Digital Dreams

The Drive

By, Sean Frank

I can close my eyes
And remember the drive
Leaving my childhood home
Just a few months
Before it was sold

I can close my eyes
And remember the drive
Leaving work
After a 18 hour day
Drained
Delirious
And sore
But surrendered
To a calming fade

I can close my eyes
And remember the drive
To a long vacation
Ready for a break
Ready for a warm breeze
To relinquish me
From the grind
Of daily routine

I can close my eyes
And remember the drive
Leaving a memorial service
My heart heavy
As the sun hits the glass
It seems to reflect
Scatter and burst apart
Just as fast
And I feel like nothing
Is clear
Because everything feels different
And it's not just another day
It’s a moment in time
It's a monument scribed
By memories rich
With fresh laugher
And well-worn
Smile lines

I can close my eyes
And remember the drive
Home after a first date
We talked for hours
Over coffee and lunch
And I feel a buzz
Of excitement
Because
When I saw her
I felt a reassuring ease
I knew
In a slow motion
Enveloping instant
She would give meaning
To a life I let become listless

Something Else to Hold

By, Sean Frank

The party died
But everyone survived
To tell the tale
There were epic
Victories proclaimed
Of troubled minds
Finding a firm grasp
On the little things

The days that get away
Before they even start
The worries that worm their way
Into overcrowded brains
We become so breathlessly
Frazzled
And brazenly lost
As listless as the wind
We forget to look ahead

Instead we find solace
In the old places
So without fail
The past becomes
A foolish guide
Whom we probably
Should second guess

The second the drinks started
Flowing
Burdened minds
Shook off the pressure
And released reassurances
That were less than
The sum of their parts
But brevity can
Ease and give sweet release
To a heavy heart

Heart to hearts
Were had
As old friends
Realized their connection
Was left half faded
In a sepia toned past
And when they laughed
The lights glowed
With a strange hue
As if the bulbs knew
To give the moment
It's due

Friendships were made
And they may have been
Just for the night
And nothing else
But that's a beautiful thing
Because we are all strangers
Struggling to find our way
On the same crossroads
Crossing paths
Into the same heavy wave
Of cascading unknowns

The clock kept rolling on
But at a certain moment
At a certain hour
Everyone had a drink
In hand
But everyone found something else
To hold

Just Maybe

By, Sean Frank

The sirens sing a lamentation
Of years where we brought ourselves
To a hellfire
Of calcified hesitation

And maybe someone else
Is singing the same song
And maybe someone else
Is feeling the same sense
Of longing

Maybe we have the world
Perfectly worked out
But maybe
Just maybe
The best laid plans
Are the plans
We never considered
Because the bitter pill is
We remember the moments
That didn't seem like
They would ever be
Worth caring about

So let's push
Into the peripheral
Edges of our mental maps
And locate the monuments
Before time witnesses
Their moment of collapse

Some things can be a struggle
To capture
After all
We live inside the shutter
Of a camera ever unfocused
As a result
Our blurred perception
Is forever in correction
As we self-medicate
While we wait for the effects
To elevate
Feet planted
Firmly on the ground

And we can rise
And we can certainly
Fall
But most of all
We ride the waves
And let the wind
Carry us away
We have lived for tomorrow
But sometimes we
Let the pressure of time
Ease into the distance
As the day becomes a beacon
And we shine inside of it

Ever Spinning

By, Sean Frank

The water moves in certain
Directions
Life moves forward
No matter what way
Your facing

This life is a causeway
The sky is recklessly
Ridden with careless stars
We act like they reflect upon us
Like the distance their light travels
Equals the distance
Between our scattered
And perfectly singular days
Dispersed between
Countless crashing years

And a crash is how
Passing years
Can feel
As if the pressure
Of repeating
False premonitions
Can predate repetitive
False proclamations
Of victories achieved
And dreams under siege
What the hell do we ever say
And what in the hell
Do we ever mean

We mean the universe
And sometimes more
The expanse is ever occurring
Like a warm summer night
Lying in a unfamiliar bed
Moonlight sneaking through
The blinds
And a small metal fan
On its last gasp
But none the less
Ever spinning
Ever giving
Of everything it has

Resonance

By, Sean Frank

Music mends my heart
While it breaks my heart
As I relive memories fractured
And manufactured
With a faded gloss

When I look to the past
Music fills in the gaps
What with Its aching lyrics
And revitalizing rhythm
Always so new
Always so lived in

Music helps me
Remember delicate truths
That seemed so permanent
In the moment
But fade as we grow older

But funny enough
As the years pass
Their resonance grows
Into a warmly familiar tone
One that is eternally echoed
And a enduring part
Of the soundtrack

Music is sometimes all there is
When everything seems
To be slipping away
Just need to put on those headphones
Play that sentimental song
And remember that
I know what it's like for everything
To be all right
If I know what it's like
For everything to be all wrong

There is balance in the chaos
Because throughout it all
The slumps, rises
And countless falls
Music is the campfire
Crackling and unravelling
The nerves
Nothing else can calm
Music has and will
Always be there
All along

The Faded Days

By, Sean Frank

The faded days
Lived in a sun soaked haze
Have a way of becoming ingrained
In our headspace
Ordained as a convenient shade
Always ready when we're
Just minding our own business
And some bullshit
Wants to wash
Our peace of mind away

The faded days
Lived in a sun soaked haze
Are the places where
We are ourselves
And shelve the worries
That warrant wayward stress
As we realize it's malice intent

The faded days
Lived in a sun soaked haze
Seem to be remembered
As a cascade
Music gently falling
Down from the clouds
As drinks hit the table
And conversation
Circles gently around

The faded days
Lived in a sun soaked haze
Are barely remembered
But these thread bare memories
Are so damn vivid and pop
With a spark that can restart
A faltering heart
And rekindle a dimly lit soul

These faded days
Are just fragments
And pieces
But they somehow
Some way
Without a single doubt
Keep us true
Keep us honest
And keep us whole

Inscrutable Ocean

By, Sean Frank

Navigating the day
It's easy to get
In your own way
The hours slip by
Like friends
Lost to the tides of time

As the waves lash at the shore
What was carefully placed
Becomes unmoored
What was perfectly arranged
Becomes chaos in motion

There's so many places to get lost
In the vast expanse
Of the inscrutable ocean
With just the sky above
And miles of water below
The surface denotes nothing
But it's warm and comfortable
And it's so heavy and cold
The farther down you go

The day is here
It will start
Continue and end
The laws of the universe
Will continue to refuse
To bend
Maybe it's time for a dive
Or just a little swim
A few laps
Isn't much
But the effort
Is everything

Hope

By, Sean Frank

Sometimes we fade
Sometimes we come into focus
Sometimes we're just
A flickering image
Wondering if it's all hopeless

Hope is more than
Just another four letter word
Hope is
Finding beauty in the absurd
Hope is
Looking past the horizon
And understanding that
Everything reveals itself
In its own time

Hope is
Easy to find
Impossibly hard to hold
A fleeting comfort
An acquaintance we
Struggle to know
Even though
There's
A wealth of knowledge
Living deep in our subconscious

Sometime we find hope
When we don't know
What else
Can lift such heavy spirits

A sunrise that highlights
The freeform lines
That shape our world
As edges become overexposed
The pressure starts
To lose its hold

A walk with a friend
Along a path in disrepair
As the breeze rolls recklessly
And idle chatter
Takes on deeper meaning

A night with family
Around a crackling fire
Under a clear sky
With stars that hang like rope lights
Strewn into immaculate design

All these things and so much
More
All these things
And everything else
Grasp it when you can
And know it'll
Come back around
Nothing lasts forever
That includes
How you're feeling now

Winter Again

By, Sean Frank

Winter again
Seems like it's been a while
But it's just been a minute
In the grand cascade
Of seasonal change

I remember how much the cold
Can constrain
And comfort
While hitting the bones
Like it wants to expose
The warmth they hold

Winter again
And the decorative lights
Always surprise
With the ambience
They exude
As memories flood the ruins

Loved ones who left us
Days remembered
In a monotone gradient
Subtle and strange
Fires that crackle
And rattle anxieties
Until their structures
Fall apart

We wander together
We wonder together
Even though the days are short
The sun reflects in the snow
As it's rays bloom
Bounce and grow
Into the horizon
Into days that fade
With a glow
After all
We forget what we remember
And we remember
What we know

Simply Exist

By, Sean Frank

Time is a distillation
An act of creation
Familiar faces and moments
Come in rotation
As we search for
The same old
And brand new
Forms of elevation

Steps in step
With everyone else
Treks that wreck the trail
And drain the well
As our thirst swells
And our hunger rises
The dynamic monotonous
Drone
Flows so effortlessly

Conversations swirl
And ride the whirlwind
Topics have their limited range
But the subtlety grows with age
We can say so much with so little
The weather becomes
A declaration of angst
And current news
Becomes a bewilderment
Of the day and age
Oh, how the same old
Same old
Can coyly change

But nothing changes
Or is it just a cruel trick
After all
We live with the same ticks
Tacked onto different skins
We wear as we tear through
The day
How our perception
Weighs us down
We see so much
Understand so little
But the big picture
Can really be understood from
Days where we seemed to
Simply exist
Oblivious
To the matters of the mind
As our souls vibrated
In perfect communion
With the world outside