This is How I Discovered Gold (wh burdine)

75 years or more of tradition lay on my back porch. So I let it down and moved out West to make it big in the stock market.
Ashes and their cigarettes crumble like our emotions get torn out from their shallow graves, but I had told them that "I would be brave."
When I drove back East, I felt my dreams ripping apart at the seams. At the ocean's feet, I was feeling old, carrying my weight in gold.
Until someone spoke that they had, "discovered gold at the center of the human heart!" The last thing we said was the last thing we did, "How much for a human heart?"
When the sun lit on your washed out face, I thought some charming words would be out of place. And so I fell in love on a river bed and finally found a place to lay my head.

Surrender (wh burdine)

When I surrender, let it be forever, let me wash my eyes, put my hands over my eyes.
When I surrender with my white flag high, as the bullets fly by, my fingers over my eyes.
Take me.
What's this mess I'm living in that circles all around. It's not you, it's me, it's this whole damned thing.
And now I'll drop my arms to the ground. So take me.

A Sense of Duty (wh burdine)

I touched my forehead to feel the ash there, undid my jacket to feel the Spring air. The flowers opened their seed into the wind, but at that moment, the bombs were flowing. And like rain touched the ground, the earth opened it's mouth and drank water, the acid drops, the relief will never come.
The earth kept spinning in 3/4 time, but I felt out of place dancing while others died. So I went out and bought a gun from the Big K and tried to do my part to keep evil away. It felt easy with fences there to keep evil out and goodness in, so I shot rabbits to waste the day, await the news of victory.
War. War. War.
The bomb drops, the gun shots, will not make the killings stop. So I declare, "A Death to War! and guns and bombs will be no more." Maybe our prayers will be real by then.

A Postcard from John Lennon (wh burdine)

I wrote first from Havana on the back of a postcard that quoted the good John Lennon, "War is Over!"
I bought a gun for the cause and I sent word to my mother, "I'm off to find my future in the belly of another." Tell my mother that "John-boy was right."
I joined the revolution with a Bible in my hands, I shot the first word and killed off the band.
From the middle of the rhetoric, my stomach turned to stone, my fingers lost all feeling and my lungs let out a groan, "Tell my mother that Johnny was right."
When I shot him on the sidwalk, he whispered in my ears, "if you want it," is what he told me and the future disappeared.
When my brother sent a letter to my father across the sea, I was dead. By then, it was only them and me.

Drawing on the Walls (wh burdine)

You were patient there. I sat across from you with pages in our ears, but nothing filled the room. I, in the studio chair, you, drawing on the wall, it's three AM our last night and I can't speak at all.
You say, "It's always better if you don't say a thing." You always said you'd, "not say goodbye" but I'm just waiting for hello again.
The charcoal from your pages spread to your face and hair. My camera and my journal. You seem like without any cares, but we both shook all over in anxiety and fear. You find yourself emotion and speak into my ears.

Can't Help Falling in Love (Peretti, Creatore, Luigi)

Wise men say, "Only fools rush in," but I can't help falling in love with you. Shall I stay? Would it be a sin? For I can't help falling in love with you.
As the river flows gently to the sea, darling so we go, some things are meant to be.
Take my hand. Take my whole life too, for I can't help falling in love with you.

First Loves (wh burdine)

We were 16 and all that came with it. I opened you like a well-wrapped Christmas present. You touched your head to feel the blood flow down. The moon shone out in an unmistakeable frown. An empty hand, four pills of aspirin, two guilt struck eyes and a sense of accomplishment.

In the End, pts. I-IV (wh burdine)

Stretch out your back's skin tight against the rough night's bark. And hope is the scratch between the pain and the peace we need.
Open your lips again and rumble a rapture song to usher the coming day. The dawn is a call to arms.

I Will: settle down and think little thoughts.
find a wife and be better off.
use my voice, but never too loud.
save the world and make you all proud.
I Will Not:
be known or recognized.
make waves to cover my eyes.
sing songs to bring down a house.
write words to cover the sound.
I Will:
write you a song for when you come home.
sing you the words when we are alone.
live my life, all simple, a mess. Just open your lips and whisper a "yes."

This could almost be the most beautiful thing, but we may never be what we had hoped to be.

And in the end all the pain will become something sublime and the restlessness, will become something beautiful.

Ash Wednesday (wh burdine)

A blue Star of David hung over your doorway, you washed it and covered and hung from the doorframe.
The ash on her forehead you taste as you kiss it. She smiles with the solem discovery of incense.
She crosses and blesses a figure in passing. You smile and you kiss her, attempting to fasten your memory is fading, you're scratching to hold on, but ash still tastes heavy, it weighing on your tongue.

Come Home (wh burdine)

"I've made up my mind to tell you a lie, because it saves us the time of breaking each other's hearts. So I'm killing this thing before it starts."
That was easy to say with you still away. But I meant it when I said that, "you'd be the end of me, the way you hang your head like a leaf.
"Come home and we won't feel alone."
"It's a standing joke I have with myself that I don't miss you, but it's the farthest thing from the truth. But it warms the air, while I wait for you.
"Come home and we won't feel alone."