Embers

Where are you going looking so beautiful

Why are you leaving feeling so rushed

I know how this started and I hear you revving inside

Your eyes like to wander your hands like to touch

Why do you throw it around so recklessly

Like some dish you can just replace

I’m not at your table but I hear you ordering for me

With some other pretty plated face

Just cause you like the taste

We were all of the moment but none of the memory

Something made me ready for your taking

All of the music but none of the lyrics

Something keeps your crystal heart from breaking 

Into embers in this dying fire

we both refuse to jump on that pyre

Whose eyes are gazing back from your mirror

Always your style to look but not see

This path we're driving races past the fruits of heaven

As fast as we can through the birds and the bees

Just cause we like it free

We were all of the passion but none of the promise

Something made you thirsty for these ashes

All of the travel but none of the distance

Something in me feeds on sparks and flashes

Just an ember in your dying fire

And I refuse to jump on your…

Something’s burning

Why don’t we run?

You smashed your silence

Cause it was fun

What have I become?

You're the ember

I'm the ashes of our fire

And you refuse to douse your desire

Driving Song

Sped away but you left your tears on the sidewalk 

Sped away and you left me here on the sidewalk

Better run from the people and their talk

Didn’t know we were lost till they came and found us

Didn’t know we were lost till they came and found us

Till the search light hurt our eyes 

So drive away from my love

Just drive away from my love

Why do you pray for my love

If you can’t stay for my love

You disappear behind me

And my heart is stone

What I fear behind me 

Well it’s already gone.

I look for all the faded signs on the highway

I look for all the faded signs on the highway

They might bring me back to you someday

So drive away from my love

Just drive away from my love

Why do you pray for my love

If you can’t stay for my love

Trying to steer behind you

Like trying to unset the sun

Looks so near behind you

But the west’s already won

I drove around all night but you didn’t show

I drove around all night but you didn’t show

So it’s none for my baby and one more for the road 

So drive away from my love

Just drive away from my love

Why do you pray for my love

If you can’t stay for my love

You know that they love to see you undone

Gotta run away from the preachers and their sons

Miracle

It’s strange to think of the pain you take on cause you trust this person exists

All the while on the train I daydreamed purple mountain bliss

One hell of a leap of faith when you stop and think cause nothing’s promised

But my shadow grows each day behind the life I almost missed

It’s funny how accident and miracle are living hand in hand

Well the headlines that day both comforted and scared

We went racing off the tracks they say neither of us were sure the cause

But in that moment we looked down and saw the air begin to pause

And a stranger held out his hand, said 'lady I got you'

And pulled me into safety as only strangers do

And I guess he was the brave one

cause I just followed suit

but he saved my life on that day on that train

And then my lover held out his hand, said 'lady I got you'

And he pulled me into safety as only lovers do

And I guess you were the brave one

cause I just followed suit

but oh you saved our lives on that day

West

Look at you and me I never thought we’d be

going broke on good coffee

Packed up all these bags and headed to the west

where the restless souls are free

or it’s a test for souls like me

who just reflect what we think we’ll see

I see you wore that jacket in front of all your friends

What you think they’re thinking now?

The queen you play on screen and stage ain’t just pretend

Do you think you took your bow?

Out west they’ll never raise a brow

At least I hear anyhow

And I wouldn’t trade you for them

Though it would be easier to bend

than break this day and say farewell

Looking at the needle’s slow and steady climb 

as the sides of the world become a mist

I never thought I’d need my slow and steady side

But you’re so hard to resist

And now I only clench this fist

Around this wheel that steers me west

No I wouldn’t trade you for them

Oh it would be easier to bend

But I’d rather break this day in your arms than say

Farewell

So we head west…

The Last Song

THE LAST SONG

There’s a locked theater in my house

Don’t ask about its history, I’m not sure

All I know is every night I’m on the other side of that door

There’s a torn up script on the floor of my heart

Don’t ask me why it’s a mystery

All I know is that I was born to play this part

The glacier between us shifted and I lost you to the melting snow

And since it’s the last song I just thought you should know

All the pretty things and the shitty things I have to say to you

The sun turned on everyone she knew

I watched her as she coldly fired the moon

These shifting times, what did we expect?

I’ve thrown my body onto the alter of it

Too many times to count the bruises

Always healing from one while dealing with the next

The tide between us shifted and I watched as you disappeared

And since it’s the last song I just thought you should hear

All the dressed up things and the messed up things I have to say to you

Threw it overboard just to see if it would float

Broke your song open just so I could count the notes

It sounded empty in my head rolling around like a ball

Your rests made me feel so small

I hope one day you stand back and see me

Outside of this pointillistic mess

And I never chose the speed of this light

But here we are bathed in all this bright

And if I could give you one piece of advice

I’d put it in the last song I’d ever sing to you

Sun

I could not sleep 

so I went to the sun 

found him and pulled him from his lilac sheets

don't you want me the way I want you?

Drape

The moon peeked out from behind a cloud today

And he never even saw it, because I am his curtain

Just hanging around covering light

Throw me open love

I'm just hanging around covering the night

I danced the fairy well but now I've danced my bones weak

I am not the breezy comfort you seek

But rather these days a drape

Upon which one day you will lay 

after that fight where you rip them from the window

Though he who knows me truly will know that I will never be a drape

And whatever shimmered light wants to pass 

I will lay down

And let it

Prism

Any day give me colored light to white

For I prefer to be bathed  in unsplit rainbow

And to that add my own sparkle

And try as I may 

creams beige and gray

Life turns at me like a prism

And I'll never turn away

Seasons

I am winter 

I come to you with all that is frozen in me

And need to melt

But first

I need your gentle spring

to thaw what once was green

And then

A warm May rain 

to bring to bud what beauty 

has been closed inside

And then your golden June light 

to let leaves, 

full of dew,

Dance away from petal 

of their own heavy drenched pliancy

And then I need your blue skies 

to sweetly lure the bloom

from beneath verdant crinolines

So yes, I need you 

But softly

And Slow like seasons

Stars

You are all stars in my sky.

Crossed Out

I have happily died on the cross of this love

crossed myself out

old self fading fast

and happily have transformed

but my ghost lingered last

like a cracked crinkled edgeworn

picture from the past

Trinity

Salt water was the medicine I chose

to heal this half broken heart

with shells

and other barnacled places I've been

and felt my way through the dips in swells

I swam through salty ocean tears

and swept away the sands of time

but somehow, doesn't it always stick to the skin?

ever after triton was done with me

this holey trinity

ebbed sanguine into saline

and I sat on the tip of the shore alone

and was expected each day 

to make this new for you

like a moon

Tide

As the tide turns away now

It takes with it all

that has settled in my soul

Rose

If I could

Scoop out the bad

And fill it with rainbow shebert

I would

And if I could empty this bag

and pack it with flowers

I would

And if I would actually see you 

standing in the shadow so cool in your shades

I could stand a chance

but you have disappeared- a pink peony against a poppy sunset

in my rose coloured glance

so instead i leave a single spec of glitter on you

 to remind you of this light

born of my constant charge

to make your world more bright

despite

Church

In times of trouble

I go to my church

I go to my grave

To gain perspective

This sepulcher of salt from which all life was made

And she listens without judgement

and she always tells me

be still

as she crashes around me 

relentless

So i grabbed the bones of my hips

i flex feet relaxed 

and stand

and hold up the sky

until it feels just like air again

and she crashes against me

relentless

And I am forced to learn what I am made of

Again and again 

like a sermon

I listen to her silence

and in the salt I am reborn

carve nothing on this grave

Just Because

In a fringed house of fun

A psychic queen

streamed incense strange

and told us

that just because you love someone

does not mean they have to change

We sat on this for a long while

in silence

walking round the fair

brushing the other noise from our hair

and absorbing it all

slow as glitter falling in plasma

heavy as a crystal ball

Waking

Stay me this morning rise

The lush look of sleep upon your eyes

in shimmering lashes shone

The things I see in your rushed waking

Never were dreams more mine for the taking

And the dawnlight has given the guise

of two rounded skies

smiling upon 

this promise we're making

in heart

in stone

This City

I need something 

less than this city

less than this vast expanse

For I have roamed round you

but never found you

never more still

the grey azure water stopped 

the blackwell opened

and i saw you 

inside of my own shadow

have you always been there

around me

have you found me?

this vast city 

has held all of my dreams

this whole time

in this manifest destiny

i have made you

and you now

are my vast expanse

found

Revolutions

Petal to petal

Dust to dust

they fell around me

these roses

these rose coloured revolutions

always you spinning me toward the other

Until I am nothing but 

sugarpink spun thorns

too pretty to hold

too sharp to love

Bowl of Rocks

A bowl of rocks-

It was music he gave me

Something I cannot hold in the hand

As even a rock

His words humble

and true

always

I sit here

and roll them around

the lifelines and creases of my hands

and in that elemental transfer

feel his music

and his humble true words

castles

and mountains

have come and gone-

their excess

and subsequent reductions

and nothing could mean more to me

than this bowl of rocks

which he has become 

and the music that remains

always