Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Well Below the Surface



In Heart

 It’s not blood, but something else that grafts you in
Something not so deep, yet so deep it defies veins
With missteps and misunderstandings and tears
We carved out a path with words and prayers
With perfect rhythm and revelation and laughter
We walk it now, so familiar we can be blindfolded
We were whole in our circle of DNA, yet somehow
With you, we see we were missing chromosomes all along
Know that we couldn’t do this without you, wouldn’t want to
There are pages in this story only you can write and sing
Know that we need you in this; no one else can do it
The most beautiful melodies are better with harmony
There are pauses and spaces and quiet moments
This is where your heart beats to keep ours alive
You chose us, we are blessed, we are grateful
With one you get all, that is the nature of clan
Never in law, but in heart is where you live, you breathe
Thank you.

Friday, October 31, 2014

No Reason



The Rewrite
I knew myself once, certainty was mine
There was clarity, the spelling was correct
The staples evenly placed in my binding
I loved you for a reason, life or death in the balance
I knew it was true, I was sure.
I approved of me, in the daylight, in the awake
Night was my revelation, my costume unzipped
As my heart shifting with time, slid around in my chest
My folded hands did their best to stop the bleeding internal
My skin clothed my bones in all the same different ways.
But my mind, my mind, my mind never stopped
Never stopped fighting me, hoping I was wrong, please be wrong
Every shape changing, lines crossing, meanings unraveling
My story untelling itself before my eyes
Who rewrites their beginnings? 
We do, when we learn to trust the author
So, pen in hand I start again to ink the me I am
On these freshly ironed pages, delicate but iron still
You see the foundation is strong, yet cracked in places
Where life can seep through and grow and regrow
Splintering, severing the bindings
Changing the pulse, the beat, the very rhythm
Of my breathing so that I love for no reason
Love is reason enough, I am sure.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Failure is Giving Up

Try
Take a chance and bend from the waist
To see you in that water a perfect misshapen shape
Let go with everything you have to give

A gift is useless left in ribbons and bows
Get dirty and bloody, never stopping 
Just because the rocks beneath are sharp

Take yourself seriously, less and less
So a smile that flirts with your lips
Will reach your eyes and change your world

Your mind needs a face lift, so up with it
Paint yourself with secrets and dreams
Light the candle and burn the bundle of fear

It’s heavy in your chest, but powerless when you believe
To see you in the sky reflecting heaven’s face
Take a chance and stand up 

Tick Tock

TIME

Sixty seconds, one minute
My hands can’t hold the time
It takes for those two hands
To tick away another moment
Another breath I can’t get back

Will you promise me what you can’t see?
Will you believe in me what you can’t be?
Will you trust in me what you can’t speak?

Fog is creeping over my mind
But I fight it while I love it
Because the ocean needs a partner
And you with your blurry notes
Can make me dance like no one else

Will you promise me what you can’t see?
Will you believe in me what you can’t be?
Will you trust in me what you can’t speak?

One hour, sixty minutes
I’ll hold the door, hold it open for you
Press my foot into that small space
Where everything escapes and I kick myself
For not using all of me to block the tide
  
Will you promise me what you can’t see?
Will you believe in me what you can’t be?
Will you trust in me what you can’t speak?


Friday, March 21, 2014

Time to Unveil

Becoming
I had a sense of something good, I knew it was good
Fleeting, bright and small, but I understood

I chased myself through the night, the darkest night
Fearless I stood, poised and ready to fight

I looked in a mirror to find the truth, to know the truth
But seeing isn't knowing, even when you have the proof

I slept and woke inside my dream, free within my dream
I called forth the unknown, and saw nothing is as it seems

My two hands held the secret, and I held them closed in secret
The answer is simple, is easy, is you cannot keep it

In a moment I saw a future dressed in sun, life-giving sun
I opened my mind and healed all that had been done

The power is in knowing what you can’t see, when you can’t see
The miracle is what is in front of you doesn't set you free

Open wide your mouth to receive, your life to receive
Close your throat when it disagrees, your heart believes

Within that space between then and now, finally it is now
You see the truth in the ashes of the sacred cow

You are not a broken creature of fear, there is nothing to fear
Within you is the divine, the heaven song pressing near

I am you and you are me, together we dance; it’s okay to dance
Destiny wielded its sword; we are not a game of chance

Don’t fear the flame burning bright, rising higher, ever higher
We hold the oil, wick and lamp; we are the fire

We will bring out the truth refusing the lie, never believing the lie
We will fall down and drunkenly laugh, never ceasing to try

It is you; it is me, spirit perfect in our skin and bones, strong happy bones
We will roam the earth and soar the sky always in joy, never alone.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Fun House


Reflection
I don’t give a damn, I don’t
Yes I do, I’m lying to you
I see through a glass
Darkly I see

But don’t you see I need
You to be on your knees
I’ve been too small, forever
To see myself beyond the horizon
Of your shoulders, your brow

I want to believe I can be
Alone in this crowd of hallways
And still be true, to me not you
I can’t be unseen mirror to mirror
My flesh needs its own portrait

More than most but still less
Than the best meant for me
Hold my heart not my heels
I have hammers to wield
Free my hands from this grasp

Thundering gods raise these walls
And we fall step by step one more step
But my fight is my war, my own
I don’t fear what may or may not be
I hurl stones in the sea

I don’t give a damn, I don’t
Yes I do, I’m lying to you
I see through a glass
Darkly I see

Monday, February 17, 2014

14th

Valentine 

With breathless, hopeless hope
I opened up a ribbon wrapped tin
Seeing within my own heart
Coiled in pieces like so many chocolates
You’ve torn open with your teeth
To see what flavor I am inside

Sideways blown even as I stand
Because sometimes it’s words on a page
So the rage doesn’t melt the candle
I hold so tightly in my bare hands
I need the light to burn on and on
Pain doesn’t mean I’m passing

Sing you say, sing me to sleep
But trust me I can’t keep being
The resting place for your destiny
The reason you soft shoe through it all
Hanging diamonds from excuses
A whispered noose my fingertips can’t break

Broken edges of thorny stems and petals
Sharp, twisted metal filling vases
The perfume of rosy death staining my lungs
I let go of these bundles and boxes of satin
Loving myself enough to say that now
I need nothing from you, February love

Friday, February 7, 2014

Everything is Bigger

North
She is mighty
Bought and sold a man’s folly
Wounded and torn frozen in time
Ancient her bones forever carry
Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty
Her hair perfumed with flowers
Mountains and streams are her babies
She sings to them gently
Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty
Wearing white, bride perfect
Dressed up to be plundered
Glittering in her veins
Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty
Holding man under heaven
Her waters ebb and flow forever
Every day a relic newly born
Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty
Golden stars are her freedom
Circling the moments in her orbit
Her history carved by their hands
Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty
Grandeur and splendor revealed
Her backbone unbroken, unyielding
She still keeps a thousand secrets
Oh, she is mighty

Grieving

Upon A Death
restless shards of diamond pain
tears crash unrelenting against the shore
she breathes summer inside honey warm
I linger here lost in this dizzy circle

happy evaporated last night
she left to dance with someone else
rewind second chance once more
the answer is no never again

peace pretends to see me
only to be awakened to nothing
she has wings to take her home
I am tossed grounded to the earth

close my eyes the ocean will hold me
water embracing filling in the spaces
she is able to be what never could be
freedom sweet laughing forever young

Living

Enough
He’s tired lines crayon drawn deep
One arm lifts securing metal clip to button
Blinking against the sun that never stays long enough
He fights the rain, the wind, the night, every day
A deep breath in and again inside he doubts
He is enough

He’s bowed slightly at back and knee
Time ticking is hard and heavy on the flesh
Working is living so life goes on and on with her
There’s much to be done and doing is his job
A deep breath in and again inside he doubts
He is enough

She’s dusty white her hair, her face
Rising up to meet the first kiss of light
Day in day out night in night out with him
Her life is this doing and there is much to be done
A deep breath in and again inside she knows
He is enough

She’s strong in those thinning spaces
Weathering the dysfunction of earth and sky
Some days are silent with nothing spoken
No whisper of skin to unravel the knot
A deep breath in and again inside she knows
He is enough

Pale moons over parchment fields
Cooling the brow of upheaved earth
A pattern knitted in the marrow of bone
Love released in duty and sacrifice
A deep breath in and again inside they know
They are enough

Sunrise to sunset and everything between
The rise and fall of every heavy step
A percussion pressed into the earth forever
A history written of blood and wood and iron
A deep breath in and again inside we know
We are enough

Celebrate


Always
I was wide open in black space and time
Torn apart with words and hands
Whole still for I fight for you always
Kicking and screaming peace in your ear
Downy soft brush of hands on your face
Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother
Woman dance

I was lifted up in fire blown through with devil’s breath
Stinging life slapping hard against my chest
I stood from bronze to gold you against my back
Ever my blackbird flying from the night
Dove now alight on my diamond embrace
Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother
Woman dance

I murdered the emptiness crowding choking
Coarse and hollow the voices that followed
Blighting the yellow brick river sown for you always
I scarred my drum beating the way for you
Shaking every tree your bed was made soft
Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother
Woman dance

I was free in a breeze of giddy delight
My words spoken aloud a trumpet blast
I turned corners sweeping clean the dark
My heartbeat tied to you heaven and earth
I broke chains with my song, my fists unfurled
Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother
Woman dance