Here we are, a mere week before the end of the semester. Fifty pages to write between now and next Thursday! And I, the responsible graduate student, made the wise decision and decided to write lyrics instead. WHAT, YOU SAY! Well, Holly and I have been recording music with our pal Will, and songs don’t just write themselves, you know? I admit, I pieced together the lyrics from poems I’ve previously written, so there’s not much entirely new. But it works! When I have digital versions of the songs I’ll try to find a way to share them here.

Below are the lyrics to the song Nocturne!

(verse 1)
Deep in my chest is
the song you put there…

This night sky is
our lover’s bed, boot black
leather darkness and
tender fumbling

(chorus)
Everything precious,
everything secret is speaking
in sidewalks, in motion,
a syncopated language
lacking context or meaning,
and I’ve become a verb.

(verse 2)
Deep in my chest is
the song you put there…

Bound and gagged and alive,
two embers in bloom -
Here until we put the stars out.
Here until we put the stars out.

(chorus)
Everything precious,
everything secret is speaking
in sidewalks, in motion,
a syncopated language
lacking context or meaning,
and I’ve become a verb.

(verse 3)
Deep in my chest
is the song…

Deep in my chest
is the song you put there,
but for just one moment
I’ll let it out so
it can sing for you.

(chorus)
Everything precious,
everything secret is speaking
in sidewalks, in motion,
a syncopated language
lacking context or meaning,
and I’ve become a verb.

Here until we put the stars out…

Here it is. It might become the chorus of a song? It’s meant to be sung by a lady and a dude together.

Lying on my back on the hood of my car
under the same night sky as you, wherever you are.
I want to ask if I can be your satellite -
You can save me from these falling stars tonight.

Here is a poem I wrote today while sitting in my office. Well, it’s kind of my office. I mean, I share it with other people, but I was the only one there today. Don’t judge me.

Morning pouring slowly over trees:
the leaftops sway and ripple
and for now absorb my attention
(and my carbons, my dioxides)
My breath is born here
(your breath, too)
Not filthy yet, not burdened
By epithet, by smoke, by
Heavy, unspoken –

But I’m watching the wind
of a thousand new breaths dance lazily
through live oak, magnolia, and –
Well, I thought it might comfort you
to know that each undrawn breath
begins as a song.

* * *

You should go large
swallow the sun, spit seeds like stars
come correct if you can
spine straight, fists clenched
angry like nature, natural, naked
and laughing and laughing as you rise
or fall
or explode in every direction, the shrapnel of you
scattered through soft tissue
like seeds that are glowing
embers in the grass
at your feet
little breaths of smoke curling up
like floral fingers from
funeral incense
the black hole at the center
of a galaxy of smoke,
breathe in the ghost of a shattered star.

If I focus on one rock among many
between the tracks everything around
it starts to vibrate
like a sudden stop has wrenched the ground
from stillness like a pond’s
And the first then second then third and
fourth and then thousands of raindrops
millions and it shimmers as the large absorbs
the small absorbs the large

I will have returned violently
Tired of flight
I will seep back into this place
the large, small, and I
I will soon evaporate