The Universe Inside

Have you heard?

The scarcity of the soul

Blown fuses

For the regulator

Songs and sounds that soothe the savage soul

The regulator

Have you heard?

The altar boys dusting off the rust

Closer to the sun

For the regulator



Have you heard?

The scarcity of?the?soul

Blown?fuses

The regulator

Calendar boys?dusting off the?rust

The scarcity of the soul

Blown fuses

For the regulator



Have you heard?

Have you heard?

All that’s left now from before

Is the final twitch and spasm

Like it happened long ago

Distant across the chasm



You think you know where it’s at

The longing is stronger than that

All that’s left is the longing



You felt invincible

Anything was possible

Now all that’s left is the longing



Sleepless for days and days

Decisions and communiques

Ruthless, unsettled

And alone



The harder you try to fix it

Eliminate, deep 6 it

All that’s left is the longing



You think you know where it’s at

The longing is stronger than that

All that’s left is the longing



You felt invincible

Anything was possible

Now all that’s left is the longing.

Ballerina sunset against the sky

Crimson tinted Sunday slide

Underneath the overpass above the drain

That sluices and dithers on override



What were you expecting

What did you recall

Apropos of nothing

Chain reaction before the fall.



Customized detailed decked out and loaded

Subliminal flashing incandescent dream

Read between the lines to pass the time

I’ll be there waiting when your light turns green



You know and I know the bells that toll

Are just Pavlovian entropy

Orientation is so overrated

My sideways, reversible calligraphy

PART ONE

I can hear those ringing bells again

Carefully I check to see if I’m awake

A formless mass that would not hold its form

A crucial deviation from the norm



To think I once would have welcomed

In delight, this chaos that flickers in the night

And I’m a passive audience at best

Sentient and awake, for that I’m blessed



Words and thoughts that once were my stock in trade

Are strewn about like broken toys, mislaid

Melodies and remedies and kindly advice

I put them where I’ll find them when the time is right



A flash of light illuminates and gives me chills

Maybe I’m just a stand in for some greater ills

Maybe someone’s pulling at my strings

I reach above my head and don’t feel a thing



I claw and thrash and rip and tear the scenery

That only I and nobody else can see.

Mocked by something just beyond my reach

On a silent, barren, darkening empty beach.



They say that newborns experience their scenes

Like psilocybin lysergic psychedelic dreams

So, just like them I’m ready to be born again

Who can say for sure, who can say just when



I close my eyes, I know that I’ll soon sleep

The waking hours and questions slowly seep

Into one another, in my mind they smother

The tenuous reality, sneaking up on me.



I can hear those bells again



PART TWO

A descending ending

An ascending of the saint

I will wrangle and wrestle

Until suddenly it all feels the same



Count the irregular heartbeat

But the same dreams keep hanging on

Call on the zombie damage

But the same dream comes undone



I am the derelict conductor

Of the broken symphony

I’m the amateur director

On a badly lit mystery



Keep moving the pieces

Keep shuffling the deck

Keep singing the chorus

Of the slowest rendition