Dear Rita

Dear Rita, this is the
Second and last attempt
At backing up my egomania
Though you are euphoria
We’re both too smart to think I’d stop
There at euphoria
I don’t know when enough’s enough

You can bet on me like betting on horses
Not like you can bet my father took opiates 
Early this morning I got one gullible mother
Who says keep out the cabinet but you know I’m stubborn

That’s when I called on god
He came to me in a ziplock

Dear Rita, this is the
Second and last attempt
At backing up my egomania
Though you are euphoria
We’re both too smart to think I’d stop
There at euphoria
I don’t know when enough’s enough

Are you bored yet are you mad I’m not sorry
I stand accused in the eyes of an impartial jury
Rita that’d be you the letter you wrote was 
Downgrading sarcastic and true

Why would I call on god
When I can have him for one tenth the cost

Dear Rita, this is the
Second and last attempt
At backing up my egomania
Though you are euphoria
We’re both too smart to think I’d stop
There at euphoria
I don’t know when enough’s enough

I walk the line of sanity
Psychosis lives under my bed
I’m a good liar
If you don’t believe me well that proves
That Rita, this is the
Second and last attempt
At backing up egomania
Though you are euphoria
We’re both too smart to know
I’d stop

Ephemeral Shannon

I call a friend and say I’d like to know
What Shannon is thinking today
I’d like to know if that coffee she makes 
Is enough to keep Shannon awake

I walk the park guessing what she would say
Of the blossoms destined to soon disappear
There once was a time I knew every other thought of Shannon‘s
Like flies buzzing 

In my ear and at the tip of my pen
Around the fruit of trees we’d 

Plant
Now too much has been left unsaid
It’s buried in concrete
I want cherry branches instead

I’ve had more conversations in my head
With Shannon than words aloud we have said
She is both the daemon adorning my crown 
And wasabi stuck to the roof of my mouth

So I call a friend and say I’d like to know
What Shannon is thinking today
I’d like to tell her that coffee she makes
Is more than enough to keep

Me awake and my hands on the keys
And pruning the trees we’d

Plant
Now too much has been left unsaid
It’s buried in concrete
I want cherry branches instead

There was a knock at the door
I thought that can’t be for me
I glued my face to the glass and 
My hands to the sill
And heard laughter off of the street
What does it mean to be loved
If I ever knew I dropped it
But I’m done with reluctance to pick it up off the ground

Sistine Blue

He said he is looking forward 
To September weather
I was looking forward to his
Hand in my hand in September 

Two sets of two keys on my key ring 
Turns out maybe is no

His mom told me I look like his
Widowed brother’s wife
But someone has yet to put a suit on
To look me in the eye and say I’m glad you’re mine

Two sets of two keys on my key ring 
Turns out I don’t know is no
One pair of Sistine Chapel blue eyes
My September won’t know

Turns out maybe is no
Turns out I don’t know is no
Turns out yes and I’ll try again
Doesn’t transmute no

Vintage Bendel

It was my last week in town
A cut and run to fertile ground
We made plans to meet at a hotel
I wore my yellow vintage Bendel

A case of you is bitter and sweet
Honey I can say I’m still on my feet
You gave me a journal and said when I get back
We will get together and read it then

I know it’s been less than formal
I never made it back but I kept a journal
And in its pages and in its lines
Part of you pours out of me from time to time

Now here I am where flowers grow
Where salty waves meet silky shore
And all I want is back in that hotel
Wearing my vintage Bendel

With no intent to fan an old flame
Honey I would take that evening to say
Where I once cast at you the blame
My disposition towards us has changed

I know it’s been less than formal
I never made it back but I kept a journal
And in its pages and in its lines
Part of you pours out of me from time to time

There is a law against that
But there’s no crime to commit
If life were long I would wait
But I’d like the chance to say that

And in its pages and in its lines
Part of you pours out of me from time to time

Damon

Little blonde boy
I’ve done everything for you
Where there was no threat
I ran and I hid

Damon looks into the mirror and sees a masochist
Tightens up his fists and walks away
He books a reservation for just him
At a tavern where they would sit

They represent what
Damon couldn’t let himself have

Damon thought he laid to rest that masochist
He’s depressed to find him breathing
Who can say why he throws away

The things he spends his life building

They represent what
Damon couldn’t let himself have

Little blonde boy
I’ve grown old alone with you
Where there is no threat
I flinch and I snap

Damon saves his paycheck for his real estate
Throws himself an allowance
He’s a slave to precision and
Takes pleasure in the pain it brings him

‘Cause he represents
The life he convinced himself to live

Little blonde boy
What else could I do
What else could we be If we did something new

Such Different Wants

What wants for nothing
And floats at the surface
Is a magnet for the current
And is pulled out to sea

What climbs a mountain
Searching for a trumpet
Finds stagnant air and
Dies unseen

I am who will love you
When your hair is white
Koi fish in the pond
Red, black, hello, goodbye

Who finds the center
Of a constellation
And holds that tension
Knows the wind

I am who will love you
When your hair is white
Koi fish in the pond
Red, black, hello, goodbye

The Return to Why

When I got there they were standing in a line, they said
”Pick a number, its only a matter of time before yours comes”

So I did just that and it wasn’t until when
Many of them said “I’ve stood in this line all my life,” that I

Grew suspicious cutting my teeth on this
Can’t be the way that it is, but I’ve no proof that its not

As I stood there I fell deep into a dream, in it
I remembered singing on a hill for the trees (only for the, just for the trees)

And they clap their leaves, oh how I miss the sound
Could it be this line is too keep my under the ground and I

Made my way through the dirt towards all the things I forgot cause
This can’t be the way that it is and I’ll be proof that its not

Now I have no time for those who prey on earnest intentions
I have no generosity for those who take what’s yet to be guarded
Now I have no time for those who pray and pray, taking no action
Cause I have no intent to spend my life waiting in a line

Epitaph

I have one final request
Give me the moon for an epitaph
Be it my cascade that reads:
”A change of tide is never to far behind or far ahead”

I remember waking up
I don’t remember how I got
Here the weight of space and time
Pulls at my neck

I grew fond of broad daylight
I’m not sure what fondness stands
For because each and every night
Darkness and I must share a bed

So, it goes when I was young I wrote with wisps of clouds
”You ask of me be the sun and die with every dusk”

I have one final request
Give me the moon for an epitaph
Be it my cascade that reads:
”A change of tide is never to far behind or far ahead”

The streets hung over my shoulder
I was to carry them over and over
Over and over, each time
They broke my back

No, this isn’t volunteer work
It’s not what I’m up against
This is life and life is being cloaked
Stripped, and cloaked again

So, it goes when I was young I wrote with wisps of clouds
”You ask of me be the sun and die a thousand deaths”

I have one final request
Give me the moon for an epitaph
Be it my cascade that reads:
”A change of tide is never to far behind or far ahead”

Tempranillo

The summer sounds like lavender
This memory tastes like a nine
Ten, eleven steps to the front door
But how it felt like a mile

It rained all morning
But by noon the sun came with a warning 
To move towards you and by evening
I was swirling in red wine ‘round your living room

And I do believe I left my heart
At the bottom of that glass of tempranillo
Gathering dust on the coffee table

There’s 88 ways through my mind
Like the lines furrowed down a vineyard
One is the ebony tucked in your ivory eyes
And the wrinkles along their outskirts

And it’s so disarming
To think of you and August, so fondly,
How it bore our fruits and how we dangled
From the grapevine in full bloom

And I do believe I left my heart
At the bottom of that glass of tempranillo
Gathering dust on the coffee table

I’m gathering dust on your coffee table

Neverland

If I could take your mind off of this
I would soon fly it to Neverland
Time would fall faint in its tracks
No threat of it too quickly passing

To spend a life landscaping rituals
Placing each piece of a mosaic window
Then comes a time, time like a tempest
Sending branches right through the glass

If I could take your mind off of this
I would soon fly it to Neverland
Time would fall ill in its tracks
No threat of it too quickly passing

You had routines to give chaos an outline
Praying by them, kneeling at bedside 
Now they’re weighed and marked 
For sale by the pound at a market where no one is allowed 

If I could take your mind off of this
I would soon fly it to Neverland
Time would fall dead in its tracks

The Best

Here, yet again I am here
Blue with my grandmother’s ghost
Her and I are hanging from a beam in the basement
Upstairs the piano is playing itself
To the chairs and the books on the shelf
I guess I got my pick of a room now that grandma killed herself

The future just can’t be worse than where I come from
I heard there’s better music yet to be sung

Hell, hell is where sun turns ash
No fire that I can tend
Just a bag of my loved one’s ashes to dumb inside the river
Why can’t I cut myself down from here?
I can’t reach the ground from here
And it must be my fault cause there’s nobody left to blame

The future just can’t be worse than where I come from
I heard there’s better music yet to be sung

Wild

So she walked 110 blocks
And never looked behind her
Then she crossed into the night sky behind the city lights
And found relief beside her

Just when I thought I was chasing a dream
Putting on costumes and dancing in the rain
I realize this dream is the one after me
Got me climbing up ladders, aiming for a trapeze

Ever since I was a child
I’ve been running nothing short of wild

Casey Jones, its gonna take a little
“Moving on and getting over”
But I thought you should know what the view is like
From the end of this October

Its scented and glossy — nearly kamikaze
There’s crooks and nannies and paparazzi
In the nooks and crannies you’ll find vice and virtue
By the time you arrive they’ll be waiting for you

So, go ahead and crack that smile
It’ll strike you nothing short of wild

Standing before your wild eyes
I was your audience before you were mine
Standing before your wild eyes
I was your audience before you were, now you are

Three Windows

Three windows, oval room
Glass doorknobs lit by the moon
About midnight I sat here alone
Heard the nighttime sigh a nocturnal moan

Can’t stay asleep, glass of orange juice
The radiator tinks, so I hum, too
The countryside illuminated
In the dead of night I can hear the Earth thinking, like

Three windows, yeah, oval room
Glass doorknobs like little moons
Glass half full of fresh orange juice
Through a glass window, the world I view

Peaceful trees, still, white gravel road
Winter breeze trickles under the window
Endless fields, let me sit here and listen
A train whistles in the distance like

Three windows, yeah, oval room
Glass doorknobs like little moons
Glass half full of fresh orange juice
Through a glass window, the world I view

When I’m old I’ll remember the sound
I’ll remember the feeling of being up and alone

My Eyes for You

How will I hide my eyes for you
Down the hall the kettle squeals
Golden silk sheets in a golden room
My golden hour eyes for you

4 o’clock coffee and a cigarette 
Where 59th Street turns into a bridge
Have we still plans to meet at the Frick?
If so, I’ll keel my self out of bed

Cotton candy lie under a cotton candy sky
And as you fuss with the key to your room
And graduate to street from the stoop
I will walk up Park Avenue, wondering
How I’ll hide my eyes for you

The glow of a stoplight from green to red
On your face at 3AM
Spinning threads of gold laying on my bed
With your legs bent off the edge

How will you hide those eyes for me
When the walls are listening
We will be standing on a vacuumed tier
Under the luster of an old chandelier 

Cotton candy lie under a cotton candy sky
And as you fuss with the key to your room
And graduate to street from the stoop
I will walk up Park Avenue, wondering
How I’ll hide my eyes for you

The Wayland

If I knew what to say I’d say it
The tip of my tongue is a wasteland
If I knew I could stand I’d get up
Face down on a Tibetan rug
It smells like tequila

One ear to the floor like Beethoven
His voice echos up through carpet
It sounds like cold espolon white
Coating his lips, I kept them airtight
Under the moonlight sonata

After inhaling the first movement 
Four times each with different movements
Last night is still dissolving 
Like a lazy, voluptuous smoke ring
I feel like a queen

Of Bridges and Benches

I got two hands of paper
When I reach for a prize they just collapse 
I have tried to 'maché them together
But it only buys me seconds til the next relapse

It’s the time of the year the night falls faster
And I’ve made a bed out of this park bench
I am soaked in the sunlight’s laughter
As it sets fire to the Brooklyn Bridge

Dreamer, you have held 
your own name at ransom 
For visions that have kissed your brow
But the only toll you owe
Is the guts it takes to know yourself

I got a golden face, an 
Iron body and two feet of clay
So it goes that’s the sober truth of 
What it means to have what it takes

It’s the time of the night the water rises
And I’ve made a home in the New York bay
I am drenched in a cherry sky as
The horizon outbursts into flames

Dreamer, you have held 
your own name at ransom 
For visions that have kissed your brow
But the only toll you owe
Is the guts it takes to know you’re

      Standing at the door, 
counting knocks, noting clocks
No one seems to hear your plea
And the moon that’s left to rise
Is the time it takes to realize
You’ve got the key

Blue House

Charlie, do you recall the afternoon
sound of the spring rain from our bedroom
Charlie, looking back it really seems 
That was the sound of our dreams
dancing on the roof of our 

Blue house at 115 Holmes, you said 
“I will plant trees in the yard to grow old with you,
Judy, we’ll buy a two story house and we’ll paint it blue”

Nightly, wine beside the baby grand
Nocturnes and minuets to fill up the air in here 
Charlie, before the morning’s had a chance 
to spring from the dawn you still 
cover me like dew on the lawn of our

Blue house at 115 Holmes, you said 
“I will plant trees in the yard to grow old with you,
Judy, we’ll buy a two story house and we’ll paint it blue”

Tethered to the Stars

You can find me tethered to the stars
Swinging back and forth
Like a pendulum 

Drafted by the ethereal vanguard
But I’m also down the hall
In the grandfather clock

You can find me where streets meet avenues
Where forms diamonds of dew
On a web

Weave your way to a sweeping ocean view 
Let the water chew
Your darkness away

You seem to be tethered to the carpeted seats
On the crosstown bus 
As you always miss your stop

Greeted by a grimace from the ever-snarling wind
It whips your clothes to your skin
As if your brooding weren’t enough

And later
You can find me where your lips lock with his
As if you both had previously been
Painted by Vermeer

And tomorrow you’ll still be tethered to that kiss 
So, wander down the hall
Give the key a twist
Hear the tick tock
And find me

January

If I had it ever so slightly my way 
I might always be inches from sleeping
Seems when I start to dream 
It takes a cavalry just to wake me

And if the sky would just keep to a shade
That had as much as I have to say it’d be
Tangerine fighting the fade
Back to navy

No, I did not say it to hear it back
Yes, I still meant it when I let the door slam
I can’t stake a claim — there’s no ground left to stand
There’s just songs without stages 
And clouds that gather but never rain

If I had it ever so slightly my way
I might change my name to January cause
Tell me, what other word has as much of a way
To live out it’s fury

No, I did not say it to hear it back
Yes, I still meant it when I let the door slam
I can’t stake a claim — there’s no ground left to stand
There’s just songs without stages 
And clouds that gather but never rain

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put me back together again
So I put a thread in my own steady hand
And sat there and started sewing 

No, I did not say it to hear it back
Yes, I still meant it when I let the door slam
I can’t stake a claim — there’s no ground left to stand
There’s just songs without stages 
And clouds that gather 
But keep themselves from raining