The Valley

I pull up, clutching my chest
as fire sears my lungs
in short, ragged breaths.

Before me lays a scene of
indescribable beauty, a scene
most people merely hope to see
before they reach their deaths.

I double, retching, fighting for
air as my body empties itself
upon the ground.

Only then, stomach settled,
lungs filling slowly with oxygen,
do I appreciate what I have found.

Winding lazily through a forest of pines,
a stream feeds a river,
the river feeds a lake.

As I watch, a strong northern wind
blows through the trees, leaving only
the distant cawing of birds in it's wake.

The sun sits low behind
distant mountains, glaring
across the valley at me
on the cliffs where I stand.

In the distance, a band of horses
runs through the stream: wild, free;
their flesh unmarred by brand.

I close my eyes, and I am with them,
roaming where heart and
hoof take me, subject to none.

Yet too soon my eyes are open,
the vision fading faster than
the setting sun.

I could find no words, and thanked this
place with a solitary tear.

But it was not the river, nor the wind,
nor the trees that replied.

As the sun hid itself from view, the
gunshot rang out, echoing for all to hear.

And I found comfort in the simple fact
that I had seen this place before I died.

the dream

i longed for
the freedom
of travel,
the open road,
the poetic soul,
and all that lay
within the dream
i had invisioned

i was given
the company
of convicts,
the crowding
of mind and body
resembling nothing
of the dream
i had invisioned

i was given
a family of four,
whose future rested,
not on themselves,
but on the promise
of uncharted territory,
chasing the dream
millions have invisioned.

meh

from light
to black
and back
again.

thus goes
the tale
of all
great men.

eh

and then it hits you-
all the shit
all the grime
all the things you never see
because you see them all the time

this poem really only makes sense if you know the exact nature of everything that's gone on the last couple of months, up until about yesterday.

the end has come to me
as it comes to us all.
in the dead of the night,
softly, quickly, painfully.

as i shuffled this coil,
i struggled not,
for my body was spent
after three months of toil.

i worked for her heart
and, finally (at last!),
things were as good
as they were at the start.

yet i needn't have bothered;
for all that matters in the end
are the pointless quarrels
between sons and their fathers.

Politics

what becomes of the men who die
without a name?
without a home?
without a life?

what becomes of the men who try
to change their fate?
to change the world?
to change back time?

what becomes of the men who lie
to their families?
to their countries?
to themselves?

fuck

and there i lay,
dead in a sea of confusion,
drowning as the tides of love
beat me incessantly against
the jagged rocks of the harbor
that once held refuge from the storm