The setting sun blaze
Ignites the cream stucco
Plaster wall of the house -
Despite the cracks
And crumbling.
Who would take fire
From a home under siege.
The painter understands the colors
To interpret what the sky wants to say
Stepping side to side in his work.
Where the West star sings
And the high tide heaves
In heavy gray.
He works thick impasto strokes
With blended oil
So the sun will shine
On my back again.
The painter shuffles
Side to side
And the sunset brings long
Shadows to my door.

I cannot sleep for in the street
A thousand mournful cries
The skies are red and carnage spread
Through a thousand lies

From mourning bells to fairy tales
A Criticism said
For city streets and summer heat
Torments whose left with dread

And clouds smother men as they roll in
A hard rain will come
Lightning strikes like the crack of live bones
And the hoarse words of Cain’s son

And I hear the cries of the
Children - the ones lost
In the dark

I know they want a future,
But I fear
They lost the spark

Twilight blue rebounds behind
A great ridge of color
Calling for man
To stand before the night

From a distance
Quiet but restless
The brazen foliage always falls
Darkness follows every time

I see you sitting on the back porch chair
Under the kitchen window
Where light crept and moved upon your hair  

The air is heavy and I cannot move -
The heavy limbed dream
I see you sitting on the back porch chair

My arms ache under the weight
The hermit thrush beak open is frozen too
Where light crept and moved upon your hair

No morning songs or alarms  for you
And the elm tree roots search the earth
I see you sitting on the back porch chair

And the weight of the air around me
Like an orb weavers web in morning dew
Where light crept and moved upon your hair

And the dragon fly spirals out
Of the heated upwards draft where
I see you sitting on the back porch chair
Where light crept and moved upon your hair

In between the words
Are the dreams we left behind
As floor boards creak under
Hesitant heavy steps.
Between the letters
The camphor tree
Roars in the wind
Like a river
Flowing over its banks and
Miro’s spider waits
In silence
On the wall.
In the refrain
A pause
And the heartbeat
Of loss.

My soul is torn by a whirlwind
Screaming eddies scrape the truth away
Like a newborn
Flailing
Trying to take hold
Gasping and bleeding
Alone in a bed so cold.

What happened to what I dreamed
All the crisp and bitter leaves
Twisting in the fall sun
Flickering bright to dark
Like falling seeds
Flailing
Trying to take hold
On earth where silence
And colors seasonal and old
Bound me for a thousand years.

I fell apart when
You pulled away your hand
Now I’m sinking under darkness
In the room I made my stand
So I lull myself to sleep
Under waves that you command

I thought I heard you call out
Just a phantom and a sickness
All alone in the dark now
You know I cannot do this

I screamed so you could find me
I drifted out of reach
In the ocean I created
And my phantom on the beach

Now the room it’s cold and empty
Your songs are far away
The music that you left me
Are distant echoes I replay