Emotions are complicated
Over and underrated
Pride so easily dented
Minds easily demented
Things aren’t as they appear
Facades built out of fear

The person that you know well
Is just the outer shell
And the tender meat
Is hidden underneath
The armor and thorns
And hypercritical scorn

Those who act the most tough and strong
Are the most easily strung along
Those who don’t take care to aim
Are quickly losers in the game

Those who think themselves immune
Instantly fall to the piper’s tune
Those who think they can’t be beat
Are naught to me but wasted meat.

Darkness flashes brilliantly
Within the dynasty of pain
The keeper watches diligently
On the fringes of my brain

Battling back insanity
Decaying teeth to grind
New situation’s gravity
At stake my unborn mind

Purgatory’s time on Earth
The sinner’s every battle
Eagerly awaiting birth
My birth cry is my death rattle

This psychotic obsession grows in the darkened confines of my soul
As I attempt futile repression of my psychopathic, needless bull
I’m trying as I’ve never fought to control these mental banshees
These emotions, are they all for naught or is paranoia one of my new psychoses?

Trying to understand my lunacy is bringing me more insanity
The more I try, the more I think, the closer I speed towards the brink
Everything seems like a conspiracy, although I try to boast neutrality
I find my escape again in drink, so into the solace of a bottle I sink

Is it such a stretch to see
Or is it false reality?
A whisper lost within a sigh
And the truth eludes the eye
Is it not so bad to be
Locked within one self, but free?
We trudge on in time to die
For the promise that our souls will fly

Freedom from this incarnation
Freed from flesh’s incarceration
And does belief create a Heaven?
Does disbelief create oblivion?
Is there true spitituality
Or do we simply cease to be?
Are there powers of our creation
Or is religion just desperation?

(played & recorded by Altered State of Consciousness)

I’m a poet, sometimes in prose
My life resembles a bush of a rose
The flower a fleeting sentiment
Only the thorns can be permanent

It’s far too easy to kill or die,
When the bee believes the spider’s lie
Caught in her web I philosophize
As my life flashes before my eyes

Picking the beauty, pricked by a thorn
One has to live with society’s scorn
Weeds strangle the weaker roots
Young bushes crunch under soldiers’ boots

Occasionally mingling with others’ lives
Sometimes I lose a rose to a lover’s knives