m&m

I.
time moves backwards today
as we race the sun across the u.s.a.
i lost my window seat, now i miss the views of the vast open sea
but i can imagine the beauty of it’s splendor
made pale from distance

II
when i let my mind get away from me i envision the worst case scenario
like a mid-air collision or a terrorist invasion or the rapid decent into the pacific
i try to figure out how i would react, if i would survive
would i be a hero or would i run and hide?

III
boredom drapes over my shoulder like the barbed wire necklace of the imprisoned
there is no place to go but where the pilot takes me
i am at his mercy, he at my service- for a lofty fee
but i wish he would pick up speed
because we have three more hours to rewind

i wish i didn’t believe in time
only moments and music
only moments and music.

written in transit (a jack’s mannequin tribute)

I.
plane to l.a.
testing the in-flight radio, seeing what’s playing on the frequency
the butterflies have left my stomach and now i’m feelin’ alright
the sky is shades of blue
everything from what to midnight- what a poetic spectical

and everything reminds me of jack’s
‘cause a part of me thinks i’ll wish to stay stuck
the other knows i’ve been stuck for a while now
these flights don’t connect through Arizona but it makes no difference
i’m passing over lands i’ve never been and maybe i never will

we are pulling apart clouds and speeding through turbulence
we never said travel was graceful
and aa never promised a meal or a morsel
so my stomach is cursing me for the assumption
tried to lose myself in a book but it made me feel weak
watched a movie but it made me miss falling in love
tried to sleep but it only made me tired
…and i, i am finally waking up
from my loneliness and induced coma
realizing i don’t need a kiss to feel complete
to feel apart of something
to feel love- no matter how fake
i think i left my heart in hawai’i
and now i’m on my way back
i wonder if i’ll leave some more, or if i’ll take some home this time
but i know for the next two week i’ll feel at peace
i’ll reconnect my heart, my head

and i want to the pilot for wishing us off a happy pride
i just wish i had some
…well i’m ready, i’m ready to drop
…oh i’m ready, i’m ready so don’t stop…
…keep pushing… i’m ready so don’t call
no don’t call
not even the friends who have helped me pull through before
this time it’s al on me

II.
sometimes when i’m on the ground
looking up at the sky
i’ll try to predict the destination of a plane
i think of one of it’s passengers and why they are leaving (or going back)
it’s all based on a feeling
but i wonder if i’m ever right

but for now i’m the one sitting on the wing
questioning if it will ever have
…a chance too something more than just metal
wonder if there will ever bee traffic lights in the sky
if we’ll ever be able to fly without metal wings

i think we’re mover the canyon now
grand in all it’s glory
red from all it’s countless years getting attention from the sun
they’ve built roads through the rock and paths through the mountains
just to have a way to get by
…you can breathe, you can breathe now
…you can breathe but the air is running out
…you can breathe, you can breathe now
…you can breathe but the air is running out on you

funny how all the reds, all the blues, all the lyrics
keep reminding me of you

and the lands looks like a human heart,
dark red in the shape of a fist
…maybe we were made for each other
with real-estate on the out skirts
like things we love to remember
…you can breathe now
and a dark circle in the center for everything we want to forget
…you can breathe now
but never can
…the air
but never can
…is running out
but never
…on you
can.

III.
i hope you’ll find me in the static of your radio
when you miss me and my car
find me in the spaces of your keyboard
when your aching for my words
find me in your memories
when you want a little piece of me
find me in the smile of a stranger
when it’s my laugh you long to hear
…it’s good to be alive.

my imagination can get the best of me

sometimes i imagine that piano keys cry leaves into piles that turn statues when they feel complete
and that free willy is jumping over the moon while the dish abandons the spoon
i see people with wheels for legs pile into hybrid cars so they can save the environment
meanwhile all the old souls are holding hands and floating up into the sky so they can connect the holes in the ozone
satellites are working for the orphan planet pluto to find him a new home with a star willing to keep him close
but every time it goes to take a picture of a promising new light, the satellite flashes the flesh of truth then turns around and leaves a moon behind that way the star knows what it’s like to be a parent
still, pluto is wondering the universes alone
while mickey mouse puts up flyers around town that say he will reward you with the crazy black and white plane he himself made back in 1928 and the hiding place of walt who is of course still living on super earth sipping tea in the star light wearing an magic kingdom hat to remind him of all he left behind
when the sun sets he’ll think of a girl back on earth who can hold her breath for days and choices to spend them with the fishes and killer whales because they make her feel at home
she knows the real world is just an idea in some perfectionists head so she swims all day and takes in all of the views
like a two hundred year old turtle taxi and sea horse putting a saddle on a dolphin named jockey
but still, she gets lonely sometimes in the deep blue sea and i wonder if in those moments she ever thinks of me

 

vessel

i’m waiting for the storm to come
and it feels like that’s all i do these days
i’m waiting for the street lights and the bolts

sometimes i have this morbid thought
about how the world would change if i died today
and i wonder if my unpublished manuscript that sits on my floor
would end up in the hands of every one searching for a good story
i question if my absence makes a deeper impression than my being
if the memory of who i am is larger than the truth
i wonder what i’ll leave with you.

i am waiting for the thunder and the lightening
to wake up the night
i am waiting to be saturated
i am waiting for that drowning feeling that i’ve learned to love
i‘m waiting for all my selflessness to pay off some kind of karmic debt
but i think i am just wasting my time
so i’ll climb into the bed that i’ve made
the bed military men wish they made
the bed laced with itching powder
then i’ll scratch myself to sleep

i never want to be a factor in anyone’s decision making
don’t want to spoil the fun or the happiness of others
so i bit my tongue a little harder
open my ears and arms a little wider
i am a vessel !
i am a vessel ?
i am a vessel .
damn, why am i a vessel?
why’d i get the part of the catcher of the storm?
why’d i get the job of the janitor?

shit.
when did i start this whole self pitying bit?

i’m waiting for the storm to come
i’m waiting to be ripped wide open again
i’m waiting for the thunder and
i’m waiting for the lightening

i had all of my answers on a napkin from the café
but i gave it away to the one i already let get away
another lesson learned, the start of another book
you would think that i’d get it by now
you’d think i would

i’m waiting for the storm to come.

red light

the red light is pulling me home
directing me where to go
and i’m hoping to land forty two light years away
so i can spend a day on a new earth
orbiting a smaller star
with just as much light
and maybe a thirty hour day
i’ll climb mountains made of crystal and glass
and jump into an ocean a shade of pink
whose waves grow purple at the tip and crash along a satin shore

the red light is pulling me off the ground
dropping through an orange sky line at sun set
forty two light years from home
but i bet i’ll feel safer there
because money is made of smiles
and art is created every time someone cries
since tears become mosaic stones the moment they land
and the picture they create hold all the answers
displayed in every color but black and white
that way we would never be lead to believe that things are simple
we won’t be able to forget that everything can be seen from more than one angle

the red light is pulling me forward again
and i have the wanting someone blues
because i’m lonely on my bright planet
i think i want my home forty two light years back on earth
my self seclusion was good for a while but i can’t stay this way any longer
and i have this funny feeling that i’ll find my satin shores
and pink oceans within the crystal and glass of your shining eyes
i think i’ll find all that i’ve been looking for right through your door
i just want to believe i didn’t want to see it before
so now i’m grateful for the red light

seeing as the red light is pulling me back to you
it’s giving me permission to preceded
past the boundaries of my mind
and enter into the universe that is your embrace
the universe that is your heart
and with any good luck and just a little time
i’ll find it wasn’t all that hard
i’ll find that i have the map all along
i just didn’t know how to read the key
but all is better now, yes all is better now
because the red light guided me

 

the baker’s daughter

for Krissy

i have a mere four letters to my name
and a measly twenty two others to create my masterpiece
and sometimes i wonder what i could do if i had twenty eight

i have a cousin who is the daughter of a baker,
she brings all her father lessons to life every chance she gets
and i wonder what else he would say if he aloud himself one more day
but she does not dare ask why he thought it was his time
because deep inside she already knows the answer.
my cousin is humble and selfless and i am sure that God has touched her
for she is angelic and poised and brave beyond belief.

my cousin is a greater person than i can ever be.

i may have words and i may have reason
but she has a heart that was made to motivate greatness
given the opportunity my cousin could make the numb feel again in a simple moment
yes, she is the baker’s daughter and she has established the recipe for living
it’s simple layers create the complex treasure that is her life
and her father will exist through recipes they formulated together
because that way he will never be far from her heart

my cousin has the book of life etched on her six letters

meanwhile i have a mere four letters to my name
and a measly twenty two others to create my masterpiece
and sometimes i wonder what she and i would do if we ever put our minds together