With You

I'm in a smokey groove again
Swirling around my head
Sweet dreams I've had
of you

Long to deepen my soul
Know the unknown
and let it go
with you

With you
I'm arisin from a humble start
With you
the journey doesn't seem so hard
With you
I pull together when it falls apart
All with you
All with you

You open my eyes
You open me wide
to the love inside
of you

You soften my heart
You soften the scars
I can reach for the stars
with you

Summer Night

Summer hit L.A. like a blastfire
Burning shadows into the street
Beads of sweat sparkled in the sunlight
And fell around my feet
I was flashin back on the star I could've been
And I smiled cos out here even the losers win
On a summer night

The village shifts it into high gear
Her neon make-up on
A coat of midnight paints the sky
keeps the faith til dawn
Molten metal mashin up the boulevard
While feral foxes fashion-up soft and hard
On a summer night

Passions flash into the heavens tonite
Every street heartbeat's on fire
The city explodes as your sense ignite
You're a loose and lithe livewire
On a summer night

Connections are charged in a corner
Secrets slip into the dark
Lovers lured into a moment
Share soul-synaptic sparks
From Highway 1 on up to Blue Jay Way
L.A. relents to get her way
On a summer night

Change of Fortune

I'm on this train
Mississippi Delta track
Full speed ahead
no time to be lookin back
I'm on this train
Hey conductor man
It took every cent I had
to buy this ticket to the promised land

Gonna find my place in the sun
Ain't gonna spend my life on the run
Find a girl with a smile in her eyes
and maybe a little wild
Make me feel like a man
with the heart of a child

I'm on this train
Sixteen coaches long
In a driving refrain
The steel sings her song
I'm on this train
Engineer stokin coal
While a full moon rises
over a Mississippi riverboat

Don't wanna be a ramblin man
Gotta get to be the best that I can
Change of fortune comin up around the bend
Gonna wake up in your arms and feel alive again

I'm on this train
Lightning cracks the sky
Locomotive thunder
bends in the wind as the whitle cries
I'm on this train
smokestack chokin black
A crosstie walker scurries across the track

Freedom's Sound

Entrenched in tightrope trestles
testing all my love and faith
I've rushed to save my brothers and sisters
prayin I wasn't too late
I've been wounded deep in battle
fearin no escape
And I've thought of a million ways
to disappear without a trace

I've cursed my heart out at these four walls
as I disconnected my dreams
I've stared for hours at the way I've changed
wonderin what it means
I'm a better soul for knowin
I can stand up for what I believe
Cos you can count on the lies to keep growin
when truth's a casualty

Your heartbeat on my chest - Freedom's sound
Soft whispers in the night - Freedom's sound
Sweet laughter in the sun - Freedom's sound
Song of love, I'm so in love with you
I love you

Now I'm dreamin 'bout you darlin
the only way I can get you here
I'm wonderin will you feel like I do
when again I hold you near
Will we share the spark within us
til we tremble all inside?
Will it still be the love I remember
A love we couldn't hide?

I've written letters to you
from myheart up to the sky
Hard to think I could live without you
I hope I don't have to try
Cos you're the one I'm living for
and when the battle lines are drawn
I'll be right there beside you
ready to take the world on

And the world will see a man
rising up to do the best that he can
And I'll walk ten feet off the ground

Your heartbeat on my chest - Freedom's sound
Soft whispers in the night - Freedom's sound
Sweet laughter in the sun - Freedom's sound
Song of love, I'm so in love with you
I love you

Lay to Rest

Street wolves roll out tonight
Razorwire fingers pulled tight
Angry young moon hangs in the sky
Stares down on the battle lines

Leather cradles weathered steel
Hushed shadows hold what the night conceals
Skittish nervous eyes, the kind you feel
As fate waits to feast on its next meal

Wild winds whip echoes off their feet
Staccato fire freezes time in the heat
Burning rubber bleeds into a dark retreat
As sirens scorch the skin off a llister street

Storied stones hewn by hell's own hands
Another mother's soul can't understand
Tears rain down on pallbearers' hands
That lay to rest another child
yet another child
of a woman and man

Tears of Rain

She follows tears of rain
down a crying window pain
and with a longing touch
slowly spells a name
But like footprints on the shore
the name vanishes in the pour
Her eyes clench to swallow th pain

As the curtain comes down
on this twisted trampled town
the sun gives up what the night has won
A changing flow of faces
carry thick shadowy traces
of who they were, where they came from

Everybody lives the hurt one day
and a broken heart's scar never fades away
when memories drift in a satellite fade
carrying dreams light years away

The night is thirsty and drinks til it's bursting
from the well her soul's filled up with tears
Her fingers grip and won't let go
holding on to what she doesn't know
when you're alone
you face or
follow
your
fears

Losing You

Well I'm sittin on my stupid phone wonderin if it'll sing
And I'm thinkin who I could call and would my mood mean anything
The weather's warm and sunny, it's a California Dream
But I'm still in last night's clothes and I haven't brushed my teeth
I think I'm losing you

Y'know I'm peering into my microwave wonderin what to nuke
And I'm think 'bout my music and I might as well burn that book
And I'm feeling a little uneasy cos my hat's still at the bar
And I don't really know how I got home or how I let it get
Let it get this far
Y'know I'm losing you

Up all night
down all day
I'm losing you
I've lost my way
I'm losing you
I'm in too deep
I can't get up
Can't get to sleep

Well my eyes are glued to the tv but the set's not turned on
And the cigarette in my coffee cup looks just like my front lawn
My Rolling Stone calendar is a month or two behind
And these stacks of unread papers and mail are just littering
My state of mind
Y'know I'm losing you

Now I'm staring up at the ceiling, all I see are Rorschach stains
My cat is perched upon some recent midnight snack remains
My fridge door's flug open where a warm beer waits for me
But I'm sinkin in my sofa, think I'll drift on back
Drift on back to sleep
Y'know I'm losing you

How You Can Dance

You can
launch your missiles
and you can
fire your guns
Pick off the little ones
and then
laugh as they run
You can send the weather underground
How you can dance
How you can dance all night long

You can
hide inside
with all of your
paper gods
who speak in silence
with omniscient nods
You bleed the earth I cry the sky
How you can dance
How you can dance all night long

There's always
something else
that you look
like you're doin
You pick your teeth
as you leave
hell in ruin
You push the poison, kill the cure
How you can dance
How you can dance all night long

You can
market temptation
and you can
sell your face
You can say 'thats's business'
as you
hawk your faith
Avaricious  seething  sycophants
How you can dance
How you can dance all night long

Killing Time

His web spreads like fire on gasoline
As jack smack attacks from his limousine
Words roll like pearls off a silver tongue
As he milks the blood of the lonely lost and young

He's a slithering leathered lizard king
A vaporous smile his prose a cold hard drink
Venomous verse poised in a poison quill
As the devil finds another empty heart to fill

As night seeks sanctuary from the day
Crooked creatures crimp in a poet's parade
Blue moons entombed in gutter pools
Where shattered dreams scatter like jagged jewels

The city shines down from a penthouse suite
While long legs linger under satin sheets
Fingers of gold paint pretty white lines
Thrilled to kill just killing time

Fire Wind

Burning down devil highway

spitfire wind in my hair

You're either goin my way

or I don't care

Foot to the floor

Got my head in the sky

Don't know what I've lost

Don't know what I'll find

I'm nothin more than a rolling stone

Rollin down that road

on my own

Tumble into a tombstone town

a dusty drop to my knees

Sunburst stiletto silhouette

Godiva hair to the sea

Like a tarantino movie

or ripped outta frankie miller's head

comes the yearning, burning and the fury

when your heart hangs by a thread

No more can I fly away home

I'm buryin yesterday

stone by stone

Blackbirds brush the sky

I lift my face to the sun

Earth souls arising

in the shadows of another dawn

Through the oceans of time

Across the rivers of mud

I'm in an existential storm

an emotional flood

On the edge of being and nothingness

Just another Joe

no more no less

Pocket Hole

I'm alone When the sun burns down
and the moon crawls up
upside down
Wary eyes
follow whispered thoughts
I'm in a fishbowl
lookin out at broken dots
I'm alone, so alone

In a crowd
so anonymous
No you no me
No we no us
Adrift at sea where I
drink in the ink
of darkened dreams
into which I sink
I'm alone so alone

Pyramid of pain
sepulchre shadows crawlin
over love's remains
and through the tears for the fallen
My eyes ablaze with the sun
in my ascent from the ground
My world explodes around me
but I can't hear a sound
I'm alone so alone

Pocket holes
Got my shufflin shoes
My soul is the toll, to choose is to lose
No roots no wings, a pauper's stone
To live is to die here, you come and go it alone
I'm alone so alone

Carrion Town

She wakes up in the morning to the sound of thunder and rain
She prays silently 'Dear Lord, wash away this pain'
There's a man lyin next to her, a man she used to know
Now she wouldn't miss him one damn day
if they found him head-first in a hole, boots pushin up ground
in this dirty little town

Her brown skin is glistening under an incendiary sun
The wind barely whispers through where her imagination runs
In this town with no secrets, where there's litlle more than regret
The sun torches a setting sky,
like a smoldering cigarette burning down
on this dirty little town

This carrion town is picked to the bone
Stranger beware: be a rolling stone
Like shifting shadows people shuffle the street
Where hands are soiled and eyes rarely meet
If wishes had wings no one would ever be found
in this dirty little town

Like cactus water, her heart's defended by thorns
A town so dark no light gets out, no chance to be reborn
Crescent moon, a scythe in the sky
The Big Dipper pours its tears tonight
If it wasn't for the sand, we'd all drown
in this dirty little town

As she sinks into her bed at night a wicked wind's on the rise
She falls into a restless dream, filled with longing and filled with lies
No one reaps redemption here, and damn even, hell ain't no escape
from a desperate past she can't bury
where yesterday is scraped off the ground
of this dirty little town

Thin Man

6:00am my brain gets the call
6:03 shitshaveshower down the hall
6:09 I jump into my shoes
Suck down raw eggs and coffee
try to swallow the headline news
Well I've advertised and
I've bought and sold my soul
Been branded stranded and
slingshot out the door

Traffic jams the city down my throat
It starts to rain and I forgot my coat
Skid into work no time to catch my breath
As I smoke another cigarette to death
Time's a freight train and I'm tied to the tracks
Yet another line of cocaine snaps me back

One more twisted tourniquet of fate
Call my wife and tell her I'll be late - again
Punch into a red-eye for the other coast
I'm manic panicked frantic psycho toast
On splayed nerves spelunking into the brink
Can't breathe to exhale or shut my eyes to blink

Just another cog inside a cage
Driven to the edge of another day of rage
Sad ballad of a thin man makin big fish fat
To see them all suck for air y'know I wouldn't wish that
(if they'd just leavemethefuckalone)
Boss monkeys chatter and shatter what's left of me
I'm a dead man walkin, stalkin obscurity

Bohemian Wind

A soul paused by the road
wrestles a heavy load
Steerin away from town
starin hard at the ground
A lifetime in war-grey eyes
hangin on a drifter's bedraggled bones
Like a wildcat's dervish cry
a bohemian wind blows
Down the road


Young boy kickin stones
roams down the road alone
Climbs into an old oak tree
and dreams of who he might be
Sends his best coyote howl
through the branches weathered hands
Counts the angels in the clouds
in a shadow box dance


Down the road where the angels know your name
Down the road where the devil knows the same
Down the road where it bends into the brush
Down the road where it ends at the bluffs
Down the road
Down that road
We're all blowin down that road


Woman draws the curtains back
in the kitchen of her shamble shack
Peers through a broken window pane
at a stranger with his dog and cane
A traveller shades the sun
from noonday summer eyes
In the distance conejo run into the sunlight
Dog flies
Down the road


Mad river runnin hard
silver-blood moon on guard
Resigned just to be inseperably
riders to the sea
Our path is but a mystery
the rising tide, well, it knows
Visitors all, you and me, as we
ebb and flow