A pitch black morning
Lightning out in the stratosphere
Sharpening thy tongue
Sunrise the only thing we fear
Deflecting unwanted attention
Desiring space, but not too much
Pulling love from the cosmos
Daybreak; yet further out of touch
My whole life on scraps of paper
My soul jotted down on the page
Plot lines between scribbles
Character development as we age
Everything that I am, right here
Pushing to further keep my mind trained
My heart’s secret smudged
Within these lines my identity is contained
Drinking black coffee out of Delta cups
The cheap seats listening to Empire Burlesque
Mixed metaphors crawling in the night
Still pondering why a raven is like a writing desk
Dislodged tea parties & cries of Nevermore
The world swiftly swirling all around me
Reducing myself into my words
Hiding now within punctuation & necessity
Unsure of our place in time
Triangulations are stretch marks on the soul
Society wants me to be all shiny
But more often than not, I’m tired & dull
Where do we find our inspirations
The formulations upon our existence
Personalities discarded to the rubbish pile
Pushing us further away within time & distance
Running headlong into the woods
With your meaningless tropes
Escaping any notion of your gaze
Slipping confinement & your stubborn hope
Never wished to be dubbed “wild”
At least not in your repetitive sense
Feeling numb to your expectations
Not remaining to hear your bland defense
Each step leads me further on my trek
Compounding the rules I unwittingly defied
Down the trail & away from your excuses
I didn’t listen, but I’m sure it’s all justified
Oh, where does our journey end
Or begin, as it so often might seem
Futile attempts to erase the past
The unknown details of our dreams
The open road panders to a false escape
The mere opportunity to rewrite a sojourn
Jesus perambulating with Uncle Walt
Debating the path; perchance to learn
Shaky prospects in apportioned time
Manifest destiny teases Ginsburg & Kerouac
Further roads leading to ornate wisdom
& we keep it concealed out in the back
Thoreau mocking society with his solitude
Knowing alone is the greatest we could ever be
Thoughts come to us in gentle waves
That perhaps our visions should become the sea
A reinterpretation of westward expansion
Route 66 cross-contaminating Highway 61
All roads have never led us home
Emily tempting Death with her life left undone
The growing wisdom of our consumed space
Emerson’s penning pre-revolutionary blues
Introducing our souls to unrefined grace
The Good Lord providing Her unfiltered muse
Feeble humanity; lost across the tracks
Original sin that we’ve taken on the chin
Sifting thought; we might be welcomed again
But knock off the Devil’s dust before you come in
Captain Q 