All That I Wanted to Say

All That I Wanted to Say

What you call sacrilege
I call staying alive
Picket signs or picket fences
Serenity O call thee faithful
All that I wanted to say
Is lost in dreams and empty vacant poetry
What you call wrong
I call free
What you call obscene
I call it truth divine
Because I am the one on this cross I bare
Not you
Never for you will I be led astray
Never for me will I walk away
All that I wanted to say
My soul runs free with the wolves of black and gray
My spirituality is neither here nor there
And in my dreams I am running free
A slave breaking free of his strains
And who are you and what do you do
You reap my heart and you bury my needs
And who are you
And what do you want
I can’t earn a living nor do I give a fuck
If I’m down on my luck it’s okay
Because I could never walk without a burden to bare
Nor do I care about all eyes on me
All eyes on thee
Who are you and what do you say
Will I walk down those golden streets one more time
Will I gain permit to be myself
Or do I have to follow where so many others fell
Who are you and what do you want
I paid my dues the moment I arrived
and I’ll pay them long when I’m gone
Where do I walk to
Who do I love
Who are you and what do you plea
All that I wanted to say is bleeding out of me
Can’t you see that
I’m a whore like any other else out there
With my hands to the sky
Prayers not knelt
Just another child of a flawed God
Prayers not knelt; it’s so easy
to illuminate this thought
Can’t you see that I am nobody’s hero
No one’s saint, just another heart trying to get out alive
I can’t play no game because there is nothing to save
All that I wanted to say is bleeding out of me
You call it shameless
I call it real as it gets
You call it pathetic, hey man
I am just trying to get along here
Can you spare me some time to change my ways
Because I’ve been un-perfected in those eyes of you
Can you give me some spare change so I can call for my executor
Shot down in senseless violence and serenity
Can you spare me some time because time is greedy
Another self-importance with its claws in our eyes
All that I wanted to say
What you call filth I call poetry
Poetry is ugly, the reality that holds us barred and tied
Poetry is dangerous in the hands of a few
All that I wanted to say, all that I wanted to be
I’ve been spat on for so long this is now my vanity talking
And healing, come over and heal me as I lay here
All that I wanted to say
Is bleeding out of me
Come here and stitch me up
Come on and give me my last rights
We all have a right to be silent
Come here and scream me with me
With me
In the silence
Silence
All that I wanted to say is bleeding out of me
Bleeding and repeating
Gone

-Jon Powder-

As I Am

As I Am

As I am, just a man
I feel the cold winds of autumn
Come blowing through my hair
As I am, a man in love
My heart burns with romance
Love is all I wish to give
As I am, just a broken man
Slowly pulling the pieces back together
Its time to grow up, growing up
Even when your fully grown
Is hard to do
When all you know is hurt
As I am, just a man
Who was once a boy, moving from place to place
I feel the winds of autumn
And it feels so cold today
So cold
As I am, just a man
Who was once alone, who was once left for dead
Sometimes, that feeling comes back
Here comes the melancholy
Here comes autumn
Peaceful at times, raging at others
As I am, just someone who’s searching
For light, for purpose, for healing
As I am, just myself
But who am I, sometimes I ponder that
Throughout restless nights alone and awake
As I am, just someone
Trying to stay warm
In these cold days

-Jon Powder-

Mama Tarot

Mama Tarot

Mama lay my tarot down
What do you see
You asked me of visions in nightmares and dreams
Astral projections of my last picture show
Do I show you what you want to see
What you want to be
Mama lay the tarot down for me

I walk to you
In astral dreams
Where it always feels like I am falling
I am falling now

And could you catch me
In some innocent make-believe dream
Mama Tarot, what do you see in me
When the heart beats scared
When the nightmares never seem to rest
Mama Tarot, what have you laid out for me

I can’t sleep
I can’t eat
I feel restless
I can’t even weep or shed a single tear
I walk to you
But I always end up walking to myself
Finding mirrors unshaken
Unbroken
I always end up searching for myself

Mama lay down the tarot
Father, what have you been dreaming of
Have you made anything of me
Have you made anything at all
Have you made anything of me
Have you found me inside your dreams
Have you drowned me in the alcohol

Mama lay down the cards
Read my lifeline, palmistry and astral dreams
Mama Tarot, have you foreseen me
In all of these dreams
Mama Tarot, have you been searching the astral dreams
Have you found me
Have you heard the screams

Have you lost me
Mama lay my tarot down
Lay them down to rest

-Jon Powder-

Ceremonial

Ceremonial

I could sit here and ponder for days
My unmaking and my addendum
I could sit here
And read my days and nights away
A sunny day swaying into Grey
There is a ghost that haunts
An atheist heart, one that was there long before
I ever caught its gaze
There is a ghost that haunts a desolate man
Wrapped in chains of self-shame and regret
A poet with his head in his hands
Naked and tired, cold in sweat and lost in though
A poet with his words scattered with the wind
Something atrocious like degenerate lore
When romantics end and beginnings anew
Dearly departed lovers rings
And no, no one can run back to the start
When we seek out our makers
When we only find destroyers
When we run away in seeking out the truth
The rain behind our saddened eyes
Because it’s so easy to believe that we were born free
Run away from here, this ceremonial routine
Ambient whispers and distorted echoes
Of all things golden, all things astray
I can see an old church off in the distance
I can see the angels, wallow as they cry
And do as you will and do as you preach
I can see you from here, miles and miles, decades far away
Inside these dreams, inside a prayer
You are all that I see, all that I use to know
An old photo, a ghost inside a dream
A song that I cannot sing, cannot hum along
When looking out at the world I see
A series of sadness, ceremonial dreams
There is a ghost that haunts these nights
A shame filled cry from a lost loves heart
As these days go by
All I can see, all I can dream
Is of better days, and even if I smile as is
There is a ghost that haunts an atheist heart
Of someone I use to know
And I don’t want to point out the irony any more than I have to

-Jon Powder-