xyz

welcome to the end of the lines

[xyzhn]

today the sun has tumbled down

over the hills to a silent dawn

tomorrow the day will be as long

the world is too far gone

sometimes I feel like a new round moon

round and bald and upon the sea

a precious sinking part of me

the world is too far gone

stars don't wheel, boys don't squeal

never, ever walk alone

when the night creeps in on tippy toes

when the sun has tumbled down

sometimes people lie alone

on a bed or on a throne

cold and grey and sweating soft

tomorrow the day will be as long

if this is the sea then I am the moon

the burning lights call out to me

I will walk then walk no more

over the hills to a silent dawn

at the end I will lay down

and wait in silence for the dawn

the wait tomorrow will be as long

for the world is too far gone

[xyzhn]

The truth about inspiration

Inspiration comes not in flashes;

Whoever said that was dead wrong.

He's probably sitting in his own ashes,

Wishing the years were less long.

That poor man's stuck by his own prong.

Whoever coined "inspirational spark"

Never wrote a word in his life.

Inspiration, you tricky lark,

You're nothing but purest strife.

The honest truth will now suffice.

Anyone who's ever written a word

Knows the man and knows his lies.

Inspiration is false, just absurd.

Writing is writing the next reprise

Before your brain turns into turd.

[xyzhn]

angel's nest

[xyzhn]

Observance

What can we say to her slipping between trees

so she will not turn and run?

Will we half turn our heads like half moons

and pretend to stare into infinity

or until the highway chokes to rendered line

and us, with eyes following like moons

until we rise, rise and float over the horizon

hoping for invisibility, insignificant as balloons

to float and look, look and float in secrecy

at dappled beauty with no need for highways

no need for lines except crisscrosses of sunshine

which are the shadows of whispering trees

even as we try to hide behind moonrise

and turn shyly into quiet observant lines

the dappled hoof, head, moon, eyes, turns, runs

warned by the trees—she knows we see.

[xyzhn]

art inspired by studio ghibli

[xyzhn]

Where I live the hills are filled

  Where I live the hills are filled

With houses painted, freshly standing,

Cool and quiet, windows chilled,

Glassy eyes, demure, commanding;

When passersby pause and stare,

The hills look back with silver eyes,

And reinstate their limpid dare

Until decayed to their demise.

But on mornings few and seldom seen

The hills shed silver as down floods gold

From fiery furnace in the sky, a stream

To thaw, to sand, to mold

These glassy spheres for catching light;

Blinded not by dark, for once by sight.

[xyzhn]

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi

[xyzhn]

Ode to a dead rose

A dead rose is lovelier than one live, With flowing sap and guarded thorns. For no rose wild knew loving eyes, Nor hands which plucked its fragrant crown. A dead rose has been killed and hung, Or pressed between beloved tomes. Petals wither into withered lungs, Fragrance stales as in age-old tombs. A memory preserved of times gone by, A dead rose is lovelier than one live.

[xyzhn]

Peace march in Linden

[xyzhn]

Futility is an exercise in patience

Futility is an exercise in patience out here, in the 'hood, as they used to call it-- now it's just called "nowhere" now that the glamour has left and the T.V. cameras packed up too once there was nothing to see nowhere to be out here, in nowhere, some call it no-man's-land-- the empty space between dreams and reality, or as we like to call it, the day we got beat up 'cus someone thought it'd be funny to watch our fingerbones breaking, one by one out here, in our dreams, (we call them crazy)-- there are tall trees everywhere and litte kids with plastic shovels digging holes in the playground, but our dreams go like cigarette smoke and they vanish like silent souls futility is an exercise in patience we know all of that word it shudders in our every bone it smoulders in our every breath-- futility; the absence of hope but so too do we know "patience" yes, we know how to wait for promises made, buses late, money withheld-- jobs denied, mothers expecting, fathers absent, love delayed; for all these, we wait                   and wait we have gnawed these words to bare bones lived in them threadbare for years so how is it that, still, after all these barren years,-- when the "absence of" cleaves to the "waiting for"; they still give birth to--"Hope?" futility  is an exercise in patience no one knows this better than we who live out here in the middle of nowhere we with our big, silly dreams-- we'll settle for a playground or just a happy little kid because we know how to read between the lines-- search the empty spaces between dreams and reality, even when there is nothing worth seeing We'll find something worth waiting for.