32

A simple little dance
We shared once before
But that was
That was in the way back machine


I'm rarely sleeping
These days when I dream 
I know I'm just
Just a thought away from you


I can almost feel those old songs
We listened to in the pouring sun
I don't want to fight it anymore
You always kept me grounded;
Tethered, down to earth
Now my head's forever in the clouds
Lost in you

Peter and the Wolf

Peter stands before the curtain
Sees her from the corner of his mind
He's so polite
He's always so shy

The curtains lifting, there behind them
The wolf struggles, pulling at his binds
The wolf survives
The wolf cannot die

He can't find the words to tell her how he feels
The wolf wants out.

Strips of paper, pencils, plaster,
Red ink penning words he's tried to rhyme
He's so polite
Always so kind

Piles lining paper baskets whispering
'Pete, the wolf's inside
He still survives
The wolf cannot die'

He can't find the words to tell her how he feels
Thinks he'll die alone

Susan watches silently
Fighting feelings she tries so hard to hide
She's so polite
She's always so shy

And as the curtains falls away from behind her
The wolf wants out.

Vestibule

See the light shine brightly

From the corner of her eye

There is something still running there

Something she's held on to

Even as hope seems to fade

Footsteps shuffle around

Making notes she'll never see

Telling tales 

That have nothing to do 

With a life lived

She smiles wide and states convincingly

I'll soon be found burning bright

My fire screaming through the night

You'll sing my name as I pass by

My light eclipsing

Shadows that fell over me

And I have no doubt now

The Score

There is music hidden within the night
Chords struck
As the moon whistles its light along the tree tops
The swaying of branches
Echoing beats
That are buried deep inside the wood
Ripples across the pond
Sing vibrato
Crashing into cat tails
That stand tall
Playing their strings to a crowded house
I feel the anxious fluttering
In the piccolos flapping their wings;
Hear the thundering bass
In the longing of their hearts
I see the music played to a score
Written across the stars
For all to follow along
And I lay back
In the grass content just to be
A note in the night.

Wave 5

I see it all so clearly now
The lines painted and left to dry
A fistful of quarters for my youth
A 1000 ways to watch the world die

I was the one always swore I knew
Time was not something to mess around
I should have died when I was 3
But I somehow never hit the ground

Now I'm standing here
All cowardice and collapse

We sit and drive the TV set
Of late nights with Stephen Fry
Where Are They Now: Angels of mine
You know I never said goodbye

Oh now,
I feel lost and out of reach
The sky is falling down
All over the world
The weather vane's hopeless
Couldn't find anything to last
The world keeps moving
And I'm spinning
Way too fast

Letting Go

My world slips away
A thousand miles from yesterday
What I've got left to give
I've sown in fields of haze

Whispers lie to me
Shadows slowly gathering
If I could just grab hold
Of my last big dream

And the night it crawls by
As the stars suffocate brightly
With their life

But I'll tell you tonight
If not in person, in a note,
With laughter in my ears,
That hope's been killing me
And now I'm letting go
Letting go

In Perpetuity

Don't worry 'bout the words that you're saying
Saying, I promise not to tell

I'm feeling ageless tonight

We feel the same
In one word alone
In three, you and I

I don't have to be anything
You can stay the same

Flesh, blood, and everything in between

We can be together
You and I
We can be so alone
Together

Till we're all alone again.

Token Valentine's Day

A million voices laughing loud
And I'm alone again tonight
Don't talk of fishes in the seas
Don't whisper words of Valentines

And it's 38 steps
From my front door
Completely sober
Making my bed
On the floor
Falling over

Don't tell me that it's the kind of night
For staying under the covers
When I know it's not the time
For recovering lovers

It's not the time for us
I guess it never was

Temerate

I walk, you walk too
Side by side but not together

Is it wrong to remember,
To want to be something more than now?
Is it wrong that I still feel our youth,
And wish I was walking with you?

I see, you see too
But it's with different points of view

Is it wrong to feel this,
To want to go back the heartache?
Is it wrong not to turn away?
Cause I see you these days,
Sideways.

22

She sees
She feels the pain
And when her daughter tries to ask her
She says, 'it's hard to explain.'
Cause she feels,
With out.

Late night
Tap dance
Old movies, with romance

Scanning the channels for a sign

She says, 'if I can just find the right program;
There's a piece of myself I want back.'

But there's nothing on

She sings;
Closes her eyes
And when the sun starts raining down on her
It's been a short night
She's with out
And she knows now

She says, 'if I can just find the right man;
There's a piece of myself I want back, from him.'

But there's nothing on
Nothing good is ever on.

[Poem] Christmas Eve

Sleep is just a dream
Patient and endless on an early Christmas Eve
Every little head to its pillow
Every little soul under the tree
Thoughts and prayers wrapping presents
Daring children just to peek

Sleep is just a dream
Ornaments pulling down the stem
Painted silhouettes to remind us
Saviour born in Bethlehem
And the star up on that sits atop
Meant to take us back again

Sleep is just a dream
For a child who's listening
Hoping just to hear the sounds
Of those merry sleigh bells ring
And for the parents who are also
Though they're hoping secretly

And when the morning finds the children
Who are waking happily
All the parents know quite sadly
That sleep is just a dream

Bleach

She's a thousand broken down distractions

That I just don't seem to feel anymore

And when I close my eyes to think of us

I'm alone on sun lit shores

And I know now we were just passing by, casting shadows on each other's hearts

Still I wish I'd stayed a little while longer in the dark

Friendly Fire

The silence builds
As they circle round
The two tight lipped and crashing
Breaking all apart

She looks at him
With a smile in her eyes
Mouthing obscenities
He's mouthing back

And she's telling him
Pretty girls make bad friends
And they're better off
Better never than
And she's telling him

Sleep is the Enemy

Fear
The darkness sweeping over me
I
Remember like I was seventeen

Try not to blink
Don't get cozy

What's this taking a third my life from me
Pulling shadows up from somewhere deep

Clocks
Reminding me what's going by
I
Remember like I was twenty-five

What's this taking a third my life from me
Lurking somewhere waiting patiently
It's got to be
My enemy

Sidewalk
Turn lock
Waiting patiently
Drip drop
Tick Tock
It's my enemy

Scarlight

I swept the cobwebs from the shutters

Moved the furniture around

Tried to feng shui up the house

Trying to spin chaos into peace

Just wanted to clean up my mind

Have a fighting chance tonight

When your shadows wake me from sleep

I'm living in the scarlight

Went for a jog when I woke at eight
Had a grapefruit and health shake
Getting back in shape

Find that slimfast state of mind

Miles and miles trying to run away
Leave you far behind
Til you cover me again tonight

Help Them See

the rain Helps me think
when I'm staring into Evening skies
sitting back Listening to the shadows speak
dancing away from People onto tree-lined streets

and so what if Tomorrow is awake
tonight we stand Here and dream
tonight we are Everything Morning
could never hope to be

slip down, See the sea
of Endless faces taking in
the endless beauty that Eclipses we

Dizzy in the Hue

Blue starlight
Massive flames of carnal expression
Death and remembrance
Heart and ambassador to the ever never we were so sure

Daily rethink
Blessed and we
Like a silver statuette
Dormant dominance
Shaking minds like trees
Endlessly

Here we go
One more tragic happy scene
See where paint flecks away
Never quite seeing what we weren't meant to be

The stars are the limit
Find your way
Flying out today
Catch those cold unending seeds
In the scratched out surfactant sky

ellipse

I didn't feel this at 17
I guess I didn't know just what it would mean
New applications of a word
You think you knew but then you learn
The only thing
You'll ever need
Is in your
Happy agony

Will I still feel this at 39?
When happily ever becomes the dotted line
New applications of a word
Could there still be some that I haven't heard?
The wind it blows
Away the cares
As she pulls a leaf
From her hair

Steepled

Through what hole can my soul escape?
Climbing down the stairs blindly
A spiral from above
But all I see is the straight line
Carrying me away
From
All
I'd
Care to Be

All these people
Faces the world has seen
And will see again
Never remembered
After the second generation
Come and gone again
On a Tuesday afternoon

I hope,
To one day
Gleam from the stars,
Where they really shine
And why they all
One day
F
A
D
e

Through what hole can my soul escape?
Trapped beneath
Inside this jar of clay
Screaming to the sky above
For the light to shine;
to cut an opening,
to my eyes
So I may see
The
S
P
Ire
Spiraling no more around me

[Poem] You and I

Love in the time of my last suicide
Where my end justifies the means each time
Always leaves me wishing for a last refrain

Born again in a cold November
Raised in the city by a kindly stranger
Just to find that I'd arrived too late

You and I are always yes and
You and I are always yes and
You and I are always yesterday

Woke too late, just to find you sleeping
A handmaiden's daughter barely speaking
Married to a man who was married to the game

I spoke quietly, you don't remember
How it was that last December?
You just shrugged and then you turned away

You and I are always yes and
You and I are always yes and
You and I are always yesterday

Maybe there will be tomorrow
Maybe we will be tomorrow
Maybe there will be no tomorrow