searching for you in paradise

Swallowed up in a sort of blindness

Collapsing landscapes all around me

No going back through the flames

Premonitions of the times to come

Searching amongst the rubble

Came upon the place we spent our time

How can station identification follow?

How out of place were the commercials now?

A new sort of normal

Unaccustomed to the turning of the wheel

Sat beside a hidden place we once knew

Mind staggered in the apparent loss

Somehow you survived, but barely

What was allowed to go on

Remnants of a different time

This off the grid living bears her own coils

Didn’t expect to see you here in this sacred place

It should have been me, but we both know how love goes

Drifting to far off places, to escape this wrath

Followed by clouds that seem to know my name

A hand is shaking through the rubble

Which stories do we choose to believe

and are those stories even worth believing in?

Disappearances

Woodland creatures came down from the hills in search of food

Nobody around for miles

Not safe any longer to go outside

Moving and spreading across swaths of land

Leaving a kind of trail of destruction in her wake

And where were you my love when the flames closed in?

Couldn’t get a sound on the wireless

Haven’t been able to raise a sound

A sort of pathway carved out of tears

Home just a concept now

Cracks begin to show and widen

Devastation in paradise

Angels left weeping

Birds without a nest to arrive at

Witnessing the end of creation, and the beginning of destruction

The sun dares not to show his face

To this sad favor we’ve come

Watching from across dead oceans

The simple things take on a kind of significance

Coming back apparently wasn’t an option

Was told to stay out and you had to take your chances

Will not these times always bring tears in future days?

A sort of judgment handed down, but those guilty didn’t do the time

We sit and watch the playback in stunned silence

Words seem trivial and pointless

And where were you my love when ruin came?

I hope you weren’t alone when the fateful hour arrived

But who knows why the will of the gods are so hard to surmise

Tossed and turned by the roadside as the human traffic kept it’s pace

On the run from annihilation, with so much at stake

Couldn’t stop for tears, had to keep running in the darkness

Toxic blooms that fill my lungs, a stinging sorrow that melts my eyes

Whether or not we meet again seems irrelevant at this time

Saw you in the arms of another who could not love you half as well

Savored the irony of it all and put my foot to the floor

Went on into the grey dawn alone,

knowing not where i’d be by dawn

Once was a room we knew each other, now housed by strangers

The veil draws around your face, the wall closes up

Words said only to you become like the grave

If my aim was straight and my will was true

Couldn’t speak through the downed lines

Forgive me my love, my folly was our undoing

Knowing this terrible moment would have to pass

Does the pain dull with time?

Or is it a constant?

Too much devastation to take in,

it weighs me down like lead

In a clearing came a faun

What remained from the night before is just an illusion now.

My hands curl up in repose, the song stolen

Found in a bathtub, discovered by a slow running crick

What could be put right

Had to leave in a hurry

By fire or flood, gutted and bled

What a place it must’ve been

In another universe you must exist

As you lie down to sleep one last time

Gaze up at the stars and the light they throw

Before today anonymous, but now everyone your name seems to know

What forces are at work and what remains to be seen?

Know that if i close my eyes, they may not open again

As we drew closer to the city center,

we felt further away from home that we’ve ever felt inside

Found myself searching for you in paradise