4 b a

On a scale of one to ten
you are off the chart.
I couldn't love you any more
if I had another heart.

But I'm fighting an uphill battle
That's becoming a slippery slope
So out manned and so undermined.
So clearly you're not so inclined.
Still I'm long on faith if short on hope.
So clarity will need be its own reward.
Dots gone largely unconnected.
deceptions deservedly undetected.
I am there for you.
I am, therefore, you.

If i didn't know better
I'd dare believe you care for me.
If I didn't know any better
I'd swear every evening
the sun is lost at sea.
But I pray that the day
is still heading this way
When I'll know the hour is right.
Somethings like these
are never planned.
Who fingers love
as second hand?
But if the old gloves fit
And you find your wit still about you
I'd think that I could live without you
But I should know better.

Couldn't I put this in reverse if I try?
We must move forward or let a promise die
I never thought I'd have an 'only one' again.
On a scale of one to ten
this one is off the chart.
you own my only heart.

untitled no 5

Are you aloof because
you don't or can not care?
And do you fear that sharing
means diminishing your share?
I assure you that my bite
is so much sweeter than my bark
so if ever you should shun the light
and cling to shadows in the dark
you mustn't be disturbed
to find me near.

I would calm the anxious currents
where your truant pillow sails
and count your breaths
until the very dawn itself exhales
the midnight's final, tragi-comic sigh.

No, I don't expect to pass
for one that meets
the measure of your dreams
but, is the place beside you taken?
Even after you awaken?
Or is the room where you reside
not near as lonely as it seems?

Land's end

It feels like Christmas eve
on Easter Island,
The presents pile around the tree.
Packages, like fancy pastries
afrost with shiny wrappings, beckon.
But none of them addressed to me.

It would be easier by far
to get through these days unscathed
If I didn't have to see them here,
picturing the pleasures they contain,
while cursing the secret names
of those for whom they wait.

Unlike the loves before
in which I've been,
I see quite clearly
the coordinates where myself ends
and you begins.
The very latitude and longitudes
themselves rail against
the thought of intersection.
It matters not how I may try
to cross from here to there,
and forge a single Us from out of two,
The status quo is doggedly determined
to remain: there is a Me
and then, there is a You.

Without a map or invitation
I cannot hope to comprehend
the outs and ins.
But it's like Christmas eve
on Easter Island
and I must pay
for my own sins.

wrong again

I was wrong when getting up today.
I'll still be wrong laid in my bunk,
or grave, later tonight.
I'm on the wrong side so consistently
wouldn't know how to behave
if I were right.

I never liked to have your
breakfast for my supper.
I never care to make
decisions after lunch.
I think I know what I'll be
getting for my birthday.
I say that now,
It's little comfort,
just a hunch.

I'm quite convinced
there's no convincing,
been this way
my whole life through.
And nothing anyone can do
will make amends

I'm going to end up
as the bad guy here
once the final credits roll.
No, not an anti-hero
or a tragic figure
or a 'crying on the inside' clown.
Just an ordinary villain
who shoots the leading lady down.

I never meant for it to be this way.
My handicap deserves honorable mentions.
The path to this, my home, sweet hell,
is paved with all the best intentions.

I didn't want to be your last resort,
aspired to grander station in your court.
But greater I shall never be;
It isn't in the cards for me.
And, if I'm not mistaken,
I'm wrong in everything I do:
wrong below and wrong above
for looking through these eyes of love.
Damned from left and
from the right, if ever you
should vanish from my sight.

neverland

What will you do
With this piece of information?
Where will you go
when the moon falls down?
What will you do with
this wisp of urban myth?
Some folks fly while
others drown.

What will you find
at the bottom of the ocean?
What will you see from the top of the hill?
What is in store for
the one with empty pockets,
empty heart, empty eyes
empty once, empty still.

If the final consolation prize
is all you are seeking
Remember that the earth
shall be inherited by the meek.
But what will the remnants be worth
when discarding the infant
with the afterbirth?

I've loved you all along and
I love you still.
I make no excuses and
I never will.

What will you do with this
piece of information?
What's getting through
on the wire 'tween me and you?
Dead letters and hopes stillborn.
One-sided desires to adorn
my humble canopy.
A Neverland which never was
and never is to be.
Though it's so easy to imagine
a life there, the fantasy
is quietly erasing me,
gradually.

unceremoniously

Throw me a bone
Romeo's cover has been suddenly blown
Just when he was gaining
on the great unknown.
Unceremoniously.
But it always seems to go round that way.
At least it tends to sound that way.
Here, where the deer and the antelope play.
Long ago
Was it me or you practicing
'Turn To Stone'?
For endless hours sitting all alone,
Unceremoniously.
It's a pity that I never thought to pray
For the deer and the antelope
In Mother Nature's transcendental way.

Home, home on the range.
Wonder why normal feels so ghastly strange?
Wonder what Romeo would have had to say
If not for Shakespeare standing in his way?
Unceremoniously.
Throw me a bone.
When you are gone
I'm gonna turn to stone.
I think I'm headed for that great unknown.
Sure as Poseidon sits atop his fishy throne.
Beneath the briny sea
Unceremoniously.
I'd sing his praises night and day
Where the squid and the jellyfish are said to play.
I ask the questions in a million ways
But the answers always coming out the same.
Home, home on the range

don't call me

Don't call me oozing doom

from your musky little room,

floating in a languid sea
of mucous and anxiety;

with persuasion's barrel

leveled squarely at your brow

don't call me like you done before,

don't call me that way now.

When sirens are wailing 
of low pressure systems staring down 
your hastily assembled
bag of supplies
and you're feeling like less than a
speck of dust in some
handsome stranger's eyes,
maybe then you will know why
you should not call.

After each and every venue

has been brazenly detoured,

till correspondents and old stand bys

have indelicately demurred

and every solitary safety hatch
has been otherwise secured.

Don't call me,

Don't call me,

Don't call me.

Forget my address
And my face
Forget the path that leads you
to this place.
Erase it from your memory
Forget it all
and please don't call.
The consequence is far too dear
and too predictable, I fear.

Don't mistake me for a tympani
next time you take a beating.
I know you've heard this all before
But for my sake it bears repeating.
Not in a while,
not even now and then
no, not if you are bleeding.

Just simply do not call,
don't call to me again.

O, please, by now

you must know how
this roundely will end.

Don't call me or
so help me...
You must take this to your heart
as a warning
Or as a threat
But this one thing you must remember
This one thing do not forget
Don't call me or, so help me,
I will come.
After all is said and
all is done,
don't call me,
if you call me
I will always come.

construction

Like the wolf in a fable I've been
grasping at straws.
You built your brick castle
on a long lost 'because'.
And so now who's afraid
and, well, who wouldn't be?

The wind is still blowing
but best save your breath.
All that huffing and puffery
scares the children to death.
And so now who's afraid,
and, well, who wouldn't be?
If it weren't for you,
if it wasn't for me.

So how does it go now
and howdyado?
Will I ever know now,
if ever you knew
that the way to the end
is the way it begins.
and if you'll believe, love hides
multitudinous sins:

That one of omission,
the one about pride.
I envy the one who
keeps nothing inside
and who follows their passion,
who leads with their heart
in irrational fashion,
forsaking all art.

So vacate that fortress
of thatch, twig or stone
but you better be ready
to go it alone.
For the sheeps in the meadow
the cows in the corn
and so it has been since
the day you were born.
But where do you go now
and howdyado?
If it weren't for me,
if it wasn't for you.

after all

you are the dissonance
in my harmony
the apathy for my ecstasy
the secret I can't share
the circle 'round my square

you were too early
for my late
the picket fence
embracing my garden gate
you are the need that would not want or wait,
my need that will not wait.

you are the sunstorm
in my endless night
the happenstance
to eternal plight
the wrong within my right.

the very thing I'm searching for
the silence answering my call
there you are and there you are
no more
I'll never find you after all
I never found you after all

No Choice

You leave me with
no space in which to turn myself
around. There's you in every place
I've been and everywhere I'm bound.
Declare myself free
only to see I'm with no
conceivable choice.
You've left me no choices.
You leave me no voice.

Some children make do very nicely
with what they have got
While others get by just as well
with what they have not
I'll be the informer for the
latter leads who can know where?
and so I'll choose the former for the ladder
leads into the thin and infinite air.

Like the lesser of evils
or the greatest of all of our fears:
to be loved or not to be -
all passion or pageantry -
and all the eventual tears.
Needing and wanting you so
and to know I'll be left as I am, alone.
there's only so much for which
one, although innocent,
 may falsely or truly atone

We're just wasting our time,
treading water in order to make
all the dearly departed so proud.
and where did it get us
for laughing or crying,
for laughing or crying out loud?
We're already played by this game
And the rules forbid changing
or challenging fate.
There's no going back to when,
if I never saw you again,
it would already have been too late.

Some folks could make do 'oh-so-nicely'
with what you've got.
The others would do even better
with what I have not.
You be the reformer and the
ladder will lead who knows where?
I'll take the former - the latter
just leads into the thin and the infinite air.

You leave me no spaces
in which to turn myself
around. You're in all the places
I've been and everywhere that I'm bound
Declare that I'm free only finding I hadn't a choice.
You left me no choices, you leave me no voice.
You left me no choices, you leave me no voice.

at the beach

In scenes where she is drowning
he is a life guard, though his figure
doesn't glisten or tower above the sand.
Sunglasses punctuate unremarkable eyes
that search the sea and stare.
Always he anticipates those cries,
at first like hungry sea birds,
calling above salty waves of despair:
the flailing and confusion;
the kiss of life and the compression
that forces the exchange
of unholy water for blessed air.
But he is neither such - the savior
nor physician, and heals not a soul,
least of all his own.
Returning to his post he forgets
the before, the after
and the in-between when
the bather is mostly content
to lay upon fresh, dry towel,
read her book
sipping raspberry tea.
Then is when he is simply
another pale old man,
tracing the tide
along the lost causeway
with his emotional amnesia in tow.

simple song of love

Days, even the best of them, well
it seems as all they ever do is pass -
like clouds across the pale blue skies,
or dragon flies,
skipping, over blades of grass.

But the days we've spent together
will never leave me.
The days we spend together
will never fade away completely.

Love, I don't know what it is
or what it's supposed to do.
All I know, all I ever know,
is how I feel when I'm with you.

Suspend your disbelief
for just an ordinary day.
Suspend your disbelief
and let defenses fall away.

You've gone about as far
as sleeping can be taking you.
Better now to find a kiss,
the one that will awaken you.
Better now to find a life,
a life you can awaken to

And the days we spend together
will never leave us or lead us astray.
the days we'll spend together
will never fade away.

Gypsy Fortune

I heard the word she set up shop
a couple exits down the pike.
I hadn't thought to seek her out
when I first rev'ed up my motor bike.
But I've always had these questions
and there's always been some doubt
and I'm not getting any younger
so it's time I find some means
of sorting it out.

The Gypsy vends the powder
in plastic vial on mirrored shelf
but before she gets to your fortune
she knows to sell you on herself.
Oh, the charms that she possesses -
So hypnotic, strong and pure..
With applications so damn clever,
why won't they work for me on her?

She gave me to the magic
that works, I've seen, just fine
but the only one I want now
isn't part of the design.
She exists outside the borders
She's the carrot on the stick
she exists between the line
like where the window meets the brick
and it's only an illusion
but the illusion's not a trick.
It's all just an illusion,
but the illusion is not a trick.

Yeah, I heard the word
she closed up shop
Now there's only echoes there.
in an empty strip mall storefront
She took all that I hold dear
She fed me no deception
she offered no false hope
she made no empty promises
she delivered the straight dope
But I failed to follow directions
and I neglected to read the signs
I saw only what I wanted
so the only fault is mine.

She exists outside the borders
She's the carrot on the stick
she exists between the line
like where the window meets the brick
and it's only an illusion
but the illusion's not a trick.
It's all just an illusion,
but the illusion is not a trick.

exactly nothing

You owe me exactly nothing

and someday I mean to collect.

It isn't a question of timing

only a matter of abject neglect.

I'm impoverished of your affection,

a situation requiring impossible correction,

while I'm privately eyeing the prize 

I'm denying I treasure.

You're my guilty pleasure.

I owe you exactly nothing

and somehow I'm preparing to pay.

It isn't a question of why
just a matter of finding a way.

You're immune to my useless distraction

out of tune with my limited power of attraction

while you're silently crying. Your 

eyes should be good for
more than perennial waterfalls. 

I have no opinions but those 

that I keep under wraps.

Your doubts and their minions

might catch me up quick in
exquisitely beautiful traps.

But life is too short to be hiding

with longings unspoken.

And a heart's not in play if it's 

always afraid to be broken.

Bitter pills

When bitter pills are dispensed by script
and the miners are all but totally stripped
When the questions are framed
in the form of a quote from
ancient game shows recited by rote.
I think you'll agree
that you know them, note for note.

With knowledge comes pain,
with perfection - distain. The calender
pages fall so frighteningly fast.
Through it all remains
the reminder of remedies past.

How can I answer your eyes?
When the lines decline to connect all your calls,
how do I answer?
Your lovely sad eyes weren't placed in their
sockets to stare at these walls.

The devil you know, is never to blame
he holds you closer and calls you that name
He offers you more, but it's more of the same
and just to facilitate the kill
You go to him whenever you will.

The postal ghosts travel their unusual rounds.
Delivering hope, as harsh as it sounds.

You can leave it behind or you can delay.

Dodge the bark and debris that hamper your way.
but the prison stands waiting to be condemned,
or so all the biographers say.




(please note: the word 'distain' is not misspelled. I originally meant 'disdain' but browsing a dictionary I found this homonym and thought it fit my meaning better. Spell check doesn't recognize distain though.)

heart behaving badly

I always know what's right and wrong before the fact;

To say or do where you're concerned and how to act

I always know to take it slow

from battles' loss and lessons' learning.

I have no business yelling fire

when I'm the only one who's burning. 
There's nothing to be mad about

so sadly, it's just my heart behaving badly

My lips know better than to touch your face.

My legs don't stand too close,

they leave a prudent space.

But the sum of my behavior 

is mostly greater than the parts

and sadly: it's just my heart behaving badly.  

I can make my hands stay at my side

I can keep my eyes from growing wide and staring.

I can hold my tongue and swallow my pride,
take it all in stride for just so long, if not so gladly: 

though I feel my heart behaving badly. 

Then I see my features will never fit the empty frame 
your desire names as love and holds so dear

It's not for me to fingerpoint or fix the blame

It only seems a crying shame when you're 
so near to me but, sadly - it's just my heart behaving badly.

It's a cautionary tale l have no right to tell.

There's no punishment more severe

than what's already self imposed.

if it's a crime then I'm the suspect 

and the victim here as well.

The file is shut, the case is closed.

No questions sought, no answers posed

because when nothing's said and never done
It will never be done so sadly - so sadly, it's just a heart,

my heart, behaving badly.






(comments?)

wait

Don't fall on a rainy day.

Huddled 'neath umbrellas 

you are far too close

to take in sight of landscape 

or the directions of street signs

Clouds obscure the details 

in the sky and water beads on glass 

distort the images that pass 

across your eyes.

On rainy eves no stars are there  

to guide and any portal might seem 

to hold what you are seeking.

Don't fall on rainy nights.

Wait until the sun comes out.

There is time. 

Wait until the streets have dried.

Take your time.

Wait until your step is steady

and the path is firm; until your eyes

are open and clear the atmosphere...

wait until the perfect season 

comes to call, 

or perhaps you will never fall 

at all.  
Perhaps you should never
fall.

upon seeing a friend's childhood photo.

Little cowgirl all gussied up 

and right for her first rodeo.

All of four foot two, or so.

Broomstick Sally must be hitched 

and grazing by the patio.

Always seems to be a hop-a-long trail 

or train engine with cow catcher

that awaits someone else's beck and call-

just 25 cents is'all, ya know.

But then there are those nights 

so cold could catch a death.

The air so thin, can't catch your breath,

and all that six gun fires  

I'm told, is blanks anyway.

So say "No, thanks anyway"

if that's what's in the offering.

Yes, the Brownie snapshots 

can all be cropp'd;

the fantasies all been photo shopp'd.

The outlaws who would rob you 

should be run out of town

for trying to steal your 

precious secrets away.

It's only a short ride we're taking

so please if it's believe 

that ever you'll be making,

make it last a little bit,

don't quit for just 

a little bit longer.

Let's be friends, little cowgirl, 

and we'll see what round up

next winter will bring. 

confession

I must confess:
I never saw you coming
Until it was way too late.
Call it coincidence or 
call it an accident or 
suggest another word for fate.
I must have been looking
at things a different way;
shading my eyes from 
the natural light of day
when you approached 
from beneath my defenses
like a summons slipped under my door;
like the pounding of my heart
forgotten, ignored
and crying for more.

Will you need me any less
if I should stay?
Would you want me any more
if I go 'way
would you love me any more
(being honest)
or hate me any less
if I confess?

I must confess:
You took a path straight at me
and I was struck between the eyes.
Everywhere I was
you found me.
You were rising all around me
like the tide
No, I never saw you coming
and there never was
any reason to hide.

So let me drown with you now
take me down with you now
beneath these waves.
Be ever my ally
and my undoing
my life line and anchor
whatever weather is brewing;
my reasons for living
this life through;
holding  me together
and tearing me apart
like the pounding of my heart
forgotten, ignored.
Silent and crying no more.

If you want

I search for the words
of black and gray
but the words don't exist
at least not in that way.
Better they should be
born from my lips
to your ears.
No interference -
nothing in between
those that you hear
and the ones that I mean.
Any disparity
requiring clarity
can be resolved in our eyes.
So bring your face close
to mine, love
and if you want truth
it will tell you all there is to know.
And if you want kisses
all I have are for you
but if you want your freedom
then what am I to do?
It is yours for a song
for then all that I want
will already be gone.