Let's Go Somewhere Where It's Louder (Radio Edit)

I have been obtuse too long.

You have been absurd too long.

I have been sitting too long,

Wishing the world had come with corners

So I could sit somewhere and see all the disorder,

Writing the unthinkable

To the unthinking

For kicks and giggles.

Maybe I have also been absurd.

Please, just say the word.

Red Passion

The way you move through life is fit for chess and fit for dance.
It removes my brain so I can't think, not even of romance.
You move me to say words that I wish back before they're said.
You move my heart and blood both faster, 'til my whole being is red.
You move my passions' round.  Your words blow steady winds of whims.
You move me to non-moving.  I cannot leave.  You've drawn me in.
You move the needle to the red line and the dial to eleven,
and when you finally move on, it feels like air-conditioned heaven.

Happy Birthday, Current Resident

Tick, tock.  Tick, Tock.
Five O'Clock alarm clock rock.
Shampoo for beard.  Toothpaste for teeth.
Breakfast I'm not real psyched to eat.
Switch for light, and lock for room,
and job I'm glad is ending soon.
It's time to go prepare for class,
To answer questions they won't ask.
After that, it's time to teach,
To hear them practice what I preach,
Or rather, what I read aloud.
Then back to traffic, back to crowds
Of senseless cars on thin roadways.

Nothing important happened today.

If You're Lucky

If you're lucky, you can:
Be with someone who brings out the best in you,
Be with someone who knows exactly what they have in you,
Be with someone who is proud of you,
Be with someone who can't stay mad at you,
Be with someone who can't stand not talking to you,
Be with someone who is afraid to lose you,
Be with someone who makes you happy,
Be with someone who values your time,
Be with someone who makes you laugh,
Be with someone who makes you laugh when you don't want to.
Or, if you're patient, you can choose
To be whole.
Of course,
You need to consider the source,
Who doesn't like giving up control.

Days/Daze/Malaise

What is the nature of this malaise?

It turns hours and minutes to seasons and days,

But it turns my days into nothing at all.

I'm not tripping—I'd have to get up to fall.

It isn't death and it isn't sleep.

My eyes are too bright; the head 'round them, too week.

All I really know

Is that I really have to go,

and that I won't.

The Tunnel

The tunnel is direction without reason, without light,

Where a lack of stimulation is both medicine and blight.

Today there is a reason were before was just a way.

I found the light at the end of the tunnel today.

Isn't the second stamp on the visa, or the airplane.

The light at the end of the tunnel is hard to explain.

I embraced the light at the end of the tunnel tonight.

I can hardly stop my thoughts for long enough to write.

The Mistake/The Heartbreak/The Second Take (Radio Edit)

I took a break from being a friend

To be lousy and lazy and human,

Not to live up to what my future's been.

The heartbreak, if not the mistake, may mend.

It's not having done wrong and been right.

It's not even the fact that I survived.

It's that my mistake came to define

Your life,

and I've learned to cease letting it define

Mine.

How can I be fine with being fine?