Danny Callahan

Green world, love the chloroform.
Front porch in the thunderstorm.
Controlled chaos, confused energy.

So stop reading the weather charts.
Stop counting the playing cards.
There's no system, there's no guarantees.
That the love you feel and carry inside can be passed.
But you try, and all you do is just talk
to the past.
Ask how are you getting on alone?

Some wander the wilderness,
some drink cosmopolitans.
Some cold science, some glean astroplanes.
I can't tell where the camera stops,
homesick as an astronaut.
Just keep drifting, but still can't explain.
How the love we feel we carry inside can be passed.
See a brother in the gutter and reach out your hand.
Ask how are you getting on alone?

What guage measures miracles?
Whose heartbeat's electrical?
We feign sickness with our modern joy.
But even Western medicine,
it couldn't save Danny Callahan.
Bad bone marrow, the poor little boy.
But the love he feels he carries inside can be passed.
He lay still,
his mother kissed him goodbye, said 'comeback.'
Where are you going to alone?
Where are you going all alone?