Hope

Sometimes, when it’s all you can do just to touch another’s pain,
they’re still miles away from your comprehension.
If one person’s experience is so unique, so untouched,
what else can you do but listen while they bleed out their heart,
singing a swan song to the sky?

When all your endeavours to take away their pain
would amount to nothing, accomplish nothing,
the finality of circumstance the stony destination of all Rome's roads,
you have to take a step back from the brink of disaster,
and save yourself, giving thanks for hope.

If all else is lost, unknowable, or damned to feeble empathy,
take heart in the unknowable. Not all is lost.
What comes next around that street corner may be death;
it may be a second chance for you and yours.
In chance lies comfort, strength, and hope.

Thank the laws of nature for our shortsightedness.

There's Blood on the Air

How can you say
that all your love's drained away,
you've kept your hands cupped for far too long?

You filled my head with your song,
now how can you take that away?
My love for you is far, far too strong.

And I want you,
and I need you,
but every time I reach for you you're gone.

I turn my head in my bed,
the silken scent of your perfume
still lingers like the pale light of the moon.

You rocked my world,
I saw a flash of Jesus when you
came, his arms open to our flames.

And I want you,
and I need you,
but every time I reach for you you're gone.

And you just run away, run away,
you just run away child,
and you just run away, far away,
just run away child,
and you just run away, run away,
just run away child and you just run.

We Are Made from Stardust

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
What’s supposed to happen if we only live once,
We work, we breathe, we struggle to believe in something, anything but ourselves,
But what if there’s no heaven, what if there’s no hell?

We’re all looking for someone to hold through the night,
To meet in dreams and talk of what lies on the other side,
Though waking may be painful, as I gaze between the stars,
I find my dreams come easy when you’re laying in my arms.

If our star ends tonight,
I want to be right here with you, standing by your side,
Take a leap of faith with me, face the blinding light,
Holding hands we'll wave and die laughing as we did in life.

Our time has come, we’re worlds apart, fighting for what we had at the start,
We left behind our falsest friends, both reached out to take a hand,
And forged a new beginning in the moonlight, made our promises
To make our love complete; by God, we did a daring thing!

We’ve sailed between the heavens, now our ships come back to earth
Let’s go our separate ways less we forget what we are worth
To one another; trust me now and I will show you what a friend can be,
I want you at the helm of us for all eternity

So if our star ends tonight,
I want to be right here with you, standing by your side,
take a leap of faith with me, face the blinding light,
holding hands we'll wave and die laughing as we did in life.

Though our love may never die, it’s better if we say goodbye
For now, and start again when things get better for you my friend,
I’m a slave to your desire, you’re the fuel for my fire,
And I’ll always burn for you the brightest of them all.

Like the North Star you can find me in the same place every night,
you have my heart as long as you can see it's shining light,
And though you’re in a black hole, I want you to know
My love for you went nova a long time ago.

If our star ends tonight,
I want to be right here with you, standing by your side,
take a leap of faith with me, face the blinding light,
holding hands we'll wave and die laughing as we did in life.

Heartstrings

Here we are. Week's end, rich from labor won hand-to-mouth,
and channeling Bukowski. Playing with the poem as the night turns into day,
reaching for wisdom, grasping stars captured in champagne,
grip numbed by chilled glass.
The wrist falls low, abandoned, heartlessly sluggish,
and still your kindling burns, yearning to be set alight.

A converted southpaw lends a hand.
Two folds by the jaw twitch, signaling
the changing of the guard. Two molds of hands,
set aside for the pianist, hold wine,
Rachmaninoff's bust staring listlessly,
while light lingers lazily just outside the bedroom door.

These are the nights of the old,
the nights of the restless,
the nights of the dreamer's dead reality,
where passion gives way to experience and withers
in the face of all the things that pull a heart's desires
like a puppet dancing, unaware of it's strings.

You never know what people might be thinking,
even you, who's known you all your life.
You never fully trust another, even though
you've let them in, given them warmth,
and let them in on every secret of your life.
The one you wish to marry better be the one you're with,

or else you've given up on passion, leaving a gaping hole
to fill where once lived your inner child who's
still screaming for attention, since they're put below the rest of life's
deficient, callous nonsense. Who first told you that you had to pay attention,
never do this, never do that, never live amongst the stars
that you once gazed upon without the help of glass?

To all those hungry, weary souls who must be fed with grains of dream,
awaken now. Live out the dream and let yourself
be filled to breaking with the innermost desires of your heart.
Be glad you have the opportunity to persevere
and never let yourself be scared of monsters hiding in your friends
who'd rather give you steam than rip you apart.

Continue on this path of Mabb, allow yourself to be consumed,
and somewhere, something, someone, will be awaiting you,
and say, "Come close; partake of me as I partake of you,
and let me fill the void you've yearned to close
since you were just a child. I am here for you.
Allow me to be free and I will show you life as you've never seen before."

Working Saturday Nights

Too late for a drink, too tired to think,
too lazy to sink in the bath and relax,
too dirty to stagger to bed and collapse,
too bored to complain and too full to snack.

Guerilla Posting

Now and then, when night falls deep and dark,
and dims the recesses of my broken heart,
I heat the pass with thoughts of you,
and beat the blackness back,
with Cupid's darts.

Bossa Nova Nights

We bounce around the room, two children in overgrown bodies;
laughing at our jokes and screaming at our laughter,
like two old women swapping stories from their youth,
and I cannot love you any more than I do right now.