Vines of Fervor

How sweet the tune of an old song bird
drifting through a still, pale mourning is.
Her feathers primped and polished;
her eyes as keen as dew.
A subtle flapping of outstretched wings
takes me: beaten, bleeding, bruised, bereaved
Builds me up and feeds me till my strength returns
and overwhelms me, spilling out into the world.
Then, with gilded arms,
radiating, pulsating, and tearing apart
the melancholy airs of mistaken yesterdays,
we fit together fractured pasts,
rotten with failure, but ripe with hope.

Bold dreams embrace the rising sun;
desires cling to night.
In the space between breaths
impatience curls its green limbs
about our avidity and sews
stitches in our souls,
and we move forward
into gracious unknowns.

Zarathustra: Early Ideas

"Zarathustra"
--The Painted Grin

**These are early ideas for the lyrics of what is planned to be an epic song entitled "Zarathustra"**

Am I leading to the overman?
Are my eyes to the skies and
Is my friend resting on a limb
What's to come or what has been?

No more values can I draw from Him
Only darkness in my shame of sin
Two sides split as we all march on
Drooling nightfall or a stronger dawn.

Winds howling as the figs fall home
Whirling wildly as they wash the ground
Bursting skins and broken jaws
As my eyes turn from God.

Beat down men as they bash their beasts
Break their legs, knock out their teeth
Set fire to shelter, and the picket fence
Losing all reason after years so tense

And nothing comes on silver wings
With a wipeout smile of broken dreams
Legs of filth and hatred move the future on
Set to signature symphonies of the simple ones

No eternal soul made to linger past
As we all fall down for peaceful rest
Can your life be fulfilled with nothing new
Or does the future hide in you?

**more to come**

Prohibition (The Path to Self Destruction)

"Prohibition"
--The Painted Grin

I am a monster living in your grin,
A broken-hearted beast that dwells within.
I am a paranoid crazy man.
I am a demon bathed in blood and sand.
How do you greet me now my sacrificial lamb?

Oh, please let me gnaw it to the bone.
I've never gone hungry since you've been alone.
Your starving eyes lead right to my feast.
These are the days of the beast.

A siren's song. I'm cursed by velvet curves.
An unseen grace too strong to rest in words.
I've only met her once, just for a moment still
She broke my heart and bent my will.
How can a stranger cause such sentimental thrills?

Oh, please let me gnaw it to the bone.
These others here by my liar's chair have made a mighty throne.
Your starving eyes lead right to my feast.
Don't fear the days of the beast.

All I wanted was to tear inside your skull
To rip out all the loves that you have known
To make your heart into a blackened tart
That no queen would taste
To lay your mind and soul to waste

She's not the monster. That girl is just a face.
A fairytale fixation with her grace.
I'll try to starve the beast that's buried in my chest.
It might just take a while as his fate digests.
How can he stay inside if I give it my best?

Oh, please let me gnaw it to the bone.
I've filled your ears and drained your tears as your loneliness has grown.
Your starving eyes lead right to my feast.
Oh no, the final days of the beast.

Woe the final hours of the beast.

Toll Booth Blues

Seventy-two, thirty-five, twenty-two.

So many numbers, so many

days have gone by.

It is hard to keep track of so many

friends and symbols;

Codes and violations.

Sorry Mr.Martin,

your fingernails long and sickening.

There is no room here

for your little one

and his broken down, beat up,

scratched, sour junk.

Come back when the sun

is shining and the heat

is unbearable.

Smile and sign this

yellowed parchment.

Paint a grin on my

dull, pale face.

Flow into my mind again,

siren of the hours,

Queen of deception,

matriarch of my own destruction.

In waning light,

I saw a smile, heard a voice,

strange and inviting.

Now, an inconvenient guest

to a paranoid and cold host.

What can I say, but

Hello, destroy me now.

Careless As Love

Softly she floats above wild geraniums
Gentle and graceful and careless as love.
Flow they, the pink and blue starchildren
With eyes long closed and arms ever probing,
And all around arias, sang to the urchins;
Gifts of the angels, with sun in their hair.

Now traveling farther, to the dark and the deep
Where glowing monstrosities hide with anomalies.
They smile and they sway as they move t'ward decay
And away from the day with her bright, golden king.
A slow way she makes, slipping farther from they
To a place of such staidness, the cherubim weep.

Soon meets she her lover, angry with loneliness.
His arms grab her body, his wild eyes pierce bone.
She twists, bites, and struggles breaking free his embrace
Her love's velvet fingertips leave scars, long and straight
And he wilts into darkness, at inimical feet.
Here her broken heart feasts; her emptiness ceased.

To the vibrant sky, and the children she rides
Longing for winds and the white, flowing angels.
Exhales she the sadness of darkest abyss;
Beseeching the sun to heal her last kiss,
And she dances again, above pink, green, and blue.
She sings stunning symphonies of love's solemn woe.

So Strangely Bold

Generous Aphrodite
Weaving webs about my feet
Pulling me along
Singing me her song
Never had I known defeat
Our love, I thought, was mighty

Dread and biting famine
Spread through tissues, joints, and bone
Taking all my grace
Drying on my face
Is seawater never shown
But the same I'm drowning in

I pray for her to rescue
To a god who's long forgotten
Do my cries come to his ears?
Can he feel my countless fears?
No, his message now is rotten
His servants gone askew

A treasure, though, I hold
As I struggle up this slope
Keep it by me all the while
Gives me strength enough to smile
Plentiful as the roaming Nile
The thing I hold is hope
May I stay so strangely bold

Wildfire

I just wish to know
the truth from fake
real from false and all the in between.
No half meant affection, no two sided love
Just a warm embrace
and a gentle face to tell me
How you love me, Oh Love uncaring
Don't stop to spare me. Let me know,
It's what I ask the genie, wise
and what my eyes can no longer see
In a language I cannot read
Bound in paranoia and deceit;
coincidence, terror, and love

Faith, for what was strong
is no longer holding together
these important pillars
and soon enough no mortar
can mend our broken wall.
But hope I cling to, even now
for maybe I am mad
and my thoughts mean no more
than a chirping blue bird on a warm
spring day.

Chirp chirp chirp

But I cannot shake these curtains loose
I hear

Woe Woe Woe

And suddenly, my marbles lost,
I stop to pick up all the spheres
and dream of years to come
when I thought we would sing
and dance and play and build;
laugh and love and carry on;
fight and groan and moan and
dream together;
be together
without a care in the world
and nothing but warm and
happy hearts to bring the dull
boring, lifeless shapes of this world
into a true, vibrant light.

But now a distance, wide and barren;
cold and dead, threatens me.
I grow to hate it, and the spark that set the fire.
the flint and the wood scraps piled high
on the forest floor.
I shall run as fast as I can.
Call the fireman.
Save the forest,
the love, and myself.

Supernova (Part Six) : Terror and the End

Oh sisters, screaming out
Through empty lots and silent places
Their faces cackling on and on
With delight for rot and famine
And agendas dark and twisted
Born of woe and devilry
With eyes of pain and death

Come they now, to embrace
A strangled home now dull and cracked
And no intact relatives to polish now
Decaying bedposts, windows, door knobs,
Flowerbeds, fireplaces, or any other
Comfort once known to a bright,
Happy, cosmic folk

Terror first, repugnant witch
Her mouth all black from fear abounding,
Hideously pounding at cracked, dry lips
Ready to crawl through splintered, gray teeth.
A body twisted and riddled with cancer
Leaning over an ivory piece
Of one of the many puzzles she picked apart

Smashing hope and future longings
Taking breath from a helpless child
She smiled at his painful cries
For mercy as he winced his eyes
And let the murder finish coursing.
Watched his mother end her life
With nothing now to cling to

Follows the End, the silent killer
Dead and dark; frigid as ice
Her size and majesty prevail
She sweeps her dress along the ground
And as she does empires crumble
She leaves no trace or memory
No thing is now where she has been

As she nears the once proud mother
Her eyes burn hot with awful fire
Dire is her gaze, now turned to terrible death
With nothing left to fear or marvel her
In her new found robe of flames;
Elaborate crown of arcing brilliance.
She wraps her arms around

And as she does her royal cape
Becomes ever more intricate.
What was turned to nothing,
Is now another jewel on her sleeves.

Still she dances through the seas

Supernova (Part Five): My Missing Affections

Brush back your tail,
Oh love of the ages!
Stay for my company,
Darling of scarlet.
Sniff at affection
And turn up your nose.
Visit me soon
Where a young tree blooms.

Dance on my fingertips
Butter winged angel!
Fly from your flower throne
Bright Elven King.
Kiss on my ring finger;
Tickle me quietly.
Our guest now is tiring.
Go feast in your halls.

Your hand on my cheek
Bright Father of mine.
A kiss on my shoulder
Dear Mother of Day.
I lay in your bed,
And sleep at the foot.
In blankets of love;
A pillow of warmth.

Come back to me
Darling!
Now feast with me
King!
Please carry me
Father!
Don't leave me
Oh Mother!

I sleep in the wilderness;
Eat with the rats.
Clothe in disparity
With shoes stitched of pain.

I drink from a poison stream
And fight an old fox.
Crush all the butterflies
With stomp after stomp.

Now hastens a new friend
With bright silver eyes
And cunning affections
But cold, dead arms.

He whispers he's known me,
I feel like I've seen him,
But I never have greeted his face.

Supernova (Part Four) : Luna Stops Her Lullaby

Starless night, it holds no rest
Although the silence calmly sits
On all the world, in every corner
Where neither mouse nor beetle crawls
And Luna stops her lullaby

Painful day, he greets me now
Sickness within, hunger throughout
The kingdom came though none were pure
He laughs and jabs into my side
His crimson teeth now shining

Silent lover, long she sleeps
Keeping dreams inside her peace
While my heart grows black and hardened
And my blood grows thick and slow
How I long to join her now

Plump old Death, though crass and fattened
Moves on wings around the waste
Faster now than pagan deities
More common every passing morning
He skips no strangers feast

Dying World, that once was sweet
She kissed my cheek and made me smile
But now a cosmic killer has his hands around her throat
As she begins to choke all her children slowly fall
And our mother dies alone.