There's a broken banjo in my birthright,
It was tied to were I wonder
Hidden between John Henry's Hammer,
and the hobbling post on Humble Hill.

I've walked this far on the blame in my grit,
pushed to by tailwind sunsets,
So kick me a mea culpa kneejerk
hardball, and sandstone my stonewall.

Forget storms in the cradle,
I found dustbowls in my waiting room,
Chasing rabbits in a wordwind,
plinking at the vermin as
they rolled into town with the rest of us,

*****, but soaring, Carrion pigeon in the clouds
not getting caught up in admiring the reflections
in all the silver linings,
Just... Flying.

narcissus couldn't manage
the glory of wax work wings.
But Icarus knew real beauty.
He felt it.
When he hit the ground

The heat of floating zeroes
blasting his broken bones
into the obsidian of desert floors...
See, angels can be as jealous as God.

Anywhere can be as lonley as the long plains
of Kansas,
Empty canvas trampled by dog and pony shows
as cowboys rode mules muddy miles
through ****** brambles
to drive herds of bulldogs and lions
from the hunting grounds of dragons
to the safety of home
from High, High, Horses.
Under the shadows of eagles.

But the devil never waits at the crossroads, people.
He lays in lies.
And six shooters,
Under Dog Collars,
with the blood and scars
of everyday life,
and the beaten bodies of
seraphim, fallen to **** the well,
with their phoenix ash.

Sheep and shepherds are never friends,
Ones happiness is the other's hunger.
Dont get me wrong, wolves get hungry too,
But at least their honest about the arrangement.

I always relapse
in your arms

They keep on talkin’,
but the circle has spoken.
There’s no recession, no progression.
just inevitable repeatin’
Repeatin' repeatin' repeatin'

You run away to not be like your parents.
all the relentless vents
but they did the same.
and now you have the worst of names.

It’s inevitable,
Inevitable.
It’s Inevitable,
The Circle.

Dubstep has no soul,
punk and rap has anarchy as the role.
rock is about ***, and so is the slow songs
why can’t we right any of these wrongs?

Now, your mess on your drugs
buying useless things like your Ug’s
lost in a calm that is perceived as bliss.
When in reality it’s not caring at all. tsk. tsk.

Well, we will do this,
we will get out of the pit.
Rise to be with kings of eden,
just to keep inevitably repeatin’
Repeatin' repeatin' repeatin'

Dubstep has no soul,
Punk and Rap has anarchy as the role.
Rock is about ***, but so are the slow songs
why can’t we right any of these wrongs?

It’s inevitable,
Inevitable.
It’s inevitable
A Circle.
Cut it, cut it down,
Break it, break it now.

Caminaba este mundo ausente y perdido
No me capturaba los versos de los románticos y los queridos
Las sonrisas me escapaban porque nunca fueron míos
Algo me hacia falta en la casa del cariño
Tu sonrisas, tu mirada, tu forma de ser, lleno esta casa que por muchas lunas fue vació
Ahorra me sonrió con los románticos y platico con los queridos
Y las sonrisas no me escapan porque tu ya eres mía.

When still a teen, I rented my first Motel room.
Moving for the first time from the back seat
explorations of adolescent desires, in my '58 Chevy.

Privacy found, never known before, acquired for
only twelve dollars, dank, smelling of stale
tobacco stink, mold on the window shades,
on the bedding and on the stained carpet floor.

Glasses wrapped in paper, water spotted,
Little tiny bars of miniature Lifeboy soap,
sticky sit on the chipped old porcelain sink.
White towels, more yellow than white.
A plastic shower curtain, missing several
metal rings, sagging in the middle. The tub
stained from the residue of aged rusty pipes.
With a drain that later refused to drain the
shower water we took together (Our first ever)
The old bed sagged in the center, put a quarter
in a small box on the bed side table and the
whole bed would vibrate, or so the sign promised.
There was a Bible also there on the table, I quickly
hide it away in a drawer, was about to find a quarter,
when a soft knocking came at the door.

Funny how when she entered that dingy room,
how none of it's squalor mattered, within moments
it became a Palace, a womb of warn safe contentment,
a  Shangri-La for us together.  

For a while it was a blur of frantic kissing and
tugging at clothing, wet kisses deep and wanting,
our bodies and brains aflame with passion.

Again and again we loved one another that night,
seemingly inexhaustible, as we sweated on those
already worn thin sheet, ending each frantic coupling
in childish laughter thrilled by the new almost existential  
feelings, of all that real love is and what it can ever be.
Wishing in our naïve way the night would never end.
Knowing full well that she must be home by Eleven.

We then and there confessed our mutual love,
as deep and real as any love ever, or anyone's love can be.
We talked of continuance, hopes of a life together, forever.

"You are nothing but children!" Both our families agreed.
"You know nothing of love or what it means."

They were so wrong, how could they possibly know,
what we knew, how we felt.
That age alone can not determine when love is real,
or when it is not. Love does not "Card" you at the door.

"You have your whole life ahead, College, a football scholarship,
and lots of growing up to do." Mine said.
"That's it, you two are done, it's over." Hers directed.
"You are not to see each other again outside of school."
They both assured us.

We did as told, but not for trying,
caught once or twice, and then overnight,
She was gone, shipped off to some
Aunt down in Texas,  
And a Catholic girls School.
And that was truly the end.

But now its been 50 years, a near life time and
yet I have not forgotten, once in a while it all
comes back in a night dream, Her and the scent
and feel of that squalid and yet wonderful Motel
Room, and the love we shared there as children.

In two weeks I will see her for the first time, a Reunion.
She now a long time mother and four time grandmother,
I married and failed twice, but got two sons in the bargain.
Now I too, a loving Grandparent. She has a husband she still
loves, she says in an email. I lied a little when I told her I was
happy for her, wished her well.
Two short emails in 50 years.

So many years come and gone,
Both of us now grey of hair,
and much rounder at the middle.
Like a kid, on Christmas morning,
I'm excited to see her.
Will we even recognize each other?

I wonder if she will be able to look in my eyes,
and tell that I still dream about her and that room,
That I still love her.

Those who love will never find it.
Those who love will write odes to crisp fall mornings
And hear symphonies crunched out of the yellow leaves beneath their feet.
Those who love will smile, even though they know
it will give them away
They will offer themselves up as if they had never given the mirror a second glance,
Let themselves be beaten like drums,
And a drum is just a bucket of silence
until you beat something out of it,
Beat something out of it.


Those who love will find poetry in the steam of their coffee
And beauty in even the worst of times;
Leave names like kristallnacht in our history books because they know that broken glass looks like stars,
And when a person truly loves there is nothing, nothing that can stop them from hoping.
People are like buckets of silence
Until you make something out of them,
Make something beautiful.


People who love know that tears
are the same as rain, and they are ready for monsoons
Because loving is lonely,
and for every drop out of shining eye
there are hundreds more waiting in the sky
and the people who love will dance in the downpour,
Collect every drop they can hold where the silence once was because drums can hold tears too,
and they will still be silent until you splash
and make something out of it,
make something beautiful.