Icebound Stream

Watch, i can flash across the sky
A lightning bolt from up on high
And i can crash into myself
Now a flower blooms in reverse
And a song takes back a verse
A photograph fades to white

I can hold a thunderhead in my heart
And in my bed i can dream a winter’s gale
And wake up drenched
A stormy pale, a stormy pale

A battered heath on the shore
Will make her keep and wait for more
But underneath her icebound stream
The water pours, the water pours

I can hold a thunderhead in my heart…

Rapture

With photographs
And magnetic tape
We capture
Pretty animals in cages
Pretty flowers in vases
Enraptured

And doesn’t the tree
Write great poetry?
Doing itself so well

Do you blame monet?
His gardens in giverny
He captured
And lovely basho
His plunking ponds and toads
Enraptured

The fate of kurt cobain
Junk coursing through his veins
And young virginia woolf
Death came and hung her coat

Love of color, sound and words
Is it a blessing or a curse?
Enraptured

Lonely Angel Dust

The rose is not afraid to blossom
Though it knows its pedals must fall
And with its pedals fall seeds into soil
Why toil to contain it all?
Why toil at all?

Ice crystals form from flakes of heaven
Fall down weightless to the earth
To them it’s worth the falling
Through atmospheres a-dawning
And open arms a-calling
To collect and protect all the raining
Insane from above
The lonely angel dust
The only angel does…

The Cloud Room

Music in the air
Plucked from the centuries
Presented in the form
Of a song by you to me
Seagull in the air
Floating on the updraft
See me on the ground
Think i just heard her laugh

Up in the air
Up there, up there, in the air

Twelve floors up
In the camlin hotel
Man at the piano
Plays songs for the clientele
Notes mingle out from his mouth
With the alcohol
Floating up to the stars
And circling through them all

Up in the air…

Topographic lines
Come close together
Imagine the peaks
And the stormy weather
Trees fade to white
And boulders just might
Make an appearance
If the sun shines just right

Up in the air…

Wind Is Blowing Stars

Clear as ice, oh clear as ice
Dripping down from a rock
Spring will come and so will fall
All my enemies have finally fled
They’ve finally fled and gone

Take your pick, oh take your pick
And dig into the earth
You’ll find a muted pearl its worth
It will never self-disclose
It’s your job to dig and polish you know

All the colors spin, all the colors spin
Blackness from a pitcher pours
Stars come blowing through the door
Your eyes they mirror pools of ink
Your heart and mind combine to drink
From the puzzle’s trough
But the troubles can be solved

Take jumps in wintry lakes
Feel the water’s skin and face
Huddle up close nice and tight
We might absorb enough moonlight
Your kiss adorns a neighbor strange
Who’s one of us again, again
The wind is blowing stars my friend
The wind is blowing stars!

Shadow Blues

There’s a shadow beneath the sea
There’s a shadow between you and me
I’ve learned that love is scared of light
Thousand seeds from a flower
Blowing through the night

Your blackened kiss on my cheek
Your blackened kiss runs river deep
A stranded fish dear, i’m on the sand
Blue water from a pool
Up to the clouds i’ll land

Though i am dark ‘bout the whys of wanting
Though i am dark, i’m still a child
Gonna dig a coal mine, climb down deep inside
Where my shadow’s got one place to go
One place to hide…

Snow Camping

I saw the violet turn to night
I saw the water turn to ice
A thousand snowflakes hovered ‘round me
The world aglow

I heard a distant songbird singing
A song the words i used to know
And as the melody went ringing
I felt my bones on the rocks below
The weighted trees of my only home

With brother sleeping right beside me
The blankets pulled up to his chin
The makeshift snow cave settled slightly
But held us in and sheltered us
Like mom and dad, they always helped us

Chimney Sweeping Man

I’m a chimney sweeping man
You see the black lines
On the backs of my hands
I planted all the gardens
I sent off all the hand-typed letters
To the empty shells on high
How i want to make things better

Maybe you thought i’d be president
With my cheshire grin, high iq
And charming baby blues
Well i’m a lowland forest resident
With lime in the outhouse
And black grime for tattoos

I try to make things better
I try to make things mine
I write a lot of letters
To pass the time

I pulled three hundred rocks
From the land to build my house
I walk quiet through the forest
Like a tiny quiet forest mouse

I’m a chimney sweeping man
You see the black lines
On the backs of my hands

Salvage A Smile

Dead eye from the wood of life
Hold the ropes and the rigging lines
Red-eye a.m. Here i lie
Shipwreck passing underneath
What of the sailor and her spinning wheel?
What was she thinking being
Swallowed by the water whole?

Red on the left, green on the right
You can see me coming in the morning light
Brass and glass and rusted iron
Sextant here for the heavenly bodies
Compass here but the needle’s shot
Magnetic deviation screws me up

Break the glass from your hanging lanterns
Break the sea with your blackened anchors
And you might end up a floating junk pile
But you can always scramble to salvage a smile

Riptide

Riptide pulls me out into the open sea
My toes dangle for a place to stand and be

Oh starry night come and chart a course
Or send me a boat with an anchor set
I’ll pull myself ashore

Left with essence
Of the moon and stars and night
There’s no other route
I cannot take self to flight
I’ll float here with the shrimp and brine
And on my cheeks and hair
The salt will always shine
And with this phosphorescence map
A sailor’s chart a mermaid’s hand
Something i’ll find

Oh starry night come and chart a course…