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HAIL!, TRIUMPH, HAIL! (or how Charlie Brown found the meaning of Christmas)
I’ve rummaged through the remnants of the lives of others
In vain attempts to arrest moments that were never meant for me.
I’ve found a god in the splintered embrace of an overtaxed heart
And saw a future in eyes that gazed on an unworthy version of me.
I’ve conversed with human devils and exorcised angels held
Within gentle skin, blanketing a curious fawning ego lost
In a forest of self doubt and forgotten yet apparent greatness.
I fell in love with a woman that I knew I would lose before we spoke.
I’ve searched the holy books, read the poets, only to find a junkie martyr.
His gospel was unyielding, and chained down my flesh like all faiths.
I’ve been castrated by a meek mind, a eunuch for procrastination,
The heir of false expectations, fallen ideas and broken promises.
Hail, horrors, hail
Repose in your despot
Witness, horrors, witness
To lost innocence
I beg, horrors, I beg
Be gentle to the injured
Never wanted babies 1, 2, 3 but will have 4, 5, 6 in the daydreams
Of a man privileged with lust, conviction, devotion, and commonality
With a specter of a romance that breeds hymns in the most cynical of hearts.
Never wanted normalcy but will walk hand in hand with it to blind
The nightmares of a once beaten man, dissolving into the dark alleys
As the terror Gestapo gives way to apathy, to prey on another weak soul.
My time for them was then, my present still in the ether, and my future near reach.
Never had an intervention, but have intervened with beauty where I can find it.
Spoken with minds that captured imagination that I thought was squandered
By the current Technological Industrial Complex, making the simple delicacy
Of a sensitive touch seem as out of reach as the universe that birthed our lives.
Hail, Horrors, Hail
Sit on your bloody throne
Witness, Horrors, Witness
To the sleepwalking memories
I beg, Horrors, I beg
Let them open their eyes
I always wanted the mother in the Filenes framed photo as I passed the blank
Faces waiting in the cattle line, forgetting to appreciate the next breath within moments.
Always wished the potential others saw in me would manifest in a product
That would produce a positive dividend, but reality is a fickle thing, touchy
And willing to hit back with but the slightest of insults to its generosity.
Always wanted a faith but the science of reason left me without a crutch
To release me from the burden of hobbling on the twisted ligaments that
Bind my personality with the soil of agile acumen and responsible thought.
Always hoped for the family that the images on city billboards told me to have,
But sickness was born through blood and I’ve swam in that sea without a bilge
To let the detritus find an escape plan, no Bp to blame but cosmic coincidence.
Hail, Horrors, Hail
Wipe your false tears
Witness, Horrors, Witness
To misdirected emotions
I beg, Horrors, I beg
Let their sweetness settle in
I’ve lived an eternity to realize that what I hold is more dear to me than the fantasies.
I have love of the simple, the acute, the elegant found in the companionship
Of the ones who’ve chartered through the tempestuous seas that I’ve created.
Yet still set sail every season with me, letting judgments dissipate into the wind
That violently strains the jolly roger that labels my existence, “‘ware all ye who enter“.
And to the new possibilities wading by the shore, I now can allow them to be let in.
The faith lacking is now full of the faith I have that my future steps shall be correct,
No metaphoric forks in the existential road, no mistakes beneath acts of forgiveness.
Though tears still lacking, the ducts of passion no longer fear release and repentance.
What was numb, now feels the subtle nuances in a shared smile, or common thought.
The mother dismembered from my body, though poorly stitched, is attached
Once again, still aggrieved, still defective and plagued, but at least searching for the cure.
The Horror, the disease, the regret of the past, though not forgotten, is fading in the halls of hope.
And no longer do I hold my two pence, waiting to be blinded by the ferry man on the river Styx.
Hail, Triumph, Hail
Reclaim your realm
Witness, Triumph, Witness
To the destruction of Horror
I beg, Triumph, I beg
Let them be at peace for ever
