Standard

Follow the line to the greatest extent
If you can pass it you're better than I am
If you see colours like rainbows
(Blues, greens, violets, reds)
You've long since passed me
I can't proceed past gray
I'm stuck dead
You've exceeded expectations
Yay! A marathon of life
If I'm lucky, I'll catch wind of your dust
Inhale some hint of idea
But it's probably too late
Because I've given up

Eighteen More To Go

I will move to Montreal
I will move to New York
take public transportation
pedal a bicycle
or ride the subway
speak French:
je ne parle Anglais
or visit museums
or museums of mankind
that sleep on the park bench
or doorway
begging for change
in more than one sense of the word.
Brick buildings and culture
hundreds of years old
history at finger tips
perhaps never even told
or I'll make my own
a new era of lessons
and it will go down
in the books.

I will wear a top hat
or a fur coat
I will wear torn jeans
or a blue t-shirt
with a logo of a band -
the next big thing.
No one will stare
with their green and black hair
covering their eyes
or spiked in the air
cause who cares.
In Montreal
in a small room
I'll make music
I'll sing
I'll form a band
called the Robot Parade
we'll get famous
have an album or two
but then we'll quit
I'll move on to a different view.

Into a skyscraper
nestled amoung steel
hundreds of buildings
with reflecting windows
thousands of windows
with mirrored views
three feet outside
my 110th story office
I'll see myself
across the way
sitting in a chair
before blank screens
one building over
staring lifeless at me.
In retrospect
I'd done it all
I grasped the top
I'd reached my goals
my destiny, I'm told
or so I thought
until . . .