Often…

Often, I find myself alive

Awake in the early hours

Unknown to name, morning or night

Often, I ask, “WHAT?”

Over and over.

While people ask me, “Who do I love?”

Often, do I sigh and often

Do I hesitate to say

Where I am and who I’ve been

Often, the mundane

Leaves one ashamed and alone

Nothing left to offer, but off and insane

Often, often, often…

-LS

A divorce of sorts.

I DON’T WANT A YARD SIGN.

I want my freedom.

Freedom from this land.

A divorce of sorts.

I DON’T WANT TO WEAR YOUR NAME.

Or anyone’s name in this town.

When it’s all salt and fairweathered.

A discord well worn and known at twenty four.

-LS

hoarding

Hoarding, unhoarding

An archaeologist

Unearthing modern debris

From years of existence

The insignificant and telling souvenirs

Endearingly became home;

Yet in a suitcase, there’s a road of heartache,

A burden to carry, a burden to shed

While one goes back to digging

-LS

Only God forgives

Only God forgives

Well, I hope He forgives you

For being a drunken fool

For being an animal

With all those aunts I never knew

And being likened to an ant,

A diminished nothing

Not a hint of moral

Not a single trait of a man

Or wisdom

To the ones who should love you

And I can’t say I’m a saint

And I can’t say, “I love you.”

But I hope I can forgive

Like the God I hope

Forgives me

-LS

Miss California

standing there, blazin’ in shades

a subtle orange from submersing

in all kinds of plastic baked LA

salmon scrubs and grey sterile gloves

smoking on a cigarette

Miss California is out for the day

she isn’t really there

but fading

to up and away…

-LS

The ghost of Queenie Joan

The ghost of Queenie Joan

Whistled to me, in the west, unexpectedly

In a second hand storeroom, as the second hand turned south

I took a hint at the signs, listening

Listening to the engines, for a second chance, another second life

To rise from the vintage dust, a phoenix

From 1961, New York to Tennessee to California

Living on the road, Elvis, Bobby, Chubby and The Everly Brothers

Queenie Joan closed her eyes, whisky and a cigarette in hand

How the smoke seemed to hold her glory days

She turned to me, with the faint of a smile

And said, “Never leave, never leave.

For this dark red is a true of a saint through the black and blues.”

Distilled in me, her stories worn weathered and well

Left me strumming, strumming to a song

Inherited and borrowed from

The ghost of Queenie Joan

-LS

There is no magic.

There is no magic

Disenchanted, she seems

At the clockwork, the framework

Pulling at her sleeves

Ambitions lost

By those meticulous, ridiculous, ridiculing

Critical drunkards

That dared not, did not

Covering envy with lies

But they’re cowards

Casting spells

For all to believe

There is no magic.

-LS

sunflowers and dandelions

sunflowers and dandelions

by the bushel

along the highway

nothing but a country

dressed in sunshine

driving with no destination

wild in open spaces

wild as the sunflowers and dandelions

and the hummingbirds

with a darling

honey

harvesting light

and we’re home

-LS