter H

With a’s and l’s and y’s

Stumbling after

Cold in a sweater 5 times her size

(I know it’s the wind)

The animal arms hang down to her

Smooth knees, like chocolate

My name is whispered in a heated moment

Then never heard again

She kisses my neck

Smiles at me from across the granite tabletop

Shares her warm thighs

Then turns into Joyous Gard

With the wind choking on her high walls

And while the nobles converse

In hushed tones in the great hall

And smirk at the whistles and

Rich falsetto yells of the wind (trying to get in)

Lancelot leans over to Guinevere

And effortlessly places his cold lips on her warm, malleable cheek.

Welcome

You slowly creak the door open and

A volcano fizzes out of my chest

Like a blacksmith hunched over his grey anvil

The basement breathes a quiet "welcome"

(she's on my side tonight)

The far corner of it, drenched in a lightbulb's warm kiss

like the ones you stamped on my cheeks.

My mouth, though out of the question

(for that would be breaking every rule)

frames the intelligence of words coming and going,

lost and found, like the treasured jacket

lounging on the top of the heap,

Prince of lost and never found.

My crinkly blue jacket

is the third grade soccer player screaming

"Out-of-bounds!" every time a blade of grass is

swayed by black and white or a dirty sneaker.

It desperately wishes to wake your mother

But it's cries go unheard, as it is peeled to the carpet

For we are lost and found

in a huddled, quilted embrace.

Sometimes I'm Afraid To Say (Too Terrified To Speak)

These are the same murky swamps
that you hesitantly snatched up
in a crustaceous, red rock euphoria
And when you slipped on a bed of wet moss, ankle deep
You couldn't help but wade into
The brown water now lovingly pooling about your waist
then deeper, your face buried in my neck.

It's Dark and Lovely Outside and My Hair is Combed

It's dark and lovely outside
And my hair is combed.
Two-thirds races right and back, over the scalp
While the complacent third
sprints past my ear
(a few of the athletes stumble on the crest)
running from the sunny, mid-day voices
of visitors, visiting, dying alone
trying to get through to the brain.

I don't know why I took the time
to feel the bristles of my brother's greasy comb
Tickle my scalp and soothe me to sophistication
I didn't even plan to meet a handsome woman from a party
or a bearded ruffian
looking for a counterpart

I just went to work
and bathed in the
sickly deafening applause
Of a proud ladle, (blood-red gummy flecks on his chin)
and sauce and flour.
"Your hair looks good", she said
And they screamed.

"Who's the prophet?"

Peter Gabriel, was introduced to me by my father probably in the mid-nineties... possibly through Genesis (Peter Gabriel was one of the founding members and dominant songwriter for their first several albums) but most likely through a double disc greatest hits CD of Gabriel's solo work.

Although I did not listen to him frequently and of my own accord throughout elementary school or even middle school, he came back to me, (or should I say me to him), my sophomore year of high school with a song called Sky Blue from the album "Up". 

In the past year, my father purchased Gabriel's first three albums, all technically self-titled, with titles given by fans, (respectively) "Car", "Scratch" and "Melt". 

The closing song on "Car (Peter Gabriel 1)" is a track called Here Comes The Flood.

The original recording is complete with crashing drums, exploding electric guitars and the apocalyptic piano that gives the song it's anthemic chorus. Unfortunately that version is rare and a live "full-band" version is even rarer.

However, this version relays the same emotion (at least to me) that Peter Gabriel projected in the original recording, which makes it one-of-a-kind and completely incredible.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

It's amazing to me that a 27-year-old can sound exactly the same as he does now at 62.

unTITled

An' I've try-ee-ai-ee-ai-d

Do you ever feel like you do things FOR people?
It's an idiotic question in the sense that the answer is plainly, undeniably yes, at least for anyone who shares a certain bond of love with anyone else.

Of course, it is patchy and even dangerous to draw your happiness from other people, especially just one individual... yet it happens all the time, all the same. Let me make a simple stock market analogy. You have invested a large portion of your money in the silver industry. The silver industry crashes. You crash. See?

You give yourself to someone.
In brighter cases, they give their self back.
It's a simple cycle and it's pure when you don't hold anything back.

There's not really a point to this introduction.

I feel like I do so (too) many things for other people. There's a difference between doing things for people because you wish for their happiness and doing things for people because you think it's what they would want you to do.
I'm going on a mission because I want to, but also because other people want me to. The normality of that could be a negative thing...

Just some thoughts. No REAL meanings. They're not even based off of anything that has happened.

-Niels