Chimney
The autumn twilight
The masquerade
The days move forward
Thoughtless cadets on parade
Do I feel more afraid?
Than what I used to be?
Of being somebody, or nobody
A fading glint
Took me for a walk
I buttoned my coat
Though you wanted to talk
With your dissolvable salt
I know you didn’t mean to
You’re just telling the truth
The faces of strangers
The indifference of a moment
A neighborhood renting
Because they can’t own it
With their inevitable sin
The motorcyclist makes a delivery
Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney
Chimney, has a memory
Of the way things were supposed to be
Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat
With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet
The evening animates
In sashaying wind
It could be leading me further out
Or right back in
To yesterday’s hobgoblin
Everyone’s smarter than me
Monuments to efficiency
And I’m walking in a circle
To find my way home
Dimming those palaces in my mind
Where the light relentlessly shone
Upon pillars of stone
Crumbling to dust in the present
Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant
When I’m a few blocks away
It kicks back to sense
Some ideas fade
Love is permanent
For a sense of recompense
Then Chimney coughs and returns inside
Is she thinking about the one she left behind?
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Chimney
The autumn twilight
The masquerade
The days move forward
Thoughtless cadets on parade
Do I feel more afraid?
Than what I used to be?
Of being somebody, or nobody
A fading glint
Took me for a walk
I buttoned my coat
Though you wanted to talk
With your dissolvable salt
I know you didn’t mean to
You’re just telling the truth
The faces of strangers
The indifference of a moment
A neighborhood renting
Because they can’t own it
With their inevitable sin
The motorcyclist makes a delivery
Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney
Chimney, has a memory
Of the way things were supposed to be
Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat
With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet
The evening animates
In sashaying wind
It could be leading me further out
Or right back in
To yesterday’s hobgoblin
Everyone’s smarter than me
Monuments to efficiency
And I’m walking in a circle
To find my way home
Dimming those palaces in my mind
Where the light relentlessly shone
Upon pillars of stone
Crumbling to dust in the present
Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant
When I’m a few blocks away
It kicks back to sense
Some ideas fade
Love is permanent
For a sense of recompense
Then Chimney coughs and returns inside
Is she thinking about the one she left behind?
Winding Down
So vast
This Expanse
The moon surface
Of my mind
Lamp-light frames the snow
And we go
Deeper into that gentle night
Which is blind to the past
The roles we’ve been cast
The dreams that have been denied
Chorus:
Winding down
The lights flicker in town
Then they die
They die
They die
I have no illusions
I’m paid to entertain the delusions
Of the hierarchies and their disaffected
Sons
Conditioned to think creative work
Represents a nobler birth
In our country of bibles and guns
But I’m hardly cynical
In fact, I’m quite equivocal
About my replenishing of funds
Chorus
And your eyes are a respite
Though we may fight
About what you call my
Callous attitude
We have our bench and pond
The graceful sense of being beyond
Each other’s disappointment or gratitude
Yet you feel so acutely my fear
That I had a life that disappeared
Like a flight lost at cruising altitude
Chorus
From where does this bitterness come?
You live a dream, that’s supposed to be freedom
Instead I’m the absence of joy
In the state at large
The teenage girl crying on her birthday
Her businessman father with nothing to say
The mother hardened by too many days in charge
At least my students believe in writing
And you leave me alone with my faulty wiring
Like my father drinking alone in the garage
Chorus
Summertime now and I could leave
Then its winter again and I’ve begun to grieve
And in autumn my mother didn’t provide
Any indication
When you talk about next January
My madness feels almost sanitary
Maybe I just need a good, warm vacation
You say I’m doing great, I’ve got it together
I look like a knight in this coal black sweater
Kiss me on the forehead
Because we've arrived at our station
Show Do Tell: A Reading Series & Art Review
Chimney
The autumn twilight
The masquerade
The days move forward
Thoughtless cadets on parade
Do I feel more afraid?
Than what I used to be?
Of being somebody, or nobody
A fading glint
Took me for a walk
I buttoned my coat
Though you wanted to talk
With your dissolvable salt
I know you didn’t mean to
You’re just telling the truth
The faces of strangers
The indifference of a moment
A neighborhood renting
Because they can’t own it
With their inevitable sin
The motorcyclist makes a delivery
Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney
Chimney, has a memory
Of the way things were supposed to be
Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat
With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet
The evening animates
In sashaying wind
It could be leading me further out
Or right back in
To yesterday’s hobgoblin
Everyone’s smarter than me
Monuments to efficiency
And I’m walking in a circle
To find my way home
Dimming those palaces in my mind
Where the light relentlessly shone
Upon pillars of stone
Crumbling to dust in the present
Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant
When I’m a few blocks away
It kicks back to sense
Some ideas fade
Love is permanent
For a sense of recompense
Then Chimney coughs and returns inside
Is she thinking about the one she left behind?
