How many ships Lord?
How many ships?
How many ships are you sending?
I want to come home
I say as tears wet my lips
Lord
How many ships?

There is an old proverb
And this is how it goes
'A ship is safe when harbored,
Snugly in land that's closed.'

But ships weren't meant to be harbored,
They were not built to be snug but free,
Their masts to fly high and proud,
Through the stormy waves of seas.

At one time, not so long ago
People kicked around the fountain
Downtown, the brown brick invited
Crowds to crowd to the square
The fleshy sponges formed lines
The fleshy sponges formed lines
At one time, not so long ago
Human beings drank up the water
Downtown, I kick through the detritus
The lonely and desperate
Left downtown for skeletons
Left dust in their buckets
The lonely and desperate
Swell thick of their water
Lines form in time
The lonely and desperate
Return to the nurturer
The water's gone bare
They are a family
The done, received
The water's gone bare
The orange city sits desolate
The lonely and desperate
Return to nurture her
Their mother
The mechanical *******
So lonely, so desperate
Returns to the fountain
She enters sleep mode
So lonely, she
Counts the minutes
Dressed in sheepskin pajamas
So lonely, she
Counts the minutes once again

I* remember the feeling of waking up for nothing
                   The empty, gray taste everything had
        How I'd stare off
Out windows
Or across streets

                              I remember walking to the river
           And the grass not bending beneath my feet
              The current wouldn't change nor stop for me
   And I imagined it would always be this.
               Having everything I had always wanted right in front of me and it not matter

            I remember being stuck in the rain and not getting wet

         Watching
             Quietly accepting what was, and simultaneously not acknowledging what it meant.
    
        It was comfortable, but now *I want control.

I sometimes circle around again
Longing, growing
My story is old
And cold

I’m a gravity accident
We all fall down
Collected star-dust
Diamond, coal, rust

Periodicity reciprocity
Gravely glancing sunward
Circle around
Then outward bound

The great hiway of dawn
Stretching to slumber
pouring out from her greedy
palms a shore, to wander

Hesitation & doubt
Swiftly ensconced

O Viking, your women
cannot save you
out on the great ship

Time has claimed you
Coming for you
~~~

And I came to you
for peace
And I came to you
for gold
And I came to you
for lies
And you gve me fever
& wisdom
& cries
of sorrow
& we’ll be here
the next day
the next day
&
Tomorrow
~~~

There’s a belief by the
Children of Man which states
all will be well

Search on man, calm savior
Veteran of wars incalculable
greed. Search on man, calm savior
God-speed & forgive you
morning-star, fragrant
meadow person girl

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"