I hauled clay
for days
to fill the deep
washout of our love
and all your old loves
who bled to death
too, I even searched
the cold evenings
of your eyes
and ran my fingers
through your moonlight
while tasting the blood
of strangers on your lips
but I would have
to have a backhoe
and a crowbar
to finally get down
to the heart
of the matter at night
and in the rain
though I'm afraid
I would only find
a deep dark cave
with blind starfish
like those I see
swimming in
the cold sky tonight.

I woke up this morning
To the sign of the times
Wondering where it all went
As none of this I recognize

Why do the best of all memories
Have to grow old
As years of tears have cleared the dust
From off my country road

Nothing's now simple
As it used to be
The world in which I once lived
Has moved to the South side of mean

Cold winds have brought a chill
To all I used to know
Blowing the dust off
Of my country road

There's no way to go back
But I still swim in the pond of my dreams
Diving into simpler times
Wading through serene scenes

It didn't happen all the sudden
So it never really showed
Until all the dust came up missing
From my country road

I sometimes catch slight glimpses
If you know what I mean
As I blink back the tears
From the space in-between

Would things have been different
If I would have been shown
What lay beneath
The dust of my country road

through words,
I heal my wounds
by completely exposing them

I felt for the first time
when she left
by then way too late
alone in a motel room  at twelve  midnight
with the neon bar sign outside glowing
the traffic of the bypass
almost singing  a woeful tune a full
ashtray an ember burning my careless
fingertips
tomorrow
and hope so *******  long past
my beard growing  every second grayer
an inch
itching it's way through
like despair
on an express train
to nowhere
again

Her touch is as cold
as the snow on statues

I wait in my dark suit
like a suitor in the shadows

cast in the courtyard of the dead
alone in the middle of the night

she shows her folded hands
holding the Ace of sorrows

black like the flowers
I bring her tonight

beneath a silent moon
gathered like dust on my boots

late in the afternoon
as I walked along the low road

to call on her
in the garden of stones.

I dreamed of two men
cold as ice in dark hats
handcuffing a woman
before tossing her in the back
of a black barred truck
with stars on the sides
and a To Protect and Serve
bumper sticker stuck like
a punchline and a baby girl
and young boy were crying
standing behind the yellow lines
but two has never been
a number that adds up to
nothing because it's only legal
to pass one at a time in these
dark days of executive orders
you fear because you know
it's all the evidence they need
to make you disappear.