Building a Building
How it shows on your elbows that you've been thinking and dreaming of building a building, conjuring up concrete. Oh the streets you've paved, the bricks you've laid to rest for progress. You'll impress upon yourself a blueprint spread for love. Build up, Build up! From the ground up, ground up! Your skyscraper, foundations poured, what is more, you're fed up, fed up with your head up head up. Oh daydreamer, you're pondering and planning for her. Oh boy look around. You've hired hands happy, happy or hardly, autonomous. You tell yourself the workers are machines, aliens to themselves, means to ends you'll find a friend when you build up build up from the ground up ground up your lover, she's been born in blueprint form to you. oh boy look around. you are in the clouds, oh boy look around. you've built up from the ground, oh boy look around, you're all alone, building a building. all alone, building a building




Oh My Goodness! Oh Good grief! Look at Those Clouds!

These thoughts dance in pairs and dress in dresses. They smile down at me as if they think of me kindly. Marching at me, an army of snails, the sky, a homily. Certainly they'll capture me and I'll scream, "Oh great heights! Terrible doubts!" Cumulus clouds say, "You are crazy!" Clapping in the streets, melody wakes me. Am I dreaming a song for me or cars crashing? Piano keys, simple things, melodies, the songs we sing. Simply speaking it's a broken chord, a broken note, broken bones. And how they linger! And how they seem…the secrets I keep say, "You are crazy. You are crazy. You are crazy."

Up with Mittens, Down with Gloves

Oh the cold, I can't take it any more; Knuckles from seams. I can hardly breathe this heavy air, it means nothing to me. But we have swallowed this for years! They say, you say, "Up with mittens, down with gloves!" They say, "You breathe what you want and keep on breathing." I'm breathing. We have swallowed this for years. We'll see in the morning. (Will it melt away?) Up with mittens, Down with gloves! We'll see I'm freezing. (Will it melt away?) Up with mittens, Down with gloves! We'll see in the morning. (Will it melt away?) Up with mittens, Down with gloves! It ought to be the warmest tone of a quarter note in this minor chord. If I could hear its hum or feel its rhythm I would strum it all day long. We have swallowed this for years. We'll see in the morning. (Will it melt away?) Up with mittens, Down with gloves! We'll see I'm freezing. (Will it melt away?) Up with mittens, Down with Gloves! We'll see in the morning. (Will it melt away?) Up with mittens, Down with gloves! Oh, the cold I can't take it any more; Knuckles from seams.

Regarding the Wolf (You are so Strange)

Am I dreaming, you're singing to me. You are seeming as birds do, singing to me, "How your bones are melodies, with each step a change in key. Your song is so strange, you are so strange. If you come and sing to me, hold your notes steadily. Don't be so strange. You are so strange." "How your bones are melodies, with each step a change in key, your song is so strange, you are so strange." Regarding the wolf and village in me, haphazard and hungry for blood. "Stop it please", says Saint Francis in me, "Let's make peace with yourself." These birds are preaching to me. I'd hear them sing if those damn dogs weren't laughing at me. "How your bones are melodies, with each step a change in key. Your song is so strange, you are so strange. If you come and sing to me, hold your notes steadily. Don't be so strange. You are so strange.

Bring Back the Coast

Firefly skyline God. Midnight moonlight love with the oceans tired pulse. And her memory loss. Hold me, hold me close to the California coast. Bring home the west coast. Sunrise streetlight hope for a love I've known. How it felt there in her arms, oh so close to shore. Now I'm lost at sea. Won't you come and rescue me. Bring home the west coast.

Dinosaurs

Billions of years ago, volcanoes and dinosaurs and creatures of that sort were creeping and crawling and dying on the planet's floor. Like a story told or a picture shown, I saw them pass like a life had and lived even though it wouldn't last. I'm sorry, I just don't care about history. I just want to feel like I am sorry. I just don't care, I just want to feel. Taking off and landing, give way hands. Heavy pocket's change in case of chance. There's no second glance at love, a love had and lost, one I've never known. I'm sorry, I just don't care about leaving. I just want to feel like I'm sorry. I just don't care, I just want to feel, just want to feel. I'm sorry, I just don't care. I'm sorry, I just don't care about history. I just want to feel, just want to feel like I'm sorry. I just don't care about leaving, I just want to feel, just want to feel.

A Sketch of a Sketch of a Drawing I Once Drew

Oh, sorrow is a set of cello strings strung to me. Your music hands are pens and pencils, metranomes for a drawing pad. I'd have you draw me as a sketch of a sketch of a drawing I once drew. I'd have you play me, have you strum me to the saddest tune. Play me in time to the poet's pencil rhymn. I'll hum along this time. What tired strings, what worn out words from all my wondering. What song is this I hear inside me? The tempo's fast, the ink is black. God damn those drawings! Haphazard one-thousand words! God Damn those fragments! Those measurements we play to! Play me in time to the poet's pencil rhymn. I won't sing along this time. I haven't the time to waste. I am in california for now.

For Joshua

It's a plane crash in the foothills, burning trees down to the ground. So praise Jesus, Son of God with hallelujah hands for bloodied bodies in the streets. Rolling past he sees burning faces in hospital beds. Medicine seeps in the sheets. This is for Joshua, for Joshua! It's less like fathers holding hands to keep us from falling down and more like mothers mourning sons and daughters off at war. I am hoping that He hears you, that He's holding you, that He is there too, with machine guns in his hands. He was crying, Joshua.

The Day You Accept Jesus Back into Your Heart is the day I'll Quit Smoking.

Wake up sleeper. You're fallen leaves from skeleton trees, that race from me and dance in the street, slow and in three four, to minor chords. Their faces show a secret known. Oh my God! Oh my God! Sleep tight sweet night. You're the harmless head of a saint that said, "Hold tight with all your might with arms instead of a heart that's dead". Oh my God! Oh my God! I made you make sense, a portrait in a camera lens. Enlightenment! A frame for a fence, I put you in. I'm buried in bed. Blankets and sheets. That's where I sleep. It's the grave I keep. So throw flowers on me. Pray and weep for fallen leaves. A eulogy, eulogy. Oh a eulogy. Oh my God! Oh my God! I made you make sense, a portrait in a camera lens. Enlightenment! A frame for a fence, I put you in.

From the Land of Bears, Ice and Rock

Courage dear, these foxtail foothills crawl into death while saplings are planted like graves in your everyday. Its life, its death, this road, I am afraid that your god is falling asleep at the wheel, that you are falling asleep at the wheel. Take heart dear, there's hope here in these trees and their leaves. Their arms sway forth conducting our days. So sing life, sing love, sing hope, don't be afraid that your god is falling asleep at the wheel. You are singing, singing along.