Touchstone

Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
   For want of air in a cave
Sometimes death can be heard in a single word
   That opens a stairwell to the grave
In a baby's breath is all that's left
   Of the hopes and the dreams of the saved
The souls of the blessed are clad in tatters
   So that you may call them brave


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first be fomented
Touchstone, melancholy clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown

True love travels on a gravel road
   So I have heard
Passes from my lips to your breast
   In a single word
Travels rough, sleeps in the dust
   Crosses every line
Sometimes love is like the death
            of a little bird
   For want of air in a mine


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first
   be fomented


Touchstone, treacherous clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown

And sometimes love is like a story
   Only you can believe
If this little bird should die
   Only I will know to grieve
And if we go in any further
   Then we may not be able to breathe
Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
    Pining for some trees


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first be fomented
Touchstone, trustworthy clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown


The river runs with slag

  And the top of the mountain's
      sheared off        
Each day at about this time
  I begin to cough
She walks cloaked in glory
  Like the night
No more will I go a-rovin' with my lord
  Until first light


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first
    be fomented
Touchstone, grave clown, your
    secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown


Coal is precious, birds are countless
  His eyes are on the sparrow
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
  And the way back is narrow
Everything is beautiful, especially once you see
  That it is all designed to be unseen
Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
   With nary enough air to sing
Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
   With nary enough air to take wing

In the dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed is first to be fomented
Touchstone, noble clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown

1. 
   

The End of the Road

It was just a sign on the road
Didn't say nothing about journey's end
Don't see how someone who never
    got started
Suddenly got too old to begin again
Reason's don't matter now as much
     as the where
Story's one so often been told
The going don't matter as much as
     the getting there
To the last place in this world you'll
      ever have to hold
Now some might call it bad character
I'll allow that's not completely unjust
You can call it misfortune if you're
     feeling more kindly
That left me someone you can safely 
     mistrust
They say no one ever sets out to end
      up this way
I don't recall ever setting out at all
You can sing a song so long you become its sadness
Walk the high wire long enough you're bound to fall


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved

I always wondered what people did in places 
     like this
Even now I still don't really know
I'm still the one walking at night all alone
      down your street
Wondering who lives in the houses with
      the warm windows all aglow
And what did they have to do to get there
And what was so good about it that
     they stayed
Was it really just because they worked
      harder than me?
Or did they know a god who answered them 
       when they prayed?
Did their children always love them?
Would they love them less if they were poor?
A lighthouse is just the loneliest sight
When you're drifting away from the shore


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved


I had thoughts, but I didn't know how to say them
Held some cards, but I didn't know how to play them
I had debts, didn't know how to pay them
Found some things, but I must have mislaid them
There were dragons, and I tried to slay them
There were trusts, and I guess I betrayed them


There was a woman, of course
There always is in these tales that we tell
I wish I could say that she didn't understand me
But the truth is she understood all too well
And everyone's afraid of loneliness
But you know, there's some things worse
The thing with you she said once to me
Is you make feeling good like some kind of curse
If I don't really like it out here
That's not because there's all that much I miss
Every time I'm tempted to put back the pieces
I think of your goodbye kiss


And down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved

An angel is someone with wings
Who flies around all day and night
A sun is a star that's close enough
To turn the nighttime into light
To live in the bosom of Abraham
Is to adorn yourself with diamonds
     and pearls
Now everyone just keeps on looking
     younger
In him there's some small part of me

       made beautiful
To me, especially the girls
My son told me onetime Daddy


We're all made of stars and black space
Even if it's so hard to trace
If nobody cares where you're at
I guess that's one way of being free
You carry on too long like that
And that's all you'll ever be


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved


It was just a little adobe church
Where mass was never said any more
With crosses in a lonesome little cemetery outside
And candles burning on a simeple altar up above the dirt floor
I only saw a picture of it in a book this one time
But it sure looked like holy ground
When the time comes if I can only find my way back there
That's where I'd like to lay me down
Going's another thing I never got around to doing
Never made it all that far from home
But you can't really measure the distance in miles
When where you wind up is all alone
I'm not saying I didn't have my fair share of sorrows
I'm not saying I didn't bring on some myself

I'm not saying I won't still be
         here tomorrow
I'm not saying I won't be
          somewhere else
I'm just saying there's not too 
     much to worry about
Not even this rain coming down
Sometimes the rivers might rise
   and the world might flood
But so far it's never drowned


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved

Neighbors

I've only seen her once or twice
Though every day she sits closer to me than
   my wife, and longer
And the wall that separates us is not as high
I know this about her, though:
Her husband left her, and he's remarried,
  and on a carrier in the gulf
He won't be home for Christmas, which
  hurts her nonetheless, for the kids will be
  disappointed

One of whom has a learning disability, and recently underwent surgery on his eyes
She has cancer, and a lot of friends who look out for her
And the way she speaks to her son and daughter on the telephone is quite beautiful
She won't take chemotherapy or radiation, believing natural ways to be best
Though she did give them her breast
And she's probably younger than I am
She prays, of course
Etiquette demands that I leave unacknowledged that which I can't help but overhear
Yet I shudder every time she slams the drawer
And I'm not sure which part is unspeakable
If these are not words for a poem
Then neither are they words for a life

Mercy

Kitten licks my plate
Life is gentle and careless
Hungry and growing

After the Funeral

We got up as always

And went to the bar

It rained and rained

That day

And when it stopped

The sun shone through the glass

And lit the beer

So that it looked

Rich and ripe

I thought

If you sat in that bar long enough

 You could find out everything you needed to know

Ragamuffin

So I was dressed like a clown for death when he showed again
And at his feet understood immediately his scorn for finery
And need to make mock of it, so close to my own
Knowing always his comfort in uniformed cohesion
Vowed anew to hide in plain sight among the tatterdemalion many
Distinguished but not standing out, never unawares

Primal Fear: Abandonment

 The time was night

A soft glowing whispering kind of night

That intimated all kinds of things, that remembered and foretold

Pink-tipped clouds danced in the wind promising tomorrow's brightness

That breeze stirred the pines to quiet conversation

Just beyond us

Its own proof of its occurrence but not of its significance

A murmur in a far-off room of a darkening house

An urgent muffled cry

Of pain or sorrow or love

Or perhaps the television quietly crackling

Keeping company

The drift of a song instantly on a car radio by night

Leaving just the memory of the music, or its rumor

A question: What was that song? What was I then

As far off as it is now, and was before

And I will be before I hear it again

Far ahead on the unlit highway a bobcat laps from a slick of deer's blood

But before you reach him he's gone

And white flying things flitter like spirits in the headlights

Formidable still the sun had lost its conviction

                     Does that make you lonely or sad? 

Equal parts summer's sweetness and winter's chill was the wind's secret

Shiver and sweat

A runnel of moisture on the back of the neck

And the smoky smell of leaves curling into themselves

                     In a rusty barrel

Surrounded by a silent man and boys in hoods, hands-a-pocket

Not so much warmed as enchanted by the tumbling fire

Sending their silent thoughts upward with the wispy silent souls

of the consumed leaves, never so splendid as in their dying

Ashes and cinder, cinder and ash

Oh oh oh, my daddy gone too

And the dusk became as imprecise as the season

Quivering with a faint alien expectation

So that even the most denatured creatures pricked up their ears

Stood stonestill and sniffed at what was being carried on the air

Listened watched waited

Hidden behind gauzy curtains

The stars assumed their places

And night gently fell

Bringing coldness and a surer sign

A boy of two played in the dust with his new toy

No no Tippy he warned the whitebooted cat who spied on him

from the windowsill

You can't come out here Tippy cause I'm out front with my daddy

This is the mighty mighty backhoe he said further explaining

Look't this Daddy he cried, explaining

Mighty mighty backhoe got shovel out front and bucket in back

It scoops up the dirt . . . put it in the gravel dumptruck

Haul it away

Mean old buzz buzz can't get me

Here I are

Sweet sweet milkbreathed boy with his eyes of blue

Knees bent, crouched with a child's grace, bottom dusting

the ground of his selfmade construction site

Parched patch where no flowers grow

Cuddly and playful as a little bear cub

Across the courtyard a neaighbor woman flung open the storm and yelled

Vanessa!

The boy's head snapped to, his eyes cloudier than the sky

Something he already knew for the first time

There are sheep lost in the wilderness

And the wolves circle silently in the darkness

"Where Nessie is"

                          he asked, more concerned than she

"I don't know," said his father casually

Then, born again in the moment, life given for life taken,

settlement made on a debt:

"It's okay, Brian, don't worry, she's around"

"It's very dark," the boy had noticed

He looked around him hard and decided quickly

He picked up his things and took little determined steps to the door

"We go inside now. Cause it scare me."