Untitled Songs

 

Untitled Songs

(“The rock: his acts are perfection! No doubt about it: all his ways are right! He’s the faithful God, never deceiving; altogether righteous and true is he.” Deuteronomy 32:4)

It is a mystery treat.
Hometown, you remind me of the memories
inside me. There are
skeletons in the walls,
mice under the floors;
they are hidden, you don’t see them,
but they are there, you can see them on
the five-cent tour every new year’s eve.

I’ll be here, nowhere else to go.
I used to spend the eve with 30 people or more.
And yes, the voices got louder as the crowd got younger,
but sometimes silence makes you stare at the clock when
the minute hand never moves.

It occurs to me I may have bought my last guitar,
It amuses me, I will not finish the books I have bought
before my time is up, before my eyes close for the last time
to see the sun.

Hometown and nowhere to go. The lonesome has changed
since I came home. I’ve traversed the desert in pain,
dwelt in the cavern where darkness swaddled my brain.
Hometown, and no friend to find. The night time has changed
since I returned. The same stars wink at me,
the same moon sometimes laughs at my mood.
And the clouds are curtains closing the stage at the end
of the play.

I survived the darkness (thus the sarcasm of the moon),
I have not escaped my madness (the stars understood),
and now I await the faintest snow, a song to sing while the
apple trees never cry in the winter of their fruitlessness.

It is a mystery I did not retreat. Tomorrow the hills will run with rain,
the doves will take cover while a fawn or two drinks at the river.
All things are not new, all things, though, are reviewable.
And in those things, though my voice is ragged and my fingers
still,
I will sing untitled songs for friends who recognize their names.