How

How do I get there?

To the woods, through this country

And how do I stay there?

Make a home, grow all the things that I’ve ignored

I tried to start by weeding through

The trauma in my bones

To rearrange the memories

Forgive and not keep score

But, how could you?

When we were young, blind and falling

And how can you?

Linger on, drink your coffee like there’s nothing wrong

I tried to start by walking four-hundred miles

From north to south

And to riddle through scenarios

As if I had the power

And in the end it seems

To be uneven even at the root

You are you, I am me, we are we

There’s nothing left to prove

But how do I get there?

Through the woods, to the morning

Westlawn Cemetery

I went out walking in a cool September breeze

By the graveyards in my hometown

Tangerine clouds passed the alabaster tombs

Of people who figured it out 

And it got me to thinking how my mother’s getting older

Now I’m making her dinner at night

And the stones just illuminate the irony of losing

You can’t fake getting out alive 

Everyday I’m resistant to the permanence of moving

Through these cycles, currents, and tides

Every side of me loves every side of you that’s leaving

That’s how I know I’m changing this time

That’s how I know I might be changing this time

It’s the Saturday choir of mowers in the yard

And you’re digging through your garden designs

Tender of the universe, your hands covered in soil

Where we all end up down the line

We’ll become the flowers in time

We’ll become the flowers in time

I Needed You

I want a simple house, simple man

Dancing in the wilderness

Never mind what I might find down the road again

Little car, dotted line

Are you passing through to another time?

Never know which one of us will bend

Wasn’t kind of you, wasn’t always true when

I needed you

Your flannel shirt, your calming words

I needed you

City lights, country nights

Playing pool and tossing dice

Never know who’s arms I’ll lay in

Coffee cup, wish me luck

Circle through the redux

Never know what cycle I’m spinnin’

Wasn’t kind of you, wasn’t always true when

I needed you

How cruel to be, this kind of free when

I needed you

Big heart, highway mind

Rock ‘n roll baby turn the dial

Never know what song I’m singin’

I’m a simple person with a simple truth

I want a simple way to love you but I

Never seem to know which way’s the wind

Wasn’t kind of you, wasn’t always true when

I needed you

Your soft t-shirt, your calm embrace

I needed you

I needed you

North to South

North to south you’re travelin’

Along the Blue Ridge spine

Authoring your story

I hope you find your shine

It’s an odd truth

A tangled bruise

And I’m left with these memories of you

East to West I’m travelin’

Across the Great Divide

I have questioned all my senses

And let fear be my guide

It’s an odd truth

A ruthless tomb

And I’m left with these memories of you

I’d like to let you follow

But the patterns don’t align

So I’ll kiss you on your breast

As you’re swallowed up by time

It’s an odd truth

A tangled bruise

And I’m left with these memories of you

It’s an odd truth

A tangled bruise

And I’m left with these memories of you

And I’m left with these memories of you

Ineffable

I hear the sound of sirens laughing at my window

I smell the rain of midnight searching for a place to go

I feel my body all contorted looking for comfort in angular places

I see angels tellin’ me to quit my second guessing

And when I walked outside today I looked out and I could see the sky

And I put my hand up mama, to hold it up for you

How come the clouds came by, how come the clouds go by yet it remains so blue

In the back of my mind, I still cradle every thought of you

There’s a thousand little worlds

From the streets of New York City

To the highways and the half-moon hills

There’s a thousand little words

I could string ‘em all together

But it wouldn’t make sense of the same strangeness of it all

My mother of the mountains wears her heart out on her sleeve

She has trouble explaining the day-to-day happenings

The struggle comes and goes, it goes and comes yet it remains so new

In every stumbling conversation, every half-evoked thought

I am a mess with you

There’s a thousand little worlds

From the look of a lover

To the softness in a stranger’s eyes

There’s a thousand little words

I could string ‘em all together

But it wouldn’t make sense of the same strangeness of it all

For the Song

Tired legs, tired lips she tries to muscle on

With every breath she draws in through her lungs

And every route that led here leads to where she’s goin’

She’ll rise and she’ll fall and she’ll try for the song

Money in her pocket with a face that looks like hers

No doubts of her intentions to twist the scales and words

No claim that her companion settled for her scores

She’ll be low, she’ll be right, she’ll be high, she’ll be the source

And when the rage comes around

And every critic’s tearing up her ground

The truth becomes power

Saw her sitting there in silence wondering how to carry on

Says “I’m no passing illusion or trend you can own

I am not an object you can curse or define

I’ll live and I’ll die and I’ll rise for my lines”

And when the stars come around

And everyone is handing her the crown

She’ll be steady and still

“I am heading

Homeward bound

When you find me

I won’t be found”

Tom and Jerry

I did everything to catch you

Turned my arms into marble statues

Wrapped around your chest

We mined until the gold was lead

Was it the drive up 95?

Showing you how the stick shift slides

Laughing at every stall

And screaming when the words got small

It’s an adage to an ancient game

A see and saw of who takes the blame

Now I’m working too hard at the jewelry store

Soldering stones to even the score

Smiling at what I’ve attained

And crying when I miss you again

It’s an adage to an ancient dance

A Tom and Jerry trying to fake a romance

You gave no reason

Just grabbed the key and sped away

Oh it’s getting so hard to choose

And I’m chewing on all the alternate routes

Playin’ ‘em out on every page

A cat and mouse just stuck in the cage

Jimmy, Come Back

Dawn looks a little clearer now

With confidence of morning light

How I wish to be in your arms

With you still taking flight

Rest is not available

When ego clouds the mind

How I wish I could photosynthesize

Create my own shine

Jimmy come back

Skip your town and

Hop on the next train down

We’ll talk through all the secrets we haven’t told

Holding all this tension now

In my neck and in my spine

I want you to want me

To resolve everything

But see our paths dividing

Jimmy stay home

I love you but I have to let you go

We’re all bound to find someone to lose

Quiet in the evening time

No body to behold

Time to dim this neon heart

But the sign stays in my soul

Jimmy come back

I’ll skip this town

And hop on the next plane down

We’re all bound to find someone to lose

Oh Jimmy come back

Skip your town

And hop on the next train down

We’re all bound to find someone to lose

To See Through

It’s the cold northern winds

Like the old grade school friends

Finding all of the cracks in my skin

I will welcome you in

Every horror as friend

Take account of the message you send

If I see you passin’ through

Every seed to its bloom

I might know more of the map

I’m traveling through

And if I howl very far

I can see through the dark

Make it known, make it good, make it light

And if I watch you passin’ through

I get the urge to follow too

But I know habits never help to

Break the loop

To see through

To see through

To see it through

Keep the candle a’light

For the spirits of night

They might know, they might care

They might cry, they might share

They might try

To see it through

To see through

To see through

To see it through

To see it through

To see it through

To see it through

To see it through

To see it through

To see you through

To see it through

To see it through

Julia

Thought I’d be there standing next to you

Always supporting through hard times

But it’s a different town and it’s a different plan

Trading control for a blank canvas and a new life

Oh, Julia

The pen is in your hands for now

Sorrow don’t keep as good company

Grows slowly rotten like weeds best leave behind

Oh, Julia

The key is in your certainty

You can’t always fear goodbyes you see

Hope is the only seed worth planting

Oh, Julia

I am always on your side 

Garden of Sound

I lay down

In a garden of sound

And I remembered

I remembered

Inside of you

Is a place that has never been wounded

Don’t you remember?

Don’t you remember?

And when the fall comes

All the crimson and crocuses

Will set you free

Walk in your mind

And cut out the strains of unkindness

It’s for the better

It’s for the better

Nectar of noon

And the medicine of moonlight

Help you feel better

Help you feel better

And when the bugs bite

All the sunlight and crocuses

Will set you free

I hear it all

I hear it all

In the garden of sound

In the garden of sound

I hear it all

I hear it all

In the garden of sound

In the garden of sound

Long Drive

You’re a crack in my reality

A theater with a broken screen

A traffic light dying in the dark

Do I stop or do I go

Or slow down listen to the radio

And ride the avenues till morning light?

On the long drive

You’re a ghost in the machinery

Human error, anomaly

The one mosquito buzzing in the bedroom

How do I make the days go by

With a fever dream but a mellow mind

Without crying for no reason on the highway?

On the long drive

On the long drive

You’re a whisper in a screaming scene

Of telephone wires and flashing screens

Of buy-one’s and get-one’s free

Try to listen, try to find

Another day, another peace of mind

Without racing through the wires of my dreams

On the long drive

On the long drive

Days, Nights

The mornings are dim

The evenings are long

Since you’ve been around

Every flower I once knew has been

Hollowed through and hung out on the line

And I sit and I think

And I hope and I wait

And I watch you take over while

The air disappears

And the wind’s a persistent beast

That rattles every corner of the mind

And when it’s time I’ll know

To stay or follow

This winter could be

Spring tomorrow

The days have been grey

The nights have been cold

Since you’ve been away

Every memory and photograph

Muddied up the river far behind

And I laugh and I cry

And I cry and I laugh

And I wash away tears

And I look at the clouds

And the trees sweetly whisper

That somewhere in the moment you’re around

And when it’s time I’ll know

To take or borrow

The love you left me

For tomorrow

Or give it away and

Move through the sorrow

And when it’s time I’ll know

To take or borrow

The love you left me

For tomorrow

Or give it away and

Move through the sorrow

Time Away From Time

Do you agree

That every day slips into night

Every word is a lie?

A movement of lips

Gone as fast as a kiss

From a lover of just one night

Everyone I love will die

I am only

A moment to a mountain

A droplet to the sea

And the ancient seeds live in me

I know the river

She’s a friend of mine

Sparse and serpentine

She lives her freedom

And I live mine

Can she always be that kind?

Can she always be that kind?

Steer me away from

The minutes and the hours into

The desert and the pines

Time away from time

Time away from time

The light lingered longer

And we found some other stones to turn

Another prophecy to burn

I feel the swell

Surround me from time to time

There are still mountains in my mind

Steer me into

The valleys and the orchards

The desert and the pines

Time away from time

Thoughts away from mind

Steer me into

The sweetness of the sea

And the ether of the sky

Time away from time

Time away from time

When Silence Turns to Sound

 In the San Juans

In the valley

I crossed a border in between

I cut loose

I came clean

And I drank a cup of honesty

Pulsing waters

Bending streams

I let the winds envelop me

When the world was a boulder

Heavy on my shoulders

I’d remember flying

In circles and circles around

My childhood home

I remembered diving

In circles and circles around

My childhood home

And I crawled through a maze

In the desert of youth

In awe, amazed at what I could do

When I took matters into

My own hands

And when silence

Turns into sound

Will this person be around?

Will you still be around?

Will you still be around?

I’m No Prisoner of Time

I have walked hours without rest

Through deepest wells of my memory

Carving through the tangling of roots

And clearing out things too heavy

There I found a sky within a sky

And the dirt beneath the ground so unleveled

Blindly seeing the forest for the trees

And missing all the golds and emeralds

I’m here to release myself from time again

I have dreamt of happiness to come

So much that I forget the flowers in my hands

If I stay here, if I don’t wander

I won’t be a prisoner of time again

I’m here to release myself from time again

I have lost the woman I could be

To a wild weathered mind and flood of sorrow

Will I stay here in the oceans I bleed

Or will I walk the rivers of tomorrow?

Ramble

I see the blossom in your weathered skin

And through the whisper of each strangled song

And though some melodies are caving in

They will soon burst into a mountain strong

Babe you will run

At full speed once more

Babe you will climb

To the tallest leaves

On the sycamore

And ramble on back

To my door

There are corners to the clouds up there

And they get hard sometimes to dance around

So I fall down and get a raspberried knee

Well that’s okay sometimes to cry about

‘Cause babe you will run

On two feet once more

Babe you will climb

To the tallest leaves

On the sycamore

And ramble on back

To my door

There’s a thrush in the chorus

Like a little star singing

And I reckon with the worst storms in me

What will this newness bring?

Babe you will run

At full speed once more

Babe you will climb

To the tallest leaves

On the sycamore

And ramble on home

To my door

Illusion Sublime

I’m balancing

The west and the east

In the tributaries of my mind

And whether it’s time to bend

The circle again

Find another trail to grind

Another love to intertwine

Another freeway to ride

When the dawn rolls around

And the warblers sound

And the blood moon is hanging low

I’ll be gone when the fog

Of ambivalence burns off but

I have no place to go

Away from silver cities and smoke

Away from everything I’ve known

When I’m gone away

Will you still miss me in your life?

Or am I just a dog-eared page

In the margins of your mind?

I’ve been trying to set aside

All the howls and the cries

So saccharine

The honey and the wine

And the harvest green and ripe

I have wandered these hills

With joy and still

My hollowness creeps by

Where the rivers divide

And where the years forget time

When I’m gone away

Will you still miss me in your life?

Or am I just a dog-eared page

In the margins of your mind?

I’ve been trying to set aside

All the hows and the whys

When the evening debuts

And the reds and the blues

Melt to violet at twilight

I will hum over a guitar

And serenade the stars

And the world that’s intangibly wide

And bends through an indigo of light

It’s an illusion sublime