Shadow Boxer

you looked real hard

  You could find some open

  Cracked slightly ajar

  If you gave it a push

  It went one of two ways

  Wide open into nothing

  Or slammed back in your face

  I tried the nicest ones first

  Yet those were shut tight

  So I went to the common ones

  The days turned to nights

  Days into weeks, into months, into years

  The open doors became

  The ones I most feared

  Resounding thuds

  Pounding out in my brain

  Accumulated rejections

  Intensifying pain

  So have you ever been there?

  I think maybe, to some extent

  But I never saw your footprints

  On what was my side of the pavement

  Matters not, however

  On this plane I roam

  You may call it your turf

  But it’s not yours to own

  Rather, this realm is for all

  Here for us to use

  It is here I find

  Favorable options from which to choose

  Much more to my liking

  Much more to my style

  And as I now find my freedom

  You seem more in exile

  So you can say what you want

  And I’ve been there before

  Just a ragged, lone man

  Who found open doors

  I have a hunch

  And I have a suggestion

  Maybe your ignorance

  Stems from your lack of perception

  Perhaps you’ll find freedom

  Just release your lament

  And make your own footprints

  On my old side of the pavement.

  Share the Moonlight With Me

  Step forth into bright darkness

  Share the moonlight with me

  Bathe in it, lather your carcass

  Let your flesh wash out to sea

  Strange I still saw the event

  After the cold steel burned a hole

  Yet nothing I could do to prevent

  His penchant for claiming your soul

  Was I alive or was I dead?

  It was all so clouded with dream

  But now I know beyond doubt’s thread

  All is real under the moon’s beam

  Now here we lay, cold and stiffened

  The tide washing over our skin

  If I can find a way, I will get revenge

  And get back what’s ours again

  But for now, I beg you, please

  Share the moonlight with me.

  Ebb and Flow With the Lake of the Devil

  Scars emblazoned on the chest of my soul

  From the everyday battles in this life-long war

  Each and every last mark bears my crest

  Born of the Lake of the Devil, where all the imps nest.

  I know I’m not evil, it’s merely a curse

  For the flags on my castle keep me bred with the worst

  Fight them I have for one thousand years

  With no end in sight and no victor that’s clear.

  If I could reach out beyond to make some new allies

  The siege might be broken so morale can uprise

  A victory for sure, in the imps’ defeat I would savor

  Momentarily a core, then work to keep in my favor.

  Regardless of such it’s a false sense of advantage

  Matters not the strategy or how much I rampage

  It’s gone a thousand years and will last a thousand more

  The definition of winning is to survive in this war.

  The Saddest Man in the World

  (Part One)

  Alone

  I’ve been alone for so long

  You’d think I’d be used to it by now

  But no

  I’m alone.

  Friends are all gone now

  They’ve had to move on

  I’m left behind

  I have some new friends

  But they’re not my friends

  My friends are gone now.

  Family comes by from time to time

  I try to let them know what’s going on

  But too ashamed am I

  I talk of it to only One

  He can still learn from it.

  My wife left a long time ago

  She went with my friends

  It’s good for her, though

  She carried the burden of me and our children

  Only to collapse

  But she is with my friends now.

  Again I tell you

  I talk of it only to One

  I tell him that continuing bad habits

  Lead you to have no self respect

  At this point, I’m not sure

  That I ever had any.

  Too late for me

  Too late it is

  So alone I go

  To wait and to wallow

  For this shame to end.

  Well I am that One

  And I admire that sad man

  What he tells me are the pains

  That he suffers in life

  To put yourself through it

  Day after day

  Years upon years

  And still go on

  To me, he is the saddest man in the world.

  Some Time to Myself

  Walking through the meadow

  Pines on all four sides

  I think of all the things we know

  Eying the raven as it glides.

  Attention shifts to a noise in the woods

  Snapped twig raises up my brow

  A squirrel takes off with its mouthful of goods

  Just the same you left me not long before now.

  Into the woods I follow the path

  Blanketed by needles and cones

  The distance you made is worse than the wrath

  Of the coyote who howls and moans.

  Arriving at my cabin, I unlock the door

  Rusty hinge shrieks make me wince

  Battling the notion as my keys hit the floor

  Feeling shame with her mention ever since.

  So I sit in my chair, playing cards at my table

  I recall the times we had when it was well

  A drop rolls onto the bottle’s blue label

  With a smile in my heart I’ll have stories to tell.

  The Day Grief Died in the Sky

  From a deck overlooking beyond

  Reminiscing, some memories fond

  The view is pleasing to my eyes

  Lost in thought, my head towards the skies.

  The mesh of blue and white in sight

  I follow the clouds weightless in flight

  Drifting as they do, she’s in my head

  Every look, every touch, every word she said.

  Those wisps alter shape so high in the air

  One image to another with hardly a care

  As I kiss softly her cold stone hand, I see

  That just like the clouds, I’ve let change come to me.

  Dreams

  Dreams

  Always tell me something

  Puzzling, enchanting

  Difficult to put my finger on.

  Often times it’s utter confusion

  And I’ll sit, half awake

  Half asleep, in a coma

  Drone to the world in my mind.

  Dreams

  It’s like a movie

  Except it’s my stories, my ideas

  I’m the star, the lead role.

  Not someone else’s interpretation

  Of the world at large, rather

  My own thoughts I was unaware I had

  Towards my realm, myself, and all things within.

  Dreams

  Mine come from the lost conscious

  The one I can’t find while awake

  It can speak to
me, yet I can’t talk to it.

  Completely objective it is

  In every obscure message it gives

  Are the truths of myself I come to terms with.

  Dreams

  The greatest therapist in my life.

  Forgotten Destination

  By any means, by all means

  It’s what it means

  To be in this war.

  To feel frigid ice water

  Run through your veins

  And the hot blood

  Pouring on and on form our wounds.

  Is it mine?

  Is it hers?

  Or was it his?

  It’s all insignificant

  In this ebb and flow

  This teetering battle

  Seemingly destined to remain balanced

  Swaying on the edge

  Of our species’ fate.

  Was it not

  The Origin of Species

  Theorizing it all comes down

  To survival of the fittest?

  So daunting to ascertain

  The final outcome

  In this conflict of minds.

  Momentum swings on a pendulum

  From one side to next

  As the average intellect lead engagements

  Further continuing the perpetual repetition of history.

  And if Darwin’s beliefs hold true

  Another innocent, introverted, naïve genius

  Will create the means

  By any and all means

  Of deceit and coercion

  Via desperate hands on the puppet strings

  That superior mind shall see the downfall

  Of the post-mensa’s inferior ability to be wise.

  And the fate of our species

  Everyone involved and otherwise

  Will bear witness to having swayed too far.

  For modern times do allow the next Einstein

  To provide the tools

  That end us all in one swift blow

  As we plummet off the edge

  To our forgotten destination

  Extinction.

  The Saddest Man in the World

  (Part Two)

  Alone

  You thought you were alone for so long

  I bet it doesn’t seem that long after all

  I know

  You felt alone.

  She was the world, your wife

  Was everything good that is in it

  You may not think I do

  But I know

  They are my only memories.

  You had a lifetime of memories

  Mine, less than a handful of years

  Sometimes I still cry for her

  I can only imagine what you went through.

  I remember the day you talked to me

  You told me that you had no self-respect

  I felt so bad that my grandfather could feel this way

  But I then realized

  You were redeeming yourself by warning me.

  You hung around for a long time

  Long enough to know who really loved you

  Your family, yes, we were there

  Your daughter, son-in-law

  They took great care.

  The rest would stop by

  Including myself

  Just to show you we loved you

  And there you were, though we never did say

  Matters not, because actions speak louder than words.

  The last time I saw you

  You didn’t recognize me at first

  Though you took my word for who I said I was

  We joked, we laughed, promised we’d see each other again

  I know you felt who I was before things turned for the worse.

  Then I got the call, just three days later

  You’d left that afternoon

  Yet you waited for daughter and son

  To see you off

  Your wife waiting beyond the