oh the fingerprints of God are rustling the pages
desire and fury all running together
along a scale unknown and boredom comes teetering along

oh i'm tired of seduction and the deception of it
and the complex rage of skin where it's lost on me
i'm quieted by tormenting eyes and fingers
that rake and haunt of sex and nothing, love is nothing

all of the poems have melodies
dissonant and changing keys with chorus
following choruses and verses that leap out of sync
faltering crescendos and endless valleys
falling onwards and over after your words.

my author writes to me like a brother
a deep true friend his words like ink and truth in a tattoo
surround my mysteries and hold them up to light
eerie like examination photographs in uv light
longing that feels like a blanket of warmth and my heart full
i've been on a long road home from indiana
leaving behind the synergy and chemistry
of a man with machinery and cigarette smoke and silent words
that brings a wordsmith out to life in a welding arc
smoke heat heart spark
he knows my longing for main st nashville and barbeque
late night blues clubs on the mississippi
gruhns guitars and like all cities i love in the south
the mississippi runs through them
my hunting fishing smoking travelling river
through the deep slow South at the side of a calloused man
gold leaves and falling stars in wide ocean skies
a bluesmaster deville '68 and all in silence, with the author.

flying parallel to the dawn, slow rising over indiana
cornfields crisscrossed with railroad tracks, numbered highways in a row.
the only time you ever get to run away from light
is an aeroplane at 12,000 feet, in an indiana dawn
shadows falling to the left of me, orange sunburst on the right,
all i'm thinking of is north and south, what's behind and straight ahead.
got a hunger for the falling leaves, the whole state covered
with the crisp shake of red and gold stretched under a blue sky high
takes two whole hours for the sun to rise in a place so wise
all falling under the spell

they took the time to carve out a graveyard
out of the rock wall of the land
laid out in neat and perfect rows
they didn't fill up but they're waiting
for me to return home

down though the glade where the trees grow
and embrace on and over hongi's track
i took a road down south and east out to the coast
to fill up my soul before i left home
climbing on a steel bird
flight so noisy and loud
so high i nearly lose my roots
i don't want to lose the anchor
my anchor to you

near white bricks shaped over Gisbourne Point
you brought them all the way from Spain
borne over with the weight of your dark love
and you built your lighthouse to sail out
over beyond the point, where the sea rolls under

and i've learned I let you blame me for your sorrows
so you can choose to forgive me, so we can always start again

i took a road i've never been down before
so i could say i'd seen a little more since i last left home
saw a billion photographs but didn't take a single one
so i know i'll have to return to the dark shape of this coastline
to the rough-hewn landscape of what your love built

cos even the lonely abandoned places
have gravestones with flowers on them
and empty places for the travellers and paupers
where the unforgiven find a place to lie down under your love and the sea.

thought about you
a few times in the past days
and your hands and eyes
around smiling
the nakedness of
running hands
through hair
once we're beyond it
anything
but friendship
in the moments
realizing we have all
if only we want it
that your warmth and my
softness make for comfortable
sleeping
alongside a good friend
waking up in the arms
of a love that was strong enough
thinking all about goodbyes
saying them, kissing them
telling you to hold my heart
closely
don’t drop it out of the plane
it might be useful in
the future if you are cold

stillness like the water
sitting on silver in the bay
restless without motion

this is the way of the light
this is the rush of the day
coming to the peace

you are the voice in my head
speaking into silence
shaking the day

this is the way of the light
moving into the quiet
shelter of your wings

speaking into the silence
like water resting
in the silver of the bay
restless
without motion

I want to feel new
find my rest in your presence
but it seems like the night
will remain steadfastly dark

and so I sit here in the Quiet places
hiding away from the world
fearlessly shaking tears away

here hidden away from sight and sound
let me rest here
find sanctuary in your arms
good and soft wings

you are the lakefront
peaceful and still
your mist like a soft blanket over me
so safe and secure
rippled by willow branches
how beautiful this peace

be my strength
sweet air sweet lovely breath
let me be free
flying like birds, soaring on air
one day let me be an angel

night has been dark like death
so silent ominous and your presence
does not encourage the respite of my tears

and I run, I run and I run
from the loudness of voices
wherever I turn
I run into your wiud
to be hidden by your wings
good and soft wings
hidden from the night
in your good, peaceful sanctuary
let me now be free
I find you in the quiet

blink, once, twice
in the stairwell, the gated path
blinking back, splattered with tears from the sky
black, dark, night
falling on pavement that never asks
pulling down shadows from under the night

blink, twice, long
hold me there fast in your gaze
Love, chases me down from the skies with envy
blue, skies, deep
wide as the flight of the sand of the beach
Love, echoed His voice on the wind, shivering

the clock wound, the key turned, a string broke
the notes flew out of tune
the song broke at the same time, the girl
she remembered how lonely she was

time and age got the girl again
wrapped her up in crime and expectations
passion caught up in the index of the magazine
of the self portraits she hates to take

she wounded an extremity
by throwing her heart out to you
now's broken in two, a piece of the old
a piece of the new, truly
she didn't know how it would go

oh i'm less than satisfactory
but i am hidden mysteries
and depths so deep you could search me
for centuries and still
i'd surprise you but you don't know
anything about how i could satisfy you

you'd learn to love the whiskey on my tongue
and the tattooed things you'd see when i'm undone
and you'd be satisfied with the food of my table
and the songs of my journals, all the words i gather
setting you on fire, the people i love
and the God i follow, you'd love the taste of honey
'cos nothing is what is seems, least of all, the satisfaction.

Sugar

you are so sweet to me
like moonlight in doorways
you make things appear
different to what they are
and things through your eyes are much
softer.

i'm making it the hard way
fighting all the goodness
never laying down all that i should
i am fighting your sweetness
trying to take the sugar off my
tongue.

pleasing myself and pleasing you
there's a civil war between the
hemispheres of my head, my heart
likes to break over and over
my sugarcane heart breaks over you.

_____________________________________


Honest
i'm struggling for air and breathing out of rhythm
where once i was a dancer now i'm lost
caught in urban degradation
trying to find reason
the semantics of philosophy have caught
me

i am
floating like i have no wings
running like i have no legs, falling with
no unforeseen landing
this is perfect
it's a perfect time for raining
with three loads of laundry
and no soap powder for the mind

my head is a regular cycle on agitate

__________________________________________


one day all our dreams will come true
we will laugh and play away the rest of our days
delighting in sunlight and savouring winter warmth
those will be the very best of days
but these days here will have a special place
when we waited to see the actualities of plans and hopes.
i know that i will be content, because i have known you
and you have known me...

__________________________________________



racing home
in the pouring rain
and all i can
imagine
at this perfect
and
lonely moment
is laying
there for hours
on end, tucked safely
in your arms
i'm hydroplaning beyond
the speed of light
and definitely
beyond
my senses that should
be telling
me
not to fall quite
so hard
this time

_________________________________


so here i am oh God.
do with me what you will. i'm nothing more
than breeze making it's way over hill
in the grand kaleidescope of structure and design
the life that you have given us

a dozen dreams a day have i
and each could be a destiny
but here i am, i'm still
fighting for completion of the parts
that don't make sense.

_________________________________

got me sleepless and in limbo
but oh, i love you, it's okay
i'll be broken for a time
i'll stay floating above
the words that you say
but oh, i love you, it's okay

_______________________________


hey there girl
just keep crawling
pour another glass of wine
have another conversation about nothing
and everything
all at once
watch another sunrise
sleep all day
watch another moonrise
bathe in some Light

_______________________________


they say
you can't write poetry on a computer
but in ten or twenty years
i'm not sure that i'll know any other way

certainly i prefer the feel of paper and the
silkiness of my pen spilling it's
emotional ink all under my fingers
instead of Bill's cold plastic giving me RSI

i never heard of anyone getting RSI from
sending too many Hallmark cards
technology is battling me for your heart
you spend your life breathing here

living over there, 4000 miles away
ten days ago i sent you love poems and dreams
all on my computer. maybe if i had sent you
paper.. you would love me
and live here with me.

_____________________________________


six months since valentine's
made promises and since
i wrestled sand with you
and my head pounds on
the waves of your tide

the moon glow fills the
sky silver and the street lamps
orange glow
a strange diversity
my toes warm and hiccupy
i leave the curtains open
silhouettes of power poles
and pine trees

i want God to be able to get
my attention
if he shines in my direction
i'm still wrestling with you

_______________________________


i have come to this place to dream
to lay out in sun light
to drink wine
ponder life and all the meaning
that no longer exists.

i chased it down
and through meadows.
my cobblestones of sweat
my tears the pathways of venice.

i did not find you in the old places,
Wisdom.. even when i looked for you.

Friday's Coming

I don't know where to start
i don't know where we lost the way
but this one thing is certain now
tomorrow is a day for starting over..

don't be scared my love
don't be scared at all
tomorrow is the perfect day
for starting over
starting over
starting over with you and me
and everybody else
we're starting over

i don't know where we got confused
i don't know how we got here
there are a million things i fail to understand
a million things still undecided

but Friday's coming and
it's the perfect day to start again
take back what's got messed up
and jsut start it again
redeem me from the ashes
tear it down
we're starting over, starting over

and when it's friday
feels like the air has stopped
all around me
something's happened in the dark
and all around us
there's the air of something different
all around us
it's starting over, starting over

don't be scared my love
don't be scared at all
tomorrow is the perfect day
for starting over
starting over
starting over with you and me
and everybody else
we're starting over

___________________________


i love rainy mornings
when the sun is just close enough to up,
the world is transluscent
and damp.
i'll sing about coffee shops
and lost loves
and harbor selfish memories
in that sad early hour
with the heater on in the car
driving to someplace
for new memorable moments
that i will someday recall
on a morning just the same.

_____________________________


Find Me

seeking You in unexpected places
looking to recognise You in a lunchhour
..in a conversation, to know Your familiar hand
in a heartbeat, in a cityscape..
driving in smog-laden queues
in lonely offices, on a misty road. looking
at a prison, trying to escape my own
seeking You, I am lost

_____________________________

Easy.
I wish it was this easy, that I might close my eyes, and wake to find
That in the night, something strong restored my heart, the road ahead
Suddenly appears for me, and I am newly free.

Lovely.
That's what they say, that I might let it all go, and let off the hook
Freedom in the breaking of the day, the breaking in of light.
Here I am freshly made whole again, undone.

And I wait for you to come.
To answer things I ask.
To fix what's been undone.
To tell me I am worthy of your love.

I want to tattoo my name on your heart
Where no one else can see it but me.

In the moments of quiet, the moments of noise.
To know that you carry me there. Indelible. Untouchable.
Is it so bad, to want to own part of you?

It's more primal, than what this clean-cut place allows for.
It's a limiting, dangerous thing
To take ownership of someone else, to be owned.
An elixir of divinity. To carry something so precious here on earth.

It's an illusion, that if I carry some part of you, and you me
That it will cease the pull and tug
When I see you, know you, have to share you.

_______________________________________


inspired fever
opens windows into
brain hemispheres
tamed into dormancy
by academia and repetition
every so often

bubble

some lunatical jumble of words
collide together
on a page
or in some html code
hopefully amuses someone...
of my pulse

if you've ever had
the kisses of an older man
they are sweet and soft
he is full of wisdom and life
his lips are warm and frail
but honest when they meet yours

if you've ever had
the kisses of an older man
you will learn things you never knew
and see things only the old now
all shown to you in a kiss
revealed in a caress

Get her, get Wisdom
and your understanding
find her at whatever cost
respect the age you are for
a girl like me will love
a man like you when you are
older and wiser

under the kisses of an older man
you will feel alive, he will
gift you with his life
and youthful men can only fuel
their own fires, so treasure him
wth grey dark mottly hair and body

the hands of an older man
can shake and tremble with more truth
than when we are young and foolish
he may be nearly blind but he sees me
don't be weakened by your prideful youth
his wiser kisses tell the truth

Today I turned the pages of the book
and found in my disgrace that they were written on
a story with my name in it
that I could not erase

she dances in the moonlight where no one cares to see
she dances to the music that she longs for you to hear
she dances only when she needs to say the words she can't
she dances when she ought to use the phone instead

today I turned the pages in the book you gave
and found that I was getting older every day
I glanced into the mirror above it's ivory pages
and I found amongst my curls the sign of grayness.

I didn't mean to grow so old so fast
that the hair upon my head would show my age
I'm reading with the pages just as fast as they appear
but I had no way of knowing how the story found me here

I'm dancing in the moonlight where no one cares to see
I'm dancing to the music that I long for you to hear
I'm dancing just to find the words that quickly disappear
I'm dancing just in case you ever call

I promise I won't skip ahead or cease to turn the page
I promise I won't hide from all the sentences that cry
I promise I won't stay here in the glow of chapter three
I promise I won't keep the ending out of sight
I promise you, I won't take all the grayness out.

Wisdom you have called it, age of sorrow I could say
Either way, I'm here now and life is here to stay
The joys they come as quickly as the rain
But always in the mirror now, there'll be that sign of gray.

This is my old new everything hymn
i'll speak of suffering
i'll speak of majesty
i'll speak of everything you mean to me

I have suffered, wrestled and fought with all of my might
all of my strength, i have cried, i have cried
I have cried, but you're still who you say you are
i have suffered endless silences, endless prayers
i have cried, but you're still who you say you are

This is my old new everything hymn
i'll speak of suffering
i'll speak of majesty
i'll speak of everything you mean to me

And i've tried to sing the songs of every man
i've tried to sing the songs to say what i can
but here i am speechless in my own language
here I am, come find me here again, come find me here again

i have worshiped you, been voiceless and fearless before you
i've seen the dawn and fallen, down on my knees, down on my knees
i've lifted my head and felt freedom again, felt free
i've rediscovered beauty on earth, i've cried and smiled, i've laughed
you're still who you say you are, you're still who you say you are

This is my old new everything hymn
i'll speak of suffering
i'll speak of majesty
i'll speak of everything you mean to me

And i've tried to sing the songs of every man
i've tried to sing the songs to say what i can
but here i am speechless in my own language
here I am, come find me here again, come find me here again


and how can it be, i'm so relentlessly awful
and you're so, majesty evermore
and how can it be, i'm so relentlessly awful
and you're so, majesty evermore

This is my old new everything hymn
i'll speak of suffering
i'll speak of majesty
i'll speak of everything you mean to me

And i've tried to sing the songs of every man
i've tried to sing the songs to say what i can
but here i am speechless in my own language
here I am, come find me here again, come find me here again

Starbucks Napkin
You better watch
out for the Man in
unexpected places & stay
mind full of your
own dark tendency to
rise & fall like the stock market
on waves of pop culturity.

No, your compass has lost it's
northward point to authenticity
and this franchise has
won your over with a
pretence to your beatnik heroes
fools you with it's fair trade
beans still harvested
by those hands scarred and
weathered, that never held a pen
or wrote a poem.

the heartbeat of this city
has moved SoHo art from SoHo to
Westside and pretty soon
you'll find yourself lost
in the Grid because the new
arists & poets write
beats in Starbucks.

_________________________________


A Christmas Prayer

Lord as we celebrate Your birth
May we live knowing
Jesus, You are our Hope
Jesus, You are our Peace

May we share with all those around us
Family, friends and strangers that
Jesus, You are our Joy
Jesus, You are Love

Great God of love and light.
We remember the star that shone
to first lead people to your Son.
Lead us now, by the light of your love, that
we also may follow you to new life in Him.

Teach us and show us how to live in love
In a world that is filled with violence.
May we be just, truthful and willing to love
All those that we meet along the way.

Those that are filled with sorrow
May they know joy & be comforted
Those that are hungry
May they be fed & be satisfied

Those that are lonely
May they know love & find community
Those that are angry
May they find peace & restoration

May we love freely
And know God with Us
May we give joyfully
And know God with Us
May we receive with wonder
And know God with Us

As we celebrate Your entry into
The human timeline by birth
Messy, complicated, mysterious

May You enter into our lives again
Glory be to God
Amen

Lord, hear the cry of your Children
We are weak, we are limited in understanding
Grant us your eyes to see and ears to hear

For the sake of the Kingdom, may we strip ourselves away
For the sake of Your name, may there be nothing left
For the sake of those who do not yet know Your Love
Make us humble at the feet of our brothers and sisters

Teach us to learn from those around us
Teach us to walk in Your ways
Refocus our eyes, change our lens
Cleanse from us the sin of pride

In a world where there are many Right Ways
Simply help us to avoid the Wrong Ways.
In a world where there are many Voices
Help us to listen wisely, and to speak more so.

For the sake of the long-time, middle-aged, newbie and not-yet
For the sake of Us, the Followers
Tell us again the Story of finding and feeding sheep.
Find us, feed us again.