I want you
With me
In me
On me
Feeling
Burning
Tasting
Taking
Both of us
Purified
Entwined in
Liquid fire

Daily
Tasks
Work and feeding
Cleaning
Weeping
Tending, heeding
Still burning
Still opening
Dreaming, dreaming
Just one thing
Bringing healing

Doubts and
Judgment
Neglect and
Waste
Obligations
Reservations
Boredom
Haste
My heartbeat slows
Sadness
Overtakes

Inside me
All these
Fifteen years
Momento mori
Nostalgia
Need
To resist
Is futile
So I ride
I speed
Sometimes I’m wrong
Sometimes I bleed.

Don't you dare cry, it
Makes everything worse and it
Makes you look ugly

It has been complicated
Loving you
But I can never give you up

You give me everything - absolutely
Then ****** it back and throw it at me
I've been pelted so many times
With my myriad crimes
I can't stand it, I want to flee
Because you see everything
That could be better
About me

I have to forgive you
Your judgments
And your city walls
When you let down the drawbridge
You let me in and absolve me, umoor me,
      devour me, ground me, grind me, soothe
           me and -- [utterly alone!]

You always come back,  though, always...

You feel like home
You made me whole
You gouged a hole
In my soul
Blood and sweat poured out
I screamed
You held me down tight
Your tongue in my mouth
As my body clenches and takes flight
Even with you crushing me
Filling me
Holding me perfectly still
*I take flight

The right kind of love
Your mouth locking on mine as
My fireworks go off

Even if I made you better, forever
As you said
I also made you miserable
Caught up in my head
Lust and loneliness
Deep, abiding dread
Why can't we talk to each other?
The lament of all lovers
Living and dead

Nothing is resolved
But I no longer want to be involved
In extraneous conversations
That distract from the
One Mission we have -

Our Happiness

For I am Yours and always will be
For better, worse - and eternity

Hope comes in small doses,
just enough to keep
butterfly wings
intact as they
float above
the bleak,
empty
plain.

So, at least two
intelligent, healthy and sane
adult men - peers -
have told me
I have a fantastic ***
and not to be a brat
but I'm sure others have thought it...
It turns me on to think of
how men see my ***
and imagine ******* me
as I walk down the street -
you! shut the **** up
keep it to yourself but
it turns me on -
saying this is so *******
radical
and could even
get me killed

You took my very private fantasy
And suggested I share it
On Hello Poetry
For all to see.

But it's for you, I protested.
For you and only you!
From me!
Is there anything left
Of that glorious We?

Maybe. I try to believe.
But then I look over -
You're never looking at me.
Not anymore.
Not claiming me as yours
The way you used to,
When you'd close and lock
The door.
And drop your boxers on the floor
Always hungry and
Coming back for more.

I can't pinpoint the moment
It began,
But this kind of nonchalance
And easy indifference
To my simmering circumstance
And my dark coutenance
Are like acid
Slowly disintegrating
My desire for....
Consciousness
And I feel ambition to Love
To Live
To Give
And Believe -
No more.

I am never who you think I am
I am a woman who will devour you
The way you want me to, because I like
Leaving a man more whole than the
Sum of  his parts. I will outsmart
You and you will **** me
And I will revel and
Fly high

The burden of proof is on the accuser,
That is how the system works -
The accused is innocent until proven guilty
Yes, but the system has its quirks.

He drugged her and dragged her to a room
Shut and locked the door
Undid her togetherness
A fistful of hair
A brief, brutal struggle
Left  blood drops on the floor
Bruises, internal tearing
Cruel laughter, violently daring
Himself to take it all
Leaving her unconscious
When he wanted no more

Why wake up?
Death seemed preferable to remembering
Or even to understanding
What her life would be now -
She shut that thinking down -
Hurried downtown
Trying to believe
The authorities would listen
To her story and
Help me not to die from this -
Please, help me to go on and live.

She had spoken but three words: *I was *****
When the questions began to fly -
Not about the crime itself,
But rather about her style:
When will you learn not to drink so much?
Are you sure you didn't lead him on?
What were you wearing last night, anyway?
And don't you usually give it up for a song?
I heard that about you -
You're kind of slutty, isn't that true?
How do we know the criminal here
Isn't you?

But he ***** me - it did happen.
Do you think I'd invent this - because I regret my "fun"?

Well, you should, little missy -
You should regret it indeed.
Ultimately it's your own fault
That he couldn't control his need.
It's your burden now,
Our work here is done.
Next time you get drunk,
Just be more careful, ok ***?

She jumped off a bridge on her way home
From the station
The officers who took her statement
Had coffee and doughnuts
And went back out to hit the pavement.
The ****** is innocent until proven guilty,
And so he went free.
This is how the system works
You're naïve if you don't believe me.

I rise before dawn
Most days
There is promise in the brightening sky -

I linger long
Over coffee with hot fluffy milk, as
There is also promise in the rich bitter rush,
Even as it passes me by.

Possibility and memory
Fight over turf
In both your heart and mine -

While inside my tired mind
The voice fed by too many books
Tries to be kind,

And fails.

My darling, she says
You are shiny and beautiful
And no doubt have the smarts -
But you're a *****! Can't you see?
A cold-blooded ***** who breaks hearts.

Not so! I exclaim,
Defending my honor,
I have always walked the high road
And I look back at her facelessness -
Her shallow reserves -
I'm convinced she's a goner.

And then you cheered for me!
Before turning your back,
And looking down at your screen,
Gathering your steam
Traveling as you flee -
You are walking down a path
Toward a horizon I cannot see.

While the voice laughs with cruel glee,
I pray you won't yet forget about me.

Without your eyes to look into,
I stare with emptiness, out to sea.

When are you gonna come down
When are you going to land
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man
You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing the blues

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the ***** back toad
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

What do you think you'll do then
I bet that'll shoot down your plane
It'll take you a couple of ***** and tonics
To set you on your feet again
Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

You said it was a good conversation
I was fighting tears the whole time
We go way back with this
Back & forth you call talking,
To me it’s a battle and
You win, every time

I don’t know who
You think I am
But the me you think you know
Is a YouTube pundit’s scam

I wish you knew the real me
Analytical and accomplished
But also wild and free
It’s lonely in this bubble called “we”
Coming apart at the seams
Feeling understood and respected
Only in my dreams

All I want to do
Is **** and *have fun

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes;
I wonder if It weighs like Mine,
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the Date of Mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if They have to try,
And whether, could They choose between,
It would not be, to die.

I note that Some --
gone patient long --
At length, renew their smile.
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil.

I wonder if when Years have piled,
Some Thousands -- on the Harm
Of early hurt -- if such a lapse
Could give them any Balm;

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger Pain
By Contrast with the Love.

The Grieved are many,
I am told;
The reason deeper lies, --
Death is but one
and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There's Grief of Want
and Grief of Cold, --
A sort they call "Despair";
There's Banishment from native Eyes,
In sight of Native Air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the Cross,
And how they're mostly worn,
Still fascinated to presume
That Some are like My Own.

What happens when the desire to better myself disappears?
Some days I don’t even
Want to take care of
This body and soul
Called “me”

Not that you notice
Such variations

Checking off the activities
Ignoring your proclivities
Knowing it won’t change
Time is a collection of
Moments when the wind goes
Right out of my sails

You are content
Aren’t you? How would
I know? Your trust doesn’t
Extend to me
Your respect sidesteps
Who I really am

Oh but you don’t even know that,
You sneered one day
Darling, it’s you
Who knows not
The exquisite landscape
Of my molten heart

These are boring complaints
The days march by, wasted
Regrets and sorrow —
Hope has lost its taste
And I wait for tomorrow but
It’s just another day

Just another day
The banality of quarrels
The space to wallow in
Loneliness
The apathy of too late

The heaviness of
Broken wings

It’s so very quiet
Surf thunders close
Sounding distant,
A trick, as
Palm fronds rustle, and
Leafy friction reverberates
In the gentle, swollen breeze
Speak to me!
If you please
I beseech the council of trees
Teach me
What am I clinging to
What is love
Who am I today
I call out for
Guidance from above
My solitude is not
My failure
Even in my leisure
Even in self-love
I gasp at the signs
The wonders
I grieve
Hoping for reprieve
Yet faith-full
Again that
Miracles of alchemy
Dot the landscape
Of my destiny

I don't ever want
to leave this place, so
clean and sparse
with a wide view
and restfulness like a
bed in the sky -
here we forget
so much toil,
sweat and sickness.
If they come again
so be it,
for now we have
this place and
ourselves, and us
again.
Soon we will feel
only the grace of
simplicity so that
all the wildness
in our souls can rejoice
unfettered -
out on the Lake.

In my dream I had a lover
Who loved me more than you do
Until death, he said, but not in this life
I'm keeping a promise to another

I awoke to the greatest heartache
Everyone knows what it feels like
A loneliness so firm and infinite
Sharp ambition tailspin wake

We are afraid - we cower before each other
Our potential power muted by ego
If we could let go and be bold
Accepting our faults like weather

If we could give rather than keep
If we could hold each other in sleep

There is no quarter for my heart
General, you found my Achilles
Your words like bombs
Hit me and quickly
Crushed my breath
Into a shallow grave
There in my throat
Where, last night, I took you in

Oh! Such glad submission
Not even —
Don’t dream of it —
Stop imagining —
Cruel desire! Weapon of the gods.

What do I get? You snarled
*******
But that’s exactly
What you won’t do

I don’t know why or what or who
Where to go
The blue on the horizon turns to red
I stare at the unmade bed
Weeping in the prison camp
Of our briefly happy
(But really terribly sad)
Homecoming

Broken by the sun and beauty,
the brazen abstract delight of it,
the empty impact on my
relentless hunger -
I know why you love the
overcast days, when lifted spirits
are rebellious and so we can smugly rest in
our contempt for convention.

Conditioned instincts say practice
an anorexia of the soul
In order to get this under control
but why squander a form of redemption
when it is right there in front of you?

Many reasons too obvious to ignore -
don't be a *****
for starters -

No money exchanged, just
my literal core.

Tell me - what do you think I did that for?

So I hide in my tower above the lake
here this body of pain hurts without mattering
the privileges I earned
shielding me from real harm

I fear tsunamis and armed invaders
I fear your indifference and failure
I fear my mind yet revere it
So save me
so save me

The night sings sometimes
Strange faraway reveries that would only tire me now
We remain friends even in silence
strong, still and
electric, whenever -

Ours are stupid fears and
we tell the children the truth that
it is never as bad as it seems
Not knowing what makes them
afraid in the world

I am always afraid
We are fragile beings
On the brink of destruction
But there really is something
about you, dark and subversive

I stay for it, wait all day for it
become a cliché for it
burning away yet another batch
of more than normal days -
I make my deals
out there where it's deep

I find treasure in my sleep

Eureka!
I remembered that I have power
but frown and retreat as I realize
I have not the energy to
deploy it. But to rest -
the color of the sky
demands it now.

I blow smoke rings and
scribble the rubble
of what we were.
I see you there, and
I am glad, but
clearly the part of you that
contains my heart is
Saturn-bound. I
hope you can escape
the pull of
another orbit.

As previously stated, any type of
elsewhere glows with
radioactive waste and the
most unattractive side of
my desire's bad taste -
oh! it's worth forgetting, so I do.

But have you? Or (this
seems true) do you
think I'm there, where
wishful thinking meets despair?
Endlessly frustrated, no
use in speculating when
the facts are clear.
I'll just continue
my vigil - but please!
No more tears!
All the good men I remember
would and do agree
It doesn't become me.
It doesn't become me.

I blow smoke rings and
think about money -
my glasses fog up and I grasp
at abstract figments of worth while
your doubt takes a rest.

We were cosmic chemistry
(don't laugh) and
still are - nobody else
can call me baby and that cliché can still
hold a family together.

When I asked you if you trusted me
you said "sure" but you're
not. Yet I can see you, and
every time I ask you
if you love me, your
affirmation in return still pulls
with its original,
beautiful gravity.

Breathe
Create a Magic Forest and
Walk through it, treading lightly and
Beset upon by fireflies —
In the dark, the blessed dark
I still miss my illusions, but
Thankfully I’ve identified
Yet another of the lies that
I’ve been telling myself
About us

Notice
The splendor of the whiteness that
Exists in the dark blue of night
In the clouds
The way they carry long-gone light
Somehow, these illusions teach us
To be grateful for existence
This can sometimes offer the necessary consolation

Learn
See those lies — you know the ones
It feels like righteous indignation —
You can’t help but recognize it, it’s
A very high horse
Very high indeed
I have long felt so lost about all this, so
Unwilling to take responsibility
For the chaos I created
In the past

Give
A tiny bit or a lot, give what I need
I keep forgetting that, too
Forgetting to be humble — and lest
Anyone worry
Regarding the object of my humility
I haven’t capitulated in the least
I am humble before Creation
Not a man

Shine
In your eyes because I know them,
And you, I know you, it’s just
That I’m afraid of you, yes
That I’m afraid of you is hard to admit
Because sticks and stones, right?
You only ever use words
You love babies, and our baby, and me
You insist the sun shines out of my ***, even, but I don’t have faith
So I barely try
Because I’m afraid!
Of one cutting word
Just one
I don’t need faith in you, darling and
Love of my life
******* soul mate I would never, ever get over, no ******* way, no matter how much I hate you sometimes and I even tell you that but it doesn’t matter it’s still hard
To shine means I have faith in me
Loving you beyond my fear
Requires that I glow

Pray
*I seek strength not to be greater than my Beloved, but to fight my greatest enemy, myself

The moment I wake
It takes hold —
The grip of I don’t know

How to be rich
How to feel happy
How to let you go

I must change myself
I want to believe —
In the pink hues of dawn

Walking in beauty
Living devotion
With faith ever armed

Crippling unease
Instead grips my mind
My heart is heavy and cold

I will keep going
Oh, never fear
Despite the grueling flow —

The rumbling energy
Swirling and seeking
Screaming I don’t know!

The competing demands
The compounding pressure
The incessant solitude

Feel the earth
Touch the sky
It all comes back to you

We’ve created a world
In which our electric connection
Falters, fizzles, and fails

Please lift me up
I beseech myself
From the bottom of the well

Disappointment is so bitter
Especially when the September light
With its orange-tinted, fading  bright,
Remimds me of the season we
Fell in love.

We never fell out -
No great downfall has occurred -
Only wounds created by words.
Yours barelling down one path,
Mine getting lost along another
In the woods
Of my childhood home.

Tending such wounds requires
Virtues we both lack.
The first of which is acceptance,
Which you call amnesia -
So let's accept and forget,
If you wish, and not look back.

Not even to remember why
Deploying words as weapons
Peels back the veneer of love
To reveal the troubling rawness below?
So, we take the high road, using
Soft words that don't rain down like blows.

If I told you I had the answer,
You'd challenge me, well then,
What is it?
I'd say: just listen.
You'd say: What?
And I would reply,
You have missed
The point.

I started at the end of my rope. Nothing worked, I’d lost hope. Shattered dishes, shattered heart, I tried to work on it but it all fell straight apart. I was out of my mind, my heart was a stone. I was feeling terribly, terribly ******* alone. I could not please you. You kept your distance. Everything was my fault, even the smallest instance of miscommunication or confusion. You create such impenetrable fortresses of your innocence from illusions.

Oh, foul moments! You eviscerate me! I long for peak summer sea, body surfing and palm breezes. Subsequently, I was magically reassured by what the oracle revealed to me. The Birch tree! The Great Mother is now with me. No wonder it hurts, growth always does, and I honestly can live without you for a while in this corner of the castle, you’ll always be in my heart but today I cannot abide the lies, I must be honest with my Mother.

The action to take — I knew it already! Hold balance steady, my energy dialectical. Beyond duality, there is a mystery! The path there requires that I know my history thoroughly then forget it momentarily as I leap, empty-handed, into the void of the bright Day. If you stay, I will no longer be angry with you, because I will have forgiven myself.

If you are true to yourself, you cannot fail She said and so I will endeavor to do, leading me to the Yew, the endless everything that connects Here to There. Into the four winds go I, God is Change, Change is God. I am an alchemist.

It is right to give thanks even when we grieve. Sometimes the universe grants a reprieve. Maybe just a minute, or sometimes even an hour. We all have within us this heavenly power.

Perhaps more sedatives?
(O pedestal in that candy creme cloud
Sweet silence of soothing sound
Smooth surface silky shroud)

Or - I have an idea -
Self-"discipline"!
(My mate, my enemy, my tormentor
My mentor, my mantra, my memory)

Both, no doubt.
A fine line between tamimg
Amy's weeping and wailing
And enabling her host's power of three!
Her understanding, aligning and conquering!
A feat we have actually seen.
And despite the blinding whir
(A side effect of the action)
This imagery is not merely
In her (or your) dream.

She as this Trinity, it would appear,
Is not so few and far between
As you tell yourself - and me -
Just to be mean.
Then again you're right:
We both supported that
Unsubstantiated "theory"
For a long time
And for bad reasons
Let's be perfectly clear.

Because obviously she is not infallible!  
And when she slips, and Amy
Gets wind (Woe! I can't pull
Myself together - O no! Not again!)
Darkness descends on our lives,
O yes,  yes it does. As farce. Again.

Out come sharp knives.

You and they think she punishes you.
With her Woe, but no.
The simple truth is she does not.
How can she blame you
For her biological weak spots,
Related though they be
To your life here - Please -

Look! Just look next time,
And listen. Believe. 
She punishes herself -
It's a nervous hysterical spell
An energy temped out from hell
The rage is diluted
(She thought you could tell)
In wild senseless pleas
Meaning nothing!
Nothing I tell you.
Nothing in and for
Eternity.

****...the word
will define me
even if you don't
know what it means.
I used to want so many
things from you, your
hands, and your desire.

Rough and tumble,
dominating my humble
trembling flesh; but I
was chasing thrills
you wouldn't catch for me;
I thought I heard
them calling,
then they disappeared in
an empty dawn.

What is needed is so
simple - in love to
be a **** is to open every
door, as walls crumble
noisily down I just open
wider - your energy
never frightened me.
In the least.

A **** knows where the
life force curls, feels it
unfurl and is not afraid.
She doesn't need
games or roles or
inventive play.

Touch me - there is nothing
left to say. You know
how to hold every
part of me as you shudder forth
that prayer.

Day spent naked and trembling
Hidden away and
Focused on each other's heat

I hear from no-one about
The things that matter
Steadfastly alone in my tower
Above the Lake
The cycle of mourning begins

No money! No time! No love!
There’s food but
No appetite
There’s presence but
No wild nights! Wild nights —
I wish I’d never
Heard of such things

Please help me
Help me see
Help me elevate
Set my heart free

I been using a washboard since I was eight
Cutting up the fels-naptha with a paring knife
One tub to wash
The other to rinse
Hanging on the line and then
Shaking out the stiff wrinkles
In the half-frozen dawn

Sunrise sure looked pretty,
All pink and orange and gold
I used to shiver but not from the cold
Thinking of scrubbing and rubbing
My hands raw
Bending and stooping
As my heart grew old

Not my body though -
I knew how beautiful I was
But I also knew how
Dangerous was love
Both the making and bearing of children
Lord knows how it rips you up
Shreds your most tender parts
Screaming bleeding flesh!
I don't think about it much
And anyway, it ain't always
About love - making babies and
Soiling clothes

A while back there were six of us
In the house
With the boys, when they were home
Wash day came twice a week then
When they brought home
The machine it's true it got a little
Easier but it still took me
The better part of two days

When the little ones visited, laundry day
Was every day
I didn't mind then - they
Were bright as sunshine those
Children
No mark of my agony on them

My granddaughter is having her first
Baby now and she does complain,
There are piles of damp, rumpled
Towels and men's shirts
For her to attend to, they
Constrain her conference calls and
Computer time and
Once I caught her sobbing
About the endlessness of it all

And the invisibility
I thought - that's the worst part,
She hadn't even realized yet
But I won't tell her about it,
She'll see soon enough
I don't want to burden her

With the centuries of
Memories of
Drudgery
I carry in my cells
(My grandmother had thirteen children - who lived)
I don't want her to know the enormity of it
One day soon,
She will understand all too well
And it will surely break her heart

I been using a washboard since I was eight
Cutting up the fels-naptha with a paring knife
One tub to wash
The other to rinse
Hanging on the line and then
Shaking out the stiff wrinkles
In the half-frozen dawn

Sunrise sure looked pretty,
All pink and orange and gold
I used to shiver but not from the cold
Thinking of scrubbing and rubbing
My hands raw
Bending and stooping
As my heart grew old

Not my body though!
I knew how beautiful I was
But I also knew how
Dangerous was love
Both the making and bearing of children
Lord knows how it rips you up
Shreds your most tender parts
Screaming bleeding flesh!
I don't think about it much
And anyway, it ain't always
About love - making babies and
Soiling clothes

A while back there were six of us
In the house
With the boys, when they were home
Wash day came twice a week then
When they brought home
That machine,
It's true it got a little
Easier but it still took me
The better part of two days

When the little ones visited, laundry day
Was every day
I didn't mind then - they
Were bright as sunshine those
Children
No mark of my agony on them

My granddaughter is having her first
Baby now and she does complain,
There are piles of damp, rumpled
Towels, and men's shirts
***** and stained
For her to attend to, they
Constrain her
Conference calls and
Computer time -
Once I caught her sobbing
About the endlessness of it all

And the invisibility!
The humiliating impossibility!
She hasn't even realized it yet
But I won't tell her about that,
She'll see soon enough
There's no quarter for dreams
For girlhood
Snuffed by that one
First scream
The one that is stifled
In the dark
Under his weight
The night of the wedding
And never heard again

Oh, the centuries of
Drudgery
I carry in my cells
The wails of grandmothers
And their dozens of children -
The ones who lived
Blotting out the memory
Of babies who died -
All that! For such a short life!

I don't want her to know the enormity of it
One day soon,
She will understand all too well
And like seasons,
The inevitability will break her heart

Life is a lonely road towards death
We try our best to pass the test
Love brings joy
Before smashing hearts
On ragged cliffs

Postcards and letters
T-shirts and sweaters
Passports and Parkas
Mobiles and chargers
Two tennis rackets
Blue Rizla packets
A new sheep-skin jacket
I lost it all
All through my life there have been
Many rare and precious things
I have tried to call mine
But I just cannot seem
To keep hold of anything
For more than a short time
Possessions of a sentimental kind
They were mine, now they're not
Gym-kits and trainers
Asthma inhalers
Silk-cuts and Bennies
Ten-packs and twenties
C-class narcotics
Antibiotics
The holes in my pockets
I lost it all
All that I'd like is to know
Just where do those lost things go?
When they slip from my hands
Then one night in a dream
I passed through a sheepskin screen
To a green, pleasant land
I found them all piled up into the sky
And I cried tears of joy


The Divine Comedy
https://youtu.be/LRYObCtDriA

I remember a few safe hiding places
All in my dreams - no narrative to give them shape,
So lonely when I close my eyes.

You care mostly about you, and you
Misunderstand emotion, although - I wonder
How your love gets mixed with lies.

Red flags pop up when you say my
Feelings are incorrect.

Underneath (for I know better now than to show you)
I boil in contempt.

My word against yours, I suppose.
All would be simpler if my heart would only close.

Did I betray you? No
When did it change? It didn't
My head is bowed. So lift it up

I won't. I won't disrupt your leisure.
Wherever your love lies,
I watch as it gets buried deeper.

It's a ******* man's world
(loathe as I am to admit
believing such deadly
chicanery - but, as
one might suspect,
the state of the world
is only this
Obvious  because
I am not a man).
The power I wield
just spurts out of
me uncontrolled, just
like its ******* counterpart,
my weakness.
Neither of those *******
garner much empathy -
let alone sympathy -
from the guys in my
small crowd.
Sure, "I need to get out more"
but luckily I know
better.
Other than power and might
and the weakness of fright
in the proverbial dark night
there is also (and always)
love to return to.

Love yourself
You are the one thing
I needed
Share of yourself
Show me the things that
You believe in
Love, can you love yourself
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself
Make a shelf
Put all the things on
That you believe in
Love, can you love yourself
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself
Love yourself
You are the one thing
I believe in
Love, can you love yourself
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself
Make a shelf
Put all the things on
That you believe in
Love, can you love yourself
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself
Love, can you love yourself
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself
Love, can you love yourself
(You are the one thing)
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself
(You are the one thing)
Love, can you love yourself
(You are the one thing)
Show me everything
Every reason to believe in yourself

Shame on me!
Between the moon and the sea,
All I want to be
Is calm, luxurious, and free.
Desire, rage and ****** empathy
Threaten the soul's accountability -
It's not strong enough to face
Their torrid embrace,
So banality reigns
With heartbroken disdain -
Please don't allow me
To get excited again.
There is no longer any reason
To imagine anything but pain -
So go now, Go!
We revolt, then comes Death, again.

No matter how you consider it (who hasn't) -
It's a contract.

Not the same thing as contact
Although one might wish it were so, since
That word gives such hopeful prospects, promising (among other things) -
"An occurrence in which people communicate with each other."

Once you add the "r" the terrain becomes treacherous.  
Agreement is the foundation, but legality is required
And worse, a specific form involves
Cold-blooded ******

How ridiculous that seems in light of the simple fact of our connection.
It does that all on its own.

Contact is so deceptively simple -
So brutally honest in it's being there, or not
As for communication, you fuckwitted glamour queen -
I throw up my hands at you.

Contract is the most intimate of all.
Promising to share *** and death and possibly even birth.
But intimate can be vague and crazy.
A party animal bullshitter who leaves a lot unsaid.

It's not necessary to understand how it works when it works.
In the case of marriage, it might even be fatal.
Love is a given when it's true.
I learned that from you.

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

Masters of War (Bob Dylan) - 1963

Those who judge
My man's maybes
Know nothing
Of the light he shines
On my soul
As he orbits around me -
They know nothing
Of the detonation,
My coronation,
Our journey,
Our elation.

His certainty
Is us
That part of the job
Is done
Still we move on -
Final destination
*To come

Sixteen and *** on the body and soul
As banal a story as any, boys will be boys after all.  But I am a girl —

It’s 1983, he’s nineteen and drives a mean yellow sports car my father could see from afar as he pulled into the driveway way before the three I was expecting - it was lunchtime and I was “sick”
The woodstove fires were out so he came home to stoke -

Ah but this young man
Had already taken care of
That - and when the door opened!
My father’s tight face
Mortified me

Body and soul wrung dry for three decades or more.

They still make those ******* cars.
I just saw one drive down the street
Of my midlife crisis afternoon walk.
My father gone a long time now -
my mother just last week touting as her inheritance! What she shamed me
So very thoroughly for
Then, so
I won’t ask her if she remembers.

My father turned swiftly and fled,
letting my mother fail to handle it.
Boys will be boys.
Girls mustn’t be *****.
He was always proud of me.
She still tells me how I’m doing it wrong, but I just laugh because I know
She doesn’t even own
A *******.

We’ve been through so much
Casual good-nights can’t stop the march of days towards years
So many possibilities for the morning
Please meet me there

Each time I think I’ve finally learned
to stand on my two feet alone
I learn there’s yet another hill to climb
With you as my willing crutch
And I’m always faltering in some
New paradigm just dreamed up
Yesterday by who we were then

Don't forget, baby
We're going to die - soon
So don't wait
Until we feel better
Are richer, more
Rested, or
Better nested -
Let's just ****
Let's love
Now
Later, and
Over and over

My wisdom is my allure
My understanding is my grace
My strength is my confidence
My sorrow sings and weeps
My fire ignites dreams
My persistence is my power
My pain helps me lead
My love will win this hour

I miss the love notes
You used to send me
I miss the rough gestures you used
The urgency to get me alone and uncovered
To corner me, open me
Taste me, anchor me -
With that custom-fit grip -
Oh, how I surrendered then!
I felt peace like a blanket
Covering our lives.

But there was an explosion,
All the ***** I had in the air
Shattered and scattered
To the four winds,
Except for the shrapnel
Lodged in my flesh
How it aches when it rains!
Somehow you are blind to this pain
And so I float
Out in the deep
The water is so cold
But I know you will come for me
Eventually.

For the time being I tread water
Starving with aching limbs
My passion is wailing in silent,
Bitter - but ultimately vain -  protest
Still, I am grateful
For the care you give the children
I am a modern mother
Torn to shreds
By the partial victory
Of my supposed emancipation