All Lovers Lost - 2010

I am my only Thief and Jailer Keep

The hours pull me through the seasons of a Crooked year...

And to those I gave life

Confessions of a gift worth end

Dawn breaks like ice on a pond - springing forth green eternal
The flooding of cool waters - life emerges...

Hours pass...

Five minutes brings the shock of it all
Winter's icy shadow rises to prey upon me...
The tears are endless.
The agony of fear of a future never expected...

And the glutton for emptiness

Can feast on my heart

In the minds where my dear Alvina weeps

Once lifted their voice in praise

But past is ever past.
The past too great a treasure,
Caught in the gleam of a shining coin.

Summer's dry heat has returned.
I am unable to cry,
And can't fathom why I should.

Then the chill of Dusk - like Fall -
Love's dead leaves crumble through my fingers
I am frozen in time -
Completely and utterly hopeless.

And all lovers Lost

Find them in the heart of darkness...

Winter thus returns on the hour of a clock that stopped ticking.

Such is the reign of banishment

In my heart...

New Work...

How easy it is to leave a two-dimensional realm...
A history lesson from a faded textbook, in the end...

My complexities no longer exist.

I simply fill the space that is taken by my ghost -
All the details that made me breathe fire to your heart
Contained and destroyed.
I rained ash upon you with each smoldering ember.

Dare to breathe me in
And your lungs may fill with dust.
Run - that is the simple answer -
I cannot haunt places I haven't been -
Your secrets are safe in the black and the white -
In the freedom of a future where I can no longer find you.

Within the Old realm, another dimension was fervent.
My wrists - the smallest bones you once kissed -
The hand you longed to hold -
The eyes that drove you mad -

Home.

Home - once in my arms -
Now a square drawn on a page of a book
You dare not read again.
Add a chimney, a swirl to the smoke -
It may remind you.

Save yourself from the fury of cobwebs
That have taken the throne.
I am the keeper of what must never be -
The ash covered corpse of a slowly crumbling being.
Through the years you may forget her a bit more,
But no living future bride
(Unknown - or already known)
Will ever come close.

And you know this.

She is still here!
Somewhere...

Her memory is lost to the ancient texts.
Her image made to silhouette.

Lesson learned.

The Battle...

This was written around 2002 - and was included on my book, 'The Muse Inward' and partially used in 'Boudiccea' from 'The Burning Season'...

Have I spoken of the battle between Word and Deed?

I have traveled long and wide on the hills of
When and when to step and where
Lightly and hardly
I would I might should I
Become Her at last.
But rather to write of it may heal enough.

Experience versus the mind -
I was the Queen who fell upon her sword,
In Dreams I have fought the good fight - Inert all else.
Silent in person.
Silence...
My words have laid the path,
Ah, but my deeds I am most likely to be known for...

When she steps she does so delicately,
And where she steps
The grass does grow in the shape of her exquisite footsteps.

Promise is a sickness when it all but speaks and acts opposing to its word.
Pianos cannot play themselves.
I’ll slip away when at last we meet.

I am warrior...
My madness impossible to detect within the horrors of social conduct.
My wits sharpened to weaponry.

Deed cannot but make my tongue silent -
Word is an act enough to bring down effortless Tyranny.
Deed renders me inert.
We would rather the doe shot down simply in the story, I think...

Word may somehow retract Deed.
Chooses a face with strange cracks.
Ah, but Deed.

Deed is the Truth of character.

Poetry...

I am in full writing mode, and will begin posting new poems and lyrics every week... This is the working poem that a number of song lyrics sprang from, I began it in 2005 or so....

---

What have you done?
There is no forgiveness when the heart is gone.

I spoke the truth until it hurt -
The space behind the heart that holds it like a fist
Breath tightened under duress -
Or the truth within us.

Ripped from the root:
Shut the thinking down

And let the show begin.

A low-itched harmony, that chest-pained fear of life,
The lump in the throat that panics speech -
That kind of pang that can well one up in tears
At the snap of a finger:
An idea of a child’s memory relit
Like an old unwanted dog with such sadness in its eyes
It hurts to see its such weariness
And we all know this.

I feel her alive and thankful
Magic the guide to expect as she makes her entrance -
On the roof as the building collapsed,
Oh the wind can cause the rails to creak like a ship in Arctic duress.
A slavedancer, beaded and perfumed
Metal-cold bracelets upon each battered wrist -
The question of my deity rewarded
With a neck that stretches out for miles.
I am yet just and fair in the language of the trees
A warrior in respite while they plotted my death.
Then a simple Bard shackled and singing to a Roman Lord -
I know what it is to lose my two sons
I remember somehow that grievous pain in the pit of my stomach,
My fingernails chipped and filled with dirt from the farm,
Smoke brushes along the contours of my form,
Seamen called and I answered,
Painted for another photo-shoot,
Walking delicately through the mines,
Trimmed, and perfect and haven’t eaten in three days,
Look to the side, see the conspirators behind the curtain,
Down the alleyways,
Waiting in a Model T,
Tumbling through forests,
Guns and knives, hammers and poisons
Wandering between realms
Like Trojan soldiers on a vase, I fought well and bitter and to the death,
I become 100 years old and awakened - animate.
Like the Huntress, I am prey, or conquered by Love.
I fall like leaves from separate similar struggles,
Falling to the side, folding in
My hands frozen at the tips -
Reaching up again to that lovely, lovely place
Frostbite without actuality - a point of meaning -
I cannot see the faces in the balcony.
Flashing one scene then the next -
The lights red to gold upon my hair,
Oh I could answer any question -
The taste of me alone profound,
Resurrected.
Resurrected.

Interview with All Things Girl

This is a quick interview I did...

In New Orleans...

Florida was nearly 100 degrees and such high humidity, we melted before hitting the stage! What a difference from the earlier part of the tour... The last few shows have been very small, and the usual comment of "if we had known what a show this was going to be, we would have really promoted it!" is becoming a bit too tiresome to hear... In New Orleans now, staying on the Garden District in a place that was an orphanage many years ago - our kind of place! Off to find a Cajun Vegan restaurant we have heard about, and get a bit of rest!

Thoughts from the Road

After over two weeks, we are finally in the 'zone' - I call it this for myself, once you break through the insanity and fatigue, though my voice is taking a beating night after night. Three hours of sleep and hours and hours driving to the next city, one needs to be hardened to live this life and open to the realms you find yourself. I love the moment by moment of life on tour, meeting fans, listening to stories, performing and having delirious and hilarious moments. We miss home terribly, and our amazing housesitter has been taking such great care of everyone - she posted photos of the babies on her pages, how gorgeous everything is blooming and the babies look happy and cared for.

I am finding that we are now a '90's era' band, and that some sort of revival is at hand; though people are loving our new music, they also love all the past albums. I am currently backstage in Washington DC, haven't been back here for 6 years - and everything is green and gorgeous! The weather throughout the U.S. has thus far been nippy, land throughout the heartland is barely over the Winter, but once we took the turn down from Canada into New York, we are seeing wonderful new growth. Funny how I look at soil and plant life everywhere I go, it is an entire undercurrent of life around us! Onward to the next, and the next and the next. I am currently in silence mode, and have to actually be somewhat silent when greeting fans in order to get onto the next shows - fingers crossed!