Sheltered from the howling winds of vows and scattered souls and sweltering hate,
she is a refuge from the blistering sands of dread and loss and torn and twisted fate.
…
When the emptiness inside becomes an abyss so dark and wild and cold,
my words get lost in the jangling alleys where dreams are bought and sold.
…
I met her in those alleys among the withering roses on a bed of thorns,
and she filled me up with poems banishing the scowling moments and their baleful scorns.
…
Now I lie awake and wish that I could sleep and drift away into the maze of her dream,
but slumber has fled and slipped the noose around my words as they thrash around and scream.
…
Words that swirl around and around like that scarlet scarf wrapped around her face,
she’s a mystery still as she will always be while I sift through this empty desolate space.
…
The storm it broke and ceased and shuffled my words as they drifted forlornly into the chasm of the dead,
leaving me here still and mute and frantic as I try to pick up the pieces of all the words that have been said.
…
Far too many far too often far too conceited and far too proud,
for I failed to hear the stillness of beauty as I rambled along barking my words out aloud.
…
She hushes me now as she hushed me then in the cobwebbed tunnels of the past,
while I weep more words in blood and ink onto dried parchment meant never to last.
…
So tell her that her whiskey has been greedily gulped down and now that I am soberly drunk,
I see her songs and hear her breath reaching down into my mouldy abode of hapless funk.
…
Fare-thee-well for now as I slide into the scribbled hubris of another battered rhyme,
dazed by the glaring embers as they scorch the moments of quickly fading time.
…
And if tomorrow finds me here still shell-shocked and drained in body and in mind,
tell her that her wine has slipped through the loose knots that bind.
…
Tying me to this place of sanity and insanity all rolled into one,
while all is numb and scarred from the deed that has been done.
…
And as I flee recklessly chasing away myself from me once more,
she’ll know the words for its a song that’s been sung far too many times before.
…
(for Bob Dylan)