Satin Shoes

She was the girl with two flat feet
Walking East without the streets
Her feet bent in from satin shoes
On stages where she paid her dues

Ribbons tied on neck and hair
Sunlight left to make her pale
Fragile limbs and finger tips
Could not scratch her fragile itch

But lovely down and lovely up
Lovely porcelain starving luck
Lovely legs to watch to bend
Picking up the scraps they’d send

And why do people cry when they’re sitting all alone
Missing their mama cuz she never came home
Why do people cry when they’re lying in bed
Laughing so hard to the music in their head
It’s telling them to go--telling them to flee
But momma’s car is parked out back
and parking lots are rarely free

She was the girl with two flat feet
Mending up with torn white sheets
the toes that bent into her shoes
The flatness of her inner bruise

Papa had stayed at home from war
They day they’d seen aside from poor
He couldn’t walk a mile straight,
his feet a turning mess he made

But daughter took her turning fate
And walked into the turning streets
Bracing through the pain of it
The pain of tired brittle feet

So why do people cry when they’re sitting all alone
Hear the phone as it rings
pretending no one’s ever home
If you pretend that you’re not there, a falling tree
without a noise
Listen hard and you can hear
the sound of your own crying voice

Why do people cry when they’re lying in bed
Laughing so hard to the music in their head
Why do people cry when they’re sitting all alone
Missing their mama cuz she never came home
Pick up the phone that rings again and again
Listen to her voice as she says Amen
Girl you have to go you have to take my car
And girl you have to go very very far

Marina's Song

A song written for a dear friend:


She said my friend, I know a girl, who's got a love like this
Of different faiths, and different minds, but with one heart of bliss
They cry at night, under lock doors, of separate houses where
They write the letters of their soul and all that they can share

I said my friend I think I've heard that one a time before
It was a story legend's width of distant seas and shores
I heard my mother share it with me night coming on fast
Recall her trembling lips as she'd quickly laugh


Her song went something like this
A love without a kiss
It shook our breath's and made us smile
At least for a small while


My mother's rock of arm's tight hold
She'd try to smile there
As she taught me that some pure loves
Are not a part of life's hard fare


But baby love you to know
That every life can't have
A love that is with passion
A love that is grand

Some loves are simple like
The universe has done
They tie a boy and girl together
Or a mother to her son


My mama took me by my fingers in her palm
And kissed me on the forehead
Whispering of the dawn

The universe looked up
And saw the smiling girl
And hoped to her that she would see
Something more than what couldn't be

With boy and girl in locked house each
The universe would have some peace
That dawn would still come on
Somehow some day
in mother or friend's song

Or a girl's soft hands
Can find her dearest friend
And hold on there with all her love
Along until the end