I don't write a lot of poetry, though I'm sure some would argue that my lyrics are actually just song-structured poems, but I'm sharing it here anyway.

Occasionally an experience will touch me in a different way. Something will happen and I will start writing. The moment I start writing I can feel in my soul that what's being created isn't going to take on another life as a song. Its life will be as a poem. I usually finish it and celebrate it for the form it has chosen to take.

More will be added here over time (and as inspiration allows).

J

Click on a poem's title to jump to its location on this page. These titles are listed here in alphabetical order. However, the poems on the page are ordered by date.

3/15/02

Take your time
Pace your start
Watch yourself
Or you'll lose your heart

Look around
Take a chance
Hold something back
To keep a little distance

You can lose
Don't back down
Be careful
This close to the ground

There's just enough room for
In my mind to go crazy
If I'm not in your bed
Listening to the rain
And the sound of your breathing in time
With mine
There's just enough room
When I'm right there with you
I know what you're feeling
The moments without you
Leave just enough room for doubt to sneak in

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10/21/02, 2/11/03

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear
But that's the death that's crept in here
Where once these rooms sang with laughter
And dreams of happily ever after
There's a silence that seems to linger

I've lost you
And now the discovery
Is with losing you
I lost some part of me
There's an emptiness I can't explain
For the first time
There's no comfort in whispering your name

Who am I?
This side of discovery
It's been a while
Since there was only me
Helpless I watch my dreams fall apart
When I always thought
You fit so well into each corner of my heart

In the wake
Of this ache
I've lost you
And now the discovery
Is with losing you
I lost some part of me
There's an emptiness I can't explain
For the first time
There's no comfort in whispering your name

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11/17/04, 11/18/04,1/20/05

The gifts, the miles
The money, the smiles
Not for me
The blessing, the time
The prayers
None of it mine

Invisible to all of those who see
This room in white
This candlelight
Is not for me

If I had just half of all the things
Lined wall to wall
I would trade them all
For a honest phone call
To the home I share with my one
Instead of rerouted calls
That leave some much unsaid
And undone
These tokens
Both tangible and spoken
I would trade for a cup of coffee
That would be enough
But it's not to be
Not for me.

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