Amazon page for Lizard Anthology
THE LIZARD SHALL RISE ANTHOLOGY
Reptilian Agenda: The Musings Of A Young American Poet was first released in April of 2004 via Lulu.com, a print-on-demand ebook and print service. It was 7 years and then some in the making, encompassing many facets of my poetic thought and my gradual evolution of technique and language into the steadily crawling visions of darkness that grew inside me.
This book is a compilation, a full collection, if you will. An anthology of my collected works and some background behind their origins, the mysterious places and hidden monsters that had sparked them. This is more than just poetry, it's my own personal confessional of a long and confusing journey. At present it is available at the site above. It is my testament to my art and the experiences, places and people that inspired it in any way, along the way....In it I settle the scores, even the uneven, exorcise my demons and attempt to close the lid on the darker aspects of my past.
"Dance w/ the skeletons of one's inner nature--and toss them aside in hopes of the coming of sun..."
NOTE: The Lizard Shall Rise will soon be released via Publish America as well, and will be available everywhere. Look for it on 22 May of this year!!
THE POET'S LIFE
The poet's life tends, historically, to be a tortured one. This seems to be due to the overwhelming tides of emotion and sensory views that give them inspiration, yet at the same time can curse them w/ the inability to view anything for simply what it is. A surreal storm of haunting mental images, photographs of the real, unreal, & unimagined crawling into the mind's eye and then picking up speed until the poet is in an ecstatic, dervish-like frenzy of thought. This is the overriding dilemma, the "Catch 22" of the poet's experience. He can describe the world as no one else, yet in so doing cannot experience it like everyone else. The poetic inspiration, the Muse, can be a cruel mistress, fleeting and maddening yet seductive and overpowering. Raw animal passions, anger, intense visuals of an underworld lying just beneath the surface of normal thought...
WALKING DEAD
6 FEBRUARY 1996 "All our heroes are dead. And so am I; I'm walking dead."
SHATTERED 30 JULY 1998 NOBODY CARES 21 NOVEMBER 1998 REDHEADED STRANGER 13 JULY 2002 SAVAGERY 4 OCTOBER 2003 ONCOMING TRAIN 8 OCTOBER 2003 THE VOID 17 Jan 2004 THE LAUGHING MAN 23 Sep 1997 IBI DA, IBI DOO 4 DECEMBER 1997 Take a gamble if you might Drifting aimlessly all day Whatever, forever in everything As you say to yourself, whatever, forever....
SOME SAY 18 OCTOBER 2001 THE ROAD 21 SEPTEMBER 2002 7 April 2004 A Movie in L.A. 28 April 2004 Enter an altered cast...
Friendly false faces of a secret wicked past Ancient reincarnated Who owns this film?
The Evolution of Lizard
EXCERPTS FROM The Lizard Shall Rise
You're walking with the crowd around you
Yet you're all alone
Surprised that anyone has found you
And all you used to know is gone
You had it all once in the past
But you burned out, flamed out, dropped out
I guess you knew it wouldn't last
Now they think they've got you figured out
The world knows what's on your mind
But they don't really care
And for so long you've seemed to find
That maybe you weren't even there
You once had a bright future
But the dark clouds forever loomed
And those few who would choose you
Said you were most attractive when you were doomed
They made you dead but had nothing to say
They'll all forget the life you led
Just hoping you'll fade away
No matter what you'll be walking dead
I'm not sure what's happening to me
It's not clear enough to see
Though it's shining right in my face
Shattered memories I can't erase....
I long for a life I never had
For an innocence stolen away
Memories will drive you mad
When it didn't happen that way
I ruled my world once
Now I'm another pawn
Another street wandering dunce
Asking where everyone has gone
I never knew those I called friends
They don't remember their own lives
Caught in a whirlwind that never ends
Nothing that you know survives
I once stood atop the world
A child with nothing to fear
Into the abyss I was soon hurled
Not knowing why I am here
Why couldn't I have one good day
Why can't I be whole again
The pieces are scattered and here I stay
Once more, I'm shattered again
Maybe everyone was lying
Maybe it doesn't even matter
No one would hear if I was crying
As once more I am shattered
A season in hell
I would have burned for you
But it's all just as well
That fire's thru
And what you see is all that's left
Walking thru a living death
I've been consumed
in the darker hours
Maybe we were doomed
by some greater power
And I guess it's all just a game
The object is to drive you insane
Nobody cares
So you said to me
But I was caught there
You couldn't set free
The specter down the road
haunting you in all the cold
You said I was hurtful
You said I was mean
You said I was heartless
And all in between
But you still told me what to do
In the end I was just trying to be like you
Nobody cares
But I still do
When the old love flared
It was for you
But you would hate me thru and thru
As I was trying to be just like you
False friends
Cold hearts
Dark souls
Torn apart
All of your indifference
I've been on the dark side ever since
I loved to hate
So it's true
I tried to be just like you
You awakened me
Only to chase me away
When we were at play
I could see a lost youth
and I saw you dancing
Doing the dance of doom
But you awakened me
The fire from your passion
Burned me alive
Set the spirit alight
Thru a dark and lonely night
Queen of winter
The winter of my years
The birth of my fears
A redheaded stranger
Creeping thru the mist
Playing games w/ me
But you would insist
You never knew
And you didn't know
You awakened me
You are dead in my mind
as clouds cover your sky
And darkness fills your days
Don't you wonder why?
But I live on w/ my dream
All you did was wake me
In the end you couldn't shake me
A redheaded stranger
passed thru my dreams
Queen for the days
of my innocent youth
My dreams live on
Where you have gone on
but no longer reside
anywhere inside.
Beyond the pale ghosts
beyond the veil of our world
There's a bus rolling thru
it carries a spiky haired child
As he travels he makes notes
of the behavior in the bush
The stalking beasts
Teeth bared for the kill
The other children are gone
having left for other adventures--
together
And now the boy
sits alone
in quiet reflection
Watch out!
Run away if you can
The scavengers and hunters are here
Blood in their sights
Death on their minds
They swoop in
and the boy is gone.....
years later a disheveled
man stumbles by
a monument
A simple pile of stones
And now he knows
He can see it all
The hunger, the bloodlust
The slaughter
looking back he sees
the laughing children
Running away as the
beasts carry him off
He and the boy
were both there
He lived but was never the same
one of the beasts protected him
and now is tame
Except to slaughter on command
Now he is the one who laughs
Though in maniacal form
Nothing is behind his eyes
it's too empty to ignore
Nursing the wounds he'll always carry
While looking to inflict new
He's consumed by
Mourning and Revenge
His next victim is you
The oncoming train
Barrels down forlorn tracks
I stand in the middle,
Daring it to come
Demanding it to bring an end to my pain
Blood pounds inside my brain
Then----Then-----
Nothing is done.
I wake up and it was just another dream
deceiving me about what is truly in me,
just like all my other dreams
Nothing is truly what it seems
If it were, I'd have
Glowing red eyes and no one near me
Would live---or want to
And this is the part of me I wish would die
Not this time, I'm afraid
The train stopped and reality startled me
I saw beauty juxtaposed
w/ stark terror
Is this what I've become?
Why won't that train come?
Why is it I can walk away
not knowing if dark forces still reside
Not knowing if they will stay,
Mocking me
Or what I pretend to be.
Alone in the void
w/ mythic creatures
Dwelling in my catacombs
Feeding on my silence
I stand, hobbled
Pieced together, cobbled
Back bent
w/ a weight unasked
Restless, impulsed to dance
To drum, to scream
In this culture, it's undesirable
We must be proper
The dollar reigns supreme
In the sterile halls of
Ready-made, manufactured reason
The tribe has no place to go
The wilderness has no season
I must quest alone
Let us be truthful,
--I found the void on my own.
They call me the laughing man
I'm out here all the time
Nobody else can understand
Why my life is always fine
What is it that makes me laugh?
Why is it that I smile?
When I once had my life torn in half
When I was lost awhile
I am on the outside looking in
And I do enjoy the view
I'll never be inside again
For all they put me through
No, I laugh at the stupid ones
Who traded in their souls
Who wanted to forget where they came from
Just actors playing roles
They call me the laughing man
I'm crazy, yes, that's true
But so few could hope to understand
That's why I turn to you
You bring a smile to my face
You know you always did
You always filled an empty space
That in my heart was hid
Ibi da, ibi doo
If it's all the same to you
Though it doesn't matter to me
You're so blind you can't see
This is really how I feel
Everything I say is real
It seems we face the end of the day
And ibi da, ibi doo is all we can say
Try to make the ramble right
People talk, but make no sense
It seems that you have no defense
And you just follow blindly along
You don't seem to care it's wrong
What else can I say to you
Ibi da, ibi doo
Listening to what you say
Whatever curves you may have thrown
It almost feels like getting stoned
Here, there, everywhere
All I get is just blank stares
It's just another day I go thru
While you say ibi da, ibi doo
No matter what the moment brings
Stumbling into yet more harm
Time's run out on your alarm
Just the same day repeating itself
Maybe you're just not yourself
It's the same old day, all we do
Is say ibi da, ibi doo
Some say I've lived in extremes
Some say I live in my dreams
But the dreams aren't always unreal
They sometimes tell how you really feel
Some say I wasted a lifetime
Chasing some ideal
I've aged beyond my years
Been consumed by my fears
Some wounds take forever to heal
Sometimes I don't know the deal
Some say I lost my way
Chasing some ideal
Settling into a comfortable place
Trying to fill the empty space
With someone else behind the wheel
Driving to a true unreal
Some say I'm a crazy fool
Chasing some ideal
Some say I've lived in extremes
Some say I live in my dreams
But the dreams came true of how I feel
And you're here now, not unreal
You are my ideal
I'm traveling again
in a brand new direction
This road shouldn't end
or at least I pretend
as the shadows pass me by
No need to wonder why
Different dreams
and nightmare scenes
on a mind's movie screen
Hitting the road once more
Ramble on the road
and ramble with my words
Trying not to sound absurd
Just repeating what you heard
When you said yourself
I was beyond help
as lost as a tourist in town
Not enough riches to go 'round
Now I'm sure I'm upside down
On the road once more
I get up and I get down
You don't know who you'll see
Is it really still me
Or only what you wish I'd be
Creatures come out in the dark
You told me not to start
The night has come apart
Pieces fall around my head
My mind's the last to be read
Beyond this road of yours
They can't hurt me anymore
Watch me hit the floor
Only to reconstitute
In my brand new lizard suit
Crawling into the dark
When I come out at night
No need to find the light
You say it's going to be alright
As day turns into night
On the road once again
Screaming ghosts
invade my secret sleep
Haunting demons
Sinking into halls of inner darkness
Insidious, monstrous, digging deep
They whirl into my trance
Change their form,
seduce w/ dance
Summon'd by longing for
What has died
--by unholy chance--
Assuring me, though they have lied.
I follow them into the
corridors unknown
Until they send me,
naked & bloody,
into my old familiar hell
All alone.
I saw that movie view
--Film of my life--
I never knew the director
Though impassion'd he must have been
A casual selector
of moments once unseen
Unimagined in mental scripts
This could be rehearsed
if I really thought of it
Carefully orchestrated days
Though I wish no more of it.
Cold, stark & transfix'd
Each more calculated than the last
that's where you come in.
Stand there w/ your fiery green eyes
Only to never cross the road
Never to play your part
Not to play the scene
Not to come to me
Truth o'er look'd
Importantly overstated
You knew it--& you were spook'd
We did our daily part
We did our dance & never touch'd
You cannot know nor can I
How we were drawn together
Or carelessly apart.
Why project it in empty theatres
w/ empty-faced crowds?
Slacken'd & unaware?
Do you know you are still there
Do you even care?
I do, but I shouldn't
So I'll sit back & watch
Just like you wanted
To blur my eyes & view
This picture show most vaunted.
