What would it be like to know
A moment closer, a breath away
For me I’d wonder if Hell awaits
(Overrated, those dented Pearly Gates)

Each bird that flew the breeze
The repertoire of frogs’ delight
A rising moon and setting sun
(Hourglass time is nearly done)

Every smile one less to share
Don’t let the love go to waste
All you love you cannot take
(Close your eyes, enjoy, don’t wake)

Please don’t fear the stage
Applause follows your final bow
Elegant and peaceful, turn the page
(But nothing compares to backstage)

I'm only in love when you're not

You're unhappy when I'm content to be apart

Your dreams often ride on my wings

When I choose to fly not nearly that high

My happiness if often shattered

When you choose to let go of my heart

I think perhaps if love can't reconcile

Its best if we both move on

But in that moment perhaps

                             We'd be in love again

Love the dark
the moon-less sky
every cold star-less night
do you see it when
the city
lights are gone?
Earth and sky and the fading
in-between and every color
-less breeze
shine
like you did once in my sun-cut eyes
I love you now
the way I love the cruelest of nights
I confess
I am revelling in a night without
street lamps
without the blinding glow of headlights
hovering in this shapeless cold
I've got nothing left that I haven't
already lost
my freedom came
in learning to love the
possibilities in a night --black
without your shining light

I've left a little running room
A little space between here and there
Guess I'm always on my way out the door
Never wanted it any other way
Never wondered what happened
I knew the moment I let it all go to waste
Given up, given in, moving on
Or whatever you will
I can't put you back together
It's you who always made me pull apart
Every time one more twist in my arm
I've seen stars go on much longer than I could
Peaceful pleasantries, I have no modest eternity
You don't know that you don't need me
You don't know it'll all be okay
Love and like and listless nights
They all come to pass one day or never
Just the same as all we asked but never gave
I know you wanted to keep your radio just the same
But I learned a few new tunes since the song began
Even if I still sometimes hear our old band

I'm a little buzzed
A little loose
I'm seeing too big
And writing too odd
But I need a little
Want a little more
Freedom
Of thought
I like the way
Lightness and misery
Intermingle, interweave
Makes me wish I could stay
Running in my mind
Not running out of time
I don't need to be tipsy
I don't need to be odd
But I'm finding
A sip of *****
Is easier than being
A fraud

There is no tender God
Though I have had my feeble doubts
I know there is no place for me
And heaven is a tasteless alibi
Life is an ongoing list
Of rhetorical questions
About object impermanence

****** up and falling fast
I'm reminded that even now
all I think about is you.
Are you listening?
Listening now?
Aching, shaking, asking
for no one but you.
Tings ringing, remember
much as I'd like to
I can't sing something
beautiful, Beautiful.
You hate the idea but I
wonder how I look to you.
Want to rest my head
in the roots of your omnipresence.
Fill my heart and I'll be
the inside of your silent arms.
Call me breaking, call me
giving up and falling in.
Find me close and I promise
I'll find a way to be closer still.

I dream of flying
Like swimming the water-less sky
Window after window
Windows too vast
To capture in one flit of my eye
So vast
So wide
I want them open
Leap and swim, Peter Pan
You never know until
The great white moth
Flees north of the night
More stars shine from below
So far
So far below
Than could ever fill the sky
Light after light
Too artificial light
And every window and portal I'd open
Is sealed impossibly tight

I love the way these things echo off the walls around me
But I haven't seen many floors that weren't scuffed tile or linoleum
He's got no concept of freedom or how to spend his time when he's gone away
I'm looking too forward to counting on the warmth of the rising sun
It's taken this long but I'm finally done wondering if you really understand
Caught in a cage without windows or walls I can be my own light
I didn't want him touching my toes because something about my veins tells me
My feet are the beginning and end of the rest of my everything
Glass and porcelain chatter like a China cabinet tipped on it's side
The only thing that matters now to me is that I can dance like something wild was born in me
I kept my secrets, thin as they are, like promises made myself when he gave me none
Leaving now, the way I did when flurries fell and caught his eyelashes and mine
A paint-peeled patch in this cinderblock wall mocks my sentimentality
The warmth of the sun and the cut of the breeze gave me wings as much as anything
Falling porcelain and the glass of water I didn't drink find a little less of my sanity
I haven't got much that wasn't once given me but somehow I know
Hiding in the hand-me-down pieces is something I was always meant to call my own
To trade this linoleum for tile is no trade I have much choice in making
I'm not lying when I say I don't mind the crash of spinning plates I can't always carry
If it means I can keep the echoes of these walls made whole by my time-earned bruises
I'll keep my arms turning and let the melody shatter my sharpest corners
But now that my long lost summer sun is up I'm already missing the home I didn't expect
Now that I'm going back to smog-kissed sunsets where I can't hear the emptiness of change
I must hold tight like nothing else I could imagine and after all this crash and crumble
My last pleading hope is that I'll be left with more than the same lonely tingle in my toes

I am the sort
whose love will perch
cross-legged
on a kitchen counter top and
watch
the snake-tongue sizzle
of my heart
diced and flying
in your un-greased
frying
pan while you so innocently
sautee
the thick skin of what could
once have made you
cry
and run so easily
and only then will you look up
as if to say
"are you up for a little stir
fry
tonight?"

What a horrible thought
That I am alone
And you are not

She's got her hand out the window
as cars speed by and she's
moving too while
her fingers are going
numb out in the air but it's better
than only twinning them
with the warmth of her own hand
she knows it's safer to keep
her palms at ten and two
but she's still
caught trying
to decide if she'd rather
cut the air
while her delicate fingers dance
or if she likes the challenge of
fighting the breeze
and making her own path
with the sort of
strength
she always had in hand.

I'm looking
for my reflection
in the shine of painted
crosswalk lines
and with every
changing
glow of the stoplight
my hope is growing
weary. I'm not
giving in
but I swear to you
New York is not the only place they
rebel
against the flash of a lighted
hand.
I was built to find
and call
a far more unconventional
place home
but until I finally have the chance
to run across this
reckless street
I'll try to find
something worthwhile
in what's left of these
plastic
paint lines.

Sometimes you worry me
Send me down spiraling
And bring me up again
I hate the fall, free for all
But you know I love you
I’d miss you if you fell
Knee-high quicksand
Arms above help you hold
Hold your own, alone
You falter and flinch
I can’t help to fall an inch
Soon it’s up to my eyes
Doesn’t matter, mouth-drown
Never listened to me
Anywa–

There are so many things you don't know
And I wish I could tell them to you
Every one is just as heartbreakingly true
But I know if I do you'd see
What I want from you
So many hearts hang in the balance
So many hearts I can't bear to break
I wonder if it's worth wanting at all
I wish I could tell you
But more than that
I wish you'd believe me when I say:
You are absolutely perfect
So please don't break.

Why is it on the edge
of sleep that I most
feel the currents pull?

All my worries are grown
and strong when the last
peaceful moment comes along.

My bones worn rough with
sand often shake and my
heart made all the more raw.

Where are the gentle tides
when my soul wants to take
to the depths and fly?

Somewhere a boat must be
pulling into the harbor for
a girl singing a sailor's song.

For now my beach is just
the sand the water and me
watching storms cross the sea.

How is it so easy for the fickle
ocean to draw wishes and woes
only to throw them back?

The candid truth
is I'm not looking for answers
I'm much more interested
in asking the same age old questions
a million new ways
but I've got too much in mind these days
when I say I don't mind
don't listen to me when I claim I have
nothing to say
I've got stories worth telling and a voice
worth hearing
and the only thing I'm searching for
is a pair of ears
who is willing to do more than let me fill
the space between them
with truths I've learned while learning to live
listening to answers
given far too quick to answer anything at all.

Paper hearts and plastic schemes
I'm dreaming of the moments in between
Can't see my face or touch my hand
I know I am alive I just can't say when
And all the glitter in the world can't mask
The pain of losing hopes when dreams
Stay dreams

Objects in mirror . . .


                                        Look like the playthings of my past

                                        As they stand a little smaller than I recall

                                        They're the candles that left their scars

                                        When they branded me their soft memory

                                        They became hastily written notes on hand

                                        And long battered clothes I threw away

                                        That haunted my flourishing faltering ways

                                        Every one a sweet and long forgotten drop

                                        Swallowed in a stubborn summer fade

                                        I waited for the chance to come and go

                                        So I could watch each and every one erase

                                        But now I find my waving good-byes


                                                     ­                                                              . . . Are closer than they appear

Tell me a lie
And I will frown
For it is not true.

Tell me a truth
And I will smile
Though it isn't what I want to hear.

Tell me a story
And I will listen.
          I will believe.

Its a losing tug-o-war
and I'm eight years old again
asking god for favors as if he's in command.

Have you seen the sun?
I can't find the light.

When I'm losing control
follow me down and follow me deep.

I don't need you to save me
and there's no favors I would ask
save for you to catch me
if I don't stand a chance.

You are no god but spirit
strange new soul I've yet to know.

I'm no child but can pretend to be.

I'd just like you
to be the first one to see me
as only something more
than an eight-year-old asking god
for more rope.

She could paint a picture
So beautiful it would make you cry
Even now I wonder why
It was so easy to leave her
Alone
In the blooming garden
She sat behind an easel sketching a rose
Pulling in my book I struck an elegant pose
And hoped she'd glance my way
Instead she floated away
Off into a shady tree
For a moment I sat quietly
Still
Then I too grew and let the artist be
As I swam through the crowd
I felt her fly free
As she let a delicate blade fall across her
Wrists

The taste of the Sun's first rays
Haunts the hollow places on my tongue
Looking through the joshua trees
I can almost feel the bitter scents
Of blue and cloudless dreams
All the same summer burns love and sand
Just the way they scarred me
Empty glances aren't nearly as sparse
As lonely gates not far beyond my gaze
A sharp and barbed hand upon my back
Leads my step I'm turning again
Stones in the dust are following me
Spinning with the rising Sun
The joshua trees still clawing at me

Everything is moving
And I am standing still
Everything is breathing
I fear I never will
All the world is living
While I sit in serenity
Colors dance before my eyes
There truly are no shadows in the dark
I see a blank silhouette
He has no face and a heart of white
Notes and poems from him flow forth
Each of his leaflets picked up by the crimson wind
I shiver and the world disappears
Here I sit without within
A lack of emptiness fills my soul
On to a new world
Perhaps I shall be born
And I will change
Perhaps I will read aloud
I begin with a long deep breath
Maybe I can see the man's face
Dark and elusive we will share

I was but a child
desperately trying
to teach a child
to be a child.

At his very best
He can be anything

He can be kind

He can listen to you
And your every waking whim

He can hear it all

He can do her best to come
When every voice does call

He can't follow you

He can't be the only blame
And take your every swing

He can't save you

He can't soften your fall
When you jump from the ledge

He can't be everything and a friend

Learn through all this you earn
Only his heart of stone

I
I'm beginning to think this is as unstuck as I've ever been
Every little thing and all the moments between
I don't want them wasted, I want them to scream
Seconds tick and I feel purpose slide off into the sky
Haven't you got any better places to be? Anybody left to see?
Does it all escape like bottle after bottle to the sea?
I always said I'd prepare, I swear I did it all to prepare
It would come, a ring two minutes after I open my eyes
Don't you wish you held on to everything you wanted to be?
You must regret all the dreams you let evaporate just to find
Something that would come so easy if you'd only wait
Did you think you looked enough? Found all there was to see?
How can you not sit back and wish it was all just a little bit more?


II*
You sit so tall on the pride you built
Glory and glinting jewels of welcome travesty
Your chin upon the mountain of false accumulations
Is it easy to ask so much of me? To question all I know?
Do you know what you do to me to toss such accusations?
I have seen the back alleys of the world I call mine.
And I feel what you have yet to know: defeat.
Does it ever cross your young mind that you could fall?
That you might fall as fast as you have not yet risen?
You throw at me your soon to be opportunity
Just as I flinch to see you slide, to see your ride go
So quietly as mine did the first moment ambition blinks
How can you lay your whole happiness on one fragile wish?

If I could tell you anything
I'd say call me
Let me take your hand
When things go wrong
Smile for the good days
Long gone now
Like a dandilion in the grass
I'll be there
To brighten the day
I hope you will always see
The luck in a lost penny
Like me

grace
I've finally
found
once gray and dusty
like an
antique
wedding dress pulled
from the attic and
dyed
a summer time hue
if you take me
dancing
I promise
if you can be
patient
I'll show this
newfound
trait to
you

Trapped again in my own ivory cage
My green locks and a little girl's pink cheeks
Make her smile and let her pull a curl
All the things that will make us smile
Will make us hurt just as much
I've seen army backpacks and business man's shoes
Would you guess that I'm counting down?
Less time than I have patience to let peacefully pass
And more to do than I wish I could
I hate traveling without boots laced snug
And the woman who sat next to me paid
Heed only to her Vouton until I saw her looking
My eyes on powdered mountain tops
And hers casting envy on the weaving yarn in my hands
But most of all the things I've lost
I wish I hadn't missed the moment
When the struggling plane crept up and through
The silky puffed ceiling and I lost sight of you

Banjos and vagabond songs
these are your heroes
I don't think you're wrong
but Neil Young doesn't know ****
about the weight of a heart of gold
I wish I could see it all
in that backwards view
of a freight train flying by
and I wouldn't mind
you by my side
like Janis and her romanticized McGee
but I've never been anywhere
longer than a few days
worth mentioning and I'm
covered in spider bites
from the dust and courage
of un-making my bed again
the ache of a blue-collar soul
song never caressed my ear the wrong way
I've got vagabond dreams
but too much of a rebel soul to go
with the flow of whiskey rivers
where flasks don't refill
I meant well but the dog bit back
too bad I still have trouble with
feral friends not ready for saving
cities build you up or down
you're either made
a liar or an idealist
always a cynic either way
you've been thinking
but I've been Janis too long
to think I might have won
I'm starting to believe a heart
of gold needs love
a little tarnished but Neil Young
was wrong
it's the expressions you give
not the mining you did
that remind me
these stale-dust spider bites
don't make a heart any
less gold.

She always drank tea when she wanted to write about betrayal.
She'd begin by simply holding the glass mug
Four fingers pressed to the warmth on the inside of the handle.

If she began having trouble with the words she'd lift the tips of her fingers and tap her nails along the side
If it got bad she'd take a gulp and pull her hand away long enough to tie back the suddenly bothersome hair in her face.

After a moment the thought would come back and she'd lay the top of her hand along the side
Feeling a slight burn she couldn't feel holding it any other way.

As her mind pulled the words together she'd trace circles with the back of her hand and fingers
Every line or two she'd stop for a gentle sip, savoring the taste the liquid left on her tongue.

As the end of her piece crept near she began, absently
To **** down the amber growing cold under her fingers.

Her fingers found their way through the handle once more
This time without the comforting heat to meet them.

She'd take the last sips with the last words
Let the cage of tea leaves fall to the depths of the mug
Shove the mug up the surface of the desk

And smile.