Your presence just walked in the door.
I feel you by my side.
You must have heard the other night
When I laid down and cried.
Your presence walks across the room,
And takes me by the hand.
It makes my inner feelings now
Feel oh so very grand.
Your presence stands so quietly
Without a single word.
I thank the Lord so very much.
My prayer He must have heard.
Your presence isn’t really you
With all your wondrous ways,
But with your presence by my side
I’ll pass the next few days.
When I hear a sparrow sing,
Oh the joy that he does bring.
When I hear his springtime song,
Then I know he does belong
Where he can be heard by all;
Center stage, Carnegie Hall.
Seeking what, and where, and when.
Seeking now and seeking then.
Seeking that elusive place.
Seeking out from in the race.
It is there somewhere I know.
Always after it I’ll go.
Never knowing what I’ll find.
Never daring change my mind.
Seeking out and up and on.
Seeking all until the dawn.
Knowing not just what I seek.
Knowing that my drive’s not weak.
Caring not what it will take.
Caring only that I wake
With a joy for what I seek.
With a joy for what I seek.
Scalloped thoughts do beckon
And press to understand.
They meet with some resistance
And pass from hand to hand.
Sometimes they’re placed above the tide,
But get lost in the spray.
Their staying does depend upon
The shift of sand today.
The breeze can gather up those thoughts,
And blow them round about.
But they can gather back again
If breeze be not too stout.
One seldom feels the flowing tide
Could stable thoughts prepare.
But they can gather easily
Out in the fresh salt air.
Reflect upon yourself
Search down deep inside
See if you can reach a thought
That you have tried to hide
If you find one, pull it out
Set and think awhile
Then go back and search some more
To put yourself on trial
Overgrown graveyard,
Moss covered stones,
All titled and twisted
And marking the bones
Of ageless dead faces
All looking the same
There stands a big one
Displaying my name.
Dark moods
Stretching out
Crawling all around
More often here
More often deep
More often stay around
Time is adding to the same
Time is long to go
Something makes it more intense
Exactly, I don’t know
Sometimes I feel
I can’t endure
Till the distant end
Guess I better
Head on out
Go look up a friend.
I’ve often heard
That lonely call;
A far off whip-poor-will.
I’d stop awhile,
And so intent,
Listen till he’d still.
More oft then not
There’d be some more
Quickly joining in.
The first would stop,
And fly away,
And silence would begin.
But as I stood
In darkness still
They’d start up once again.
I’d listen more
And my reward
Would be completed then.
Yesterday,
I turned around,
Looked over my shoulder,
And you were gone.
Then I noticed
You were by my side.
Won’t be long now
Before you will pass me up,
And be way out ahead
Leaving me behind to remember
What it was like
Being young.
It’s interesting how I somehow
Feel I shall never reach
That lonely distant strip of sand
They often call a beach.
I swim so hard to keep in sight
That lonely distant shore.
I swim all night. It’s out of sight.
I push to swim some more.
My head slips down beneath a wave.
My mouth gulps water in.
My chances seem to ever be
Increasingly so slim.
Some force is pushing harder now
To keep me swimming on.
If I can only swim some more
I might just see the dawn.
But dawn does come without a beach,
It’s still far out of sight,
And I can push no further on
I’m sober now.
Wish I had been last night.
I wouldn’t feel so bad this morning.
I don’t even remember leaving the party.
I do remember
I notice there’s a big dent
I sure don’t remember that.
I asked my wife about it.
She just shook her head
My head sure hurts.
I wonder when I got that dent?
I guess probably I’ll never know.
Johnnie just came in with
The headlines read
A memory from childhood days
Of cold and wint’ry blasts,
Keeps coming clearly back to me
And seems to last and last.
I hear the wind there howling
Around the house outside.
I want to pull the covers up
And get beneath and hide.
I seem to feel the house could shake
As wint’ry winds do whip.
A little deeper underneath
The covers I do slip.
I hear the snow there blowing
Against the window pane.
I close my eyes so very tight.
A green and empty wine bottle
Lay cracked upon the street.
Once full, once clean, once needed,
Til a soul it chanced to meet.
The bottle full meant many things
To many different folk.
The one that had the bottle last
Did give a gentle stroke.
He held the bottle tightly squeezed
Against his unshaved face.
To him is was the only thing
But him, in this dark place.
He sat against the curb,
And held the bottle tight,
And slowly kept a sippen
Throughout the long cold night.
When that green bottle emptied
The soul detached himself.
He stumbled back into the store
Early morn
Rising sun
Time of peace
And inner thoughts
Waking up
Clearing mind
Fresh damp air
And birds are singing
Reflecting back
On yesterday
On last nights dreams
On plans that you have laid
Fog still lingers
Robin chirping in the yard
Coffee perking
Dog barking in the distance
All together
Placed as one
Softly, slowly
Charlie in the window, he was a pure bred cat.
Charlie in the window, so patiently he sat.
Charlie in the window meets people when he can.
Charlie in the window, he met the garbage man.
The window was the front part of a downtown Brooklyn store.
The window was his favorite place, for it was near the door.
Most days he stayed inside the store and never ventured out.
This day he slipped out through the door, as it did open stout.
He walked around the corner, then to where the alley sat,
And gathered in a garbage heap beside a cute stray cat.
He looked her in the face that day, and asked if she would stay.
She nodded quickly to his face, and asked if he would play.
They romped around that garbage heap, and scattered several cans,
Then scampered back on top of it, and sat there holding hands.
They were so happy on that pile of refuse left for days,
And Charlie in the window he just loved her reckless ways.
Their pleasure ended shortly when, the garbage man he came.
He cleaned up all the garbage, and though it was a shame,
Poor Charlie in the window then lost his cute stray cat,
Oh nighttime you descend
Like falling rain
Upon a window pane
Or the closing of a book.
You cover all
In your own way
To end the day
When only lovers look.
And though your strength
Resides within the mind
And is so hard to find
It daily conquers all.
So come in silence
And in silence stay
Till break of day
And bring your darkened wall.
Oh precious dainty rosebud,
Dripping moist with dew,
With gentleness you open
To live the long day through.
Each fragile petal slowly bends
To reach the early light.
So patiently you’ve slept throughout
The long and lonely night.
Moist dew in tiny droplets
So slowly trickles down.
On top of daggered shaft
You sit as like a crown.
As dew drops slowly fade,
And bud full open spreads,
Great beauty is exposed
In lovely flower beds.
There the Lady Slipper lay
Broken on the ground
Withered in the blazing sun
No more heart shall pound.
Yesterday it stood erect
Reaching to the sky
Looking at it proud and straight
Beauty to the eye.
Fragrant blossom pink and bright
Sending forth it’s spell
As I left it yesterday
Living strong and well.
But as I did chance to pass
Going home today
I was shocked and sad to see
There the Lady Slipper lay.
Tis cold and freezing, bout twenty below.
The howling wind is whipping the snow.
The sky is dark, the day so bleak.
Looks like it might snow for nearly a week.
The temperature drops a few more degrees.
The cold wind is whistling through the trees.
The snow starts falling to the ground
To pile in drifts without a sound.
The flakes of snow are soft and dry.
Each flake drops slowly from the sky
To add its dainty little size
To drifts that are so slow to rise.
Tis cold and freezing, dark and bleak.
The type of place I yearn to seek.
To there I someday will return.
My heart again will never yearn.
Just outside my window
There sits a tiny bird.
It gives a tiny cherr-up
That hardly can be heard.
A small white-throated sparrow
With perky streaked crest.
Today he sits and preens himself
To look his very best.
Although he doesn’t show it
It’s cold outside today.
That’s why I sit and wonder,
How can he be so gay?
But he just sits and fluffs himself
To ward off all the cold.
About this chilling weather,
Does he have to be told?
It seems to me that if he knew
He’d try to make it better.
If he’d just come and sit with me
To get out of the weather,
I’m sure he’d like it better here
Then out there in the cold.
About this chilling weather
Does he have to be told?
I saw the devil in him fade
As he danced within the shade,
Imagination working overtime,
And I did love him.
In his small and simple way
He brought beauty to my day,
From where I did not know,
But I did love him.
I knew he’d never know the joy
That I felt for him, my boy
With feelings at that point I could not hide,
For I did love him.
So as he danced within the shade,
And the devil then did fade,
He was mine – my little boy,
And I did love him.
Shining bright, great sun is high
Sky so clear and blue
Riv’lets trickle over rocks
Moistness is the dew.
Infinite does seem the way
Many seem to go
Those that look so deep inside
Never seem to know.
Color sways as breezes blow
Bob-o-links do fly
Buttercups are out there too
Reflecting in the sky.
Meander through the fields of grass
Take the whole scene in
Rest upon a pleasant hill
Banjos then begin.
Surface thoughts that float along
Often plucked at will
Take a thought and put it down
Then the breezes still.
I walked across a lawn today
And saw a butterfly.
It fluttered down close to the ground
Then up into the sky.
It was a pretty shade of blue
Tho interspersed with red.
It fluttered here. It fluttered there,
Then to a flowerbed.
It picked a rose still moist with dew
And fluttered there to it.
Then as I silently looked on
It settled down and lit.
It went about its business there
Like I was not around.
So I stood there just watching it
And dared not make a sound.
It took the nectar from that rose
Then to the next it went.
It did the same thing to each one
Until they all were spent.
And as I watched it like before
It fluttered to the sky.
I watched it go till out of sight
Then softly said goodbye.
A dandelion grew today
Up to the point of death,
And as it dried with naught to say,
I took a deep, deep breath.
