As the sounds of celebration
ring around us,
the chains break
and form a silence trust
The intimate,
The wordless,
The terrifying notions
That I cannot compute
This is the story of the boy
Who looked into your eyes,
The boy caught in your shadow
From the sun to moon-rise,
As I sit surrounded by the remnants
of a cage long-since broken…
I cannot help but wonder,
What words - if any - should be spoken….
As the night hangs over us,
And our tongues drown
In the words
that make grown men cry.
A fear hangs over us,
Who will be the first to speak,
to divide and divine the chaos
And refine the raw - experience.
….
Piano notes rang into the night,
like thunder in the rain.
The chords that rang out
had been struck only twice before.
However, all who lived
near the old manor
knew them to be His song.
It sounded like a melody of chance,
a reflection of the chaos
surrounding His life.
His song was not one with a happy ending
it reeked of sorrow,
sadness and sickness.
Nobody in the neighbourhood
knew His name
but they all knew His story.
They may never truly know him,
but they understood
the reasons for what he did.
As His song
finally drew to a close,
the night went serene.
Those woken by his luminescent lullaby
attempted to drift back to sleep
but they couldn’t help but wonder
For what occasion
was the man in the old manor
playing His song?
I stand here silent,
In envy
of a shadow
that was once mine,
I burn,
like Salem,
in the knowledge
of what could have been,
I watch,
over these tormented seas
that give birth to your
wishes and dreams
I drown
in the storm
of your heartbreak
I am torn,
I wait
for my time to come.
My Valhalla’s a parasitic dream
from which I cannot run.
A lone soldier,
Left his family behind,
to descent to hell
upon the fields of the Rhine,
As shell shattered
and rifles smoked,
his comrades died -
and from the battlefield he did go,
A deserter -
but who can blame
A man who only wished relief
from the hells of that plain,
As the weeks went by,
He wandered south,
his clothes spoiled and
Skin as dry as his mouth,
Finding his way home,
was not easy to find,
but where once he found refuge
he could no longer find peace-of-mind,
An empty house,
Like a stolen heart,
His family was gone,
A lone soldier,
He left the death and devastation behind -
He had left the field,
With no “honor” or family left
It was all he could do
not to yield,
I have this dream
of a world I understand?An impossible fantasy -
that’s mine to command?
Avatars of a culture
Defined us more
than our flesh & marrow
Leaving us as naught
but another man’s shadow
A cacophony of voices around us,
a soundtrack to our lives of abuse,
and the heart of the storm
looks to be the our only refuse.
Who are we
to be the center of our own world?
A guilty pleasure
that goes against everything we once held
What is this existence?
This maze of cliches?
What’s the point in resistance
as we lie entrapped by the ricochets.
The modern man,
bound by sins and secrets.
surrounded by consequences
running in red tricklets.
The guilt
of flesh and bone
could it be our fortress?
Or a prison?
They say,
‘It’s all a perspective’
While I ask,
‘Where did you find that directive?’
Together,
stripped of all variation.
What is to become of us?
As our house rots within the thralls of homogenization?
Are we the harbingers of our own ends?
Or the carriers of original sin?
I only ask these questions
because where else could the truth lie - but within?
Is it indisputable
that secrets have power?
Do they really have the might
to undermine those who tower?
What are secrets but words?
Where is the value
in something that is known
to all the birds?
Through truth and lies
we shape the world around us.
And when our deceptions crumble
our secrets we acquiesce.
If words are a weapon,
then are secrets ammo?
When our armor is shattered,
Are we really so shallow?
(To both obscure and reveal) -
What purpose do secrets serve?
When their use inevitably backfires,
Will we finally get what we deserve?
Intro
This idea spawned
from the notion of words.
This story dawns
with a chorus of birds.
Act 1
The young journalist approaches the manor,
determined to light the sins of the past.
While across the globe, a man with dangerous knowledge
is on the run - and he had better run fast.
In the land of the learned - the scholar fights.
And in a quiet country town, the girl writes.
At the dawn,
both fight to break the cycle.
Act 2
The journalist learns the secrets of the sins past,
but is it really her duty to bring such things to light?
A heart broken, a soul abused (such things must last)
and yet, she must wonder if this wrong is hers to right?
The man on the run wants to wield truth as a weapon,
but it’s an axe hanging over his head.
It’s a death sentence for him and everyone he’s ever known -
And if he can’t reach the radio tower, then he’ll certainly be dead.
The scholar stands on the precipice between the old and the new -
trying to convince those of the last age that things have changed
His reputation is a bank that runs dry as he tries to share what is true -
and that games, the domain of children, are a medium shortchanged.
The girl with the bleached hair tries to fight the system.
Something so simple as to hold a picnic in the middle of the street
To subvert their routines, and ensure she does not stand with them.
With her words and her wiles - what consequences might she meet?
Act 3
Suddenly, it all comes together -
these people, with their lives united (never!)
It’s not the way it ends that matters
but if told poorly, the story lies in tatters.
The journalist abides her conscience,
The man on the run is caught,
The scholar is caught in a promise
and the significance of the girl is naught.
But if failure is the outcome,
then why remember the stories in this album?
They are simply words on the wind,
and in them our second-lives begin.
I find I’m repeating myself
over and over again.
Like a broken record,
of the story I’m telling.
My chapters need more length,
My characters need more depth,
My plots needs to make sense
and my integrity as a storyteller needs to be kept.
If I want to be a novelist,
then why am I here?
If I want to be the next bestseller,
then why can’t I write anything near?
I’m wracking my brain for ideas
and tearing out my hair in frustration.
The words don’t flow through my ears
and in my failure I find determination.
I used to believe the only-stories-worth-telling
were told in tomes bound,
but now I’m beginning to understand the stories of poetry
and the world across which they abound.
