Her Roots Go Deep, They Go Goodbye

Out my window, in a mist, the silver maple tree; she bows, she creeks and bends
She ages
for every crumbling, fallen leaf that once clung to breathless, brittle branches, battered by November gales, then blew away like paper scraps in whirls of requiem wind soliloquy, this waning, burning, coughing heart endures
the season fades, then reoccurs
without you while my soul's felt; crying in the empty alley and singing mournful melancholy mass in the desperate songs of lonely love-birds, ravens, calling.
Calling again and again
all thoughts; on you, while wet sands sink and waves of indigo fall back into the echoing sea
my mind, along your ancient, endless cold gray shale-fracked shoreline,
Now, n' forever chases
All alleys
of eyeless faces
opened wide
While black hole hearts, with vortex force subliminally suck me in through terminals where my wandering, lovesick mind now races
and then, alone and naked in the cold
She let's go of her last dead leaf,
She sings one final sigh
Then, in frost and winter hibernation
cries one final cry,
Goodbye
And the eyeless faces tears will storm
For everything in life that lives, for now, in love, must die

Shadow Puppets

Shadow Puppets, Ray Scott

Well I’m out here a wondering away from my home
For a while, couldn’t stand it, had to be on my own
My thoughts are a million to my patience that is one
For now I’m a running, while my faster thoughts come
This cold, black night’s freezing my teary blue balladeer minds’ eye
while alleyway emptiness echoes and cries, I’m

gonna’ busk out my wounds on the corner tonight
Though the wind’s ripping my skin like a sharp, cold steel knife
But I’m gonna’ race against everything; staggering on worry stilts
on conveyers of ice, wounded spirit takes a spill, n’ then collapsed confidence shrills
And my frost bitten conscience is burning, it hears,
The winter winds wailing in the alleys of fear
Now I’m caught in the crosswalks; trying to turn a blind ear
With the woman in rags who now always reappears
I pretend to not notice her broken, out here;
Making hand puppet shadows in the streetlights
For a carriage that’s been empty for the last 15 years
I’m stepping out on everything that is still staying
Despite all my shouting, crying and craving
I’ll still greet good morning, good day and good evening
To all but the millions of moments I’m feeling
And I’ll gather with the masses of Hamilton helpless
And wait for my education to fix me a way
Out of this routing of revolving each day / routine
And freely feel whether I’m damned or I’m blessed
But it won’t be in a waiting room for three quarters of the day
Under the weather in one room I won’t stay
Receiving prescriptions, for pills I can’t take,
From one man who hasn’t time to even hear what I say
And I’ll storm to the streets, to the angry and hopeless
Who crawl confused through refuse and I’ll know, what,
They’re real
And I’ll holler on the phone and they’ll hang up on me / I call back
And they’ll place me on hold till they’ve gotten rid of me

And the ragged woman with her carriage and puppets
She’s nobody’s’ fool, she is always there; casting
For always there is some kind of due process election
And we’re all caught up in her crosswalk while eighteen wheelers roar, past them
Delivering her platform; she stands in city halls’ fountain
And waves her arms, prophetically, in public, splashing
Outside, in the cold, it’s a furry of ranting
It starts to snow, in a flurry, she’s apprehended while some homeless kid’s laughing
They’re foretelling the future but nobody’s listening

Well I can’t even remember now, when I just sat; sitting
Not rushing, wishing, craving, ya know?
But I’m buskin away
Need to constantly go
I can’t flow
I’m falling; I’m freezing, on the shufflers’ sidewalk of snow
With my shadow puppets
Out here on Queen and Main
Where the shadow puppets go

Singin' for Change / The Other Side of the Coin

Singin’ for Change / The Other Side of the Coin

Well I’m a’ singin’ for change

But I don’t know who I’m singin’ to

When I can’t make change for a strugglin’ man

With empty Starbucks cup in hand

We’re all a’ hollerin’ out for change

Wherever we live and whatever, whoever it’s for

While a’ chasin’ our G.Ps ‘cross Locke St.

For free advice to help us sleep

Into Madison Ave. from Goodness Me

Oh… Good Shepherds…

We’re all focused for change

While everything is so the same

While the guy with the cup roams through four lanes

With the Silver Chalice, on Queen n’ Main

He’s the guy with the cup

He’s beggin’ for change

Property manager’s across the lane

Oh Shepherd…

He’s the guy with the cup

He is singin’ for change

We’ve already drank from

It’s already stained

The guy with the cup on Queen n’ Main

We have already drank from, it’s already drained

Feed the hungry

House the homeless

Clothe the naked

Love the unloved

Feed the hungry

House the homeless

Clothe the naked

Love the loveless

He’s singin’ for Change.

The Property Manager is across the lane.

Factory

Factory - edit II:

We’re all living in a factory; we’re all living in a factory

Homeless Hungry Hobo, he’s a site to see

He’s a lotto ticket addict

A Rolly Rocket fanatic

Shopping for used groceries

He mumbles and stares at his muddy shoes

While the empty bottles in his plastic bag knock together

Like the cahiers’ knees while she asks him to leave

Wondering will he refuse/

He’s of no fixed address

N’he’s the number one suspect

Of arson at the Preece Family Refuge

On Barton Street

We’re all living in a factory

We’re all living in a factory

And I can taste it on my tongue

I can smell it in the Janu-air

As I run along the waterfront and chase the pyres and vapor trails

We’re all living in a factory

A long way from home

A long way from home

Motherless Children; You and me

A long way from home

‘Go into the mass’ve machine like unique scruffy tramps

‘Come out; carrying the brief case, dressed in fancy shirts,

Wearing universal bar code stamps

Graybeard The Trenchcoat Prophet

Graybeard the Trench coat Prophet

He carelessly strays through the dangerous lane
I hear nothing but the static fuzz of his chalk white eyes wane
He meanders, unfazed, like oblivion but sane
Waxing a sermon to the hunting shift-working game
Along Queen st. Between York and Main

He staggers and mumbles, then swaggers and stumbles
He pouts, then stares, fixes glares through me then he shouts
He's a broken down rolls Royce
Through a buzz of swarming vehicles, echoes his voice
Like empty lost sea shells
He writhes like a worm on a sewer well

He's graybeard the trench coat prophet
He's the foreshadowing fool of ol' Hammer town
He's graybeard the trench coat prophet
He never can be run down
Nobody will knock him down

He's hollering out like some poor ol’ sick fool
In the traffic at rush hour the message is tragic
Like wizardry, witchcraft, dark pantomime magic,
It's a dagger of the mind,
To be or not to be
We all drone on and pass it

He must've escaped from the mountain nut house
We say to our doubting, fearful, blanched, blank selves
While we anxiously spy through our rearview and steer
Toward each and every separately crammed wartime shithouse
While he disappears

He's graybeard the trench coat prophet
He's the fool who knows all in Hammer town
He's graybeard, the trench coat prophet
Nobody can knock him down
He never will be knocked down
Nobody will ever run him down!

Graybeard cries in the night

Graybeard roams in and then out of our lives

Sierras' Sorrow

Sierras’ Sorrow / It’s A Living

Tonight a young woman cries

But it's a living

It's Sierras' sorrow. The tears she can't hide

She deeper in debt with each hand on her thigh

Temptress in turmoil, seductress in shames' chains, enslaved

Enslaved

She feeds on his company, of limited value but she'll feed his sick need

She is barely alive; sustained by addiction

The bitter stench of sloth fills the room

But she somehow survives; undressing on stage

She crawls naked and so objectified

But she is proud in her show glitter

She wears

Apathy in her eyes, glazed

Her lost youth turns to ash in the tray

At the edge of the stage

Where she crawls, gathering change

Sierras’ life scattered on the floor;

A few loose lacy things and a couple of fancy high-heeled shoes

She counts all her money and leaves

Sucking on her pacifier

In a haze of body spray, beer, mist and smoking cigarettes

But she turns at the end of her set and whispers in his ear

Are you ready for your private dance yet Daddy?

Sugar Daddy

Self medicating Daddy.

Oh it’s a living

For the Devils’ gotta’ holda’ me, tearin’ a Hamilton Strip outta’ Barton Street

The Devil’s gotta’ hold on me, Private eyes, cross the Canal on me

The monsters can’t wait to maul me

Take their money, so seductively

Devils’ got his dick in me

Why won’t my daddy rescue me!

From Barbie dolls to Music-Vids

From playhouse to inner-city skids

A ballerina pole-dance princess slowly, deeply, sadly dies

Such sorrow in Sierras’ eyes

Such sorrow in Sierras’ eyes

Oh… such sorrow but it’s a living

Tonight Sierra’s so high

Wasting away

It is her compromise

She wanted so much

She needed the chance

Now it’s her circumstance, in the change room mirror, behind the D.J. booth, bare naked, alone without a home, she cries,

Survive! Survive! Survive!

But it’s a living, Sierra cries

The Gypsy Seductress

The Gypsy Seductress

There is an ashy, soft glow, sighing within her dazzling eyes

Behind her stone-gray wall, her gates and bridges; mystery’s’ princess cries

She’s a Gypsy Seductress, with Egyptian eyes

She is a sorceress and a firefly that mesmerizes, captivates, then hides

Just when you think you’ve finally found her book of spells

She whirls around you, holds you hypnotized

Gypsy Seductress a thief in the night

She’s an easy believer / deceive’ her, if you can never do her wrong

To be with her’s an effort, but don’t try to hard to love her, she’ll be moving on

Gypsy Seductress, strings you along

She wears a fools’ gold gown and silver; sparkling neath a crescent desert moon

If you stare too long, the violet sea will take her and you into its tomb

Around her neck, she wears ten thousand dried and emptied shattered shells

Her long, silk hair’s the colour of Egyptian sands; an alluring vale, she stares you in

But can you tell, to heaven or to hell?

Gypsy Seductress, she’s knows you all too well

If you stay too long inside her room of mirrors, the reflections will have won

Gypsy Seductress, She’ll eclipse you like the sun

Gypsy Seductress, wherever she came from

The News

The News –

I hear a blind artist screaming at the sun every time I listen to the news

I hear of hurricane winds ripping through the world every time I listen to the news

I see a thousand soldiers dying in the desert every time that I watch the news

I see some politicians hollering for early elections every time that I watch the news

I think of constant fear that’s planted in my mind every time, every which way that I read into the news

And I’m told of jobs all gone in suffering economies every time that I read the news

I hear a child cry while bathing in the rain every time I listen to the news

And I hear the warplanes tearing up the smoggy, blood red sky…..

And I hear the prophets gathering on the burning oil mines

And I hear the millions fighting o’er religion till they die

Tumbling towers falling to the ground, a nation cries

Several more will suffer from these quakes, they’ll drown, they’ll die

Every time my mind is on the news

Every time I read too much into the news

Each and every time my mind is pulled into the sexy, slutty, news

And I think the news’ viewers are all soon road-kill, frozen in their headlines,

On the street, confused and lonely, out of place and entranced at deer-crossings

Every time I listen to the news

It’s all about what monsters take and twist up in their minds

And mulch in their machines while ripping up the countryside

Every time I listen to the news

The reverend says respect your leaders every single time

That I tell him what was on the news

Earthly Moments -

…and the tides, that I used to feel in her breathing, on my chest, while she slept, beneath the white willow; waving ore our minds, while flashing lights of consciousness brought hope and wonder, for what seemed a million lifetimes, for an earthly instant, sparkling stardust slowly kept, but there held gravity in her heavy eyes and worry for the moment, dulling out the nebulae. Our stolen moments, pulled away into the dense doldrums of the heavy, human day.

Then, each gasp, each responsive sigh, rowing against the current, splitting, gradually strengthening, repelling. We were kept in two dimensions, different, distant, drifting.

The break, not only in our busy day, but of the shore, as waters crossed its’ sinking sands of time and of age and of these rolling changes to our lives, in that very thirty minute melancholy as the sails set back

…and the wind, so swiftly carried her away.

Now, she is but the meadowlark meandering in and out of stain glass twilight mosaics over somber swaying wheat fields and in whirling maple keys that rain on the monarch of my collective,

…my glass globe memory is in all Earthly seasons, swirling.