Blushed Awhile

[ artwork by Soren Iverson ( instagram.com/soreboar ) ]


“Arabella Come and Whip Me!”

Sweet Arabella,
Pencil on your ear —
You say you’ll come and see me,
So I’m just waiting here

Now in the meadow
I’m churning in the rain
Arabella!
Please come hear my pain:

Who knew the rain could be this blunt?
I speak for nothing now, to nothing, and no one

Sweet Arabella
Do not hide so long
Please just come and whip me
If you feel I’ve done you wrong

Lastly,
When they ask you just how I do
You’ll say you never met that man,
But, Lord, you’re going to.



“Then Farewell”

My fingers are too cold for writing
The fall and gray daylight
I miss your silk and all our fighting
In the midst, I knew you were right
And sometime when I’m alone here
I will extinguish your light
But not yet, I need to keep on breathing
With your safe breast in my mind

Four lives I fit into your palm
And four deaths in mine, now that you are gone

It’s perfect inside your nest there
Three-hundred nights I spent so warm
Cigarettes decorating clean air
And the cradle which remained unborn
Now my parking meter’s up, dear
I must drive away west from your home
Seventy until I hit the coast where
Years ago, your real self was born
And if I ever really get there
I’ll swim myself into the Ocean deep
Me and that water, we will talk then
Trading stories all about when you were ours

Four lives I fit into your palm
And four deaths in mine, now that you are gone

This is not my life, it’s just a fond farewell to a friend
It’s not what I’m like, it’s just a fond farewell to a friend
I couldn’t get things right, a fond farewell to a friend
It’s not what I’m like, just a fond farewell to a friend



“Over the Marble Hill”

Over the marble hill and to Palestine
Thinking maybe the mile between could ease my mind:
Never a day without you on my mind

Now nortriptyline in your wake
I need every pill I see

In the middle of the desert, now
The nights destroyed beneath your power
I know, I know

Rumbling in-between our separate stories
Still unraveling me

Over the marble hill and to Palestine
Thinking maybe the mile between could ease my mind:
Never a day without you on my mind

In the gas-lit sleep
You and I had peace, feeling almost free

Strap on a woman with a laughing gun
It was wrong, I ran, I called to the Son
“Come help me, come help”

May our journeys end
Such that you, my friend, find your own far land



“A Reverie”

I rode a train headed there — nowhere
I go wherever he takes me
I know I cannot take the dare — don’t share
I go wherever he takes me
I stole the same man’s hair — how fair!
I know who she’s afraid of

Do I sometimes think about then?
If I lied to you, it was for them
Sure I could find another friend
If I lied to you, I’ll do it again

Don’t hide away — I see you there



"Scum's Apology"

“For my reservation I won’t try to speak so clean
And if I don’t satisfy you I might ask you quick to leave
And then you’ll walk, oh Lord you’ll walk
How you’ll walk away from me

Oh sweet shame, in your red cheeks I taste my gain
And if I win, darling, you will know
I will see big tears run down your nose
And you will laugh, oh we will laugh
In ten years, babe, when I show you that:

In time alone I pass by your old home
But I shut my eyes, Lord, I shut my eyes
Just so you won’t know:

All your life is but a tile on my little floor
And how it came into mine is a mystery I’ll spin some more
But this I know, this I know
This I know: this time you’ve wasted mine

And your talk upon the glass — that white line right up your past
in your nose, ah, bled free, say goodbye and cut me
And then I run, oh I run
Babe I run to you when you call me:

You speak like last time didn’t seem so fast
And you walk in two different ways
There’s: in front of me, and every other day
So I turn, so I turn, I try to beat you at your game.”



“Not as Endless as I Used to Be”

This hollow robe I find is following me
And I’m free to roam, but the shadow knows
The shadow knows me, me, me

Your shadowy globe, I fear, is swallowing me
Beneath your hand of stars I move, but I cannot see

Maybe when he breaks the glass
And shatters over the weed
I’ll say my part:
“I’m not as endless as I used to be”

The ends of the roads,
The fall of the rose,
And your broken sheets are
— as limb from tree — are all
A part of me,
All bound into me