heard what they say   about loving and losing, but
tastes like whiskey  on it's way back up to me
and once your lips are wet from kisses or drink you never get rid of the thirst

searched so hard for excuses  but i'll keep my lips sealed next time
truth is that i'm just too afraid to touch
hearts  glass  and questions that i couldn't ask

and true love  it swings like a hammer
back and forth til it kills all your dreams
but they never were that great to begin with
and it drives you back home again

my hands  are dangerous things  callous and strong
they hold on way too long  but can't get a grip on my tongue
when all the dumb  words that i've got  up and run away

if losing is better than never  ever loving at all
then this much is true  when i ran from you  i really earned that fall
but even strong hands  can't pick themselves up off the floor

and true love  it swings like a hammer
back and forth til it kills all your dreams
but they never were that great to begin with
and it drives you back home again

sample work from mm-cc, a community creation project i do stuff with. more info, samples, and etc at mm-cc.org

my teeth run red from indefinitely being set on edge
stained with sunday blood and scarred from biting my tongue
to keep from telling myself what i already know
and to know that no matter what i say
no matter how loud i can sing i can't compete
with the ringing inside your head

so if that's the case i'm sorry dear
but i refuse to use my indoor voice any longer
until the blood drains from my skin
and i'm blue in the face from all the
shaking yelling never understanding boundaries
of time or grace or reasonable amounts of patience

when you've got the whole world in your hands
and i've got no feeling in my fingertips
gone numb from trying to reach across
the distance between whatever it is
suffocating that little light inside of you
and where i used to stand and wait

so if there's a break in your ringing
and my shaking stops or my singing makes it across
remember i meant it
every word

as dust on the scales as grass of the field
so are our days with the serpent on our heels
the reed is bruised the sky is cracked
you wear your pain as a veil of black

proverbs of ashes smear you with lies
the one who changed your name has touched your side.
fortune and favor you have not known
what is the vine, you have not grown?

 i will not sing songs when you're heavy
 i will not speak words to make it clear
 i will stay with you and all that you carry
 i would trade my love for all your fears.

if i speak or refrain you may not be changed
for your deliverance your days are arranged
to the roots of the mountains you sink down
hurled into the deep, spit onto the ground

severe mercy is your one great hope
it is well, it will be well with your soul

 i will not sing songs
 i will not speak words
 i will stay with you and all that you carry,
 i will trade my love... for all your fears

you learn, my god do you learn!
from this the most brutal of teachers
that all of our backs are bent
from the weight of all our affections
spilled and spent just to fill our burdens
with all these little lies that
never did any harm until we began to believe

and ain't it heavy
to hold up your own head

so put your hand to the plow
and score your crooked rows into the earth
crack apart the stony ground
'til bone and sinew stretch and ache at
every expectation frustrated
and every weed choked seed that you have sown
fills you up with failure

and ain't it hard
to beat your own heart

so stand,
stand and face the sun
til it burns your blistered skin
and breaks away your burden
wreck, wreck your wretched heart
wreck all apart your broken heart
stand straight and face the sun again

then broken bodies groan, and graves
split open when breath breathed into ashes
breaks all the slumbering children
free from death and dust
and seeds sown sprout and
stretch their fragile limbs in praise
burdens break and roll away
like stones from tombs at break of day!

and ain't it something
to die to live

and ain't it something
how you were never alive until you began to die

i can smell the japanese magnolia flowers from here
but i cannot see you

oh how i love you

you are goliath and i
i only have these small stones
i looked in the water
and there were many stones
large and strong ones
that could surely bring you down to me
but i could not carry them back to you
because i am small and you
you are far away
and they would have driven me into the ground

so i chose the small stones
because they were worn down and small like me
so i knew they would fly true to you
and i could carry them

the japanese magnolia blossoms have fallen
they became too beautiful for their branches to bear
the weight of their own sweetness made them fall
so they are replaced
by the softer shoots of spring leaves
that stay tied to twigs because
they are too fragile to let go

and you, and i, and goliath, and these stones
are felled and made true
because we are weak
replaced by something that can bear us

i cannot smell the japanese magnolias anymore
but i can see you

oh how i love you

some photographs. been shooting a lot of 800 speed film in my canon ae-1.