Santa Cruz

got to get myself to santa cruz wake up in the morning next to you telling you i finally have come through got to get myself to santa cruz • drive all night is the thing that i do to coffee on the stove, an orchard view a dog barks, i kiss you on the lips i have waited all my life for this

no stone left i haven’t turned, but one everyone falls in love, who does & i hear you say the bus is gonna come radio play surf & sun for everyone when i wake up, the pillow’s wet for you & santa cruz

i can’t tell you where my years have gone in a trailer in a dry wash, singing songs plane over the bay, fly to l.a. look down at the half-inch hills, and you • ride a bike up the empire grade, see red earth on a bulldozer blade, live our hopes on a slope into town that light as birds, our kids fly, feet on the ground

no stone left i haven't turned, but one everyone falls in love, who does & i hear you say the bus is gonna come radio play surf & sun for everyone --- surf & sun for everyone surf & sun for everyone peace & love & surf & sun sea & sky for everyone when i wake up, the pillow’s wet for you & santa cruz

Firelight

come carve our names, among all the lovers lit by the flames, in the big house in the cedars wide porch creaking, with chairs of wicker full of skirts & jeans, that’s where i hold you kissing cousins in the big pane window cedar living room, dark floor all scuffed by shoes huge hearth warms us, on the beat-up sofa spread with indian shawls, that’s where i kiss you later on, pull a shawl round your shoulders, take my hand

later on, kisses come to you someone upstairs bangs on a drum one dog farts, & the fire pops later on, the boys & girls crowd on this couch & burn for the furious mandolin strummer

come to the stream, running to the city & the generations are weeping we see them moving, as our shapes flicker on the dark walls, & we want to live & just let be

put your arms round me, let me travel up you in the land of firelight, gliding like a canoe flicker knowing, as the wind is blowing & in our eyes see me glow with you later, tell me as we lie skin to skin how to hold you, when you’re frail as a child how to hold you, in our corner when we’ve fallen to the place called you & i later on, pull a shawl round your shoulders, take my hand

later on, can we walk on the ridge see the fog ride the redwoods, look up the coast can we hold hands & feel it all live later on, the boys & girls crowd on this couch & burn for the furious mandolin strummer

Soledad

along the highway, soledad between here & forever a poplar tree in evening wind sways, leaves dancing with questions turning light, dark, this way, that asking in the tawny grass lay beside me, gold & red til the headlights go to sleep, in soledad

globe of glass, among the others shining, touched with gold & red among the dark evergreen branches in silver rivers of a girl’s hair you know how our faces swim there as they did when we were kids in the soft roundness of the light leaping, calling hey mom, dad, i’m soledad

hold me close in all our moments that vanish in a gust, come back in other breaths, other eyes, as you sway in the evening wind kiss me in showers of poplar leaves turning light, dark, this way, that asking where do we go from here as you rise & ache with yes’s of soledad

Whispers In Grass

whispers in grass are the voice of my seasons, here on the hillside the wind's in your hair. feel our heart beating as i give my reasons, kiss me and tell me that love's what you dare. • we're talking cool, the leaves sparkle with jewels, you call me a fool and you say i know who'll kiss me and tell me that love's what you dare

far down the hill in the lines of erosion, you lost your legs as a voice called you fair. now nervous you say i feel tossed on the ocean, kiss me and tell me that love's what you dare. • the wind's blowing fast and the sun-shadows pass, and i hear you call in the whispers in grass kiss me and tell me that love's what you dare

Spiderfly

I'm casting my nets very wide, but I only insist on a certain fly. If I tell you in my kitchen, I care for a spider, bleeds in her web for my cigarette lighter, do you think I just want to come inside her? I just might suck you and pump you with my genes, but I say Let's breed a spiderfly, think of what that means