Music Box (Hope You’re Haunted)

As we continue through spooky season, here’s my hope that you and yours are haunted by only the nicest chills, tricks and treats! And a song to go with those drafty midnight hours and misted October mornings.

Notes In The Margins

Some stories have a way of unfolding more the more you listen, should you take the time to. And some stories acquire meanings from each person who listens closely. I hope you, too, find time to make notes in the margins of the stories you cherish.

Seasons To Cicadas

Summer’s end is a beautiful and mysterious time. I find it full of transformations no less inspiring, in their own way, than that of spring. I hope you enjoy this piece as you reflect on your own transition through the seasons!

Lyrics:

Under bark we burrow
Cryptic skins to change
Molt the form to wake
With glassy wings
Lay we long the cycle
Long we for the heat
Sap and skies and beaks of birds
Circle is complete

Every summer, song will take
A quarter of this circle
Every summer, patience shakes
The trees
Every summer, wakening
Smolders in the twilight
Like sap that holds our crackling
Voice to keep

Every heatwave, membranes make
The forest feel like long-sated
As the air folds fast the fan
Of melody
Every high noon, hard the light
But sheltered in the leaves
Hide we till our voices’ might 
Has done

Then under bark we burrow
Cryptic skins to change
Molt the form to wake
With glassy wings
Lay we long the cycle
Long we for the heat
Sap and skies and beaks of birds
Circle is complete

Psyche & The Sea (Something New)

Today I am excited to share something new and different! As a challenge towards growth, I’ve been working on songwriting over the past several weeks, exploring themes related to souls’ nurture and discovery. One of my first pieces is now up on YouTube. It’s a twist on a classic myth you may recognize. If you listen, any insights or advice you care to share would be warmly welcomed!

Lyrics:

I dream of grains and candle wax 
In nighttime, wings unfurling
While on this shore, the tides collapse 
The things I sought alone

And in the darkness I knew well
By my own touch long shaped
I thought I knew all forms it held
Yet stirs now, mystery

And tide draws deep the land line
And Earth floods back the sea
And in this way two shapes entwine 
About the space between

So lost the path my blood laid out 
Lost my bounded home 
As flames unto the night breeze bend 
So I, to this unknown

And tide draws deep the land line
And Earth floods back the sea
And in this way two shapes now wind 
And make the space between

Now from the storied path I step
The edge of my history
For smoke and souls know best the quest
To seek eternity 

Seek your riddle if you will 
From Aphrodite – 
In ocean swell I am fulfilled
All Psyche is the sea.

And tide draws deep the land line
And Earth sighs back gently
And in this way these shapes entwine 
Of Psyche and the sea

Window Shopping

Let me have this life, I think
To the glimpse cut deep in the wall:

Flowers, cat, tomatoes 
On the sill
And all. What
Doesn’t show
Beyond the drifting curtains’ trim?
What color thoughts, skin
Of a timeline’s webbed reach
To some different end; 
Different, each,
Judging by the framing.

Here, wrought iron grate
Or glasswork glow, colors’
Rich shade to scatter. Next –
A lamp, warm and screened
By plant life. A dog, a face
An open space, clean and
Waiting: Call Now. 

Bookshelves, kitchens, 
Many chairs; painting
In progress. Wallpaper 
Scares –

Most of all, 
The ones I can’t see
Behind walls.

Most of all, reflection
Of the wish I have to see
My walls from outside: 

In others’ window shopping
Do they too stop to see
The curtains’ glimpse cut deep?

Short List (All That Is Holy)

The list of all that is holy
Might be short, or infinity –

Please pardon this brevity.

In the midst of taking note,
All miracles unseen
Kept blinding me.

Considering The Effort Of Placement

Considering the effort of placement,
Most mountains are quite happy
Where they are.

Give me a faith to trust that
They already sit
Where needed.

Between Bars

Two great skulls beyond the gated door –
One called Life, the other more
Familiar. They sit
Side by side, slightly turned
To face: no coincidence
They’re by a chicken place? 
Art and eating – two best friends who
Rarely meet in peace, except
With eyes tied shut. Their child
Changes daily, sometimes Grief
And sometimes an ungainly beast
Called, I Didn’t Know –
Takes as shrine, the tattoo shop 
Next door, where needles stitch
These secrets into skin so telling 
Walks anew, each day again.

Between these metal bars and shops 
They dwell – these ones caged close
And kept a spell by signs of
Pick Up Order Here –
Yet drawing near all sidewalk ways 
As onto walls and surfaces
Their marks they spill 
In hieroglyphics’ restless 
Paint and papered, stapled 
Form. No harm, from walking by:
No harm, to look a while
As a passing gaze – 

These all, my friends, I hope –

Well, they don’t notice me today
And for my part, I’ll walk on softly
For this moment, just as soon to miss
Their scrutiny.

Can’t Swim

Draw me to the river –
Draw me to your shore, 
Where the water laps
The water snakes and fruit.
I can’t swim – so draw 
Me deeper.

This water is high, 
When I open my mouth,
This water becomes like words there.
This voice of water says –

Many places can be
A garden. Many doors 
Can be gates.

Many trees can become 
Swords and pruning shears – knowing
Where to cut.

I can’t swim, draw me deeper.

I say –

Why do you start out calmly? 
Why do you flow in peace, 
To draw some near before 
They’ve drunk their rage?
Why does the shore with no
Changed banks
Spark fear?

I can’t swim, draw me deeper –
Draw me deeper, up from earth,
Draw me from great depths within 
This mantle stone –

Draw me by your mantle,
Flowing like a river shore. 
You say –
I can’t swim – only overflow
These banks. Draw me deeper.

How To Keep Your Head

How to keep your head – the question’s
Already been asked or at least, answered 
Or at least, addressed by 
Rudyard Kipling which is
A good address to have in English Lit –

Well, I don’t know the first thing about it. 

I always thought it closer to Ms. Dickinson’s
“I’m nobody – who are you?” in fact – 
Because being nobody is better than 
Being royalty when it comes to
Keeping your head and not
Collecting others. Mr. Alias Dodgson
Carrolled on about the Queen of Hearts 
Which made for good fiction even 
If everyone thinks 
She’s the Red Queen – but
Hearts aren’t really red and anyway
It’s said that people lose hearts 
All the time
And still lead perfectly fine
Lives, but heads are
One apiece and 
Judging biographically
I’m not so sure I 
Trust poetic 
Insight
For advice 
On keeping
Mine.