Lyrics, poems, prose,
Sometimes, Heaven knows.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

The last word

You always had to get the last word in, didn’t you?
You have to prove yourself right because maybe you were wrong before, is that it?
You said you knew I loved you and you said you loved me and I knew it was the truth.
And we loved across the miles,
But you’ve got to admit, we loved best in each other’s arms.
Even though you said the distance wouldn’t matter with our love, based in the ethers as we are.
And I’ve got to admit, loves grows and glows in the ethers.
Your blue eyes always saved their sadness even when you proved your joy.
I loved you from the center of me. Why couldn’t that have been enough?
You said you were dying. 
I said we all are.  I accused you of focusing on death and avoiding life.
I said don’t talk about it. 
And the center of me dimmed a bit.
And what did you do?
You died.
You always had to get the last word in, didn’t you?
Did it have to be goodbye?









Saturday, January 28, 2012

The little girl who became a reflection

I saw a little girl, about my age carrying a basket by the house.  Inside the basket were several very large, round, brown onions.  I skipped along beside her for a while and she didn’t notice me.  I didn’t mind.  I ran barefoot back to the house through the new snow.  The frozen twigs on the trees on the sides of the house stung my cheeks.  I rounded the corner to the porch – the side of the house in the sun – and there was very little snow.

I climbed up the steps to the door.  The last step was missing and I studied the door, partially open.  The paint was peeling off in big flakes – yellow green on the outside and darker green on the underside.  Beneath the green layer was brown and grey.  It looked a bit like leaves on a tree in early autumn.  I climbed inside to the kitchen.

I said, “Mama, look!  I can see right through the floor in places.”

She said, “I don’t reckon you’ll fall through before your Pa gets back,” but she didn’t look at me when she said it.  She was looking at her broom.

The house had been alone too long.  Not alone, exactly, but without people.  The animals liked the holes in the floor and walls.  Little Man was living there when we arrived and he adopted us.  A giant of a dog, fiercely protective of us, but afraid to drink from a water bowl. Mama said he was crazy.

Pa carved things out of fallen trees and branches and he had a hand cart that he filled with them and pushed away to somewhere.  If we were lucky when he came back, he had flour and salt, clothes, and stuff Mama needed.  Today we were hoping for a blanket.


“Don’t put good carvin’ wood in the stove,” said Mama as I was thinking  about doing just that.  Not that it made a lot of difference with all the holes in the house, but it sure would have been nice to warm my wet feet.

When Pa got back it was near dark.  He had lots of treasures including three blankets!  One was just for me.  As I was going to sleep I heard Mama say something about us maybe getting squatting rights, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. She was crying.  I wished she would just stop.

Time was funny then.  It seemed by morning the house was healed a bit.  There weren’t holes in the floor anymore, though it still sloped.  And the door was different.  The big leafy flakes had been smoothed off, but it was ok.  I could still see bits of all the colors. They were just blended smoothly now.

I figured out how to shimmy up the tall tree by the pond.  I’d sort of reach around it, like I was hugging it up as high as I could, pull myself up, then sort of grab with my feet up high as I could and kept pulling and pushing myself up that way until I reached the only fork in the tree.  I don’t know what sort of tree this was.  He was tall, only about eight inches across, and only the one fork and it was far up.  I guess it had to grow like that, sort of squeezing in among the shadows of bigger trees so as to get its share of sunlight.  Clever tree. 

I loved shimmying up that tree for three reasons.  One, I figured out how to do it all by myself, which is usually the way I figured things out, but this was the best one.  Two, when I was up there no one saw me.  It wasn’t because they couldn’t see me, it’s just that people – most people – forget to look up.  I reckon most people go around seeing only a little part of what’s there because they forget to look up and they forget to get right down on the ground and look down.  Little Man and I are the exceptions.  We both look up so often we trip over things and then we end up looking at the ground real close up. Ha!  I could hear all sorts of conversations that weren’t meant for me when I was up there.  Not just Mama and Pa, but birds and squirrels, too.  And three, I just loved the trust we had, that tree and me.  Once I got to the fork, I’d sort of weave myself with the two branches, and then I could just be still.  The wind would move the tree slowly back and forth like I think most Mamas rock their babies.  The tree’s smooth bark covered such hard wood.  It was a strong, gentle tree and it held me quietly and safely and Little Man took naps at his base.  I was so safe.

Oh, and there’s a number four, too.  From up the tree I could see very far away.  I could see houses that weren’t there when I was on the ground.  Sometimes I could see people that went with the houses, not that far from us, I could hear them sometimes, too, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  Just pieces of voices the wind brought.  And I wondered about why I couldn’t see them or hear them when I was on the ground.  But somehow, when I got back to the ground I clean forgot about that.

I loved the trees.  Especially that one.  But I loved the smooth rocks, too.  There was one by the pond and even when it was still cold, it would let the sun warm it up and I could feel the sunshine if I put my cheek against it. 

Like I said, time was funny there once when I was soaking up bits of winter sunshine from the rock, I opened my eyes and relized that it was spring and it was warm.  I could see right down into the pond.  Lily pads floated on the top and reflected down and up again and when I just let my eyes go and do what they wanted I couldn’t tell how many lily pads I was looking at.   And way down, down in the water was something shiny. Like metal.  I couldn’t tell how deep the pond was because of all the reflecting going on.

The tree became two trees, maybe more.  One growing out of the ground I stood on and a sort of wavy one growing out of the ground on the bottom of the pond.  The sky was upside down in the pond.  I even checked that out from way up the tree, and I could see another me way down, down the pond.  Down in the upside down wavy tree. 

I wanted to go check that out.  It was fine just playing with the trees and the rocks and Little Man, but what fun it would be to have another me to play with.  And there was nothing but I was going to find out what that shiny thing was.  So I just shimmied down the tree.  I took off my clothes and my shoes and I left them right at the base of my tree and I told Little Man not to go running off with them, but I reckon he did. 

I went down, down into the water.  I had to remind myself to open my eyes because I wanted to see this other wavy world.  I kept going down and I was holding my breath, so I reminded myself to breathe.  I gasped in a huge breath of wavy world air. At first it was hard to breathe it, but then got the hang of it, just like shimmying up the tree. And I sort of broke through something like the very thinnest plate of ice, so thin I hardly noticed it, but I knew I’d broken through because things were no longer wavy.  I looked up and saw the wavy world was now where I’d just come from.  Funny, huh?

I say, I reckon Little Man took my dress up to the house and gave it to Mama, cause I saw her up there holding my dress and crying hard.  And Little Man was all wet and barking and splashing in and out of the water.  But he wasn’t barking loud.  I could barely hear him.  I really wish she’d stop crying.

And then time seemed to skip around again like it does there.  I’d shimmied all the way to the fork in the tree and watched them.  The blanket that was just for me was all wrapped around the wavy me in the world that used to be the not wavy place.  But I didn’t mind.  And Little Man was sort of crying, too, the way crazy ol’ hound dogs cry, and Pa had dug a big hole right at the base of the wavy tree.

I really do wish they’d stop crying.  They need to remember to look up and look down.  Then they’d know it’s all perfect.  Then maybe they’d see the shiny thing, too.

copyright 2012
Fay Campbell



Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Carolina Moon

Sweet Carolina moon poised
just so.  By morning
star dew overflows to Earth.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

As Gone As I Can Be

You said you'd always love me
Until the day you die
And I would always answer
With an oh-so-solemn sigh

You said you'd always need me
Without me you'd be blue
You said I really send you
And I said you send me, too.

    You send me, Baby
    And I'm just as gone as I can be
    You really send me
    I'm just as gone as I can be.

Then just last night you called me
And said you must be true
You said you'd found an other
And you worried what I'd do.

Well, yes, it's true I wanted you
And we had lots of fun
But I guess that I should tell you now
You weren't the only one

    Don't worry, Baby,
    I'm as gone as I can be
    Don't worry 'bout me,
    I'm just as gone as I can be

You said there is no fury
Like a woman scorned
Or maybe you should worry
That I do no more than mourn

I ain't chasin', I ain't cryin',
I won't sit around and whine,
Cause when it comes to missing you
I haven't got the time.

    Don't tell me goodbye,
    I'm just as gone as I can be
    No time for so-long
    I'm just as gone as I can be.
   


copyright, 2011
Fay Campbell

I know, I know

I know, I know
But, even so
You don't have to say it again,
Just let it go.

Ah, you and I
We come and we go
That's how it's always been
I know, I know

I held you in my heart
I held you in my soul
Til theres nothing left of me to hold to
No place left to go.

You say you can't hold me now
Though I just need to feel
I know it's over now
And I'm keeping it real

You say you've found someone
With guidance from above
Well, what does that make me, my friend
What does that make our love.

(ha) I know, I know.


copyright, 2011
Fay Campbell

Sax Man

No one ever told me there'd be men like you
I never read a book that told me what to do
When the music from the saxaphone
Won't leave your melting heart alone
And cuts from fifty jagged words are healed with only two,
For you.

Play me something, Sax Man, play me something sweet.
Surrounded by the sound I feel almost complete
I just let go, let too much show
I know, I know, I know you know
So play it low.

Do it to me Sax Man, play me one more time
Let this mouth of mine now be your reed.
Do it to me Sax Man, play me smooth and slow
I promise you that I'll be every key you need

Is it the brass or my skin your skilled fingers bless?
Is it the music or your breath I feel my neck caress?
Help me, Man, I'm falling, and I can't find the floor.
Your music - our music keeps me wanting more.

No one ever told me there were men like you.
But now I could write a book about just what to do
When the music from the saxaphone
Won't leave my melting heart alone
And cuts from fifty jagged words are healed with only two,
For you,
For you.



copyright, 2011
Fay Campbell

Freight Train

He spread his coat on the gravel pile,
Not comfortable, but the boy had style
And all the while,
Just feet away,
Roared a freight train.
It was a long, slow train.
And afterard though pouring rain
We ran to his house along the tracks,
And made love again,
And again,
For no other reason than because we could.

As light and inconsequential it seemed from the start
I must admit he broke my heart
Probably for no other reason than because he could.