Bear's song

Bear’s Song

come and lie beside me if only for the rest,
come and lie beside me —place your hand upon my chest
take the rhythm of my heart and bring it to your song
you know and I know you shall sing before too long

I will never see the dancing grass again I know
the earth already darkens deep beneath the snow
your brother’s voices carry, they are singing of the end.
I can taste the taste of ashes carried on the wind.

when first I found you, you were lost, lost into my eyes
lost into their darkness that you feared and that you prized.
for your soul or for your song did you give yourself to me?
was it something that you captured or something I set free?

come and lie beside me and take the things I give
take them to your song and there my soul might live
come and lie beside me you know we don’t have long
tonight I am still flesh, tommorrow I’ll be song

yes something of me lives to see the gold of this turning year
something of the music to a song I’ll never hear
something of your song so much stronger than the words
like the unseen hand beneath the wing that lifts a soaring bird

ashes pool around the stones, morning waits to speak
the words he does not want, the stories other seek
his throat is full with sadness and empty of the breath
it takes to tell the dawning day the legend of my death

come and lie beside me if only for the rest,
come and lie beside me place your hand upon my chest
take the rhythm of my heart and bring it to your song
you know and I know you shall sing before too long










this song is published in




available at cafepress.com

At the shore

At the shore


What this great gray being—
Here by the water it speaks without
cease or concern for who might or might not
be listening —whether this ocean voice is only the dream
music of a damaged child
or the the larger anthem of one race of angels —or another.

Here it might be effortless to believe —heroic to doubt
at that being’s side —the enormous matter
such, that we need it to be
divine and with purpose —with meaning.

There are exhausted words in this language
of light —of aching and homage
—of the ocean sound and the seabird’s
soaring —loneliness.

Even as they are said and sorry —these words
—I know the same sad declination. I know the salt wind
I am fallen through and the incessent
heedless majesty —the terrible
empty and enormous matter
of the sea.

There at the shore and away
from blithe distraction
I confront this truth —perhaps.

Or I might well be merely entertaining
a question—

Here at the shore,
as two birds drift above me,
nearly motionless
in the misty air,
perhaps we only share
the empty mind —of God.





.

Back home: Oh sister, Oh brother, I haven't any other

More than once on this blog I have used the forum, however public (and noticed?) it might be, to plug a book or an article that deserved attention. Allow me to do the same for the oral tradition. This is John Schindler's song

Back Home in America

World of the world shakers, home of the homemakers
Kings and queens in blue jeans,
Saints and sailors, junkies and jailers
The rich, the poor, the in-betweens
This is my neighborhood from Harlem to Hollywood

Oh, I thought I was all alone but I was back home in America
Oh, I thought I was all alone but I was back home in America

Poets and preachers, substitute teachers,
The bright, the best and all the rest
Maids and hairdressers, plumbers, professors,
The well-dressed, the dispossessed,
Oh sister, oh brother, I haven't any other.

I thought I was all alone then I was back home in America
Oh, I thought I was all alone but I was back home in America

So don't wave the flag for me. I don't need lessons on Liberty

I thought I was all alone but I was back home in America
I thought I was all alone but I was back home in America

Old ones and new ones, the red and the blue ones,
Sons of former Klansmen, daughters of former slaves,
The old and the new there, there was me, there was you there,
alone and afraid in the land of the brave.
I was sick at heart but now I'm healed
I saw a farmer weeping in his flooded field.

Oh, I thought I was all alone then I was back home in America
Oh, I thought I was all alone then I was back home in America
Oh, I thought I was all alone then I was back home in America

John Schindler and Deborah Rocha will be performing at the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham on August 16th. These are two truly amazing, truly independent artists (who happen to be friends of mine).

By the way, if you click on the link at the song's title you can give John's song a listen. The first time I ever heard him sing this was at a venue I used to host in Framingham. There weren't a whole lotta people in the room, but I know there was something like a healing going on for all of them. For me, too.

John is just an amazing artist : all unassuming and self-deprecating humor one minute (he deprecates everybody and everything else pretty effectively, too) —then before you know it you find he has your heart in his hands with one of his perfect depictions of imperfect beauty.

Both he and Deborah Rocha are outside the normal mold of a singer songwriter in these parts. I think it has something to do with their honesty —and the fact that they both play nylon stringed classical type guitars: Deborah in the mode of the Brazillian art/folk song tradition she's embraced and transformed into something very much her own: and John, with something of a cross between classical technique, folk fingerstyle and funky funky slap bass.

Anyway —give John a listen here and then go see them both in the flesh at their show on the 16th. The night is being billed as a "Night of Classical Guitar Abuse" —but believe me it will be a healing.

Falling down, standing up

Falling down, standing up




everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs

and you are one of mine

the walls have got a brand new coat of paint
the ceiling starts to fall
the things I tried to say to you last night
I know they make no sense at all

the flower falls into the bottle throat
green glass liquor long ago
drunk on dreamsongs and talk of tender hope
and high on how these seemed to glow



falling down, standing up
you leave some things behind
coffee stain lines on an empty cup
turning circles through my mind

everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs

and you are one of mine


this is the song I sang for you before
remember paradise before the fall
while the sorry soldier sleeping just outside your door
lies dark and dreaming of your call

but winter chose to stay another day
so you can sleep or just pretend
while the sad survivor finds another way
one wrinkled dollar left to spend



falling down, standing up
you leave some things behind
coffee stain lines on an empty cup
turning circles through my mind

everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs

and you are one of mine








this song is published in




available at cafepress.com



listen to the song at myspace.com/tomdriscollsongs

None the wiser

None the wiser


None the wiser, I’ve come home to you
—none the wiser, only hungry tired and blue.
For all my time at searching to find just one thing true,
I guess I should have known I’d find it when I came home to you.

I’m a soldier coming home from the war—
the victor or the vanquished only wanting nothing more.
It’s long ago forgotten now what he was fighting for.



None the wiser, I’ve come home to you
—none the wiser for all the battles I’ve been through.
I see a tattered banner hanging in a blue and breathless sky.
Still I see those colors gently turning there in your eyes.

I climbed onto the mountain top to see what I could see
'no angel come to touch my lips with a burning kiss for me.
The songs that I was going to sing, the message I was going to bring,
my blind and lonely wanderings, these were to be my offering
to thee.



None the wiser, I’ve come home to you
—none the wiser, only come to learn one journey is through.
And that all of the darkness that I have been through
has been along this path that leads me back home to you.

I see one small star in the night
with its memory and a promise of the light
and I know the blind man’s recollection of his sight.



None the wiser, I’ve come home to you.
None the wiser, I’ve come home to you.

None the wiser, I have come home to you.











this song is published in




available at cafepress.com



listen to the song at myspace.com/tomdriscollsongs

The Man I Killed

This song was written in response to author, Tim O'Brien's short story of the same name that appeared in the collection, "The Things They Carried."






The Man I Killed



When I close my eyes, I still see him
in the misty light of not quite day—
blue flowers by the side of the road where he fell
a star-shaped wound where his eye once was.

I see the butterfly lit upon the wreckage of his face
and to this day I cannot explain
those golden wings that touched something deep inside of me,
something that I know that I can never name.


The Man I Killed was more than a story
or some offering of imaginary pain.
It’s not some lie about destiny or glory
found within the Southeast Asia rain.

The Man I killed is something I have carried
from that dawning day and through every day that came
to tell me that I must tell the story,
that I must live,
that I must feel this pain.



He was a small—still young —almost beautiful man,
small wrists—small waist—smooth skin.
He carried his weopan with the muzzle towards the ground,
a school boy with a belt of ammunition.

I know he saw my handgrenade land at his feet,
but he did not cry out—or even make a sound.
He took one step, then up into the air,
then he landed broken on the ground.


The Man I Killed was more than a story
or an offering of imaginary pain.
It’s not some lie about destiny or glory
found within the Southeast Asia rain.

The Man I killed is something I have carried
from that dawning day and through every day that came
to tell me that I must tell the story,
that I must live,
that I must feel this pain.



In my dreams sometime I let him pass me by
and he passes as if there isn’t any war.
I see his eyes in a way I never really saw them
and his life, like mine, continues down the road,

down the road, down the years, down the hours to this day
to where his children ask for stories of the war.


When I close my eyes, I still see him
in the misty light of not quite day—
blue flowers by the side of the road where he fell
a star-shaped wound where his eye once was.










this song is published in




available at cafepress.com



listen to the song at myspace.com/tomdriscollsongs

Winter Prayer

Winter Prayer


The brittle voiceless earth
will not add to the music wind just now,
not one pale green lyric, not one tender syllable,
not a word, not a sound, not
today, not tomorrow.

The distant sun’s disinterest
will continue in the time next to come.
The harrowing cold will remain, asking and unanswered.
The withering light will wither more
while certain souls make a wishful study
of the sky, advancing their theories of the coming thaw.

What scientist or priest first noticed the shape?
—of a stone turning in hand, or the sewer’s needle
disappearing into dark fabric and appearing again
each time—each breath following the next
to ignite the heart’s same effort
—what scientist or priest?

Dissident?

Prophetic?

As yet, the prayer I am imagining
hasn’t any words. It doesn’t ask or prescribe
faith, or acceptance, or hope. It is only
that understanding of music that would try
to hear and hold it —know it, that it might survive the larger silence.
It is that memory without mind that dark envisions
the frigid seed in a lifeless matrix of soil,
soil that, it is somehow known, will again, one day soon
—in time, warm —then waken,

just utter —then sing.

Not today, not tomorrow, but again.






.

And what is the first?

And what is the last.


Even now I live
That moment by the water—
Ice, not quite to shore.

Silence surrounding
The pale sight of rising breath—
Aching to be heard.

And never knowing
What is not yet the first thought
And what is the last.



















This poem appears in



available at cafepress.com

two songs, the same "small and fallen flower"

A couple of songs come to mind as the year "closes on this coldest kind of season." Cheers (well, sort of). ~T.D.


Dance The Darkness


What am I to do? It seems I’ve fallen through
the hole I’ve tried to dance my life around.
And as I start to fall I hear your music call
and my head and heart are taken by the sound

to the lonely touch of footsteps on the road,
to the broken and surrendered,
to the wounds that won’t be mended,
to the heart that will not hear what its been told.

What am I to do, when I feel that I’ve found you
and I know I’ve lost what wisdom I once had?
Is my life a game of chance or this sweet and sorry dance
to the time of a tune so simple and so sad?

Come and dance with me the darkness, place your hand in mine
bring your gentle kiss to my lips and taste this bitter wine.
I can close my eyes—and you can hold me to your song.
We will dance our dance of sweet despair until the light of dawn,
until it shines.

And in the morning light I’ll be longing for the night,
for the shelter in the shadow of your eyes,
when you’ll come to me again like this simple song’s refrain
like the simple perfect pain we have taken for our prize

like the dreams of those who wander in the rain,
the sadness of your song,
this resignation at the dawn,
your hand upon my heart that still remains.

Can you tell me why I search the bluest sky
for the poison and the promise of the rain
or why I take your hand when I cannot understand
how this small and fallen flower has found me here again?

Come and dance with me the darkness, place your hand in mine.
Bring your gentle kiss to my lips and taste this bitter wine
I can close my eyes—and you can hold me to your song
we will dance our dance of sweet despair until the light of dawn,
until it shines.




For All The Wrong Reasons

Weren’t we two fine shining fools, climbing up the hill
with mountain dreams of life above the rain?
Offering up our prayers through starlight and thin air
never dreaming we would fall back down again.

Every day another page we could write,
sad songs and cigarettes with lonely souls we met,
hearts a fire burning through the night.

We were patriots in search of truth or treason.
And a song's sometimes a song for all the wrong reasons.


From our place above the city we watched the flowing light
and above our heads there turned a wheel of stars.
And this sad and soulless world was just a banner yet unfurled
as our talk turned to the majesty of scars

and how we could be the ones to bring a healing wind,
with our songs and stories, our laughter at glory.
We were two smiling saviours aching to begin

or two priests high on prayer and hungry for believin’.
And a song’s sometimes a song for all the wrong reasons.


Then came coffee cups and conversations, down on Concord Road.
Remember Gabriela dancing to our songs?
A small and fallen flower found lying on the ground
and opening in the place where it belongs.

We must admit it lasted for a while—
the promise of the light, through long and easy nights
and gray blue eyes that journeyed towards a smile

to where the saddest of souls could say goodbye to grievin’.
Ah, but a song’s sometimes a song for all the wrong reasons.


When the time does finally come to rewrite all our history
we can say we said the things we never said.
We’ll say we broke each other’s hearts for the sake of truth and art.
Wandering stars, we followed where they led.

We’ll say that paradise was just a place for leaving.
We’ll say that we have learned from the bridges we have burned
and how hope is something less than believing.

And how every year closes on this coldest kind of season.
And how a song’s sometimes a song for all the wrong reasons.








these songs are published in




available at cafepress.com




you can also listen at tom's myspace page

Texas Sky

This song came to mind the other day. It's an old one, written about seven years ago, maybe eight. I was listening to the radio one morning and they were talking to the governor of Texas. He was asked if his avowed Christianity gave him any reason to pause or question the practice of capital punishment.

(He had set some records in the catagory.)

He said he'd searched his conscience...

and that he hadn't found anything.





Texas Sky


Huntsville, Texas, December or July,
the coldest place in all creation.
It's too windy there for candlelight
and protest songs won’t change the night
or the heart of this angry nation.
He’s dressed in prison clothes, we watch the man walk down,
his hands all bound up in chains.
With a needle in his arm he won’t do no one no harm.
Hell, we don’t even need to know his name.

Texas sky, Texas sky: cold and dark and high.
There’s another lonely star tonight up in the Texas sky
shining down on you and I.

The camera lights outside the prison walls
won’t shine when the crowd does go
or when the priest has prayed that some debt has been paid
to what the dead and the dark don’t know.
And with the darkness a woman stands alone,
blind with the tears in her eyes,
and to one lone star above she whispers of how her love
might have failed but won’t ever say goodbye.

Texas sky, Texas sky: cold and dark and high.
There’s another lonely star tonight up in the Texas sky
shining down on you and I.

Whats that I hear? Some politician talking proud
about the Bible that he’s read and what it means.
His dollar and his dime won't stand the test of time.
Yes, Pilate’s hands never did come clean.
They say that Jesus died between two thieves,
two cold,low and lowly men
and they say that Jesus said, “you do unto me,
just as you do unto them.”

Texas sky, Texas sky: cold and dark and high.
There’s another lonely star tonight up in the Texas sky
shining down on you and I.










this song is published in




available at cafepress.com

Heaven and Feast Of All Souls

two poems for my father


Heaven

when he dared to speak of heaven
he used to like to imagine that it was an answer.
just possibly one great answer
or just possibly thousands
upon thousands
each to all mankind’s beseeching
prayers.

and this world —the mistaken hope
—the pain inflicted even by care —this world
—was his theory of hell.

you listened as he waited and worried it past
the sharp lipped cup flavoring the sweet liquor with blood.
you took that drink with him
and you breathed in together the heavy pale smoke.
you saw the photographs of his journey
and again heard the sorry ballad
born of the dew-wilted flowers of Irish ruin.
and you were there as he prepared
his self-soul for its final travel,
purging the scarred laughter
of his ultimate song.

you once thought you understood.

and in your argument it appeared
that heaven
was not an answer but the beautiful quiet
cessation
of song
of aching
of asking.






feast of all souls

—and for a moment I do sense
your presence and as I had hoped it seems
you have found some nourishing peace

though, through my own disquiet, I know
you have not been completely healed
—this aching —the hunger I would share
with my own son —these aspects of your still suffering

I lift an empty cup to these questions
still posed through our communion
to these things you gave to me which I had mistaken
for poorly chosen gifts

these were not things for me to discard
you gave them for me to carry.


These poems appear in



available at cafepress.com

No Silence

I have emptied the silence —taken it
from my mouth —from that long song shadowed place
in beside my heart —from the colorless place behind my eyes.
I have emptied it from the bare stones I had gathered and arranged—
from the green leaves I had allowed to wither.

I have travelled the streets of abandoned logic “one last time.’
I have tasted the token smoke and bid farewell.
I have visited the grave and remembered my father’s expired voice
—speaking his penitent name and listening for what he never said
I have emptied that silence —that sentimental spree has come to a close.

And friends, I will not offer my own silence —I cannot.

It has been replaced in me —I am left with this on my tongue.
Ash or earth —each word displaces the next to call
and utterly transform my language.

I am changed to become something like the lowest
—perfect soils that allow water to pass through
that make a place for seed and offer sweet sheltered stillness.
—I will not mistake that quiet for silence
what is given to flower in the light.
These colors —my children —this song:

I am joined to the resonant host.



This poem appears in



available at cafepress.com

Trinity

Three stars
remaining
as the sky has begun
so differently
—the shadow logic dissolving
and blue, eye-like, light opens
upon the surface,
the smooth
shell
of the sky.

The morning does not break —it becomes
whole before us.
And those three stars
remaining, if only
with us.

Three sea birds, songless above the unquiet
gesture at the shore: that not caress,
not punishment either. A sculptor’s
distracted hand at his creation. Yes, this fact
of absurd patience, the wisdom of sand, the silence

—so we would dream
of those birds, in place on the wind
and witness
to the ruinous grace.

This is what holds us here, these
three distant storms of light,
three silently hungering spirits,
these three needy castings of the heart—
and these three such syllables
of 'Trinity' spoken and taken to their meaning
with our listening to them.


Each of these, seconds —sands, so delicately balanced
and about to fall.

fifteen haiku

I

breath in the water,
notion of sleep, eternal,
imperturbable.

II

two spirits, dark eyed,
and asking, by the roadside
you can heed neither

III

take the broken earth
sift the soil through wounded hands
you feel them healing

IV

flower beholding you
the petals grow large and near
infinite and small

V

the hero images
thumbtacks and adhesive tape
hold them to the wall

VI

the root —below —deep
—flowering toward darkness,
blossom breathing light.

VII

words words words spoken
without a thought for meaning
an unending sea.

VIII

...each leaf a notion
of the dark dreaming within
each wakening seed...

IX

ink on parchment fades
roads lose their destination
watch the drifting star

X

beneath clear water
the soft bed of the slow stream
stone and sand forming

XI

insistent sleep clouds
shadowing the blue sky mind
it's so hard to wake

XII

try to whisper—heart
be still—do not ask for breath—
only for this light!

XIII

the eye cannot see
history, not days or hours,
there is only this.

XIV

light across the tongue—
mind reaching toward the heart—
such sweet poetry

XV

fifteen haiku— yes—
a strange gift— but then again
all poems are love poems

Notes On An Opening Scene

It would begin with a dark screen
and the faintest distant
scratched plastic phonograph music
spinning absently afar. The void screen
then maybe —a guitar. Muddy Waters
chiming in that everything
everything, everything is gonna be alright
But before the wild stomp of ‘Mannish Boy’
kicks in, the fade.
Back into that black.
Hold it for a second too long
—then give me the colorless light.
The shock of white after so much darkness:
a woman’s face —only a glimpse—
disheveled hair
—Is she beautiful?
We shouldn’t know just yet.
Please have her hair wild and dry,
singular bright strands arching through the ink black
like sparks on slow film.
Her voice will have that music of the guitar
the same strained single note, bending.
She speaks of the story —she doesn’t
tell it. There is the mistaken
assumption that we already know
and understand.
Her complaint —her brave forgiveness
and generous pity.
Her sorrow.

The film is slow and dark, the light
is harsh and weak
like a coward’s judgement.
It shouldn’t matter who she forgives or graces,
who she chooses for the catastrophe of her heart.

We won’t play any favorites in this game.
Another fade before this becomes about her.

Cut to his hands, trembling as they appear,
as they lift the needle arm back to its rest.
Stay with the hands —shaking as he lifts them to his face.
We are his eyes
searching to steady those hands as they reach
as he moves through the soft focus space
to light the greasy stove flame.
Blue flame eruption.
He staggers and turns.
Maybe this is the first real color
—the only one.

I once had words for him—I described him
in philosophical terms, having borrowed
what I could from the dust jackets
of denser texts —contemporary aesthetic theory
and the current paradigm.
He fumbled his way through the deconstructed
architecture. And I faked my way
through faux Kundera and loitering naked warfare
—with nudity. Pages and pages —

That was another set of lenses.
These instructions are for another purpose.

Not a fade this time—nothing so obvious
and only as naked. There are the same occluded
views. Beautiful. Obsene. Absurd.

The pornographer’s confession.
The tyrant’s self pity. The soft
utterly colorless light
—a new breast, her vacant stare.
Blurred white
hands
covering her face.
Rumble and hum of an over-amplified
bass guitar.
Stupid
song lyrics out of place.

Suddenly silence. No
the kettle scream —comforts in one way
and rages mercilessly in another.
His fingers trace the edge of a smooth plastic counter
—a matchbook cover folded back behind
the one light remaining and torn cardboard strands.
Rain mottled soot
on a window pane.

The screen goes white. It is not silence.
The same music is playing but it is changed somehow.

The camara finds, then loses focus, then
again, and again —that struggle to see
some perfect surface —skin, the sky
or perhaps a veil that only moves
at the first touch of breath
—at the very last.

Seven Songs, a collection

these are seven songs of mine.
I thought of them together recently.
there are some you can hear if you look me up on i-tunes
but you might sing them better yourself
so here:


Away

the things you tried to give to me
I won’t need them where I’m going
the things you tried to teach to me
there won’t be no use there in my knowing
I’m just tired of all this talk about trying
and all oh how useful life can be
when I see one lonely bird up there flying
I start to wonder if there’s a place for me

no better name for where I’m bound
there’s nothing I can claim that I have found
but there’s nothing you could ever sing or say to make me stay
no better name for where I’m bound
but away

we both believed this was a healing place
a place for me to lay my burden down
but deep inside we both found this empty place
just as empty as the streets of this town
you just don’t know what burns inside of me
and I might not know what lives inside of you
weren’t we both fools for what we tried to be?
the lies we told dreaming they’d come true

and you can keep the change
and you can keep the choices
this dream we both thought was ours
‘cause I won’t see your eyes and I won’t hear the voices
telling me to stay and hide these scars

no better name for where I’m bound
there’s nothing I can claim that I have found
but there’s nothing you could ever sing or say to make me stay
no better name for where I’m bound
but away





Midnight Soldier

I don’t want your sympathy for what I’ve been through
I don’t want forgiveness for what I’ve had to do
your charity is a curse on me I try to rearrange
a heart just like a purse i see, you can keep the change

you don’t know the midnight soldier
you don’t even know a thing about his war
or the battle in his brain that sends him walking in the rain
while you just dim the light and close the door

you don’t need to close your eyes or turn your face away
you don’t need to listen to a single word I say
I will be your soldier, I’ll be gone and I’ll be brave
my name can mark your memory like a stone that marks a grave

you don’t know the midnight soldier
you don’t even know a thing about his war
or the battle in his brain that sends him walking in the rain
while you just dim the light and close the door

you rest your head and dream your dreams as if I was not there
I will watch the night and bear the load that marks a soldier’s care
let the tired stars all fall on me in the shadows of this day
in the echoes of the songs not sung, the words you will not say

I sleep in the day time now in the ashes of our bed
after burning through the night and these things inside my head
the morning light might shine upon a simple broken cup
but it won’t mend and it won’t fill and you won’t lift it up

you don’t know the midnight soldier
you don’t even know a thing about his war
or the battle in his brain that sends him walking in the rain
while you just dim the light and close the door






Falling Down, Standing Up


everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
and you are one of mine

the walls have got a brand new coat of paint
the ceiling starts to fall
the things I tried to say to you last night
I know they make no sense at all

the flower falls into the bottle throat
green glass liquor long ago
drunk on dreamsongs and talk of tender hope
and high on how these seemed to glow

falling down, standing up
you leave some things behind
coffee stain lines on an empty cup
turning circles through my mind
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
and you are one of mine

isn’t this the song I sang for you before
remember paradise before the fall
while the sorry soldier sleeping just outside your door
lies dark and dreaming of your call

but winter chose to stay another day
so you can sleep or just pretend
while the sad survivor finds another way
one wrinkled dollar left to spend

falling down, standing up
you leave some things behind
coffee stain lines on an empty cup
turning circles through my mind
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
everyone I know has needs
and you are one of mine







Are You Still Sleeping?


are you still sleeping my darling?
are you still wrapped up in your dreams?
you know tonight there’s a light that the stars bring
that says exactly what it means

it does not shine with prayers or promises
of what it hopes to do some day
it will not hurt you in the ways it tries to hold you
it will not choose to turn away

it tells me not to hope for heaven
while I’m lying next to you
it feels your breath dancing lightly on my skin
and paints your face in shades of blue

I don’t know where I’ve been until now
and I don’t know where I’ll go
I just know that I’m with you right now
I just know

I know that I have tried to hold you
like tommorrow was a thief
I’ve tried to hide my heart from what I told you
and this has only brought us grief

but in this light my love I see you
you are here and so am I
every second burning bright inside my heart
like these stars from in the sky

I know that I would be forgiven
for every foolish things I’ve done
if you would wake and see the way this blessing’s given
to love’s foolish fallen son

I don’t know where I’ve been until now
and I don’t know where I’ll go
I just know that I’m with you right now
I just know

is this a song about forgiveness?
is this the song to set us free?
you and I, are we the victims or the witness
to what can and cannot be?
is this light the light of wisdom,
of some truth, sent from above?
is this song a song of salvation or surrender?
is this the shining face of love?

I don’t know where I’ve been until now
and I don’t know where I’ll go
I just know that I’m with you right now
that’s all I know






The River Knows

I think she thought the distance was too far
I think she thought I longed to be a star
I think she said to me, boy, this never can be
I even think I heard her say goodbye

she led me by the hand and through her hometown, past the humming yellow streetlight driveway drone
past her parent’s anxious stares and their virgin mother prayers.
through the winding winter streets we walked alone
did we stumble, did we crawl, did we fly or finally fall to the place beside the river that we found?
she told the river’s name to me, I told the river mine softly, then we listened to the magic water’s sound

and now the river— knows my name
I spoke it like a password or a prayer
I know it saw her dark eyes shine, it could taste the tears in mine
and it felt the wind so gently move her hair

we watched there from the water’s edge, she told me of her dreams, I don’t recall a single word I said
but the words that people say like the prayers that prayers pray
can fall and tangle like the sheets from off a bed
how the stars did shine down to light up the crown the queen of night was wearing for the show
she reached out her hand as we both did try to stand and wipe the midnight dirt from off our clothes

and now the river— knows my name
I spoke it like a password or a prayer
I know it saw her dark eyes shine, it could taste the tears in mine
and it felt the wind so gently move her hair

I still see her winter breath curling through the night, drifting to its rest among the stars
‘sweet longing’ was the scene, the picture frame around a dream
whispered by the passing highway cars
I cannot sing today the words I could not say the broken wings that would not fold or fly
the river there still flows with all the things it knows those things that will forever pass me by.








Not Chosen

(after a poem by Ahkmatova)


I am not chosen that’s not your fault
but say goodbye to your pillar of salt.
Just turn away, love, leave me behind,
let me pass from your heart to your mind
and down the road, you tell the world
that I was the one who turned.

you talked of love to me, sweet things I heard,
the sweet secret song of some heavensent bird
but the bird on the wing, love, he just sings his song.
he’s not the judge of who’s right or wrong
and though he flies so high above
love brings him down.

in your history, darling, love seems to fade.
your songs sing praise of the walls that we made
but the warmth of our bed, the laugh of a child—
who will remember the way that you smiled?
these things are real, though you would not hold them
you walked away.

I am not chosen that’s not your fault
but say goodbye to your pillar of salt.
Just turn away, love, leave me behind,
let me pass from your heart to your mind
and down the road, you tell the world
that I was the one who turned.







None The Wiser

none the wiser I’ve come home to you
none the wiser only hungry tired and blue
for all my time at searching to find just one thing true
I guess I should have known I’d find it when I came home to you

I’m a soldier coming home from the war
the victor or the vanquished only wanting nothing more
it’s long ago forgotten now what he was fighting for

none the wiser, I’ve come home to you
none the wiser for all the battles I’ve been through
I see the tattered banners hanging in a blue and breathless sky
still I see their colors gently turning there in your eyes

I climbed onto the mountain top to see what I could see
no angel come to touch my lips with a burning kiss for me
the songs that I was going to sing, the message I was going to bring,
my blind and lonely wandering, these were to be my offering to thee

none the wiser I’ve come home to you
none the wiser only come to learn one journey is through
and that all of the darkness I have been through
has been along a path that leads me back home to you

I see one pale star in the night
with its memory and a promise of the light
and I know the blind man’s recollection of his sight

none the wiser I’ve come home to you
none the wiser I’ve come home to you
none the wiser I have come home to you








these songs are published in




available at cafepress.com

A Soldier's Dream

This is a recent song, new lyrics
to the traditional melody 'Lord Franklin'





A Soldier's Dream



A sleepless night and still I had a dream.
I saw a family joined in pain.
Another soldier was coming home
With another name now to be carved in stone.

I dreamed I saw them all standing there,
A folded flag and whispered sorry prayer.
We watched in silence as they laid him down
And warm tears fell to the cold cold ground.

And in this dream I saw my hands reach down.
I gathered soil up from the broken ground.
I prayed a prayer, one soul to save
And let the dirt fall on his open grave.

There’s talk of protest, now —and talk of pride,
As if you choose your truth and you can choose your side.
But this dream of mine will not let me be,
Not with these questions it keeps asking me.

How many more then will be asked to die,
To suffer truth onto this foolish lie?
And how much longer can we all pretend
That we can wait and watch and this war will end?


















this song is published in




available at cafepress.com