Louise

wow I've been writing a lot of love songs lately....of course I have been listening to Springsteen and Joni Mitchell.....

If you've ever seen a firefly dancin' all alone
you've seen Louise
if you've ever seen a poor kid runnin' from home
you've seen Louise

If you've ever seen a renegade pleading to the sky
a hoodlum's blind daughter searching for the right side
if you've ever seen a letter tumbling in the breaze
you've seen sweet Louise

If you've ever heard a poet try to make a stand
you've heard Louise
if you've ever heard the prayer of a dying man
you've heard Louise

if you've ever heard a train that was never there
the pounding of your heart as you climbed her stairs
if you've ever heard anyone break, rise, or bleed
you've heard sweet Louise

If you've ever felt the light of a nameless song
you've felt Louise
If you've ever felt a rush against your restless palms
you've felt Louise

If you've ever felt the saints and sin collide
or the avenue burning, but refused to hide
if you've ever felt the sting, but found a reason to believe
you've felt sweet Louise

Weary Goodbye to Lady Jane

Said goodbye to Lady Jane
she left me her poems, I took back my word
we were so much younger but I....
I just don't want to realize that now
I can't throw open the window and see her gone
it would bruise me somehow

O we were children that winter
with a blue velvet dress and no need for prayer
woke up alone to watch the dawn but then...
but then it just rose too hot over us
and I didn't know what to think about something so real
didn't know if we could ever have any trust

Small town blues come harshly 'round here
and try to break you with some sort of guilt
I wanted to be renegades, but she wanted her peace and I....
I hope she can get it somewhere out there
the streets were unkind enough to her
while I was playing Midnight Rider to Anywhere

I walk down to the river, breathe in a shade
regrets all said and "Lord, what have I done?"
It might be cold but I don't wanna feel it, I don't....
I don't want to see her, but I do wanna see her tonight
but Lady Jane's found her home I know
and it's been too long
I've been too headstrong
Lord, to call her my baby and sleep in her blessed light

(break)

Lady Jane, know I love you I love you
but I won't ask you to run with me
I've got too many midnights on my heels
and neither of us were meant to follow or chase....
but out of everything in my weary life
your warmth is the one thing I won't ever replace

Gone

might sound better heard than read, I'll work on the melody eventually....


She's laying beside me sleeping
I hear the howling in her breath
the way we used to back in Mobile
when we'd work and we'd sweat

My hand moves across the lace
but doesn't linger for to long
Maybe I would try to touch her
but I'm not there, I'm gone

her hands are ancient ivory
and holding crusts of bread
when the sun rises next to her
I wish I was someone else instead

and I know there are bitter rocks
where our mercury river used to run
I brush her hair behind her ear
but I can't tell her; I'm gone

our love once echoed in the drainpipes
of some town too far away
if I'd known about her nakedness
I wouldn't have asked her to stay

I could crawl into her grace and sigh
but I'd be haunted by our songs
should've never brought her here
but I can't change, so I'm gone

She thought she knew what I wanted
and she played her so well
we could be haloed in a streetlamp
but we're alone as far as I can tell

her tears are burning in her throat
but my mind is one the door
the dawn grows so cold on her face
it's hallelujah, farewell, and no more

I gave her my silver medallions
and all the rhythms of my songs
but it's because she would have died...
sacrificed her self, that I'm gone

The Return of Autumn

Two years ago, Creamsicle had three kittens: Tyke, Kylala (who looked just like their mother-the color of peach ice cream), and Autumn.

My Autumn.

She was the runt, and she was a splotchy mix of white, orange, brown, and auburn. When I held her for the first time I noticed she was the exact color of all the trees that surrounded me, and she possessed the same warmth and, somehow, nostalgia. I guess that's because everytime I'd held a newborn animal, it was autumn. Her fur warmed my hands that turned blue with cold, her tongue returned feeling to the nerves in my fingers, and she gave me something to protect when I felt unwanted or irrelevant. Later on, she was the only one that didn't disapear or sadly pass.

Autumn was a stray.

Two years later I came back from a trip to Tennessee to find Autumn missing. For reasons I don't care to talk about, I decided to not worry and just wait. Five days later the porch was still desolate and the food bowl was still full. Finally I let it sink in, and I went looking for her until night came; I had no flashlight, so I depended on the street lamps. I wrapped my arms around myself and started crying.

"I just want my baby back I want my baby back I want my baby back....."

I didn't know what to do after I had walked through the dilapidated trailor park three times. I tried to pray......but then just couldn't. I didn't want to feel like I was just talking to myself (it was dark, the sky was open, and I'm agoraphobic. I felt like I was surrounded in oblivion) I need something real, something I could see, something beautiful.

I opened my eyes to the clear etherial moon.

"Please, just give her back to me. I love her. I've doubted the idea of God before....but I have a feeling that you can help me."


Today I was eating dinner when my grandfather came to the door. It was late afternoon and a ray of gold flooded in behind him. He said, "Uh Katie, who's this out here?"

And I knew.

Autumn padded toward me and I scooped her up immediately. She smelled like old cotton fabric of a loved one's sweater in late November, when you bury your face against them and feel their breath and rush of blood. Although she's an "outdoor cat" I brought her inside and held her.

She listened and gave. I asked, and She returned. Maybe it wasn't literally the vast cold stone, but what She meant to me. I was willing to take a risk by asking for something and believing that my wish would be granted. I looked to something that I'd never been taught to look to, and my darling Autumn was given back to me.

Now I see Her everywhere; Her love is everything that makes me feel whole- The trees, the pulse, the golden rays, a soul in bitter night,

Autumn.

Love Song

"Elena"

I wanna be sanctified
in white cotton sheets
wanna live in the light
that I see in the cool ancient stream

with Elena

Gonna build me a house
on morning's hillside
amongst the wildwood gusts
that come blowing into our eyes

for Elena

there's a psalm that I hear
as I walk thru her yard
a name I've longed to whisper
a life I've been waiting to start

I've washed the ash from my face
fought the ghost that don't care
Now I open her door
and I climb the stairs............

A Couple of Songs

"I Found You Tonight"

I wear a dead man's suit, lookin' for a song to sing
slavin' like I gotta solve the Divine Mystery
You can be gone with your red shoes on
but think it over before you say goodbye
honey, I can't find salvation, but I found you tonight

I heard a couple banks closed and the cash was lost
when the bottom falls out, someone's gonna pay the cost
I know you can feel it so if you believe it
don't break doing some one else's time
it's hard to find some dreams, but you did find me tonight

I see you've got pains running down your back
and it gets hard to breathe when ya can't go back
I don't want us to fade, so darling please stay
I'll lay down my stones and I'll lay down my pride
'cause I couldn't find a reason 'till I found you tonight.

"Broken Vision of Mine" (one line taken from Dylan's "It's Alright Ma I'm Only Bleeding")

Ain't it just like an angel to give
plastic flames while you sit there sighing?
the muses slip thru your fingers and say
"Are ya busy being born or busy dying?"
And Euterpe, she's maoning against the walls
her flute's at the gates of the crying

And Sal's got his head wrapped in blues
Lady's glass face still don't know the truth
I'm sitting alone in my mirrored room
thinkin' 'bout all the shadows and lives we choose

tell me are we doomed to leave too much behind?
And what's gonna fix this broken vision of mine?

Hey man, don't you know how it feels
to have your words up on trial?
You hear echoes resound from your soul,
"they loose their candle after a while"
and your throat's so full of rust, so you just
walk on with that harmonica smile

Meanwhile inside the tin houses
despiration storms over the sin
name me all the unrelenting saints and
I'll try to say a prayer for them
but like you said, you can't hold your hymns
forever, sometimes you gotta start again

all the fields turned to bluish smoke
I waltzed in like a child and I choked
on the rocks where the cotton wouldn't grow
as I stumbled and felt my innocence implode

Oh and who would know an answer from a sign?
And what's gonna fix this broken vision of mine?

Sal, you're not the only one who hears the train
I hear it splitting 'cross the dawn
everytime I woke and tried to chase that steel
and I ended up jaded and where I started from
so I went wandering 'round all tombstone-eyed
and don't you know the gin is bitter enough?

The memories start to crumble like ash
and her hollow face can't take you home
sometimes the renegade steps in your driveway
sometimes your porchlight erodes
but you wanna fly off with the tumbling sands
and every step leads to Destination Unknown

feels like I've fallen beneath the skies
can't see my fiery hands beyond its lights
dustclouds stole the skin off my eyes
and left me so wearily open to the night

and who could deny that this was bound to come by?
and can anythign fix this broken vision of mine?

Well I walked to the mouth of the forest spark
where the evenings once glowed
then wound up swimming through iodine
of seas that have never known
and I just don't know
and I just don't know
and I just can't find
my soul howling among the paperfolds and sighs of this broken vision of mine.


(just so ya know, Euterpe is the Greek muse of music and lyric poetry.)