They'll dump you as soon as they find the time. You can play at being aloof and call that the reason. Or be there when they need you . But it's gonna happen. It already feels like rejection.

Sophie Kaboul

Like the still point in time before we would kiss
The memory of her parted lips still
Stops me in my tracks
And I am taken back

To the night we met in the driving rain
We never looked so good again
And everything that breathes
Whispered you'll love me

Fire From Heaven

I know how to get blood from a stone that was a heart. You soak it in red wine and Chicago blues 'til it breaks apart.

And by this alchemy, I see a million men marching to a cause.

Works And Days

Some lies we tell. Others, too precious to divulge, must be preserved as if in amber and sealed with weary sighs.

Of our common senses, which are most useful? Those which help us pass as normal, so we're not alone on Saturday night.

Of the joys we're allowed, some are too dear to name.

There Are Joys

And then she asked me, "Where is your head?"
Not in the clouds, I said.
"Then it must be in its usual place.
   All things that rise one day must converge."

All Things That Rise

I watched as she undressed,
The candle light in full caress.
Her contours held my twin desires:
To possess her or quench my fear in fire.

Shadowdance

You were so near, she thought you were with her. But dusk light is suspect.

You were gonna reach out. But watching her walk in fading light along the shore was too seductive not to savor.

Twilight, shimmer, shorelines... something else is required.

Now I Am The Dusk

An angel keeps track of every time you've ever held back. Every time you didn't sin and shout. Every song you wouldn't sing-out.

The time has come to find that house where you learned to calm down. Take a sledge and raze it to the ground.

I'll Be a Rebel

At autumn's shore, wet with melancholy,
Damned to undress this day forever,
A question rolls in my mind,
Like the pebble in my hand poised to slice the wind.

That Vanishing Day

Won't you come with me and watch for the Pleiades?
They're rising in the East, a tiara flung upon the seas.
Yes, I know you could name all the windmills I have slain,
But give me until the stars rise one more time.

I sold my Strat... the Les Paul, too.
You'd be surprised. It was easy to do.

The Pleiades

Should it be I haunt your waking dreams and you're lost in thought all day. Then, go alone to our sacred place, our ringing realm of wild delight.

Should It Be

I see myself at the head of a fool's parade
Just me and this torch, round and round a hollow charade.
Me and a plan and a diamond-cut happy life:
I saw myself growing old with you by my side.

I see myself walking rainy, wind-swept streets
A displaced soul on the docks with Terry Malloy.

Terry Malloy

I take back my words... the ones that won't obey. And, no, I don't know why souls choose to hang out inside bodies. Perhaps we put them into a smoky trance. And then they finally wise up and fly off.

Take Back My Words

I'll have you know I've long forsaken
Our summer haunts, distant as I am.
Well-shook of specters...
You were wild, then.
Free as a falcon's fall
Sweet as lark-song from the sky.

Time's Arrow

Twilight, so long dying. 
A pale orange-tinged lingering. 
The night dripping itself onto a canvas.
Heat lightning in the distance... thunder.
And when the rain arrives, you can't sleep for all its grace.

Redemption

No longer shall the sun be thy light by day,
Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee;
But the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light,
And thy God thy glory..

Elegy

Then she told me that I could have
Anything I want if I played it right.
I could tell the world I slept with her,
My iridescent vision of fog and light.

Then she told me I was afraid 
To make love to her in an open field.
I told her that I was afraid
She’d never make love ‘til she learned how to feel.

Then She Told Me

About the time that the season turned, you refused my calls.
And every leaf to strike the ground
Carried with it each tiny effort
I made to save
This child of longing we share..

Gratitude

For a home to be a home, I'm told,
One needs a straw-broom seven centuries old.

It took years of dust passing through us
For you and I to come so unmoored.
And, now, no one home is quite home enough.

It's Hard To Tell

Look at us, under a battered moon,
Sheltered by its cool glow.
Distilling truth from catchy tunes,
Mining AI veins of fools gold.

I hate this world of homeless children,
Why can't they be waifs again?
Silly me! I've lived my life
Like a smile tossed off with a pick-up line.

Maybe I'll Never Change

When both of you are lost in the dreamy indolence you've conjured from your intersecting, boring trajectories...

When you trigger each other's self-absorption...

Be sure that you've become each other's chill-catalyst.

Who will surface first?

Lotus Girl

Have you ever seen a star
Fading like a dream in the dawn?
Have you ever been a star so alone,
So bright, so far away?
No, I don't think I'll ever compose myself.

Seen A Star

Look what I found scrounging through the dusty
     bones of Cindertown.
A seraph of shame, searching for the shred of
     a song I used to sing.
Not that I care, but what became of this
     orphaned hope, who liked to pretend
That the bones were hers, and the song her blood?

Ciindertown

I will become this fire, this spirit old;
I will become kinetic, whispered gold;
I will try to live on earth without you,
Among the ash, who drift without being told.

Can it be but by deft design,
That the sun and moon each fill an eye?
One to hide our spite in splendor.
The other bathes our loss in languid tender.

1990

We practice the art of cheating fate,
But we live too little and chance too late,
And just like a talking head of state,
Whose missiles for peace will vanquish hate,
Our words follow us to ruin.

Words To Ruin

I had it all in a bright shining lie with
     heroes singing psalms of praise to me.
Then you asked my how - in a world
     floating in its tears -
I could make self-pity a career.

Senorita

She never looks in mirrors. She can read how put-together she is in her friends' eyes.

Doesn't recall meeting him; he insists they have. But, whatever... He's at the screen door. With each slippery grin, each off-kilter gesture, she feels her blood cool. He refuses to leave without her. He tells her he lives in her secrets.

Your Secret's Safe

A wise woman speaks in runes at the start of your quest. Is it Truth, only seen if felt?  Or merely vainity?

Ste. Joan, tossing cherry bombs,  leads you across a river. The misted and bright mystery might yet come down to Beauty and Longing. But Passion is no-man's land, requiring a woman's torch, and the beat of an ancient drum.

Passion

And I can't see the point of fighting
Fear with fear,
Our sacred, holy terror.

And there's nothing left of a falling star
To set in a charm
And etch her name upon.

Sodomy

A thousand years or more are here
Strung together with angel hair
A lonesome sigh and tear-glistened eye
In loyal employ to my whitest lie.

She likes to praise the ordinary strange
Scold her friends grown indifferent in a day
Mocks the cool kids with their blockhead-chains
Stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the #neveragains

A Thousand Years

I was born, oh boy, during a rave on. Learned me to dance all night and day with Carol on Route 66. Took a job as Cathy's clown. Bagged groceries with the new breed for Papa to buy a ticket to ride to catch the surf with Rhonda. But she left me for Nathan Jones, so I hung out with Mr. Pitiful by the dock of a bay, where I scored a hit off a tambourine man and floated eight miles high, from where I saw the next world war being staged out on Highway 61

Under a risin' bad moon, I hitchhiked with a fortunate son to the Morrison Hotel only to be exiled on Main Street. I was discovered by Ziggy Stardust, who gave me fame and turned me into a young American.

In the December of boyhood, I hooked up with a September gurl and we jammed underground through the streets of a strange town to record the dreams of children. But London called and she and Alison were recruited into Oliver's army, when it was determined that their aim was true.

I, on the other hand, met a super girl and drowned in summer's cauldron, until I found my mission and resigned as clown to become mayor of Simpleton.

Lately, I've been getting my hell-on and recovering that teenage feeling by hanging out with Margaret and Pauline in the middle of a cyclone.

Brian Wapole

Pinned to spotlight

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