Featured song from 2021's  Keys to My Head LP 

Southwind

Southwind and a pickup truck On a gravel road and I think I'm in luck Cause the sun's high in the western sky And in an hour or two I'll be by your side.

I know these hills like the back of my hand But they feel like a no-man's land  without you. Ten days on a workin' trip, Back's achin' and my jeans are ripped I'm through.

Southwin...

Featured song from 2021's  Keys to My Head LP 

On That Day

 

There came a day

We didn’t hug our mothers.

There came a day

We didn’t kiss our lovers.

And on that day

The sun rose like any other,

But we watched the numbers grow—

Those who didn’t recover.

There came a day,

There came a day.

 

There came a day

We couldn’t leave our houses.

There came a day

We looked at children and spouses

And wondered if they

...

Featured song from 2021's  Keys to My Head LP 

In the Pines

 

In the pines, in the pines Where the sun never shines That's where the cold wind blows In the pines, in the pines Where the sun never shines I shiver when the cold wind blows

My hours and my days Are filled with a haze Rising up from the soil Like a grave, The dead and the dying Are far past lying And their voices come, The living, to save‚

In the pines,...

Featured song from 2021's  Keys to My Head LP 

Full of Fear

Gotta leave here tomorrow gotta leave here tomorrow poison’s deep in my marrow gotta leave here tomorrow Oh, oh, oh the path is straight and clear Oh, oh, oh, but my heart is full of fear morning sun shows the way morning sun shows the way travel’s safer by day morning sun shows the way Oh, oh, oh the path is straight and clear Oh, oh, oh, but my he...

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 Song

You 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...