To my Kaitlin, 

When my head is open I can feel the light

from the clouds above me have made room 

for the sun it has shone so strong these many years

and for the warmth on this earth, I am grateful. 

You came to me in these rolling seats

at a studio with smooth marble floors.

I arrived with you at an appointed time 

and we picked it up rather fast. 

Smart women need not be told what to do-

get the hang, paint th 'llusion, make it work. 

Sisters who've yet to meet, will find the other on 2nd Street-

you moved on, I moved up--I felt and then I shook. 

Shaken up, bacon bites- leave the plate at dinner

Cracks in my spine, a body unaligned -what's love to a story-tell sinner?

The look on your face when you sing with the light

be it inside you, or through you- you are only Right. 

Never wrong, not a top- balancing on, just waiting to stop

We are two sides of one heart--the spring and the lake- the key and it's beautiful lock. 

My Dear

     Collaborate

from long hair

If I push you away, will you push back? A Joanna Bateman Story

The sky mellows into nectarine.
It's quite the scene.
To be with you is to know that love is mean.
The way your father kicked your brother.
You watched it all through the summer screen.
Looking back in the book of time,
thumbing through history to climb
It doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes.
Remember once you told me that?
After that, I heard it all the time.

Does that ever happen to you?
You learn about something and then all of a sudden that something is everywhere?
It was like that for me and love.
Once I found it in a blanket wrapped so soft around me naked
In the arms of some forsaken woman ---whom I'll belong to for the rest of my life,
she is my favorite man's wife.
And then it was love everywhere.
Sleep walk love, wake up on the stairs.
Sleep talk love, wake up with the bears.
Sleep swim love, skinny dipping 'neath the stars.
Sleep drunk love, love on earth through Jupiter and Mars.
But I'm getting side tracked. 
I always do.
He is a worthy man,
He is like you.


My moods are all so temperamental.
All the time it's heart vs. mental.
This practice I give up.
I'll drive you to a corner.
Drive you out -my heart feels warmer
 without you here.
You have everything to fear.
A ship I've no idea how to steer.
The seat belt's broken, so I cry
into the traffic light so high.
It's my way of describing all the webs.
The veins and all the loose little threads.
I haven't got an ounce of control.
My friends they notice things I've stole.
And wouldn't it be grand
to live in a city not built on quick sand?
If I could mean what you think I seem I say
just seems I say
different things to different people every day.
There is no up or down or right wrong way.
When i tell the truth
I see you sink
I brace myself to think
of volleying you back and forth
In, to and from the matted hell.
A circle charred from all this light
I'm not a lot of fun,
A common misconception of our warm and lovely sun.

When we sleep together we hold close the night.
I want to breathe
And you still cling
And it hurts me to push you away
So beside you still and drifting, yet I stay.
Boy I wish that I could paint it another way,
but the brush strokes come some different smile watered down.
I've seen this before.
It's sadly nothing new.
Out of love and dying.
Just this time it's with you.

The sunset by the mountains breaking softly by the sea
Reminds me of a date I had
When you were not with me.
There was a boy - a model man
and me-my fanny pack, made sure to clasp my hand
with my other behind my back-
I didn't want to cheat you.
I didn't want to stray.
I didn't want to feel the things I ended feeling anyway.

Now I got to thinkin how I feel when we are kissin
or when on our trip to my first mission.
It's a pity and a shame
 I end them all this way.
It's a curse because I make it so.
  Love's a broken fossil though.
I toss it up beyond our house.
Beyond the hills and letters. Stacks of bills.
Moments before the quake, with all the love inside us still
              I break.

for christmas eves

syrup love

For, PLaNETS

They writhe and they wave
like starfish to be seen
only when they are noticed.

They sing and it's as close to delicate as they have found,
making the strain to be an angel
something you might recognize.

Run wild into the parking lot
with your name on a banner, it's a dare.

Have you shared your secret yet?

     
It doesn't take much
to be a part of a movement.
to dance is a safe passage through it.

Check your pockets for your phone 
it calls you to wonder if -this time- 

we are talking to you.
      

In the dark woods the Troubadours share
They sing waltzes with shadows,
skip stones on a green mist of air

They sing life to the bright waves.
Waves upon waves, blood scribes a plot
twisted their wrung out pages, clearly for all who can see.

It doesn't take much
to be a part of a movement.
to dance is a safe passage through.

Check your pockets for your phone
it calls you to wonder if -this time-
we are talking straight to you.

...

Riptide

We've been swept out.

I can't keep kicking.

Along the Shore, shaky kissers turn their backs on an empty night.

They don't know we're out here.

There is a path to walk at the bottom:

a deep aqua almost pink corridor.

there are candle bugs on the floor

round and ripe paving a new horizon.

The ocean breathes with harmonium lungs.

There is a vine of water lilies strong enough to tug

if tugging were a railing made to Grace.

No shoes.

When you saw my eyes had receded

you took them off. 

You took yours off too.

You see things only a few pictures above me

and ahead.

You say we are like the silk now,

lining a soft stone path to the center of the sea.

I believe you.

A winter alto sings like she's lost something.

There is a glow.
Low dissolving notes.

words spoken and sung on the First Friday of 2013