It Died with Youth

There’s something inside me
That’s halfway done
And the longer I wait now
It gets in more ways gone
I’m just one more bloodshot American
Living the dream that the world can’t see
Clear enough

There’s a time and a place
For everything now
And that time and that place
Dictates everyone’s intentions
I’m in this time and this place
And I’m stuck and not moving
The ice is so thick
But it melts and I’m drowning

There’s a clock with no hands
And no ticking or chimes
It sleeps under Yggdrasil
And tells everything but time
And when the great tree blooms
As it does every few centuries
The clock stops and rewinds
And starts over again

There’s something inside me
That’s never done
Because if it’s done
Then see, there’s an object
It could be beautiful
It could be average

Do I really want to
take that chance?

This Whole City

This time next year I’ll be in Nebraska
Working dead end
Wages that can barely be paid
And I’ll remember everything you said about Ohio
Every little detail
Down to the bone

Where do you start
And where do I end
I can’t hear out of my third ear
I can’t listen too well anymore

Maybe I’ll take a flight up there
Sometime
Maybe I’ll stay and see all the shows
Bands I haven’t heard since teenhood
Funny, they still sound the same
They would
With too many late nights
Under incandescent lights
No drugs, no mind-fuck

This time next year I’ll be far away again
You called it true love, fate
But look what happened

Still

This time tomorrow I’ll be stuck in traffic
Still no radio, now no AC
Dreamers still dreaming dead, dead dreams
This whole city falling in around me

Robin Alexander the 5th

Everything’s funny when I’m drunk

And when I’m in a room full of drunks

Everyone gets the joke

They all know what I’m laughing at

And I know what they’re laughing at

We’re laughing with and at eachother

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from drunkards

It’s to not take everything so seriously

Because everything is funny when we’re drunk

But it remains an endless schtick, routine, whatever

When we’re sober

The Shyest People in the World

The candlelight was cool and bright

It could only steal away from the eyes

We look away for seconds on end

But who can tell us why

The nerves just won’t let us go

The nerves shake us bone cold and dry

A glass of wine for health and luck

And numbed but even conversation

The shyest people in the world will always speak

Exactly what they mean in the long run

Screwdriver

You offer up your respects

But your respects are as hollow as the tree on the hill

The etched markings of love of fleeting adolescence

On its trunk

That which can be stripped away

With three thrusts of the screwdriver

Effortless and fickle

But a mark remains

Hideously beautiful mark

Or is it I?

This screwdriver, buried so many times

Scars so deep that I must forever mistrust

A courteous whim from fellow man?

Am I at fault as I watch the field trip

Line up under stars

One Aristotle

The other Plato

I in between

The host laughing

Lacing a word ‘round an unwavering stance

The contrarian

The complex

Does it merely sag behind

Excess weight all along