Home Sweet Home

From the mystic gates of heaven

Displayed upon the sea

Where time and flesh transition

Began the story of me

In a moment steeped in winter

When frost took hold of fall

Angels beckoned for life to begin

And my mother heeded the call

Upon my face I wear her eyes

Within my heart… her love

But the beauty and truth I feast upon

Was given from up above

If there’s one virtue I adore

An abandon I’ve grown to hold dear

It’s trusting first to keep the faith,

While I am journeying here.

But despite what morning brings to my world

Despite all of yesterday

My heart returns to my hometown seed

Where my spirit first learned to pray

Now, upon midnight’s bed

Innocence in my head

My hometown comes back into view

Though the sentiments tender

The vision has splendor

I’d be honored to share home with you

Home is a place

With no physical space

It’s a taste and a passage of dream

It’s a fragrant nightmare

Song of lies in the air

It’s a kiss and deep silent scream

Close your eyes

Paint my picture on your minds canvas…

Close your eyes

Paint with me…

Beneath a faint arc of stars

Made dim by the rain

Through the embrace of clouds hanging low

Where a crimson streak breaks

The blanket of sky

Adding art to the small town below

Where aerial piper’s in fertile storms sand

Pierce silence in search of fresh eggs

On a hand woven hammock

A teenager dreams

Of stallions with swift pewter legs

A paperboy tosses his chore on a porch

A businessman counts out his fare

A newborn awakens to ribbons of sun

And the smell of warm milk in the air

Eyes pleading

Hold me

Hold me

Feel … me

Beyond the closed door

With the sticker visage

A canopy dressed in toe shoes

Shades a lost chocolate girl

In a nightgown of pearl

Entertaining despair and the blues

The hum of cornbread

Finds its way to her bed

And her father pulls up to the drive

Her brothers are dreaming of planets afar

And her mom’s wishing she weren’t alive

A piano sits there

Just beneath the hall stair

And a cat marches song on its keys

Soon the rhythm of rage

Is released from its cage

In the dark the girl falls to her knees

The old couple from Maine

Pull a dog on a chain

Clenching hands as if life’s slipping through

They stop for a while

He gives her a smile

And their eyes pour the words,” I love you”

A girl in bare feet

Gently crosses the street

Her linen dress catches the wind

She enters the park

Where she’ll stay until dark

Writing letters that she’ll never send

Beneath the North Star

A man plays his guitar

And a sparrow joins in from a tree

The waterfall crashes serenity down

This was home to me,

You see,

This was home to me.

Passed the chipped astral bridge

Worn down by the years

Where children throw wishes

And lovers spill tears

Where the dawn paints her beauty

In shadows and light

And still waters below

Mirror blue sway and flight

Through the timeless fields of unshaven grass

Where buttercup daisies still grow in great mass

And honey suckle blossoms perfume the flamed sky

Where crickets sing hymns and old ravens cry

Beyond dense rows of pine

Spilling needles and cones

Where the ashen earth crackles

And hidden wind moans

Where the pecker beats rhythm

Through the trunk of a tree

And an alabaster owl

Proclaims nights decree

Screaming whoo

Whoo

Whoo

Whoo

Near the Russell’s horse farm

Where the stables are bare

And the only reminders of life

That are there

Are two bundles of hay

And a tan English saddle

A faded red barn

And a black canoe paddle

A shovel, a bridle, a trough, and a rake

And a ‘Radio Flyer’

Left there by mistake.

A fallen scarecrow in Timmy’s straw hat,

Patchwork denims, a green “welcome” mat,

A thirsty rose bush, a ripe apple tree,

A stiff wind chime, and a rusty door key,

A row of mailboxes

A quick, sudden chill

And an echo of laughter

All live there still.

Home sweet home to me

Yes, Home sweet home to me.

Down the dirt road

To the right a little way

Are the swings and totters

Where the little kids play

Who attend the little school

With the little gold bell

On the little dreamy hill side

With the fresh water well

Spilling

Drip drop

Drip drop

Drip drip drop

Behind the white fence

Is the cobblestone walk

Best known for spawning romance

The lilacs grow there

Near the old chapel square

Where I gave my first love its first chance

Many years have gone by

As a matter of course

And my lips have forgotten love’s touch

After bringing forth life

I’m no longer love’s wife

Fearing silence makes absence my crutch

Passed the two-story stucco

With the sprawling green lawn

Where the Shepard dogs train to defend

Passed the “Creole Café”,

And the “House of Au Lait”

My innocence came to an end.

Between dusk and forever

The doors of my world

Lay waste on a foreign dirt road

And I pulled from life’s tree

All the fruit I could see

‘Til my clarity no longer showed

Feeling nothing

Numbing

Everything

“ I am just a rusty penny

Without a wisher or a well.

I have no value as I stick to the bottom of shoes

And lay rotting in the gutters of cities.

You gather me

As wheat

As a mother gathers her young

As a lover gathers heart break

As a wife gathers regret.

You toss me to the bottom of lakes

In salty oceans and the ashtrays of cars

You cast me out as a leper

And shove me deep into old leather bags

The ones with holes

That will never be mended.

I’m just a rusty penny

Smashed into a novice

At the carnival of my existence.

Discarded as dung

On the growing heaps of land fills

With cigarettes and carcass bone

And blind excess wrapped in plastic and greed.

I am just a rusty penny.

The period at the end of the sentence

The nothing return on your investment

When older things are put on sale.

I am blindly given to beggars and thieves

To drunks and junkies

To hobos and whores

And they too look at me with disdain

They curse you in the shadows

For dropping only me

In their empty bottles

By their trash cans aflame

On their urine stained cardboard

At their makeshift doorsteps

Where Styrofoam cups devoid of coffee

Are the only bell in the waking of their day.

On the corners under the flashing red lights

I am forgotten

As youth

In the bellies of chipping porcelain pigs

Waiting to be shattered

Or dusted off once more

Like childhood memories

And boogeymen hiding under bed-frames

Masking as shadow

Manifesting as nightmare.

I once had value in your sight

Was once esteemed

The giver of luck

The source of promise

The hope of miracles.

Ring around my finger

Broken as I linger

Like

Ring around the rosies

Pockets full of posies

Ashes

Ashes

We all fall down”

The storms and the rain

Well, they started again

Rolling thunderous screams through my bones

And the vision of me

Disappeared in that tree

On parched soil surrounded in stones

From June until June

Until June came once more

I spilled out my sanity

Somewhere on the floor

And pierced the dark heavens with my final cry

Lost all that I cared for

And swallowed goodbye

But on destiny’s day

He sent angels my way

And lifted my frail, broken form

Breathed life in my soul

He made my life whole

And lifted me out of that storm

My life has known seasons

My skin has felt time

I’ve sailed upon prose

Through nonsensical rhyme

I’ve cried tears of mustard

On pregnant white sand

Lay down with surrender

Dreamscapes in my hand

I’ve kissed autumn lips

Sat spring in my lap

Embraced winter’s fever

Caught prey in my trap

I’ve tasted of anguish; I’ve tasted of grief

I‘ve turned from my mirror

Though blindness was brief

I’ve inhaled the mystic

of timeless accord

Of aria moments

A gift from the Lord

Pouring out

Pouring love

Pouring tears

Tears

Pouring

My eyes have known mercy

I’ve humbled my view

I’ve shattered my passions

And God’s been my glue.

Now he is home to me

You see,

My God is home to me.