Healing Is Still

When the streets bleed
With vibrating violence
We know that only scares the guilty
Hanging like
The victims they laid
Aside in their greed;
Healing shall still be far away.

When grass grows
Over crumbled ruins
Abandoned and exposed,
Rebels of a forgotten war
Who plundered all its worth
Relaxing in their misdeeds
Shall fever in the night
And visions reminding them
Healing shall still be far away.

When flags tear at their seams
Weakened in the wind
Salt licking at the sides
Of metal catastrophes
Blowing weeds that take control
Shall struggle upon the ground
Understanding their due;
Healing shall still be far away.

When the last engine
Seizes from strain
Deep in jungle rain, overgrown
And wildcats become predator
Most feared and most bestowed
Vines and trees, all wide and tall
Laying over all regrown
Healing shall still be far away

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Between The Lines

I miss the nights
That line up
In the new part of an old city
Where street lights feel like rain
On cooler summer night
And my homeward spin
Takes me from a warm crowded room
Onto cobblestones
That echo from my engine
Roaring to life
In spite the effort
I have put
Into making the right moves
And swaying between the lines.

Whisper of Elephants (day 3137)

And the whisper of tides keep rolling
That makes the engine hardly slowing
In a growing pain of knowing
For all elephants have gone blind.

In an innocent game she was glowing
Until a judge became the one blowing
Lost in depths of spiraling
The end was all she could find.

Then all at once there came a calling
An old standard with sweet beckoning
With wallets that were fattening
Only hygiene long left behind.

So the two and their sweet romancing
Called the pastor who came running
He knew what was then demanding
No opposition of any kind.

And like buskers at the happening
They all packed up and left no remembering
A lot like old elephants fattening
No story left on each their mind.

That Was Then (day 2863)

If that was then
Then this is by no means the end,
Two wheels rolling
And clouds so clear
Even birds faintly pass between them.

A dollar is gone.
Was it an even game?

A hand that served up
Delicious things, unnamed.
An engine that roared
As it began.

Lucky is every lost soul traveling on;
Full tank and such sweetness of a radio,
Then by two, sun’s beating in
Escaping for a moment into shade.
Watch Clouds and every bird so clear.

That was then and now is the end.

Treasure Chest (day 2131)

Rambling when I remembered to stop
A limb broken and I heard it drop
Methodically stripping naked
A consciously wrapped envelope
Placed at the trunk of a mighty old oak
Who waved back and forth
Silly gamblers marching about
To the tune of engines
Sputtering confusion
And lay raindrops upon folded corners
Which shall leak kava upon this ancient floor
Upon which I rest upon
To humbly assess the treasure chest.

Steam Engine (day 1566)

Can you imagine my heartbeat
– Pitter patter it goes –
Living in a coiled roll
Ready to pounce and 
Starting at the slightest of moments.
Can you imagine breath
Holding itself upon faint whispers
Scarcely at my lips,
Crawling around lightly
Like a steam engine
Going by at hours counted
By my tick-tock heartbeat.

Steam Engine by Ned Tobin

Orbiting Madness (day 562)

Relentless pursuit with a speed limit in sight
Wheels squealing and a dagger is late
Fists are for outlaws to throw in the air
After escaping the law
Running wild and free

Faster and faster the engine it screams
Red passion in madness alert calling in sirens
Perforated edge and an eruption in joy
I’ve run to the hill tops
And let it go bare

Orbiting madness that spins round and round
Full on the skull it renders little harm
Slight quickening of the pulses
Pulling at my senses
The road down isn’t long