Coop

Let me just say:
It never pleased me more
Than to please you four.
Lump in throat,
Thinking about every note
We bounced off one another.
Dare I say
That I'll never find that again.
But I've got so much stock,
You could call me
A majority shareholder
In the worth of that magic.
Timing and life;
Well, it is what it is.
Maybe I spoiled the fruit
Prematurely. Maybe I killed
The essence before it truly began.
I'm sad but not regretful.
I've got such stuff
As sweet memory at my grasp.
You are all so loved by me.

I feel my pride shatter
For all that's before me
In this waking.
I do not know
Anything

Anymore.

When a heart aches
Without a reason

What does that say?

My past is pulp.
My future is fog.
My present is
Unbalanced.

I long for that carefree tyrant
Of good nature.
He walked off into woods
And left this lonely child
Afraid and shivering.

Was it a good departure?
Will the boy grow up again?

I stay in this box a while,
Because it's too hard to embrace
Simplicity and warmth,
Like I don't want it,
Like I don't deserve.

Where is the road this time
That will take me peaceful,
Purposeful,
Without such unsure passing?

I long for this.

Lips like saccharine
Scale an expanse of frosty
Memory's recumbent status
On a Sunday alone in a bar.
I keep fogging my lungs for
Company of self destruction
To anticipate some reality
That might stop me cold,
Like the sweat from this fresh
Bottle of beer.
The first time in months that
I've been on my two wheeled
Machine. The wind was strong;
Forcing me in directions I've not gone
In so many years it's hard to remember.
Some habits are old. They beckon
You back like a favored friend
And ask subtly, "do you recall? "
I do. But these visions are skewed
By all the new, newly forgotten,
And hard to remember fractions
Of what I used to be here
In this place.

Some choose to carve a path
Through life's journey. Some
See it as a road to traverse.
Some let it roll them like a wheel
Down an awkward hill,
And still others lie in wait,
Watching a picture show before
Departure. I do not know of
Which I'm classified. I only know
That whatever I'm in feels
Like a dream in many ways.
When will I awake?

Smoke morning air the color of
Sun soaked pavement on dead highways.
Deep green and burnt brown,
The only lasting shades throughout
A bleak and saturated winter.
A Lincoln prominence on every
Young man's face. Obscure is trend
Is stale in an hour
Is commonplace.
So informed by low-lit faces in
Every corner of every building.
Little glowing faces searching
For constant connection,
Not in the face before them.
Feels so hollow.
Seems so sad. Like this dreary
Morning I've awaken to,
Buried in my own futile device.

Wind me down like bicycle gears,
Pull my weight to a speeding stop
And find out that the world still spins
Regardless of my motion.
Take me out of me and filter it through
A hue different than this black and blue
Expansion I've raised myself on all this
Time.

Branches shiver in the cold night of
Winter's summit. Find me out on a limb
Working to the beat of this chill I
Feel closing in on me quickly. Brutal
Instrument to feed the heart sick
Longing for a place to call home.
Travel anywhere in the world or do any
Deed worth mentioning but it won't
Suffice to fix the speed of this
Momentum. Salvation is within;
No exterior can wield such results.
Light inside, it screams at me to open
My eyes and pour it out from my fingers.
I'm trying! Stars collapsing unto
Themselves never felt this presence
Nor pressure to feed such feelings
As those of lost children coping with
A winding wood of never-ending
Paths that yield no way out.
The animals close in and we aren't
Ready to be slain by mediocrity or
The causally incomplete.

Before the madhouse
It was noise, drive, write, and do some shit.
Slam, slam and slip and dive,
And congregate to stripped-down rhythm,
Strident, headstrong, full of it
Which is that thing of ignorant grace.

Middles are always long.
Some great purge of place, or solo,
Find and follow, rest, repeat,
Appreciated value for the seemingly concrete,
Can't jump too hard, turns out the ground was hollow,
From the get-go. I stopped; no rhythm.

Convalescing in the silence.
We are a lonely people in this house.
Big spells so trigger some big head
Full to the brim thinking.
Arrested in motion. Maybe it's the snow.
And to make up my mind
Three bits at a time, look at what has passed...
Theorize, embrace, revise, relate.

Deep inside there's still some fraction of a voice I used to hear spinning all that talk about a bright-light future. But all this shotgun speak really gets to me. We're all each other as we pass. For the love of anything, you have to know yourself by now. Dilated eyes of something seen and wanted much, and many, many feelings scattered like specks of red comet dust
Encapsulate the view perfectly strange.