Coffee

It’s written out in drops of rain

The sky of blue has turned to gray

An editor has seen the weather change

Cups and saucers on the table

A group of letters come together

Inside the line the love is everywhere

Looks like we’re in for some rain

Colors fade in the sky of your mind for a change

The coffee is poured

The pages are turned

From a story you are marking one more time

The slipping and sliding of dripping time

The turning and stirring of coffee grinds

Could turn rain falling from the sky

Upside down

Ancient reed in a modern word

The words uncage the ancient birds

Flying towards the one who heard this voice

And one whose voice was heard

It’s written out in drops of rain

Streetcar Track

Taxi cabbage riding

streetcar tracks

A tale of woe

just under

a toe of whale

Silent mania

gray chairs blue lights

Jumpin’ Jack Lambert in the dark bar

getting paid to play cause that was that

cracked dinosaur legs and all night cabs

burning talking wood and a bag of grass

Radio high

Steel mill horses and all the old kingsmen

Humpty bumpty sat in a shady way 

Dry wool socked and stock taped

back yard garage

Ghost pipes

Rosebuds and notebooks

Blue smoke

Dirt fields and falling rain

broken toy planes

Winter Song

There is a winter song

that gets in my head

I see a hill of winter trees

and I can hear the river bed

Your body is water

from a faraway river

you are what you are

and it's making me sad

Between the sweet and the bitter

there is a song of winter

it chills the old winemaker

and the mouse that loves the baker

Dark juice from a grape

is bound to fall

Your eyes of air

are surely going to fall

Your heart of snow

is blowing in the winter wind

and beating in my ear

like a winter song

I see the nothing that's not there

and the nothing that is

you are what you are

and its' making me sad

Gerry

Gerry Gerry 

she was contrary

An elderberry

well worn and wary

A part of everything she believed

in less than she could see and more than what she wore

In here for certain or else the bottom drawer

Just pick up sticks from a nearby tree

Now stack the dishes inside the sink

Flow like the air and you’ll be free

First put your hands on your hips 

and then put them in the air

now put your left-foot here

and keep your eyes on the berry 

Peace Song

It was 60 years ago today


radio said: peace everywhere , put away your fear


not so long ago
another peace got put away

with marbles and comics from another day

the peace they promised yesterday
was more like a ghost



a dreamy song


a freak on the street
who just turned away , just looked the other way


opaque and oblique



a nincompoop in an endless loop


strangled like a promise

tossed like a marble in a puddle


choking like a bubble

twisting like a top

in another time peace was free like breathing air

nobody was fighting for breathing air

the answer there is a question here


how can ~love be peace~


when peace is a shadow from an old dark comic


spinning off like a comet through a dark glassy puddle ?

Ghost Hop

About a quarter to eleven

we hit the floor again

it wasn’t very long

we were long long gone

we were talking and rocking and creeping and seeping

we were messing and testing in the pale starlight

of a blank old twilight

the sinking old sky

we felt under our feet now

Cause the house was poppin’

when the doors flew open

and the wind was howling

at the Ghost Hop Hop

Now at eleven eleven

when the clock was talking

and the cork was poppin’

with the Ragtime juices

All the bottles were open

at the Ghost Hop rocking at eleven eleven

The curtains are flowing at eleven eleven

The clock stops ticking at eleven eleven

The band stops counting at eleven eleven

yeah the Ghost Hops hoppin' at eleven eleven

Forest Story

We took your old two-door into the city

It was a chorus of foresty voices 

city side-walks rose like a dark choir

the parks and the river rose higher and higher

out the rear window

radio wave on your forehead

a foresty dashboard

dark water and sleep on the floorboard

forest story wasn't always easy

we took it tree by tree

we took it steadily

Accidental incidents in the middle of the city

were never really close at all

never late and never early

Humming like a sanctuary

Steaming like a winterberry branch

Stretched out on a library floor

Your little blue two-door took us there

For rest in the city... forest 

Paula's Song

Hi Ho Paula

I’d really love to call you

Something you’ve been cooking

has made me think it over

Sweet magnolia clover

Sizzling creamy butter

That homemade aroma

When you turn that clover over

Inside your moistened skillet

That lucky frying pan

You’ve turned up the heat

Now let’s start cooking

We’ll all come by around dinnertime

to watch the Georgia skyline

Smell the country cobbler pie

that’s rising in your oven

Deep fried bubbly things

Everybody’s gonna’ laugh and sing

Drippin’… and Siippin… and Lickin’…!

Hi Ho Paula

I’d really love to call ya’

something you’ve been cooking

just felt so right

Now tell us when

and we’ll be right on over

Just tell us when

and we’ll be right on by 

Gray Song

The night we met outside the show

you said what's gone is gone and yet

You were thinking about what a friend had said

Gray letters you write can never be read

The ink in a pen 

in the palm of your hand

won't mean a thing

or turn a feather into lead

It won't tap the ground like a shoe

Or dry like ink on a pillow

a thought in your head

that beats like a drum 

in a song

on the tip of your tongue

There is a gray song inside us now

so we look for the gray leaves

I saw you collecting the gray leaves

I knew you were humming that tune

tapping your toes

like you were at the opera

 or the rodeo..

I guess I'll always think of you that way