Cellmates

The bars are cold in my hands hanging low
I stare at the floor wondering when I can go
Back out on the street walking tall and alone
Counting my steps like chalk marks on a stone
Marking down the days how long I’ve been in
Waiting on the Warden for a new life to begin
A tiny room with scratch marks on the walls
Survival at best babies crying down the hall
Trapped and forgotten by days just killing time
The room is divided up between hers and mine
Laying on my back sleeping in separate beds
Ten feet away eating all the shit I’ve been fed
Over the years and under the storm clouds rain
Soaked to the bone but something has to change
Wondering what lies just beyond the rusty gate
Tied by forgiveness holding on for heavens sake

9:00 am smoke break

My cigarette burns like incents out my cracked window
Twice today I’ve heard that Fleetwood Mac song on the radio
The one about reflections, snow covered hills and getting old
I never really cared for it but its deep and meaningful I’m told
If you really listen close to words it’s just a bunch of nonsense
Feeling sorry for your self about an unavoidable circumstance
Bitching about life to a pretty melody and an acoustic guitar
I know a guy who met Stevie once in some little shit hole bar
He said she was so coked up she had tears in her eyes
Maybe it was the drugs but maybe it was a landslide

Prettiest Parts of Me

Down the metal stairs past the pull chain light
Into the musty basement where I sleep at night
There’s a box in the corner made old of wood
I look at it there in the darkness and I wish I could
Dust off the top and take a peek at what’s inside
Try to reconcile all the reasons how and why
But I just stand there silent cemented to the floor
Cold to the touch alone silhouetted in the door
The air is thick with burlap and miller shells
Forgotten by time a tomb with a story to tell
Over my shoulder I look back as I start to leave
At the box in the corner the prettiest parts of me

Picture

There’s a picture in my mind and it’s one of us
We’re old and grey sitting in the bed of a truck
It’s a bright sunny day the sky is big and blue
A gentle breeze is in the air I’m smiling at you
Gone are the days of worry’s and circumstance
Replaced by lighting given half a second chance
I don’t know how we got there or if it’s even real
But I keep it close to my heart so no one can steal
The picture I keep the one of you sitting next to me
Something so beautiful is sometimes so hard to see

Words That Rhyme

Today I hate the words that rhyme
So smug and cute and intertwined
Out on a date with matching shoes
Talking celebrity and 6 o’clock news
Rhyming words they’re in the street
Smiling so big when they first meet
Turning heads in a white limousine
Fancy clothes dipped in kerosene
Sounding the same like everyone else
Minds in the gutter hearts on a shelf
It’s not what's said it’s how they end
Empty on the outside and alone again
There’s a lot to hate a lot of the time
But today it’s just words that rhyme

dancing lonely

Highway trash off the interstate
Cheap motels and hourly rates

Cement walls my lips are turning blue
And I can’t keep my mind off of you

I don’t want you to go
I don’t need you to know
I know that its not right
The girls are all dancing lonely tonight
The girls are all lonely tonight

Long distance isn’t easy for you
Wondering where I am and what I do

Mommas and babies awake by the phone
Don’t worry about me I’m coming back home

I don’t want you to go
I don’t need you to know
I know that its not right
The girls are all dancing lonely tonight
The girls are all lonely tonight

Cutters

I don’t feel bad for anyone except cutters
I’ve been out of control and when it gets bad
I was standing at the counter and saw her marks
She was pretty callused and nervous all over
It was bad and she didn’t bother covering anymore
Blue eyes, shaking hands and just everywhere
Some short some long some jagged others
When did it unwind and fall across the floor
Rolled down the hall and stopped at the door
Instead of walking through she stood there
Like a soliloquy sharpened down to a edge
And maybe there wasn’t a point just a cause
But fuck no one wants to do that to themselves
It just happens like life happens slowly everyday
Everything gets numb and grey and then you
The first time it’s more like dare or maybe a test
It’s the soft spot on your left arm below the crease
The inner thigh of your upper torso it might be
Then it’s like anything else cigarettes, whisky, porn
You’re hooked when the world is too much
When you feel the suffocation of being alone
When you feel the suffocation of a crowd
It’s ingrained like fire and survival it’s at the core
Everyone has a little some have less some have more

Lightning

lightning through the wires and through my veins
standing on the tracks waiting for a train
to pick me up to take me away
to knock me down and this time I'll stay

Maybe

Maybe it was the ice on my windshield
Or maybe it was a song on the radio
Maybe it was the dream I had last night
The one that I hate to wake up from
Maybe I don’t know what to say
Maybe I’m just missing you today

Be Mine

Driving down that back road in my beat old ford
You’ve got nothing to say as your staring down at the floor
There’s an old tractor buried out in a field
Its just bones in a graveyard from the way we used to feel
It’s too late to stomp on them brakes
Hearts can’t stop on no dime
You won’t be anyone’s if you won’t be mine
The train tracks have rusted and the weeds pushed through
Flattened out old penny’s and bottles of 90 proof
Baby I wish you’d say something maybe just give me a sign
It keeps getting harder and harder to keep it between the lines
I tried and made and I wrote my goodbyes
We got a chance if this car can fly
But she lost her wings a long time ago

Aquamarine

Wichita Kansas a little further down the line
A piece of that highway on the back of my mind

You can see it there from the shoulder a perfect little scene
A two bedroom starter home painted aquamarine

She’s out there in her front yard in her favorite pink tube top
She’s been accused of causing accidents but she’s never been caught

Folks say they even seen her barefoot in the winter time
Out there in the back yard pulling her lacys down from the line

It don’t matter what the neighbors say they can all go straight to hell
She doesn’t have a TV so it easier to see life’s to short to put her's up for sale

He knows he isn’t starting any trends his favorite jeans are always black
His t-shirts all have holes in them and his hair is too long in the back

He spends his day time smoking cigarettes and rebuilding foreign cars
At night he takes his woman out for strong drinks in shit hole bar

It don’t matter what the neighbors say they can all go straight to hell
He don’t have a TV so it’s easier to see life’s to short to put his up for sale

She’s there to the drive him home when he’s had too much to drink
She’s lays in bed next to him and wonders what it he thinks

Because they’ve got something that few have ever seen
Living a life of happiness under a house of aquamarine

It don’t matter what the neighbors say they can all go straight to hell
When you don’t have TV its easier to see life’s to short to put yours up for sale.

Chevrolet Nova

Back home on shore leave on his way to Leavenworth
A flat top hair cut and a Motley Crue t-shirt

Revving that engine out there in the drive
He only said I’ll see you later never said goodbye

The parlor was dressed up in Red White and Blue
Talking bout the dead is never a nice thing to do

Whispers in ears and old fashioned metaphor
When you’re driven for them city lights put your foot on the floor

The preacher said he was doing 130 when he lost control
Out there by the riverside no where to go

Chevrolet Nova and a Telephone Pole

28 Days

Washboards on the back roads headlights in my eyes
Hands on the wheel and a pistol by my side

Love line is on the radio barely coming through
Nine pounds in the back seat rural route fifty two

The house is falling down it’s a hundred years old
The fences all be wound and the live stock is sold

The porch swing sits empty blowing in the breeze
Coyotes in the front yard and a country on its knees

Hard times been a raining down the levy wont hold anymore
Load up all the rifles and dead bolt all the doors

Hard times been a raining down I’m doing what I can
Red diesel on the highway and blood stains on my hands

Sepiatone

Little old church nineteen sixty
Horned rim glasses and powder blue suits

Shotgun wedding high on the wine
The baby came early like they did sometimes

I don’t even know who you are
Your picture’s in a magazine

Sepiatone all alone
Waiting in a room painted green

Cigarettes in a white T-shirt
Down at the races on a Friday night

When I look close I see a shine
Like FDR on the back of a dime

I don’t even know who you are
Your picture’s in a magazine

Sepiatone all alone
Waiting in a room painted green

Wild Heart

Crouched in the sage brush pounding down low
Feet in the foot prints followed through the rows

The winters wield has born down on this place
Hunger and isolation mark the hillsides steeping pace

Silent as the snow falls whispering on the wind
Ambivalence is no stranger as the ice begins to thin

Watching through the meadow laying flat and still
Waiting for the moment perfect to unleash its will

My heart is a wild heart waiting just from view
My heart is wild heart never knowing what it might do

Twisting through the tree tops and borrowing below
Searching for salvation where the grass begins to grow

Photos are blackened and shattered full of haze
A ghostly glimpse through a Polaroid taken to the grave

Down deep in a shoebox pushed back under the bed
Only to be reconciled over warm wine and lips painted red

Workers in the field, loaded rifles and masks worn on backs
Legends of heresy and a sprit poised to make another attack

My heart is a wild heart slipping through what all is seen
My heart is a wild heart big, unforgiving and mean

Lost at Sea

Overtaken by the water crashes with the storm
Seeking the shoreline sails tattered and torn

Taking on water that the buckets can’t began to bail
Drifting toward solitude and sinking into hell

Looking down into the water of icy cold and black
I see my reflection slipping there’s no going back

My loved ones no more will wait up late for me
For I’m just another brave sailor getting lost at sea

The sting of resolution will only last a while
The burning of forbidden love lost like a child

The air escapes my chest as I begin to slip down
The last few seconds go silent as I begin to drown

The magic in the motion is now so easy to see
Everything all makes perfect sense you just have to believe