God says...

discourses

on time and space

and why the sky is blue

are all just fine but

now and then

I like to step into a room

and listen to you all

talk of earth, and

hammers, and

children and

lawn seed.

-

2003

reaching

looking across the water
from where you and I had so often sat,
watching the surf on the rocks,
swallows flying near our heads
making us turn and look for nests in the embankment.
cold and empty in the sunshine and sharp Morden air,
I reached
out to and across the water
and waited, eyes closed, for justification
and a reason to continue.
reaching, so final and desperate,
and receiving nothing back
but the sounds of the surf and the seabirds,
and the silent, determined swallows
flying near my head.
others came by, with cameras and kids,
as my melancholy deepened
gray to nearly black -
others came
and I kept watch for you,
remembering you and all the times
when we had this place to ourselves,
with the water and the tide and the rocks,
and holding you close to me.
I kept watch for you
in the diamond glint of the sun
all cold and empty,
reaching.
sun and rocks and receding tide
the wind off the water -
nothing.
gray to near-black
to nothing.


7 July 1997

compass

sometimes i think i'm going

out of my head

only to find signposts

showing me the way back.

at times the very thought

of leaving reality

has me looking at the ground

for breadcrumbs.

-

i think

all things considered

normal's a compass needle

pointing to sane

and i've just got

no sense

of direction.

-

-

11 April 2003

so many broken hearts

here in this room tonight

if there's a broken heart I can't tell

except mine, of course,

this heart of mine I hide so well.

-

as my friends take up conversational slack

and talk of good times and bad

I listen with half an ear

coming to know other hearts, all broken and sad.

-

at the end of the night

I walk out and know

we are all broken hearts

mine and yours, just so.

-

we are all lonely, in our spaces

where we've all gone in secret, to cry:

just tonight not so alone

we smile at one another, learn to get by.

-

in this room tonight

our hearts we hide so well

all broken but some healing,

trying, deep and aching, our stories to tell.

-

we know each other and make an effort

in love and caring, each to the other.

we hope to heal all the sadness,

sharing, where before we wouldn't bother.

-

I'm waking up and you are too -

so many times we've fallen and found hell;

soon I'll show you my heart

this heart of mine I hide so well.

-

-

4 July 1996

smoke

there's a world in my mind

that doesn't exist ;

the fear of some things

in the fuel of a fired-down kiss.

the too long away from

six other faces too alive

to be recognized,

as my particular paranoia

stares back at me from the mirror.

the fire's not burning but

killing smoke stings my eyes

as I look for you -

your names though

escape me.

my eyes tell me that

your beauty lies in the soil

of my fingertip rescue search -

not a line of life in the world

that begins in smoke.

monster

if, in blind judgment
I find you lacking
just keep talking
please, keep talking,
paranoia makes monsters of us all.

if, in your hearing
of my overconfident self-appraisal
you should think me wrong,
then shut me up
do it quickly, for a monster ever have I been.

if I, in manic schizophrenic delusion,
should tell you the world is flat,
close my eyes
lull me to sleep
take me to the moon
and point to your world -
maybe I'll understand.

if, finally, I lose myself,
be kind to me
for it's not a monster
but a healer
I've forever wanted to be.


14 September 1995

stars

a walk up the lane
after the campfire and love all around
stepping softly so as not to stumble
so very dark, or so I thought until
I looked up and saw something amazing -
a carpet of brilliance above my head,
stars uncountable,
so many stars, and the Milky Way
so fiery, so overpowering, so close that I was sure
I could reach up and touch them.


I stood in the midst of that fire
only able to say, as my heart
felt full to bursting and ever so small,
"God. Oh dear God,"
as He showed me His World, His Power,
His Majesty and His Mystery.
I could only finally lower my eyes,
humbled and thankful for this peek at His House,
this gift and the reminder that I am,
that we all are
His children.

maybe I lost it

my guitar leans in the corner
after too long forgetting
to tell me where my fingers go.
old schoolmate
your voice I hear in my head
telling me I was a natural
and that so long ago.
there it leans covered with dust and thumbprints
as if I'd never followed a C with a G.
I feel the softness in my fingertips
hearing you say - play that again, man,
I've never heard it that way -
playing for you my friend.
in here now a song
and I recognize a simple progression
knowing if I pick that guitar up
my fingers will forget.
this quick memory
playing and fingers sliding
wrist loose and hitting precisely
stretching strings and smiling
there in the groove
hands working
knowing all six strings
all the frets up and down
back and forth
somehow there and making good music
creating my own place
in the structure and space of a song.
now my guitar leans in the corner
and won't tell me
where my fingers go.

14 August 1995

catch the wind

the wind catches me
and right away i think
of the vice versa
and just a little smile
because
impossible, right?
i might just as well
write a best-seller
or a song sung by millions -
a poem that makes people cry
or laugh,
i might just as well
try and catch the wind.

24 April 2003 (special thanks to Donovan Leach, wherever you are)

high and dry

and then you said,
"how do you keep your feet on the ground?"
looking at you, as you flew,
it never occurred to me to join you -
the structure of your sky
was watery, obscure,
and your eyes hid the tops of the clouds.
---

I leaned forward
so that the leaves of the plastic plant
hid your face from me;
and didn't tell you
of the desert and the bedouins -
the camels and scorpions
the vastness
the dryness.

---

and as you went
away from me, I flew away
to the heat and the bright light;
back to my sky, and the
high and dry.