Beside your window
Beside the water
Beneath those dark stars
Beneath the martyrs

I think of purpose
I think of power
In poignant remorse
Piquantly sour

In your yard it seems to rise
The ephemeral cadence of surprise
When he appears with baffled eyes
The life before him another prize

Atop the glowing grass you lay
Under the melody of the play
Of a loose guitar and drummer’s way
With the tunes and tones of a summer’s day

Yet I am here
Yet I am away
A piece of you
Unwelcome, afraid

Now apart
Now a fiend
My once sweet life
Under siege

The lights that glimmer and dance for you
They warm the past and present too
Nothing’s decrepit, nothing askew
And the only color unplayed is blue

Crystal collides and inhibitions calm
In glee and grandeur you carry on
What lasts awhile, but not too long
Is preserved in yet another song

Dare I advance
Dare I say,
“May I join you,
May I stay?”

But I have dared enough today
Dared to leave and dared to return
I have dared my whole life away
Far too fractured to finally learn

Must you, God, cast me aside?
I have listened, I have tried!
Anguish forced me from this place
Return me, Father, in somber grace!

What good are these ears if I cannot hear you!
What save this mouth from uselessness?
My flesh and fingers seek to be near you
As I reach in this black night for blessedness!

Despite my quite audacious plea
Lakeside, I now need memory
To fool my mind and body as one
Into knowing I am still your son

Yet here I left you so here I must be
Only just beside your pictures of me
Only just beside our family name
Only just beside my battered grave.