Day of Remembrance

That was the best day of my life,
misery came rolling like a thunderhead,
billowing along the lonely plain
that was the dream of being me.
Wash me away. Wash me. Wash . . .

It was a day of remembrance,
celebrating my death to the matrix,
my entrance into the darkness,
and the dawning of various pain.
There were salty drops to fall.

A long, lilting measure had loafed through dense air;
miserable aria drowned nearly by the overture's strums.
The loping, undisciplined pace had fallen to regularity,
like the entropy of an empty tire. Rhythm. Rhythm.
Roses on the river's back floating, flowing, fleeing.

Enter from the upper aisles
the swollen clouds of glory.
Now may all that is base and vile
seem haughty, high and hoary.
May it all seem as it is no more.

Here are now the drops of grace
that sweep us as a flood.
The shadow of the clouds are deep
and mark the sacred ground
where those with prideful dreams will put off the unclean thing.
We shall gather at the river made, and all will wash therein,
and every day you shall be born, and shall be clean again -
wash with blood, wash with blood, and rejoice in the falling blood.

3.10.00

Unknown 1

These are the failures that constant remind me
of all that was wrong with what's left behind me:
no one to call on a lonesome Friday evening;
no victories won that weren't mine unevenly;
all I recall of the four walls of the residence hall
is spring longing for summer, and summer dreading fall.

Where did the time go? What did I miss?
How did trashy that turn into blissful this?
Which of my seeds of despair and destruction
grew into this mountain I've mined so much luck from?

10.1.98

My mother's tears; my father's sigh,
a goodnight kiss, a long goodbye.
If you ever in me didn't see
quite the son you'd hoped I'd be,
Forgive me, I'm sorry.

We wish out loud, and kiss a star,
but the present's never what dreams are.
Though my life is full of sin and such,
I still love you both so much.
Forgive me, I'm sorry.

9.13.99

A young man's dream
is to own the world,
like a trickle-beam
of light in the pearl
of his eye, which he
shuts in tight to swirl
before him, to see
privately. Colors unfurl
for him, unique to him.

This world was mine
and was precious to me,
but in ebbing of time
the colors faded to bleak.
Now hard light burning soft
places cause one squeeze,
one tear to tumble-drop
and roll away clean.
I awaken a tired man.