dennis O'Toole

I can't tell you... where to go...

I can't tell you... what you should know...

you've got to find out for yourself

you can't depend on no one else...

you've got to find out... for yourself...

...

I can't tell…

Willie said it well enough, (as he always could)...

"Sometimes it's rough, but it's always good"...

I guess sometimes 'good enough' is as good as it gets...

sometimes you roll the dice, and there's cause to shout...

other times it's…

if in the art of being human... the palette is the heart...

where do we begin to draw the line?

and if we are assuming... that the end can be a start...

is it too much to be asking for…

where do your dreams take you... when you sleep?

does my memory wake you... and make you weep?

does your conscience catch you unawares?

do you long to hear my footsteps n the stairs?

are you enjoying your affair?

your…

Jesus, my brother... swore he was best friends with you...

said you reached out when no other gave a damn or would do...

for that I'm eternally grateful, though we may never meet...

Jesus, my brother and I walked down…

he's an old, old man... but he's my old man...

easily he forgets, and he's quick to tire...

and he can't understand, how it is he is still my biggest fan...

and I've yet to set the world on fire...

…

I see faces in the fire... there's echoes in the smoke...

 suspect wood and flames conspire...to have me believe that you just spoke.

be it a message down the wire; or just what I think  need to hear...

I see…

...we had our heads thrown open to the sky;  we were high...

it seemed 'love' was on everyone's lips...

far more concerned with truth than consequence; 

when we lit out on some of those trips...

resorting to pills and potions,…

Anna was with the 'old guard'... in the days before the war...

before your brass buttoned uniform ...made her peasant's garb look poor

what made you think that you were so brave?

why did you laugh when you saw her…

my name is Emmett Guerin, I've been  a ghost these many years; 

I suppose I'm all but forgotten, across this vale of tears...

I was cut down in my prime, a long, long time ago...

an angel caught 'tween earth…

too ra loo ra loo ra... que sera...sera...

I don't know just where you are... 

so I'll wish upon a star...

somewhere asleep in my soul... there rocks a lullaby...

it's cradled like a baby, in my memory...

and it…

I don't know where to start...

nothing is as it seems

I will hold you in my heart...

hope to see you in my dreams...

   I wrote these lines twelve years ago to the day... the morning after my son…