You put pavement on the door
pressed your hand in before it was set
A handprint on a door that won’t open ‘

I’m a compass and you’re the pin
I won’t know true north again
A compass with no direction

Breathing fire but forgot the flame
A mouthful of kerosene
but no spark to light it on

I’m saying all the right things wrong
I’m doing what can’t be undone
I’m saying all the wrong things right
being right’s not the point

Getting old is like getting overlaid
negatives on top of negatives
a black frame where memories are supposed to be

These lines on a river bed
Are older than the what’s adrift
What’s young gets moved, what’s old gets scarred

The friends of the lover that I left
Are the one’s I see and have nothing to say
True north, it’s where 
she has gone
It hurts, with time
because I forget the wrong and miss the right

I’m saying all the right things wrong
I’m doing what can’t be undone
I’m saying all the wrong things right
being right’s not the point

Portico

True North

It’s hard to be friends when you once were in more
It hurts that piece of her that’s stuck in your mind
As time moves it gets smooth like glass in the sand
I want to pick you up, close my palms and not get cut

Can I settle down
the way gravity falls?
Those craters on the moon
consume me. 

It’s hard to be friends when you once were more
It ends you split your friends, know  a ghost of her life
Memories get buried deep in your head
They resurrect when you least expect like a cloud-break moon

Will I stem the tide
of this growing divide?
Those canyons on the moon
consume me.

It’s hard to be friends when you once were lovers
The way you spend weekends, the way you find new lovers
It all compounds, swirling like sand dunes
Until your lost seeking answers from the moon

Will I recognize
a past I’d rather hide? 
The light off the moon
consumes me.

It’s hard to be friends when you once were more
It’s hard to be friends when you once were more

Sea Glass

Lady and the tramp the noodle of life with me
Meet in the middle blush when we do 
Fall asleep in grass beside me
Wake up damp and say damn this dew
Bury me to my neck at the beach
Build my body parts androgynously
Get a big shopping cart at the grocery
Go at midnight buy just two things 

Before I get old and boring
And I’ve had enough experience
Give me things that are new
Give me random shit to do, random shit to do

Live in the past the laundromat with me
Just bring nickels say things aren't what they used to be
Wrap blankets around me while you get cold
Then grab me tight call me hot potato
Lay awake in bed with me
I'm up too not talking
Get upset with me for being me
Leave at 3am never see me again 

Before I get old and boring
And I’ve had enough experience
Give me things that are new
Give me random shit to do, random shit to do

To Do

My feet in a snow melt pond
Or my stomach grazing the Atlantic
Before a frozen plunge
What’s cold starts to feel warm

Down Roxboro you asked if i could love you
i told you that i could, that i might already
If it feels
like rain falling up from
clouds under my feet
then i probably do

Days so cold the roads turn icy
Wheels spinning, my feet slipping
Spend a whole day walking
Chased by ghosts, or am I chasing them

And there’s a lot that
i could do better
And there’s a lot
that i wish I was
The parts I like all feel stolen
Haunted by ghosts, or am I haunting mine

and what my heart pumps out
it comes back but blue and empty
and what I give out
it comes  back blue and empty

Blue and Empty

Before it’s over look at me hard
Grab my wrists and feel them throb
Without a past, we’d all be pure
Without mistakes, we’d all be bored
and nothing would hurt or be worth our time

Falling in love is circumstance
I just practice then warm the bench
These mistakes they resurrect
Always starting from a deficit 
Stay gone, stay gone

This small town is a minefield I’ve set
Chance encounters are landmine steps
Am I the worst, for the things I did
Am I the worst, for what’s in my head
Stay gone, stay gone what’s already lost

There’s a gap between the past and present
Now is not what happened
Stay gone, stay gone what’s already gone
Stay gone, stay gone what I’ve done

Stay Gone

It makes no sense
but it’s how you feel
That heavens fake
but your sins are real 

Your soul is crushed by 
your brains wheels
At the reins
Your old Devils 

A keen mind 
And an inward eye
Means your past wrongs
Are amplified

If you take your hurt
Seal it off inside
Then there's parts of you
That you'll never find 

Why are you crying
Don’t you realize
Clouds stacked up for a 
Dark sunrise Dark sunrise

If you're looking for signs 
In this pulsing world 
Then take your pick 
They're all around 

But they say more bout you
than the divine
Point all ways
all ways were right

All these regrets
They may seem like 
Clouds stacked up for a 
Dark sunrise Dark sunrise

There’s salvation in the gloom just before we split in two
The hardest part of loving you is that I don’t
Like a cloud break moon unafraid of solitude
It doesn’t matter what I’ll do but what I won’t

Why are you crying
Don’t you realize
Clouds stacked up for a 
Dark sunrise Dark sunrise

Dark Sunrise

First date starts in a van
with the windows down
and my favorite track

First date we’ll take roads
that wind through old farms
head for a Jesus camp

First date we’ll hide from the sun
in a pop up tent
hit by little scraps of light

First date we’ll make a meal
sprawled out on god’s field
I bet he cuts the way i do

It’s not the things I’ve done
But the thoughts just before them
All these ideas and plans
I think too hard and they never happen

First date we’ll discuss
books and jobs and stuff
the trappings of who we are

First date I’ll read a speech
act all wise and good
when who knows if i am	

First date you’ll be forewarned
that a kiss is planned
but i’m not saying when

First date we’ll soak our clothes 
in the wet hot air
a blanket i can’t take off

It’s not the things I’ve done
But the thoughts just before them
All these ideas and plans
I think so hard and they never happen

Next date is not assured 
but hey what is
still i’ve got a good feeling

Next date we’ll feed a horse
after we earn its trust
do both with open palms

Next date we’ll chase the moon
gripping our handlebars
eyes on starlit roads

Next date we’ll dig a hole
just for the heck of it
bury something we love

I sit around and think all day
And then I do things that are boring
But I’m dying quicker than I think
So I am done with redoing
I’m done with redoing

First Date

by the ocean i was alone
sleeping in a parking lot
waiting for the first ferry
an officer waking me

his flashlight
leading hungry eyes 
mosquitos pouring in

I said a cliche like
i won’t cause no harm
he said no trespassing

mostly counting heartbeat days
mostly being vain
indulging my waking dreams
i’m hardly getting sleep

The only one on a 12 car boat
dark water under me
a sunrise so delicate
a mosquito could siphon it

I set my camera on a tripod
so it could feel the 
same waves as me

i thought a cliche
like i could die right now
carried on the morning sea

when my eyes are open
i’m thinking hard
when my face is swollen
i’ve been stung

mostly counting heartbeat days
mostly being vain
indulging all my waking dreams
i’m hardly getting sleep

Mosquitos

The planets are cuticles
The crescent moon’s a hanging fingernail
And on the cosmic scale 
We’re just one molecule

But we have choices
when stars are dead before they're even born.

Stars are apples on trees
A sprawling orchard the galaxy
And on the cosmic scale 
We’re indistinguishable.

Are we eternal if we’re more free than
the infernos overhead

The fact that I can change
be more than physics in a brain
and still be looking for what won't come
what won’t come to be

That I am so small
when I what need is invisible
The cosmic scale makes no difference when I’m  lost
The cosmic scale makes no difference when I’m 


A scale I can’t conceive 
That each choice
weighs more than

The matter that dwarfs me
and lightyears are
second thoughts

The cosmic scale is inconceivable
Oh the cosmic scale

This future won’t unfold
leaves me wondering what else will come
Stars are the gaps that closed
A universe of lives I won’t know
A universe of lives I won’t know

A scale I can’t conceive
between each breath
is a wormhole’s depth

To be nothing
just cosmic dust
but feel so much

The cosmic scale is inconceivable
Oh the cosmic scale has me feeling smaller than I am

Cosmic Scale

I feel raisin when I’m supposed to feel grape
Could use a pickup from a patron saint
Like brother Andre a little oil for my case
I see no reason not to take it straight from the vase
No reason not to bathe like the Romans bathed

When theres a baby crying on your plane can you be soothed
Knowing its probably more uncomfortable than me or you
An extra virgin in my bedroom some find it strange
It seems that being strange doesn’t sustain 
No reason not to bathe like the Romans bathed

This indivisible indivisible arc
Like what happened before didn’t occur

I try to avoid words like crazy or weird
There’s gotta be better adjectives than these
I figure if I chisel out what really happened
I’ll know much more and so will my conversation companion
No reason not to bathe like the Romans bathed

livenigma

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