Fields of Summer

Salt of the earth, sweat on your brow;
Faded glory born through sunlight and summer.

Jeans with rips, hearts on the mend;
Earth on your hands and sky above.

No boxes, no confines;
Limits belong to how far you can run.

Full of laughter, empty of change;
These warm nights hold nothing to fear.

Wind in our hair, your hand in mine;
Here there is warmth beyond the streets.

Backdoor: Prelude to an Elegy

The stars, are they talking to us tonight?

Do you think they will actually guide us?

Our shoes are on, laces tied.

You don your cap as I wear mine.

Our bags are packed and shouldered.

Do you think we are ready?

Is this the risk worth taking?

So long, lonesome crowded town.

Your lights always did shine too bright,

Your nights too loud, our dreams too soft.

As ready as we'll ever be, young as we need to be, and hope over everything.

Storm

A flash and you're awake,
Clutching at mists as you shake away the sheets.
How long has it been like this?
How long were you asleep?
What was the dream?
A theater, a road, a leg.
Just trading one beauty for another.
After all, when was the last time you heard rain?
Saw lightning?
I traded dreams for spectacles at dawn.
Besides, the best dreams don't die in morning.

Snow: Elegy in Second Movement

No one said it would be this heavy.

Our feet, the silence; the spectacle, 

No one said it would be this beautiful.

Our eyes, the lights, the risks

Of being let down ahead, in life, into snow.

Are you going on ahead? Does your pack tire you?

We shouldn't separate now, not much longer.

Over hills, over rivers, 

over caves below our feet where dark things dwell.

Under branches, under stars,

Under the sun burning away on the horizon. 

I'm glad we're staying the course.

November

I can't be this elegant for you and I never learned to dance.
I'm in this house, on this floor; a stranger in a strange land.

You never did want to be here; it's not like I chased you here.
You're still just a boy, never fully knowing what he wants.

I don't belong in these halls and the rooms never open for me.
I'm going to walk back to my life, away from you, you poor girl.

I wish you would stay.

I wish I would too.

Running

What keeps you running as the demons howl down your back?
It can't be the failures as they lay chained to your ankles.
It can't be you that you actually enjoy fighting in the pitch black.
So why aren't you tired of endlessly seeking through the dark?

I keep standing because I refuse to sit still in this darkness.
I keep walking because though failure stays, it's still behind me.
I keep running because I cannot go back defeated.
I keep fighting because I have seen into the darkness...

And I am not afraid.

Wait

Just come and shake me now,
Wake me so I know you're still with me.
Take me and shatter me at the ends of the earth.
Pupils contract at the light rushing up to meet us above.
Have you ever felt this before, with the wind in your fingers?
Chase me to the deeps of the ocean where leviathans still dwell.
Lead me to the last lonely spires that crown the heights above us all.
At the end will we be able to go back along the same way that we came?
Where is this going? What's happening? Louder, surer, brighter, and suddenly
Home.

Still

So much happened in that stillness.
The dust danced in the light,
As the stars folded in after the night.

The silence roared all around us.
As heavy as all the universe's matter,
As brittle as all the hopes inside her.

Can someone ever be fully shattered?
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
The best has yet to come for us.

To The Sea

We should not measure ourselves next to skyscrapers,
Monuments,
Mountains,
People,
Perceptions.

We must look to the ocean to measure who we are,

Limited,

Living,

Small,

Strong.

For man will know his true self when faced with the infinite.

Going Home Now

No one ever teaches you how to be uncomfortable,
How to look intriguing while lining the walls at social events,
How to look good while scanning the host's books,
Or how to gracefully catch the eye of someone pretty.
No one gives lessons on how to survive being awkward.

How do you deal with that, that moment when...
You shift your drink back and forth between hands,
Struggling to recall the person's name you met just now.
Responding with "Fine, thank you." when people ask your name.
How long do I have to stay to be socially acceptable?

Old Americana

We were in limbo that year, that 4th of July.
Young enough to swing on monkey bars,
Old enough to realize hearts break.
They bleed red, red, red white blue.

So let's wear these clothes,
I have my tie, tied with honest mistakes,
You have your shoes burning red across the wood.
Were these signs of the times? Signs of growing up?

Old enough to drink, not old enough to regret.
You were promised four unforgettable years
Designed to be enjoyed best when forgotten
With me still on the monkey bars, upsidedownrightsideup

I swung down and into the next part.
Next tune, next room, next scene repeat
Full skies, chances, and empty cars
Against crowded bars, faded dreams bound in scars.

Do you ever wake, wrapped in faded glory,
Residual warmth as you leave one room
And enter the next adjacent memory.
Morning rises, curtains fall, did you find your star?

Pride before Possibility

And what can you say you're proud of?
Asked the old man with weathered hands and bent back.

I...I...don't know...

His smile said that's okay as he nods his head and his eyes back this up.

I'm proud of my journey and with that he continued.
Passing people who never knew his name.
Jobs he never received a paycheck from.
A woman who never returned his love.
Kids who never called back.

Lefts that he made rights and rights that went straight.

On high and at peace at last.
The old man found rest.

Elegy of Footfalls

It's older here.

Quieter. 

Do you feel as small as I do, as you shoulder your pack.

Your breath floats back to me and mine behind.

Trains, silent in the woods.

Sad things dwell here, last of their kind.

And we will all be the poorer for their passing.

We are far from home and we carry it with us.

Hearth and heart and how great we are

Passing through here together.

This is what we want.

Can you even begin to dare to describe something incontestably undefinable.
You can't can you.
As sure as the ground is beneath you and as sure as it will fall out below you.
And you will be lowered down and raised again.
Light of angels dark of hell.
Ad Absurdum Ad repetita Ad nauseam

Don't you dare.
Don't.
We.
Dare.
Don't we though.

So, why do we?

River Banks, May 1944

I've never seen you look smaller than that evening.
In comparison of course.

The first rock you threw, with hues of green and white, skipped the longest.
The second rock shone the brightest but sank fast.
The third rock you held on for a long time before throwing it across to the other side.
The fourth rock you picked slipped through your hands, I almost felt bad as I laughed.
The fifth rock you picked up had something gross under it so you quickly let it drop.
The sixth one you pulled out of your pocket but you put it back after all.
The seventh cut your finger and crimson fell with it back into the river.

What did you do after that?

Hallowed Houses (Hymns for Friends)

Death passes through here but has yet to truly linger,
Not in any of my stays anyways.
Perhaps it is the brightness of their hearts
That for now hold it all at bay.
Until I can no longer do so, I will seek refuge here
Among the messes of being human.
Because am I really more than a mess?
This family of friends realize it,
As we break bread and hearts together,
I love them all for it all and all we have.

Adagio in D Minor

What will it be like?
To meet God.
Will He be an infinite monolith
Of terror and awe?
Or in the darkness of nothing,
A spark of immeasurable hope?
Either way, I will be both alone
and unfathomably exposed before the Beginning and the End.

Oh, River

Depression is the most treacherous current of creativity.

A bit of an explanation...

Have you ever had a phrase or just a group of words stuck in your head,
Preceding to roll around like rocks at the bottom of some river?

"High Lonesome" has been that for a while now, thanks to one of my favorite bands by the name of Caspian; "High Lonesome" is a track of of their most recent CD "Waking Season".

Anyways I made this blog to to focus on my creative writing and as of a few minutes ago I finished a twenty-two page short story that bears the same name as this blog (and was written with the song in mind). Over the coming weeks I hope to get it polished up and will then begin submitting it to one publisher at a time with hopes that someone out there will like it enough to publish it.

Pretty terrifying stuff, putting your work out there like this.

Give these guys a listen.

Writing is worse than speaking

For Speaking is making words into orphans, ships without anchors or ports.
Writing is making words into monuments, bricks and mortar and all.
You can conveniently forget orphans, just let them be where you fled them.
But how easy can you escape monuments when you live in their shadows?

Bonfires

Sometimes, in the darkness of the tunnels,
We have to whisper "No." to the dark.
We have to rise up with sword and shield 
For beyond our bonfires, so small in the dark,
We find skeletons and worse.
Fight we must, for foes lay ahead and behind.
To die a thousand times means rising again a thousand and one.