“Regret”

Lives where the heat is on
And warms himself by the fire
On cold nights,
When he feels his presence being forgotten
He yells “I am here!”
When you try to forget about him
And leave him in your drawer
When you go on vacation
But the Florida breeze
Welcomes this man
Who lives in your blood stream
And flows from your heart
Through your fingertips
Into a pulse of reminder
The sun burn
That later peels
Reveling new flesh
But the blood underneath remains the same.

“Suspense”

Is a germ
On the end of your tongue
Waiting to be spat across the room
With the next word you say
To end a conversation
With the man who will not tell you his name
But says tomorrow…
The red lights waiting
For a chance to be Christmas tree green
And lend a hand to the unbalanced child
Falling from the balance beam
As the next word from the hymnal falls off the page
And the knowledge that a void is created by the man sitting in the corner
Who you can’t remember
If you met or not.

So many times...
have I tried to write this song down
in failure
since I have not yet used language
to illustrate unimagineable beauty
that sound nearing the edge of the earth
apocolypse heaving,
and the truthful silence when it is finished
a wave freeze
takes it all by surprise
redemption, in the purest sense
and forgiveness shaken out
like the pennies in our pockets
the change cast aside
has made us who we now are.

Sky Dreams
like purple waves
over a drunken body
drowning in the sands,
when air
is the whole of the sky
and the caravan
moves ghost bodies,
pale phantoms,
sahara mares
saddled for childhood,
spent like a penny
on whiskey spit cowboys
and a boy divided
from man to child
in the dense swirl of moonlight
dancing frenzy forward, forward
lanterns sway
with the soundless, and the
impact of horshoes
slapping hoofs
on a ten gallon hat
bent and balanced over confusion
intuition, the partition
of an artist
and an old west scene
guns slung
and singing,
the boredom
turned alcoholism
too many boys
too few mothers
too ugly to be beautiful
but true beauty comes from
reminiscing about
going west.

theres nothing left to see
when the sun goes down
on a winter day
and the world scurries home
to make fires
and watch television
and make long distance phone calls
to far away loved ones
and the microwave buzzes
with a dinner done
and the boy runs down
the
stairs
from doing his homework
to talk and laugh and eat and drink
and fill up with innocence
and all the things he doesnt know
...and still doesnt
......and wont for a long time

a globe of sound
where every curve is a new vibration
feeding
living off of the others
where even the simplest line
can fill the world
or a heart
the architecture complex
and the architect
magnifyed to simplicity
building a message
within the envelope of feel
upon the rafters of key
painted major
minor
built in four years
ot waltzed through in three's
sliding in frets
in a phantom of sound
that brings us home

When I was six fine art meant...
men with beards
paintings cracked with time
and statues of people with no clothes
ninja turtles and
water colors for indecipherable sunsets
over the sand
fine art meant
something my mom could do
and my dad couldn't
parts of museams
that where briskly walked through
to reach the skeletons of prehistoric reptiles
but then everything changed
and art spoke a new language
of feel and mood
it carried with it and atmosphere of its own
no longer colors on canvas
with nothing bhind them
but a wall and a hook
no, these paintings were mounted on depth
and art was mine and
no one elses
I wore the x-ray glasses
and saw what no one else did
and then I learned
that all eyes see differently
with perspectives like prescriptions
and my glasses where just another brand
and art was everyone's
it was my fathers songs
not just my mothers paintings
and it was even the day spent
with water colors forming indecipherable
sunsets over the sand.

you hang like laundry
above my head
waiting
for days
to dry
so i can fold you
and put you away
and never wear again