Lyrics from “Golden Slumbers” by Paul McCartney and John Lennon
I love when my lyric
slips into your thoughts,
when I float from your lips
for hours. Once there was a way
to get back homeward.
Sometimes I even believe
my own lines.
Once there was a way
to get back home.
Sometimes when you sing me,
I have faith in home.
Please pretty darling do not cry.
And yet you do cry
and make me want to forget
I am a song about longing,
a song of loss.
I want to be the song of finding,
song of arriving together,
song of coming home.
I want to be the song
that lies down to sleep
beside your heart each night.
I will sing a lullaby.
I want to be the song
that that makes you breakfast.
The song that dances with you
in the living room.
The song that always stays.
Posts Tagged ‘longing’
The Song Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, longing, loss, love, song on March 4, 2021| 4 Comments »
Out of Reach
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged craving, fruit, longing, poem, poetry, wanting on January 13, 2020| 2 Comments »
The crystal vase on the top shelf,
the one that holds two dozen roses.
The Hallelujah Chorus’s high A.
The perfect word that flutters away.
The name of the man walking toward you.
The card that slips between the seats.
The itch on your back. The dream upon waking.
World peace. Inner peace. Any peace.
In the kitchen, a persimmon
with its stubborn glossy skin. A knife
with its shrewd steel edge. Oh this art
of choosing to want what’s in hand—
sweet honeyed flesh, yielding and soft.
Oh this craving for blood oranges, tart and red.
More Intimately
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged erik satie, gnossienne 2, longing, poem, poetry, touch on August 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »
from Erik Satie’s Gnossienne 2
like an almost breeze
like sunshine slanting through
afternoon clouds—
touch me like that
like the rain I’m not sure is there
One Trick
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, bird, longing, poem, poetry, tanager on January 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Parched Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry on February 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Always Arriving,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, train on December 7, 2016| 1 Comment »
the train
just around
the long curve,
with its cars full
of velvet-lined songs
and sparkling tomorrows.
I stand at the edge of the rails
my good arm always already raised
and waving, afraid that when the train
finally arrives, the conductor will smile and
wave back as the train trundles merrily
along the track, afraid he’ll mistake
my gesture for a greeting, not
seeing I’m trying to wave
the engine down. I have
songs in my pockets. I
learn the joy of
spending them
on the curve.
In the Last Flush of Summer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, memory, poem, poetry, rose on September 1, 2015| 1 Comment »
oh but I swear
it smelled so sweet today,
that rose bush
we didn’t plant together
all those years ago
Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, sonnet, wishing on April 19, 2015| 1 Comment »
I’m tired of wishing longing’s hold would soften,
tired, I’m tired of wishing I could steer.
Though what’s the use in steering when so often
after steering wishward, I’m still here,
yes, here again, same face, same empty pocket,
same despair. But not hysterical—
too tired to rail. Exhaustion’s tourniquet
is good for that, at least. No oracle
worth reading here. They never forecast what
I wish to see. No shaman, no, no priest
worth heeding. They just tell me I should cut
my wishing, and that’s never helped the least.
Of course I wish to shelf these wishes, shelf
the shelf. But everywhere I turn, myself.
This sonnet was inspired by an exercise I did yesterday on the plane on the way home … I saw my good friend Karen Glenn had suggested in her weekly poem email that we might want to write a sonnet with 14 line end words that she gave us … so I did!
You might want to do the same thing … just take the last words off each line and write your way into them. She had a poem about aging vampires … and mine turned out in another voice, too … funny to see what happens when certain words are given to you …
On a Night When You Feel Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apricot, longing, poem, poetry, possibility on March 28, 2015| 2 Comments »
I would like to find you
in the shade of an apricot tree
with rounded white petals
caught in your hair
and the hypnotic humming
of bees in our ears,
and we would lie there
draped in the scent
of warm sage and sweet bloom
and stare up at the blue
through the flowering limbs
and forget who we are
for just long enough, perhaps,
that anything could happen.
Three Recklessnesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, recklessness on March 22, 2015| 2 Comments »
these crazy thoughts
cross the center line, play chicken
with all other thoughts
*
in the sun glazed pond
not one sandhill crane—
the beauty of wanting
*
just when the bonfire
is too big to control—
throwing in another stick