He is the silence inside me,
The only thing that brings me peace.
He is the calm place in my mind
That centres all the chaos inside.
Then he was gone,
I am adrift in my own madness.

In the winter of 1894,
I froze to death in the snow.
No one will remember,
No one will know.
Crossing the bay,
Frozen with ice.
Furs stacked ten high
On my sleigh.
No one will know
The things I've seen.
No one will know I was loved,
No one will know where I've been.

The thing about babies,
They grow up.
The thing about people you trust,
They disappoint.
The trouble with dreams,
You grow up.
The trouble with lovers,
Is they die.

If I had known then what I know now,
I would have kissed you more often.
I would have worked less,
I would have smiled more.
I would have written you love songs,
I would have never told you no.
If I had known then what I know now,
I would have said good bye.

The greatest of the greatest pieces of art come from grief. The grief of death, absence, lost love, and defeat. Grief is a phase of sadness, a substitute for when just being sad is not momentary and the word not good or strong enough, the sadness from a specific departure from our lives. In a life so full of grief we dread the sadness, it hides in the shadows of happiness when the fleeting moments of bliss are pulled from under us. Even though we expect it, we never expect it.
  Often though, in the dredges of depression brought on by this great and terrible grief it allows us to see something we other wise may have over looked in the moment.
  That is happiness. Even when shrouded in the pitiful emptiness of grief when we look back on that person or thing or idea we so miss, finally we see our happy moments. We remember more fondly, and it dulls our regrets for things not said or deeds not done or ideas that never came into fruition because for someone or something, the clock wound down.
  The gift of sadness is it makes us know which moments were truly good, which memories we will hold dear to our hearts until our own clock, our own heart stops. Just when you think your heart is about to explode in your chest some relief comes from looking back, then going on. It comes from knowing you were happy once.

I love you without
Pride, vanity, callousness,
Or jealousy.
I  love you without
Money, beauty, chastity,
Or sanity.

True happiness;
It comes from pancakes on a Sunday morning,
Holding hands while we walk.
It emerges over coffee in the mornings,
Creeps in with movies late into the night.
It is walks in the woods on an October afternoon,
Comes from long talks before bed.
It is love when you are unlovable,
Feeling rich when you are poor.
It is friendship that never wavers,
It is simpler to find than you believe.

Under my finger tips,
The marble of her body gave way to my skin.
She is something so beautiful,
She could only be art.

I, a pitiful patron to her presence,
Could not have imagined her existence.
Yet here I am in a dream so wonderful it is cruel,
If I ever am awakened I will never experience better.

I open my eyes each morning,
As if by a miracle-
She is still there.

Do not cry over pain
That does not leave a scar.
There will be wounds much deeper.

This morning I buried my head in your pillow,
I wept some how even more.
I can barely smell your scent on it;
Less than the day before.

This morning I woke up,
For a moment I forgot that you were gone.
Just for a few sweet seconds,
I did not know it has been so long.

This morning I count up the minutes,
From the moment I saw you last.
I am not able to leave you behind,
To abandon you in the past.

This morning I remember you so fondly,
It is like you never left.
Even though your heart stopped beating,
To have known you I am blessed.

I brought home a lot of demons,

I picked up in the desert sun.

They leap out and bite my children,

But look at the medal Daddy won.

Of great expectations,
Of coarse down fall,
A making as delicate as rose petals,
Unique as snow flakes.
Entwined, but never touching.
Beautiful, and wretched.
Desolate, and crowded.
Unrefined, and elegant.
Always going forward,
Without destination.
Harsh in our elements,
Yet soft in our nature.
How can you sum up
A thing as treacherous,
As beautiful,
As sad,
As vast.

A breath of wind,
Ice, ice cold.
Frozen in time,
You won't grow old.

Please, love this broken body.

  Because no one else ever could.
    
     Bring me peace and quiet,

        When my ears scream in pain,

                    From the sounds deep inside,

                                      Residing in my broken brain.
      
                            Forgive me and all the things I've done

      Though I will never forgive myself.

         Just take me in my sleep,
  
                                                             ­                  Before I **** myself.

           Hell can't be hotter than the desert sun,

              Nor worse than the image of weeping children,
        
                                         Damaged by my hands.


          Help me, I will never be the same.

You sit like a thousand pounds of led on my chest,
You linger in my lungs and take the life from my breath.
Remember that I will not forget you,
Not now; no, not yet.

The clicking of raven claws,
On the tin roof.
The evening swelling with lonesome cricket songs,
Clouds coming over the mountains,
As black as the coal under them.
Claws that sound like thunder,
Pounding on the tin roof.
Darkness pools in the summer skies,
Pouring and pluming like ink in still water.
The nights in the mountains are lonely,
It's just the ravens and I, and sadness for miles.

Some people live their lives
Like economists.
They see the price of everything,
And the value of nothing.
Do not decrease your value,
Just because someone does not See your worth. -

A second heart beats inside her,
Like the world's smallest drum.
A tiny foot seemingly kicks to the rhythm.
One day, the foot stopped kicking,
And the tiny heart stopped beating,
Then her heart stopped too.
Frozen in her chest,
She has loved nothing since.

Your memory has long since forgotten me,
This winter all I have is your footprints in the snow.
Then spring comes, and washes them all away.
The rain falls, and flowers grow in a corpse's tracks.
Summer dawns, and your scent is carried away
In a breeze that leaves me lonesome.
Fall comes and sheds your clothes from our closet,
Like the leaves from the trees.
Soon, winter comes again, and with it snow.
It leaves me to wonder, where did the time go?

There is so much blood in a woman's life.
When she is born from another woman,
She is covered in it.
All through out her childhood,
There are scraped knees and missing teeth.
The first sign of her coming adult hood,
Is blood, betrayed from her own body.
The first time she gives away a piece of herself,
To love, or circumstance, or by no means her choice,
There is blood, bleeding away a piece of herself.
Then, when she gives another life,
There is blood.
In the baby she loves,
And coursing through her own veins.
Every day her child is outside her,
She bleeds, but this you cannot see.

Thinking about myself makes my stomach churn.
Not because I am sickened by myself, but because I am sick of myself.
When I think of something positive; my mind conjures three failures.
When I think of all the happiness I create; I think of all the pain I cause.
I ponder on how far I have come; then remember the long road a head.
If I dare believe I am loved and worthy; someone reminds me I am begrudged.

Her scent is left faded yet not forgotten,
A tarnish in my deepest soul,
The sillage of your presence
Lingers ever more.   Could I ever ask you to return?
Absolutely,
But I fear the darkness of rejection,
More than never knowing.

My wanderlust is for now sustained;
I have a tendency for vagary,
A solivagant nature in my blood.
I hope my last departure is final,
But I have much more adventure in me.
For now, tacenda is my hearts' content.

Corn stalks shine in the horizon,
Like a million tiny suns.
Sitting on the fender of your truck,
As the pink flush of evening,
Settles across the land like a blush
On the face of a very flat world.
"Shame he went out like he done,
Was a good boy, him."
I say nothing and stare a head,
The black asphalt in front on me
Bore down like a river,
Black and empty.
"Fall's coming on.
Figured I'd take a trip east to see the leaves."
I say nothing,
Just let the sadness of an old man crash over me,
I could almost pretend I could see ripples
On the black pavement, hear it in the corn.
Whispers, whispers in the August breeze.
"We used'ta plow this alone,
Every October, me brother and I,
Not gonna be the same this year."
The old man slides off the fender,
And I head for the passenger seat.
"Not gonna be the same, That's for **** sure."

He cupped my head in his hand,
And his fingers wove into my hair.
"You are so beautiful,"
I smile up at him,
I close my eyes
And he kisses my eyelids.
I lay on my back in the scratchy sheets,
Feel the sensation of a cool breeze
Wafting through the window,
And I feel an abstract sense of peace.
He shifts, gently dropping my head
Into the cavern of the pillow.
He rolls over beside me,
He exhales deeply and I imagine the mountains that
Are his shoulders,
And valley of lean muscles on his back,
Imagine an earthquake,
Moving mountains with a breath.