Driven by the Battle Drum

Is pain the only way to tell if we're awake
Caresses do not help us differentiate
Is the joke of our mortality
That we can only frame our reality with our malady
Can we know abundance without scarcity
What would be the flavor of my stanza
If I only knew bonanza
A pinch is not sole way to ken a dream
Epiphany affords me lucidity like a daylight beam

Tiffany's told me that I am a gem
Of a cut and a clarity quite unseen
Conveyed to them, key to my gleam
Is that I reflect only light from a heavenly source
Never divorce
Your passion from your action when you choose a trail
Roughness in the path can offer traction
Use the wind to sail

Fame's a fragrance that you cannot sample
And once it's sprayed upon you
It can only be removed with time or scalpel

And unbridled anger or vigor
Is Russian roulette with a skeleton
And echo chamber's bullet in the chamber

Love is a god that demands worthy sacrifice
Time and commitment and vulnerability
Readily I will deliver my heart to pay price
To the best of my present ability

I don't want to be the train
Off which you feel you cannot leap
Barreling toward future
You're not ready to conceptualize
You said
You had
No doubts
And yet my
Name's a secret that you keep
Asked to see your family
And I saw fear within your eyes

Keine Lügen liegen in deinen Augen
Wir sind die Sonne und die Welt
Und ich sehe Wolken am Himmelszelt

I'm a professional
I could write outside of witching hour
And my work would still be seminal
Scarce precedent, yet still preeminent
I don't need a heartbreak as a catalyst
Or for assistance in making the face of woe evident

Sigue la verdad, y la rectitud
Y fortalece su mentalidad y actitud
La manera en que las sigues
Es madera de su mente
Puede construir
Su nave
O su ataúd

Fie on a letter of recommendation
I'm walking the path of my edification
Discover me truly through a conversation
Uncover me fully by seeing creation

What the Spirit has given to me is a compass, not map
Redirection may come as a need and surprise
But I'm unafraid—be it a mountain or trap

Stage at a festival
Is a plank and a pedestal
I sing and dance on an auction block
And a podium
When I perform in a stadium

Till I'm in the Lord's embrace
No move from me will be perfunctory
I understand a long life, and a sweet death
Are a luxury

Rather be misunderstood
Upon a rightly-pointed trail
Than to be quite understood
Upon the wrong path
Stood for righteousness
And as a consequence travailed
Than for nothingness
In order to avoid man's wrath

I, watered my dreams with brine
And sowed my deeds in love and passion
My heart's a battle drum
Whose beat to which my flesh is marching
The step that follows for the sun
Does separate the dusk from dawn
On your horizon
Is star, setting or rising