clenched fist against my chest
desperate words of hope confess
i am empty for the sight you

some say that it's a gift
to see what i see and to know
but i see the truth it is

a gift like this is only for my father's table
a gift like this means nothing
if not for you, my father's hand guides me
where to go, i only know his direction

how is it here in my broken shame
i still know your voice and i lean in
compulsively drawn to the truth i know
i will walk this way where my brother goes
and i take the cup as it is to me
the sorrow of knowing you keep me in this life
for where i want to be you know
in my father's home, is the life i long to know

for to make what i can from these hands
threading my words for another man's praise
oh i need not your praise for the work of my hands
is only for my father's display and all other causes
a plain facsimile, mean nothing to me

i put my life in your hands
make your Glory in me, be seen.
Oh i've learned what pleases you more than most
and my gift is the gift of sight
i recognise your art in life.

i am an old woman
as old as the sea, battering the coast into submission
her shattering shoreline falling into soft, buttery pieces
foamy and chaotic

i am an old woman
as long and wrung out as old cotton
in danger of yellowing and wrinkling in the light
stiff and harsh

i am an old woman
laughter and frowning written in the same lines
my face framed by unruliness i no longer care to tame
wild and ruthless

i am an old woman
my youth vanished from my womb and skin and eyes
mirth replaced with wisdom of children that never arrived
lost in transition

i am an old woman
standing still with the shock of it realising
i have arrived at the moment of farewelling life for what it never was
bed empty, full heart

i am an old woman
who loved with the heat of one thousand suns
loved and loved and loved without pretense and knew your every heart
beating and whole

i am an old woman
who grew so waiting on you

you are kind with your words but
i wish you weren't a liar
wish you weren't pieces of every other woman
wish you weren't tied up by the past and twelve
other lives

i could've loved you into freedom and
given over all you asked
bought your truth from the demons on your shoulder
but you're a liar and you remain
too happy to live in the grave
and your desire for control
robs the love i had for you in moments
of clarity, my love for you dies
and i wish you weren't a liar
so we could speak in truth

i would tell you these things
to unstitch the women of your past
to use your own name
and be brave enough to be fully human
fully known

there was a line that you said
i can't get it outta my head
i think it started with breaking
what was left of my heart

you better know what you are doing
with those words full of honey and light
you better have intentions of completing the truth
and finding me in a good life

oh you should kill me now
if all you ever have is just the same old same old
discontent, you should make her your wife
make her laughing into old age
capture the kisses of her youth while it is fleeing
love her and kill me with your kindness
on street corners and dark spaces

i will plant and live in my garden
building bridges between the life and what is
and is not, in the story live forever
killed by you and for your love i die not
fearless i live on to watch your life unfolding
and roses bloom in the wonder and the what if
with my friend beside me in my troubles and grief

to you my love
my heart goes swimming on the deep oceans
life in the compassionate way
discontent in your solitude
observing silences and tragedies
small delicacies and sweet words
they fall into the ears of young lovers
and my heart swims out to your
on the tide with the ebb and the flow
of the ruse and fall of your love
the grandness of a philosophy
of beauty and trust
but my wise old heart lives
under the clouds and weather of
suspicious truth with clarity
in a goblet overflowing, pouring with wine
i breath and sigh and wait
knowing the blindness and straight
arrow of desire
wondering what river i will live
and die in for the sake of this

it could be true
from a story or a song
that no free man was ever free
til he had the strength of his belief
and knew the sound of his own voice
against the wind and raging storms
to the ear of his lover
in silence his truth still spoken
that is a free man

there is a playlist in my heart
i've been writing since the day we met
for the first time again since we knew
each other at misconception

Coming Down

I come down a lot
I turn on the lights
Making promises of peace tonight
I shut the door
Quick I tell my lies
Before I bend my knees
Oh I refuse to give or take an inch
And I won’t bend or break
Oh I come down a lot

I shut the door to keep you out
I lean myself against this wall
Do anything to keep the weight of the world
From falling down, from falling down
Around me

I am terrified of falling
I feel myself burning
I am buried with confession
I can’t get the words out
And I’ll fall apart if it all comes down
And I am scared to be broken
But you can take the fear apart
And you can break me

I am swallowed up by pride
I live inside myself
Telling lies and it’s so cold
I won’t bend or break
I won’t give or take an inch

And all these promises I break
They take my strength
I am slowly dying
I die a little every day
Oh I come down a lot

I am terrified of falling
I feel myself burning
I am buried with confession
I can’t get the words out
And I’ll fall apart if it all comes down
And I am scared to be broken
But you can take the fear apart
And you can break me

not the girl you think i am
i keep myself afloat
by holding on to moonlight
i break, i'm regularly held together
with pieces of string
formed from the words you say

what of my strength is not a farce
naught of my life is without darkness
i am not the girl you think i am
i need you like i need the air
i breathe and gasp when you are there
for i am always needing you near

what has god done with his cruel fates
to let the light fall on my empty spaces
my frailty slips into my hope of your hands
to know you live in this space but you do not take
i'm not the girl you think i am
in these days i am the needy and poor
the illiterate, the follower, the something more

you are a tattoo under my skin
a word and a line from a song
i'm still trying to write
but you are the rhythm
you are in my heart tonight

your skin on my skin
is a memory, the future of everything
your skin on my skin

your words in my ear
your love in my hands
your touch is my life
you are in my heart tonight

your skin on my skin
the future of everything
the tattoo under my skin
you are in my heart tonight

the spirit draws near
when we are close
as we are closer and closer

over and over and over
over and over and over
you are in my heart tonight
you are in my heart tonight

oh today why couldn't you be
a little more like the coffee guy
for he is sweet and kind
and always looks me in the eye
notices the little things and
how i like my drinks, the time of the day
and where the lie of the land is
he knows with just three words
and i would like to taste his lips
but there is no heart on the line
with that one, not like with you

for you look me in the eye and straight away
you know more than i decided to give away
i'm a dead giveaway
you know how i like my things, my drinks, my funny ways
you fight me anyway on the ones you take your pride in
i have no pride around you anyway

oh just for today
if there were no consequences and no regrets
i would take your lips and claim them as my own
even for a day in summer sun have a dream of you again

there are twelve little pieces of my heart
each wrapped up in parcels of history
two blue eyes, one from my granddaddy
the other from my father
two hazel black rings around my iris
from my mothers deep strong heart
i have the colour of her freckles
the shape of her hands for making things
the way of her feet from walking
in the name of my grandmother
over long distances all in the sake of grace

i have the voice of my family name
in the absence of a father i wear it loud
redeeming something better, stronger, clearer
we landed on a western shore all of us strangers
scattered together by a skim of fate and chance
mothers and fathers all, brothers and sisters
from the northern lands with misfits acquired among us
black and brown and irish hues
my english blood a tinge of blue

i am pieces of history, northern sands and mills and things
small towns built on distant dreams and long ago tales of america
the distant shores of australia and all the darklands in between
i am pieces of history, riverside miner families
dark ginger hair and a whispered prayer for far off better days somewhere
the south and western coast a rugged, barren heartland start

there is a bloodline under my skin
that makes some sense of the mess of me
a line of trouble and a spring of hope
and under blue eyes something starts..

won't you walk with me
up the hill then down to the bay
one thousand steps and we will be ok
i spend my dollars and time all in the sake
of loving you, you are the love in my life
the shadows of the sun glancing on my cheeks
oh that you could take the hand offered to you
in the moment i could've loved you so well
and still stolen nothing from you

walk with me one thousand steps and a day
under sun and rain

the conspiracy of scarlet thread
around your finger, the caress
of silk and other woven things
like a dream or a hope, sewn here

in a hem or a seam, holding together
i am cancelling our affairs
i've lost my tongue under the spell
of your hand on the back of my neck
this will not stand, i cannot stand
knees shake, heart quakes
the spirit and the flesh all unwilling
to hold to higher things
so forget my name, i'm leaving our affair undone
already my future full of regretting
words not spoken
your name, kiss, lips, touch, love
spoken from each limb, my scarlet thread
and all i'll ever have of you

play me a minor chord, i have a sad song in my heart
and there is not a thing that you can do to ease the tide
there are no notes that match the dissonance of sorrow
the beauty of the darkness falling, the sad little tune

play me a minor chord, follow it with thirds and then a 7th
by the time the dawn arrives, we'll be through me and you
me to go my own way with this sad new song and you, to where you go
down to the dark, lonely depths that i cannot, will not go

i have a sad song in my heart
i have bought you sunshine
tattooed wisdom on my shoulders
til i've been going backwards
but we'll be through, me and you

enjoy these final notes, this last reprise another chorus line
i'll write you one last soaring melody with notes of gray
shading blue along the wake, stay up all night to finish off the ache
wine bottle emptied alongside the minor chords we'll write tonight

we're so much better in the melancholy a sad retreat wasn't fooling anybody
for i am magnet to the foolhardy, fools and i am the biggest fool of all
there is a foolish colour to all these minor chords and fooling words
nobody gets fooled anymore, the melody of my love is a breaking curse

could i be sent, sent out into the night, by the dawn a parcel of light

play me a minor chord, i have a sad song in my heart
and there is not a thing that you can do to ease the tide
there are no notes that match the dissonance of sorrow
the beauty of the darkness falling, the sad little tune

in the light
at the close of the day
there is the darkness falling
and the starlight rising in your eyes, i
know the way to your heart
know the beat of your soul
know the rhythm, i know the way to your heart

in the grace
at the end of it all
love like the light is rising
and the moonlight falling on your skin, i
know the way to your heart
know the beat of your soul
know the rhythm, i know the way to your heart

and i won't
hold you like i want to
touch you like i need to
i will hold back desire, for
in this land that is plenty
it does good to have less
and if i want you this much
surely i should learn control

you, got me like the stars
hanging on the moon, every word, every thought
is you, calmly putting back together the world
after we shattered it with all our foolish schemes
and hope, is rising like the light surer than my fight
our fight, the fight to live and then die
closer than brothers, so i could take you as my lover
and if i want you this much
surely i should learn control

in the river of stones
the water pools up and soon
the world slides to her knees
the trembling fire

there is a light on the iris
a wire to the moon
your hand fits my breast
skims the curve of my hips
i make a wife of my art

shivering down to the knees again
rocking to ground with the beat of it
i am the love of the life
that has fire and heat

in the river of stones
the blackbird sings a little song
blood beats, sings along
strip down to the marrow
life comes in the marrow of the pain
the rush, the crush, the water
running over, boiling up from under-
neath the weaving stones, a tapestry
of earth, broken fiery heat
coming down to her knees
i make a wife of my art
i am the love of a life

Respiré con su respiración y le amé

i died in the death of your presence
when light ceased falling
in the amber of cloaked sin
the flickering break on beaten shore
with every despairing and failing part
each stricken, wounded, drowning quarter of my heart
i died in your arms while we were walking

you spilt over into multiple hearts in
one aching moment but i died in moment of knowing
how much of a ghost a man becomes in the dark
so your life goes on in the womb of empty
and mine carries on to a distant shore
while darkness falls here on my wife
my bride of long, white cloud and rain
you becoming another ghost, again
i die on your exhaling breath

you spent all your sweat, skin and love
spilled it on rocky soil with salty air
you ran like silt in the river
still i'm the ocean and the sailboat on the ocean
the lakes and the rain, the endless water
the quenching thunder am I, setting sail
water like the oboe and the flute calling out
the summer songs, the haze and sweet notes of
warm light falling up, springing back to life
from the breath on which I died, and i loved you.

sometimes in the sunshine
under the spring light
when all things seem hopeful
and your skin is warm against mine
i wish my heart didn't beat so fast
nor time spin by so quickly
for fear i am wasting my portion of you