stone carving - gauge, january 2000
words/music: bonner

it didn’t really matter
you told me that you wanted me to stay
one way or the other
it probably would have ended up this way
my coffee’s black as tar
my head is nailed to patterns etched in doubt
thinking about cigarettes
and staring at the cat up on the couch

last night
in a roadside pool of sodium light
i watched a world that shrugged itself to life
and it was smiling

can you read this carving in the stone
i’m tired and i think that i’m alone
i miss the empty highway to my home
holding onto everything in a growing pile of years

outside on baseline the plows are losing ground
and i’ve found
if i wait long enough
another fine distraction comes around
scratching in the morning light
trying to make a thing that makes some sense
surrounding this existence a ring of shapely castles in the sand
that were made in self defense

last night
i found that i could still disguise my fright
wandering aimlessly through a world that might
still need me

woke up on the floor
someone else’s boots
wishful thinking lost in reddened eyes
inside the fabric of the days strung together
my plans are losing focus
and i’ve been wasting time

it didn’t really matter
you told me that you wanted me to stay
we made a moment
and i’d like to remember it that way

meb wrote stone carving almost in its entirety while waiting for alec smith & friend to get out of bed.

a long, lonely moment that lasted for some months.