cradle of my kin

I would be a beggar on the street
If you had not carried me;
My lazy heart rolled fat and heavy,
Startled by each mountain of defeat.

I would lie dry-foaming at the mouth,
Hope drained from my leaky soul;
And every trail I would take
Would lead me further, further south.

I would melt like warming snow in this foreign sun
If you had not whispered love
In waves of stronger mountain air
Holding up my broken wings, lest I come undone.

My home--it travels with me--in a sagging skin,
But you are what I cling to
When I need to be kept safe.
So name me, hold me, keep me, oh cradle of my kin!

a note to my sister

I feel so cool
I'm such a fool
I have an accordion
And I know that you want one
With bellows and buttons and switches and keys
I thought playing would be such a breeze
Well, my dear, the joke's on me,
Because it is quite hard, you see.

music God

Oh God you must be the nearest thing to music,
Or music is most like You,
For nothing else makes me feel so small;
Overshadows my every mood.

And nothing makes me feel so deep
In wordless, piercing groans.
Nothing makes me feel so lost
In universal tones.

I see how the world shakes
Off-beat like a tambourine,
Refusing hope to your face,
Making a scene.

Still it sings and sings,
Full-throated, heart expanded;
All the sighs of the day
Meet in the air, empty handed.

This cosmic sensation overwhelms my core.
It peels back my flesh and I'm left wanting more.
I want to sing You, You are a song.
I sing and discover my home; I belong.

wonderland

I wish, I wish I didn't fall like Alice down the rabbit hole
To feed my curiosity in lusty unreality.

Fantastic play the idols of my dream.
In hungry stupor they make me queen.
They blow my heart like heated glass
And fashion it to please their mass.
But it shatters to pieces like ashes at sea
To a dirge of self-discovery.
Oh let me fall! Oh let me fall! I'll live and die in gravity.
The patterns of my colored mind sustain my illusions, let them be.

Still it's lonely here inside my fears; what ghostly company!
How lost I feel floating down these halls wondering if you'll come to me.
Your songs reach me in this hollow cave, they echo sweet and shrill.
They lie to me--heart in my mouth--appease my naked will.


Oh I wish, I wish I didn't fall
And lose myself inside this dream
For all their grandeur and their spark
Our dreams are never what they seem.
Oh I wish, I wish I didn't fall
Full bloody soul into your hand!
For all my visions bold and fine,
I do not like this wonderland.

to the scarborough buskers *

You fiddle dancers, happy chancers,
Tune your way into my dreams!
Uproarious sound bombards my senses,
Unraveling my tight-stitched seams.

And I was just a passerby, and
Smooth the day dressed as the night
Deceiving me with sticks and strings;
Street-corner wings in sudden flight.

What could I see on the street that day,
Feet tapping to cement and clay?
What could I fear in merry chimes
That moved your whiskey blood to climb?

You bellow with Brittanic sea
And flooding southern melody,
Distract me from a day gone wrong,
Envelope me in zydefolk song.

time

Time is attacking me,
I feel it’s displeasure like an enemy

Always chasing me home at night
After me at morning in the harsh daylight

Yet when I turn to catch a glimpse
It hides its face, I have to wince

I dare not look it in the eye
To see eternity’s measured cry

small

She sits so small on the bank at night
She bathes in all the pale moonlight
Reflecting from the river shine
To wrap her in a frail time

So small she sits, and small she stands
Her figure making shadows dance
She drinks in butterflies and love
She leaps to rhythms from above

Peace fills her in the silver moon
It weaves her in a soft cocoon
She hums a soothing lullaby
And feels so small under the sky