Monday, January 23, 2012

Time


The clock ticks
Even as we sleep
Time can’t be kept
It can’t hear us weep
We are all doing time

Life…
It’s more than a sentence
More like serving paragraphs
Inside chapters
To a world we’ll
Eventually leave behind
Sometimes I wonder
Will I be worth history?
And then I remember
When I almost was…
Except I would have left
No page to turn
Wouldn’t even have made
Much of an ash if it burned

Then all the tomorrows
I couldn’t afford, but still borrowed…
When it’s really my time
I hope I’ll have paid it all back
Because the gold I was bestowed
Each morning
 and the smiles throughout the day
somehow
 made the midnight struggles
slip away
and they still do

and there goes the part where I try not to cry

I’m still here with time
And an open suitcase
Full of reasons to be unpacked.
The clock can keep ticking
the moments can leave
I think I'll stay




Sunday, January 22, 2012

In That Empty Space

I listened as your footsteps left my life
Their faraway sound could be the
Beat to my ballad
I still hear it sometimes
With a pace as slow as my heart
If it were years ago
It would probably race
To chase you
But now is where I am
And you’re not here now

The stars too distant to read
But I swear they spelled good-bye
Now here I am
Fallen from love
To a world that never felt me coming
And I’m learning as I hear and see
I am discovering who I am
Each highway a possibility
Everyday is a beginning
With less and less familiarity

Sometimes those footsteps come back
Just to leave again
I hope one day they stay away
But for now, the echoes
Reside in that empty space.
I live when they leave
Sometimes for two nights or more
To get wasted
Until sobriety carries them
 back on its wagon

Time to fill up on all things not you
And leave a “no vacancy”



Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Honesty

You offered me your love
In every way but true
Tales after tails
Which one belonged to you?

I asked you for the truth
You wrapped it in bubble gum so thick
And left it on the night stand
No, it never did stick

You spoke of rainbows
And worlds where shadows don’t exist
You tried to place yourself there
But your voice never left the mist

I told you to keep your rich words
And images that I could not hold
I asked you for honesty
Suddenly you explode

Signs were meant
 to show me the way
but I got lost in the maze
your stories got longer each day

You’re someone else’s problem now
You’re half a man, still incomplete
Have you ever caught a glimpse of your reflection?
While you splash in the waters of deceit

I guess winters must be warm
With thick layers of quilted lies
Of all the snowmen in the world
You were certainly no prize

Ah, but I guess the shame
it is all on me
You just keep stepping in bullshit
I’ll be dancing with reality








One of Those Smiles

She has one of those smiles
That could bring mid January to life
And leave the sun so smitten
It would forget
 that it had some other place to be
suddenly finding itself
Shyly knocking on her door,
 hoping for a date
just to see that grin once more


She makes the wind wish it were
 funny instead of  a clumsy joke
her happiness
is nature’s main artery
vital to all things bouncing and blooming
and without her laughter
there would be no May
only lost purpose in a struggled swim
constant laps through April’s sorrow.
The moment life met her, it stopped being grim


The car radio singing your life to you
As you road trip it shot-gun
With no place to be
Other than far in front of what you’ve left behind
And right beside what you will always carry
The light…Resting on a thought
As the sun slowly hunkers down.
To be eye to eye, soul to soul
Your spirit once again a child
Just for a moment you were graced
With the presence of her smile
The blemishes in your sky erased.

Her glee could make the miles glide
Like broken-in tennis shoes on new pavement
Going places without a deliberate place to be
Just for the sake of free
And you’ll finally feel the essence of existence
When her smile leaves your name
wrapped in a golden hello
All that is not love, in that instant disappears
And with the warmest hug,
she lightens those heavy years


She taught you happiness.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Do You Remember?

Do you remember how love felt?
Does love recall touching you?
Can you offer peace to my puzzled soul
And tell me are memories still true?
Or are they like the sky
Elusive, and ever changing back to blue?

Do you remember the places we walked
Before we both walked away?
Now I’m not suggesting
I want to exchange rings with yesterday
Though it would sure be sweet
If now and then it came back to play

Sometimes I think if I closed my eyes
I would once again be certain to find you.
I bet if happiness danced into my life
It would fit perfectly in your size shoe
As it did when we waltzed before, where the footprints 
of each step remain as constant as crazy glue

You quieted my city mind
hushed the noise like a strong, swift country breeze
and left me calm, and open to be taken everywhere
surrounded with contentment, and green October trees
bracing for the Fall.
Your love was my heart’s sentry, I felt so safe and so at ease

Do you remember?
I hope I never do
Because I can’t ever recall
All that I’ve never forgotten…