​
Ojulee...Our breathing in synch...
A spring trickling
In the quiet space that the words don’t fill...
Above the Stepford streets’ relentless palaver,
The tired drone of electric sleep,
I see you, still.
​
Ojulee...The liquid of things...
The ego that clings,
Even as the touchstones to liquid spill...
And though you taught me how to laugh,
I’m just humoring the rule,
Because in my blue carafe,
I see you, still...
​
Butterflies float through the changes.
We can float, letting go if we will.
Close your eyes, our parts rearranging.
In the freshening of the stream,
The insouciance of the breeze
In the buoyant heart of me,
I see you, still.
Ojulee...The animal sense...
The release in the head...
That sits the instant upon the sill...
There in the particulars that true—
The unclench of the hand, the low lamp,
And the coffee spoon—
I see you, still.
​
Butterflies float through the changes.
We can float, letting go if we will.
Close your eyes, our parts rearranging.
In the freshening of the stream,
The insouciance of the breeze
In the buoyant heart of me,
I see you, still.
-American Dreams
...in memory of Julia Hayes
The logic bleeds; the engine’s broke.
I’m OCD, dissecting why she had to go.
I’ve checked the hoses,
The spark and stroke, the fuel line.
Can’t diagnose the source
Of this breakdown on the road tonight.
I must have missed the class on love.
I’ve done the math: the terms resist without a sum.
Numb me, bartender:
A bump to render me away,
Reckless and young again
On the high tide of an April day.
Wanna be a boy: catchin’ balls from a batter,
Racin’ in my high top reds.
Wanna be a boy—make a fort with a ladder
For mutual defense—oh-ohhhh—-
From Jackie, Gwen and Joy —oh-ohhh.
Cherchez la femme—
I wanna be a boy, be a boy again.
I wrote her songs and warmed the nest,
So confident I’d learned the ropes & aced the test.
I stand corrected;
I’m more effective in retreat.
Pour me to bed, bartender.
Tuck me in, and let me dream.
Wanna be a boy: packing Sweet Tarts and cola,
Going on an army quest.
Wanna be a boy—all the girls have Ebola.
Touch ‘em, and you’re dead—oh-oh-oh-ohhh—
From boils and hemorrhoids—oh, ohhh.
So much wiser then—
I wanna be a boy, be a boy again.
And if she beckons,
Can I resist a second look?
Unsober the time, my friend;
Send me back again, this time for good.
Wanna be a boy: do what I shouldn’t oughtta,
Acting like a knucklehead.
Wanna be a boy and stay up till tomorrow
Eggin' from the stretch—oh, oh, oh, ohhh—
License to annoy—oh, ohhh.
Prank a call to Gwen—happily me, a boy,
Me, a boy, again.
​
-American Dreams
Babe, I’m giving up my wired ways:
Stoking the inquisition, living the cliche.
I want to answer
To the sunlight in the room,
The particles of you,
Alive in the new day.
You don’t app the situation.
You tend the data at the skin: sweet abrasions.
Bless the makers,
Bless the hands that turn the bowl:
The beatitudes of soul
For a liberation.
In the groove, Baby, I’m waking
To the hip life waiting ‘neath the click and hum.
Oooo, I’m dropping my faces.
Oh, it frees me, come undone,
Our new Bohemian love.
Here’s a number for the juiced out,
A bluesy, fresh invention, easing the slowdown.
A hearty simple
Made of ordinary time,
Moments dark and fine
On the lowdown.
​
In the groove, Baby, I’m waking
To the hip life waiting ‘neath the click and hum.
Oooo, I’m dropping my faces.
Oh, it frees me, come undone,
Our new Bohemian love.
​
-American Dreams
The Lyrics
to read an excerpt on language
and perception from Naughtytown,
a novel in progress by Michael Scherf
You could have said something,
When I told you so long.
You could have cut me with a bitter word.
But you didn't say nothing.
I would have known it.
I wasn't ready for your unconcern.
​
Are you that kind of girl:
To change me, arrange me
And watch me with no word of grieving?
Are you that kind of girl:
To hold and not scold me,
When clearly to see I was leaving you?
​
Have you gone and forgotten
The two of us lying,
Tracing our shapes in the starry night?
Was it all just a wish on
A star that was dying?
The vanishing arc of a satellite?
​
Are you that kind of girl:
To change me, arrange me
And watch me with no word of grieving?
Are you that kind of girl:
To hold and not scold me,
When clearly to see I was leaving you?
​
I should have known it: you'd win in the end
At the point of no return.
Didn't you see that my conscience depended
On you having the last word.
​
Now there's ice on the wires
And snow lays like memory
Heavy as silence on the winter lawns
Do you sit by the fire
Do you think of me any
Are you stepping out lightly with another one?
​
Are you that kind of girl:
To change me, arrange me
And watch me with no word of grieving?
Are you that kind of girl:
To hold and not scold me,
When clearly to see I was leaving you?
​
-Time and the Moon
That Kind of Girl
New Bohemian Love
True Again
Not gonna do the 9 to 5 anymore.
I'm gonna sleep in late.
I'm rollin', and there's nothin' that's sure,
Except this bare moment,
This music in the vein,
Old rhythms unfolding,
Right as the wind and waves.
​
I'd forgot wat was important for a time--
Hid from my friends
And lived the underground.
Abstracted by the numbers and lines,
My heart was stuck in techno beats,
Those cold, insipid sounds.
My head, a tidy, square machine,
Broken from the round.
​
But I'm true again
With a song I know that's in tune,
On a road that's not a stranger to my feet.
Gettin' back my friends
With my old horizon in view--
Everything I need to set me free:
Inside out, heading east.
​
Got a wife, and got a dog,
And when I make 'em smile,
I know what happiness is.
When I was lost, well,
I confused the act with things in style:
Objects and atifices all,
Not what I have to give:
A home unstoppered at the walls
To let the river in.
​
But I'm true again
With a song I know that's in tune,
On a road that's not a stranger to my feet.
Gettin' back my friends
With my old horizon in view--
Everything I need to set me free:
Inside out, heading east.
​
I thought too hard to breathe,
My special expertise:
An alien, an animal,
Whose skin was stiff and strange.
And then this opening,
And gone ten thousand things.
I'm more than me:
A fish, a fowl, a tiger, maybe...
​
I'm bustin' out some brand new moves
From the hip.
Ain't gonna think 'em through.
It may get slippery, but I don't believe I'll slip.
The song is right and from the bone,
So I don't need no shoes.
Don't need a lesson for my toes;
The steps are in the juice.
​
'Cause I'm true again
With a song I know's in tune,
On a road that's not a stranger to my feet.
Gettin' back my friends
With my old horizon in view--
Everything I need to set me free:
Inside out, heading east.
​
-Time and the Moon
Boy, Again
To hear the lyrics with music, click to go to the ALBUM page of the store.
Ojulee
