Mine Alone WALTZ

Collected songs & poems

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Hopingly

The doctors all agree,
Great expectations will spell the death of me.

Japanese poets delicately pronounce:
To be free,
Dreams of precision
One must renounce.

Oh pitiful, reckless, endangered me.
Always and still
Siding with Woody Guthrie.

A ‘hoping machine’ is all this human
Will ever be.

Miss Selfridge

Top Shop, Calypso, Le Chateau.
Oh the places a lonely girl can go.
Finding fineries that suit the day.
Passing time the frivolous way.

Try another me on for size.
Sport an alluring feminine guise.

Underneath the clothes,
I’m wise.

Miss Selfridge will soon pass away.
Petty distractions keep the soul at bay.

Little Bird

Little bird
Broken sparrow
She’s a North Country girl.
Eat the flowers
If you dare her
She likes diamonds, pretty paper,
Not pearls.

Been high lonesome so long now
Where the dreaming is fine.
Field of poppies, watching old joy
Lost in the movies most of the time.

This poor fool-sage
A strange poke-tickler
So many things she doesn’t yet know.
Words like mirepois and capricious,
How to sing or doe-see-doe.

Shelves of books,
A thousand lessons
Can’t supply her.

Love don’t enter through the mind.

Little bird
Out of place
Forever longing
Talks with her hands,
Life’s so unkind.

Soon late August
Indian Summer
Love come find her.
Little bird
This broken sparrow on the mend.

A tiny gesture
From the island doctor
And they’ll Roman Holiday at Howard’s End.

Vein

There’s a vein
In a tree
Inside my brain
And it’s growing
Increasingly
Insane.

Russian Samovar

 
Baby Shambles and Brooklyn Heights
I’m drowning fears, you’re driving fast,
Neon pepsi-cola sign, city lights.
The little tramp and his blind flower girl –
A little less lonely, little less lonely
Here tonight.

Got lost in Munich
Melted ice-cream bars in the picture show.
My thoughts to you that warm Manhattan night.

No hello kisses, no arms held tight.
Just this unsung kindness
On pretty paper,
Vintage carols
And we both know our love’s not right.

Long before the Russian Samovar
I hung your picture on my wall.
A family album in polaroid:
Exquisite headdress and cherished ones
So soon to fall.

The great charade
Do you remember?
Your JFK
Taking silver bullets,
Fall on your knees.
A flash of madness,
Fine Dallas drama.
Not a word spoken:
My heart’s affections won that way.

Another year on,
No Christmas tattoos,
No kids in the frey.
Us both moving on,
We’ve too much history in the way.

Washing dishes,
But not too close.
Let’s play the game,
Make-believe
The feeling’s gone away.

Baby Shambles and Brooklyn Heights
I’m drowning fears, you’re driving fast,
Neon pepsi-cola sign, city lights.
The little tramp and his blind flower girl -
A little less lonely, little less lonely
Here tonight.

No Violins Today

There’s no violins today,
No violins today
Today.

Matty’s all alone.
Got the birthday blues.
A broken bone.
It’s all bad news.

Just another grevious victim of the E & A.

There’s no violins today,
No violins today
Today.

No hide-and-go seek.
No kick-the-can.
Potatoe & ghost,
How fast she ran.

Oh all the sporting games children play.

There’s no violins today,
No Violins today
Today.

School’s out.
Her friends, they just can’t stay.
Matty’s home alone.
With a broken bone.
The music’s gone away.

There’s no violins today,
No violins today
Today.

Scandinavian Sad

She’s the girl who likes foxes
Wicked, strange and curious things.
In crayon, she draws giraffes gone mad,
Animal eyes that strangle
And sing.

We perform night duets in her bed
And she laughs at me till I’m red.
This girl who likes foxes
Lives mainly in her head.

She’s fiercely alone and insanely bright.
Kills at soccer, plays charades
Wins an alley cat fight.

Reads her books 10 times
Over dinner and under glow
Of twinkling light.

To her heart I can’t say
What makes a happy day
But she once held my hand
In a fish & chips land
And for that I am glad.

Just like Toffle finding Miffle –
A little less Scandinavian sad.

Beautiful Joe


Hey hey beautiful Joe
I got a secret
You oughtta know

I see the wolves at your feet
Think at scrabble you cheat
Feel the fire in your hair,
It’s true O’Flanagan flare

You live on strawberry jam
Oh how smitten I am
You’re the boy who climbs walls,
Taking wilderness falls

You sleep with black cat in bed
Fight lightning storms in your head
And each morning you wake,
It’s my heart that you break

Hey hey beautiful Joe
I got a secret
You oughtta know

You put this song in my heart
Make electricity start

We found a hyacinth tree

Remember -

Now who is missing you, is me

Henry’s Song

Henry, Oh Henry
You’re not a chocolate bar
You like worms and puddles,
That’s just the kind of little boy you are

There’s a cloud
Lives in your room
But it’s funny and sweet

Oh dear Henry
This song’s silly
But sincerely, my heart tells me
You’re really quite neat