Words by Joe

in my room at the end of the day,
and you open your arms to my ghosts,
though in your presence they are afraid,
they are skittish things and only want to
search, to seek to find a word to cure
the shady hours that make me lonesome.

but when you tell me you are lonesome,
and travel the hallowed corridors of day
looking for the same ounce of treatment or pound of cure,
your golden and staccato words call the ghosts
to you, like the beckoning fingers of a new world, to
come make it tremble, make it moan, make it afraid.

but this slow-beating heart of mine is afraid
and steps in time to the beat of a lonesome
drummer, and tonight, I know, will have to
find a chest to lock up the things it felt to-day
and make sentries of the ghosts
and deny that there ever was a cure,

or that there could ever be a cure
and is afraid of the chance of one day being afraid
of losing you, and without you or the ghost
of your glances it could get very lonesome
and there on the calendar I’d unmark the days
since you’d left me with nothing to cling to

because love isn’t much to hold on-to
in a world of ills without cures
like a shop open all night and all day
and you reach into your pocket and feel afraid
because in your pocket sits only the lonesome
key to your chest of secrets and a dollar bill’s ghost.

but here in the ether, in this house full of ghosts
you will give me a hand to hold on to
and we will make our beds less lonesome
and forget about the silly and eternal things, the cure-
all for us, the troubled beasts afraid
of the troubled beasts that lie in wait for us in the hours between night and day.

no more ghosts, no more cures,
no more need to be afraid,
we are not lonesome, at least not today.