Subtle Love

Brighter than the Blues
 Got to leave this house, go swiftly out
 I've been lying around till noon
 Till the fear comes on
 That I might have fallen
 Honey, I think of you.
 The winter's calling loudly now
 I believe it'll be here soon
 And it won't be kind,
 It'll rule me with shadows
 Turning my gold to blue.
 Go away, go away you poison loves
 For you I have no use
 I can sleep alone
 Many a night I've gone
 Never to think of you.
 Well, the leaves have fallen
 The season's passed
 I'll go west, or someplace new
 Where the lights are low
 So the stars can glow
 Brighter than the blues.
 Stay on My Shore
 Stay on my shore
 And don't desert me
 And if you go
 The wind will blow you back to me
 And if your boat is broken out on the rocks
 It wasn't anger, but a longing.
 We feed the birds
 Syrup and seed
 So they stay near,
 So we can see
 Flashing red and blue amid the green
 When the fruit has long since rotten.
 Rolled in the needles and wrecked our skin
 Gave it all to be empty
 Wrapped in leaves wet and clinging
 In wreathes so holy
 You split the cord,
 The cedar and holly
 And lie indoors
 Let the smoke do the cleaning
 And sweeten our skin with the salt and the stone
 Lace the pages of our story.
 Over and Even
 We sight the mornings softly
 Take to them easy
 The scent of the wood and coffee
 Our cup is filling.
 Outside the river flows
 Its course unfolding
 A strength it never knows
 A sweet outpouring.
 The scents that bloom the hours,
 I write you daily
 I speak of friends and brothers
 and sisters waiting
 To sew your winter coat
 To keep you warm and dry
 The size of you to hold
 Tender knots are tied
 And over and over,
 and over and even
 How can the stars design it
 To pull and move us?
 We crave their waning light,
 An ancient .
 And draped in candlelight
 We did outshine it
 I miss your scent and sight
 How can I write this?
 And over and over,
 and over and even
 Not Over By Half
 You've torn your shirt
 You've outgrown this town
 Your friends are all scattered and you're lonesome
 But you're still searching for music in the sounds
 It's a tame world would leave you unbroken.
 Oh lady, oh Mother, bring your garden to me
 Pull it around my body so the world cannot see
 The blue of my veins and the tracks on my cheeks
 But leave the tulips for when I go under.
 But it's not over by half
 There's a gold in your eyes blooming out through the black
 and you're still standing, your hand on the map
 No it's not over, not over by half
 When that day comes and the lights go dim
 The weight off your shoulders, the sun off your skin
 And the ones who have known you,
 Your lovers and friends,
 Will be marked by the spark that was taken.
 Here on the mountain I'm thinking of you
 The birds are all singing, screaming of youth
 And here I am holding, keeping a room
 Just a place you can lay when you're older.
 Ariadne's Gone
 Lay down beside me
 I want you to touch me
 I know we're not friendly that way.
 I walk the sands
 Where your temple still stands
 Now you've gone where you wanted to go.
 I'm looking for signs of her
 Left from your time with her
 Proof that you've needed a woman.
 Here on the land where she promised to stay
 At your command, 'cause you want it that way
 And she's plastic.
 Love changes hands
 He wears stars on his skin
 And he's tall as your columns of marble
 He says come take my hand now
 I want you to stand now
 For some things are greater than fiction.
 I'll write my poems and letters for this
 Pulled from the air are the words that you give
 If you're willing.
 Here give your hand to me
 Come near and be with me
 Friend, won't you stay here a while?
 Friend, won't you stay here a while?
 No More Shelter
 Pull up the horses
 And carry me back behind the lines
 Back to the water,
 Back with the gardens and the vines
 Where two hands of ashen gold
 Chase down my fever
 and wash me with soap
 When half of us were losing
 And half of us were wrong,
 A rose you planted.
 Leather and rope,
 Fire inside the rock
 The heavens open
 I am like a child on the spot
 Asking god why'd you come?
 Was it all for some glory,
 Was it all for a song?
 And my eyes are still searching
 For a light in the fog
 A sweetheart to sing for me
 I was thrown from the center
 Where I once so bravely spun
 I was pulled through the colors
 Through the colors did I run
 And my eyes were wide and gleaming,
 Though wind-whipped by the storm
 There is no more shelter for the broken
 I hear they still track me now
 Dogs try to sniff out my home
 I'll write you in the scars
 Laid in trails by the jets headed home
 How you mold me and move me still
 I'm calling on your memory here alone in my cell
 A time when you fed me, a time I was filled
 But one of us must keep from crying.
 Easy Now
 Easy now,
 It's almost over
 The fever will run out
 Now the nights are colder
 Who will lift your face to see how the stars
 Shine brighter when you're lonely?
 The rains came down
 Ran across the river
 Sweet the sound
 And the scent familiar
 You pulled the clothes from the line and came in
 You were needed at my side.
 In the open my heart beats loudly
 We're not broken, no we just are free again
 Again
 Easy now,
 It's almost over
 To the friends who stuck around
 Go and hold them closer
 The ones that watched you wander out on the rocks
 When the light of day was fading.
 In the open our hearts beat loudly
 We're not broken no we just are free again
 Again
 Lure and Line
 Lure and line
 Lure and line
 Loom of white
 Hooks and winds
 Pulled down now from the ether
 Laid before our open eyes
 Lure and line
 Lure and line
 Lure and line
 Lure and line
 Jenny come in
 Heat of the city, a breeze cross his forehead
 His hand on the windowsill rests
 Waiting to hear it, her feet on the porch steps
 Jenny come in, he says under his breath.
 He says that two can make more than two
 He says that two can push out the ghosts
 He says I'm haunted by somebody lonely
 I hear the voice at night when you're gone
 Saying
 You know what I'd do if I were you?
 Break down the door and go after her running
 And when she returns the things that she's borrowed
 Coming to see what was made and what broke
 Guilty, his eyes unraveled
 The thread at her hem and the pearls at her throat.
 Under the swaying, the floorboards are creaking
 There's sweat down his new cotton clothes
 While a song in the next room is playing
 A voice from the radio calls
 Saying,
 You know what I'd do if I were you?
 Break down the door and go after her running
 You know what I'd do if I were you?
 Set fire to the cords that bind you in longing
 Jenny come in, there's food on the table
 And though it is small, a bed that is clean
 Music for playing and hands that are able
 To hold a woman who's warm but mean.
 Wine and Honey
 Wine and honey
 There'll be no more Sundays to confess and pray.
 O rake, o wanderer
 Did silence awaken a hunger in you?
 When all the world was breaking
 You sat there just humming something you made.
 When like it or not, I am already home
 I like when it rains but I'm unfriendly
 And like it or not this whole world is full and hungry.
 Light my room
 My words with fuel laid kindly for me
 Grown from the vines
 That watched us in silence, suffering
 For wine and honey,
 The sight of the stars buzzing.
 My Only Trouble
 Once we stretched out so fair
 My hand here, your mouth there
 As the fog stepped around us
 There was hay in your hair.
 And the salt of our skin
 Brined the clay there within
 It was mine that would harden
 And then cease to bend.
 When my only trouble
 When my only trouble
 When my only trouble
 Is you.
 Now I stand at the wood
 Where the wind bends the pines
 And the place where you loved me
 Wears the mark of our spines.
 But when spring still shows
 Brings the tulip and the rose
 Well, then no one will pity
 A girl in the throes.
 When my only trouble...
 Now I won't scorn the god
 Who had thickened the fog,
 He's the one that brings the thunder
 When that's all I've got.
 When my only trouble...
 Subtle Love
 Lost in memories that in your bed you found
 Grass lay bent in warmth you gathered around
 Your every dream the oceans heave
 Unto the shore, they form and feed.
 It's a subtle kind of love,
 Its a simple kind of glory
 By paved edge I saw you standing down
 In the purple light the flag there on the ground
 To be rocked and cradled by failed hands
 Wounds where flesh is torn and mends.
 It's a subtle kind of love,
 Its a simple kind of glory
 The day has scattered the light across you mouth
 Keep your words but lend me your warmth a while
 Then here I'll leave you here I'll go
 And no one follows so no one knows.
 It's a subtle kind of love,
 Its a simple kind of glory
 It's a mother's wet tongue,
 It's a melody outpouring