Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
Making Our Escape
It's dark in here, it's dark in here Most days I don't even hear, don't even hear A thing, no not a thing, not a thing...
So many years, it's been so many years Since he came to check on me, break open a box of tears... Not sorrow, no not sorrow, just love‚ tears of love
Yeah, we used to fly above the bed Him on his back me overhead ...
Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
Ragged Set of Claws
I am not the man I used to be I am not the boy I was Some days I have trouble getting used to me Some nights I fight A ragged set of claws... A ragged set of claws...
Brave adventures Were my future Back when I dreamed myself A hero's cape and hood But every time I leave My bat cave these days Some clever joker shows me why I should stay cave-boun...
Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
Answer to Pane
I look out on an empty field
but I’m not so sure my fate is sealed
They are building, building all the time.
Strip mall, industrial park,
duplex—it’s like a Noah’s ark
replenishing the city, two of every kind
Well, some say the eyes are me to the soul
But I’m not sure they’re big enough holes
To welcome in near enough light.
When someone...
Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
Life Begins in Mud
Something green, something new
Something raucous, something true
Something muddy beneath the big, wide blue
Something me, something you,
Something you, something you.
Something you.
Mindful of the butterflies
Monarchs in migratory skies
Something wise and ancient beneath the big, wide blue
Something me, something you,
Something you, somethin...
Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
1987
Sky as blue as ocean
Summer clouds are sailing by
Black-eyed Susans on the shoulder
Sway and dance but they never cry
They never cry...
Setting out is all too easy
You think a map is all you need
But then the road is closed and the
Weather turns...
We will arrive just wait and see.
A log cabin near the Great Divide
Your hair loose in the breez...
Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
This Lonely Road
I set out on the 1st of May
I had a hunger in the worst of ways
a hunger for a love, a love like you.
I rounded a corner in the morning light
almost blinded— almost lost my sight
there on the shoulder was you.
Oh my Lord...
I got a feeling
you and I’ve been down this lonely road
this lonely road before.
I got a feeling
you and I’ve...
Featured song from 2021's Keys to My Head LP
If You Wanna Make a SongYou gotta have a hole In your heart,
Stick out your neck so long,
Give everybody the keys
To your head,
If you wanna make a song. (repeat)
When the tension’s too much
Or even not quite enough,
I know I need to tune it up or else I’m
Always gonna play too rough.
Yeah sometimes it’s just electric
And other times it’s not
But all that really ...
Ready For Jesus
The missionary is only 20.
He's telling us that the people in Honduras have nothing---
he describes a family of seven
who live in a mud hut
with a dirt floor and a doorway
with no door so the animals wander in and out.
They are ready for Jesus...
he says,
Their existence is painful,
so they're
looking for some meaning.
He tells us that they are the other race
in Honduras,...
my dream
I see you like this:
you clutch the tiny warm ball
of a new brown field-mouse.
pressing it into the warmth of your
scented neck
where your hair bends gently in to
brush your careful fingers...
it is cold outside,
and your breath moves slowly
away:
clouds of warmth
in the snow-white sunlight,
your words of comfort, your
essence atomized,
released
and later,
if the mists linger in the
year-old p...
Birthright
Jacob stole his birthright,
being clever and tricky
and gets the bad rap
on account of greed,
but what about the sin of Esau
who sold his birthright for a single
bowl of soup?
Sure, at the time
it seemed reasonable
Esau seeing nothing but his hunger
—gut wrenching hunger
but emptiness doesn't always
render us clear of sight—
sometimes it shapes desperate eyes
and snatching hands....
near roubaix lake
they've made a new stream
the early snow has filled
this footbridge barely supports
my weight above the runoff
ten inch PVC hastily
placed releases water
from the makeshift dam
of mud and sticks
to rot the roots
of newly flooded chokecherry shrubs
they will die now
and fall over next spring
or early summer
brown, leafless chokecherryless
we are running
you and I
...
Design
1
We have a secret place
my daughters and I where
an old creek
has run empty
The sky above that hill
pushes fast past the swaying tips
of pines
but the birch, oak
and ironwoods have not yet
leaves enough to dance
No dry winter
no drought emptied our creek
the water turned aside
some years ago for other
work and my oldest
stares at the smooth stones
sunk into soil
When will the wa...
Joe and Marge at the Movies
They were getting old and they didn't even know it. Joe smiled like the crowsfeet and the false teeth and the double chin didn't show--- weren't there. Marge walked just like the base of her neck didn't bow up and hump down into her spine--- just like the index and middle fingers of her right hand weren't twisting slowly, year by year as the knuckles grew to the size of chestnu...
artifacts
I'm burying my head deep
into a distant May
a stretch from this late January where an
unseasonable warmth
has reawakened
these lilacs beneath my skin
(they sprawl, varicose,
purple clusters
across my forearms
around the backs
of my shoulders)
come close
it's on my breath
the soil radiant but cool
just three handfuls down:
water from a spring melt filtering
deep to th...
late august seminar in andrews hall
the fields
along I-80 are dark as
three years back
when you moved
behind every stalk
in the side-spill
of my headlights--
silent trips
only three weeks
four weeks
five
after your death marked for me
a new accounting of days
three years and I am here
and something like your arm
has wrapped itself around me
your hands
steer me through campus
the w...
Vocation
The voice that speaks us into engagement
names, and in so many words, creates us
--creates, not constructs,
names, not labels.
On the edge of an ocean I break again
and again... if I am alive;
what forms is not me but rather the one
who pronounces me lifts me up
and curls me over upon myself
translucent with living coral and darting
flecks of hunger and tosses me down,
digging out, eternally...
I Don't Need Poetry
I don't need poetry
unless it scratches secretly on my window.
I open the door
to discover it was only wind.
I don't need poetry
until it doesn't want my observation anymore.
when I lower my eyes
it stretches great wings across the sky.
I don't need poetry,
and I say that with the best intentions.
I retract it
when it lies cold in my hands.
I don'...
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP & from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Lonely No More
Out on the mesa You don't have to face A thousand prying eyes Up on the mountain You don't have to count A hundred cars pass you by Just give me a place With only your face And I'll never be lonely no more Down on the prairie It ain't ever scary Just to listen to a lone coyote'...Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP & from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Wildflower Moon
The birds are singing And the rabbits play Down by the waterside Looking for love, looking for love My love lives in a Hickory house Down by Buffalo Gap She's so sweet all the maple trees Won't give up their sap Hi, ho don't you know She's my little wildflower You can't make ...Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP & from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Dave
Shake his hand And you'd feel the knot; His knuckles were twisted But his spirit was not. As a younger man He built the roads, As an older man He somehow turned them all to gold. Always the storyteller— We listened to his tales. He gave the plane its wings He gave the ship its sails And he'd laugh at...