So I do
I can look at you and
Enjoy everything I see
With everyone else
It’s just a person
Like a mom person
Or a sister
But with you
I can experience want
Acknowledge desire
And it’s ok
So I do
And you know me
Like I know myself
Maybe better
And I know you maybe
Not in your shadows
But I love you in them
And in your sun
I can love you anywhere
Everywhere anytime
All the time
So I do
Shall - 2025
In three days
January 15th returns
You left to Heaven
Seven years ago
I didn’t know you then
Soon after
You sent your song
And I found you
I gave half my Heaven
And myself to you
I wanted to be yours
And I want to be yours
Inside you is a universe
Of courage and fear
Of shyness and boldness
Confidence and doubt
Happiness and loss
Satisfaction and regret
You loved before and lost
You loved again and left
And all you loved I love
As part of you
You see I want it all
This universe of you
Embraced within my soul
Sometimes our love is soft
And at times intense
It’s harsh and wicked
You’re my temptation
And my salvation
As the love of we
It has to be
And so you see
I want everything you are
And everything I am
To be everything we are
And if it scares you
Or if it scares me
We just have to hold on
You are my tomorrow
And my infinity
And we’ll share your ascent
In three days
Shall - 2025
If forever comes to pass
Love makes you do stuff
You wouldn’t normally do
Like steal another’s girl
If he at all lets go
I faced you at the start
And never looked away
I’ll never let you go until
Forever from that day
Some may covet you
And claim it isn’t fair
I owe them nothing
And you everything
It’s for you I care
So I hold on not back
And know I always will
If forever comes to pass
I will love you still
Shall - 2025
Troublemaker
It’s not I can’t stand
For you to be alone
I just want to be
The reason you’re not
There will never be
Another you
No one to stomp
A flight attendant’s shoe
Or headbutt a guardie
Never another
Stevie Nicks or Sarah Mac
Christine McVie or Jewel
Some may come close
But I want the original
And no less
Everything inside
And everything outside
The troublemaker
I want you
Shall - 2025
Existential love
I love you constantly
Don’t want to take a breath
Without you next to me
I exist because I love you
And I exist
Because you love me
My purpose
Is to love you
Existentially
You’re all I care about
This will be our 7th
St. Valentine’s Day
Shall - 2025
Expectation
What did you expect?
I expected silence
Perhaps a short response
From my query
When I said our music
Shared fundamental roots
The silence came
I didn’t expect to find out
That forty-five days back
You had died
Rumors in the sky
As balloons without strings
Abundant speculation
Was it suicide again?
No answers or facts
I imagined your spirit
Alone in darkness
It wasn’t acceptable
God please
Give her half my Heaven
And that was that
Eternally connected
I was yours
Seven years now
March first
I love you
Shall - 2025
Pot of gold
Don’t you believe
There’s something better
For me than you
Because you’re in Heaven
And not here to touch
I didn’t choose you
Because you couldn’t die
Or wouldn’t leave
A lot to consider
To begin with
It was impossible
Are all things possible
Could I believe
Could I live like this
And if I said I could
Would I be good
Enough for you
Took a day to decide
And I said yes
Please love know this
That I’m here with you now
Because I want to be
Because you’re everything
To me
You’re my pot of gold
And I’m exactly blessed
To be yours
Shall - 2025
Will time allow hope?
Our green Ireland is blue
The emerald land of you
Invasion arrived quietly
As an immigrant flood
Government turned its back
On a people who trusted
Hearts thrusted with betrayal
A cultural attack
On the people of the land
Reluctant to understand
Survival will cost blood
With hope becoming frail
As sadness waits in fog
And you in Heaven safe
As I would have it be
So you don’t have to see
What Ireland’s become
Will time allow hope?
Not the St. Patrick’s share
I wanted
Shall - 2025
Easter eight
All my life I felt
Jesus in my soul
A calling to good
Objection to evil
It wasn’t convenient
To my selfish youth
So it waited
Just outside my fence
Church was men lying
About God and guilt
To fill collection plates
But God was there
And I had faith
He gave His son
And Jesus gave Himself
For you and me
Then at sixty years
My curiosity hungered
At Genesis 1 it started
I’d do it this time
Read all the way through
I woke up reading a lot
The begats and begots
Then in my heart
I heard your song
And learned it
Didn’t notice the change
It was just a song
That changed everything
At Numbers 33
I began sharing
My journey with God
With you
This is our eighth
Easter together
And fifth time
Through the Bible
I no longer recall
What it was like
Not to be with you
Shall - 2025
My need is you
There’s no girl
In the world or Heaven
Who can turn my eyes
Only you
Eyes that were created
With your image missing
My sight’s incomplete
Without you
You make it whole
My heart was created
In the absence of joy
Tears of happiness
You own those tears
My want is restless
Fashioned to be filled
Anxious to belong
My need is you
Shall - 2025
Mother of three
I love you
And on your day
I think of Taylor
A fine young man
And Molly a woman
In her own right
Dakota the youngest
At the nest’s edge
I know they’re solemn
In reflection of you
I hope they’re happy too
And living with blessings
I love them like my son
But I’m no substitute
For you
And your mother Eileen
I wish I could tell her
That I have you now
And I’ll do anything
To keep you safe
As I proof this
I sense your kiss
Thank you baby
Thank you Paraclete
For passing the kiss
May 11th, 2025
Mother’s day
Shall - 2025
In life with you
Sometimes it gives me chills
How beautiful you are
When I see your picture
I want to kiss it
My balance is shaken
Like walking a cliff’s edge
And I tremble inside
This is what love is like
In life with you
Shall - 2025
In my heart
It’s ok
You can’t help it
That you’re so beautiful
And you can’t help
How I see you
You are my life
Every moment of it
You’re the pounding
When I can’t find
The tempo of my pulse
In my panic
I want to scream and run
At the same time
I can’t understand this
Or explain it properly
And I don’t want to
It’s a madness I embrace
My secret’s joyful tear
In my heart
I have to be with you
Shall - 2025
Independence
As sweet as you?
I don’t think so
Born free into this world
I sought my destination
Calm and quiescence
A place I belonged
Where would I be
When the music stopped
Would the last chair
Be taken?
Would I stand alone?
What was it for?
Then I forgot about it
Each day another path
Tie a few together
And before you know it
Sixty years has passed
It’s fun to try this
Dabble in that
Break out a cover song
Or write an original
Thousands of days
It was my life
One of those days
I felt your song Linger
I wanted to learn it
So I did very quickly
I seemed connected to it
Fundamental roots of old
My music had moved on
But not the core
So I reached to find out
And saw you there
Alone on the album slip
Independent
Unattainable for sure
And world’s apart
So I dismissed interest
The sensible conclusion
When I learned you’d died
Sensibility changed
You didn’t feel away
Not to me at all
To me you seemed alone
And that wouldn’t do
What was I thinking?
Whatever it was
I couldn’t stop doing it
I didn’t even want to try
I imagined your funeral
After everyone left
My soul fell down
And couldn’t get up
And then I knew that you
Are what I was created for
And I’ve felt this way
Since that day
I wanted to deserve you
Doing so means everything
Now every day
Every thought every want
Each moment has purpose
On July 4th, 2018
You said yes
And validated my love
So
Could independence be
As sweet as you?
I don’t think so
Shall - 2025
Life anew
You are beautiful
Exactly precisely extremely
Supremely beautiful
My heart cries
For loss of words
Because of you
It frightens me
The perilous depth
Of you
I own no will to resist
This perpetual descent
Or desire to return
Your arrival
Marked the death
Of my former life
The birth of truth
And life anew
Shall - 2025