Lincoln, April 16th

Hold me like rain
On the wound of the nation
The salve that binds colors and classes and thieves

Hold me like smoke
Where the fire has seared you
Gunpowder and gristle become grasses and seed

Hold me like hope
On the lips of the children
Whose fathers and uncles are corpses and wreaths

Hold no more hostage
Ascending toward freedom
Angels descending hold garlands and peace

Review

I looked back on my life from the clouds
Wondering where it began
Was it in the eyes of my father
Coming home from the war
Or my mother’s petulant murmurings
One more makes four
One more makes four
Born of the shrapnel and radar and blood
Born of the soft, sad lament
Born at a time when the world was at rest
Gearing up for its next bloodbath
I was bathed in the milk of a vagabond sheep
I was lost in the continents’ drift
I sleep now in silence as these clouds turn to rain
Sweat of the years bound to fall

Child

You’re a child
Santa will come
The Tooth Fairy, too
The world is a rainbow
Dream wild
As colors fill you

Animals talk
Costumes parade
Your head is in pictures
The pictures you’ve made
No one to tell you
There is no such blue

You’re a child
The dream will expire
And so will your fire
But you won’t be a child
By then

You Thought Rain

You thought rain
And down it came
You thought again
And cried

I think sun
And out it comes
The power of
The one

You thought rain
Incessant need
To be so entertained

The thinking and
The pouring linked
Forever thus arranged

Keep thinking rain
Suffer again
The storms within your head

I think sun
And so I run
Where there is light instead

Quote of the Day

Ludwig van Beethoven, confiding to Czerny about "Moonlight Sonata":

"Surely I've written better things."

The Bird I Long to Be

I see him hovering over my head
There in the azure sky
He’s miles above this sorrow
Sings his songs as tears pass by

There are rainbows in the distance
That surely he’ll pass through
He’s a confidant of paradise
The oceans know him, too

Just a pilgrim in the distance
Spans his wings over the sea
He’s the one who stole my shadow
He’s the bird I long to be

There’s a boat out in the great blue deep
That he’s serenading now
I hear it in my roiling dreams
I watch and wonder how

Just a pilgrim in the distance
Spans his wings over the sea
He’s the one who stole my shadow
He’s the bird I long to be

I wonder where he sleeps
Or if he ever rests his head
I live my life in search of him
Find emptiness instead

Just a pilgrim in the distance
Spans his wings over the sea
He’s the one who stole my shadow
He’s the bird I long to be