Interlude.

Here long a gentleman rested a while
In drawn-out shades of a heart and a smile.

Bang on!

remaking, things done to you
line up the things that you've done
all those things were somewhat true
or were only moments...

strange, how they collapse in the blink of an eye.
remind me that I've dodged another bullet
can you imagine that kind of life?
no, I should say not.

so: though I write about heartache
and I do all the time
i contend that it's all just content in the end
in both senses of the word.

content and occasionally: joy!
at not being caught.
and not being tied
and feeling a little bit foolish
for all the emphasis occasionally placed on them.

silly boy.

oh, there will be a time, and a place. and a someone
but if one rushes, clings, hangs on by toenails just for the sake of hanging on...
ah, that's trouble.
we can wait.

Threads unwinding.

Broadside, passing ships at sea
Last night, lying next to me
My head is full, things I'll never say
Again; and I've never said them anyways

Because every moment with you is a memory I've lost
I'm incommunicado and our stars have been uncrossed
You should never get too close to the one you think you love
Hands are likely slipping when you're standing glove in glove

Out again, alone and in the dark
Open shutters, seeking out a spark
Slipping into anything, easing into warm
Purchase or a hold where I could weather out the coming storm

Gaze across the room and seek out something lean, something smart
Winding up to make a pitch, trying hard to still my heart
Strike a pose and look for something that I cannot say

It's okay.

I'll be back again some other day.

The girl and her girls,

I can recall every word,
Every last stretch of her body
As she laid it out before me and declared
her preference.

But, she said,
and she smiled.

and the girl from norway.

When John awoke, and was alone
He laughed, and quietly declared
That he had loved the bird's brown hair;
But his intent was overthrown.

And so it passed, as all men would
While scrambling about for face
That he set fire to the place
And having done so, marked it good

You can't kill your ghosts, not even the french ones.

'Something' was 'happening'. What something, and when?
We found it and touched it, we loved it and then -
Before our own eyes, it faded away.
Perhaps they will return someday;

Or perhaps not - either way, you'll agree
Or you won't, in which case, matters nothing to me
But I saw it there - I was the first
I needed a drink, and it topped up my thirst.

And the times I remember, the times I had spent
With your handsome faces, the places we went
From valley to mount, by foot and by wing:
The flowers she tosses, the dirges we sing,

The people I knew, the people I hurt
The people that treated each other like dirt
It all comes to this, and I'm filled with regret
That I cannot remember it all, so I fret.

And it's sad that we're gone, it's sad that we've left.
Without all my memories, I'm somewhat bereft
And awash on a sea, without rudder or sail
They'll try to relive it, and sadly, they fail.

So perhaps, though its sad, I'll finally admit
That's it's dead, so I'll turn off the lights as I slip
Through the door, and I'll close it behind me, to roam
Onto other sweet places, looking only for home.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Redux.

With apologies to Mr. Blake, from whom I've borrowed with great license.


Oh Fuzzy wuzzy, thy eyes are bryght
Reflecting fires within thy syght!
Thine claws unsheathed, thou starest at me
There be few quite as fierce as thee.


Thy teeth be white, and thy fur so black
Thy nostrils open just a crack
Yet no breath descends, a silence thine
Thy tail a placid fuzzy line.


Oh fuzzy wuzzy, thy eyes are bryght
But burn with something less than lyfe
How very wuzzy thy fuzzyness be -
Wishest I had more rugs like thee!

Never over.

That's one more girl, one more chance down the drain
What the hell do I care? It all ends the same
The girls are all different, I must be to blame
Running away when she starts to get closer
When she hints that maybe I should propose to her
Acting less like a lover and more of a jailor...

Meanwhile, I'm getting old and my bones are achy
And lately this biological clock on the insides of me
Is screaming at me; hey you! with the hair so prettily curled
Isn't it time we get some children out in the world.

The petite ones and tall ones; and all sorts in between
Some four years older than me, or only eighteen
All I've ever done is push them away in the end
Break friendships past what words can mend
And keen after you, after you've left by the door
After your footsteps are gone from the floor,
And the crease in my bed doesn't show any more.

Shit, if I'm too imature to get over this dross
I should just stay home, get sauced
Avoid relationships at any cost.
It's like over and over, the same old story
And reading it so many times makes it boring.

Have I told you how I almost made off with a millionaire?
Put on a debonaire aire almost too much to bare
But with one little slip, I got stupid, got scared,
And ran away. After that, what could I say?

I'm sorry?

I wanted to call, see you again, but I couldn't
Every time that I tried, I felt that I shouldn't
Because longer I wait, the more awkward it gets
And though I regret that I haven't called yet
When the time comes that I go waltzing back in
You'll likely retort, "where the hell have you been?"

I'm so fucked up, can't make one phone call
To save my own life, or my own conscience
And I'd prob'ly be happy with any of you
But I can't bring myself to think that through.

So when push comes to shove, if the hand fits the glove
I'm thinking I'm just a little too young to love.

Sensibility.

She's the kind of girl who can come off so slick
The tighter your fingers the faster she'll slip
And the only way you'll have her is to run away
Funny how she's looking half the other way, eh?

She said that all she had was sensibility
No wit or great looks, no hope of dowry
I wish I had told her 'It's all understood'
Maybe she'd have loved me, maybe she would.

As often as something that's never been seen
Whenever I see her that Paul starts to sing
When my eyes and my ears have all come unglued
And my heart is asimmer, and its juices have stewed

She will remind me of gentler days
Before I was groping at memoryhaze
When the palm of my hand meets the small of her back
She smiles at me, and I'm taken aback

What would she do if I showed up alone
No hand on my arm nor those lips on the phone
No hangers on, so I'm not lost in a crowd
Of like-thinking minds under alcohol's cloud

Just showed up alone, and stood in her way;
Would she stumble or laugh, or turn me away?

Love.

I'll miss the way you wore blue (you were my favorite)
And squint your eyes, when trying some new lover on for size

How you purse your lips, inbetwixt bitter sips of conversation
I've always loved reading novels I don't understand

And I'll miss the way you made my heart go boom-boom-boom
(Just like Jackie Wilson said, you know. He said it, and I've heard it's so)

I'll most definitely miss the way you were yearning, always keening
Always. And the dictionary of heartbreak stuck lengthwise in one ear

Out the other.

Prayer.

This life that we're living, this life that is yours
It's like a one man band on a ninety-year tour
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose
Sometimes you get roughed up and they take your shoes

But you are to blame for every chance you take
Rejoice in your triumphes; ignore your mistakes
Things might look bad, but they always improve
You have to start looking, if you want any proof

I've followed the church, it drove me out of my mind
If you stare hard enough even a candle could blind
So it may be time to eschew these vows
It seems that only love can save us now

Let's all choose to live this day today
Before our youth and our springtime is all frittered away
Because you can't choose the way you go
And the time and the place isn't yours to know

Never stop, and don't give in
Recall that love and sex are never a sin
Our praise to god! Let us all declare

That we're willing to take a chance
On this earthly prayer.

Wanfeather revisited.

                     I should say that I
            remember wanfeather best of all.
                 Our pointy, jointy elbows
                      and the spiderweb red crawl

       Evening would fall,
   as we slipped away from wonderland,
            she would weave and dance for me;
                  at last, arrayed on my hand.

                                             Before winter, fall,
                                   before fall, Spring! Bells to ring! Toes
                              to meld with grass below, a kiss
                           to trade as ribbons wound and froze.

Before Spring we sprouted,
Or rather, they sprouted:
Our shoulders slipped, and then
Drip, drip, dripped.

                           Our flight ensemble,
                 I recall, and how she sped ahead.
              But blood stands bright on powered snow,
               thus, I followed while she bled.

                             Silhoutte against the sky
                         I found, at last, I could not fly.
                    Eyes had closed and wings withdrew:
                      I dreamed of winter gone awry.

Awake to find myself
Alone amidst Spring, for winter sailed
With wanfeather, and her breadcrumbs
Those I had followed and failed

Thus, I lost Wanfeather.

Like ships in fog.

I don't suppose it's proper,
Or permissable, and I'm not sure
That you wouldn't hold it against me
I'm flippant true, truant often,
and I'm sorry.

But the truth of the matter is
Though it's been nearly a year,
And time flies and memories fade,
I still miss you, lady writer.

I think it's silly, this heartset, the way
My sails have been tied in sailor's knots
(Who can untie a sailor's knot)
But I don't regret it.

This picture just won't fade,
The way your hair falls down
Around your face.

Spare some change?

You should be careful, the things that you say
When you choose to speak
The manifold things which your words can convey
Leave you sounding meek

And letters I've learned, though written anew
Though I might be wrong
Expose a digest of the same old issue
Rendered for the throng

Fragments of these will slip again
Fall from the mind, my dear, and then
The only thing which we'll regret
We can't recall what to forget

If only I'd seen, I wouldn't have lined
Hints of this return
I find my words are minutely declined
Yours I can't discern

Fragments of these will slip again
Fall from the mind, my dear, and then
The only thing which we'll regret
We can't recall what to forget

A mark by any other motion.

An old man has sat by the side of the road
His face bears the lines of the stories he's told
The people he knew, his tales of the North
Words that would wander will settle henceforth:

This color of springtime, he spoke in my ears
Reminds of the dancing in my younger years
When mirth would be made and the girls would align
And with careful footsteps, their ribbons entwine

In moments of courtship the flowers I gave
Kisses neath arbors on which were engraved
The musings of lovers, which fade day by day
In winter, when wanfeather often would stray

The fields of the frst days, the sun shining down
Fierce on our cheeks which would slip into brown
Before all the wonders were all but unmade
Stopping to watch butterflies on parade

There's a tulip now, beneath my view
An acorn beside it, sadly, its true
That winter is hard, and often unkind
One likely will leave, with one left behind

When war drenched the fields with the lives of young men
We saw only after that death makes one yen
For peace to descend, the only mischance
Comes from the moments when tigers will dance.

The guard at last changed, the elders en route
Thus we all leave, I will face resolute
The remainder, and ever consider a list
Of every love that never I've kist.

Poet and Painter, and which was the better?
One would dazzle towards bed, but the other
Would keep you there ever, hide and seek earthward
The trees in your orchard stretch always onward.

Oh dancer, recall, when we knew eros
As long as you can, keep these memories close
We know but a moment, loves fades with my heart
The acorn is leaving the tulip apart.

Reference.

These words become strained
I've nothing to say
Watching the days as
They trickle away

Clipped by a storm
But making for shore
I should remind you
I've been here before

The nuance is new
Your charm must admit
The outcome's the same
It's familiar old shit

I quit.

Chills.

I'm not so dull-witted, nor am I blind
But seeing these matters in moments of trust
When we've been aligned and rather entwined
And are dealing in alchemy, this is a must

Not lacking, indeed, I do not partake
Of anything, without a wan wondering first
Ingredient love, and what would they make
And eye am, of course, appealing this thirst

In search of horizons, rivers so wet
And wonderful, digging our toes through the dirt
Laid down by wind off a western sunset
Lying abed when the world would invert.

This girl and her prose.

Let me tell you of this girl and her prose

The glasses she perched on the end of her nose

Hair set in curls, soft and wanly quite red

She looked like a library perched on its head


She endlessly quoted from tolkein et al.

How mystics and kings and the devil all fall

Banners and woodland and mountains unfurled

A trail of adventure that scissored her world


Yet listening, I couldn't help but lament

That we've given up all our dragons for lent

And our fish, unlike the ones in her book

All end their lives juxtaposed by a hook


You could ask me if I knew where she's now

I'd toss up my shoulders and wrinkle my brow

She's gone on, disapeared in the murk

Into the dark where our memories lurk


Still I see magic whereever I go

There's hardly a dam that could hold back this flow

Endless the landscape dreamed up by this lass

The places we go when it's our time to pass.

Again.

Let's be honest, let's be clear
Words can inspire and confound
Might be true or insincere
Or might be simply strung together...

...because I like the way that they sound

So in this instant, let me say
That I still feel the same today
As I did two hundred days ago
When my world was lost in flow.

Flow.

I've said it all before so carefully
You don't belong to me, but I own
Just one little bone within you
Perhaps some skin, or your virtue

These treads of arrogance, I'm marked so well
As if I'd gone through hell, escaping
Everything has has left me subdued
Colors fade, but I'll make do

I can't let go of all this ownership
And let my heart unzip, because I'm
Scared that I'd find nothing at all
When you're gone, beyond recall

It was never meant to be this way
I have so much to say, but I find
Words caught behind lips that won't speak
Leave my knees feeling weak

I'll remember when we spent those days
And through this memory haze, recall
The reason that through all of these seas
This little bone stays next to me

Camel carton path.

When we spoke last night of prison, it suddenly occured to me
That I am weary of these shackles that have bloodied up my thighs
Held by scalding accusations, and what you think I'll be
And I can't see my reflection when I look into your eyes.

These hours, when I'm lonesome, when I'm drifting through the snow
Fall that slipped in over the mountains, and the frigid desert sand
Storm-leaving lovers out to wander, since they don't know where to go
If you imagine that you know me, then we both know who I am.

You promised your compassion, that you wouldn't judge my skin
Wouldn't ask me to be something when you know it's what I'm not
Because a book with gilded covers might hold pauper's words within ---
Even if all my words are ten cents, I'll still bleed when I am caught.