i'm scraping my fingernails
down the skin of my arm
to avoid touching the heat of your skin
soon i'm about to become a
correspondence lover
a lover despondent far from you
your skin against mine now would tattoo me
undo me enough that i'd be wrapped inside you
and find pieces of you scattered in me
days after the goodbye

there is a breathlessness in waiting
my suspicion is that you've already
found your way into my being by osmosis
with basslines and beats made in secret
all of that the foreplay and the premise
oh the trigger is still the flash of your eyes
touching me in the language of skin
while you're playing steam, licking the air
with sound and smoke, always responding
wanting a response from me, i sing inside and out

i'm running fingernails over shoulders
through your skin with words
a tattoo to your ear, your heart, being
my correspondence by touch and sound and letter
scattered over bodies and ideas and music
for hours and hours on end, in preparing
such sweet, soft, hard, breathless goodbyes
making new doorways of hello, making new words
contemplating such old, extraordinay sins
because you set alight the spark in me.

sometimes i cut myself and watch the river bleed
i think about the blood spilling for me
it seems to make some sense that sometimes
pain can set me free, though i am still a slave to it

i guess they figure i can't learn salvation
the truth is i relate to Jesus more when he is bleeding
more than they could ever know, i find some
comfort in his being good at bleeding too

i have a scar upon the inside of my arm
i mostly hide it with my sleeve but honesty dictates
i ought to tell sometimes i'm proud to look down on it
i see that i still despite the pain of me

so i won't do this to myself forever, I promise
though i'm broken i know whereupon i stand
i have found the truth and it speaks to my demands
when i bleed i still know hope will rise again

give my heart its true north
compass setting
this is such a lonely place
whre i have forgotten the sound of your voice
i do not know the way home
you are the highway
the signpost
the streetlamp
the gate and the path to the door
where i live

______________________________________


i break, i boil, i live a little where you are
even when you're far away

in these spaces i live, I know the streets and the doorways
the windows, i know where you are in the spaces
what i want now from this, is the presence of being
and you, you where you are, occupied time.

______________________________________


my heart is right across the world tonight
echoing and calling you back home
oh i hold nothing against for being out of town
out there in the world on the horizon line
but get here, get here now, be first
you'll be home tonight
if you make it to my arms

i've written pages of lovesongs and letters in the waiting
but i never know which one to send cos
i've written myself down to give away gently
i'm echoing and calling you back home
but everything i know is falling to pieces
i think i used to be fragile but i'm stronger now
all the days are long enough for daylight to be boring now
missing you can feel quite nice for a while
but sadness fades into focus in the darkness
from out on the horizon line
get here, get here now, you'll be home tonight

__________________________________________

so many hours in weaving a thread
of a life that with dignity
pride and delight in a smile
eyes that tell me things i never knew
we have lived out loud without any shame
who's, what's, where's and why's all in a line

until you made me a secret
i screamed from the inside no,
don't put me in the dark
but you stripped me away to naked
i became a quiet hush
instead of the song out loud in life

like bullets to a collapsing spine
all my courage and strength to the wire
dignity pulled away into pieces
when you made me a secret
laughter fell away into silence
everything warm became cold in the night
my bed never felt so lonely
til i became the never-said, the quiet hush

i screamed from the inside no,
don't put me in the dark
but you stripped me away to naked
i became a quiet hush

alone, i greet you
a mottled hue welcome.. come and follow
i will seat you
uncover you, from the feet
to neck, i find you under there

so being naked now
down to the soul
take off your eye
and use hands, polarize senses
honesty, being gentle to the need
leave grace in your reflections

alone, meet me in the hush
eyelock and fingers just whispering things
to each other
lay by me, in the proxim of warmth
in agreement to intimate
being totality, me
being you, just be.
__________________________________

let light be the essence of what we build
with gentle strong arms and
struggling voice... battle weary
let us build from windows of vision
with form and shape
using light as the point of interest
lay down the old nail
using instead hands and bodies
to mould and press this house together
this testimony
honour and worship being purpose
take breath as a sacrifice and breath
into the light structure
your light is strength and true design
of clarity
hand for pressing and shaping
body to move and flow
rise and fall of the blood

building temples.
__________________________________________

the wind and the rain in my hair
tiny wet drops on my glasses
still i somehow hope they hide me from you
it seems nothing does

tonight there was divinity in the air
you didn't walk, didn't run
you stayed beside me in the rain
stood in the wind
when it was over
offered me shelter of your arms

i let you fall over me
slipping myself underneath
i didn't need equal or more
just needed now to be held
who knows what happens now
after the storm and the rush
but for a moment here in sunlight
i remember dancing under your touch

__________________________________________

hush now
close your mouth
don't speak
we are in a place that's not for words
just breathe
feel the spirit float in and over

quiet now
don't argue this
let the presence flow
just inhale
let go
we just need to be

close your eyes and take my hand
squeeze it tighter
as the weight drops on
feel the tremble of 20,000 tonnes or more

holding all breath
close your mouth
just be
here in the flow of the river
feel the crush

close your eyes as the mighty water
falls just over us
feel the tremble of 20,000 tonnes or more
take my hand and squeeze tighter

be here with me
enjoy the presence
stop all time
while His Spirit is in motion
__________________________________________________

a dream in 1998

there's a peace coming for a time
where we will stay and lsiten to the air for a while
competing and combining in breath and gasp
from two sets of crimson lips
tarnished hips and bruises
this dance you know but i am new to join

pray it does not trouble you
to teach me how to breathe and move again

but i will not run and hide from things as these
i do not know rather i will try a little harder
keep slightly closer, follow you and watch myself
carefully imitate and learn to make this rhythm
you already know, and i have to learn
but there is a peace coming for a time
neither will care who knew what when we began

this will be our dance for a time
circling. the twisting together entwined
i will learn the things you speak and never speak
you can take from me to enjoy it once again

from limb and soul
the peace does grow
from deep joy
playful days follow
what is new to me
will be new again to you
i will make it so
a gift for one anothers
rhythm will rise and descend
in sweet and heavy songs
and the ghosts will go
leaving us to dance, dance
speaking to only each other

there will birth and rebirth
from our entanglement
others will watch with large eyes
allow us to surprise them
we will not stop once it's begun
there is too much here of touch and haste
love and consuming taste
so first and last, old and new will fade
for a peace is coming for a time
that will give us all we need
and we will dance in rhythm

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.