1. Forget Nothing

2. Just A Bone Fracture

3. Old Friend

4. Biorobots

5. Trickster Wind

6. Now I've Forgotten Everything

 

Forget Nothing

 

Forget nothing

Unless you find a reason to

Give yourself over

To the cold, empty cry

Of the undead wind

And the river Lethe

 

Which journals have you filled

With meaningless nonsense and poetry?

Whose ears have you filled

With your crimes and your crises?

Are you sorry for them?

 

All those wasted hours

All those trampled flowers

Are you sorry for them?

 

Forget nothing

Unless you find a reason to

Give yourself over

To the cold, empty cry

Of the undead wind

And shut yourself up.

 

Just A Bone Fracture

I just wanted an epiphany

But it’s not that simple

Saw your spirit dancing in the street

How I wonder where you are

 

Empty cry,

Cold and blue inside

Empty cry,

Cold and blue inside

 

Kids with skeletons on their backs

Believe they are invincible

But those bones you see out in the yard

Well they used to be kids

 

Empty cry,

Cold and blue inside

Empty cry,

Cold and blue inside

 

Old Friend

 

Old friend, where have you gone?

And are you ever coming back again? Old friend.

 

Sometimes,  sometimes I feel like you’re still here with me

Even though it would be impossible

To see you again, Old friend

 

What sights have you seen

In the years I haven’t seen you?

Who have you loved and

To whom have you gifted you heart

For safe keeping and then dropping

In the middle of the intersection?

 

sometimes I feel like you’re still here with me

and that I haven’t been desanguinated

and that’s not the stain my heart left behind

in the middle of the road

I feel like you’re still here with me

in the middle of the road

 

Biorobots

After the melt down

They sent them

To collect the missing pieces

16 candles and a soccer game

blown up and away

Still burning

 

Ignorance is bliss

Ignorance is bliss

 

No one wants to be a biorobot

No one wants to be a biorobot

Destined to be embraced

By the cold sarcophagus

 

Crawling to the roof

Kingdom of nuclear tragedy

You will fall under the weight of our bodies

Let the biorobots tend to their graveyard alone

No body wants to see the problem

And if they do they just say they don’t

Cover it in ash

Throw it away

Trickster Wind

Avalanche! I name you. I have seen you

charging down the hillside

 

as eagle, as wolf, as wailing child.

You are a cascade of paper and hurtful words,

coating me in soot

and leaving me smothered.

Bleeding fingers claw uphill

through a downward storm.

 

Somehow, I love you.

Somehow I love you.

Somehow, I love you.

Somehow I love you.

But you were left behind.

 

I carry a sphere made of twine,
barbed wire, and alien fire,
(I hear the screams of the sons

struck down,)

 

Patience and fortitude held hands in my body

Until exhaustion and disillusionment

Invited them out

And slipped something

In their drinks

 

Avalanche! I name you. Avalance! I have seen you

You are nothing now

A play thing

For the trickster wind

Through each of earth’s corners

You are blown

Crying out

But no one sees you

Now I've Forgotten Everything

 

 

Now I’ve forgotten everything

The world is calm and still

I have no one to worry about

I have no tears to spill

 

Now I’ve forgotten everything

My mind is black and clean

I have no pain to cry about

I have no joy, no dreams

 

Now I’ve forgotten everything

Your face is nothing real

Were you someone I sang about?

Now there is nothing to feel

 

Nothing has power over me

Now that I’ve forgotten

I am free

 

Now I’ve forgotten everything

The world is calm and still

I have no one to sing about

I have no mind to fill

 

Now I’ve forgotten everything

The world is calm and still

I have no one to sing about

I have no mind to fill

 

 

1. Impossible Sea
2. Samuel and Rain
3. Red Dwarves
4. Eight Years Here
5. Who Cares?
6. Stupid Love
7. Rain on a Mirror
8. Places You've Been
9. Impossible Sea Part 2

 

Impossible Sea

Oh wide eye

You set me right

You guided me this far

You will guide me on

 

I am no one

On this anonymous planet

And yet somehow

I feel there is a plan for me

 

And then he walks onto the train

In a city of millions

He’s right there in front of me

We formed the calm of the storm

In the impossible sea

Now what could that mean?

 

We parted ways

I am searching for him happily,

My silent one, my everywhere heart,

My nowhere one, the glimmer in the

Shadow of the song inside the chamber my ghost heart,

You set me right.

 

Samuel and Rain

 

Rain posts her photographs all over the internet,

brown curls obscuring her face the way Samuel would like them to

because faces do not matter and photographs are liars, anyway.

 

She is anonymous and I know her well, the one he used to love

back when my fingers were just getting hard and his hair was still long,

her scent still fresh in his car,

 

Rain was the one I admired without ever seeing her face,

she never returns what is given to her,

and she never goes back to the place where she knows she'll be loved,

and this is truer than what really happened between them,

because it's a song!

 

Rain shakes the trunks of the trees to gather their fruit

and she chews on the meat and spits back the seeds

and that's how more trees grow.

 

Red Dwarves

Flaming red hair and emerald green eyes

A constellation of tattoos

Somehow I’m still stuck in songs about

red hair, green eyes,

 

I dream of constellations

I dream of conversations,

But we're strangers till we die

 

I dream of constellations

I dream of confrontations

We’re strangers till we die

 

Your apathy has glued my teeth together

In your eyes I’m nothing real

I see the signs, your signals blind me,

But I don’t want to know what they mean

 

Hourglass, hourglass, you’re frozen at last

Somehow I am just like you

Frozen in the moment

In the kitchen with the cigarettes on the table

In the darkness with the red dwarves in the window

You had a bottle to your lips

Whose turn is it to speak?

 

I dream of constellations

I dream of conversations

But we're strangers till we die

 

I dream of constellations

I dream of confrontations

We’re strangers till we die

 

Eight Years Here

Do you remember what it was like to be

 that wide eyed?  Do you remember what

 it was like to be that wide eyed little

 critter?  Crying laughter and laughing

 tears, two songs on the head of a pin,

 do you remember two songs in a tiny

 body?

 

What can you say?  Would you hold

 her in that fragile place?  That bitter,

 bipolar state when she’s barking and

 biting?  What can you say?  When she

 shows you in that playful way how her

 darkness casts shadows taller than her

 eight years here.

 

They say in Autumn the veil between the

worlds is thin.  But to some, the veil is

thin every day, every day.  Do you

remember summer tantrums, when you

willed yourself to stop your breath?  Do

you remember death alive in

your body?

 

What can you say?  Would you hold

her in that fragile place?  Her speechless,

unstable grace as she crumbles and

rises?  What can you say when she

shows you how she can hold so still, and

her belly a stony round, almost under the

ground?

 

Who Cares?

I had him but I never had him

He had me but didn’t care

He slept in my bed

And I slept in his bed

He had me but didn’t care

 

I had him but had to let him wander

He had me but didn’t care

I was always waiting for him to come inside

He had me but didn’t care

 

I had him but couldn’t hold on

He had me but didn’t care

He found his way underneath the covers

He had me but didn’t care

 

I had him but he had to check out early

He had me but didn’t care

I remember how he used to lie there next to me

He had me but didn’t care

 

I had him but I never had him

He had me but didn’t care

I would have done anything, anything at all,

He had me but didn’t care

Stupid Love

I read your blog backwards

So the story gets sweeter

Becoming small again

Discovering our love

There’s a sweetness that stings

Until you’re toothless and swollen

There’s a sickly rattle

The color of old pain

 

I miss our stupid love

6 years gone

Even though more petals have grown

Even though I know better now

 

I miss our stupid love

Waving to me as I fall,

Stomach churning, hard hearted

“You used to be so small.”

 

You fall for girls in cities

Big enough to hold your dream,

And between the bed and curtain

You cooked supper and tended fires

But you’re not the only Alice

chasing rabbits, tasting shortbread,

I was just as scared and new

To this ugly world as you

 

I miss our stupid love

6 years gone

Even though more petals have grown

Even though I know better now

I miss our stupid love

Asleep in attic walls

Whispering through their dreaming

“When did you grow so tall?”

 

Rain on a Mirror

Samuel,

you’ve loved and lost and now

you’re burning your old sweaters.

I remember sky blue wrappings

Around your torso and bare feet against your ancestors,

like a holy man.

 

But when you look up

you always see her walking away

to the sound of flutes,

mysterious to you.

When you look up

you feel the cavities, the crevices,

and the certainty of the world

being swallowed whole.

 

Saul was

the merchant who sold you that old chain,

the bronze one with the pendent.

you wanted to wear it for a week

before you put it ‘round her neck,

so she’d always remember the warmth of your body.

 

But when you look up

you feel the clasp has molded to your skin,

painfully, joyfully,

a constant reminder.

And when you look up

you know that you will wear it all your life,

your reverence and your awe

like a locket open to the sky,

until it’s time to die.

 

and don’t you dare apologize,

and don’t you dare apologize,

and don’t you dare apologize,

and don’t you dare apologize,

and don’t you dare apologize,

 

You feel her heart is beating in your heart,

painfully, joyfully,

like rain on a mirror.

You know that you will have them all your life,

your poppy seeds and your memories,

your poppy seeds and your memories.

 

Places You've Been

I say hello to the places you've been.
Wave hello.  Our footsteps have long since faded.

Wave hello
Our conversations are lost
Out voices no longer fit them

Wave hello
to a laughing gravestone
with a stone rose
and a stone girl

I say smile and say hello

 

Impossible Sea Part 2

A thousand times I’ve wondered

What your life has become.

I swore I’d never write any more

Songs about where I thought you were

And how you spent your time

But here comes one more

 

I used to like to be stuck

In the haunted house

With a card board cutout doorway

And a fog machine

I scared myself to death

 

Oh wide eye

You set me right

You guided me this far

You will guide me on

I’m just so tired tonight

I’m calling off the dogs

If you want me

You know where to find me

I’m sleeping in the forest

My spine against the earth

I’m not lost

I don’t know where you are

I’m not lost

Sing it a thousand times

No, I’m not lost

And I don’t care where you are anymore

 

 

1. No Bread (The Choir Takes A Breath)
2. Love Letter To A Friend
3. We Read About The Snow
4. Innocence Song
5. My Nervous Ways
6. I Shut My Mouth
7. When We Were Monkeys

8. Wishful Eyes -- by Jeff Mangum/Neutral Milk Hotel

No Bread (The Choir Takes A Breath)

What’s the point of memory

If you relive the world so differently

Close your eyes and introduce yourself to yourself again

And what of my heart and it’s license to warm

All my sinews and my bones

With the thought that the day could have ever been different,

The light been brighter.

You think you know the world you abandon

Each night for the oblivion of your slumber

Yet your songs change each time that you sing them

There’s no yarn to trace, no tracks in the snow,

No bread crumbs to guide you home  (x3)

There’s no yarn to trace, no tracks in the snow,

No bread

Somewhere, your feet are touching

The ground

Your eyes consider the skies,

And I’ve yet to swear you off

Each and every injured bird

Near-death on the highway

A green tattoo of a multi-pointed star

These are the things you left

When you left

A map to a place that cannot be

There’s no yarn to trace, no tracks in the snow,

No bread crumbs to guide you home

There’s no yarn to trace, no tracks in the snow,

No bread

 

Love Letter To A Friend

Here I am

Searching your face for a sign of myself

Your words for a song I know

Hello, Absalom,

I said to the impossible changing of you

To the resounding of hemlines re-sewn

As word, I am searching my future and resting

Your words for a sight of myself

Worded across table tops in water drops

Worded across table tops in water drops

 

We Read About The Snow

We read about the snow.

When it melts, where does it go?

Birds perch silent, sleeping tree waits

to be dressed in a wedding dress,

settling, softening the ground

of harsher sounds.  Time has

lost its shoes.  Lucky feet!

You can't feel the cold if

you don't have skin, which

flake was the first to fall,

where did it land? And somewhere

there is sand in an hourglass.

I returned to you.

'Though you were green, I was blue,

I felt as though I had cheated you,

I never knew your snow.

 

Innocence Song

8 am, walking through the cafeteria,

I see little ones sitting in rows,

waiting to walk through the hallway

in two lines, girls on the wall,

boys on the white stripe. 

I believe in innocence.

I believe in innocence.

I believe in innocence.

Yesterday you walked in the rain,

today you’re still soaked.

I believe in innocence.

11 am, walking on the black top,

I see little ones scattered amongst

basket ball hoops and the stumps of trees.

A boy has removed his belt, and bent it

into the weapon of his nightmares.

A crack resounds through the spring wind.

I believe in innocence.

I believe in innocence.

I believe in innocence.

Yesterday you walked in the rain,

today you’re still soaked.

I believe in innocence.

2 pm, sitting on the carpet,

I see little ones slumped over,

knees bent or splayed.  I hear myself

try to speak over the cloud of their screams.

Twice I slap the book against my knees.

Twice I slap the book against my knees.

I believe in innocence.

I believe in innocence.

Yesterday you walked in the rain,

today you’re still soaked.

I believe in innocence.

My Nervous Ways

Like wood bound into pages,

petrified in our cages,

we hold still and are read.

Word swallows word,

letters fall, toys in the dark,

down the stairs, into artless piles.

You rudely opened the cover

laid your eyes all over,

ran fingers down our spine,

on a cold, crisp October

morning, you taught us

to rhyme.

A shame, when our words

sought to shock,

pairing blood vein with rock –

you found rhythm (and rhyme,) and time

when we sought to sour ears and lips

at the sound of our din.

How dare you spend time

taking us in.  We want to be cast off

as shadow, as dead skin. 

But now a message lives on forever.

God bless swallowed screams,

and the sand and the waves,

And our fingers, which have long suffered

my/our nervous ways.

I Shut My Mouth

Why did you play with me

the way that you did?

I am no lute to be handled,

Lusted and then forgotten

in dusty corners with the crumbs.

You loosened the threads

and pulled them tight too quickly,

you warped my fine wood

and then made me sing.

I wanted to say

“I hoped to see you

on that Sunday

in the café,”

but I shut my mouth

 for fear of the flies

flying into open holes.

I never know what to say.

Or how to say.  Or when to say,

you’re beautiful,

but I will not say it today.

I cannot say it today.

When We Were Monkeys

When we were monkeys,

we lived on our hands,

in mid-air, gracefully

by the hairs of our tails. 

We looked at the world

upside down. We were proud,

but not too proud. The sky

was the ground.

Now we expect too much,

and we are frightened.

The walls do not meet.

The floor forces me

to stumble over

my feet - I am lucky

if I find myself standing

at all. Where did my grace go?