Your hands like old dogs
Familiar and strong and soft

I know it in my toes,
Can feel the certainty like the gravity in my feet,
She is my replacement
The times we spoke of her character
All lip service to calm me

I know you're lonely,
And looking for a friend.
Watch your back with this one though,
I can feel the wrongness from my carefully kept distance,
Feel it in my toes!
And the toes know.
Be careful with who you trust
Be even more cautious with who you let in.

I keep tripping on brambles
Scratching my exposed shins,
Ripping at my shoelaces,
Yet somehow I keep upright.
Leaving my well-beaten path behind,
I had forgotten how difficult
Striking out anew always is.

I know I cannot return to the
Comfortable, clear, circular, cyclical path
I'd been wearing down for years.
Looking behind me,
I'm not sure I could even find the way back.
A path that lead only to itself,
But ****, how I miss those views.

My ribs clench at the memories
The smells, the warmth, the ease
But it grew crowded,
No longer a private reverie
No.
I mourn the loss of sacred space.

I keep stumbling, tripping, fumbling forward
Brought back again to this moment.
It's time to cover new ground,
Whether I want to or not.

He was more frail than even I,
Thought I might break him
If I held him too tightly
And there was a gentleness to his touch,
Not marking my skin like newfound territory
Only invisible ink of sweat and saliva
To mark the path we chose
Tucked away now like a treasure map

He is the swatch of new paint on the wall
If I look at it hard enough,
The old color falls to give way
And my imagination can rest here
A reprieve from grief
A newly claimed corner of my mind
Safe from memories of love and pain

It doesn't fix anything
But it makes this easier
And that
Is enough for me

Rain falls hard
Burns dry
A dream
Or a song
That hits you so hard
Filling you up
And suddenly gone

Breath Feel Love
Give Free
Know in your soul
Like your blood knows the way
From your heart to your brain
Know that you're whole

And you're shining
Like the brightest star
A transmission
On the midnight radio
And you're spinning
Like a 45
Ballerina
Dancing to your rock and roll

Here's to Patti
And Tina
And Yoko
Aretha
And Nona
And Nico
And me

And all the strange rock and rollers
You know you're doing all right
So hold on to each other
You gotta hold on tonight

And you're shining
Like the brightest stars
A transmission
On the midnight radio

And you're spinning
Your new 45's
All the misfits and the losers
Well,you know you're rock and rollers
Spinning to your rock and roll

Lift up your hands

Vain struggle
****** knuckles
Slow desperation
Fiddle
Mandolin
Devil Dancers

Cement dump truck
Broken mind don't give a ****
About daydreams- half movie scenes
Reading veiled broken hearted threats
Feeling my chest
constricting
Ringing In my ears like at the punk show
You've always known I'm pretty dumb though
But il read it all
Saying "It's not as bad as it looks"
But I know il just be held in thrall
Reading your published poetry books
Bout how I nailed you to the freshly painted wall
Over and over and over
After the fall