Country Sounds

You are welcome to these words,
Out there, in the heavy night, roaming;
You are welcome indeed, O nameless brother,
So be still;

I know how the sun shines differently;
These sepia weeks are mine too;
And I know that your dying wish was to live
One more hour, just one more;

But I would kill you again, brother,
Just the same;
So gather your chains,
And leave me my pretty ashes

A Scrap Of Paper, Reclaimed

Standing in awe before a streetlight
All around, darkness mingling
With the ghosts I knew by name
Brushing up against a cone of illumination
Silent, silent;

Above, a red moon howling
Shearing stars, already dead
Themselves ghosts,
Masquerading as angels;
Their glimmering remains
Not unlike the light I sat beneath
Half a warm night, wondering
Where they end and I begin

Twenty Feet Of Ice

I'll never lose you
That's not how it happens;
You'll simply vanish
And all the reasons we'll weave,
Drunk on cleverness
Amount, in the end
To nothing at all
Except, maybe, our shared solitude
Born, as we are
So alone, elemental
Natural, and pure
Like the fading glory
Of a great glacial tide
Receding for the last time
Into memory;
But these journeys go on
Joining mountains with the sea
Carving continents like paper hearts
Everywhere, divided;
The spirits we see or don't see
Are brought together in time
Rock and water
Valley and sky;
Not finding is a blessing
Not searching, better still;
When I stopped to rest, and found you
Something in me disappeared
And now, lighter,
I can walk a little faster
Overland,
Distant and dreaming
To my northern home

Lawrence Was Here

For a long time it seemed like things had shifted
No more mountains crowded my imagination
And the river had long since vanished
Leaving a void desolation too terrible to contemplate
Only the scars of the past to remind me that I had lived
Like black jewels in the dust
Of a desert so far reaching and hopeless
I could hardly bear the sight of it~

But it seems an oasis can be actual or illusory
In the spirit of the seeker
I saw yours and knew I was saved, or doomed
And stayed my course in hope of something, anything
A little water, a little food
Perhaps a circle of shade to make my death easier
And in all my struggling, it seemed worthwhile
To follow the rising sun~

What We Take And Choose To Leave

I walked gently along cushioned streets
Stopping every so often to reach out my hand
For I was blind, in my dreaming
And reckoned the world by touch
Feeling the presence of objects unseen
The imposing mass of a house
The perceptible sway of passing trees
Though seemingly bound for some final end
I was content with the journey

A coastal wind, ocean scented and familiar
Swept me confidently along my path
And in my mind, it was a golden river
Filled with things half forgotten
The sad voices of the past
Swirling in the currents which surrounded me
Permeating so deep it was like a bonding
And in my sudden lucidity, I understood
That no journey is defined by its end

Front Porch Blues

None of my poems are ever finished
They simply grow and become strange
A syllable here, a comma there
Until all I can recognize is my own incompleteness~

As though I could ever write enough
To tie the whole monstrous thing together
This mass of memory and defeat,
Love and it's consequences~

All of it defies capture
Like some semi domesticated beast
Familiar, but still very dangerous
Barely suppressing it's natural violence~

Nothing honest is meant to be chained
I understand that much
And if we are insane, then let it be a liberation
Let it be a reason to live~

No Need For Sequels

I'm alone now on waves of terrible nostalgia
For places I will never see again
And perhaps never really knew in the first place
Only this pain in my chest to keep me awake~

I've swallowed the raw promises of life
Chasing each bitter mouthful with fine wine
And living hard within a silence too deep to define

There's no way to see past these walls tonight
How many miles now separate us
How many trials, verdicts and appeals?
A confused wind knocks at the window~

Then a voice of reason from my bedside drawer
Thoreau is expounding his pondless lament
With a comb for a table, and a sock for a tent