Candles

The candles lined four throw light on the desk
As incense burns slowly, jasmine its smell
Smoke rises soft to the top of the room
Curls at the ceiling while outside the moon
Plays hammer and sickle with night’s desires
Cuts off the bravado and beats down pride
While I think with pen at desk in my room
That it’s moving shoreline and moving you
How do you answer the call in your bone?
How do you answer the call in your blood?
Same guilty feeling, new man in your bed
By your mother’s hand you’ve always been led
She’s an angel, you say, sent from above
Who left your father when push came to shove
And you, dear darling, went back to him when
The cells wreaked their havoc in his seeds' den
Beyond blood duty given what he’d done
Now the man in your bed thinks that he’s won
How do you answer the call in your bone?
How do you answer the call in your blood?
To the branch of an elm a blackbird flies
Stands in the shadows of summer’s disguise
And picks at a twig broken on the branch
Till held in its beak is wood for the ranch
For shelter, for warmth, for bone and for blood
It’s just one more day with work to be done
At nine in the morning coffee’s just made
From the branch of the elm bird flies away
How do you answer the call in your bone?
How do you answer the call in your blood?
The years pass me by and I pass them too
A new cast plays out what the old went through
Curly-haired waitress who just brought me beer
Sunlit girl dancing without care or fear
Stooped brown-haired beggar working the tables
Women in white elegant and able
Crazed man in black, right arm raised to the sky
Whistling grandfather passing me by
How will you answer the call?