I think I've seen beauty, hoping that it's not a facade for trickery
Trying to attract what comes near from shocks of admiration, electricity

But that seems unlikely, for a beauty as that one to conspire such a conspiracy
For eyes give true character, as that is of truth and loyalty

As without speech, sometimes knowledge is hard to be known
But actions speak louder than words, the vagueness of the first statement clearly shown

That a glimpse of an eye, can see but to a mere moment
But the study of an action, can see the truth bestowed in it

I don't know why,
but it always starts with an invitation
to dinner.
Excitement always turns to dread
when I sit across from you at the table.
You fold your hands,
while I play with the table cloth.
I wait.
For those words
"we need to talk"
or
"there's something I need to tell you"
I know what follows after those words
A death of family or a friend
A cheating parent confession
Loss of a job
Yet another time we are forced to move to a new home
or the worst words
"it's not working out"
the same poor excuses pour out of your mouth
faster than the waitress can refill my beverage
so please,
don't ever ask why I cancel our "Dinner Plans"

If only you could look at me
They way i look at you
If only you could love me
The way i love you
If only you feel about me
The way i feel about you
If only i make you happy
The way you make me happy
If only you smile at me
the way i smile at you
If i only you want me
How much i want you
If only you desire me
How much i desire you
If only you were mine

She looks in the mirror
At the age on her face
"I wonder what he thinks
of me this way?"

She considers her weight
and the pores on her skin
She thinks out loud
"I don't deserve him."

She picks apart
the woman he loves
Separating her worth
from all that she does
              
He looks in her eyes
and caresses her face
He sees it glowing with love
and full of grace

 The lines on her face
  he views with pride
  Recounting the victories
  each time they've been tried

The weight that she carries
 is that of a mom
 Nothing's too heavy
 She just marches on

These bodies will perish
 and mirrors offer no truth
True love abides
 beyond the corridors of youth

  No, she doesn't deserve me
  Perhaps God can see
  Conceivably, one day
  I'll be as worthy as she

I'm fighting my demons
Trying not to let them
Get the best of me
But it ain't easy
When my demons is what
Comforts me

I be good on the outside
Falling apart from within
Life got so hard I thought
I was strong but I gave in

I no I'm living in sin
But everybody lives
In the fog every now n then

I no I can win I'm stuck
On addiction

Got me wishing
I can get through
This and no longer play
Victim

I'm not weak I just gotta listen
But I'm stuck in the addiction


-Lynn Browning ©

I still remember the first time you brought your lips to my neck. I remember looking in the mirror the next morning for a hickey, but instead I found her name stained to my skin in purple ink. I always wondered why you  kept your eyes closed when we would pull away from a kiss; but now I think it's because it's the only way you can hold onto her memory for a little longer. She made her way into my head, under my skin and into my bed just by being the only thing on your mind. I've touched every part of your body but I cannot manage to clean away the prints of her hands. The first night I heard her name in between your breaths when you were sleeping showed that your closed eyes are the only thing keeping you with her. It's the only way you can hold her hand. You're at one end of the room and she's at the other, but there's something there that's blocking contact. Something that's keeping you from reaching out, paralyzing you not to call her name. They always ask me why I stay. Why I keep looking into your eyes when you don't look into mine unless there's a glimpse of green surfacing them. I guess it's because I keep falling asleep to my own bedtime story. The story where my body is the one you want to kiss. Where you can read my goosebumps like braille. Where you drown in the blue of my eyes. They say insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result. Well baby I must be insane because I keep falling asleep to this story, but every morning I wake up alone.

~~
Then, if ever, is the red color grows fade
The petals of red roses drop
If the birds don't sing any songs
And even a butterfly doesn't
Play on a purple flower

If the mistake happens in the rain
You 'll not cry
You can't be afraid of thunder
They will cleanse you

And when I am gone
Forgive me, but the melody in the air
You will come, playing in the garden,
Dance with the lost grasshoppers

Any yellow day when red flamboyant will be bloomed
Will have to take off your colorful sunglasses
At the very noon will be floated on the Cuckoo's love song
Again and Again it will prove your arrival,

O' Spring

You'll be the very white sky after rain
Will bloom red hibiscus
On that gilded day  
Red flamboyant 'll be loved with yellow flamboyant

Patched up with melody and words
Will be made new Songs,
New Poetry,
With the yellow flowers tune

Then again,
You 'll not  sing a song of despair,
Not even a song of hiatus,
Will sing the Songs of Joy,
Stir in the way of dreams,
Mating

Back to again and again
I 'll come back to you
Both 'll make a love  
For the creation of a new life
~~

Tamaker

I won her on a whiskey bet,
At a place called Rusty's Shack,
In a poker game in Fargo
With three deuces and a Jack.

I took her from a mountain man
Who had bought her in a trade,
For a rifle and a jug of Rye,
Off an Indian renegade.

I had no yen to keep her;
I meant to set her free.
I never thought she'd want to stay,
Or that she'd follow me.

I told her she was free to go,
No longer be a slave.
But the squaw refused to leave me,
Called me her Paleface Brave.

And when I rode out of Fargo,
Headed for Cheyenne,
She followed every trail I took,
No matter the terrain.

I couldn't seem to lose her
No matter how I tried.
By the time I got to Deadwood
She was riding by my side.

We rode hard through a valley,
Forged across Powder Creek,
When I fell from my saddle
Three miles from Miner's Peak.

My saddle pony stumbled
And landed on my knee.
He broke his leg and I broke mine
Unable to get free.

If I hadn't had that Indian squaw,
A maiden called Tamaker,
I be wearing a peg-leg now,
Or living with my maker.

She patched me up and catered me
With herbs and Indian lore,
Until my health and strength returned
And I was whole once more.

And when we finally reached Cheyenne,
Still riding side by side,
We found a cowboy preacher
And I made her my bride.

The squaw I met at Rusty's shack,
Won on a whiskey bet,
Became the lady of my dreams
And we're together yet.