Pain

All is quiet tonight
Letting go of the day and the light
Taking a moment to see you
Resting until I can feel you

Pain is the lawless translator
Pain is the giver and the taker
Pain is walking with me and
Pain is talking to me and
Pain is a womb to birth my serenity

Who in eclipse can deny it
Rolling in circles the sky sits
Pushing within on my reason
Dropping a sail to my knees on

Pain is the mooring and the river
Pain is exquisite to deliver
Pain is opening up and
Pain is filling my cup and
Pain is a womb to birth my serenity

Courage holding my hand
Circles again in the sand
Flowing across the arroyo
You are creator destroyer

Pain is the soldier of my mission
Pain is the comet of my vision
Pain is taking me down and
Pain is making this sound and
Pain is a womb to birth my serenity

(artwork by Gabriel Dawe)










(number 9 of 12 in the RainingHorse song cycle)

Raw filling

Here's the wrong eye
ringing masquerade
Hooded and folding
spare rims to weep
in all regards we slip
run forward to the edge
smoking apology
voice downturn
end of sentence
out of prison
this price is not correct
but we pay and collect

raw filling
raw filling
filling up on raw filling

Mister hollow guy
singing experiment
Rooted in longing
care not for thee
these papers that you rip
burn slowly in the hedge
smoking apology
voice downturn
end of sentence
out of prison
this price is not correct
but we pay and collect

raw filling
raw filling
filling up on raw filling

Sister rolling by
in her fresh cadillac
removal thonging
something to see
cool vapors and a sip
take in the tool and dredge
smoking apology
voice downturn
end of sentence
out of prison
this price is not correct
but we pay and collect

raw filling
raw filling
filling up on raw filling

(number 8 in the RainingHorse song cycle)

Form, sustenance, vapor

in trees exceptional voice falls open
elements comb bereavement flowers
armed within thistle driving home time
plays upon this lightly boundless chord

intelligent dive all columns aligning
evanescence impetuous along ground
walked away with perfect match score
tamping deep anger until fountain spills

earful linking placement aggravation plum
disassociation pushes skyward gem of green
here we'll pause a moment to wonder how
an inkling merchant filibusters happiness

plus one visioning determinant amber insect
toils play long in sacramental low flying bird
and to when, who, why tingling splices knit on
hillside definition passing through fog again

(number 7 of 12 in the RainingHorse song cycle)

Restoration gravel highway

She tore his paper cross in half,
Burnt a match on a looking glass,
Turned toward the East and spoke,
"What you kill is what you smoke.

So pleased to see your dominance
Has led to here, where we commence
To forage through the leaves of time.
Please share with me a cup of wine."

In folded hands he held a stick
Of charcoal and a scroll, for plans
Were forming to begin some nesting rite -
A road to travel through the night.

"I see" he spoke "from where we are
The new beginning can't be far away.
So let's pick one more shower,
pluck the chord and plant the flower,

Make a misty rain dance over
By that hill, and when October comes
Our turn will have been taken.
Pack the coffee, pack the bacon".

On restoration gravel highway
They constructed signs for other travelers
To find the blossoms, dig the roots,
Enjoy the cautions

Flying to the wind across
The old familiar gain and loss.
An endless landscape, live and breathing.
Celebrations dance with grieving,

Happiness lays down with anger.
Lions stare into the manger at the child
Whose fate detoxifies the bloody wars,

The march of lies.

(part 6 of the RainingHorse song cycle)

RainingHorse falls at the finish line

His fighting spirit broken lands again inside the unspoken
Kindness of strangers, who unknowingly forget to hide, begin to follow,

The goose becomes the swallow, is nesting in Colorado canyon lands
My universe is falling into your hands, then gentle, then firm

I cannot fight I cannot squirm away from you my prayer,
Encased in sweet mystery when all has grown old and bare, across my head

and down my shoulders where the simple wrapping rests,
Nothing unto the swallow but a feather for her nest.

(part 5 of the RainingHorse song cycle, slated for completion June 11, 2014.)

The Ballad of Death Maverick

Rain rain all the time so fugging sick of this motorcycle ride
Wanna buy a car to be my friend and only have $300 to spend

Down to Tacoma exit 135 on my Suzuki just barely alive
Main fuse blows on the exit ramp around so I coast that mothersucker right into town

Center stand park in a visible position lock the saddle bags lock the ignition
Walk to the cheapest-ass dealer in town, can't believe all the stinking hulks around

Nothing with an air cleaner, moldy and disgusting
Cars filled with garbage, broken glass and rusting

Tried to start a few but they wouldn't even fart
Must have been a bad oil bullet through the heart
Must have been a bad oil bullet through the heart

But there, so sweet and white, twice the price I was wanting to pay
Sits Death Maverick like a block of ice, $499 is the asking price
$285 gonna drive,  $285 gonna drive Death Maverick home today

She fired up and I fought like a champ, drove her back up that northbound ramp
Picked up the bike 36 hours later with my brother riding shotgun in his 87 Blazer

And for 2 sweet years she kept me dry, kept me horny, made me cry
Rust in her cables, grime in her gears, horrible brakes, unidentified smears

In that driver's seat l I could have worn a mullet
with crooked teeth, smelling like a pullet

But some romantic notion of Detroit kept the undertaker on a road to exploit
The coming demise of Death Maverick
The inevitable demise of Death Maverick

At rest by the curb all day, cruising 99 late at night
Old Death Maverick like a Moon of steel, lonely midwest boy in pale light
$285 gonna drive,  $285 gonna drive Death Maverick at the wheel

Problems beginning and violent ends to means we win again and again
Crossing the bridge early in the morning at the other
end a car does a u-turn

Without warning can't quite finish the job so I hit the brakes as easy I can
but Death Maverick starts to slide and skate like a one ton whale toward a pearly gate

And the choice is clear hit the curb or the car, without insurance it was no decision
That 15 inches of concrete and steel broke the tie rods underneath the right front wheel

Here comes the undertaker right on time, tows her away and throws me a dime
The final rest of Death Maverick begins
The final rest of Death Maverick begins and ends

African Violet

In a windowsill position, terracotta landing pad
You are an open purple flower dripping history
Scents of South Dakota
Trees of mystery growing toward my willing hands

Is it Spearfish, is it selfish to imagine you this way
To believe you want to be the only one for me
African Violet
Purple heart emerging from the desert sands

I am tracing these divisions
Water opening my throat
Tears of happiness are filling up the boat

More theatrical than honest
And a disappearing leaf
Take my over to the shoreline of your grief

On and on the whispers follow, keeping everyone awake
I will come to you tonight and keep a watchful eye
Out across the prairie
Where your home and mine become the same

African Violet,  African Violet

(2nd of 12 songs in RainingHorse song cycle)

You will believe in me

(Song and lyrics from 1979)

I trace my life back to where I first defined you
The cityscape, graphic lines of work behind you
To finalize something restrained
To take you to my lies, let them be tamed
You will believe in me someday
In this quest for what we know
I want to give the

Curve of your smile a wistful kiss with busloads
Of strangers peering at their reflections in the windows
The fine line between the shores
Of right now and sometime, it keeps us apart
You will believe in me someday
I predict it will be so
I'm seldom wrong you know know know

So take my hand to the place I slept beside you
The hour is late and tomorrow there's so much to do
The ripe skies pregnant with Spring are calling
You know I believe in you
You will believe in me someday
Just like I believe in me
Just wait and see, just wait and see.

Part of "Raininghorse" song cycle March 1 to June 11th, 2014