Such

To walk through the world

When fear has disappeared

To taste rain as it drips down my face

To learn the language of birds

To hear a crowded room in the distance

As it echoes within me

Like a window only cracked open

Focus on the voice

As it’s spoken

Pain and tears

Sweetness and the bitter

Flow in and out like this water

Floating on winds, whispering a song

My voice carries over time and space

When woken to the waking dream

And nothing is

As it seems

I know you’ll feel this too

You dream and I touch

Gifts, to believe in such

Obscenities 

As soulmates and birthdates

The insane breed the pain

And the sane,

Well, they breed the same

I’ve lacked for so long the words

I live one and the same

Contradict, whore,

Taste

And taste more

Still nothing compares

Each day to practice and prepare

For a life not even death could destroy

Hearts, aces, clubs, and diamonds

What’s red turns black

What’s black turns red

Until the day we end up dead

Taste blood on your tongue

And pray the day comes

To choke you the way you deceived

Reflection, kill the sedation

And taste each tear of that ocean

One day we’ll both see

How much of it is need

Because it doesn’t matter 

That much less to me

ⓒ 2001 Shawn Michael Quinn

For Liz

On the verge of tears

We sit and speak your name

Love and Joy flowed from your presence

And still it circles us in this absence

No way to put these emotions into words

No way to settle this overflowing

Time were left with as it's been taken from you

Somehow I know a greater gift has been given

Houses of Stone surrounded by wings

We hear your horns blow and instantly know

You are still with us and will always be

Life and Death two sides of one coin

Each day we toss it into the skies

Until the day it lands on the other side

These memories so sweet

That confident look in her eyes

As constant as the star she followed

As beautiful as the smile she echoed

You will be missed until the day we join you

Sunflower, Heart child

You blessed each and every one of our lives

ⓒ 2001 Shawn Michael Quinn

Capitalism

~Jennie Tagle

Sacred Geometry

He deals the cards as a meditation

And those he plays never suspect

He doesn't play for the money he wins

He don't play for respect

He deals the cards to find the answer

The sacred geometry of chance

The hidden law of a probable outcome

The numbers lead a dance

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier

I know that the clubs are weapons of war

I know that diamonds mean money for this art

But that's not the shape of my heart

He may play the jack of diamonds

He may lay the queen of spades

He may conceal a king in his hand

While the memory of it fades

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier

I know that the clubs are weapons of war

I know that diamonds mean money for this art

But that's not the shape of my heart

That's not the shape, the shape of my heart

If I told her that I loved you

You'd maybe think there's something wrong

I'm not a man of too many faces, the mask I wear is one

But those who speak know nothing, and find out to their cost

Like those who curse their luck in too many places

And those who fear are lost

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier

I know that the clubs are weapons of war

I know that diamonds mean money for this art

But that's not the shape of my heart

That's not the shape of my heart

That's not the shape, the shape of my heart