(Audio of the Rob Krabbe Band below doing song version)
Tell me now, there’s a little something more inside.
Something in the way you
looked me in the eyes.
Tell me now, the times you’ve been stirred and shaken.
The mask and the
measures you’ve taken,
to make sure, your heart
stays safe and free.
Tell me now, if you don’t mind my asking you why.
You feel to me, like the middle of the night.
Tell me now, I wish I could have known you when.
We were raised on opposite sides of the fence.
You live like any moment you might die.
So get some really good sleep
in the middle of the dreams tonight
because love will find a way to make it right.
Tell me now, you’ve had pain you don’t understand.
I can see it in your trembling pale hands.
Tell me now, the dreams that have already died.
I can see the life you had to set aside,
and that cute little way you almost
pass out when you try to lie to me.
Tell me now before the chance fades away.
The reasons you stayed, not the ones you gave.
Tell me now about the workaday world we live in,
and the promise of futures failures forgiven,
before irony, becomes the only flag we wave.
Tell me now, it’s not so hard to comprehend.
The beginning to the long awaited end.
To send some kind of message to the other side.
That there’s more to life than just being alive.
The future holds whatever you put in it.
Forgiveness for the things we call sin.
I know it’s not so far away, that you can’t grasp,
the way you hang on to the very things
that make you sad.
So …
Lay it down.
Set aside.
Cast away.
Far behind.
Breathe it in.
To blow it out.
Wash it clean.
To set it down.
Keep your eyes
focused forward.
Better yet,
close them tight.
Get some really good sleep in the middle
of the dreams tonight because love will find
a way to make it right.
………………………………………………
.
Peppy The Wonder Dog
.
She was a genetic stew,
a dog of this and a bit of that,
and possibly a bit of furry cat.
Ugly mutt is what dad would say,
but I loved Peppy and her one
short “gimpy” leg anyway.
She was my one dog in a
lifetime; I am still a child
when she is on my mind…
We would be running and jumping
fast through the thick cornfields, or
down the street; maybe the long grass.
While I was looking at cloud shapes
and superheroes, she’d stand guard,
in case we were attacked.
“An elephant, do you see it?”
Pep would make the funniest sound,
and then run stupid circles in the yard.
“You know Rob,” I said to myself,
I’ll admit it, it almost brought tears.
As of this writing, Peppy . . .
“She would have been 351 dog years.”
That day we rolled deep into 1969;
moving day, the great adventure.
Like any other day, she chased the car.
Followed us pretty far down Route 1.
Past the park and that field of dogwood.
But this was all sadly different, as a
moving van was following us,
erasing our tracks and picking
up the bread crumbs of my childhood.
We’d have no way to find our way back,
to that cornfield in Saint Charles Illinois.
Back to the summer of my youth, and
those magical, wonderful mythical days.
Dad had said we had no room for a dog
in the city and so, my young childhood
and my life went up in a horrible blaze.
Stupid happy, Peppy jumped after
the car like nothing was wrong.
“Stupid damned dog,” I whispered
between tears.
Running and jumping and panting.
Stopping only to pee on a corn stalk.
Smiling, tongue hanging out, trusting,
until she looked up, head cocked,
suddenly concerned, and we were
gone, gone, gone, beyond the hills
and past the horizon and the forever fog.
I really only have one question now.
All these years later, I want to know.
As an adult, I get that it’s silly, really,
but I wish I knew who? The epilogue:
tell me who buried my dog?
My wonderful, best friend ever,
“Peppy the Wonder Dog.”
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