“Broad Strokes of Mind” album lyrics, 2010

Refraining from any self-deprecatory comments (with some difficulty), I present the following for your consideration. Most of the pieces on this album were poems that later found an instrumental accompaniment which fit them well; a few were written as actual “songs. I thought it would be interesting to print the original poems, rather than the re-worked versions, so you will notice some subtle differences from what made it onto the disc. In the words of the great Stan Lee, ‘Nuff said.




1. Broad Strokes of Mind

I want to speak great gusts of wind that

Open the heart to full sail and soar

with a scream every tempest, cry the mind's eye

in a tear of hair from the beast

forcing closed the door



To moan the dog's groan, the breeze sigh,

Words of rain to explain the turning sky

through the sound of inner ground rising,

fragile lines branching

into wings, spirals of meaning

to wrap the world

in an angel of singing

grief, love, ache of rain

upon the brain stinging



Start it off with broad strokes of mind;

Grab the serpents that coil the world

and unwind.





2. The Rain Still Lingers

The rain still lingers

In that place

Where your face

Falls fresh and cold

As newly melted crystals of snow



Rain still lingers

In the memory of our garden house

And the sloping drops

Beaded up on the rose



Rain lingers

In the same way birth

Remains in the smell

Of descendant clouds upon the earth

And always will

Gently play

Even as the feeling

Of petals

Between my fingers

Stays

After the rest

Of the storm has gone away

From that swath of air where

The rain still lingers.





3. The Awaiting Jewels

Your body

Is only the jewel

The light passes through



So, as much

As I long

To touch you

And taste the diamond air

That floats all about you



I will wait

And instead seek to find

If the light your eyes define

Can uncover the necessary shine

To illumine

The awaiting jewels

In mine





4. Santa Cruz Roller Coaster Blues

Babe, can you feel the roller coaster start to move

Hey baby, can you feel the roller coaster start to move

Start to move, start to move

Can you feel the music blowin on through the grass

Can you feel the ocean as the motion keeps on

Rollin past, rollin past



Babe can you hear the music in the ground

Hey baby can you hear the music all around

All around, all around

Don't you feel like fallin off the ground

It's all about getting lost till music makes you found

Makes you found



I want to crawl inside the side of your brain

I want to get into the seat of your pain

Of your pain, of your pain

I want to feel you like my face against the rain

In the rain drivin poundin soundin its echoes in my brain



I want to crawl inside the side of your brain

I want to get into the seat of your pain

Of your pain, of your pain

I want to feel you like my face against the rain

In the rain drivin poundin soundin its echoes in my brain



I want to feel you from the inside out

I want your music like it came from my mouth

From my mouth, from my mouth

I want your heart beating drums inside my chest

I want you free and warm with angels on your breath



Hey babe can you feel the train as it's leavin

Baby can you feel the trees as they're leavin

Their crumbled brown hands wave from the faces of the floor

Crumble into me and escape from that door



The train's got to move my sweet little maiden

The train's got to move it can't just sit here waitin

Got to move, got to move

Make the most of time and your hold upon this land

Make the most of the music and take hold of my hand





5. Girl Comes Up

Girl comes up to me

With a song

Though she hasn’t said a thing



Girl comes up

Carrying the sun

I was busy

Not noticing



Girl comes directly in

To my field of view

And opens it, back to

A field



Girl didn’t do

Anything

But her own being

So well





6. Easy

Easy, so easy, make it look so easy

Way you do that thing you do to me

Party in a red dress, goin nowhere but the bed

Gotta say I like the way you move from dreams

Into my head





7. In Your Mind

I got the war machine

I got the gasoline

I got the butterflies in my head

Got a shadow’s gleam

Like a backwards dream

Got a famine that's never been fed

Well the lights are on

But the sun is gone

Down in the valley below

Where the people graze

The dead shoppin malls

Like the ghosts of faded buffalo



It's all in your mind

It's up, you’re behind

Losin' touch don't take too much



Had a strange design

In a frame of mind

With a shine like a crystal day

Had a thousand eyes

And only one disguise

That kept a hundred visions away



Had an ear like a hand

Pulling sounds from the land

Juggling words in the air

Had a heart like a star

That freed the light from the jar and

Burned the shadows like a solar flare





8. The Game

She’s got another plan, she’s found another man

She’ll take him for a ride to take a look inside

She will want you just for an hour or two

Until she’s positive she’s got what you can give



She wants to say just what you’ll hear

And then when she gets the arrow clear

Make no mistake, it’s all a game

Give her a break and she won’t do it again



She’s down on the scene

Talking sharp, looking mean

Armed to the teeth for thrill

Hoping her looks will kill



Make no mistake, you get what you see

The beauty’s skin aint deep and

Even that aint free



She’s down on the street

Slicing up new cuts of meat

Looking with a butcher’s eyes

Sizing the prize with knives

She’s somewhere out there, lurking in the air

Like a perfume that blurs up the room



Make no mistake , it’s all a game

Play it with one hand on your heart and

Two hands on your brain





10. Birthday

Today was your birthday

I brought you some flowers

Though it was a good day

You cried all the hours



Though it was a good day

You couldn’t

Even get outta the bed

Even get outta your head



I brought you some roses

‘Cause it was your birthday

How could I have known that

You were callin your death day



How could I have known that

Something deep inside of you died

Just to get outside



You are a wounded horse


On the edge of an abyss.


The holes your hooves enlarge


Galloping so frantically after intangibles


Leave not much of


You left.










I pray for you


Though I have no religion


And hope for you


Though I possess no decision.






Your choices of smoke


Are quickly becoming


An icicle cloak


Behind which freezes the blood


No longer running.






I pray for you


Though I have no reason


But that something


Has brought us together


For a season.


And somehow the waves


You make as you move


Create in my spirit


A permanent groove.






We are both in danger.



So I lit up a candle

To pray for your freedom

You fell in the hard smoke

To slowly stop breathin



You fell in the hard smoke

Not so slowly goin’ right out of your mind

You could leave it behind





11. Lunas

The crescent moon

Is the curled horn of a bull

Or a cup of tea accidentally nudged

And spilling a bright ring

On the tablecloth Infinity



The crescent moon is the reflection

Of the sun’s boomerang returning

And the crystalline light

Of the color white

Burning



The crescent moon is one half

Of a fluctuating yin-yang ring,

The intensity of an eye

Just about to close

Or opening



The crescent moon

Is a necklace of bone

Or a silent chip

Broken off stone



And the crescent moon

Is one thought from the angel

Watching over the café

Whose proximity makes me shiver

As Orion reaches for his quiver

Of night outside and bows, away





12. The Looking

I looked for you everywhere

How many deserts have spoken

Your name

With their silence?



The moon's breast is filled

With the same white longing

Where her milk spills into the silver clouds

And diamond streams.



How long have the rocks known

Your secret

And how long

Have they suffered to know?

You are preaching sermons to

The mysterious ears

Of alley clowns and silent mountains.



Your ghost is a flickering shade

Just come over the hill,

On the verge of speaking

Its truest name

As I suddenly turn

To face a reflection vanishing

In empty air





13. Not to Rust

"How dull it is pause, to make an end,


To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!"

-Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson



Ulysses returning to an empty palace, filled with people

Gone ten years gray with hollow welcome;

A bygone lap of luxury for the easy of heart,

Shadows taking form in the antique gold

Though distorted by curves in the tarnished metal.



Nothing to hold him in a world of ghosts,

No way to feel welcome surrounded by hosts:

His strange wife escorts him through the palace,

Through its multitudes of lost lively rooms

Through the faces of children grown men

And his son a one adrift in the many.

“Please, take a load off,” the man tells him,

Extending a gruff hand forcefully.

All his belongings fit a little bag

Carried next to heart.

“Here is your sword from the ten year’s war;

We’ve many such like it from then and before.”

Tired with memories his mind feels the drag

Like an anvil dropping anchor in deep sea,

A clock stopping and falling over forever,

The world stopping, crust collapsing

And finally dragged into magma.



The ocean looms at the bay of a window,

Sweeping rhythmically through the commotion.

Eyes closed on a phantomy wisp of shore,

A stranger opens the door

And startles him standing on the aged floor.

“Come have a drink,” someone says,

And he thinks it’s his wife,

“The wine is imported from the far shores

Of the eastern sea.”

“Yes, I’ve been there,” he replies, lazily.



The old island forever apart from remains.

His eyes droop again toward a green palace

To dust drooping from a brown vine against the window



And a bottle of wine savored long ago.

Eyes on the ocean, wind blowing grey hair

And slowly moistening against the tide,

Eyes on the horizon, time enough before sunset

And more unknown beneath the sky.

“Just put the drink on the shelf over there;

I’m only stepping out for a moment’s air.”



Setting sail, exiled to the gale,

Blowing from sea to sea for air,

Past breezing years and moaning wails

Cast pale with sirens singing the past-

“I’ve tied myself to the mast

And suffered a taste of death

For new horizon and new breath,

I can’t marry you wife or marry what’s gone,

Even now the sea swallows the sun

And the tide blows steady wind on the rise.”

A raindrop on his cheek from the skies,

The sunset silhouetting on distant eyes,

A tear for remembered joys and goodbyes

And then a look towards the open expanse

And then a look for the wind blowing chance

And then never another look back.





14. The Way We Love Best

The fields are green

And running away from the road

As we move

And you, you’re looking at me

As the sky opens up and we groove



On up into the sunlight

Out onto the blue trail

Fire falling from the edges

Of the afternoon’s cloudy tail

Nothing but blue music and

The song of the sun setting in the west

Let’s head out towards the evening

In the way that we love best



The yellow rug of fall

Is stretched across the mountain grass

And it rolls and it falls

Deep into the crevasses of earth

The mountains look prepared for bed

Or as if something has just awoken them

As if something still sleeps and hides

Beneath the sheets of the silt hillsides



The sun is white and in our eyes

Over mountains off in the distance

Grey and blurry under western skies

Let’s head for the evening

In the way we love best



The mountains are hidden behind

Distant clouds and the rain

But we’re moving together

As the music gets loud and we sing



And it’s on into the shadows

And ghosts on both sides of the trail

And you grab onto me hard

And I grab onto the wheel

And it’s nothing but midnight

With new stars rising in the west

Let’s slide into the evening

In the way we love best