Blessing Of A Glass Half Empty

O Pessimism

Forgive us for our mischaracterization

Bestow upon us the clarity of Pragmatism

And lift the distorted veil of Faith

Let us design our agendas 

Free from optimistic ambition

On the pure bedrock of Realism

Grant us continued protection from 

The sharp-edged sword of Hope

The mistress of Futility 

Who compels us to bail our ships

When we are better suited 

Donning life vests and boarding rafts

Let not the milky tears of Security

Blind us from the utility of Truth

Assign to us Disquiet so that we may predict

Our futures free from the bias of Idealism

Handshake

If I believed in the devil
I'd tell you I've met him

He's a silver tongued liar

And the world's best salesman

I met the devil and he lives in my head

He tells me he's got answers

And he'll sell them to me for free

I met the devil and he shows me the truth

Distorted and bent like me

The solution's permanent and less than ideal

But he'll sell it to me for free

Barbarism

Laughed at by the gods
Our losses just an elaborate prank
To entertain something more
If freedom and abandonment
Were not loud enough
To put a force in me
To search for my own exculpation
The way a dog subsidizes
Its household's decisions
In a world that is abjectly unfair
Imbued with free will
But forbidden from philosophy
To bring us into this world
Only to discharge us again
Inhuman and hence divine
This is how I know
God is a terrorist

Ketamine

Waves of saliva race for the shores of my teeth

As my hands turn to spiders and scatter across my keyboard

And my eyes spin like plates when nothing stirs

I am healing as I am disassembled and reassembled

Counterfeit

You can sustain the body
But when the soul flickers
When the soul is homesick for its nest
Away from this sensory coil
Our only consistency here is change and decay
I don't know where to find restoration
When I can't find rest, least of all in sleep where
My past will always find me
The fog and shadows played tricks
And outwitted my better judgment
Somehow I'm left with the counterfeit

A House

I am a house with blue walls and red bulbs
Superannuated, abandoned and in disrepair
Just cinders in a cold hearth
Swallowed by a forest
Seeds nestled in moist pages
Verdant moss recovering life from decay
So much life here but none of it is mine anymore
And I slip quietly beneath the stilts to wander
Through the trees without these dilapidated beams

Foreigner In A Foreign Land

There's something inside me that's older than I am
And when I feel depressed I feel it stir
It compels me to leave
It urges me to return
And so I lie in the dust
On the floor beneath an altar
Decorated with ribbons
Celebrating traumas survived
And lay cold silver coins on my eyes
Straightening the chain holding my mogen david
Pulling the altar cloth across to repel the chill
And I feel myself sink into the dust
My body biding time before an inevitable decay
And it sinks through the floorboards to meet the earth
Stirring restlessly in the interval
Between ashes and ashes
And it's enveloped by dark musty arms
Returning my body to its home
To which I will soon enough return
I'll be home when they tuck me in,
Softly and gently, pulling the dirt up to my chin
When I am again what I have always been
And I am indistinguishable
I am earth again