no place

It was funny. But he really thought he'd rather be no place than the place where he was. And maybe he was right to wish it; after all, life was unkind, people - blind, and there was no one around who even pretended they understood. Well, maybe they pretended. But usually that meant they wanted something from him.

The year after all the hullabaloo, he found himself at sea. And he wondered if maybe, just maybe, he'd made it to no place.

He hadn't.

It wasn't until quite a bit later that he found No Place. At which point, he found he was No One and that the world was empty... for a moment. But the funny thing about empty is that it is often the beginning of filling up. The thing about nothing is that it permits the presence of something. No place was the place to start.
No place was exactly where he was for that moment. And no place was all right.

Tea Leaves

Tea leaves
Read in the trees
Don't know where I'm going
But the ticket is bought.

Don't cry
Just be mine
I'm not here tomorrow
So this has got to be right.

Look at the bottom
Of the cup's sweet curves
Check that you've still got it
But don't say a word.

Just down
The last dregs
And then I'll ignore you
Take your sister instead.

Don't be a fool
If you know where I'm going
Just play it cool
And kiss me goodbye.

Shadows fall
And love palls
Wrinkles grow and make us sad.

Don't tell
Hush now
I'll just read the tea leaves to know.

Bitters

Break my heart into pieces,
I'll put them in the stove
light them on fire
distill from them love,
put it in bottles
colored in red,
place them on my kitchen shelves
wait for you and then
I'll serve them like a liquor
in the cups of my hands
a chalice of bones
ripped away as you ran
and you'll drink their dark flavor
and become my man.

Henrycat

kittycat claptrap
Pyewacket what a racket
shy guy in the eyes
climb across me like a bridge.

on the verge of loving you
then a scratch and love is through
house devil, house god,
just a bump on a log.

kittycat catnip
fingers, hands, holding sands
drifting through
sad and blue,
eyes askance and back at once.

kittycat claptrap
yawn and purr
on the floor
on my shoe and in my arms
sleeping charms, nothing harms.

father can you hear me?

father can you hear me?
father can you see me?
nights when the wind blows
I look out my windows
there's nothing to see

blindsides on all sides
twelve o'clock highs.
there's no hope on the other side
but the tracks are high and wide.

he can't see his own face
in the mirror on the mantelpiece
just the frown of his mother's eyes
on the forehead, between the brows.

bluegrass blows
and the indian paint brush
glows on the hillside
pining for attention like always.

blue pinpricks of light between the blinds.
waking up to sirens.
don't be my brother, be my lover,
don't make me walk this road alone.

the rash of heat this year
just makes the clouds seem darker.
and then there's the circus barker
always on the news.

father can you hear me?
I know that you can't see me.
but someone's gotta be me.
can't be no one tonight.