Love angry
Love selfish
Love empty
Love cruel
Love like a miser
Love like a fool
Love stupid
Love needy
Love lying
Love loud
Love like a loser
Always too proud
Love hopeless
Love hurtful
Love hungry
Love vain
Love like a bully
Pass along pain
by Richard W. Bray
Wake and rise
Live aware
Hunks of matter
Dance in air
Raise your arms
Plant your toes
Release your body
Mix your soul
Get outdoors
Touch some dirt
Smell the sky
And live the hurt
by Richard W. Bray
Wacky doodle doo
I just lost my shoe
Hopping off to school
I never follow rules
Hip hip Horatio
I live in outer spacio
Napping on the moon
I'll visit Venus soon
Sippy Ki-Yay
My juice box is ok
Free Fi Fo Fum
He never bothered anyone
I don't know the muffin man
Too dense, too dry, and too much bran
Get it off my table
I'll have another bagel
Roses are yellow
Davey is mellow
Violets are purple
Tammy likes myrtle
Big Bo Peep
She don't need no sheep
She's happy, smart, and rich
And sweaters make her itch
by Richard W. Bray
The thing that's always there
In the alcoves of your mind
The thing that makes you lie
The thing that makes you blind
The thing you never mention
When you try and talk sense
Gossip, movies, politics
And current events
The thing that's deep below
And always at the surface
The ghost in the attic
The phantom in the furnace
Try and stay busy
Avoid, disrupt, deny
Wash your brain with booze
It never leaves your side
by Richard W. Bray
You can build yourself a mansion
On a big ole pile of sand
You can fabricate a future
In never never land
You can look inside a mirror
And see a fantasy
You can dream away your future
On what's never gonna be
Can't get from Wichita to Omaha
If you're stuck in Timbuktu
The things you did are on the way
To things you're gonna do
You can make believe you're someone else
And dream a happy dream
But being who you wanna be
Starts with coming clean
You can wake up every morning
And tell yourself a lie
You can repeat it and repeat it
Until the day you die
You can keep on treading water
And never wonder why
Or you can grab life by the collar
And look it in the eye
Can't get from Wichita to Omaha
If you're stuck in Timbuktu
The things you did are on the way
To things you're gonna do
You can make believe you're someone else
And dream a happy dream
But being who you wanna be
Starts with coming clean
by Richard W. Bray
They will come with many roses in the early afternoon
–Edward Arlington Robinson
Everything I do I think of you
The piece of you inside me
That does its best to guide me
Wonders why I do the things I do
Everything I do I think of you
I always feel much better
When I wear you like a sweater
I never shed the person that I knew
Everything I do I think of you
Your memory will stay
Until I fade away
My last goodbye will be our adieu
by Richard W. Bray
Can you build a world with lies?
where the roads are paved with gold
and you're never getting old
Can you build a world with lies?
where the skies are never gray
and you can wish your woes away
so many happy songs to sing
when sanity is not your thing
Can you build a world with lies?
where you can spin and spin and spin
with a chuckle and a grin
Can you build a world with lies?
where all the shitty things you do
are never coming back to you
by Richard W. Bray
What kind of beast would turn its life into words?
—Adrienne Rich
Relentlessly describing
Everything I see
I got a magic eye
The world will notice me
Countless dinner parties
Living in the glow
Don't know why I'm crying
Feelings come and go
Candor in my vision
The covenant I keep
I see for miles and miles
But I don't look in too deep
Wealth and fame and glory
Always on the phone
I told a thousand stories
But I never knew my own
by Richard W. Bray
On Saturday he comes to town
And puts some pints of whiskey down
Getting drunk and talking shit
All night long till he gets hit
A mixed-up mess of drink and smell
Living in your private hell
Getting drunk and talking shit
Spewing lies and gobs of spit
Thoughts revealed in wine are true
Uncovering the real you
Getting drunk and talking shit
Such an asshole when you’re lit
Folks who piss away their lives
Belching lies as sharp as knives
Getting drunk and talking shit
Losers don’t know when to quit
by Richard W. Bray
Escape hatch
In the portals of my mind
Hiding with the lies
That take up all my time
Escape hatch
Nowhere else to go
Putting on a mask
Putting on a show
Escape hatch
Can't avoid my brain
The truth is in the task
The truth is in the pain
Escape hatch
Time to shut the door
Time to cut the con
I don't need it anymore
by Richard W. Bray