Still
Matter
I used to spend nights
Trying to save you
In another life time
Now I know that one girl's
lost
Can be, can be another
boy's found
I used to try to drag you
from the wreckage
From the ecstasy of dust
Now I am too busy saving
myself
So we drink one, drink one,
to our health
This matter of love
Can never be destroyed only
altered
From solid to liquid to
steam
We are changing our
compounds, we are
Rearranging our elements
We are ionizing our dreams
I used to want to make you
Want more each time
From all of your nine lives
You wanted a new car
And I, I wanted the studios
to call
I used to try to carry you
From the smoke and glass
From the needles of despair
Now I am too busy saving
myself
So we drink one, drink one,
to our health
This matter of love
Can never be destroyed only
altered
From sweet to bitter to
ambivalence
It's good to know from this
distance
I still care, that I still
care
For the ones
That I once would have died
for
This matter of love
Can never be destroyed only
altered
From ocean to iceberg to a
thin fog
Never present long
Always changing, changing
your form
Nothing to hold onto, and
nothing, nothing to escape from
This matter of love can
never be destroyed only altered
Altered yet unaltered ...
Still matter
You, still matter to me
Song
To Ophelia
With rosemary for remembrance
Senseless with pansies for
your thoughts
With fennel for your
flattery
and columbine for
unchastity
And daisies and violets
and rue for your repentance
Down to the river's edge
she wanders
Among the gilded cobras and
the willows
Meanders through tunnels of
bamboo
Leaving barefoot tracks
along the sand
Into reflection's pool she
dips her hand
Ophelia jump not into the
water
The river is deep and
you'll go down
Ophelia chase not the white
bird of silence
The rot is in Denmark not
in your heart
She has walked onto the
wrong stage
This is not her life this
is his tragedy
Pull the curtains down and
stumble to the exit
She deserves a lead role
not just a small part
And the fool's laugh
echoes through the stone
yard
Forget the cues and the
adornments
Forget the princes
and your wish for
acceptance
Out here there are no
props, no stage lights
Out here
Ophelia, you
direct your own life
Floating like a lily pad in
white
Hunger
Moon
Long after midnight, after
goodbye
I drive on home under this
shallow sky
Daughter of the hunger moon
She runs bare hands
'round these darkened rooms
Convince myself I like being
alone
Three in the morning, while I
fix some toast
and Earl Grey tea with too
much honey
Feed the cats, drink some
wine,
run a very deep bath
And write a few poems
with the refrigerator magnets
Time itself is crystallized
Do I listen to my heart my
body or my mind?
To love, to lust or to
analyze
To hear these shy conflicting
cries?
There's always someone left
unfed
The aching belly or the
vacant bed
It's hard to get these
hungers straight
Always something over which
to fixate
It's hard to hear what's
really being said
I wish I could live outside
my head
It's hard to keep them all
well fed
To find soul, to make love,
to be well read
Building
The Ark
At the telephone booth in the
rain, it's
Been like this four nights
and three days, and
Who's to say thirty-six
aren't to come, it's an
April shower but I'm ready
for the flood, and
Neither six hundred nor the
chosen one,
still I lower the planks
and march the wild things on,
and
God said, "Build it out
of gopher wood,"
and I said back,
"You know music it
floats real good" and
How is an olive leaf, enough
of a covenant
Borne on a small wing after a
long dark
Should I still walk the edge,
if the waters are rising
Two by two they march on,
safe I walk all alone
See I'm no good with a hammer
or a nail, and the
Wind will have to carry me
'cause I never
learned to sail, and
I didn't get sea legs when
they
were passed out, but I
Learned to sing from way down
deep where it counts, and
How will I calculate my area
Three decks are a lot for a
paper
thin tape measure, and
How will I catch two of every
fish
and every bird, with
Music alone can I float
through this world?
I know that I have made it
this way
Unrequited love leaves a lot
to say
And a lot of free time
to sing away the days, and
Makes me want to be
just a little bit crazy, and
Our greatest gift is the
survival urge, and
If I seem distant
I'm just protecting myself,
and
People tell me my full name
means pearl,
like an oyster in my shell
I will make something
beautiful
Sirens
Now, that I have gone
I wish I'd stayed, a little
longer
To wake up laughing ... in
your arms
'Cross the green acres of my
heart,
You've let the horses run,
and
Sirens in a November night,
and
I tiptoe through this fragile
life
The world is freezing outside
But I'm in it for the long
ride
Just a child barreling
through the tests
And I hope that all I borrow
I can lend
And I hope that all I receive
I can send
These strings the only things
I understand
In, the amethyst waters of my
mind
I have let the poet live,
unjustified, and
My thoughts, like jet lines
on an evening sky
Parallel, yet always on two
sides
And, if only in each day
I could learn to love,
entirely, and
Sing myself from these,
from these trivialities |
|
Wild
Geese
Somewhere north of Hope
You have been camped out
With your discontent
Guarding your coins of
tenderness
Watching the wild geese
Cutting through the Autumn
breeze
Seems there's no question for
them
Of where to go, Or how to be
free
Who will you fly South with
when the winter comes
How will you trust your
direction or your
need to leave, to love, to
leave, to love?
'Cause it's a long flight to
where it's warm
'Cross the canvas of sky -
Through the bottoms of this
song
Why aren't we born like the
wild geese
Knowing our way home?
I feel it in your eyes
In the September wind
While the cold front,
threatens to move in
Under the silver skies
Over the golden leaves
We look behind us
but there is no one else to
lead
We spend our days confused
Oh, trying not to lose
Through the layers of
abstraction
That, thin line of blue
Trying to be strong
Still, but wishing to move on
Meanwhile inside us,
the wild geese are taking
form
Atlas
Can't be Atlas any longer
I can't hold up the sky
tonight
I can't sing the world a
lullaby
Or, kiss the emptiness
goodnight
I wish like milkweed in the
sunlight
The wind would hollow me a
place in life
Thinking about me thinking
about you
As if I could come
to some kind of simple truth
Let it fall, down
I'd write a song
but would it make sense in
the morning?
Cradled in a prayer of the
mountains
November bares the bones of
all things
The trees are naked on the
horizon line
And I lose the myths that
I've been hiding in
Winding home by the river
Sweet elusive lover
Between the fire and the
Pleiades
Darkness falls
and I curl warm around this
dream
All
Day
All day,
We are the only ones alive
Or so it seems, under the
blue sky ...
in the fields of green
The sun, having risen just
for us,
tingles and whispers on our
skin
And these lines, between our
bodies shining,
gossamer on the wind
It's good to love when we
should not love
Trying not to let things come
undone
We leave our secrets like
white butterflies,
dancing, dancing, dancing
above
And if time and age,
Were not such heavy things
If we did not wear them like
wedding rings
We would find,
where the shore knows the
tide
Where the creek runs through
irrigation lines
And in, our lives passing we
learn
Of all that's good and all
that hurts
Spinning round, the orbit of
another earth
With our hands buried in the
dirt
And at night, through crazy
dreams we lurch
Tangled in our sheets and in
our animal thirst
Nothing
To Be Grateful For
The woman downstairs
she's missing some teeth
It's either the man she's
with or extreme poverty
And the woman next door, has
a tattoo of a
scorpion on her shoulder
blade
The lady above me, she's mean
to her kids
I've found the cheapest place
to live
Who's to say there's nothing
to be grateful for
When the TV and the Guns and
Roses
blare at four in the morning
I think at least I'm not
homeless
on someone's front door
The man in the basement
has a dog that barks a lot
And one Eddie Vedder tape
that he can't
hear enough of after dark
There's stray cats and
bicycles parked in the yard
For a narrow road there are
quite a few cars
Who's to say there's nothing
to be grateful for
The water pressure's a fine
mist
and the phone jack won't work
At least my landlord's in
Ireland
so he can't be a jerk
The fire station is a quarter
mile away
There've been a lot of fires
lately,
none of them in the day
It sounds like an air raid
siren,
kind of alarming in the night
I left home to find peace
alone, it's not
quite like that but at least
it's my own
Who's to say there's nothing
to be grateful for
There's off street parking
and free garbage disposal
And they shovel the snow
The fleas are thriving
though I've never had a cat
But otherwise things here
aren't all that bad
Who's to say there's nothing
to be grateful for
The walls are too thin and so
are the floors
But at least I'm not homeless
on someone's front door
Footsteps
In The Hall
You know what they call this
time of year
Blackberry winter always
precedes a good spring
But it's hard to imagine
sometimes
Anything ever melting, fully
inside
But I hear footsteps in the
hall
I know too many people
who fill cabinets with pills
Who listen to the news too
much,
who think no one else feels
Who drive too fast, alone at
night
Chasing long shadows,
following the sun
But I hear footsteps in the
hall
There's hope eternal, even
for the skeptical
There's children and laughter
And currents under frozen
streams
And I hear footsteps in the
hall
You know what they call this
time of month,
this time of life
Even the moon has to be new
sometimes, and
I feel like an empty house,
Too many locks, too many
walls
But I hear footsteps in the
hall
Only
How We'll Live
Like a dying beast the truck
lies
Turned over on the driver's
side
I want to ask if anyone
survived
But the cops are there and
they wave me by
Had it been easier to leave
your side
I would have been here on
this corner
When the truck drove by
I would have been here much
faster
Had some snow angel not
slowed my drive
And I say, how's a yellow
line
enough protection in this
world today?
One day you're alive
and then you take a long ride
tomorrow
How can you know?
Just keep your eyes on the
white line
And drive on blind
At seventeen she falls in
love,
He promises he is drug free
One year later she gets a
test,
And she finds out she's got
HIV
You cannot call the end of
time
Only how you'll live, not
when you'll die
At twenty-eight, Olympic gold
He dies on the rink of heart
failure
And I say, how's good health
a promise,
enough protection in this
world today?
You cannot worry too much,
put your seatbelt on and turn
the radio up
How can you know? Just say
"I love you" twice
and drive on blind
Focus on the small things
Not what you get but what you
give
You cannot tell how you'll
die,
Only how you'll live,
In the small things
First words, Daffodils in
Spring
By the sweet and the tender,
only how we'll live
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