Here comes my little chick-a-dee.
Here to sing of sin and sympathy.
Come to spill the truth to me.
Don't tell me brother.
Don't tell me brother.

These hills hold riddles in the lime.
The stars keep on telling me I'm fine.
I just can't seem to find the time.
Please save me sister.
Please save me sister.

Can't help but live within my past.
The sun sheds light on what I lack.
Everything I breathe turns into ash.
Forgive me father.
Forgive me father.

She smiled, looked up at him, and quickly kissed his cheek.
Then turned and walked away from the turmoil of the week,
Her crystal blue eyes moistened as she neared the airline gate,
And an inner pain engulfed her as she struggled with her fate.

He stood still, surprised, and wondered what she meant to say,
Her kiss was sweet but melted like the springtime snow in May.
Was it beginning? Was it ending? What future lies ahead?
He said 'Goodbye' and turned away.  Words better left unsaid.

Both home to their own islands, alone with thoughts and doubt.
Nobody they can talk to - No way to work it out.
What will she say? What will he think? My God, what have we done?
And maybe out of Darkness a single ray of sun.

Her resolve much stronger than his lust, her drive to do what's right,
Prevailed and gave her judgement (though she didn't sleep that night.)
And life goes on, and snowfalls come - Young children play on sleds,
And both can dream what might have been. Dreams better left unsaid.
PwL  2005

"Just to wake up is to make a separate peace."*

They come and go, each
the same and different.
The night of
tempestuous dreams
opens to a morning
of vague dread.

Ghosts have tracked you
into the waking world:
old lovers, dead friends,
battles fought and lost
a grinning death's head.

You must recover
your center,
find the unwobbling
pivot of existence,
the still point
to calm the monkey mind
and allow you
to reenter the world
of phenomena.

Go to your pillow and sit.
Just breathe, just breathe.
Just be here now.

Let the hyenas of night
slink back to their lairs.

Somewhere, she is warm
and lovely.  You feel
her soothing warmth
from a far away land.
Distance is only illusion,
Maya barking in your
trembling mind, but you
never really are alone.

Don't think; thought
will not suffice.
Only sit and breathe,
only sit and be.

The night terrors
retreat into the darkness.
It is light now and
you are still alive.
That is something
to be grateful for,
breath is a living gift.

Sitting there quietly,
the earth stops spinning;
the new day awakens
in the remains of your heart.

You get up, still broken
but better, and walk off
into what some mistakenly
call reality to meet
whatever must  be and,
perhaps, even to smile.
   ~mce

I'm with you in the bluegrass, swaying like the ocean's floor
singing like we used to dream of all the things we'd one day see;
     I'm with you under florescent bulbs, of late night cubicles
laughing in tune with the hum of his fax machine at our inside jokes;
     I'm with you at every gas station, a blanket-full truck bed
crunching every loss under my boot heal, taking us back to perfection;
     I'm with you tying shoelaces
     and each sigh of the new moon,
     of every heart or new blood wound;
You--you're with every piece of me, familiar like childhood scars,
tear salt soaked and burning like ritual fires in each corner of world,
in wanting of my body to be sewn, to rise back and reclaim ours, anew.

"The problem with suicide is that when it becomes an option in your mind, it's always an option."