Lingering On

How often we've perceived
Better promised parts,
Believing in our deceiving
Or hoping for some small spark
Of lingering meaning.

How should we wrestle with our pasts?
How should we cope with knowing
The sun stands still and we do all the moving?

So we shift our shoulders and avert our gazes.
We don't always get to recognize
What you and I will become.

Maybe we all just need our hearts to break,
Sometimes,
We need the ice cleared from the river.

Winter Ballads, vol. 1

Digital Hymns

Digital hymns,

Hummed along to, from our mouths and modems.

Digitized sleep,

Dreaming in front of electronic screens,

Digitally and cohesively recording entities and discourses,

Conflicting in size and purpose.

We speak in tabs, clicks, and faces;
Monuments of the momentous and banal
Built from the ones and zeros of binary.

We already count aloud the digital sheep
To keep ourselves awake
Through all of the hours
In hopes that the small light
That we all keep close at hand
Will lighten the burden
Of human hope and doubt.

Onset of Brightness

American flag clad,

National headlining boy

Dancing across the summer grass

Five months from now.

Arise,

Infinite summer, 

Limited grace upon age.

Life lights lingers lovely and lonely;

All together, all in the dark.

Be brave and take care,

For the odds are on your waking.

Don't take the sucker's bet

Of selling yourself short;

You're the only horse you've got in the race.

How brave can you prove to be?
How scared are you tonight?
The world is supposed to end every night,
Your feet meet the floor the next day anyways.

Crow Call (Near the River) - Keith Jacobshagen

Leaning

You have been lied to about time,
About how it ebbs and flows.
It will speed up when you're among friends,
Or falling in love as you know,
But it's at its fastest when you're where you don't want to be.
The longer you stay,
From fear or a slight bending of the path,
The more of you that gets away.

Are we honest with ourselves when we rise from our beds?
About how we wish we were better at keeping our friends together.
That we really tried with our first, second, third chances.
Maybe we should have burned a little brighter, danced a little harder;
If I could give you my good colors I would.

Should have,
Should have,
Should have,
Never means a thing.
I am who I've been
And I try for a better past;
Please kindly remember
How I'm still bending to this.

Where We Go

If we do not get out from under
This six feet of apathy,
Let the epitaph simply read:
Expired from lack of exploration.

We came to settle into this belief,
That there are no more blank spaces on the map,
All the frontiers have been assessed and categorized;
The western expansion now stops at our door steps.

When we lose our dreams we lose our stories.
Now we think there are no more dragons left to slay,
No more princes and princess to save;
Fantasy has become forgotten, no longer an inspiration.

We've replaced the uncomfortable awe of the unknown
For the pleasant numbing of the familiar.
A pause and a rest, in measured time,
Is fine to be sure but we have left much to see.

Row upstream,

Sleep somewhere new,

Maintain eye contact with strangers,

Try art, try music, try books;

At least try to find some place new.