jinnfarfast

[jinnfarfast]

Black Forest

This perpetual pantomime

There are things that words cannot express

Toss and turn throughout the night

Pondering this black forest

Relied on perfect paradigms

I tell you they do not exist

Focus on the fading light

Ready for this black forest

We are shepherds of our expectations

Seems I may have led this flock astray

I'm a collector of disappointments

Everything I pull is pushed away

And I've discovered love, another method of ours

To bring us pain

The sun clings to the trees like a burdock seed

The sighing breeze screaming urgency

The shadows have grown long

All the birds have flown

Sing a quiet song to distract from the thoughts

Yet when the darkness falls

These enclosing walls don't seem so tall

And I'm collected and calm

[jinnfarfast]

Cloudsplitter

With a heavy burden borne upon my back

No unaccounted pound

I swear to you a single straw

Could’ve brought that camel down

And I saw pity in her eyes

I heard doubt upon his lips

As I left them behind

My leaden thoughts I could not lift

From atop the endless stair

Into a bottomless pit

Soon enough I came across familiar ground

Nestled there between the peaks

I sat there for a half an hour

But it truly felt like weeks

As the wind began to blow

The canopy did leak

The mist it swallowed whole

The path ahead I could not see

From a single point in space and time 

Stretched into eternity

At the summit saddled with a choice to muscle on or call it off

The stubborn mule in me decreed the steep descent despite the cost

If the wind had blow any less fierce 

Against that Adirondack rock

Purchase-less, I would have bought the farm

And fallen off

The question of “Courageousness

Unto foolishness?” deferred

It was not for me to guess

For it was time that would discern

At the bottom looking up 

Beyond the point of no return

Head in a cloud again

Soaked to the bone my skin wrinkling

These are paths we all walk alone, will I

See you on the other side?

There’s a feeling I get, not soon to forget

My body’s on fire but my mind is at rest

Nothing has changed yet something’s different

I am the cleaver, the clouds I’m splitting

[jinnfarfast]

100 Years (of Autumn)

Breathing hard

In the middle of the graveyard

The silver shovel shines in the pale moon light

Dug up your bones because I missed you so

The sun is gonna come up

Coming up to set things right

End this night

Ageless I

Was once your trusted guide

When you were down and out with the brimstone blues

As fire licked the heels of heretics

I never felt the tides were turning

Now I follow you

It’s true

The morning breeze

Disturbs the autumn leaves

As the headlines read

Desecration

To authorities

Still a mystery

No fingerprints nor leads

To aid investigations

As the winter freeze

Entombs those autumn leaves

The sadists seethe with anticipation

To authorities 

Forvever a mystery

Nothing there at the scene

Except and shovel and a pile of...

Ash to ash and dust to dust

This mighty oak tree my only witness

One hundred years and I must confess

The best thing I ever found was us

[jinnfarfast]

Khazadum

We returned to restore the former glory of

Khazadum

To rebuild and breathe life back into

a mountains heart left in ruin

We are not our fathers

The rules have changed, it’s not the same

We are not our mothers

what once familiar now is strange

We gather here around the hearth

Rekindle the fickle flame

The ancient voice recites the verse, the needle skips

The magic wanes

And I cannot expect you to know just what it means

To be connected to something beyond the sea

We keep our past preserved like glass

Statuettes in menageries

The sword reforged will cut the course

Between fortitude and fragility

[jinnfarfast]

Hearts of Darkness

So all of the rich folks are heading for space

A new frontier to save or forsake the human race

Well they belong there, were they ever of this world?

Our alien overlords whom we serve

Selfish in thoughts

but not in action

Utterly lost

with a good sense of direction

Riddled with flaws

no need to reveal them

Selfish in thoughts

but not in action

Some say it’s good, some say it’s evil

At the center of us all, some say it’s basic survival

But we are rare birds with the ability to resist

The overwhelming pull from these hearts of darkness

[jinnfarfast]

Stray

In a dark place frozen in time

Smelling garlic and gasoline

Something really caught my eye

Coolest thing I’ve ever seen

Old tin shaped like a feline

Something you might find at a flea

Magic in those marble eyes

Now a black cat’s slinking ‘round my neighborhood

Crossed paths, bad luck’s never felt so good

Know that wherever you stray

I’ll be here hoping someday you’ll stay

It’s the same stage, characters and lines

Only the motivation’s changed

Something seems so misaligned 

This familiar picture’s strange

Old friends marching down through time

The wars that expectations wage

Oh this magic may have died

Now a cool cat’s missing from my neighborhood

Cross paths, boy you know I wish we would

Know that wherever you strayed 

I’ll be here

Scratching and itching

Silently bitching

Fruitlessly wishing you stayed

[jinnfarfast]

Two Hearted

We might be yelling

but that’s communicating

Well, the ice may be thin

but we’re still skating

And when it’s time to go

you’ll keep me waiting

I’m two hearted love myself it’s true

Selfish oh what can I do?

Still there’s another for you

Two hearted, go and break one up

When the goings getting tough

I’ve got enough to forgive you

You say I drink like a fish

Well I say you could use a drink

You’re not present enough

But you don't care what I think

And what we bring to this

Includes the kitchen sink

I’m two hearted, no arrhythmia

has ever yet to give me a

good reason not to resume

The two hearted beat in stereo

when the common denominator’s low

At least we can agree

the sky is sometimes blue

[jinnfarfast]

The Shores of the Jessup

Carved your names into the lean-to’s timbers

To what? Prove you exist?

The funny thing is I will always remember 

You as those idiots

To the rocks and trees you’ll be forgotten

Your legacies sink to the bottom

Destined for cathedral pines

Behold the rapture, it’s a reclamation

Something gleams beneath the water

Get that rod and reel in hand

And what we thought was a native brook trout

Turned out to be a beer can

To the rocks and trees you’ll be forgotten

Your legacies sink to the bottom

Destined for cathedral pines

Behold the rapture, it’s a reclamation

On the sandy shores of the Jessup

It is hard to leave without a trace

We drew a blue line around it

It is ours to preserve or deface

[jinnfarfast]

Deep Sea Diver

You have been where few have dared to tread

Seeking peace of mind over your head

Speaking out 

At those unspeakable depths 

You just take a deep breath

And I swear I saw you glowing in the dark

Your open wide and bioluminescent heart

Shedding light

You’re shedding skin

A sea change is coming

From within

Deep sea diver

You’re dredging up oysters

You’re prying them open

You’re polishing pearls

In this shallow world

You’ve been wronged by a long list of fools

Every right to vanish out of the blue

The damage has been done

But its not the end for you

You will find a way through

It’s unfathomable the fathoms that you’d go

To face the phantoms troubling you so

Brave as heck

To go so deep

The surface is trolling

But you’re out of reach

[jinnfarfast]

Cowards Paradise

Where’s the sense in throwing punches at apparitions?

What’s the point in preaching to the choir?

You found your voice without speaking a single word

Safe at home in a cowards paradise

There are those keeping the peace

And there are peacekeepers starting wars

Well you better not waste a second, shoot first

And save the questions for the widows

Have we forgotten how to get along together?

I think we’ve lost the ability to disagree

You want to cut someone down without seeing the whites of their eyes

In a cowards paradise

Being brave has got nothing to do with being fearless

Bravery’s about tempering the fear

Well we all walk around scared out of our minds

Cowards let it grab the wheel and steer

[jinnfarfast]

Silent Earth

They’re looking forward to a silent Earth

Rebalancing the scales

If we don’t kill them first

In the usual ways

Descendants of careless conquerors

Shitting where we lay

When I think of what we’ve done to her

She must be dreaming of a silent Earth

Somewhere in this world are those unforgiving lands

Mountaintops, jungles, burning desert sands

The last bastions of native man

There they are making their last stand 

[jinnfarfast]

Hitch Up Matilda

The Hitch Up Matildas were frozen but nobody fell

Still you were full of paranoia and you poisoned the well

Where’d you pick up inertia, a straight line’s an unmoving story to tell

I just don't get ya, every surface for you must be slippery as hell

This avalanche has been building up for years...

We’re coming down in the dark

We’re going up in flames

Well you’re right, Wright would have been wrong

Still you’d have me believe that we died that day

How do you carry that weight?

You called me reckless, overconfident

Like I had a death wish with no apparent reason to live

And in that bright sun atop a snowy Iroquois summit

You sat in shadows, your fear was on auto-pilot

Exploding engines ringing in your ears...

We’re coming down in the dark

We’re crashing down in flames

Well you’re right, Wright would have been wrong

Still you’d have me believe that we died that day

How do you carry that weight?

[jinnfarfast]

Vigilantes of the Heart debut performance at Boulder Coffee open mic. Songs performed: Great Escape and Hotel Cadillac (copyright 2016)

[jinnfarfast]

Man-eater

Running down the mountain

Through the bramble brush

No time to smell the daisies

Plain to see I’m in a rush 

From a bear

That’s hot after me

I’ve fallen off the log

Now I’m swimming up the stream

The spawning salmon make the trip with ease

But it’s harder than it seems

When there’s a grizzly

But I’ll elude that bruins bite

And come tonight I’ll have my girl

And she’ll have me

The salt it stings my eyes 

The gulls are crying from above

Carcharodon Carcharias 

Awfully quite curious because

I’m losing blood

But I’ll outswim the likes of them

For my girl

She’s the one I love

Amid the mess I’m so distracted by her gaze

Must have been a man-eater in her younger days

Now she’s a lighthouse keeper and she guides me on my way

The wind in the sails and the hardships blow away

Washing up bedraggled on some misbegotten shore

The natives thinking dinner and they’re looking for a course

And they say that I’ll do

They marinate me sweetly and put me a in a pot

They get that fire a-burning and they get that water hot

And then I think to myself, I’m hungry too

I’ll escape those cannibals 

Like I was tied to a cannonball that’s shot

Straight to you

[jinnfarfast]

The Carousel

I sit and I watch the carousel spin

Where you once were you’ll be back there again

The music so gay but I just can’t pretend,

Can’t pretend that this ride doesn’t end

When we were young our mothers would pray

They said that their words would keep storms at bay

And we’d wake in the morn and saw that it rained

It rained on the things that remained

I feel so alive knowing someday I’ll die

On the walls of my mind hang no vacancy signs

No room with a view of a bright afterlife

After life unless it’s life after mine

When the carousel stops and I let go the reins

Light me on fire, put me on display

But I’m telling you now I don’t need a parade

But if you do it’s ok

It’s for the ones who remain

[jinnfarfast]

Way Back When

Blowing the dust off the box that I found

Inscribed with handwriting I can't recognize

Inside there’s a notebook that carries my name

I must have been here, this must have been mine

Way back

When we were two corn stalks swaying

The wind whistling through our ears

We let our roots grow

But the sound of the thrasher crashing through the rows

Let us know

That we couldn’t stay there

Now I’m reading the passages page after page

So much I’ve forgotten, let fall by the wayside

The words from this reckless stubborn youth

I’ve held myself hostage, this is proof of life

Way back

When we were two scarecrows singing

The wind whistling through our seams

We’d serenade the crows

But the sight of a murder blotting out the glow

Shut down the show

Something came stalking unforeseen

Rush down the stairs and out to the street

Notebook in hand looking for something

The sound of a bird, or the smell of the rain

A chance encounter with somebody strange

And I can’t control myself, how could i somebody else?

Still I feel I lost a part of myself

Is there a way back?

To that place where feeling close is more

Than just a crowded room

Up around the bend

I don’t know if it’s a new beginning or just a bitter end

[jinnfarfast]

Down at the Bottom

At the bottom, there’s a bar

Where the jukebox spins like a neutron star

The neon lights they burn your eyes

Behind every drink there’s something more

An Amontillado served by Montresor

Somewhere a drunken jester cries

Down at the bottom

Down here we’re reading Verne

Oh the weight of the world at the center of the earth

The antipode on my mind

The shovel-work is done 

Now the pick axe swings like a pendulum 

These crazy feelings that we find

Down at the bottom

Those who sit far up above

Affix their hooks with prescription drugs

And cast their lines into the well

The pin prick of white in the black

We’ve gone too far, we can't go back

I’ve found some comfort, truth to tell

Down at the bottom

Came across an anchor

Of an old misguided ocean liner

The skipper steadfast at the helm

He’s busy waxing poetic 

How a good captain goes down with it

Virgil, we need no guides to hell