lost (without the stars)

This one's a song--here's the link, if you want to hear me sing it! Lost (Without the Stars)

we are lost she said

when we finally stopped

beneath blue blue gas station lights

we had driven all day

and then--to prove a point--

all night

there's no such thing as lost

i disagreed. you just

haven't learned to love where you are. 

well

she didn't know so much about that

so i screwed in the gas cap

and walked 'round the car

on the dusty rear window

i drew us a road map

this whole patchwork nation

in a single straight line

just waved my hand

from east to west

let night sky and road grime

fill in the rest.

you are here.

you are here, i said.

you are here.

there's gas in the tank

and love in our hearts

venus in the west

and a highway that starts

where our tires meet the road

just get in and we'll go

anywhere.

get in; we'll go

anywhere.

you will be home (truck driver song)

i'll paint my cab
the green of your eyes
i'll bend this straight steel day
to the curve of your smile
i'll roll the mile markers
back down to one;
wherever this world takes me
you will be home

every roadside fence
is overgrown with grapevines
clinging tight to winter
leaning towards sunshine
all the farmers' fields
are optimistic dreams
of grey becoming brown
becoming green

every fuelling station
is coffee, diesel, grease
every city just
clutch and release, clutch and release
once you've seen it all
it all looks just the same
all my eyes desire
is you again

sometimes a house reveals itself
not lost behind the trees
just big enough for two
maybe you? maybe me?
and sometimes this mountain road
drops soft down to valleys
like a hand drops down to thighs
like i drop down to you

empty like a pair of shoes

empty
like a pair of shoes
hanging from an overhead wire

dry heaves of language
like i've puked up everything
i ever had to say
but can't admit i'm finished now.

i'm finished.
there. i said it.

i have nothing to write. maybe i'm
old. or stable. or happy more or less.
words no longer come to me
unwelcome guests swarming my sleep
hijacking my car
as i drive home from work.
they lurk instead
in dark corners i have
learned not to tread
they drift aimless snow
they know exactly what they know
nothing more. they do not roar
like oceans, whisper like streams
they have gone out in search of dreams
while i stay home and nap
before the television set.

if this is a poem
then let it be known
as my last one. let these
pinched and grudgeful words
go free
so many long-caged birds
reaching for the sky while i
watch silently.

let this pose
of resigned indifference suffice.
let ice form a clear crystal skin
diamond hard and thin
over the misshapen curve
of my eye.

miles away

the difference between
here and there
is i am one
and you are the other

to start is the thing

to start is the thing:

to acknowledge the absence of wings
yet to leap from the nest
singing, into the arms of the wind

to begin

we are aimless
beautiful blameless
charting no course
we are doodles on maps
we are frost crossing glass
we are birds who sing
for the joy of the voice
for the love of the sound
of the forest alive
and breathing

to go is the point
to explore to enjoy
to build nothing up
and neither tear down
to sing
for the love of the sound.

luck

any excuse for your own failures:

the stars
and their alignment
today or at the hour of your birth

the phase of the moon.
the curve of the belly of a
pregnant number 6, the stab
of a fatal 4.

any excuse for your incompetence:
tea leaves.
the entrails of a crow, a pig.
three butterflies together
on a flower in the yard.
an open umbrella in the hall.

any excuse for your own ineptitudes.
the life is not the life you were born into:
you choose.
reach out with your left hand
devil hand, monkey paw
sinister sinstral sinuous serpent
and seize the remains of the day.

no excuse for your failures.
the stars are indifferent coals.
you are not so important
that nature conspires to keep you
where you are
cowering beneath a comforter
and waiting for the calendar to turn.

Burnt Letters

it's 4000 miles
from toronto to venice
it's cold. i'm alone.
my clothes smell like yesterday
winter's been chasing me
all across europe
but i've found a way to keep
warm:

i write all my sorrows
on air mail paper
thin enough for the light to shine through
then i burn every word
and once i feel better
i send all my love
not my lonesome
to you

boats on the water
are ferrying lovers
from hotel to restaurant
palace to church
i tour the alleys
making cold sandwiches
filling my notebooks
with words

walking to the doctor

i am walking to the doctor
for our annual discussion
of my body
and the way that it grows
older

heat waves on the sidewalk
make everyone shimmer
melt away our imperfections--
see them gleaming in the gutter
     with leaves that fell
     in yesterday's storm

mary in the waiting room
has never been an artist
so she tells me. but
she ballroom danced

back when the big bands
came around oh,
she loved to dance
loved that warm, round sound
it melts away inhibitions--
see them run like the water
     she used to drink
     from the part-time creek
     in the forest behind
     her childhood home
     it was right here--
     right here, you know!--
     but it was so many too many
     years and years ago.

bell tower on the church
rings out the gift of persecution
we smile about our sorrows,
some real, some imagined.
it's a long time yet before you're old,
mary says.

we are young;
we are young.
after all we have endured
we have earned the right
to be young.