Some nights
the Moon is ivory
and the sky ebony
like Liberace's
white piano
and some nights
it's blue
as my worn out
work shirt
the sky black
as dirt
I've dug from
the Earth
or maybe
an empty plate
howled at
by a hungry dog
a woman
in a yellow dress
she lifts
wading in the sea
an empty ship
sailing west
its cargo of diamonds
having scattered
far in the wind
but some night soon
it'll be the nightlight
on the wall
across the room
from my dark
shaded window.

Moon, blow your light
my way, but don't cut my time

Let me dream just a little longer
while my eyelids shine
in the dark starlight

Let the ceremony end slow
back in my old home,
not in a cold forest near the sea

I want to see again
those three rivers that flow
together and listen to a woman
singing to a child
in her mild mannered way

But in spite of the night
and my wishes
something keeps creeping
past me in my sleep
like numbers of smoke

It was you, dark woman,
walking across the room bare
footed turning on the air conditioner
in the winter, a pair of scissors
in the folds of your robe.

My soul
is getting older,
the nights are colder

and the soles
of these soft worn out
doe-skin boots are thinner

every day, way too thin
to keep the thought
of a frozen plot at bay.

Two people are sitting at a table
in the afternoon, it is winter
and cold outside, dark in the room

She is dizzy and sad
from sipping the flat beer
of her own voice

He is like a stranger
who just blew in
she knows, if a man is sand
those who walk through
the desert are men

He is thinking of a stone
that flies in the dew
of the moonlight, an easy
thing for a sad man to do

I wonder if it was night
and they left together for separate
beds in different rooms

Would he think of her dress
falling down her waist,
or would she be in the jungle
making plans from the enemy's sleep

In a place like this, together,
looking into a table
wet from its own darkness,

What do they need,
what can they say?

Imagine we are home
and not lonely, imagine
our love which once cut
through strange waters
like longboats through hearts
not slow and heavy
from the moss of fear
we are here and not here
nights in our land are sad
the risings of the moon
are like sores we have given
our women, and we cannot sleep
for what we dream
the enemy will do, like filling
our children's throats with rocks
and place them in shallow swamps
where they will rise up
to tell us of fish with odd shapes
and men with torches
coming in from the sea
up to the beach on a black night
throwing open the gates
to our dying city.

Cold days, dark nights,
yield memories left
like headless corpses
on some ancient field;
seasons and years,
blood, sweat and tears,
the chains and links,
those things that bind;
blinding sharp beak,
black murderous bird,
winging over peaks,
leaving these worldly
lows below behind me;
my dying wish is for
restful bliss in winter's
white sheet stiffly lying.

Somewhere just to the right
of that second star
in the sky

there's a black hole
******* the joy
out of life

Maybe I'll wave at the moon
as I fly by sometime soon

I'm tired of life's knife
skinning and carving,
notching it's time
on my bones

I'll decide the when
and the how, the hour
of flight

somewhere just to the right
of that second star
in the sky

where morning hides
like a thief in the night
biding her time

slowly waiting for the light
to leave these tired dark eyes

But not tonight, for tomorrow
there's still much to do.