Because I’m going mad trying to keep track of what’s where and why it’s there.

000 Intro

Judging him wise, the jury agrees
Highlights unwind, they know what they’ll see:
Exhausted remains, meandering path
The rocket’s dilemma, traced to her lap

The twisting white trail, the billows in air
And most damning of all, the fading red glare
All speak for the boy, one lost so young
But pity can wait, the film clip’s begun!

001 Transitions

I seem to remember, his thoughts of that day
Why I remember, or how I can’t say
Something about, giving something away
Strange does it seem, yet of him they portray

Strength of another, took him on his way
Perhaps if I try, explain it I may
What now I perceive, though my eyes say, Nay!
My own voice cries, Stop! yet not I obey…

002 Infinite Edits

You know that killing’s evil, and no one’s better dead
We’re all good, as I believe, in heart and hardened head
It’s evil to hate evil, so what are we to do
With the mess the grown-ups left, as interest does accrue
If problems were solutions, then answers would abound
Maybe we should thank them all, by foxing with their hounds

005 Finding a Way

Please don’t think me fishing for, a sympathetic eye
How’s a sheepish boy so blue, to build it in the sky
If not for strange foundations, I’d be on shifting sands
Unconventionality, it takes to draw the plans
Even little piggies know, the wind will blow away
Shelters that the children grow, unless in mind they play

008 Young and Stupid

Then think he an answer, and thoughts did then bloom
Like scent of a flower, that withers at noon
Like using of spurs, atop a balloon
Why climb to the stars, if there be marooned?

009 Dream Yet Complete

It would be much easier, for all of us I think
Look at what we’re standing on, and what we’re on the brink
If now could be just like then, then maybe we could speak
Wouldn’t have to run and hide, from what our wishes seek
If we did not know better, what questions we could ask!
Listening, we’d make believe, and wear the answer’s mask

and

Abstract finger-painted words, to dance the metaphor
Makes the rhyming reason, for those who will explore
Twenty-six, pick-up sticks, word pictures do you see
Common sense, evidence, in conflict do they be
Look the question in the eye, extract what’s make believed
Prism bends the lighted path, like notions preconceived

012 Unsatisfactory

Rhetoric a form of art, rhetorical but true
Some sad tidings beach themselves, on words cast out of blue
Curious this mystery, short-lived in memory
Funny how the writing saves, the ends from tragedy
Means the shell can justify, hold ocean to the ear
Laughter from sand castle hall, to door someone draws near

014 Risky Business

Wishing on a shooting star, don’t dread the count from ten
If it seems I lost the round, check scenery again
Strategy that I call safe, and umpire calls strike three
Catchers just can’t catch ’em all, runner holds the key
Empty box by empty plate, it always seems the worst
Just before it dawns and you, take second look at first

028 Questions and Answers

Contact lost within this space, where filtered light grows dim
Clarity falls up not down, when outside looking in
Some will search for ways to hold, fate’s hand a length away
Thinking armed with tooth to claw, at wisdom’s slow decay
Sow confusion to behold, no forest, only leaves
Spinning yarns of trusting souls, poor fools too blind to flee

029 Package Delivery

Homonym or homophone, whys seek reconditions
Simile’s analogous, like hows of new reflections
Paradox parks parallel, meter coined neglections
Parabolic apologue, compliments complexions
Metaphoric metaphors, jumping to convictions
Coat of many clashing colors, fashions sense in questions

031 Panic and Deceit

Questions in our upraised hands, and answers we’ll surprise
Like the caterpillar who, does seem to death defy
It might take a miracle, belief may then belie
Fate it seems that common sense, is fated to deny
Battles rage within us all, where truth is compromised
There dreams, like tissue paper wings, are torn and tossed aside

032 Perceptual Juice Cleanse

Holding fire, let’s play and seek, the black and whites of lies
Scarcely caught in second’s glance, demand supplied disguise
Nursery rhymes and fairy tales, prince and the prodigal one
Independents intersect, whit and the pendulum
Closer moments shave for truth, Cinco de Mayo meant
Fireworks! says Mom’s gold goose, Skylight, ladies and gents

and

You’re out of order! You’re in my contempt!
Alter the transcript, those lies are exempt
That’s not how we see, that’s not what we know
Is not this trial, preceding the blow?

038 Endgame

We interrupt this broadcast, ’cause that’s what we do best
History repeats itself, let’s meet our latest guest
The film is at eleven, at twelve and one and two
Rock is rolling round the clock, just like our bad news do
It’s in the public’s interest, to see his last resort
Ratings pointed our view to, bring you special report

and

Perhaps to fill the vacuum, that nature does abhor
The story chose this vessel, to be its metaphor
Dueling with the either-or, in land of right or wrong
I, gray matters of the heart, cross common censor’s song
Rhythm technicolors in, the lines that drew this hint
Rock and roll with punches thrown, anger isn’t it

041 The Middle of a Story

Think I conflict with signals? Should see the signs I yield
Coded morsels in the air, across the diamond field
Mixing words and metaphors, desegregate the game
Some rules should not be broken, some should be profaned
Who are we to question rules? I’ll tell you who and why
We’re the hope another has, the reason that we try

042 New Tools in the Shed

Trust is time to ask yourself, to find the strength to ask
Questions free the answering, unbinding them our task
Faith is time spent wondering, what we’re meant to find
Imagine it’s your purpose, adventure by design
Belief is time to listen, but who has time for that?
Especially when the answers, knock expectations flat

043 Twenty-Four Days Later

Turning cheek to other cheek, exchanges upper hand
With one-two combinations, romantic’s dream is fanned
Syncopate the metronome, tick talking hypno-box
Rowing gently up that stream, good timing keys the locks
Easy as the count to three, that once upon a time
Cast the way our little boats, serve life for petty crime

and

Everybody gets a shot, ’cause all the world is staged
Wouldn’t want to waste my turn, blind spot I’d not engage
What if I’ve a single round, the ref might count to ten
Cost of shooting cryptic bull, in eyes would haunt me when
Think of what you could have been, reflections charge displeased
Nothing ventured, nothing lost, except good memories

044 Mission Impossible

Then all the king’s horses and men, pick up the pieces again
Almost united they fall, back into flickering REM
Walkers enabled by Cain, graceless two-bit program
Adding subtraction divides, rounding up rules in this land
Obvious is obscured, blind-sided by what’s undone
Binary processing hides, punch line shining in sun

046 What is Real?

As for me, I’m often told, who’m I to disagree
Time to join the real world, stop playing make believe
They say I should know better, let’s see if they’re all right
Make believe that we can see, what real worlds are like
Just for fun we can pretend, there’s treasure to be found
Gold doubloons in living rooms, if riddle is unwound

048 Great Expectations

Look the question in the mirror, ask in this other’s land
You have two and you see two, most say that means two hands
Some begin a’wondering, take two by two by four
Frame both reference and point, check primal too square lore
Take me for prime example, find in the three by fives
Quicksilver’s imposition, the one kept me alive

and

Once upon a child’s mind, did flutter butterfly
Gift to share with one then all, who’ll open wings to try
Asked to ask and seek and knock, on wooded points of view
Goodness treats patient resolve, with echoes ringing true
Child’s play remembering, climb branches looking sees
Others just can’t find the time, and hunt on hands and knees

053 Time and Place

I for one am sick and tired, of cowing in disgrace
Tells me it’s impossible, my time will be erased
Says be realistic, accept my human’s place
Still sensing time to listen, it’s time I should replace
That grown-up pain in mirror, with one that he displaced
Clean out all this common sense, what’s left I will embrace

054 The Observer

Long ago, far and away, or always somewhere near
Conductor’s instrumental, sends notes to inner ear
Harmonic reconvergence, improvisation’s planned
To amend the broken page, pour melodies from band
Watering the wildest flowers, a second-handed chance
To trade in white-washed paddock walls, for suit and horse and lance

What starry-eyed boy or girl, dressed in grown disguise
Would spend so much time looking up, the ears, nose, throat, and eyes
Pretending to play doctor, while double-checking chokes
What’s it cost and what’s my change? the warted toady croaks
What distilled in beating heart, could cease and then resist
This night made for remembering, then good sun’s rising kiss

056 Force of Nature

Used to seem much easier, when thinking grown-ups knew
Mind your manners, ma and pa, eat all your peas and queues
What a good boy! I would hear, well maybe most the time
Took so long to puzzle out, the peace from never mind
Heartfelt questions children ask, like gum stuck to the soul
Sometimes I forget and look, then answers take their toll

057 Blatantly Obvious

Batting clean up, leading off, you following my drift?
Seeming things not always are, but answers can we sift
Many meanings have few words, and some are even true
Sometimes three roads lead one to, a fourth that no one knew
Footsteps blaze the trail taken, a path that we’ll create
Just because you’re following, don’t mean I can’t relate

058 You Are Here

Grown-ups too play make believe, when playing grown-up games
Some play ours when full of moon, before attention wanes
Hard to know just what they’ll think, ’cause what they think they know
Is explained with answers like, That’s just the way it goes
So pardon me a moment, or help me try to reach
Reflections make the grown-up, so that’s what we’ll entreat

and

So be good sporting metaphors, or catch me if you can
See the third-based coach’s box? Now there’s our biggest fan
An artist in disguising, obscure as obvious
Signs are scented in the breeze, from there to me to us
It’s all so very simple, without a relay man
If you follow where this leads, help me to understand

059 ??!

Thank goodness jamming session, still rocks there by the shore
Doubt’s reign bowed all the errors, until the great encore
Timid fingers now imprint, relayed across the land
Third-based touchstone signals: Sift! Charms all not understand
Till memory’s first service, returns the right thought left
Sweet blossoming scent from above, to help unwarp the weft

and

But ‘tween the child and the grown-up, imagination grew
Ways and means for eyes to tease, over, around, and through
Crisscrossing reconnections, tap drummer’s little snares
A dot to dash, to energize, reflections the shell wears
Between logic and emotion, between good-night and mourn
The child spun a hiding place, I never knew I’d worn

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