Love is Like

Love is like
open heart surgery;
learning to trust your doctor.
Let him cut your breastbone
and open you down the center,
exposing the innermost sanctum:
The holy of holy's,
where only a high priest can enter,
once a year with a rope round his leg
to pull him out fast
in case your wrath is aroused.

Love is like walking on coals
in soft tender soles
more used to loafers or slippers.
And after that glass
with shards turned up to hurt you.

Love is like finding out
that none of those tests were worthy
of who you are or who you've become.

Love is like walking out
and finding that doubt
is actually a very nice feeling,
and you can learn to live there
with less and less care.
Love is when
you lay down your burden.

The Old Place

I park the car, walk back,
the house gone, torn down.
Trees are bare but
for a few flitting leaves.
The yard a carpet
of coloured fall compost
I can picture us there,
you, me and her
and the dogs always barking
out on the road.

Your mom's house still stands.
Tom and Ali's is gone.
The pastures grown in
with cedars and brambles.
Spook out a buck and two doe's
on my way to the pond
which is black and reflecting
the bare trees reaching
into the sky.

Down where the creek runs
cold in the shadows
I pick up a puffball,
feel the soft mellow texture,
smell the decay as
the earth claims itself.
Cedars are bare, more trees
than there's room for;
old twisted trunks,
cross my eyes to see through.
A coyote is watching like
he's wondering who
the hell I am.

I find the old pine,
three feet across.
No worse than it was
with large branch limbs broken,
rotted sockets like shoulders
that have bore too much weight
for too long.

Butterflies

Adrenalined

Warnings of danger

stir in me, my gut,

where joy often tickles,

where fear also flutters.

My horse hears a noise,

tense shoulders, neck bulging,

head lifts and ears perk.

Intently looking for something

to flee, I prepare.

Half Clyde, slow blooded.

Half racehorse, small brained,

big hearted pumping,

muscles lubed with quick blood.

She loves to be scared, 

fear and flight is her nature,

to run like an asshole,

huge clomping gallops,

turf and mud flinging.

And when I feel that blood rising

 I get some

butterflies.

I Am

I Am                                   I am                              I am
Tell them                             waiting                          sitting
I Am                                   for your                         breathing
sent you                              return,                           stilling
into                                     so long                          my mind
this life.                               have I
                                          missed you.                  I am
I am                                                                       so tired
in love                                I am                             let me
with you                            sleeping                        sleep on
she said                             dreaming                      into                  
driving                               and there                      the dawn.
her van.                             you are.

I am                                  I am
like you                             letting
Grumpa                            the rain
he said                              fall on
taking                               my face
my hand.
                                        I am
I am                                 wading
grateful                             water
today                               and mud
for all                               up  to
you say.                           my knees.
Listen

Miley vs Sinead

Miley:

I am pumped
Strut the stuff
Hands are stretching
to touch
Hot and stooked
Youth is fast
Cranked to the limit
My hot blood
My hot blood
Out of my way you old bitch

Sinead

I took back myself
to answer
Spoke with the girl
who was me long ago
Held her inside
Honoured the sacred
Saw it in me
Saw it in her
Allowed our pain
Allowed our shame
And offered the gentlest warnings

Miley:  I ride this train of my success
Sinead: To destruction
Miley: I am on top of my game, loving this fame.
Sinead: Pimping your doom.
Miley: My life to live
Sinead: I've lived some of that also and
            what you live comes back to live you.
            And that won't be so gentle
            as this sincere warning.

So you think you can tell (loaned Wish You Were Here from Gilmour and Waters)

So, you think you can tell
                                                             A dark hole had opened in the center of myself
heaven from hell
                                                             Drugs only gave it expanse
blue skies from pain
                                                            Taking all the decency out of my life
can you tell a green field
                                                            I eventually gave in
from a cold steel rail
                                                            Spores of decay settled in
a smile from a veil
                                                            My hair grew long and I stayed out all nights
do you think you can tell
                                                            My friends were like me no aim no purpose
did they get you to trade
                                                            My parents who loved drifted onto dark paths
your heroes for ghosts
                                                            Lost in arguments and blame
hot ashes for trees
                                                            I fell to sleeping 12 hours a day
hot air for a cool breeze
                                                            waking to seek oblivion
cold comfort for change
                                                            lsd vodka blackouts and fear

did you exchange a walk on part in the war

                                                            once a good hockey player getting good grades
for a lead role in a cage
                                                            I broke down and fell off the plank
how I wish
                                                            but then one night a mescaline voice said   go home
                                                            i did   and sat with dad
                                                            told him this story he listened
how I wish you were here
                                                            a new thing began to grow a hope

we're just two large souls swimming in a fish bowl

                                                            it wasn't long after   I met her
year after year

                                                           and I wrote her a poem about lily pad flowers and love                                                      
running over the same old ground
           
                                                          my dad who had sat and listened through his own
                                                          disappointment
have we found the same old fears

                                                          has been gone for ten long years
wish you were here

Hidden

In her eyes
In her hair falling
about the bare shoulders

In his hands on the keys
In the scotch on the rocks

In their arms long and elegant
releasing doves to the sky

In the fat man's face
where joy builds
into a sweat

Don Juan on his horseback
In the copper skied dusk

In each artist's mind
As each image is born