Papa could’ve been another type of man
Like a raindrop could be caught in a hand
Let another letter slip through the mail
Gone again gone again as heat prevails.
“A little gone,” says the better man
Couldn’t you have just set it right: a plan
I said goodbye into a dusty pan
Held it close as I looked inside.
When the needles dropped upon the forest floor
Little birds gathered all around
Snowdrops sprouted into the sky
And the trail twisted on.
I couldn’t take you with me
I held you in my hand
What pleasure it was to experience
Then I floated off.
You had me in an ecstasy
A madness I held lightly
Tip toes and a high hat
Then I floated off.
Candlelight twisted my visage
Wine leaned me in
Footsteps echoed through the night
Then I floated off.
It’s time for you to go
Dust settled down the row
Sure, it’s been a long time
Dont ever get this way.
Slammed my grace in Dixieland
Endlessly spinning another dime
Cold hands and beating heart
Don’t ever get this way.
Rattle me a sitting bull
Arrow through my my spine
Repeating every second word
You let me get this way.
From depths I could hold a rope
Cold from my very hard struggle
A frosted window reminds me
Of a sister I once shared
My latest secrets with every other day
A shadow that reaches for my hand
Can take me again, can take me again
Spring comes again
Where once snow fell calmly
And golden eyebrows caressed me
With arcs lacking recollection
In a pool of my own reflection,
Looking back, looking back today.
When you used to sing me songs
I was James Dean and you were love
And wind flowed through our hair
Past a highway sign that read: ‘see ya later’.
When you used to run your hand
Across the front summertime chest
I’d look you up and down
Until we’d both run all round.
When you called me that last time
I was a million miles away
There was static playing on every line
And my voice was in a tin can.
Now, when you come to my mind
You’ve still got those wild daises in your hand
Your smile is the size of the sun
Where we’ve both just begun.
When I walk into an empty room
When I reach my palms for the sky
As essence, I’m a ghost
And sunrise brings tomorrow
With ten thousand spoons of sorrow.
I am a prophet in a rose
With two hands tied by thorns,
Fence posts painted white
Along dew kissed morning lawns.
When I sit amidst thousand year old trees
When I wave crookedly in heaven’s winds
My heart becomes a dead leaf
Integrating so effortlessly into a path
Dust to soil to earth to spring.
So long shall my stalk bend
Two ends of a hemp string crossed,
Seeds falling on gray wood
And harvest moon is my birth.
When I say you’re perfect
I mean it from the whole of my essence
From my tingling toes
To each breath I excitedly (and deeply) inhale,
From my deepest lost fantasy
To each lightly placed finger tip
That crawls every imagination I’ve got.
Your perfection seeds my stillness
That captures me in your grace.
Your wrong is not a wrong,
Your wrong is effort in my eyes
That nurtures your blossom,
Imagination takes your fancy
And lifts your spirit,
Infecting me like a perfect vision,
A serpent,
A sun rising from the horizon
Inch by inch warming my open eyes
To the miracle of a new day.
Your perfection isn’t in your perfect action,
Or your perfect features,
Or your perfect voice or perfect success,
Your perfection lies within your being.
Your perfection lies within your effort
That dances as you know how to dance
Over obstacles and through conversations,
That listens and speaks and shares and fights
And bruises and hurts and feels and bites.
Perfection is you, not the sum of your doings,
It stays with you as you go,
And returns again tomorrow,
It follows you into your messiest of days
And shadows you as you run.
When I say that you’re perfect,
It doesn’t hinge on how you treat me
Or what you bring me as a gift,
It doesn’t depend on your generosity
Or how close you hold my hand,
No, I mean it without you even knowing me
And I mean it as you walk upon your path,
I mean it as you say goodbye
And wave me our last kiss.
There are sweaters I used to love
Around every worn corner I bump,
Loose photographs falling out of
Grandma’s old favorite books
That wrinkle in my hands
Which don’t look the same
They used to look to me
When I stare back at light blue eyes
From behind sweaters I used to love
And a red geranium in my hand.
Desire fills my heart into one thousand pieces
Memories, unfurling as if eyes were closing tightly
Around minute memories and love letters.
I’ve concluded the end is near,
My hands have become wrinkled and so sore with work.
I will leave a little letter sitting open
Beside the night table
Where all of my wishes will be laid out in bullet point form
Segmenting all I wished I had made, yet un-done.
Do not tarry long where footsteps make no noise,
Wild animals will moan at your sound
And terrors of your heart shall flutter on by
As leaves in the wind make passing comments.
And my waning crescent turns towards me
To reach it’s dagger-like fingers
Deep inside my once well lit thoughts, cavernous,
And lay the sign of Hermes upon my back
To mark the gathering of one thousand pieces.
Does heart devour time?
Does race my worried mind?
Does a crane out in the wind
Lean against what drives within?
And so I seek to look into
A window I’ve left unlocked
I’ve whispered secrets,
I’ve held soft hands
I’ve lost my heart to time.
But calling out my windy mane
Like a horse lost in run
I’ve become what cannot be tamed
My life exacts and spun.