Here · Stands · But · One · Man

Meet me by the treeline, meet me by night
Curl a smile upon your cheeks,
Dance with me in the moonlight,
Listen as the forest speaks.
She'd keep our hearts entwined, like the vines of her own
Eight years out of the capital, now we're both a little warmer,
So haunt me now calcium smile,
Haunt me a ghostly silhouette,
Listen as the forest speaks,
Let us live between the hours of sleep.

Maria, meet me by the treeline, meet me by night
As a smile pierces my lips it creaks,
Dance with me in the moonlight,
and listen as the forest speaks.
You've never heard the truth, Maria, no you never heard it from me,
Because I've whispered to the wildlife parlance,
They don't listen, yet they hear what I say,
They don't understand so they only delay,
Now I bring you here for a single dance and place a rose between my teeth,
I bow to you, arm outstretched, arm underneath,
You curtsey, Maria, you drop your head,
A single dance,
And not a word said,
The moon our only witness.

As we dance, the forest interjects and brushes the hair from your ear,
It gently kisses your temple and reveals in hushed whispers,
I wish I'd reached you sooner, but Maria I barely knew,
That what I told the forest every night,
That what I told the forest was true,
But every night I laid my head against the trunks of the oak,
And every night these words were spoke:
"It's wrong to love you, but I know I do,
So once we've danced, please finally choose,
You can kiss my cheek and say goodnight,
or you can lay with me til' morning light"

The forest, my love, my love,
She spoke to Maria just as I knew she might,
Maria kissed my cheek,
and wished me goodnight.

Skipping your red shoes on a sidewalk, cardboard box in hand,
Skipping away with someone else's mind, oh innocent Anne,
Sally's skipped down these same streets before with her blue shoes on,
If she believed she'd skip back to 'er house,
she'd be believin' wrong.
Oh, Anne you thief, you thieve belief,
You stole a young girls mind,
You took away the blue of her eyes, you took away her smile,
Oh, Anne, you see, socially, Sally never had the time,
Her mind as blank as her stare,
Her hands are as empty as mine.


Annie, ya creep round with a brain in a box,
Tiptoe your way back down to the bar,
You make the young boys all quiver and start, to think that maybe, you'd be theirs.
That you'd linger your kiss on their cheeks or lips,
Embraces meant for Sally's hips,
You take the young boys by ties and belts,
and lead them outside where their hands are felt,
On the back of your neck, on the tips of your ears,
A thief of belief, minds and boys without fears,
Oh, Anne, leaving Sally behind was a crime,
and carryin' her thoughts, distasteful, a sign,
of bad intentions, of poison hearts.

There's a place on the dark side of Mars,
where a man in a suit rests his arms,
tired of carrying all the weight of the Sun,
tired and tiring of his tired lungs.


There's a limit on how far a man can go,
before he's removed from thoughts and "I still know".
There's a distance to how far memories can travel,
Shortened more by the radiation and the cosmos it must battle.


Yet on Earth, where you couldn't be more removed,
You think of the man and his dirty red suit,
How his hat sat on the side of his head,
All the words you didn't believe, still, words that he said.


There's a threshold for thoughts and how far they extend,
Made harder by orbits and the way that they bend.
Different planets, you thought would save you the grief,
So you built up a rocket and sighed with relief.


Yet your rocket, well-crafted, a glorious sight,
The chair in the cockpit, strapped in with a fight,
And his suit made of cotton was not for protection,
But the atmosphere, no match, for his hurt or aggression.


There's a restriction, invisible, on where your mind can wander,
You thought it would be limited to the sky you stand under,
But you found the man on the dark side of mars,
Was the man that you never stopped thinking of.

You came to see the circus, trapeze artists in the first act,
Shoulder blades casting swinging monsters at their back.
Chalk hands tied to limbs of fragile rope,
Voices dimmed by the hearts stuck in their throats.


From my seat, four rows back and seven in,
I focus on the bars, where human tragedy begins,
For my heart rests as high as each artist,
The reason you still dream it stolen by a thief.


Reaching a height enough to whisper in Heaven's ear "I'll see you soon",
Knowing that gates oft close to the liars of the clouds,
Mothers that told angels they'll never fly like they once did,
Hypocritical at best, spurned offspring grow up to cheat death.


On the final swing, they kiss the sun,
Sparks in their eyes, radiating their soul,
Their legs coiled, now unwound and free,
So their wings can find fronts blown in from the eastern sea.


Trapeze artists in the first act.
It's only downhill from here, the lions and tigers and clowns
At intermission, you'll expect fire and swords,
But you'll find silence is yours.

That's not at all how I wanted to tell you,
but the dying, rising sun, still seeps into my soul,
I can't help that it speaks to me more than you ever did,
and I've given up on the things I can't control.


Please don't take this as a sign, confirm that what you're doing's right,
It's easier to lead a horse to water, a horse not gifted sight,
Yet remember that a beast's a beast, a fiend is always a fiend,
Beasts, they trample veins and hearts and everything in between.


Don't build a platform and be a crane,
Don't industrialize yourself for him.
Don't sculpt a statue of marble stone,
Don't recreate what you once called home.


Homes are no longer homes when they sink into the ground,
Homes are no longer homes when they melt into the ground,
Homes are no longer homes when they fall into the ground,
Homes are no longer homes when they slip into the ground,
Hearts are no longer homes when they melt into the ground.

It's sad to say that I was the plates that lifted the waves,
The tower of water and sea life that ended up on your bathroom floor,
It's sad to say that you wasted away, still by the end of today,
You'd be the first to say, that your lighthouse is dark on the ocean shore.


And how you toy with the sailors, the ones that fell face first on the street,
The ones with bloody noses, the ones the sun still beats,
I wonder if they feel lucky to be breathing in a dirty air,
I wonder if they're hearts are broken by the planks at which they stare.


If their lungs weren't full with water and salt, they'd scream out to the sky,
Not knowing if the earth's still spinning, or if the moon's still shy,
If any face they wished to see, it be their wives then his,
To tell his lunar face that now the tides can be dismissed.


How you rest, your legs entwined across his crater face,
Wrapped around his pale white collar.
You tell him to speak the earth, lunar, so you whisper softly,
"Lunar, move the ocean waves, make them break his heart"


Now your married to a red planet, a planet that we once feared,
You slowly gravitate towards, the empty, desolate sphere.
With it, the trouble you wreak upon the earthly seas,
the earthlings that inhabit it, their famine, war, disease.


A pale blue dot is all that's left of us,
The moon it moves like a snake, slithering between the stars,
Caressing Mars, laying it's head upon the red planet's chest,
Waves of dust and soil, wasted sex and sweat,
Those always suited you best, but they're deceit that you'll regret.

When I first noticed you, I remember you knew how to fly,
You practiced in your backyard, with a camera you'd try,
To capture yourself, mid-flight, just to prove you can,
I thought that I could be the one, your real life Peter Pan.


But fairy tales and superheroes must always face their foe,
In this story, the mirror is the enemy, and the villain it does show,
His face looks like the boy who apparently stole your heart,
A boy you lay with occasionally, and the boy with which you'll part.


The middle of this comic book, has been told a thousand times before,
A boring narrative, no charm, no wit, no love, no more,
So I'll spare a retelling of the bad times by the binding,
And I'll spare your teeth the painful grit, and the ever-increasing grinding.


Here we are, the pages skipped, a conclusion left un-wrote,
But a conclusion that you wrote tonight, a conclusion and a note,
As the streetlight hides your face, your shadows dance on grass,
I'm a prisoner to you, and you're talking to me through glass,


You say: The truth is that this cannot work, that it'd all be just a dream,
A dream that keeps turning dark, a nightmare it would seem,
A dream I had, but have forgot, and a Neverland I erased,
Peter Pan, my boy, I loved you but, over are my flying days.


Head down, hands tight, I wrap them around the wheel,
I watched every headlight on the way home, hoping I could steal,
A glance or just a touch before I finally departed,
And I'll stay away as long as I can,
So we don't keep going back,
back to where we started.


The road home is tired, and it looks bleak. I really do stare at every headlight in my rear view mirror hoping for something. Anything. A sign. I know it's the end and I am glad it didn't end with the word hate. I am glad it didn't end with the word love. I am sorry, but I will not close this door on you, it will always be open. I know yours is locked and I threw away the key myself, but, my door has no lock. It will always welcome you. Come in, put your feet up in front of the fireplace. I have a bear-skin rug and a coffee mug with your name on it. I'll wait here, the fire is so cleansing. Come back, one day, please.

I'm no Edgar Allan Poe, but I know a raven from a doe,
Oh, Johnny, friend of mine, she's not the cervine kind,
A stag without it's hind, she's not the cervine kind,
The chamber that she raps on, the chamber - a blood store,
with ebony wings and snaking tongue and exclaiming,
Nevermore.


She raps on a bust and in your ear her tone, heard not before,
Shapeless shadowing wings of black come knocking at your chamber door,
taken hostage, the key, to your own chamber's door,
a key, you see, she wrought when hearts at war,
the key you see, but must never see, not now, not nevermore.


Beneath the feathers upon which she surely would soar,
Reptile's skin, tarred, leathery and blackened for,
Disguised as a raven, or a doe, or beasts of forgotten lore,
Picking at your weakened corpse lain out across the floor,
Picking at your compost skin, defences, nevermore.


Arriving at your chamber, tapping at your door,
An honest man with words unspoken, truth is what he wore,
"Why won't you heed my words, young man, to you I must implore,
Hide in your badger's hole, and spare your soul much more"
To that he threw me out the hollow, "I've never been so sure"
but back into her waiting claws he fell, nevermore.
Again, back into waiting claws he fell, nevermore.