poem

THIS IS WHEN I SHUT MY EYES

At around three in the morning
there was a halo over everything
and your head was no exception
As the train slowed and released me onto the platform
I laid down my guitar and through the flakes
caught the horse and rider
You smiled at me with hidden hands and white teeth
and there was one of everything
1 street lamp
1 Toyota
1 of you
and
1 of me
but billions upon billions of snowflakes suspended
offered up as alms to a gentle December moon

this is when I close my eyes

I see you playing etudes on an old upright piano
with snow covered pedals
in a field of spent corn stalks
sitting on a bench stuffed with sheet music
Then the fox appears
that half-hunter with it's patchy coat
It stops to smell the small of your back
then cuts a crooked figure directionless
deaf to your music
in search of anything that moves

this is when I open my eyes

You had not moved an inch
a statue made of prairie wind
still waiting, waiting, waiting
to show me the place where I would sleep soundly
near the fire and your dreaming dog
the one full of secrets

lyrics

MY FIRST ARMADILLO

I was on my way to Texas with the bald-headed Irishman
we tried to re-configure the stars
In my bicentennial pickup with bricks painted on the side
we slipped through Oklahoma under the radar
That is where I found my own Jesus
or at least someone who looked like him
with a wheel on his cross he was pushin our sins
Down the pipeline of I-35 past the flames of ol Waco
oh David! your death was mishandled like many times before

So believe me now cause that was such a long time ago

We woke buried in our fortunes and arose with the good citizens
who were off to work or crawling back home
All the architects and the film makers
and aspiring Senatorial hopes
all seemed to waltz right off the pages of my book
But we found ourselves on the fringes
where the muffler up and bit the dust
it was there that I saw my first Armadillo

So believe me now cause that was such a long time ago

We saw sort of famous people as they watched the buffalo roam
and in the palm of my hand for you I wrote down this poem
But all the words they bled together like some ancient Asian script
It was gone in an instant as I lost my grip
So we packed it up and hit the road
headed to the ol North Pole
all hail the mystery of this rock n' roll

Me and Me Mum

she sings like an angel

poem

THE TRANSMISSION OF SIR RONALD BELFORD SCOTT

It was a time I never knew existed until now

a crowd at the Myer Bowl held transfixed

raw sound raw power missing teeth

and a denim bulge

I can get closer than most though

Because I can see a little girl running like a rabbit

trying to turn back time and

make the cells normal please

I can see how rough it is

compared to the soft sandstone bluffs of an Iowa river

the leash has been broken here

and this sun has declared itself different

from the one that blinds the Queen's dogs

Can I hold you and tell you that everything will be all right?

Your racing heart beats your mind

but your mind beats your body and leaves it on a lucky beach

somewhere under the broken Southern Cross

where tin cans of beer are drunk by blonde boys

scared of failure

I was too young then to travel on my own

let alone fly in like a bird of all things

but now I am able to move freely about the cabin

to hold your hand to kiss your forehead and to feel the heat

escape his crown

I tell him it is o.k. to go and that

I am the freak who will keep his little girl safe

from the lawlessness of a distant outpost

deep thoughts

BUT WHO REALLY KNOWS ANYTHING

It seems as though there are two types of humans
those who think that this life is enough and
those who think that it’s not.
If you are of the first persuasion, consider yourself safe
and even, on some days, lucky.
But if you are of the second persuasion,
you have two options.
Either live in fear of the inevitable end or
trick yourself into believing that there is something greater and perhaps better
than this life.
If you do achieve success in this endeavour,
when you finally draw your last breath,
you may be reassured that there is, in fact,
something more than this existence,
something more than this attachment,
and something more than this happiness and suffering.
But who really knows anything…..

lyrics

CREOSOTE

I love the smell of the creosote
She reaches up and grabs my throat
Brings me back to my Chicago years
Drinking whiskey and drinking beer

We would eat the cruellest of food
Greasy spoon greasy attitude
And the smoke would rise up and curl
In the hog butcher to the world

And you went overseas while I stayed on
And when you returned you discovered
That I was gone

We use to meet at the Charleston
Talk about all things and nothing
What about that time at the Rainbow Room
With Mike Watt and Kira too

You used to live in such a run down joint
We’d scare the rats but what was the point
We’d go to openings where I wouldn’t know a soul
In old factories still burnin coal

And I went overseas while you stayed on
And when I returned I discovered
That you were gone

Now it seems like a world away
The Sears Tower and Lake Michigan waves
But somewhere in the heart of that town
You’ll find us in the lost and found

-for hammer

lyrics

WHITE SURFACES

I see your shoes you’re back again
They’re in a row by the door
Why don’t you move them closer
So you can’t walk so far away no more
I’ve missed the sound of your footsteps
They seem to speak a million words
But you’ve been hidin or choosin
White surfaces so you can’t be heard

I can see a woman
I can feel her age
Somewhere between an infant
And a relic with silver hair
She’s always known about distance
But that don’t mean she’s strayed
Her footsteps are kept inside her head
But the echo is too big for her some days
You know that echo is too big

I’m going down to the woodpile
And I won’t go beyond
Got to keep that fire burning for there are many ways
In which to respond
There’s a wall of darkness
With many holes that leak
Nothingness onto my legs
And gets me where I am so weak
You know it gets me