To Make My Peace with You: To Make My Peace with You

To Make My Peace with You

It’s true I hate being around you, I confess
That doesn’t mean I’m not glad that you’re here
This is your best ticket to a better life than you have lived
And I always wanted that, I swear

Feelings like beached whales… dying in the shallows
There are no more victims to enlist
The bridge is burnt down between our islands
To burn anymore would be malice
So don’t confuse this with surrender
It’s just something that’s overdue
But I won’t be your great pretender
Oh, to make my peace with you

To make my peace with you
To make my peace with you
You can’t fix all that’s broken
But ruins make for room to change

Don’t keep bringing it up because there’s still love
No, I just didn’t think I could be so cruel
You have seen the primal – seen the worst within me now
And I have seen the worst in you

Memories projecting… on the faces in the crowd
Every look-alike stained with your name
This war has made me into something I don’t want
Something so slowly I became
But I didn’t come here for forgiveness
And I can’t pretend to forgive you
But the truth’s a silent witness
Oh, to make my peace with you

To make my peace with you
To make my peace with you
You can’t fix all that’s broken
But ruins make for room to change

There’s a lesson to be gained
May we never do to any other like this again




September 10, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: In a Good Place

In a Good Place

It is early January, and for some reason I feel new here.
The heavy rain has halted as if to make a little room where
The ghost beneath the asphalt can permeate to private play,
Bouncing a ball against the brick wall of the apartment building
(When nobody’s looking).

Three blocks down I’m in a window
Quitting coffee with a pot of tea,
Thinking of all the friends of mine who are approaching thirty.
And it’s not that same old feeling – just an observation between sips
Over a pad with a scribbled stanza devoted to my girlfriend’s lips.
But the rhymes are sorta cheesy and the tune’s nothing to boast.
You can always tell I’m reaching when I start writing about ghosts.

I get stupid when I’m happy, but anyway…
I don’t mind being stupid... on a quiet rainy day.




March 17, 2007 (revised September 8, 2007)

To Make My Peace With You: A Moment Ago

A Moment Ago

On the day you were born
A day was a lifetime for you
When you were five years old
Five years was a lifetime for you

When you’re a teen
Checking the scene
The moments, they go by so slowly
When you are old
At the edge of your life
Moments slip by at the speed of light

And you go
So it goes
Body feels like the husk of a ghost
Then you go
And you know
Poetry is a moment ago
Poetry is a moment ago
Poetry is a moment ago

When you were first kissed
A kiss was a lifetime for you
But when you last kissed
The ritual was flavorless and removed

The mantle grows cluttered
What’s a cup without drink?
Is it that you’re so tired or perhaps a headache?
There’s glass dust in the sugar
The feathers have been bronzed
And all that there’s to say is “this just happens”

And you go
So it goes
Body feels like the husk of a ghost
Then you go
And you know
Poetry is a moment ago
Poetry is a moment ago
Poetry is a moment ago

Oh the temptation to let it all slip by
While daydreaming of what has already died
To learn nothing
From the beauty of “goodbye”
To greet nothing
As tomorrow passes by

When you were thirteen
Realities clung viscous to blades of grass
When you were thirty-three
Spilt your coffee but you can’t let the deadline pass

We listened to coal cars
We watched honeybees
As they fucked the dandelions on the corner of each street
Espresso was sacrament
Buddha was Lou Reed
Wong Kar-Wai at Vinegar Hill and Brady at Gravity
We were media vampires
The intrinsic and profane
Wishing we were beatniks and trying to be insane
We all fell for bass players
We read gamer magazines
And each time, fewer come back for the anniversaries

And you go
So it goes
Body feels like the husk of a ghost
Then you go
And you know
Poetry is a moment ago
Poetry is a moment ago
Poetry is a moment ago




September 5, 2007 (revised September 9, 2007)

To Make My Peace With You: Rayograph

Rayograph

Anna, I’m tired
Of gilding dead lilies
The garden is thirsty outside
And this town feels like it’s left me behind

Anna, I’m tired
I feel hollow within
I’m the ashes of burnt incense
…Bent and clinging to the stick

The doors to my temple, from a hurricane, they have broken off
Vines curtain the windows and small birds now nest in the rafters above
The mirrored room cult of personality
It all lies shattered on the river stone floor
And the hero in the mural over the alter, I believe that he is no one
Least whom I mistook him for

Anna, I’m tired
But my lost dreams return to me
While the day dreams I’ve held to for so long
Say no good byes; I just turn and they’re gone

Anna, I’m tired
I want to lie down by your side
Watch that wild boy I never was die
Go hang his shoes from a telephone line

Let’s throw out his furniture; pile it in the street to be set afire
When asked who he was and who am I, be honest and call me a liar
Standing alone, like a ghost in his empty room
I’ll just stare at the bare wall and laugh
At his silhouette immortally mocking me…
Burned into the wall like a rayograph

Anna, I’m tired
Of gilding dead lilies
The garden is thirsty outside
There’s much to tend to and precious is time




June 28, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Your Choice

Your Choice

Under the water
You know that I’m behind you
My chin over you shoulder
I kiss your ear

My arms around your stomach
The smell of your wet hair
I am so defeated – as I pull you near

Can you hear – the ocean in my sigh?
Whatever you decide

Out of the squalor
A braid of mating snakes
Shedding our discolor
Off each other

You know that I’m behind you
Crossing this ember bridge
What more resolution – could I give?

Can you see – the terror in my eyes?
But still
Whatever you decide




March 22, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: All I Ever Tried to Do

All I Ever Tried to Do

You lent me your ears but now you want them back
My hands are empty, like my pockets and my hat
I never took what you have lost
It slipped through each finger
Refusing to be caught

And you can’t remember what had come before
You deny accepting the invitations you still hoard
And so you wear the progeny like a dresser missing a drawer
Furnishing the hour with a vacuous rapport
The price of lidless honesty

You say to me that misery is all I ever propagate
"Avoid the void that has destroyed the joy your memories confiscate"
And I don’t know what’s dutiful
Nor pretend to know what’s true
But to paint the darkness beautiful
That’s all I ever tried to do

I find no answers in the elder and renown
Like a red death, my thoughts unnerve every crown
But still the clattered crystal laugh
Baptizes blasphemy
In a champagne bubble bath

And so I find you prized among the bourgeoisie
And here you find me, bleeding on their balcony
Disheartened, all of my passions have emptied out of me
Your pity throws a skinned man to the sea
You suggest, almost mockingly:

“Why can’t you paint a portrait of the glory and the majesty?”
All pessimists are cynical but a realist is heresy
Ah, but I don’t know what’s dutiful
Nor pretend to know what’s true
Just to paint the darkness beautiful
That’s all I ever tried to do

I’ve worn my welcome to these banquets of moths
Till tattered thrashings find no more their quaint applause
Replaced now with delayed alarm
They cover up their children’s eyes
Cast forth to hold the guard

So now, Cassandra, may I have this dance?
The aborted golem’s climbing up the hourglass
The streets are roaring with the silence of a question unasked
For its answer’s in the details of the crash
And I know not how to look away

So if I am a sinner then someday I’ll face that fate
And If I am a monster then my slayer I await
If your rapture comes, I’ll bid you well when sails your mighty ship
Or sing a dirge if by false words you board the Titanic
Cause I don’t know what’s dutiful
Nor pretend to know what’s true
But to paint the darkness beautiful
That’s all I’ve ever tried to do




April 29, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: The Worst In Me/ The Day That Lennon Died

The Worst In Me/ The Day That Lennon Died

I need my space
I need – what I can’t seem to explain to you
Dowsing for purpose
I need… to do what I’m supposed to do
Captivity has stunted my… pursuit
But honestly, I would be so lost if you turned me loose

I need my space
I need – to nurture what I used to be
I used to laugh… so much
But now I hide in the comedy

“It’s getting better… all the time”
You always tell me – ah, but I find
Nothing’s better in my mind
I’m always waiting for somebody to die

This world keeps bringing out the worst in me
I try so hard to keep it from showing
Where to begin?
How do you open up a crumpled heart?
This junkman’s junk

I saw her face
I saw – it briefly in a subway crowd
I woke up gasping
And you saw… more than I meant my eyes to allow
Complacency has bartered my… spirit
And honestly, though the band still plays, I don’t hear it

I see your face
I see – what all these games have done to you
You used to laugh… so much
But now you ornament the room

And nothing more… seems to come
Of all the conquests that we once won
Nothing’s new beneath this sun
Oh, mama, happiness is still a warm gun

This world keeps bringing out the worst in me
I try so hard to keep it from showing
Where to begin?
How do you open up a crumpled heart?
This junkman’s junk
I’ve had enough!

* * *

I just need to hear – a happy song
Maybe go and see – a funny film
Or just go out for a while…
And forget how much I care
A change of scene would do me good
Things are getting to me more than they should
Things I keep selling to myself…
Oh, if only you were there
To see just how low I have come
The songs I wish could be unsung
We used to listen to the Beatles
Now we listen to the news

We never had a chance
We weren’t even alive
The day that…
Optimism died
The day that optimism died
The day that optimism died
The day that imagination died

Imagine just for a moment
That we could start where we began
You think that shooting star – babe, could we hold it?
I’m holding out my hand

Let’s go lay flowers on the steps
Where they say John Lennon died
We never had a chance
We weren’t even alive

Imagine just for a moment
That we could start where we began
Do you think that we could hold it?
Or would we throw it back again?

* * *

I need my space
I need – you to wait like I waited for you




June 7, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Song for Another Girl

Song for Another Girl

End of the road
Well, turn around
What was left is all that you make
To forget is what you would claim
To the face that has a name
Left to realize your game…

It’s getting cold outside
The streets desert your memories
Bande à part… sweet sixteen…

Blue is a word… for my mood
All these words for your love, I pay
Sweet are words like the summer
Singing a song… to you
That I wrote for another girl
That I wrote for another

Around the corner
Took three hard rights just to find I was wrong
Around the corner
So much to kill for a little bit more, more, more, more…

End of the road
You turn around
Others are crossing your footprints
They’ll forget all you would claim
Then a face enters the frame
And in her eyes you feel so ashamed…

Slowly, it starts to snow
Ashes catch to her eyelashes
Coffee steam... dark chocolates…

All we are… is what we do
I’ve done nothing the worth of you
I don’t deserve such a lover
I’m singing a song… to you
That I wrote for another girl
That I wrote for another

She was a bye-bye baby
Taillights of her Mercedes
Said goodbye to me frankly
Words were not her strength see
Seems like my, my, lately
Seen a lot hearts aching
Hammer draggin’ from the breaking
Only got what I’ve taken
Took a lot at the start
And didn’t pay to park
I couldn’t see then the crime
I couldn’t hear her crying
But hey
Maybe next time… there will be a text time

Singing a song… to you
That I wrote for another girl
That I wrote for another
I’m singing a song… to you
That I wrote for another girl
That I wrote for another




September 2, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Florescent Moon

Florescent Moon

Walking through the infinite hallway
Of a mirror staring into its twin
They tell me there’s a door at the end
But when I – take one step forward
It’s two steps back anew

All the prophets have 1-900 numbers
All you lovers better keep your receipts
Night swimming through the oceans of data
The lonely hours never grant me relief

Walking through the infinite hallway
Of a mirror staring into its twin
They tell me there’s a door at the end
But when I – take one step forward
It’s two steps back anew

I could have taken a moment to listen
I could have said something that I’d said before
I think you’ve already made your decision
Better than I, you know the way to the door

It feeds dissatisfaction
All actions as reactions
Inducing refractions
You say that love’s a distraction
To keep it off your mind
Through the oceans of data
To keep it off your mind
The tidal pull of theta
Under florescent moon
You’re buzzing blue, baby
You’re buzzing blue, baby
You’re buzzing blue, baby

It feeds dissatisfaction

The succulents add some life to your window
You ask me why but how could I have refused?
Crackle of plastic from disposable raptures
The fragmented rituals that we pick and choose

Walking through the infinite hallway
Of a mirror staring into its twin
They tell me there’s a door at the end
But when I – take one step forward
It’s two steps back anew
One step forward
It’s two steps back anew
One step forward
Is two steps back to you




2007

To Make My Peace With You: My Father’s Church

My Father’s Church

What’s good in men
Who live good
Only to be rewarded?
And what’s redemption but a plea
Not to meet one’s punishment?

Heaven and Hell
I wonder
If an eternity would blur such words?
Heaven and Hell
I wonder
If God’s ever looked over his shoulder?

Can’t find the spirit in a house of men
So to my father’s church I return
To the pines, the oak and maple trees
To my knees
In these hills of brick shale clay…
Honeysuckle and river mint
How youth’s bounties do ferment
My blood is carried by these streams
But my dreams
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay

All that I see
From where I can see
It is disintegrating
Behind a mound of ravaged wealth
The naked creation hides itself

Right or wrong
Dominion’s song
The Devil’s a scapegoat complete with horns
Right or wrong
Dominion’s song
Is anything from nature really unnatural?

Can’t find the spirit in a house of men
So to my father’s church I return
To the pines, the oak and maple trees
To my knees
In these hills of brick shale clay…
Honeysuckle and river mint
How youth’s bounties do ferment
My blood is carried by these streams
But my dreams
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
All that shimmers has been taken away

Oh, what’s left of me?
Oh, what’s left to be?
Lord knows, I’m trying
To find compassion in obscene hymns
But I lost my footing
When the ground caved in…
Think I’m gonna need some time to mend

Feels good to love
Love to be loved
It’s the sweet mead of life, and boy, am I drunk!
If all of my days could be like these
Then long sought answers, I’d never need

Somewhere between
The beast and bee
We’ll soothe our souls with harmonies
Somewhere between
The beast and bee
We’ll throw a wrench in the dichotomy

Can’t find the spirit in a house of men
So to my father’s church I return
To the pines, the oak and maple trees
To my knees
In these hills of brick shale clay…
Honeysuckle and river mint
How youth’s bounties do ferment
My blood is carried by these streams
But my dreams
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
They don’t shimmer in the Chesapeake Bay
But there’s still a glimmer in the Chesapeake Bay




March 28, 2007 (revised April 5, 2007)

To Make My Peace With You: Spoonful of You

Spoonful of You

Cat took my tongue
Left a frog in my throat
Bloodshot and horse
Of coarse I’d try to make a joke
Maybe just a spoonful of you
And I could see anything through

I hate my job
But hey, don’t we all?
Roll with the punches
I’m just dying for you to call
Maybe just a spoonful of you
And I could see anything through

Well it’s been
Forty-eight
Hours since you told me
To call in the morning
If there was still anything
And I’ve called
I have called
But still you don’t answer
And I’m tired of hearing the ring

I got so seasick
Aboard the Love Boat
Sitting through sitcoms
Trying to stay afloat
Maybe just a spoonful of you
And I could see anything through




September 21, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: My Thoughts Return to You

My Thoughts Return to You

Well you’re long-gone and thank goodness
Guess you finally understood this
That I don’t need you no more baby
Haven’t even thought of you much lately
And though you are not in the room
I say it to nothing just as true
And in this way
My thoughts return to you

Funnel webs in the window
Look like specter tornadoes
Look like maelstroms without water
That spider moves fast as an otter
Like I saw swim at the zoo
You would recall – you were there too
And once again
My thoughts return to you

It’s getting late in the evening
And I’m sweating little streams
And I can hear them tomcats fighting
Trashcan thunder for the heat lightning
On the 4th you looked like heaven
But now my zeal is somewhat deadened
Still, once again
My thoughts return to you

I’ve been drinking stouts and ambers
Swingin’ at crane flies with a claw hammer
Trying to write a letter or something
Madder than Hunter S. Thompson
You said you prefer Norman Mailer
I like him too – oh man, I’m a failure!
I did it again!
My thoughts returned to you

I can’t quit you baby
I can’t end this the way I’ve tried
I’ve got it all under control – yes I do
But that last laugh
Is killing me inside

I’m mowing the lawn after midnight
Bobbing graceful as a lead kite
With a toothache – feels just like her
Spitting rum in the bonfire
And the sirens came a-yelling
The neighbors said that they’d smelled somethin’
I’m scrambling up to the rooftop
Firemen are begging me not to jump
But the smoke’s thickened to a haze
And these shingles they need replacing
What way to start a brand new day!

I’m waking in the hospital
With a little bit of spittle
And the nurse is quite the dish
But all this gauze seems to sure itch
And I’m not looking to replace you
I just wish I could misplace you
And thus again
My thoughts return to you




August 3, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Black Eyed Day

Black Eyed Day

Kill your ego
Kill your ego
By his order you abide
Kill your ego
Said to kill your ego
But did you mean to kill your pride?
Well, Jane Doe is waiting
She needs a toe tag
She was forgotten along the way
To kill your ego
Kill your ego
You won’t remember the price to pay

Jenny got caught in a bad religion
He doesn’t list the contents of her new prescription
Jenny got caught in a bad religion

But don’t kill the messenger
I’m just on the sideline watching it all
Don’t kill the messenger
Then they’ll be no one to catch you when you fall
And this time you’re gonna fall

And I’m not the one
Who gave a black eye to your sunny day
Still, if you want me to leave
You know what to say
I’m not the one
Who gave a black eye to your son
Still, if you want me to leave
Well, you’re blocking the way

Jenny got caught in a bad religion
Anomie leads to such cruel addictions
Jenny got caught in a bad religion
Jenny got caught in a bad religion

But don’t kill the messenger
I’m just on the sideline watching it all
I’m no philosopher
But shouldn’t someone try to catch you when you fall?
And this time you’re gonna fall
It’s as clear as day

And I’m not the one
Who gave a black eye to your sunny day
Still, if you want me to leave
You know what to say
I’m not the one
Who gave a black eye to your son
Still, if you want me to leave
Well, you’re blocking the way




September 8, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: I Can’t Hear You Calling

I Can’t Hear You Calling

Heavy chain dragging ‘cross a concrete floor
Crash from the fall of the oil drum to roll
Rolling to a stop
Then silence in open room

And I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
No I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
I can’t hear you calling me

Suspicion got me wishing I were somewhere else
Start to get a picture of how Kafka felt
To starve my heart
This becomes my only reprieve

So I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
No I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
I can’t hear you calling me

I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
No I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
I, I, I, I, I can’t hear you calling
I can’t hear you calling me




September 7, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: After The Fall

After The Fall

Dirty sweat and coffee grounds
Maybe you’ve seen some of the world?
They’re spilling out of the theater now
Hope they got their tickets’ worth
Have you been to this old brick town before?
Might I tell you of my fall?

Call me… Elvis Presley
The Virgin Mary
Call me Henry The Fifth, if you want
For I’m just passing through
Pretending nothing’s new
That nothing come to pass is my fault

And if I were a better man
I would not be a king
And if I were a braver man
I would not be standing
The choices I have made have past the point of undoing
No, you wouldn’t recognize me
I’m the one of whom you sing

An apple peel uncoiling right to left
So streams the news, the pulp burlesque
My attention is a jackknife
Jackknifed by the overhead set
The under-stocked and undermanned
Like a dying spider, the needy hands
They curl together into fists:
The bounded prayer of the forsaken
Seen through the eyes of the absurd prince
And the libertine and the masochist
“So shall we raise another tower, boys
Or build another vast fortress?”
Each to the other shakes their head
So long to now envy the dead
But the prince remains uncertain
That it was he who made his own… terrible bed

And if I were a betting man
I would not say a thing
My fortune would come through silence
And leave by the same wing
Of love, you took a gamble to change a loss unseen
Ah, but with my thirty silver
I saw and raised your golden ring

But now I’m haunting all the airports
Feeling for the stillness of angels
Struck by the beauty of the people as they wait
Quiet and alone in such numbers
Do you feel there’s something more to this hour?
Even I’m humbled despite my resolve

Call me… Moriarty
Laurel and Hardy
Call me Montgomery Clift if you want
For I’m just passing through
Pretending nothing’s new
That nothing come to pass is my fault…

…when it is all my fault

And if I were a better man
I would not be a king
And if I were a braver man
I would not still be standing
The choices I have made have past the point of undoing
Still, you wouldn’t recognize me
As I listen to you sing




September 21, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Learning to Survive

Learning to Survive

Everyday
We are learning to survive
While slowly dying away
Everyday
We are learning to survive
While slowly dying away

The hands they fill the basin
We wash ourselves of it all
Everything’s a battle and long some have fought
But now they’re tuning out
And we are right behind them
The gauntlet not passed on
Left to rust in the basin

Everyday
We are learning to survive
While slowly dying away
Everyday
We are learning to survive
While slowly dying away

Life is all we have
So let me fall asleep between your legs
With a taste of death that’s flavor betrays
All for dislocation
To exist seems so dislodged
We shudder in the currents
Chasing shadows we call gods

Everyday
We are learning to survive
While slowly dying away
Everyday
We are learning to survive
By living off another day

I was in your corner
Until I saw you pull a punch for more the same
Dying away
Dying away
We’re dying away
Dying away
Dying away
Dying away




September 5, 2007 (revised September 7, 2007)

To Make My Peace With You: Dancing Complacent

Dancing Complacent

Thick as thieves, it’s dripping
Through thick and thin cuts time
Scratch your back – I’m waiting
With a Swiss Army knife
Oow, initiation
Blood brothers share disease
We’re leaving in a an hour
Cleaning the scrape from my brow

Oh, spit in your palm
Give a word from where you’re from
Come on and tell me are you in or out?

Upbeat down…
Beats up the beat down
Upbeat down…
Beats up the beat down

Yeah, I heard all about it
It was all over the news
Now I’m putting on your makeup
While you relocate your blues
Cindy, are you open?
Your opiate I need
Cindy, are you broken?
Won’t you open it for me?

Dis ain’t no prom
You still fucking on the lawn?
They only like you when you’re blacking out

Upbeat down…
Beats up the beat down
Upbeat down…
Beats up the beat down

Did the skinhead serve you coffee?
But that was way back when?
Oh, and I left my dirty laundry?
And you found the damnedest things?
Need an explination?
Well, your opiate I need
We’re leaving in an hour
I think you should just leave.




May 7, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Shape We're In

Shape We’re In

Talk about oh… the shape we’re in
The shape
Oh, the shape we’re in
The shape…
The shape we’re in

Big world, then the bottom fell out
Take a brush to dust or paint broad without doubt
We’re going to get some answers here
Look at the pretty lights, watch a rabbit disappear
Gold rush – better stake your claim
Or plagiarize your way through the reality game
Reality game

Talkin’ ‘bout oh… the shape we’re in
The shape
Oh, the shape we’re in
The shape…
The shape we’re in

Hey Jill, saw your brother in town
He still drive around at night just to drive around?
In the super mall parking lot
Does he still sit and watch the sun come up?
If you step back far enough
All the details will dissolve into more the same
More the same

Talkin’ ‘bout oh… the shape we’re in
The shape
Oh, the shape we’re in
The shape…
The shape we’re in

I’m picking up pieces
Piecies of the vultures crumbling
In the sky

Big world, then the bottom fell out
Take a brush to dust or paint broad without doubt
We’re going to get some answers here
This ain’t about the truth; it’s about caging fear
Gold rush – hurry, stake your claim
‘Cause one of these days we’ll bleed dry the vain
In the reality game
Reality game

Talkin’ ‘bout oh… the shape we’re in
The shape
Oh, the shape we’re in
The shape…
The shape we’re in

Talkin’ ‘bout oh… oh, the shape we’re in
The shape
Oh, the shape we’re in
The shape…
The shape we’re in




September 5, 2007

To Make My Peace With You: Gray Bird

Gray Bird

Feel better in the morning
But I’ll be here for you now
Feel better in the morning
But I’ll be here for you now

He’s coming home tomorrow
He’s coming on that big gray bird
He’s coming home tomorrow
“Love you forever” were his last words

Drinking hotel water
The bathroom sink in the late, late night
Can’t escape tomorrow
With neon blues under cold white lights

Raining on the runway
Can you hear them crosswinds moan?
Raining on the runway
Today they bring your good man home

Flags of our fathers
Flags for our mothers widowed
Bullets for the angels
Salute the dead as they bring ‘em home

Feel better in the morning
But I’ll be here for you now
Feel better in the morning
But I’ll be here for you now

Feel better in the morning
But I’ll be here for you now
Feel better in the morning
But I’ll be here for you now




March 17, 2007

To Make My Peace With You

1. Gray Bird

2. The Shape We're In

3. Dancing Complacent

4. Learning to Survive

5. After the Fall

6. I Can't Hear You Calling

7. Black Eyed Day

8. My Thoughts Return to You

9. Spoonful of You

10. My Father's Church

11. Florescent Moon

12. Song for Another Girl

13. The Worst in Me / The Day John Lennon Died

14. All I Ever Tried to Do

15. Your Choice

16. To Make My Peace With You

17. Rayograph

18. A Moment Ago

19. In a Good Place

More info comin'!

Now and Then: A Nighthawk for Very Long

A Nighthawk for Very Long

Pleased to meet you on the bones of a troubling notion
Reminds me of a time…
Beautiful memories, now I’d almost kill to forget
Still an uncompleted set
Of if only’s wrapped in not yet
Cursed relics torn of direction
By loin and heart’s magnetism
A dust collecting collection
Cluttering an alter that is fit for higher callings…
Deafened by pathos and resign

And I know you’re being careful
While trying not to be unkind
Pushing to keep your distance
From feelings that you can’t hide

You're trying
So hard
Not to become attached
I shouldn't blame you, when after all…
I know that I'm not staying for very long
For very long…
For very long

Pleased to meet you on this shore of turbulent emotion
Walking side by side….
Of the same color, sky and ocean now become
Feel your fingers brush my palm
To broken whistle and belly drum
Immanence blows curtain to tear
The flashing of the ion spire
And your wind tendril whipping hair
But hand in hand we find this tempest merely playful
And I feel now so alive

And I’m trying to be careful
But you’re tangled to my thoughts
The sand is cool beneath our bare feet
On this unaccustomed waltz

But I’m trying
So hard
Not to become attached
But can you blame me, when after all…
Still, I know that I'm not staying for very long
For very long…
For very long

Pleased to meet you at the dawn of a frightful devotion
It’s mighty lonely here…
Leaving the night to the goatsuckers and their goddess’s bare breast
My black wings, I hang to rest
Without resentment or protest
Too full to suckle the lunar brook
Or dance by fire with cloven hoof
To horn and reed I’ve grown aloof
The cacophony of day has aged to warmest laughter…
In my whisper sweetened ears

I can feel my past life fading
Both from cell and burdened mind
With no guilt to need evading
Still there’s perhaps an ax to grind

I’m trying
So hard
Not to become attached
But can you blame me, when after all…
Still, I know that I'm not staying for very long
For very long…
For very long

Pleased to meet you on this cold roadside of lucid motion
Keeping warm by the wreck…
My crossroad blues, my wailing reds, to purple freely flow
Between your cobble stones
Mother of thyme to lead you home
Perfuming your dancing feet
Into house of youthful dreams
And then shattered by sun beams
To return to empty bed with yearning letter…
And like the tide, I then forget

And I’m trying to be careful
Not to offer what I’ve not
And I’m trying not to hurt you
But sometimes hurt is all I’ve got
I have seen you in a thousand scenes projected on the wall
Collaged your face with movie stars and waited for your call
I’ve called you by a hundred names
From my mouth, watched each one fall
Like the feathers from a hunted grouse shot down from up above
And the fever again seizes me
To destroy another home
And with a smile, you would banish me
Were it not for your loving hold

You're trying
So hard
Not to become attached
I shouldn't blame you, when after all…
I know that I'm not staying for very long
For very long…
For very long




May 16, 2006

Now and Then: Make Me the Wind

Make Me the Wind

Sunshine ain’t a cold splash
If you’ve been up all night
It’s just the final reminder
Without a feeling contrite
I’m weary of waiting
Knowing too well my fate
They say I’m eight coils from heaven
And the rope eye’s the gate

(Chorus)
Rope eye to rip torn
Bloodshot and frayed
I took without asking
From all this life gave
Rope eye to rip torn
Bloodshot and frayed
I jumped without asking
Cause they swore I’d be saved

They told me it was over
For my need they had not
I killed for the word
As they told me I ought
And God now I question
For most strange be his choice
To grant to the devils
Command of his voice

(Repeat chorus)

So here to my reward
The coffin its chest
They bury my treasure
They lay it to rest
A cold wooden body
Bones broken inside
It’s not ivory or silver
But it once held my life

So here to my reward
The coffin its chest
They bury my treasure
They lay it to rest
Some words from a preacher
Then “Amazing Grace” sung
And again the gravedigger
Says, “They take’em too young”

(Repeat chorus)

I can’t see heaven’s gate now
Nor feel the flames of hell
It’s darker than darkness
Fragrant not to smell
Just make me the wind, Lord
To blow through the tress
For the woman that visits
And still loves only me

(Repeat chorus)




July 13, 2006

Now and Then: No Answers, Still...

No Answers, Still…

I exited through the far door
To hide from my past life
And there away from others’ eyes
You were sharpening a knife
I asked what were you doing
And you said, “is it not clear?”
Then I asked you, “for what reason?”
And you asked, why do I fear?

We came to an agreement
Written in-between our words
Then pretended not to sign it
Watching the pregnant horse
Her hooves within the water
Her burden heavy hung
She had no clues to give us
We were living different songs

You’ve seen me with my weakness
You have seen me deeply tired
Head hung behind their curtain
Thoughts dwelling on things dire
Wondering will this bleak rehearsal
Be like Leonard’s or like Phil’s
You offer me no answer
But you stand beside me still




September 19, 2006

Now and Then: A Ballad of What Brothers Became

A Ballad of What Brothers Became

The rainwater fills the coffee can
But they say not to drink it anymore
My eyes hang a moment on the tree line
A moment till to flight takes the raptor

And my lover
She sits expressionless
I guess this is how it’s put to rest
We just linger
With the ghosts of absent sounds
No pitter-patter in the halls
The kitchen table has no laughter
On the hilltop ’s a pile of stones
The rifle leans by the bed hereafter

She kisses my forehead…
But not a word is said
She goes in for the night…
I look on as the sunsets
My mother’s dying words…

“Child, he’s family
He’s your brother
Don’t forget”

The stillness of morning has set me
For a moment aside from myself
But his laughter surfaces in memory
Before the hilltop, my eyes begin to well

The flesh of my flesh
Before mine’s come to rest
Plucked from his mother’s swollen breast
My own brother
What has the bottle done to you?
By casualty of culmination
Or error more random in cause
Fate embittered raised your hand
Your infant nephew was the loss

My palms to my forehead…
My fingers claw my scalp
Over and over again…
The memory, it plays out
But my mother’s dying words…

“Child, he’s family
He’s your brother
Don’t forget”

Six wishes a devil would sell me
And that devil’s the want deep in my heart
Six wishes of lead slowly loading
As I sit in the corner in the dark
Then I rise from my chair with a decision
And I creep outside like a phantom
Leaves scurry in a frail wind of protest
But such weight can’t be lifted with bantams

Closing the truck door behind me
It cast a shadow, like a dragon’s wing
Flapping in the cool hunter’s moonlight
The heavy motions of a dying thing
And the headlights throw their beams on the front porch
Like twin specters standing at the door
But, in their light, now the house looks abandoned
As does everything that they lead me before
Down the long winding road to retribution
Down the long winding road to justice
Down the long winding road to damnation
The further down I drive, the greater the darkness

Crossing the James River, I hear thunder
Now the moon hides in a forest of clouds
The rain begins to fall on my windshield
By the time I cross, its pouring hammers down

To his motel room
Yes, I know my brother’s den
Where many times I had found him
Down in the bottle
With old pictures of us three
“Y’took ‘er from me” he would slur
“The only joy I’d in the world”
Then he’d curse me and then he’d curse God
And then he’d curse the devil in his heart

The door was half-open…
He was waiting for me to come
There was nothing left to say…
I lifted my brother’s gun
My mother’s dying words…

“Child, he’s family
He’s your brother
Don’t forget”

The cotton hangs soaked on the dark stems
And reminds me of late last winter
Will I ever find my way out of Smithville?
I can’t be found on this side of the river

And the revolver
Rides shotgun next to me
My dearest devil, comforting
Me with the promise
That my secrets safe with he
As the Chevy slices the flooded road
Rising up over the white fence posts
And the more I see the cotton soaked
The more it looks a field of ghosts

Indian bones in the riverbank…
My mattock is stained with snake’s blood
I burry this devil in the corn field…
But I cannot bury… the deed we’d done

I fall down in the cane…
Like Cain, I hang my head
The blood upon my hands…
The blood my brother bled
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words…




December 13, 2006

Now and Then: Now

Now

The aimless hours
The ambling thoughts
The rambling letters
You feel so lost
In all the monotonies mundane
In the nearsighted ever same
The 50s film
The Gonzo book
The material cult
The sneering look
Fleeing monotonies mundane
In the nearsighted ever same

Before the days
When we were marching in the rain
We always wished to feel something
More than monotonies mundane

So many things I said someday I'll do
I realize I won't do them now
Each day feels a little bit more priceless
And each choice seems more profound

The midnight call
The drunken laugh
The fallen friend
You feel cut in half
As time divides paths intertwined
Reminding us of our lone design
The billboard charts
And maxim clichés
The stepped-on drugs
Tryin' to numb the pain
From when that something finally came
More than monotonies mundane

Back in the days
When we were marching in the rain
With a sense of purpose claimed
Till withered like the needled vein

And how our youthful arrogance believed
That the air beneath our wings
Could lift us in our rebel poses
And I can't stop laughing now
Cause even suicide betrays you with attempt
As destiny clings with contempt
To a blinded work in progress
And I can't stop laughing now

All the things I looked the other way from
How they sucker-punch me now
Up in smoke, my dear friends fade out
And I don't even make a sound



So many things I said someday I'll do
I realize I won't do them now
Each day feels a little bit more priceless
And each choice seems more profound

(X4)
Just remember that you fade to white
Before you fade to black
Before you fade to black
Before you fade to...




September 1, 2006

Now and Then: Fonder

Fonder

It's not the same without you here
Did I really think that it would be?
I'm lying on the carpet
Throwing my thoughts at the ceiling
My own private Pollock painting

I haven't written since I left
The words, they don't find the pen well
Blueish-grey, the beach becomes
As night hushes the spring break crowd
I wish that you were with me now

(Chorus)
Cause you're not like me
You're not like me
You wouldn't let me
Repeat my torturing
To feed my loneliness

How armor hid as foreigners
Two souls to fear of compromise
Though we are far from the same
Is there a thing for me to hide?
Is there a truth that needs a lie?

Everyone else has gone to bed
The needle's near the record's end
The wine is making me sleepy
My heart's a galleon run aground
The moon kisses my trembling brow
I wish that you were with me now

(Repeat chorus)




November 4, 2006

Now and Then: Never Had to Say a Thing

Never Had to Say a Thing

Chasing pages off the rooftop
Jamming in the parking lot
Invading Lucky Seven
Reading about Devon
You know that
We never had to say a thing

Opposite halves of the same brain
Thinking up another band name
Was that an earthquake?
Or did the amp finally break?
You know that
We never had to say a thing

Get a little bit out of tune
Still, we never had to say a thing
But we probably
Should…
But we probably should
Yeah, we probably should

Got locked out of the practice room
And we were due on pretty soon
Soaked to the bone
Punching numbers in the phone
You know that
We never had to say a thing

I got your back when shit gets started
Kick your ass when you start it
The verdict came in
The peanut gallery’s laughing
You know that
We never had to say a thing

Nobody always keeps there cool
Still, we never had to say a thing
But we probably
Should…
But we probably should
Yeah, we probably should
Yeah, we probably
Should…
Yeah, we probably should
Yeah, we probably should

Drinking Jerritos on Halloween
Pizza with Ash and Herbert West
Guess we talked a lot of nothing
If we wanted to say something
You know that
We never had to say a thing

And all and all, it was a ball before the fall
Still, I can’t help feeling that we should have said something
In the end, I got the girl and you saw the world
You know that
We never had to say a thing
We never had to say a thing
No, no, no, no
We never had to say a thing

But we probably
Should…
But we probably should
Yeah, we probably should
Yeah, we probably
Should…
Yeah, we probably should
Yeah, we probably should




October 23, 2006

Now and Then: Low English

Low English

You look like you're thinkin'
'Bout making a big mistake
I've been known to be one
And you're buying all the drinks

My shoes are untied
I'm older than you
You like to watch me tie my shoes
Sitting on the stairs...
Watch me sitting on the stairs

You like to hear my stories
Straightening out my hair
I'll sing a song about The Dust Bowl, baby
Make it sound like I was there

I do believe it's your break
Guess I'm solids again
Why don't you tell me what I get if I win?
It's always good till it ends...
Can't stop thinking 'bout the end



If I get to straying
Don't send me to the pound
You knew that I was wild at heart
And that's not where I was found

I tried the whiskey
Wouldn't whisk me away
I wish to god that I could sleep all day
I wish I didn't care...
I wish that I didn't care

(Chorus)
Help me quit this cure
Cause it's worse than the disease
Girl, I need you
Don't leave me, please

Putting me up to it
When it's against my wish
I know that you've got my back
But you're aiming low english

I'm counting my blessings
I'm counting the dead
Kinda got this feeling 'bout what lies ahead
Don't want to been there...
I don't want to have been there

I'm so tired of running
But the ground's falling under me
I'm so afraid of falling
But now I don't want to leave

My shoes are untied
I'm older than you
You like to watch me tie my shoes
Sitting on the stairs...
I'm on the foot of the stairs

(Repeat chorus)




October 22, 2006

Now and Then: Pick My Bones

Pick My Bones

All of King Lear's daughters
He'd be so proud
Big Daddy's empire, it's all falling down
Go ahead, dig a hole
But no need to bother filling it

Won't let them sleep
That's the price of fame
From James Dean to Kurt Cobain
Everybody step up
And get your fifteen minutes of Christ

(Chorus)
Saying, pick my bones
It's bound to be worth it
Pick my bones
I probably deserve it
Pick my bones
Isn't that what you... want to hear?

Jefferson said to Princess Diana
"We should make a zombie film for our fans
And if you put on blackface
We could give the fat-racks a scream"

(Repeat chorus)




October 22, 2006

Now and Then: Years After

Years After

Caramel smell of yesterday's stout
Midday sun warms you on the couch
Call me a gamer
But I'm a stranger
Remind yourself

"BEWARE OF DOG" on the chain-link fence
Finger in the blinds and a finger in your pants
Well, howdy neighbor!
Ain't you a stranger?
Check yourself

People like talking 'bout the friends I keep
They sure make it hard to get any sleep
Say I'm in danger
But you're all strangers
Say what you... really mean

(Chorus)
Always somebody think they got a better handle on me
But if they let go, I wonder which of us would be falling
They hit you up when you're up
And when you're down... they don't come around
Haven't seen you in so long
You'll have to tell me again what I've found

Always nice to have somebody drop in
As long as they watch where they're landing
Found me a stranger
Tried to exchange her
She keeps coming

Sometimes I go out, but I don't get there
I fall into an Edward Hopper stare
Beyond the train tracks
Letting it come back
Still ain't square

Got me a girl and she always wants more
I'm sick and tired of kissing her door
Keeps getting stranger
but I can't change her
No, she's... changing me

(Repeat chorus)





September 2, 2006

Now and Then: Only a Friend

Only a Friend

I had dream that I was
Somebody else
Somebody not like myself
Somebody not so fortunate…

* * *

Bleaching the blood out from your shirt
Figured you long gone
Good to see you, for what it’s worth
Hunched on the dryer
Feet dangle like two boys fishing
Tryin’ to cast over the fallen trees
That one night’s happenings

But now is now and then is then
Why are you doing this?
You know how it will end
The choices of my life, I have no need to defend
I wish you were only a friend
I wish you were only a friend

A bare arm leans against a bare arm
Don’t change the subject
Yes, I’m happy with what I’ve got
But you see right through it
See their cancer, it dammed my thirst
From the slow death of suburbia
You wonder who was beaten worse

Remember, you showed me how to bend?
Why are you doing this?
You know how it will end
Damn the audacity of "what might have been"
I wish you were only a friend
I wish you were only a friend

Did you let me win for old time’s sake?
Did you go quiet
Fearing all that’s left to say?
Seen through the screen door
Bleached white cotton filters gray
From garbage truck to children’s bikes
Americana wears its shades

Why can’t you just let me pretend?
Why are you doing this?
You know how it will end
And now to see you out there on the mend
I wish you were only a friend
I wish you were only a friend

* * *

I had dream that I was
Somebody else
Somebody not like myself
Somebody not so fortunate…
And when I awoke
I kissed the woman next to me
And I touched the wedding ring
That of
The dream can only dream
The dream can only dream…
The dream can only dream




October 8, 2006

Now and Then: Lost Bridges

Lost Bridges

Well drag me from your truck up a gravel road
Let a bloodhound lick what’s left on the end of the rope
Cause I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

People ‘round here never spare the rod
We handle fifth wheels with the justice of the mob
But I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

I backslid the faith trying to cover my hide
I gave praise to their lord cause the stakes looked right
And I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

There never seem to be enough to go around
Mr. Seersucker wants me to keep the salt down
But I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

I made good money as brawling mauler
Holding all my dreams tight as a fugitive’s dollar
But I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

I took the shelter of women from time to time
Now I’m haunted by the girl that I left behind
But the road gets foggy and the river does wind
And the bridges I’ve crossed, never ‘gain will I find…

The deeper you love, deeper the hooks sink in
I tore your heart from the earth when I’s uprooting
Now I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

I can’t see no point still tryin’ to be good
From the day I was born they said they knew that I would
But I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more

Shoot me like Lennie cause you’re my best friend
With all the love in the world, this is how it must end
Cause I don’t want to hurt nobody no more
I don’t want to hurt nobody no more




September 5, 2006

Now and Then: Opalescence

Opalescence

I was drawn… to you
Like the ripples in the pound
Running to the water’s edge
I was so confident
Your arms, so secure
As the ripples returned
Through one another
Like fingers in your hair
And the light through you
How you seemed so pure
But now something
Has left me
So unsure

But there’s a strange allure in all of this
In your
Opalescence
I have seen you in
A very
Different light…

Still, I’m drawn to you
As the car begins to sink
And your eyeliner doesn’t run…

You’re climbing towards the moon
Climbing the muddy bank
Never looking back
As the song slowly drinks
The icy dark I’d seen
First, deep…
In your brown eyes…
I’m so drawn by you



I was drawn to you
As you led me down the hall
Through the amber saturated lights…

I’ve died a thousand times
And woke in this dark hotel
Wearing another’s face
With the same stained lapel
From your scarlet kiss
A wedding gown of shadows
Dragging behind what I forget
Becomes all now
That daybreak
Has left

But I’m bound by that scarlet kiss
And your
Opalescence
It does consume me in
A very
Different light

Still, I’m drawn to you
Drawn… to you…





September 5, 2006

Now and Then: Bad Blood’s Boiling

Bad Blood’s Boiling

Well the bad blood’s boiling on The 4th of July
Hornet’s ‘r in the hollow and the screech owls own the night
The shadow of a shotgun ‘cross the kitchen floor
Nobody gonna hear from sweet Janice anymore
Before the town crier sings we’ll need a whipping boy…
The senator’s son is ducking out of Troy
The senator’s son is ducking out of Troy

Well, Gus hit the bottle when the flood took his folks
Once was rookie of the year – now just a card in the spokes
Heard he needed money for the shark at the tracks
And after tonight, he weren’t ever comin’ back
Old Hank got a twitch in his luck game leg…
Sayin’, “Bring him in boys and hang him on a peg!
Bring him in boys and hang him on a peg!”

Night sky like a skillet on an old wood stove
The fireworks over the river – the power lines are in the road
Gun smoke in the air and beads on the brows
Of the deputized men surrounding Gus’s house
The young scarecrows want to know what’s gonna happen…
Hushed by the Dutch courage of the three wise men
Hushed by the Dutch courage of the three wise men

An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
The dentist and optometrist are counting the loot
The reenactors were all ready, only this time with real rounds
The smugglers heard the kettle blow… out at the edge of town…
Off a bloody nail in the barn, a piece of lace fell to the ground

Jezebel is standing at the end of the dock
Looking at her father’s sneak boat, half-sunken ‘gainst a rock
Eyes of the raccoons, burning with the fireflies
In the cattails of the far bank where the hoodoo woman resides
Holding her mojo tight against her breast…
He’s ten minutes late and the western wind rests
He’s ten minutes late and the western wind rests

Yellow fever on the river
Yellow belly on the road
Speak now or hold your piece, but better do as you’ve been told
Some play their cards right, with dirty pictures in the deck
Some don’t even make the lineup… with the usual suspects…
Little accidents will happen in the service of justice

Well the bad blood’s boiling on The 4th of July
And the catalyst is sleeping in the thick of the rye
Pulled over at the crossroads with a blown-out tire
Could see the glow over the mountain of the whole town on fire
Thirty-three shots to kill an innocent man…
And pale in the brine floats a young girl’s hand
Weighted down in the brine, Janice’s body’s hidden




September 7, 2006

Now and Then: Picture on the Internet

Picture on the Internet

I saw your picture on the internet
Thought he was joking so you took the bet
You called his bluff
But nobody came to the window

Showed him the scar tissue raised on your wrist
Said, “Baby, I need you and it could come to this”
In the back of his mind was a thought best to hold
Why did the chicken ever cross the road?

I saw your picture on the internet
Thought it a rumor until I found it
A second life
I stared all night at the window

He made you feel like you were somewhere else
Said, “Baby, I need you to feel at peace with myself”
He’s dying inside but he wears daddies cologne
Ketamine communion he gives you to atone

I saw your picture on the internet
Brokenly vulgar in your black fishnets
Your vacant look
A thousand miles from the window

Told me the story about when you were ten
Playing doctor with the boys in the bushes by the spring
The water made a sound almost like singing birds
Heard it again when he took off your shirt

I saw your picture on the internet
Provoked a strange feeling to protect
Staining the words
The fogging up of the widow



We fear the flesh because of its command
The malice in the chalice crushes the palace in your hand
He strokes oblivion as you swallow his pride
Then desecrates you to forget he’s alive

I saw your picture on the internet
Thought he was joking so you took the bet
You called his bluff
But nobody came to the window




September 4, 2006

Now and Then: Shanghaied from the Blues

Shanghaied from the Blues

I wanted to shave my head, babe
I wanted to bleed white-knuckle blood
I wanted to kiss the neck
Of a wine bottle till my message sunk

I’s hanging from being rung-out, overused
But then came you...
And you shanghaied me from the blues

I was trying to be civil about this
I hate how good I am at putting on the act
Trying not to burn bridges
I would not of dug the mote if I really wanted that

I’s hanging frail from my fingernails obtuse
But then came you...
And you shanghaied me from the blues

She never could take a hint, no
Got no sense of appropriateness
Requested hug turns semantic lecture
Well pardon me, your high highness

I’s hanging from a poor-tied hangman’s noose
But then came you...
And you shanghaied me from the blues

* * *

Paper lantern
Lights the balcony
Linger of camphor
From a beginner’s ink
Across the parchment
A fleeting document
Subtle the muscles
The expression you gave

And I’m sorry if I’ve spent all day on this vent
When we could have done a lot of other things
I really hate to waste your time
I should put it behind
My mind is winding like a Jack ready to spring
But lying by your side
Looking into your eyes
You make me forget about all those bitter things
Girl you take me away
You take me away
You take me away
Take me away…



Under the parasol
Eyes of a fiddler crab
Watch us like two periscopes
From underneath the sand




May 19, 2006

Now and Then: Lonely's Poem on the Sidewalk

Lonely's Poem on the Sidewalk

Been sitting on the sidewalk
Trying to read scrawled words of white chalk
A two-line message from another before me
And killing time I wonder if
They were in the same predicament
For after all, the message, it was signed, "The Lonely"

Something about "the wind"
"Flowers in her hair"
"Just stay... and I'll be there"
Signed: "The Lonely"

Well, Virginia is for lovers
And I guess that I'm a lover
Though I ain't exactly plural with anyone
And I'm sure Hank Williams said it best
But Hal David wrote my epitaph
You know, it hadn't rained all summer till it stormed

The words beneath my feet
Half of them washed away
Something about "some day"
Signed: "The Lonely"

It's strange to find so comforting
The thought of someone suffering
And like echoes of a cry decayed
How now these words on asphalt fade
The feeling it has passed away
And the Downtown wind leaves nothing left to say
Humming, "Lord Send Me an Angel" at the end of the day

I'm just waiting here for Triple-A
Cause AA didn't have enough A's
To keep my wagon wheel from flying off
And killing time I wonder if
I could really make the commitment
and what happened to the one who signed, "The Lonely"

Something about "the wind"
"Flowers in her hair"
"Just stay... and I'll be there"
Signed: "The Lonely"

The words beneath my feet
Half of them washed away
Something about "some day"
Signed: "The Lonely"




August 18th, 2006

Now and Then: Now and Then

Now And Then

Now and then
It’s strange to think them the same
Though from one the other became
No clear line can be named

Now and then
I think of you too often
And all that’s now won’t soften
What then promised to begin

But that was then
And this is now
And I’ll take you
Any way anyhow

Now and then
A hummingbird comes to my sill
And I watch it, silent and still
Lying in bed so tranquil




September 9, 2006

Now and Then: Kaleidoscopic Tales of Broke-Down Glory

1. Now and Then
2. Lonely's Poem by the Sidewalk
3. Shanghaied from the Blues
4. Picture on the Internet
5. Bad Blood's Boiling
6. Opalescence
7. Lost Bridges
8. Only a Friend
9. Years After
10. Pick My Bones
11. Low English
12. Never Had to Say a Thing
13. Fonder
14. Now
15. A Ballad of What Brother's Became
16. No Answers, Still...
17. Make Me the Wind
18. A Nighthawk for Very Long

MORE INFO ON THE WAY! :)

Between Two Pillars: Enjoying Your Company

Enjoying Your Company

Watching you watching me watch you walking
Then stopping to talk to me about something
With poses here goes the old game as it goes
Both known it and shown it’s sewn tight all our woes
And left us with breakfast for one when it’s through
When two would be superbly preferred by you
And by me as well but this hell shall endure
As long as we constantly play it secure
Insecure
We are so unsure
Of what we want
We haunt
One another for all that we’ve got…
And there’s always something but nothing we need
I’m just enjoying your company

Quick with the lipstick, pluck, nit-pick precise
Aftershave after bathing and shaving: Old Spice
With praises and phrases, wit skips till unasked
Classy joint points away masking my shabby class
Excluding, we’re choosing, pursuing ideals
Selling fragments in pageants of passionate appeals
But time binds us to what we hide till we find
Like mummies what’s tied down just needs to unwind
And I’m
Sick and tired of trying
Not to be me
For somebody
Who’s doing the same thing, probably…
Cause there’s always something but nothing we need
I’m just enjoying your company

Discussing repercussions of rushing things
Impulsive, repulsive, we’ve toasted our wings
Not to make claim of some saintly paradise lost
But bathwater babies have been lazily tossed…
Whole lot of hard lesions
Have been learned…
But oh, such high costs



So how bout we call it and show all are cards
Let’s kick back and play that old record of yours
Rest our minds wherever they want to go
And empty our thoughts of all that we don’t know
You turn up your swing and we both sing along
Enthused and amused by a like heart disarmed
Then falling asleep with your cheek to my neck
And in the morning how about that breakfast?
Confess
Aren’t you tired of the excess?
Let’s have a toast
Don’t burn the toast!
Whatever we’ve got let’s make the most…
Cause there’s always something but nothing we need
I’m just enjoying your company

I’m just enjoying your company!




March 8, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Our Beggars of the Sea

Our Beggars of the Sea

When passing by
It’s worth a try
To find
A connection where words faultier
Cause we are lost upon these waters
In lifeboats, all made to leak
And though the captains know us well
They hold no hope to keep searching

Mercy, mercy, mercy please
We have not your currency
Soul to soul, we solely…
Feed our beggars of the sea

We see the signs
Of passing time
Still I’ve
Seen no sign of ceasing waters
Words on wind without authors
Chiming crimes, echoed descend
Half of what was half of nothing
Bail out your kingdoms from your tins

Mercy, mercy, mercy please
There is no such currency
Soul to soul, we solely…
Feed our beggars of the sea
Feed our beggars of the sea




February 2, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Love Letter and the Exile’s Promise

Love Letter and the Exile’s Promise

Desiree
It seems a world between us
Against us like the feet that crush these grapes
Maybe it is getting better
The exile, he seemed sincere
Though rare to find now a bottle from sweeter years

(Chorus)
I’ll come my way
Cutting their corners
Somehow I’ll stay
Between the borders
For all that’s to fight for
They’ve lost again
In the space between each bayonet and skin

Desiree
A Juliet do not become
We are not the moon and sun; we’re only starlight
And though nothing’s forever
Perhaps time is more than thread
In a tapestry of requiem and forfeit

(Repeat chorus)




February 11, 2006

Between Two Pillars: The Game

The Game

In the theatrical court
Where they cheer the blood sport
Animals, each one so dignified
Where a handful of men
Stand over a woman
Telling her of her body and rights
You feel a change is a-coming
You try shaking up something
But the horses won’t drink at the stream
Still you know in the end
That all rulers ruin
You haven’t given up on democracy

But I could not… play the game
The first couple rules
More than I could contain
No I would not… play the game
Dying more everyday
Whoring host of such shame
But what am I now to do?
But return to it broken and new
And poison the asp with such view
For this art we must seek to undo

The lesser of two evils
The electoral boll weevils
Leave devastated the youthful heart’s crop
The yellow press presses on
To keep the blood on the tongues
Screaming steam from the great melting pot
And alone you have reason
Compassion impeding
But in the mob you’re just another rock
That’s thrown by a force
Of natures divorced
The panic that rang out with the shot…
So what’s left to offer?
To borrow then author?
What have you to feed the park birds?
Even the spring flowers hiss
At the lost nihilist
The absurd child of the absurd
And between the two pillars
On the lawn of the killers
I confess that my vision's grown blurred
I want a voice that is heard
And a choice once occurred
Will be more than a garland of words

But I could not… play the game
The first couple rules
More than I could contain
No I would not… play the game
Dying more everyday
Whoring host of such shame
But what am I now to do?
But return to it broken and new
And poison the asp with such view
For this art we must seek to undo




April 7, 2006

Between Two Pillars: There She Goes

There She Goes

Don’t need to call her a survivor
She’s got it all under control
You never did have much faith in her
But now who’s praying alone?
Is she pretending to not see you?
Or is her mind just off somewhere?
Wearing that dress that used to bug you
But it looks good… with you not there

(Chorus)
And for a moment
You forget the pain
And for a moment
You want it all again
You’re so afraid that
You’ll never feel that loved again
Cause all you know…
Is that there she goes

The way her hands would rub your shoulders
The things she’d whisper in your ear
Don’t it just kill you to think of them
As each sensation disappears?
Waiting down there by the flag pole
Watching the orange chocolate sky
See her ride off with somebody
Then you drift alone… under the city lights

(Repeat chorus)

There she goes…
There she goes…
There she goes…
There she goes…




March 21, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Monsters of Ourselves

Monsters of Ourselves

Spinning without a focal point
The elegant becomes dangerous
Youth strive too much
We hoard our wealth in furnaces
Combusting
Forward thrusting
Never trusting time’s offer
Of wisdom…
We all fall down someplace
And few choose to taste the pie on their faces

(Chorus)
We make monsters of ourselves
In this tragic comedy
Laughing less at fortune’s fell
Too many tears are eroding
You stood so tall
Now you hunch over this ball of hallow hollowness

It comes alike
So it’s often unnoticed
And then she’s talking ‘bout our babies again
She’s not even twenty
And nothing’s taboo when nobody’s watching
There are no secrets between us
We keep our windows clean
Ignoring the dead birds piling outside

Spinning without a focal point
The peak betrays the base to waver
Weighty thoughts amass
With so little to dismiss or aver
Congesting
Facets stressing
Too much pressing against these
Our faculties…
The heart makes rash mistakes
When taking what time and loneliness create

(Repeat chorus)




March 4, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Somebody’s Gonna Love You

Somebody’s Gonna Love You

(Chorus)
Somebody’s gonna love you
Somebody, someday
Somebody’s gonna love you
If you don’t get in their way…
Whole world is in front of you
But you know
It’s not gonna stay
Somebody’s gonna love you
Someday…

Eyeliner
Streaking your cheeks
Cheats your sleek facetious wit
Did somebody call
The Queen of Hearts’ bluff
And find her ill equipped for it?
Did miss “I can have anybody” find nobody to go out with?
We’re all going out
But going alone
That’s a drag of a gig!

(Chorus)

Real shiner
Gracing your face
Tasting blood between your teeth
Did some mouth breather
Speak to you with blows
His objection to your different beliefs?
In the love of neighbor and brother why does the stranger turn his cheek?
But to say it aloud
With hands full of stones
Seems much stranger to me



Recliner
Signing your fate
Too sedate to take it on
Surrendering to
Two polarities
Manifested to oppose the one
Out on the fringe, it’s hard to find friends when your nature’s so withdrawn
When everyone else
Hides it with more skill
Feels like you’re already gone

(Chorus)




April 6, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Judges and Gardeners

Judges and Gardeners

He glanced over his shoulder
To a whisper brought his voice
“Now don’t tell anyone I said this”
And so he introduced his foist
To ostracize a girl he’d dated
From their many circles mutual
In the echelons of higher learning
And bohemia of the art world

And these rumors grow the tumors that prune the humors of a jovial soul
Into something more submissive
Obedient to a deviant’s need for control
Or is the jovial deviant and the conspirator the norm?
Is this the depth to which we’ve fallen?
Descending from romantic forms
By their nature legions must taint her character
Free spirited, she is a threat to their manner…

And these rumors grow the tumors that prune the humors of a jovial soul
Till socially malignant
Their constringency hinders all conversing towards
While the defense and prosecution are but a one-sided coin
Spinning on the luncheon table
With the gust of privacy purloined
Like a weather cock in the gossiping tempest of tongue
The seduced verdict leaves her in most high dudgeon…



A sincerity I had to question
Though most vexing if it true
His words rode a doubtful stutter
But his eyes had passions deep imbued
As if his wounds weren’t all illusions
For true the faults weren’t all his own
Though fallacious still his conclusions
That to the grapevine he pigeons

And these rumors grow the tumors that prune the humors of a jovial soul
Till wretched are the remnants
Of the girl who took his hand as an equal
And the worst in us is all that we can summon to the stand
With our private motivations
We each select from what happened
Is there an honest soul still in this whole entangled cast?
Honest with self enough to judge the judgments passed?

(X5)
And these rumors grow the tumors that prune the humors of a jovial soul




March 5, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Saw You Smile

Saw You Smile

Floating on a whiff
Sleepwalk like snow
Rainwater lilacs down your hair
Bloodying a tree
Shed my velvet off
Wrote a hundred songs about one night

(Chorus)
Thought I saw you smile and knew what it meant
But something you said really left me bent
Thought I saw you smile…
I thought I saw you smile

Following your ship
Through rock and fog
Harboring a grudge I walk the shore
Unbutton my shirt
Up a mountain trail
Pine needles comb my whiskered face

(Repeat chorus)

Can’t you see where I’ve been?
Can’t you be where I am?



I can’t be the boy you loved afar
You can’t be the girl that I dream of
Bloodying a tree
Shed my velvet off
Wrote a hundred songs about one night

(Repeat chorus)

Can’t you see where I’ve been?
Can’t you be where I am?
Can’t you see where I’ve been?
Can’t you be where I am?




April 6, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Within and Of, Against a Constant Same

Within and Of, Against a Constant Same

Master glass blower
Could you make me a Klein bottle?
The technique I need not know, so I won’t ask
I just need a reminder
That the impossible is an assumption
For tonight I must stray from what’s taught as fact

Tribulations of tradition
Fixate on the dying star
The flow of change is perpetuation but they dam it, damn it all
Now the lake’s filling with silt
Killing the heart to preserve the guard

The double-edged sword
That is every motivation
I’ve no patience now to court each edge in flame
The benefit of the doubt
Is not to wallow in one’s hesitation
Though unquestioned do I nurse some secret shame?

Tribulations of tradition
Fixate on the dying star
Like solar flares in the night, hungry bodies abandon ship
But for the water or the fall
Do I tonight cling to your hip?

In the covered bridge
I fall to my knees at the midpoint
I crossed my heart but can I cross my blood?
Either side I choose I’m losing
Then I look at my Klein bottle
The irony of it all strikes me... as the dam breaks

Tribulations of tradition
Fixate on the dying star
The old and lonely claim authority in the holy rules of love
And if they do speak for a god
Then in many ways their god seems young




February 21, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Thin

Thin

Slow me down
Before I miss this bliss in being
Savor not, a glutton does
My body feels like a waterbed
Slush from toe to head
Too much too much
Is always somehow not enough…

And you’re not one to waste
Deeds of passion on impassioned haste
Put your arms around my waist
And tell me where you want mine placed

Hang around
You’re not like the other girls
Slight of hand will never court you
Yet you’re such a romantic
In all of your aesthetics
The letters you send
Tell of love quite old fashion…

When I see you reading in the sun
The talons of winter come undone
But the distance I have come
Has not changed where I came from

(Chorus)
It’s not an… easy ride
To there and back again
And ain’t it the truth, I get hungry babe
But at least you keep me thin

Hold me down
I’m beating myself up again
Reaching for reasons to keep on
So that I can keep something
Not sure where to begin
Cutting dead weight off
All of these irresolvable thoughts

And you’re not one to take
Too much time for thoughts of fate
Yet a path for me you make
To find myself another shape

(Repeat Chorus)




April 08, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Hopeless

Hopeless

You tell me that you love me but you better straighten up and see we’re hopeless
Here today and gone tomorrow then you call me up to borrow cause you’re hopeless
You storm away
And then you come back
Wearing two left sandals and a big sunhat
Dressing in the dark
You’re a mile off your mark
And hopeless…

You don’t see the big deal because you’re blind to how I feel – I feel so hopeless
Always insisting you’re so tough then crying when your toe gets stubbed – oh, you’re so hopeless
You got this outlook
And man is it out there!
You tie me down and tell me how I’m so unfair
You want what you can’t give
And that ain’t no way to live
It’s hopeless…

You ask what took so long – you got me stretched out like Armstrong and this is hopeless
“Time is money” so you repeat but did you pay the parking meter? Girl, you’re hopeless!
You got a lot of ideas
You throw them to the wind
Next time you fly a kite maybe you’ll think to bring some string
Always pushing me around
But you got no solid ground
You’re hopeless…
You want what you can’t give
And that ain’t no way to live
It’s hopeless…
Dressing in the dark
You’re a mile off your mark
And hopeless…

Hopeless… hopeless… hopeless…
Hopeless… hopeless… hopeless…




March 8, 2006

Between Two Pillars: The Prison Of Rhyme

The Prison Of Rhyme

Got a moment?
Can you hold it?
I’ve been told that it was you at the axe
So I’m just asking…
Were we never aligned?
Left me perching in the prison of rhyme
To rattle my tin in the prison of rhyme

Are they honest?
These tectonic
Freight train emotions spitting through your lips?
The hull is breaching…
We both left something behind
Partitioned away in the prison of rhyme
Hiding clichés in the prison of rhyme

Hey Mary
On the contrary
I’m not as scary as you’d like them to think
So quit winking…
I’m just waiting in line
To pay my dues in the prison of rhyme
Losing my muse in the prison of rhyme



I heard you were
Spreading a rumor
Sense of humor’s not what it used to be, obviously
But this ain’t funny…
We both did our time
Stringing bait hooks in the prison of rhyme
Teasing rebukes in the prison of rhyme

Hey Mary
On the contrary
I’m not as scary as you’d like them to think
So quit winking…
I’m just waiting in line
Ever searching in the prison of rhyme
Rattle my tin in the prison of rhyme



February 6, 2006

Between Two Pillars: Where The Fallen Stand

Where The Fallen Stand

If I stood
On the side of the road
Where the fallen stand
Where the fallen stand
Then I’d see what I know

And if I saw
The face I turn from
Then kingdom would fail
Then kingdom would fail
And I’d lie in the road

Jubilee…
Your flowers are folding
Into little birds of starlight
In my eyes…
Into little birds of starlight
In my eyes




March 30, 2006

Between Two Pillars

So I finally got into a solid habit of dating drafts as I went along! I'm not sure why I didn't do this more often before, but if I could give only one piece of advice to writers, it's to date your damn drafts! I have the dates of when files were originally saved, which is even better then just typing it, but as time goes by, computers get old, and files can be saved over and it's all really a mess. So like any good gamer, "save early, save often" as they say.

This both wraps up what can be looked at as a trilogy with Checking In and Winter Phase while working as a stand alone work like each before it.

1. Where the Fallen Stand

2. The Prison of Rhyme

3. Hopeless

4. Thin

5. Within and Of, Against a Constant Same

6. Saw You Smile

7. Judges and Gardeners

8. Somebody's Gonna Love You

9. Monsters of Ourselves

10. There She Goes

11. The Game

12. Love Letter and the Exile's Promise

13. Our Beggars of the Sea

14. Enjoying Your Company

Winter Phase: Waking

Waking

I woke up early this morning
Cause there was no heat in the house
And listened to the water come to boiling
In the tea pot as I stretched out
Then I walked down to the horse field
And watched as the silent sun…
Slowly began to rise…
Like a young lover
Slowly waking
From a beautiful night…

Winter Phase: A Still Night’s A-Wailing For You

A Still Night’s A-Wailing For You

Well, you’re pacing the kitchen
Stitch-popped from bitching
With no one to pitch it all to
‘Cept a bottle of bad news over a cold cup of coffee
That keeps the bed from putting on its moves
Cause you don’t want to sleep with these thoughts in your head
Her face is tattooed underneath your eyelids
And this is not the first time that you’ve said
All the things that you penned on the pen on the pad by the phone
That you can’t seem to pick up because you’re not all at home
And you’re scared that she’s not home at all…
So you wonder if the snow’s ceased to fall

* * *

You hear a wail from outside
So you open the slide-
-ing glass door that leads out the back
And you turn on the light and broadcast is the night
With oak woods like silk stocking’ed legs
And the sound is of cattle from across the far hill
In the still quiet air that you smoke from its chill
Like skates on a pond glide each shrill
And can’t figure it out: why they cry now so late?
Is this slaughter or some predator?
Neither reason holding much water

(Chorus)
Oh the scream of a bobcat
The yelp of a dog
A woman’s faint crying
Left a dim dream sweat-soaked
And a still nights a-wailing
A still night’s a-wailing
A still night’s a-wailing for you

Then again ‘round the kitchen
But this monkey ain’t quitting
And your shoulders are stiff from its claws
You know you’re looking for trouble with sand in your eyes
As you slip on your overcoat and boots in the hall
And you know you should call but you don’t know the number
The names of your neighbors… your memory like rubber
Besides your blood is getting stale from hunger
From this rigmarole of losing your hold and your love
Just waiting for the sun to get up
And your legs they are fit for a walk

(Repeat chorus)

The luminescent night snow
Giving its ghostly glow
Tis a neitherworld you wander in
To a sound shroud in death from your burnt birdcage wreck
You pass through the glassy field’s opening
And the clouds overhead move time-lapsed on a screen
Rear projected to enhance this otherworldly scene
But your eyes are two adrift children leaving
Like a pale skin of slow cooling embers you grow
But the still night is still wailing for you
And the barn door lay open and hewed

You feel an off gravity
At the dark cavity
This unwelcoming silent doorway
It’s swallowing your sight up a trapezoid of light
Where the moon peeks its head in the frame
And not a wail do you hear now nor any trace of life
All appears long abandoned under a drop cloth of ice
Rotting behind the sea of time’s leaky dike
And tightening are the knots in your stomach with thoughts
As the wailing comes now from your home
And never have you felt so alone

(Repeat chorus)

Oh, a still night’s a-wailing
A still night’s a-wailing
A still night’s a-wailing for you

Winter Phase: Soft Shoulder

Soft Shoulder

Facing the chase
So much wasted?
No, I think not
Still I… slacken my pace
Not to waste too precious time
Tunnel visioning the forbidden
The elusive unforgiving
Tint of rose
Has stricken my sight

I try to hold her
But her cold shoulder
Keeps… sliding me off of that road

Dreams of Calluna
Have you seen her on the hillside?
Does she still think of me… in her seldom idle time?
I’m falling into snow angels
Cause her every move is so graceful
She is truly… one of a kind

Empty handed
Am I foolish?
I should hope so
But I’m not quick to fool
And this isn’t the first time
I’ve waited out to no avail
Through the pessimistic hail
Hear them saying
There’s so much more to life
But then alone she opens up
And all the world seems not enough
And no one can say that I didn’t try

I try to let go of her
But her soft shoulder
Keeps… pulling me off of that road

Please, keep pulling me off of that road

Winter Phase: The Way that You Do

The Way that You Do

Please don’t pretend it
Don’t try to mend it
Don’t you dare send it away
No need to defend it
I just hope you don’t spend it all up in three days…
You don’t think that I see what is going on
You say you’re leaving but you’re already gone

You don’t
Look at someone
The way that you do
Unless there is something
Between them and you…
You don’t
Look at someone
The way that you do
Unless
You want something
You’re feeling construed

So give me the details
From rental to retail
Don’t quail from me with such a face
Your heart has set sail
Saying out love is stale as flowers in an empty vase…
Do you really hurt me without any thought?
Dovetailing some hat rack boy that you caught

You don’t
Look at someone
The way that you do
Unless
There is something
Between them and you…
You don’t
Look at someone
The way that you do
Unless
They’ve got something
That stokes you renewed

So here’s that dead end that’s been so long coming
The sign on the turn says it told us so, Honey
But we drag through these motions
Holding dizzy as love abates
When did passion come in rations?
I believe we’re fashionably too late
With my volcanic glass
And your pyramidal orchid…
Across the martini clatter
I watch you shatter the ice sculpture with him

So don’t pretend it
Don’t try to mend it
Don’t you dare send it away
No need to defend it
I just hope you don’t spend it all up the very same way…
You don’t think that I care, but you’re so damn wrong
I’d say goodbye if you weren’t already long gone

You don’t
Look at someone
The way that you do
Unless there is something
Between them and you
You don’t
Look at someone
The way that you do
Unless
There is something
Between them and you, between them and you
Between you and me
There is this pain only
Between them and you, between them and you
Between you and me
Is just dead air history
Between them and you, between them and you
Between you and me
Sometimes I still get so lonely…