Empty Chair

Who is sitting in your empty chairs,

vacant spaces and quiet stairs.

Vainly grasp an ebbing tide,

fading lanterns on a midnight ride.

As time unwinds a gate unlocks,

a beating heart the ticking clock.

Only memory is in the empty chair,

and memory that wants a person there.

Take my hand

Take my Hand

Silver girl peeking over

wide eyes are staring

dancing in the bright moonlight

in ladybug shoes

Running wild through the raindrops

jumping in puddles

making the little rainbows

for her to slide on.

Chorus:

Take the hands of the child

Never-land is a cradle

a child in the sandbox

is a world with no fear

please do not let me go

into bitter winter

where people in boxes

dream the world into gray.

Penelope

“Penelope”

Brave Penelope overlooking the sea
holding Telemachus to your breast
you wave your husband off to war
You walk in Ithaca below the olive trees
A widow’s grief you fear
As you stand along the shore.

The suitors come hungry at the scent
Of the vacant throne Odysseus left behind.
You weave Laertes’s shroud
To keep them all at bay
Unraveling it at night
Lest they claim your hand by day.

The Ballad of Christina Green

Six Arizona tombstones
bought with blood and with lead
at 10:10 local time
the desert ran red.

In the City of Tuscon
our six cowboys lay dead
no more riding the trail
the deserts stained red.

Chorus:
The ghosts of Arizona
on the cold desert nights
whisper to us sad stories
asking us 'make it right'
in the eyes of our children
chase away the bad dream
let us all sing the ballad
of sweet Cristina Green.

God Fearing Atheist

God Fearing Atheist

I'm a god fearing atheist, and its your god I fear

your wooden cross death-cult telling me to get saved

from original sin, so that I can get in-to

the next world you say is so much better then this.

This world with its rainbows, rain forests and rainstorms,

does it rain in your heaven, can you watch the sunrise?

Its easy to rape this world, and hoard all its treasure

when you care more about heaven and how to get there.