Fond

We remember simpler days, softer afternoons
In lovely backyard gardens and dusk-lit rooms
We stop short of future things, like

I'm in town

or

here's my number, let's grab a drink

or

I wonder if when I kiss you
I'll remember how much you hurt me

Candlestick Maker

The baker starts at four o'clock
Dusting two hands and the counter tops
Steals the flour and peel

At six the butcher wipes down the block
In a storefront astride the docks
Steals a gleaming knife and steel

At midnight, the chandler's at the pot
Skimming the paraffin for flies it has caught
Steals the matches and the wicks

All three in their tubs, sailing alone
Downriver and paddling home

And the butcher carves the wheel
And the baker shouts at the mill
And the chandler burns up inside
Yeah, the chandler just burns up inside

The tools that we own and the skills that we hone
Won't help us down the river we're sailing alone
There is nothing to learn that just one of us knows
We all kill, we all yell, we all burn

I Don't Have To

You'd been haunting my muddy waters
Crawling ashore with me
From the rivers, lakes, and oceans
That carried you back in my dreams

Long road to my baptism in our headwaters
but you felt weightless
As pretty as the day you met me
Up the canyon in your thin white dress

And I was supposed to be dead to you
And you, you're supposed to be dead too
But the rivers in my dreams are lovely with you
I just can't shake it, and now I know

I don't have to

Days of Gold

I used to think to make my days of gold would make you happy
I should have made them out of steel and glass
To stand up straight without a doubtful shadow cast

Or copper to conduct the electricity between you and me
That I once made for free
This time around, I'm gonna put them underground so my tornadoes can't take them down again

Some walls I've built from bricks of earth, others of words
I should have made them out of bookshelves
So at least I'd have something to read while you try and beat the monster out of me

Friends and lovers, you don't get one or the other
Loving is killing, you don't get to choose

Another Town

-->

Would I get locked, lost in timelessness

I guess stranger things have passed

Me by and by your kisses wishing

That it wouldn't hurt to ask

When you come my way

Don't you like the taste?

Is there something in my kiss

That makes you want to stay

If I am past buried hatchets

Reckless, my mind filled with drink

Then why so blindly grinding axes

Swung at fears of what I'd think of you

When I cross your mind

Don't you like the sight

Is there something in my look

That keeps you up at the night

Summer ran while we weren't looking

The way you always said it would

Not backing off or bowing out

Just moving to the next town down

When you come this way again

Will you recall the flame

Is there something in my words

To make you take the blame

she comes back tonight. Fuck.

In Your Goodbye

Taken apart and timeless
I am
Deconstructing to nothings
And extents I've never been

Parts of these deserts are beaches
Where my words shine like souls
When that chalice won't reach your lips
Your mouth feels drier than before

Where were you hiding
All the love in your goodbye?

We were not built
To bear each other miracles
But our journey stretches back
From this inevitable end

We can see it clear
Like a brilliant glowing thread
Sewing up a universe otherwise
Lonely and indifferent

Where were you hiding
All the love in your goodbye?

I know your heart feels
Heavy
As you shine it for someone new that
Shows you it is gold and not lead

And our pains will be ecstasies
In the end, when happiness finds us
Separate

What Can't You Do?

Early in the morning

Stumbling barefoot across the park

Jumping off benches, stealing sweaters from the cars

What can't you do with a drunken sailor?

Put him in the longboat til he's sober

And up she rises

Early in the morning

Speaking too forward in the trees

Dew dropping from the branches in the breeze

What can't you do with a drunken sailor?

Pull out the plug and wet him all over

And up she rises

Early in the morning

Straight at him from the airport

Tears down his shirt and snot on his sleeves

What can't you do with a drunken sailor?

Put him in a leaky boat and make him bale her

And up she rises

Nobody Risked It

Beating down the pavement we’ve walked this town blue
Leaving all our wishes in the soles of our shoes
We don’t say we’re sorry
But we won’t see this thing through

Moon was a sliver when we started this mess
We have filled it daily with the babiest steps
Maybe when you skip town
I’ll put this dream to rest

And losing my hairline, misplaced my halo
I’ve been playing ring toss on the wrong bedposts
Playing like I’m charming
So I don’t feel so damn old

Feet in the mirror, can’t keep eye contact
Wishing, pulling eyelashes, reciting facts
This would’ve never happened
If you kept it straight months back

And soon you’ll miss the good
Because nobody misses you
Because nobody kissed you
So nobody risked it like they should

Days drawn like envelopes, the lottery picks
Message in the postage, lick and stick
Fixing up the addresses
Of messages we mixed

We won’t always find these ways to compel
You will miss my sadness and I will miss your smell
Been buying up each other
Til there’s one lie left to sell

And soon you’ll miss the good
Because nobody misses you
Because nobody kissed you
So nobody risked it like they should

Each night is like the last
Time just never seems to pass
All the water under bridges that we’ve burned
It’s gonna drown us

Each day will never end
Why must the river always bend?
Every bridge we build of sacrifice and lust
Misleads us

Sunrise #2

Sunrise
Hear the birds
Keep the bees
Their honey runs down
To my knees

Flips Flops

Grace, summer in a skirt
Sidewalks the sandals slap
Memories of hands that hurt
And silences never past
Today

A calm that was never felt
A love that could never last
Living life for herself
Picking out all the glass
Today

The Whites of My Eyes

we won't (won’t we)
always find ways to impress each other
my words on the lick and stick
eager to read to them
you're the message I ripped

No Comment

Just imagine something I want to say to you, say it out loud and pretend you didn't hear it.

When I Say Love

When the cold blows in
And the bread riots begin
Will you keep me fed, honey?
Will you keep me fed?

When the snow does drift
And those shivers reach your lips
I will keep you warm, honey
I will keep you warm

I don’t think too much
And I don’t earn enough
But I kiss and touch
And when I say love
I sing love
And when I sing love
I mean love

When times are tough
And our words just ain’t enough
Will you take my heart, honey
Will you take my heart

When hopes turn fears
And you leave me standing here
I will walk the earth, honey
I will walk the earth

I don’t think too much
And I don’t earn enough
But I kiss and touch
And when I say love
I sing love
And when I sing love
I mean love

When I turn grey
And my teeth all fall away
Will you keep me fed, honey
Will you keep me fed

And when we grow old
And there’s less of you to hold
I will keep you warm, honey
I will keep you warm

I don’t think too much
And I don’t earn enough
But I kiss and touch
And when I say love
I sing love
And when I sing love
I mean love

Patience

I don't care for a life full of wealth or fame. I only live for a life full of you. All else in the world is emptiness, and my heart decomposes in the vacuum of your absence as I wait for sleep. It has trouble finding me, even in such darkness.

By morning, my heart flexes anew in the energy of these dreams of you. Those futures imagined by my twittering, sleeping eyes fill me with hope and with the promise that I will live this day if only to be closer to you.

History . . .

is my new pizza, and instead of making it, I read it. Someday hope to help make it, though. I suppose in some sense I make history every day; I read on a regular basis the accounts of ordinary people in extraordinary situation or times. Can you imagine historians in two or three hundred years sifting through blogs for that "primary source," authoritative perspective on the "feel" of the times? Nerdy.

This one's for you, nerd like me two or three in hundred years from now - this symbol means happy way back when (now): :)

Nerd.

'S cool

School, that is. I'm back in it. I'm taking the fullest/most full/brimming course load, all upper division history. That means 28 books this semester, over the course of 15 weeks of actual class. It's a lot, and I am so relieved and excited at the prospect of only studying five days out of the week. What a life! What was I doing fucking around with failure and missing class and not doing readings?

I might just stay in school for the rest of my life. Grad school sounds amazing right now . . . we'll have to reevaluate once I'm halfway through the semester and I have to read two books a week. Perhaps I'll sing a different tune?

Aluminum Birds

All the shuffling souls with wheels or feet
On polished carpet and poured concrete
Just enough to never be certain of
How many shoes or how far they’ve come

Humanity, or rather humankind
For how the impatience redefines
All racing to wait or waiting to race
On treadmills stretched over miles and days

How we splice the space and chase time’s flight
To this metropolis no better than mine
But people reach out, lines are cast
To reach earths better in light of the past

In aluminum birds suspended
Skipping across fogged mirrors endless
From Rockies frozen, the wheat on the plain
Through Cascades the seas just can’t contain