In your sweet shade

whenever
wherever I lay my head
in abandon
it shall rest
in your sweet shade
and I will forget
the thirst
not knowing how many
of your tears
I drank

but I shall
know
no greater treasure lies
beyond the
amber ocean of your eyes
or the
silken brightness
of your smile

do forgive me
if words & dream
sare all I can give you
for now
for I want
to reach you
and
to reach out
and carving out
this mountain
it is your name
I see
and it is
your smile & grace
my fingers
trace out of the
darkness

somewhere along
these lines
of youth & wisdom
somewhere behind
these miles of
vertigo
dreams
are woven
and unfold
in bright
shivering motions
and they too
long to rest
in your sweet shade

Into starlight.

Quenching your thirst

Do you curse where you come from,
Do you swear in the night
Will it mean much to you
If I treat you right.
Do you like what you're doing,
Would you do it some more
Or will you stop once and wonder
What you're doing it for.
Hey slow Jane, make sense
Slow, slow, Jane, cross the fence.

Do you feel like a remnant
Of something that's past
Do you find things are moving
Just a little too fast.
Do you hope to find new ways
Of quenching your thirst,
Do you hope to find new ways
Of doing better than your worst.
Hey slow Jane, let me prove
Slow, slow Jane, we're on the move.

Do it for you,
Sure that you would do the same for me
one day.
So try to be true,
Even if it's only in your hazey way.

Can you tell if you're moving
With no mirror to see,
If you're just riding a new man
Looks a little like me.
Is it all so confusing,
Is it hard to believe
When the winter is coming
Can you sign up and leave.
Hey slow Jane, live your lie
Slow, slow jane, fly on by.

- Nick Drake

Into starlight.

Whispering in shades

silver bells ring
chasing away
the ghosts
under this burning
sun

and on the
merciful
afternoon calm
music floats
and whispers
in shades
casting away the
days

silver bells ring
to remember
beaming smiles
and toasts
- a doo-wop
sanctuary of sorts -
and souls
wrapped as candy
for streetwise
scribblers

you dig?

Into twilight.

Sails of oblivion

My death is like
a swinging door
a patient girl who knows the score
whistle for her
and the passing time

My death waits like
a bible truth
at the funeral of my youth
weep loud for that
and the passing time

My death waits like
a witch at night
and surely as our love is bright
let's laugh for us
and the passing time

But whatever is behind the door
there is nothing much to do
angel or devil I don't care
for in front of that door
there is you

My death waits like
a beggar blind
who sees the world with an unlit mind
throw him a dime
for the passing time

My death waits
to allow my friends
a few good times before it ends
let's drink to that
and the passing time

My death waits in
your arms, your thighs
your cool fingers
will close my eyes
let's not talk about the passing time

But whatever is behind the door
there is nothing much to do
angel or devil I don't care
for in front of that door
there is you

My death waits
among the falling leaves
in magicians, mysterious sleeves
rabbits, dogs
and the passing time

My death waits
among the flowers
where the blackish shadow cowers
let's pick lilacs
for the passing time

My death waits
in a double bed
sails of oblivion at my head
pull up the sheets
against the passing time

But whatever is behind the door
there is nothing much to do
angel or devil I don't care
for in front of that door
there is you

Jacques Brel (English words by Mort Shuman)

Into starlight.

Carving out your name

Somewhere, by the side of this road, there is laughter... And a sparkling stream that flows endlessly, one that you crossed a long time ago. At a time when summer winds blew strong and dry, when jazz kissed the streets in warm nights, and you never thought of turning back.

Now the winds are memories... And in the background your stepping stones crumble like chalk, ruins without ancestry. There is laughter by the side of the road, you say to yourself, shivering at the sickly breeze that dies with the sunset...

Into starlight.

Of swords and glances

Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; the difficult thing is knowing how to live with that freedom.

- André Gide

Into starlight.

Stopping for a beer, on the road to Damascus

there's water coming in
under the door
as the wind
whips the windows
in a minor key

I'm looking at
the water
spreading
and looking filthy
I wonder
where it's been before

I should be doing
something
to keep it
from coming in
but somehow
I'm thinking of Saul
in his dungeon
writing in bare
cold feet
but so far away
from bonfires
bullets and
burning flags
cartoon wars and
badly drawn
cartoon preachers

I'll really have
to keep the water
from coming in
but somehow
I'm not surprised
anymore
at how filthy
it is

Into starlight.

Blue Hotel

Blue Hotel, on a lonely highway
Blue Hotel, life don't work out my way

Blue Hotel, on a lonely highway
Blue Hotel, life don't work out my way
I wait alone each lonely night
Blue Hotel...
Blue Hotel...

Blue Hotel, every room is lonely
Blue Hotel, I was waiting only
The night is like her lonely dream
Blue Hotel...
Blue Hotel...

Blue Hotel, on a lonely highway
Blue Hotel, life don't work out my way
I wait alone each lonely night
Blue Hotel...
Blue Hotel...

- Chris Isaak

Into twilight.

Sad songs in major chords

eye to eye
we dance
in the breeze
and the sounds
of this frail
gypsy wedding
are carried north
between the trees
to fade on sullen shores
where children play
oblivious to the water
that was once
red
with the blood
of their grandfathers

and on these six strings
tended by bruised
soft-spoken hands
the burden rests
with silent strength
and wanderlust

playing sad songs
in major chords

Into starlight.

The Ship Song

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

Come loose your dogs upon me
And let your hair hang down
You are a little mystery to me
Every time you come around

We talk about it all night long
We define our moral ground
But when I crawl into your arms
Everything comes tumbling down

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

Your face has fallen sad now
For you know the time is nigh
When I must remove your wings
And you, you must try to fly

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

Come loose your dogs upon me
And let your hair hang down
You are a little mystery to me
Every time you come around

-Nick Cave

Into starlight.

New year's bestiary

as you said
I almost forgot to
wish you
a happy new year
staring at this screen
as I have been

looking at

rising gas prices
political campaigns
sports heroes
and sporty heiresses
wireless applications
and faster data transmission
fixed interest rates
gross national products
and stock ratings
new trends in trance music
feng shui
vegetarianism
veganism and detox diets
historical novels
reality shows
and postmodernist TV
promising young stylists
interior design
this season's colours
and the new generation
of just about everything

and wishing they'd just
fuck off and go die
somewhere else

oh yeah
and confessional blogs
fuck'em too

happy new year

Into starlight.

Leaving Kristiania

and so with our
back to the stars
we bid
farewell and revel
in glories long gone

and to the sound of
ticking clocks
and our childishreveries
we bow
in graceful lament

this scent of raisins
everywhere
brings back
the sickness in me

and I have nothing to say
to your beautiful
starlit eyes
for the sea
will be rising soon
and no more will
these salt-stained ropes
keep us in port

silently shivering
I turn away from your gaze
and I search for words
the wind is howling
stronger and
in a way
we are all
leaving Kristiania

Into starlight.

Merry Christmas, what else?

to everyone
a Merry Christmas
or fucking happy holidays
if that suits your
politically correct views
best

nevertheless I hope
you all have a fine time
with crackling fireplaces
and steaming pieces
of roast
followed by that special
granny licquor
over beautiful tables

and I hope your eyes
glow with delight
by candlelight
as you're surrounded
by wrapping paper
and smiles of loved ones

may your evenings be filled
with warmth and comfort
and gifts that keep you
happy
well into the new year

and while you're at it
do remember that
it's not what it's all about

Into twilight.

Let the bells ring

I long for
redemption
somewhere under
these cobblestones
a sigh
a whisper
a madness
growing sweetly
under this
sky

a flame held out
stretching thin
in this air
and your words
marking the breeze

gently I stir
and I think of the
tender loins of freedom
as the ocean
fills my gaze
and its salty spray
is all I crave for

Into starlight.

In Memoriam

John Lennon

October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

Into twilight.

The great music of the centuries

"There´s nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don´t live up until their death. They don´t honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can´t hear it. Most people´s deaths are a sham. There´s nothing left to die."

- Charles Bukowski

Into twilight.

November's mists

wandering through
November's mists
I search
for a light
that light
that dwelled in your
eyes

but your eyes
veiled in
November's mists
do not
look for me
anymore

and their sullen laments
rising no more than
a gentle dirge
walk me blindly
through
November's mists
the greatest requiem
of them all

and even if I
find a way
to keep from shivering
as I call your name
I hear no more
than my own words
drowning in circles
and tainted
in November's mists

Into starlight.

Small music from broken windows

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

- Charles Bukowski

Into twilight.

Driftwood

the world has gone
cold
drowning
as sadness pours
from your eyes

and in this silent darkness
this never fulfilled
dawn
you shiver and listen
to the trickling waters
of sadness

no murmurs
no dreams
no candles dying out
and a rope of silence
is all you grasp for

but you live
and you breathe
as you wait

for
even broken
you have a heart
and you count the pieces
of the most beautiful
driftwood

Into starlight.

This is the sea

"Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. This is the sea, and this is Arturo, and the sea is real, and Arturo believes it real. Then I turn from the sea, and everywhere I look there is land; I walk on and on, and still the land goes stretching away to the horizons. A year, five years, ten years, and I have not seen the sea. I say unto myself, but what has happened to the sea? And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there was a sea! I tell you I was born on the seashore! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed. But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source."

- John Fante

Into starlight.