Wednesday, January 16, 2008

"Rebirth." - 1/16'08

The scars were never romantic
and now far removed
I've got a smile on my face
now that we're done.
Still got the fangs, but found my place in the sun
The bang from the gun
like the sound of me
waiting for my rocket to come.

The wrongs are now just
So let's jump, 'lest we fall for the fall
and get stuck in the slump
with the rest we once called best.
Now chumps filling an empty weathered nest
time-teathered and untested,
these beer-educated are near dedicated to death.
Making up for lost time, I dig into the next breath.
I found my place in the sun, and the "farewell tour" is far from done.
In this century, I do ask that you remember me, as friend, lover or
more
than an ordinary other.
No doubt you'll know those close enough to see them breath,
yet so joined, you can't tell which one is seperate; unique.

Sprawled out on the sidewalk,
you're taller and eye cocked.
You could faulter and die, shocked.
So soak it up and come clean
Honesty will thank you and so will your spleen.
I came with a nightmare and left with a dream
cloths running ragged, now hemmed to the seam.

Rhyme time to get me through missing all of you.
I don't know what I did or can do
to bring it back to that idealized time
where we could just chill and spill
with no in-the-round reveals.
Maybe I'm mistaken,
but it feels like I have to earn back relationships taken.
Overnight, bells stopped ringing
angels quit singing.
I kept dreaming
and now beaming, doing all the things I said I'd do.
But dead in my tracks, know that, no matter the acts, it isn't the same without a friend, gone to something new.
Find something reliable and true, if that's what you're up to.

I'll still be 'round, jumping, though never far from the ground
for what it's worth
still down-to-earth and down for mirth
down to flirt with breaking monotony's curse.
Up for a rebirth.

Under-the-radar, and maybe stuck in a slum.
Don't know where my friends have gone,
but I know when to stop wishing and be done.
Found my place in the sun
On my own
going to get what I want to come.


Copyright 2008 MIKE PHELAN O'TOOLE
All Right Reserved.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

"They Say I'm Nuts (Medley)" - 9/10/'07

They say I'm nuts

negative in reflecting
on what I'm expecting
when I'm dealing with lemmings
stuck in ruts,
failed at emotionally connecting and getting off their own butts

When all along, I'm trying to stay positive
and all they do is make it tough.
Find the diamond instead of dwelling on the rough.
In no such position for pain anymore
Meds in remission from my brain
Open the communication channel, or close the panel
close your mind.

Cut your lines
Punch your holes
Pick your poisons
Pick your nose
Inject through veins
The new marrow of your bones

What makes you who you are
Gives the blues and the scars
When you come loose and fly through the car

Everything goes by like the lightening/
it can kill us quick/
in a flash.
It sure can.
This sure is shocking just the same,
but it aint that kind of flash in the pan.

All that I am says to simplify this into "poppiness."
There's no right way to talk to you
when its all about "Be yourself, but watch what you do."
Our whole relationship is based on showmanship.
It once meant revelations to clear the air (in your head)
by way of conversation.
It was a real mind-fuck.
I'd rather opt-in on "mental masturbation" than test our luck.

And they say I'M nuts...

By MIKE PHELAN O'TOOLE
Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

"Off My Head." - 6/26/'07

I'll
steal your soul on video
Study life's sciences
Mess with your religion
Turn the knife in the incision
The gaping holes in your belief's indecision.

For all the times you speak of "truth" you gut and mame and hurt me.
For truth be told, and logic ready, there is no such thing other than uncertainty
rocking steady
and taking it all in stride and with grace.
I stand straight in the now with my pride, and you bow with your faith for ever-after.
Happiness is not in the hall with the staying and the praying
But in the self understanding that we live in not the building but the caving.

I'll
break hearts through the arts
with ink, oil, mixed-media and paints
where no scripture prophetizes the path I take
and hits me when I break
So, it's true that I'm a human, so I'm an amalgam of junk ideals
Go bang the doldrums,
label me a punk and tie me in how it is to feel
I don't recall this harsh of heaven, so don't instruct me where to go...
For I've no hate for deviation from the written definitive and depression
of your sinner and your saint.
"God knows" as an expression,
I just finish where I faint.

By MIKE PHELAN O'TOOLE
Copyright 2007 all rights reserved.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

"Parting Ways Over Partying Ways" - 12/27/'06

It's a funky dysfunction with an addictive kind of friction
And a love with violent distinction.
1986 could have seen me "eighty six'd" from this scene of distress.
What a hot mess
Give me another twenty and today's friend will be tomorrow's enemy.

That sex and booze are in the excess and flow a' plenty.
Your warm beer is one frivolous thing that gets me upset
But to the women, I won't resist.

Here's party rock and spoken word
Rapped over an eight/eight tempo
locked against your rolled-up joint memento...
What a way to remember what made me arrange these fake words
and ingest meds
Struck by cocaine heads and
Naked girls...
Who all happened to be your best friends
How was I to know
that what must've sucked for you
was my bust after her blow?


Copyright 2007 by MIKE PHELAN O'TOOLE.
All rights reserved.

"Crazy Glued Glass Ceilings" - 12/7/'06

Go read the dead poets
instead of scanning journal posts
Self fulfilling the prophecy;
Out to cut this monotony.
Love is less a conspiracy, more a monopoly.
They eat it up
If only they knew how to sell it properly.

Buying into all the flat generics and straight-up pricks
Sure I'm six feet short,
fate almost hit "abort" and
I'm always late to court you.
But conviction should win over addiction
Integrity should have sold out all that regret by now
already.

I'm just out to write things tonight
Ink through to an opinion that's left over, but is right on.
Everything you claim to crave
I am well aware
You don't understand the way of this waste land.

Offering contemporary vanity in verse
With all the profanity of hip-hop,
and all the perverse energy of rock-n-roll.
No longer blond
Fucking brunettes
Better
Wetter in the heat.
And I don't sleep or eat
And when you're cut
I bleed all the words you can stand to read.

Passion flows to hustle in this scramble
Laying it all down to gamble
Rolling the dice to save a life
Taste the flesh sample.
Hang 'em high by my hamstrings,
tighter than a noose some days
Loose when they stretch me in eight different ways
for better or worse
Enduring that burn to hold what these kids yearn
for you're my last and first.

We scale things upside down
and build new ground
on the glass ceiling of these unbreakable feelings
Still in grasp and screaming loud.


Copyright 2007 by MIKE PHELAN O'TOOLE.
All rights reserved.

Monday, June 05, 2006

"Compassionate...Or Communist?" - 6/3/'06

These possibilities pull a mind-freak
with blinders down, punk sensibilities and pop sensitivity.
Further swelling of ambition and muscular development
only make for excuses more relevant to the nagging questions and
far-out answers from when I wasn't doing so well for myself.
(Hardly "stealth mode" at the moment.)
I CAN'T BE CONTENT WITH LIVING IN A COMA.
You may have issued the issue, but I own it...
The final grades on me;
her eyes allow the "C" before we "F."
But that wordplay hardly matches our foreplay of playing with matches.

Pull one off and scratch my head...
The taste of you is all lit up;
white-hot as an overcast blocks the blues in eyes' shadow.
Rain leaks from the sky, as I lose the mood.
Run away,
try and make it up another time.
But no matter how much it pours, I still know how to make your makeup run,
and get you all wet indoors.

I may be afraid of the reverberation of my own voice,
but presenting the oral is a clear and loud choice.
Somehow I think you might want to listen to the buzz
in the words that mate to make the verse converse with mind's eye,
and enjoy looking into eyes of mine.
There's nothing so divine...
Nothing more than the ordinary bump into the daily grind of our pumping hearts
and beating odds.
Its not hard to see, our hearts are at odds.
We bleed the compassion of God to see this through.
I have faith in "Its worth the wait."

You came over again, just to watch me.
And watch me read these words aloud.
But it was never a date; it was murder.
For me, more than anything, its a blur.
And a chore to spike our emotions this high,
swelling up to the size of my consequential epitaph:
"I loved it when we laughed.
I'd love her to give me my heart back, when she's done with it.
Although I don't need it so much now,
I still know how to make her makeup run like God's compassion, in blood."
Thanks for your cult of personality.
I have faith in "Its worth the wait."



Mike O'Toole

Friday, May 26, 2006

"Change" - 5/26/'06

She says,
"Things can change... And I think I like that."

Keep this idea close to your heart.
There's a helluva lotta hope in knowin' we don't finish where we start.
Keep it in the right direction - keep it in perspective.
With that, comes a certain ressurection
of intellect, a lack of tension and contempt.
Keep it moving forward...
Sincerity is the bassline to strive toward.


Mike O'Toole

Saturday, April 29, 2006

"Rhymes With A Full Moon" - 4/15/'06

Vomit and hot water mix as well
as bubbles popping up past the bruise.
Puss passes through like hell
hath no fury against
bloody mary.
"St. Valentine's Day Massacre meets Carrie" ain't even as scary
as losing friends like this,
smoking cheap cigars and drinkin' beer like piss.
But I still hold out to get it right,
get the right girl
still have some fun tonight!
Pull off a keen style of not trying... Am I doing alright?
They won't force clothes grafted to my body anymore.
Leave tee off to relieve a strong fit, and
save the laundering off of your projectile vomit!

I will wait for you, as I reflect on the rutt I puffed myself into,
from an unfiltered cigarette.
Fooling around and drooling was the most action most ever thought to get...
From a mess and a Springtime fling I can't forget!
What a springboard into another weekend.
Weeping from the rewards I've been reaping!
Oh, how much I gain from being the only one to abstain from the insane!
I get...
Less regret; no need to reset mistakes from being fake or too-hard plastic.
Disregarding movements so spastic
they hardly even make the sense you were aiming for.
She's not so dense, just needs to sneak in a window to open her right door.
I chalk it up to MTV and another stacked bloody mary.
What a teaser, (rhymes with a full moon).
How to please her might be askin' certain doom...
Go through the door on the left to her room
on the floor, laughter squirms.
On the walls is not a word to be read and heard.
So over my head, it can't be understood.
Too many wasted opportunities to get it right...
All the words in the world, locked up inside.


Mike O'Toole