moving on out

listening to:
northstar blues. magnolia electric co.


i'm moving on out
of this old room

recalling what is has seen

i thought that i was loved in here
but it was just a dream

the men have done me
unkind things

and left me nightmare
scars

i did what i could
to survive it

the foot of my bed
don't face the door

someone told me sweetly
he had never loved before me

someone made me promises
he just couldn't keep

someone held me in the darkness
finally to weep

someone told me if there was a baby
he'd push me down the stairs

someone let me dance to neil young
told me never cut your hair

i looked in that mirror
as they loved me one by one

and disappeared like vapor
shadows vanished in the sun

i'm moving on out

dappled day you have restored me to myself
it seems

i was poor but now my heap of pressed
pennies gleams

upon the shore of the lake we drank
and ate and dreamed

that we were swimming until
we were swimming.

we swam until my brim was wet,

my broken smile mended

the panorama beautiful,

the way it had been rendered

by the hands of men

and i do not say it easily

that by the hands of men

can sometimes do some good.

the question game

on the walk we played a game it was called the question game.
i don't have any questions for you any more. other than
how you manage to continue with your barrage of questions
like an unending storm.

i could say i don't know a thing but i would be a liar.
i have a secret and it is that i know.
the secret sits within my chest a sharp rock.
when i breathe it digs into me further.

deception follows and hides in trees behind me, watching.
it jumps on me when my stride grows easy and complacent.
that's what i get for walking with my eyes closed.
that's what alyosha would say any way.

i believe in senselessness.
i'm wearing it as a bracelet on my right wrist.
looking down at it i try to use an ancient alchemy
to transform it into strength.

looking down at it i try to see it as a reminder to
ask questions.

it was hard to understand the words wasn't it? 
it wasn't the way it was when we sat by the shore. 
i drove to my grandma's for bourbon and company.
i wanted to holler out every window.


i wish some things were different i guess.
my head is still my head.
i feel vaguely that i had at some point believed i'd changed.
but i haven't changed.


perhaps i am the unchanging girl. 
deserving of a cage and a carnival show. 
all i do is grow a little older and a little wiser
in a way that is easy to see but tough to stick to.


i am trapped in a grey dream and i like it here.
i want the sun to stay invisibly hidden.
it suits my bruises and my confusion. 
though if i said i didn't know what i meant i'd be lying.

at the bottom of my cracked well is poison

drugged gas dancing lopsided dragging ribbons 

to the sound of nothing

my how long it has been

hello stone walls I caress with a hand hello 

broken reeling

hello absence of a ring 

cold and naked 

hello

hello 

August Musings

August Musings.


I saw a bee swimming in the fountain.

What do you find attractive?

Starting to love the liquor wasn't part of the plan.

Do you want more?

I do. I want more.

Will you go there with me? It's all

Sweat and rosemary there.

Would you like to?

a fool such as i 
a game of form

  I am indeed yes a fool beguiled by a smile. Feasting on tea and roses can only sustain a while. And beautiful I may look when lain out on my pyre, but when inquired, Shana will sigh, 'desire, desire, desire.' And,

'How much easier could she only have sung instead! Instead of sweating in her bed, fevers dreaming in her head. Of some day so grey when her paper you read and the panorama turned silver.'

I am yes indeed a fool. Such a fool I've never known. My shoes are mismatched on my feet and look at how I've grown. I stand beside my window for to gaze and moan, and at first sign of stormy weather I steer her back t'ward home.

Yes in fact a fool am I and it is truth to say that the admission of such is about as much of worth I've done today. Once thought by myself to be something brittle I've found as much untrue. I am strong as a wave and changing as a current for you. I dip and ebb and flow as if some secret I know, when all I know is, I'm a fool and as such will I go, honestly toward the morning.

the house of cards crumpled and flew
nearly silent

sweeping sound and then nothing at all.

it was alright
and so she did not curse the stars

it was alright
and so she did not rage

it was alright
like vultures gath'ring round the roadkill
on the highway.

alright
like a salmon suffocating.

it is not
that love is not love
she thought

and it is not
that what is
is not

it only cannot
be

the way a heaven cannot be,

the way a sweetness cannot stay,

the way one cannot wrap oneself within a perfect day,

it only cannot be.

words flail half formed and stop short of my tongue
i thought i earned this coiled snake

but i am who i have always been.
seeking a cypress

bury me 'neath a cypress
and never again will i complain,

no more. yearning is deep within
my chest and continues

pushing me stumbling toward the ledge
crying and laughing maniacally

but bury me 'neath a cypress
and never again will i complain,

no more.

' all right, since it's a fair fight i'd say it's the best that i have felt in a long, long time. in a long, long time.'




yours and her own girl 
seeking fens and groves
leaves traces along your mind
in feathers, and evaporates


. she has always said, come with me
always gestured wildly
toward a treacherously


sweet terrain.


brash and confounded her
voice resounded auburn in the air
that day. 


when with clear eyes she saw you,
and knew and knew not,
and knew she knew not,
and 


collected stones for her prayer
as you stood there
. blotting out the silver sun.

Quiver in your bed like a leaf,
That's what you're good at.


Look at all the books you're not reading.


Mind your histrionic heart-bleeding,


How you've always been---


So soft and hurt and laughing
Through your sea tears.