Reflections

You gave it to me dear friend,
The ammunition to feed my soul,
The thirty eight slug that left me broken,
Lying silent on the pavement.

I only wanted you to think
of the repercussions your actions
May bring you,
And the life that would end.

But it wasn’t enough
You wanted more,
Money,
Fame,
Power.

Hold out your hand dear friend,
Hold me in your hands,
Don’t mind the stain I leave
On your palms for it will wash away.

Just like the memory you held,
Of our friendship,
Please, you know this isn’t a dream
Stop trying to wake yourself up!

“The grass seems a little more brown
On this side of the fence…”
Isn’t that what you said at first
When you moved to greener pastures.
Or was that my imagination?

Was it so cold out here
that you couldn’t stand
In the rain
And just listen?

Shhh, do you hear it?
The soft cry of the wind
Lamenting a soul
Lost forever to the fire,
Scorched and twisted.
Open your hands and let me go,
Like you did to your respect,
Your honor,
Your family.

Our ashes will all just blow away in the wind anyway.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

Gluttony [fear of success]

The eyes that lie 
from inside 
the constraints of time,
exercise the right to fly 
away with souls and keep rhyme
and rhythm to themselves. They describe 
why we cry
and break ties 
that bind the blue sky 
and clouds high.

The lips that purse for one kiss, 
hard to resist 
the urge to break fists 
and hug with these twists 
in this love and we bitch 
that it's rough, 
and it's tough
To keep shit in check with no grub

The tongue that moves in a slow burn, 
seems hard to return
The quips in some form of concern 
with nothing left to yearn
For in the end we all burn,
but some are reborn 
and have left tattered and torn 
with no retort, 
and one last resort.

The body is unchained, 
and it seems we've remained
the cavemen we hate, 
we've been told to restate 
our purpose and relate 
our actions, here's a rebate 
on humanity
don't try to dictate my sanity.

With evil laced in my breath 
I think that these steps
Get closer to each check 
and balance, I'm on the crest
of a wave that I can't catch,
and I fall into the rift of Gluttony, 
so fucking sue me.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

suffocating

A stone prison encases me
with the fire of the sun
searing my flesh,
I try to look away
but everywhere...flames...

The whip cracks on my tender flesh
tearing it asunder,
leaving torrents of life
leaching down my limbs,
screaming for reality
to coalesce into the
crowded consciousness
the world offers.

flickers of flesh eating fire
ferment behind lenses
until it is unbearable,
undeniable, and all
my rage is left open
like flood gates...

The faint sound of raindrops,
birds, and crickets creep into
ears numbed to sounds of serenity,
my eyes open and the world
is again as it is supposed to be...

The buzzer sounds at 5:45 AM,
time to relive the dream,
only it is my reality.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

The Eve of Christine

I never was one
for the cliche meetings,
the innuendo laced dinners,
the sappy love songs.

I'm still not of that
mind
   set,
but she grabbed my hand
wouldn't let go.

Kisses with the passion
that could rent oceans,
a stare of lustful bliss
that made my knees buckle,
she spoke to me...

Not in the language of everyday,
but in the soft hush of her breath,
in the subtle flicker
of her eyelashes,
in the glimmer of her
soft brown eyes...

Time stopped for moments in between,
I don't know how long actually passed,
but it seemed ages
since I took my last breath.

The soft supple curve of her hips,
the beating of her heart under perfect breasts,
the saunter in her step
as she walks away knowing
that the way she shakes
drives me to insanity...

She strikes the picture in my mind,
perfection is a perception
not a standard,

and as she pulls
her lips away
from mine,

the moment between kiss and goodbye,
I've seen our relationship grow,
I've watched perfection,
I've sampled the ambrosia,

I kissed my love
into the wind,
and I fell leagues
with her in my arms.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

lost in a moment

She came into my life on
a whirlwind of doubt,
something I never looked for,
something I never asked for.

Her words were melodic,
her eyes mirrors to myself,
her kiss electric,

She enfolded me into her dream,
with feathered gazes
and raindrop softness,
my mind a blur of emotions.

Everyday since has been
unlike the first,
but as comfortable
and encompassing
as the last,

She kissed me,
she killed me
in a sense,
a good way of course,
but the old ways
have given way
to new.

I see her smile
in the bright sunshine,
I see her tears
in the dreary rain,
I see her kisses
in my day dreams,
and I let go of
all the pain.

My life has been
somewhat of a turmoil,
filled with gaps
of happiness,
she fills the
emptiness with
more than I ever asked.

And for that I'm glad.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

Althea Mae

So full of life,
how you came into the world,
a bustling little ball of joy.
Parents that adore you,
family that loves you,
and a sun that shines
on your every smile.
You make the world
go around my dear.

You won't realize that
until much later in life
little one, you have so much
                    Up
G r o w i n g  ^^ to do.

When I held you as a baby
you smiled at me,
it was as if the clouds
parted and the rain abated
for the moments you were smiling.

Child you hold your arms open
to a world full of malice and deceit,
and yet you still smile and laugh.
Fate has played a hand for you,
and it was cruel of them
to double down on a losing hand.

Yet somehow you managed to smile
in the face of adversity,
scream into the wind,
and let your heart be heard.

You've touched so many
in the short time being here,
we see your courage,
your fortitude,
and can do nothing but applaud.

Losing a part of yourself
that you never really knew,
only had a short time to use,
and still you smile...

how you smile...

I can only weep,
when the sun shines
through your eyes.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

Black Sand, Blood Ocean, Blue Sun

Grains of sand, like tears, so black
that eternal night is held
in each individual piece.
They squish through gaps
between toes tempered by
The scorching Blue flamed sun
that burns only to destroy
those who cannot adapt
to it's awesome fury.
Still I trod on
while the Blood red
sea laps at my feet,
trying to steal the only
bleak color away from me.
Relentlessly pounding
Obsidian cliffs of mourning
and returning each tear
shed to the beach of memories.
Twisted trees perch upon
gnarled knolls of dry packed
dirt the color of death,
for nothing can live here
nature is but a memory.
I sit and whisper to my companion
of the coming night
and perilous doom,
She sheds a black tear,
never saying a word,
and watches the Blue fire
Die in a glorious crimson
pool of sorrow.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

Stormy Skies

I fell asleep to the rain
trickling at my windowsill,
another dark and dreary day
in a world full of
sugar plum fairies
and happy people.

I guess it's just my corner of the world
that the malevolent sky's open for.

I had my first dreams in months
while listening to those drops,
they weren't dark like the clouds,
but they weren't as light hearted
and colorful as the world that surrounds me.

I guess my imagination lacks the complexity
of color, but then I'm not like most other people.

Words chiseled me from obsidian,
and it is now words that carve out my heart.
The pen, oh what a love affair we've had,
how many scripted evenings we've shared,
and now that same pen has soiled
my memory and my love.

I guess when I needed to hear the whispers
I was looking for tears,
and I suppose when I should have seen soaked eyes
and tattered feelings, 
I was listening for silence.

But then again, I never was one with open eyes
and the heart of a dreamer.

I found myself sitting in the rain watching
each perfect drop settle in it's place
on the earthen surface,
and I wondered where they went
after hitting the ground...

but I'm not a dreamer, and it's cold outside.
I'm soaked to the bone, and all I can hear
it the chattering of my own teeth.

Introspective...I think that's the word
that might best describe me,
Since apparently all I care about is myself.

I ran down a path thinking that the people following
would keep up with me,
thinking that they were OK
and that they didn't need my help anymore.

The old adage 'If you love something set it free'
comes to mind at the moment and yet it doesn't fit.
You see you can't set something free
that you never had in the first place.

You see you never truly own anything,
you only posses it for a short time
before it morphs or melds into something better,
or worse.

And I'm the catalyst, or so it seems,
for the worst.
this may be one of those half-truths 
that people speak of so often these days.

When does something become a 'half-truth'?
is it when someone doesn't want it to be true?
or is it when the truth just doesn't seem
good enough anymore, not quite solid enough,
or maybe just a glimmering doubt in your mind?

You see questions just spawn more questions...

But then I am deceitful as some might say,
so I could be leading you into my dark grove,
to listen to the whispers
like our friend Denethor.

I don't know how I feel anymore,
I don't feel pain like I used to,
and if joy knocked harder than
what a pin drop sounds like
then I must not have been paying attention.

Some people would ask me what's wrong,
others would guess,
most turn the other cheek and ignore the problem,
and that's just the way I like it,
in my dark little corner,
my shohikan grove,
my grave,
my mind.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved

It Was Once Beautiful (Now it's Dead)

My tongue has gone numb
it seems lately I've been struck dumb
or even just kept my piece quiet
because I don't have anything to say, well not quite.
You see my mind doesn't work the way that it used to
it was left to wallow in the pools of poetic limbo
and it grew fat and lazy, with no thought of tempo,
or beat, or how twenty lines can mean the world
to just one person no matter how timid or bold.
You see, I expected that someone might notice
that this wound rent in my rhythmic being needed a poultice,
and lately I just can't focus, it's just a jumbled mess
that the rest may call poetry but to me it seems less,
not perfect, like a beautiful woman in a ragged dress...

You see I speak my mind on these pages and you're turning
each page wondering what I might say next, yearning,
burning, and maybe learning how I think, how I breathe
how my emotions feed on my fingers,
how each thought lingers
and finds meaning...to me that is, because in reality
no one opinion matters when the ink runs dry.

I have pages stuccoed in my head and they are all blank,
or crumbling because there is no one to thank...
is that poetic? Is it even a complete thought?
Do we all really think about what we write, is it a spark?
Sometimes my fingers fly over keys, scribble letters,
or my lips move to a cadence of something unheard to others.

I can't write what I feel anymore because emptiness
isn't a feeling that can take shape on a page
and be made something solid that people understand.
I have everything I wanted, and yet my hands tremble
at the thought of holding one thing so dear to me
that may break with the slightest touch.

Is a heart so delicate that one may never touch it,
or is it the hand that is so rugged that it
knows no restraint.

just thought I might rant a little at myself,
but please draw your own conclusions
to the meaning of my babble.

God knows I'd like some insight.

© Justin Frieberg, All rights reserved