How did drugs override your love to breathe?
Narcotics have been cut loose in your brain,
it's in your blood, running through your veins.
Smoke is hard to see through, it's hard to breathe in.
Chemicals weaken your already weakening heart.

I never dreamt of *******'s love,
Speed never made my heart skip a beat,
Ecstasy did not **** me.
Blood, bones and skin,
It was a person.

I remember the first time it looked into my eyes:
Serotonin buzzed in my brain,
my heart pumped as electricity,
my throat was cotton,
I bit my lip.
It was a person.

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning—
Of all to whom thine absence is the night—
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope—for life—ah, above all,
For the resurrection of deep buried faith
In truth, in virtue, in humanity—
Of all who, on despair’s unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”
At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In thy seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship,—oh, remember
The truest, the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him—
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel’s.

Today I will write a poem
not about your face
and how beautiful
and sublime it is

Today I will write a poem
not about my love
and how it is about you
and only you

Today I will write a poem
not about your love
and how it is not about me
and how it deeply hurts me

Instead, I will write a poem
about us, only us
except that
there is no us

We were weeping by the missionary tree
In the company of wiser men than we
On the border of the black sand and the sea
As the sunset sighed an island reverie

From the fire bed a thousand sparks did rise
Upon the crooked laughs of spirit guides
Above the dewy wingspan of our eyes
And down into the swirl of shifting tides

Distant echoes bled forth from the graves
Of sailors buried deep beneath the waves
In coral tombs and ruby studded caves
Enshrining both the hero and the knave

Regardless of the folly of our thrills
In spite of what the clergy called our ills
Those crystal stars beat back Pacific chills
And forged a bond upon the bamboo hills

We were harnessing the missionary tree
In the company of duller men than we
Sweeping through kaleidoscope debris
As the sunset smiled upon our revelry

This always was an acoustic gig;
A wood and wire affair
Steeped in the fresh folklore
And worn wool
Of our little streetlamp operas.

Our voices would ring rustic
(And rusted like tarnished brass)
Out open windows,
Through the rustling of haloed leaves,
And down into the streambeds of romantic recollection.

Our coffee was stiff;
Mixed with chicory
And spiked with shots
Of sure-footed tomfoolery—
But richer than our years should have allowed.

All the goodhearted ladies
And all the rye bottle boys
Would smile warm, backs reclining,
And sing out for all the years.
And we knew our songs well;

Our highways west blacktop ballads—
Our San Joaquin sunset sonnets--
Our arms-around-you-till-the-end tunes—
Our songs for new companions—
Our eulogies for our dearly departed.

Yes, this always was an acoustic gig.
But there’s no sense in penning an epilogue
To a story that’s still alive (though wounded).
So let’s continue the tale, friends,
And usher in another folk revival.

When the fire bed no longer spits out sparks
When morning’s rays refuse to pierce the dark
When the rivers of the brain have turned to dust
When ambition’s metal hinges start to rust

There’s always the back catalog
There’s always the back catalog

For in the chilly nights of winter’s touch
A cryptic cloud drapes down a morbid hush
Upon the once fair meadows of the mind
Clouding out clear vision from behind

But there’s always the back catalog
There’s always the back catalog

I’ll moan about this fog, yet see it through
In hopes of springtime’s early dawning dew
Upon the buds where revelation blooms
And melts away the dismal no-muse gloom

Then the back catalog can go away
Till the next dark night of the poet’s soul