Bare Trees

Bare trees

Pale trees

Come run with me between them if you please

Perhaps we'll kick up more then just the sere and sallow leaves

Amid bare trees

Skinned knees

Raw knees

Shall we crawl on broken bottles to the shores of Galilee?

Or shall we flee?

Find a shack along the sea, a place to be

Wrapping bracken round the bedpost is supposed to keep out evil dreams

Evil beings

Cold nights crawling under to roll like thunder in the sheets

You and me

You and me

Thin clouds

Fast clouds

It's so difficult to keep ourselves awake in the here and now

We got to scrape and bow

Keep your heads down all ye boy and girls, stay quiet as a mouse

Don't make a sound

We've seen the frightful things that happen when a poor man grows too proud

And sings too loud

You'll wake the wrong men with your songs

There's not a shadow of a doubt

They'll cut that tongue out

Bare trees

Pale trees

When one is touched by holy spirts it's the center of the palm that bleeds

Dripping down into the leaves

Drip dripping down into the leaves

The calmest breeze

The wildest breeze

It shifts so fast and all at once you hear the knocking of the reeds

The knock knock knocking of the reeds

You turn and freeze

You hardly breathe

You're like a painting some punk sprayed on the wall of a hungry child in need

What do you need?

What is it you need?

I've seen you walking like a penitent for hours along the beach

All alone on blackest nights I hear the rattle of you keys, what could that mean?

What could that mean for me?

All these locks

All these fears and self delusions we keep hidden in a box

We're ticking clocks

We live in a world where hypocrites can gather in a village square and kill a woman there with rocks

Heavy stones

Shattered bones

Somewhere in the middle distance you hear the screaming of a phone

You're not alone

Not alone

Ice water in your blood when you hear the humming of the drone

You're not alone

We were all on food stamps

Burned oil lamps

And in the half light our damp eyes shone

What really makes a home a home?

A skinny thief has run away to chase his fortune scratching poems

Dark little poems

Stark little poems

All alone

All alone

Scratching out these poems

My pen still scratches

Like a rat beneath the mattress

Sometimes this life has been rough enough to strike a match with

They say the single greatest hat-trick that the devil ever played was making all the water brackish in our bodies and our brains

We've grown estranged

We're just loners walking slowly by the roadside in the rain

It's in our veins

Our pale blue veins

Can a scarecrow feel pain?

Can a scarecrow mark time?

Fuck time

Slow down time

We are caught on Jacobs ladder with so many rungs to climb

Slow down time

You've spent your whole life chasing rhymes

Slow down time

Fuck time

Bare trees

Pale trees

Come run with me between them if you please