Just the Four of Us

Wishful Thinking
I don't know what I was thinking. Actually, I do.
I was thinking that maybe, just maybe things were starting to turn around...
that the iceburg may be getting close, but there was still time.
I was thinking that being in love wouldn't be so bad.
That there was no way this could end badly.
If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
I'm no exception.
And I'm no less likely to fall again.

It was just a day or three.
But to me it was more.
To me it was a faint glimmer of hope...
a chance, a rumor, a whisper
that I might not end up alone.
Now I see that was only wishful thinking;
the musings of a hollow heart who thought another could fill it.
But it was really just the sound of glass breaking...
the means to an unknown end.

There's so much anger here and none of it's yours.
So much built-up bitterness I'm fighting back.
You're just a young girl. A young, silly girl
who doesn't know what she wants.
So how can she want me?
I didn't do anything wrong
but I did.
I know somewhere I went wrong.
Mispoke or laughed with too much enthusiasm.
Gave too much. Let my gaze linger just a bit too much.
Should have been aloof...played it cool.
Make you wonder if I'm thinking of you
instead of wearing my heart on my sleeve
openly, and honestly, and real.
Opening doors like a fool.
Standing up straight when a lady enters the room.
All in a misguided attempt to make you stay.
Love is a young man's game.

I'm well acquainted with failure.
I know her like a lover.
She sings to me daily in silence as I hold a guitar and ponder and squeeze with nothing to show for the effort
and no one to hear but the devils at my back.
I know her in an empty house. In an empty bar
playing songs for the owner.
I know her in "see you later" when later never comes.
I know her in friendships lost for stupid, shallow things.
I know her in an underpaid, under-appreciated day job.
In a way that tells me my destiny will never catch up to my ambition.
I know her in crossed arms and turned shoulders...
in conversations that turn from me.
In a girl I can never love.
In a song that just won't come.

Garden Tasks
Small part to play in the big scheme of things.
That sound is the sound of humming birds
furiously beating their wings
in their small part to play.

I sat in a ruined garden one morning
and thought of quiting because that was easier.
Thought of reading because it was simpler
than looking at dead leaves
and fallen seeds
and half filled bags of grass and trash.
Far more difficult to untangle the hose
than to watch an ant get lost.

The archway is crooked and crestfallen.
The trees here are young and gnarled.
The bushes are untamed and overgrown.
And I couldn't look more like home;
a cluttered mess of pots and lost potential.
Some cleaning is in order.
And that's a far harder thing.

White Limousine
Headlights on approach.
Breaths away and with a shuddering, swift gasp
passed...and turned to ruby red absence.
Another long mile, a long minute, another light gone
on this midnight road.
Highway 65...when I finish, I'll be home
and that's it - forever.

In a random heart at any random time
is a thought that hesitates once, no...twice.
And resigns itself quietly to fate's design.
But not I.
I, like a restless wanderer do wonder and dream
in a white limousine.

Listen carefully and ask plenty of questions...
young, curious ones.
Open eyes and smoking guns.
Green shoots with hands raised
and deep concern in their own way.
When I was younger, I knew the pull of the wild things;
the hidden places that no one else sees,
except those with stars in their eyes, like mine.
But when I was older, I knew the pull of quiet things.
Rain that drives to the heart of me
where I pass headlights, tailights, buildings, streets
in a white limousine.

Frozen Mars
Counting stars on a warm night.
I swear I knew Scorpio
in days when it mattered.
If you asked me, I'd be Orpheus
and sing you from sleep.
But today, I'm only me
living on the frozen side of Mars
where life is a funny, frozen thing.

I feel like a kid who's waiting for his ride to come.
Come on and pick me up from the back parking lot.
Behind me is a field of endless orange merrigolds.
I'm standing with a back to beauty,
listening to disonant bells chime and waiting for 10 to pass.
Come on and remind me that time
doesn't stand still for anyone.

Yesterday, I was a young man.
Today, I am a young man with an old heart,
hiding a troubled mind; vexed and overly complex,
worrying about things it shouldn't.
Things that seem a momentary matter;
a minor infraction to some.
And to others, the pattern of a life worn thin by disappointment.

So I, like a restless wanderer
do wonder and dream
(But even dogs do dream.)
of a field of azure lilacs
that open beneath a sky that blooms too;
a deep, rich, amber hue
that bleeds into red,
into purple, and back into blue.

I dreamt last night that the ocean
was a blue china plate spinning on a long thin rod;
teetering on the brink of disaster.
The fish held their breath
each time the juggler left
to see to another world that was turning.

We all watched too
as the ocean of blue
china on a long thin rod
tumbled and flew
like the acrobats do
only landing with all the grace
that a cat at the end of its nine lives can.

I rushed to wake up.
And looking back, I thought I saw
the mermaids shake their heads at the mess
like one who's resolved not to be upset
at the ocean of wet
blue china on a long thin floor.

There are loud people
and there are short people...
There are tall, proud people
and there are short people...
I've walked that road, alone in the sun
in the middle of everyone.

These dreams are but a passing thing.
And love, the end without a means.
But if you asked me, it would be sunset again.
If you wanted, I'd be Leo...

At twenty-two minutes early I'm sitting
beneath a shadow I'm convinced I'm fond of
on the frozen side of Mars
where life is a funny, frozen thing.
On the frozen side of Mars
waiting for Venus to rise.