There's a world that sits
in the tip
of
your cigarette.


There's a city in
that spark.

Thinking hard about you
I got on the bus
and paid 30 cents car fare
and asked the driver for two transfers
before discovering
that I was
alone.

Things are things and
Verbs are verbs
When you hear chirps
It’s probably birds

Feet go in shoes
And shoes on the floor
Music echoes in ears
Leaving you wanting some more

A heart is a heart
Until it’s beats aren’t for you
Love isn't love
Until you share it with two

Then comes the end
As all good things must
Settle on the shelf
And gather life’s dust

"Too late" is a lie
So get back on your way
Start life over
If you can, start it today

Across the room you sit
Absorbed in thought
Biting your lower lip
While you contemplate
Lord knows what
But I wish it was me

Shyly, I stare at you
My bangs hiding my eyes
Praying you don't notice me
But wanting nothing more than to attract your attention
And perhaps I could draw a smile
From your thin red lips

You're beautiful
Not in the flashy, mini skirt kind of way
But in that subtle, wink across a crowded room style
Flying under the radar, until noticed
When you steal the show
And capture my attentions like nothing else can

I do not know why a girl like you
Would give someone like me a chance
So I sit here dreaming, hoping, longing
For the day when I get the courage to walk over and ask
If you'd spend some time with me
And pray you say yes

I used to have a voice of my own
It used to sing often, but song was not its only channel
It laughed, cried, urged, cajoled, conversed, loved, cared, preached, bossed, and obeyed.

But my voice got lost in the shadows of my keep
I don't know how, but I think I know why

I could tell I was losing my voice,
could feel it bleed away
No longer acting with edge, it first became dull
then quieter, then simply gone

Along the way, I would ask to talk just to keep my voice alive
I would beg to listen, just so my voice could find a partner to stay with
I got no voice in return, so soon mine stopped trying too

As it got quieter, I would sit in my car and scream at the steering wheel.
Surely, the steering wheel had to listen.  Alas not.
But it didn't matter, because the sound of my own scream proved to me
that my voice was not gone yet, still alive inside of me
Just the act of screaming was a release for my voice
Each day, my voice got ever quieter
One day I screamed in the car, and I heard nothing.  Gone.  

After all these years, my voice came back at me.
Not from my mouth, an echo from another.
Across a chasm I can not reach nor see.
Still I hear a voice.  Not my voice.  But my voice.
I hear my voice.

It started not as a whisper, but a scream.
My voice was screaming at me.
I could not hear what it said, but I know it was my voice
I still hear it, but it still can't tell me what I need to know

So much unsure, uncertain.
Will my voice stay with me this time?
Will the echos grow closer, and will I cross that chasm?

I do not scream in my car now, because I don't need that to proved to me
that my voice is not gone yet, still alive inside of me
I have other ways now.  Healthier ways.  Richer ways

My voice is coming back.  The echos are still here too.
I need all of it, and it needs me

Again I have a voice of my own, and I have my echo to thank.
Someday, there will be no chasm, and the echo will know too.

Existence stretches itself
like a rubber cap
strenuously spanning birth and death
Fitted tightly over the grease
and wheels while it waits
cross-legged, unhurried
(flipping calendars)
for the groan that halts
its throbbing clockwork

Even when Life first has snapped

Six seconds
What takes that long?
You can't write yourself a letter
You can't write yourself a song
Evelyn Mc Hale...six seconds
Eighty Six Floors
Jumped from the observation deck
And now she is no more
Six Seconds
Twenty three years old
Now she's dead and buried
And it's time her tale was told
On May Day '47
She thought she'd make a rotten wife
Did she know that when she took hers
She'd make the next cover of LIFE?
It only took six seconds
To land upon the car
86 stories downward
It doesn't sound that far
Most Beautiful they called it
Like they were describing a red rose
But they were talking of a suicide
Where she lost her shoes and ripped her hose
The photo that was taken
One seen all around the world
Makes it look like she was sleeping
And still clutching at  her pearls
Six seconds to the cover
Six seconds...to the ground
when you choose to make a leap like this
Do you care who is around?
She looks calm, cool and collected
Everything was in it's place
One arm was out beside her
There was contentment on her face
The real reason she did it
Is gone forever, yes I reckon
Evelyn McHale made LIFE
And it only took six seconds.