I want to love you
Like there's no tomorrow
Give it my all
And never experience any sorrow
Take my hand
And let me kiss your lips
Let me lead you to the promised land
To wait for our offspring
With both hands on my hips
I wonder, do you feel the same
I'd like to ask you
Hoping you're not playing a game
Is it only my *** you want
Though it's nothing to write home about
Or is it your *** you want to flaunt
We could blast off
Into the stars
You being Venus
Me being Mars
We could hold up a mirror
And peer past our reflection
Make love day and night
Not wearing any protection
I think I have loved you
Since I was a kid
But wait a minute now...
Let's not and say we did.

I see the
way
your eyes sparkle
when you talk
to him,
how he tries
to impress you
and how
you lap it up.
I never knew
until now
how my feelings
for you
could hurt me,
how I could
be jealous
of other guys.
But when
the two of you
shared
a smoke
under his umbrella
in the rain
my blood boiled.
I never knew
my feelings
for you
could cause
me pain.
I told you
about it
with anger
in my voice
and you said
you were sorry,
that you
didn't mean
to hurt me,
that you
would talk to him
and tell him that
we were a couple.
And now when
I bring it up,
I make light
of it.
I address it
with humor,
I tell you
it wouldn't
have bothered me
but I was tired
that day,
I wasn't feeling
on top
of my game.
Did I apologize
for being angry. No!
I am afraid
when I feel
so insecure.
You say,
"don't you
trust me."
and I say yes
but I have trust issues,
didn't you notice
that I always lock
my bicycle.

I drank way too much last night
now I feel like I'm paying my dues,
I woke up real early this morning,
all dry in the mouth and my head was pounding,
I've have me a case of those hangover blues.
All I ate last night
was what I think was horsemeat.
With a sickly sweet sauce
in greasy, greasy flat bread.
The man said it was a Donair
but whatever it was
I really don't care,
because my wallet is empty
and my life doesn't seem fair.
I feel I have nothing left to lose
I have a real bad case of those hangover blues.
My wife tells me that I wasn't any fun,
I had me a case of whiskey ****,
I just wouldn't get it up,
and after my epic fail
i moaned...òh ****,
I just rolled over on my side
and then got sick.
Well, life is about winning
just as much as you lose
and I woke up this morning
with a mean old case
of those hangover blues.
Thank god I didn't have to work today
because I would have giving my boss the bad news,
I would have been staying at home today
with one of those 40 ounce flues.
Oh, the things that I just know that I said,
and the people that I *******.
The peoples faces that stick in my mind
haunting me hard,
while I sit with my head in my hands,
my money all spent
and my bloodshot eyes
that I can't conceal,
Total disgust for myself
is the way that I feel.
Oh the self pity that I ooze
with this mean old case of those hangover blues.

© 2012

shaman shaman
bury me
under a starlit sky
beside a sinless tree.

commend my soul
to the vastness above,
bathe me, cleanse me,
lift me high on the wings of the dove.

of my talents i leave here on earth,
scatter them, share them,
to bear witness of new birth.

if others must judge my worried past,
fill their hearts with love and kindness,
the gifts of the Spirit
that hold true and fast.

and to those for whom i have cared
that have gone before,
please have them stand in ready
to open the door.

Sheltered promises
fitting male into female,
and I hold out in this hotel room
standing up for nothing.
There is a time to pay the price
and just get on the ride.

The local folk, they don't smile much.
So I hunt my alone time down,
only to set it free when caught.
Get a whiff of that!
It smells like someone died in here,
their spirit choking on crumbs of thought.

Metal bars and a chainlink fence,
chewed torn sleep when it comes.
Some only sleep,
maybe they are free until their lids separate.
The toll being too high for me to cross beyond.
Unsweetened, sweaty dreams chide and natter,
becoming bitter yearnings
off in the distance,
only markings made by memories.

Way up
in these clouds
just as my expectations
did fall ******* my head
full of those childlike dreams.

Remembering a future
and ignoring a past
that could break
any fragile strong-man
on any bright new day.

Why can't I
make you leave me alone.
Even here,
up in the blue sky,
above the white clouds
so far away from home.

The Poet's Corner wants to fill me.
My Doctor warns me of the danger,
already one leg is gone,
though I want all four limbs to be done with,
I strain not to be altered by
anything other than myself.

Tall trees laying down
with broken backs.
It looks a mess out there,
so man gets busy and does
what man does best.  They
commence to cutting corners.

Inside four walls I begin to cut
with a rusty pen knife
and the infection spreads.
I didn't do it for the show of it all,
I did it out of an old, old ghost
that just won't leave me alone.

Riding wheels
of thought while
with fresh stream
and campfire.

Scot Bay's crust
below a split's stair,
milk woven mist
under hand to sea,
sowing Morphina's silvery sleep.

I begged to fly the flag
as you started the mornings fire,
a bottle of gin to halt chattering teeth.

Two full days of bliss.

She will smash
every wine glass.
They are broken,
but not her heart.

She will walk barefoot
from room to room
while her feet are bleeding,
but not her heart.

She will drink him up
until her body aches
and her head hurts
but not her heart.

no news is good news
just as long as i am lying here with you,
and though we're fools
still i want just to hold you.

in my mind are these rolling hills
and these green, green fields,
the fog is everywhere
and i'll always remember
because you were there.

terra-cotta woman
my celtic queen,
you work with clay
giving form its birth,
to shape this day
you have turned to the earth,
terra-cotta woman
my celtic queen.

and when i get home
i want to unplug the phone,
turn the lamp down low,
because no news is good news
just as long as i am staying here with you
and though we're fools
still i want just to hold you.

© 2000

two friends
are a fightin'
as i stand
in the middle
dodging
the lightening,
while a friend
in russia
tells me that
she has a
problem
with the bottle,
but i'm on my
own little trip,
hand clenched
on the throttle.

rolling and holding
onto a used to be,
always unfolding
across a jealous sea.

your father's scolding is
whipped waves roaring,
a howling wind that tore
the sound from
hell's aching bell.

your father's smile, bliss,
graceful, gentle, wide.
when it falls down
you can't hide,
you can't hide.

rolling and holding
onto a use to be,
always unfolding
across a jealous sea.

Cobra's breath
through yard iron teeth,
sullen swank and sway.

Shant no man stand
where WILL be loosed
till gait and gravity
sound pounding shoe.

Within no glass wall
to splinter and fly,
till distant point
seen with thine eye,

Pass behind
to settle in cell,
being recalled of fear
or a rainy day,

Casting visions
of a cruelest hell
of infinite symbol,
sound and smell.

My mind
showing me colours
that I could not believe.

Honed stories,
blended edges
making a collage.

My dreams at night
are well worth
this life that I am spending.

Silence echoes in the dance,
playing with the edges of time,
dreams holding everything together
while I sew coats for them.

Stunned by the light
that Silence sprayed,
the dance stopped
and went away.

My mind
floating in colours
that it made me believe.

Winter snow is so high,
to jump out into it
is to jump into the sky.
The woman downstairs
has no where to go
as of tomorrow.
What will the universe grant her,
does she need faith?
Spirit people floating
like snowflakes in space.
The woman downstairs
thinks worried thoughts,
contemplating the street
and its harshness.
Could I be witnessing
a fall from grace.

© 2011

looking
across the waters
as you stood
upon the shore,

a warm feeling
your only comfort.

shadows of
a distant past
so long before.

memories
now fresh
of love undone,
the mingling
of two hearts
that beat as one.

sights
and sounds
and vague imaginings
that passed so long ago,

a time of love
so seldom had
that few have come to know.

me,
i was fine
up to the time
that you gathered me aside,
speaking of matters
so far from thought,

of how
your mind
and spirit fought,

and how you cannot
accept the time
although your heart
has recieved a sign.

why
do you
unplug my ears
and open my eyes

if not
selfishly
to console your fears
and subdue your sighs.

were
you tired
of being lonly
standing in spirit
by the sea,

are you
crying out
for you only
or are you
calling out for me.

what purpose served
in judging so quickly,
so swiftly,
so much.

why
make us
within arms reach
when you remain
so out of touch.

you run
at the sound
of love's
unfinished call,

then turn
on your heel
and unsure
of your direction,
you stall.

hiding
in your craft
to appease your muse,

the oils
they dry so slow.

creating visions
of what you choose,
still,
not always
of what you know.

ships and bluffs
and the face of love,
the canvas
again and again will change.

images of
a sea so rough
and a love
determined to remain.

paint me
out of the picture,
paint another man over me,

it will not change
that it was me
that stood aboard
that ship
below the cliff
that you stood upon.

behind you
the rolling highlands
of our beloved scotland,

while below you
the thickness of mist
hides that we list
and are going down.

then waves crashing
and men thrashing,
don't you know
that i have drowned.

your
tears add
to the
vastness
of the sea,

i know
that although
you cry for you
you also cry for me.

paint dries faster
than the tears
you have shed,

for a heart
cannot master
a love
that is not dead.

i wish
that you had
been spared
the wait,

knowing what
it is to grieve.

you felt you only
standing at the gate
though hand in hand with me.

if
i could have
kissed your cheek
to take away your pain.

for i
would do
anything for you,
even die again...

© 2000
© 2000

for a moment
i wished that i was
sailing over the ocean,

far away from land,
far away from the world.

but i stop and think again
and i remember that
i don't like water,

hardly even to drink,
maybe to mix with scotch,
but then, only in its frozen state.

the first thing
that I noticed
was the child's beauty.

then again
I realised how
you can't judge a book
by its binding.

my fingers
laced behind my head,
while the  back of my mind
rest in the palm of my hands.

the linking of
those boney fingers,
a sign
of my threadbare body,
barely old,   barely able.

there she was,
waving her habitual bliss
like a carrot
on the end of a stick.

while a silent psalm
surrounds a starry angel's glow.

Fooling clouds cross my view
passing hurts and pleasures.
Blue on white on white on blue
'till black has broken through.

I dreamt that it
finally died last night,
that it was truely over.

Waves of guilt and fear
to carry me away
until I could see no longer
that place where I started from
and I no longer knew
that place I was headed to.

Now,
I gather stones
for my tomb,
while with willfull eyes
study my peers,
lips pursed tight
they have closed their hearts,
closed up tight
to my falling tears.

Yes,
it is I,
it is me, I cry,
feeling condemed
by the unspoken lie.
A lie to weigh heavy
on my bent back body.

Heavy as Christ's cross
responsible for all souls lost.

Then,
I stumble
and I fall
as I carry the burden upwards
to Golgotha of the skull.

If to think
is to act
then burning
after the crash,
the fire's glow
brings forth
the desire to let go.

Letting go,
why does it have
to be so
hard    to come by.
leaving me so
hard      done      by.

A selfish act,
done not from class,
no more from strenght
than from a weakness.

An action out of chaos
in the absence of bliss.

The ShadowLand,
where grief clings
to my name
and to their person,
asking of today
to stride
with a limp,
and of yesterday,
to crawl and beg.

Forgiveness
would be
the task in hand.

A ticket for
some far
and distant shore.

Safe passage away
from ShadowLand.

Bent,
but not broken,
while the pain
of its death
runs deep.

Not until
hatred is spent
and words
of kindness
are spoken
will forgiveness
be complete.

Only one way to forgive,
that would be, completely.

Only one way to live,
that would be completely.

Anything less
misses the mark,
comes from the head
and not from the heart.

And so it remains
that for me to be free,
I stand at the threshold
of forgiveness
and stand ready
to turn the key.....

© 1999

All Rights Reserved

**** salesman with a mouth full of samples

it's easier to stay stopped than it is to get stopped

life is full of twists and turns
beautiful visions and down right burns

If they are willing to meet you half way there is no extra mile.

A foot of snow
with rain to follow,
only the youthful can travel,
the youthful at heart.

The elderly are house bound.
And those who choose to be,
like lovers
on their feather bed.
And the paranoid
with too many holes in their head.

over our heads
creeps big time,
the only thing that is.

freshly folded moment
too alive to die.

witness to the break
in the softer water's wave.

now, back, forced to see.
no salve for the blind.
sometimes oh to be blind.

one is eleven's rhyme.


© copyright 2005

All Rights Reserved

It would be so sweet if it wasn't so bitter,
it would really move if it didn't stand so still.
It's going to take a lot of water, maybe a river,
it'll take a lot of love until I've had my fill.

Sometimes love's fire lifts us up,
it burns so bright as we fill our cup.
We touch so soft and slow beside the ancient well,
it feels so good to be under love's spell.
So we try to hold tight but love takes wings,
sometimes in our pain we do hurtful things.

Love's strong suit held close to our chest,
says you got it made, your hand is the best.
So you can go big or you can stay home,
you can hold your horses, you can hold the phone.
In the end you know it's true,
you're going to slide on in, there is nothing you can do.

When you can't find love,
it's hidden hard in heart-red shades of blue-grey shadow,
it feels like you don't remember how to live.
You stumble around and forget your place,
you wring your hands and you knit a face.
You pretend it doesn't matter, that's what you'll do,
who you trying to kid, who's fooling who...

As you slowly slide
into memory
and i am left to bury
my dead dream
i can't help but envy
the one who holds you now
because it isn't me
to have and hold you now.

As you slowly slide
into memory
and i am left to bury
my dead dream
my heart is aching
and my spirit yearns
i have to comfort myself believing
that there is still so much to learn.

As you slowly slide into memory
and i am left to buy my dead dream
the thoughts crawl by
i shudder and sigh
and i can't hold back the tears
so i let them fall
and tell it all
to the one who really cares.
As you slowly slide into memory.


© copyright 1999

All Rights Reserved

Skin deep in her cold green sea,
a dark and gnarled sky above.
On the curved horizon a sign reads:
She believes in angels but she can't believe in love.

Insane in her reverie, wings sewn cross-stitch
down the spine of her back,
rattling panes that the wind blows
are just a reminder of all that she lack.

Saw teeth across metal is music to her ear,
the shriek of the tea kettle full of insolent childhood fear.
Rude eyes shout: forget the devil, he has no bite.
She knows better though, she's not going down with out a fight.

Her attempts to speak of things she has heard
are the sound of the cat who has sprung on the bird.
To spread her wings is to spread her legs
and embrace the power that darkness has made.

Oh, the suffering of heartache after heart's ache
while pulling the wings off of flies.
She can make you laugh, she's pretty smart eh,
but it isn't the same as being wise.

Every bit of her life, it occurs to her,
yes it does, it just occurs.
Now is that being selfish or just being blind,
if fooling people well is just her way to unwind.


© copyright 2005

All Rights Reserved

A spider's web clings
as I walk under
the awning.
What the hell
am I writing.
The muse is
missing and I
crap all over
the page knowing
that nothing
has been said.
But I did see
that spider's web
and at least it
wasn't one that
I walked through.

It would be so sweet if it wasn't so bitter,
it would really move if it didn't stand so still.
It's going to take a lot of water, maybe a river,
it'll take a lot of love until I've had my fill.

Sometimes love's fire lifts us up,
it burns so bright as we fill our cup.
We touch so soft and slow beside an ancient well,
it feels so good to be under love's spell.
So we try to hold tight but love takes wings,
sometimes in our pain we do hurtfull things.

Love's strong suit held close to the chest,
says you got it made, your hand is the best.
So you can go big or you can stay home,
you can hold your horses, you can hold the phone.
In the end you'll know that it's true,
you're going to slide on in, nothing you can do.

When you can't find love
it's hidden hard in heart-red shades of blue-grey shadow,
it feels like you don't remember how to live.
You stumble around and forget your place,
you wring your hands and you knit a face.
You pretend it doesn't matter, that's what you'll do.
Who you trying to kid, who's fooling who...


© copyright 2012

All Rights Reserved.

morning's first coffee,
always the best
unless you buy cheap.

you find the level
that water rises to
and then you do your dealings.

drink, a symptom
of the cool
that eases into soul.

your landlady
knows your dealings
better than yourself,

she'll jump out
onto a limb
that has already blown away.

she'll kiss your tracks
like her lips are her brains.


© copyright 2005
All Rights Reserved

Spine twisted recompense
and all that was, is not.

Fortune buried in a field
and you stand on the wrong
side of the fence with your plastic shovel.

Wisdom brings responsibilities pain.

If you hold too tight
to the kettle
you shall burn your arms.

What good to burn your arms.

Better to cut them off
and go through life
eating with your feet.

© copyright 2012  All Rights Reserved

I can be so brutal
or so you say you can tell
but stop and look again
this could be a match made in heaven
for two angels straight from hell.

We could sit here
and stare the clock down
stare it right off the wall
or dust off our top hat and spats
and strike out on a crawl.

Now I know what it is to be drunk
and I know what it is to be sober
I know what it is to be young
and quickly growing older.

The safest bet by a long shot
is to keep time hung up on the wall
make believe we can predict
just which way it's going to go.

Shake those dice
and give them a blow
dealt a straight in spades
you'll know just how it's going to go
we could do it up just like a drug
except we're all out of any float
it's back to throwing out a life line
to draw some heat out of this late winter's cold.

Heads I win tails you lose
you can flip a coin
a thousand and one times
before you just get tired and stop
knowing full well
that it isn't always the cream that rises to the top
no some times it's the slop
that makes the piggies come.

Dive in off the high board
zooming toward a teardrop,
waiting for the belly-flop
aiming at the blues
what side of the line are you on
when you disobey the rules.
A fist full of dollars
and a bucket full of small talk
about something, somewhere
being a once in a long time long shot.
I've got nothing left to lose,
I'm just aiming at the blues.


© 2012  All Rights Reserved

The air is
thick with water beads.
***** little water beads
that fill my lungs
making it hard to breathe.

The yeast
in my belly
is causing me sickness
that nothing can remedy

My head is full
of deadends and barricades.
The yellow and black
bumblebee signs
warning me
to keep my feet on the ground.

Just then as
a hot air balloon
spills its peoples
onto jagged rocks.
Breaking their bones
and giving them ****** noses.

© 2011

All Rights Reserved

lonesome for the country
i need to get out of town,
with this city
in for a penny
in for a pound.
i need to get back to my roots
i want to fill my boots
with some hallowed country sound.

a skateboard flies by
clack-clack on every sidewalk crack,
same rhythm same rhyme
as that lonesome long snake
rolling down the line,
moving up the steel to a muddy sky.

a pedal steel wails as a cop goes by,
72 chev malibou sails through a red light.
on every corner you have to look left
you have to look right,
you can't go ;looking up the steel to a muddy sky.

this city she has her shades of blue,
a man on the corner with a national,
two hands pounding out a delta groove,
head tilts back sings
you got to move, you got to move.
moving up the steel to a muddy sky.

© 2005   All Rights Reserved

i feel so big
when i used to feel so small,
i feel like a tyronasaurs-rex
having tyronasaurs-***
and that ain't all,
when i used to feel so small
i wouldn't come out,
would not come out at all.
remember the time
that you were a train wreck
and i helped you to bed,
i scared away all the monsters
that were in your head.

© 2012



All Rights Reserved 2012

what shade has come over me
to leave such a trail of steel,
the thing i live is a run-away train.

i feel so obliged to follow it,
dragging me, kicking and screaming,
didn't i once engineer this life gone insane.

pulled along behind, face hid in forearms,
ka-knock-knock-knocking my head on every railway tie.
what shade is this life that has split bean's brain?

by the wrist i am chained to this run-away train,
with traits of a hell-hound out of control,
nothing to push to stop from being pulled.

bound to lose faith at the very least,
though risk of life and limb be the final price.
what shade is this film that i have cast myself in,
what shade is this play that won't go away.

© 2005

There was a time
when you could move mountians
with your smile, and the earth
was such a beautiful bridge.
Now Ursa dips deeply into
the dark well of sky while
little sister plays hide and seek,
perishing thought that ride down with bitter cool.

How can you or I claim innocence
when we have both been here before,
shall we cast down our glance in shame
having lied through eyes of stolen charm.
Our birth is breached
as we cling tight to earlier yearnings,
and the wailing wall sounds
a whisper to the cry in my mind.

Those times when in spirit,
our fingertips would brace
prying open closed hearts
that had been slammed shut
by a life swung hard.
What fear brings this memory,
doesn't every tree stand alone
until you look below the ground.


© 2005

I live in a room where time stands still
I have been sick of late
I have need to take yet another pill
They don't really do any thing to help
But I keep hoping that they will.

Sometimes I think that I am as dead as
I am ever going to be
That is if I still wake up tomorrow
I am bright enough to see
To whom it is I bless
And just where it is I bring sorrow
I keep wishing for good health
For that I would beg steal or borrow.

I dream the craziest of dreams
Last night I caught my mentor mixing metaphor
Watch me go 'round in circles
I've got one foot nailed to the floor
I stand in a room made of mirror
I see myself clearly
Yet I start out looking for the door.

I woke up and started drinking today
That is the only relief I get
When I go around town smelling like alcohol
I'm not exactly teacher's pet
But I will live to uncork another bottle
Oh on that one you can bet.

I'll always give you the truth you see
On that you can depend
Even if I tell you a lie over coffee
While sipping my special blend
Later I will type 'what is what' you see
But I won't proofread before I send.

She is the devil
in thin disguise,
she will prattle on
"oh the greatness of his being",
but her clothing
is stitched with lies
and her nakedness is obscene.
I call her 'tomorrow'
because that is when
I want to see her.
Everybody knows
tomorrow never comes.


© 2012

She lives dangerously
close to the edge.

A tight-wire stretches
across the abyss.

A bird is beaking
"step on out".

What will she do?
there is no safty net.

© 2012

The starlings
Outside my
Window
Sing a song
Of no regret
There is snow
On the ground
And little food
To be found
But that's okay
Because today
The sun is out
The sky is clear
It's very warm
For this time
Of year
And if the
Philosophy
Doesn't blind me
I know I will find me
A weapon to use
To fight these blues

Take a carney ride
at high noon,
or at midnight sky
under the moon.
The moonlight says,
the night is a good deal,
and the night says,
the moon knows
that we are here
to pack a wallop.
But the stars ignore
the moon's stolen light
knowing that they
will soon be dust,
while they spend
wistfully useless hours
wondering if
the only reason time exists is
so everything
doesn't happen at once,
then, all at once,
they are able
to leave well enough alone.

© copyright 2012

Better to be a live dog
than a dead lion.

Better to be a rollin' log
than a lumberjack cryin'.

Better to be a drunkin' fool
than a ******'s spoon.

Better to be a happy camper
than a hurtin' unit.

Better to be a fresh pamper
than full of ****.

The tiny town's
talented tailor
swiftly sews silken suits,
in his shop he plays the Wailers,
Bob Marley fills his boots.
Beside his shop
sits Susie's Sushie,
she serves him lunch
every Tuesday,
he leaves a tip because
she treats him well,
he's got a crush
and she can tell.
After lunch
it's back to work,
measuring here
and stitching there,
everything is done
just savoirfaire.
All the town folk
say he is the master,
he smiles at this
and works all the faster.
Then on the corner
the clock strikes five,
with the last suit hung
he says enough of this jive.
He shuts the light
and locks the door,
nine bells tomorrow
he'll be back for more.