Chasing the Dragon

I would have held you till the end of time,

but it ended a day to soon.

 

I’d have buried you in an avalanche of kisses,

but the mountain never fell.

 

The river dried up before it ever got to run;

too few days lost with you in the setting sun.

The forlorn ground lies cracked where our wellspring did pour,

its vessel sweats, overfilled gone its spicket

lacking even Liza’s bucket to release what's trapped within.

 

Each new day a fleeting symphony,

I watch them as they pass,

held in comparison against the mirror of the past.

It’s not the model but its principles pouring a foundation built to last.

I prefer the stoic’s life if without loves unending flame,

with only the mere passing sparks of beauty it dies upon the vine.

A life is built of sterner stuff and needs a corner stone that’s true.

 

I don’t dally in the passing trifle or the romantic interlude,

I am no summer soldier

the heart is not hung upon the shelf,

it’s fashioned like a bayonet and always pointing out.

 

Each year in solitude is better than a single moment in a life that’s lived untrue. 

Should Have

The end should have come for us both 

and not left me, 

burning at each end candles don’t last forever. 

Pathetic cowards dance before each step displaying their yellow brick road leading to empty promises and broken homes. 

A plate fixed for fools, 

spread out on a table with no end, 

its legs broken and lost under the weight of the lost and forgotten moments that build a home standing barren and shattered. 

Hung heads march toward the dawns new doom rising behind the veneer of a clean life, 

wrung out empty like a stone lost in the endless wind of time.