the little adventures of big mike

paved into the basement

grass where I dreamed

like walls dont take the spirit

that you force them watch

like there's not a graveyard of pain

and hope and dreams covered

Just olive trees at the foot of a mount

Just a place where Christ found some respite

For a moment

But the olive tree groves there are over 1000 years old

They all share the same dna, which means a gardener 40 lifetimes ago thought those trees were too important to die

Too important to let fall to their own devices

The plant that sheltered a god-man

Outliving his infamy from being

Given more care than we gave him

And decided by a good man

That this plant gets to live

Tended for 80 generations

Saved and maintained

Preserved and protected

Valued and cherished

Appreciated and stewarded

A somber skeleton in a trenchcoat sat

Black leather shined by evening rain

Worn jump boots, too-wide-brimmed hat

Weathered signet ring, his one vain claim

Cigarette glowing where a tooth would lay

Smoke wallows upward, slow and thin

Dark hollows where no man's eyes should stay

Short tokes lift pale ribs long caved in

On a solemn watch to set a man free

We meet in a soft glenn before we go

Reclined in smoke under the grand maple tree

Greeted with the faces of men I used to know

A corpse beneath the amber leaves

A hush between old roots and new sky

No words exchanged, no need to grieve

As weary lungs give a final cry

They say death dines with the best of us

Walks with all of us, at least the once

They say love shines for the rest of us

To warm the cold and bitter months

But he'll wait for me with my father's pride

Give my grandfather's cheeky grin

He watched us live our tiny lives

Full of lovers, hard work, and sin

We'll walk the roads my life has drawn

Laughter, scars, and grace

We'll review every dusk and then its dawn

Tally the lines upon my face

He'll walk beside me for a while

We'll talk through a cigarette or three

Our path lies past the weary miles

To wherever I’m meant to be

Reward or wrath or where we are thrust

Perhaps just black greets us when we die

But those tired bones guided billions of us

No matter how we lived, or pled, or lied

I hope he sheds his kindly guise

I hope I neither flinch nor groan

I hope the final time my ribs rise

Said a kid was asking for it

A city block so afraid of it's own shadows

It made another martyr

"Trying to feel safe"

It made another murdered man's mother

Wail like the hells won't wait for God's justice

The police chief looks tired

And talks of decreasing crime

The news is all fires

And talks of criminals all the time

And the face of a spree killer

Is all that mind-fucking box plays

And somehow this city still prays for mending

Like a habit of the habitat, thoughts sending

A dog coming to a food bowl that just keeps coming up empty

The kids don't know a world without this

A couple degrees of separation

From a cheap rifles kiss

A couple weeks unemployment

From a street view of bliss

So we blame a child for being scared of the dark

And we blame a young man for having no faith in an Arc

And not a world that gives them reason to

Will you leave

Or would you grieve me

Not in a variegated marriage like this

Oft ogled, our qualia questioned

Identities inquisitioned over options

Pontificating people's private preferences

Just a little fried from all the times I justified

The petals that pique in me

The interest that speaks of we

And us, and brighter things

The hope and trust of two cheap rings

No

The terror in a loud lad

In a long-lunged loyal lover

Is the silent, subconscious second

The kind even the walls have reckoned with

Where the lacquer lining the love cracks

Where you begin see me as I do

Where a lack of drive or patience or tact

Has your heart go blind and your eyes too

To pheromone, to fantasy, to vows

To past, to future, to now

When former mirth becomes ire

Present worth becomes a liar

The passion of a fire burns away

The ashes of a petty battle win the day

No, I don't fear you will leave me

I am afraid how you behold me will be

An uncomfortable boy lived here once

And died here twice

An uncomfortable boyhood can lead a man to a life of comfort

Either from giving up all his dreams

Or from making his comfort one of them

An uncomfortable man lives here now

A picture on my dash, full of hope

Has had 11 years to ferment

The changes so great, without the rope

Of conciousness I would lament

My skin cracked and my hair left

But I am still him, mostly

A mountain of scars and a hearts theft

And he is half-dead, not lonely

Fighting with me and for me and for us

I stand beside my far lost youth

Fighting ignorance and fear and disgust

I killed my convictions for the truth

When I am tired of doing the right thing

And the moments melancholy molds the measure of a man into a cage

When the vice of another night sings

I think that there was no one my age

To fight for someone his age, or you

And in those moments, my just rage

And the phantom of a younger me, renew

The little boy in me carries ammunition

Singing ever forward, marching strong

To the young-man-I-was's position

The ghost of our hope long gone

To find a besieged man he doesn't know

Grimly holding on to our rope

Old by his walk with no room left to grow

Not equipped to fight with hope

A battlefield no longer between the two

Holding the slack cord that should be taut

The plight of betraying the child in you

Bodies know at birth

What a soul spends life to learn

The half life of hope is about three crushed dreams

Bleeding on the concrete like it was supposed to be that red

Breathing on the street, then a corpse on a white bed

Gunsmoke in the night and another of us dead

In the name of connection, we stopped talking

A half of society's deflection about "them"

A whole of society's reflection of when

In the name of dread, we realize

The half life of hope is not just one dead leader

Or wounded preacher

Or shot up teacher

Charisma with a vision

Does not beat the arterial incision of trying to find someone else to blame

The half life of hope is when you learn it has to be you

Or your mother, or our brothers

When progress demands more blood

And we are all that is left

Progress demands

It does not whimper what it needs

It crows loudly at our triumph, teeth crimson

If a death I wouldnt grieve it

A whiskey bottle from last season

Broke and half-empty for a reason

Wasted flour on the counter

Count the seconds, tally hours

If the rythm in my heart could just

Dissapear like the dead yeast

If the hymn in my head would lust

For anything, at least

A little

Normal

If I ever just get the hell

Out of my head,

I'll tell

All you ever need to know about

She was crying on my couch again

She was staring at the guns

You claimed I need to be a friend

But it's about time you were one

I know the pasts a bummer

You'll come out better than you were

But the things you did last summer

Nearly killed you, me, and her

Arsonists don't build bridges until

Theres none left to burn

If you think the well was poisoned, still?

If you leave your ships in harbour

If you leave your captain moored

Regardless of the rhyme,

The reason or the storm

You'll find on your pier

A broken man, safe

And a ferry docked, out of form

For captains love the waves

Making his decision, on its way down to the grass

Unsure before of which to take, he only gets one path

Another horse chews through the bloodweeds

Another rip in the belonging

She knows not of the source of seeds

At the edge of all I knew how to give

Her rider long forgotten to the quagmire

A rope can kill a drowning man

Just as easily as it can save

A neck was never made for plans

To jump: in an early grave

The chrysalis of a life is had

Whether you give them beauty or disgust

Hot and cold drives young lovers mad