PEARL (©2006 l. fiorentino) Gliding on the words of the sea My being slips out effortlessly Towards a kinder sense of me As sun, sea, and sand chant endlessly Oh the sun and I, we understand When the wave of the sea meets the wave of my hand We know each other as if it were planned By every grain of sand An intelligent place, the ocean the beach Where I go each day to learn and to teach Myself to strip down, stretch out and reach For the song of the earth, the PEARL of the speech Collecting the heat from spring until fall My body withstood from the time I was small Then firing that sand over which I did crawl Till I’ve made me a window in place of a wall As the years build up, I begin to see clearer As the days heat up I feel I am nearer And to this love I begin to hold dearer As the window I’m shaping becomes a mirror

HOMELAND Laurianne Fiorentino 2002 BMI I can see my homeland from here when I close my eyes and I sit real still I can see my homeland from here, always could and I always will Even when the smell of danger is near and the fire is on the hill I can see my homeland from here, always could and I always will I can feel my family from here when I close my eyes and I sit real still I can feel my family from here, I always could and I always will Even when fear finds a hole in my heart, and I become a stranger to my will I can feel my family from here, always could and I always will I can reach all I need from here when I close my eyes and I sit real still I can reach all I need from here, I always could and I always will Even when hunger is haunting me and there’s nothing but wind in the till I can reach all I need from here, I always could and I always will I can touch the truth from here when I close my eyes and I sit real still I can touch the truth from here, always could, always will Even when darkness devours me and there’s no holy grail to fill I can touch the truth from here, always could and I always will I can sense all the sadness in the world when I close my eyes and I sit real still I can sense all the sadness in the world, always could and I always will Even when a baby laughs and enemies forgive, I can celebrate until I can sense all the sadness in the world, I always could and I always will I can lean on love from here when I close my eyes and I sit real still I can lean on love from here, I always could and I always will Even when stillness is shattered by rage, I can refuse to kill I can lean on love from here,

NEXT TO ME (2006 © p L. Fiorentino) I keep a bead of your blood tied around my wrist I keep a tattoo of you everywhere I’ve been kissed I keep your breathing in my sea-shell Oh, it sings me to sleep And on my way through my sleeping I’m finding that these keeping things have made a hole through the bottom of the deep I will never be the same I'm going to dance and disappear to the rhythm of your name And I’m finding the melting will never be done with you Just as every wetness runs through the sea I’m going to keep on finding ways to feel you moving next to me That’s why I keep a bead of your blood tied around my wrist Just to feel you moving next to me I keep a tattoo of you everywhere I’ve been kissed Just to feel you moving next to me….. Going to find a million and one ways to feel you moving next to me

UNCOMMON KIND (© 2006 L. Fiorentino) Fresh in my hair you are like the wind through the wheat Like a drink in the heat of the desert You put a rose in my pocket A bouquet in my heart No music, no meter could measure I will sing for you tonight, my love There’s nothing you can do when a candle searching in my soul brightens when passing through you And I may have to leave, my love This time I’m going to leave all this love behind (but I swear It’ll follow me the days of my life) You may never know, my love ‘Cause this love of mine Oh, it’s the uncommon kind You might not even recognize it when it comes your way Songs like these are not easy to sing Once they’re started they dare not stop From the highlands to the city alleys below They keep taking me to lift them back to the top It starts out like a purring, from your caress to a healing And I dare not say more lest it break the spell Of my heart’s stealing It’s a rare thing that I bring to you now…

GO WITHOUT SAYING 2002 L. Fiorentino East of the spiral dance and West of the wink in your eye Due south of the sound of your voice To the left of the evening sky Lies a storm that’s sleeping In need of somewhere to go Knowing if it waits too long It will have nothing to show They’re walking straight at me Here with my face in the sand What do all those sailors do at home Without any ropes in their hands White bedspreads and shiny strangers Clean, pressed for time, so smooth Sometimes leave impressions That come so close to the truth As you tip your knitted brow towards mine I know you’ll not be staying What I’ll miss most of all Are the things that Go Without Saying As the last ship sails into harbor I’m going to slide into the sea The sun will slide across my rolling heart And into your memory And if it’s true I could be your sister Can words mean the same to us all Can it be that we are related to the wind And the minutes, that’s all If you were to capture a promise Could it live in the hold of your ship And when you got home would you set it free Or would you dismember it And you mustn’t try to save me If, to you, I seem to drown I choose to know what it feels like To breathe while under and down To where my heart beats its angel wings Over the nap of the earth while praying Sending out a search-light For the things that Go Without Saying The house is empty there’s no one at home The primrose has over grown Dust settles thick on piano keys And never escapes a tone Salty breezes brush the windows Steamy like the breath of a child Hiding the lack of an farewell note on a Desk where unopened mail has been piled My private pulse will never let me down Even if my spirit starts to sink When the masts in the harbor cease to tell time As if they had stopped to think Something always has been missing And it’s not because someone forgot In the sea there’s a soul, Under soup there’s a bowl Whether you like it or not I’ll be cruising out to the cutting edge Where words are free and fraying I’ve got t o find the feast Where they serve the sentences Of the things that Go Without Saying The best of me knows where I’m going The rest of me will find its way I have seen walls like snakes through the hills And I have touched gods made of clay Finches have landed upon my feet Lions have licked my fingers Rivers have danced and jumped into the sky And mountains have soothed me like singers And I have made friends out of thin air Just when I thought I was through It’s funny I know, but the further I go They bear a strange resemblance to you There’s a trail from the beginning And it glows like a charge in the night In the day I sometimes find the need To settle and shut out the light And in that temporary darkness under your roof I can watch a life that’s playing Won’t you make it go slow because I need to know The things that Go Without Saying

LITTLE ONE (© 2006 L. Fiorentino, BMI) And the little one says brings your guns to your mother The little one says bring your tears to the sea The little one says bring your prayers to your father The little one says bring your heart to me And the band played on and the freeway sang and the bullets they cried as they blistered and rang when the crying was over and the music was done all the world was still spinning round the eye of the sun at the end of the day and at the turn of the wheel there was nothing left to do and nothing right to feel and the little one says… then the atom split and left a broken home leaving each and every one to defend their own the genome surrendered its secret code under duress from progress and the pony that it rode all the love that we had and all the love that we knew splintered into something free, something strange, and something true And the little one says… There was no way to describe it, no pictures to paint You can’t make something out of something that it ain’t What if fear was just a butterfly that landed on you Hey, hey, what would you say and what would you do With something so fleeting, so fragile so frail You could watch it fly away or imagine it in jail And keep it alive fed on lies so sweet Oh it’s funny how we know just what fear will eat For what has fear ever done but reveal to you All you thought you never were and all you thought you never knew And you cannot destroy what has always been Take a look around, my love, at all the love you have been in And the little one says….

NO MISTAKE 2002 L. Fiorenitno There’s a highway in the distance Singing the song of the sea There’s a drumming in the desert Bringing you, My Love, closer to me When the angels hear you coming They whisper soft and low Do not be afraid, My Sweet There is nothing you don’t know I have built a place deep inside of me Made of wood, glass, stone I go there to be marrow To make blood inside a bone This mesa will not budge, My Love And neither shall I We re made of this Earth We wear the shape of the sky The stars have all agreed And the Sun still lets them die Like you, they fall at my feet They come home alone to cry These words can bring no meaning To the pictures that you make Your colors move my memory Making me awake I was dreaming that I had become The wind upon the lake You rode the rhythm at my side This Love Is No Mistake

RIVER RIVER (©2002 L. Fiorentino) Do you have a story, one that can’t be told The one that has given you wings and become to heavy to hold A tale can be the only tether that ties me to the ground So won’t you please tell me a story I promise I won’t make a sound I need a river river river washing over me Rain dancing upon my skin, So I can feel you right now I don’t know where you’re going and I sure don’t know where you’ve been there’s got to be a way for you to tell me just what you’ve been through and somehow I might be able to feel the way you do so if you had no instrument, no voice, no gun, no brush, no pen if you could be anything, what would you be, my friend would you be a river river river…. Hay-eee-ay-eee-ah-woe-hay-ah Hay-eee-ay-eee-ah-woe-hah Would you become a wild beast, an angel or a rock would you move like water would you stick and click, rigid as a clock would you throw your arms around me, and cry till you were done or would you curse like a volcano, ha ha, spitting at the sun would you become a circle, or a line bent out of shape would you laugh like a puff of smoke beneath your magic cape would you try to frighten me, would you hold my hand would you press your lips to my brow would you pin me to the land just like that river river river…. Because I have been a traveler and I’m weary and dry as a bone I’ve been to long out on the road that cuts through the unknown The road has led me around the world The road now comes to you Won’t you tell me something I don’t know Something real, something true (like that, right out of the blue) Like a river river river…..I need that river washin’ over me I’ll be that river river river washing over you…

WHO NEEDS YOU (2002 © p L. Fiorentino) I can feel you growing in between my flaws And you’re down there banging your tin cup Cross your hand hewn bars I can hear you shaking all my laws And you’re down there breaking up everything that ever was Sometimes a rock hits a bone Sometimes all need alone You left nothing in tact You left nothing, in fact And I guess it’s time for me to admit something I always knew There is no difference between the sound of love and the sound of you And if there is no difference between the sound of love And the sound of you Who needs you I do

DROP (2002© p L. Fiorentino) There’s a darkness coming, my dreams are getting cold Something’s dancing in the distance and it’s losing all control I’m a melted drop of matter, a tear that never fell When darkness comes to get me, you can find me in the well Down in the well, we all are water Can’t tell a son from a daughter Am I kissing you or are you kissing me It’s dark in here and I can’t see There’s a darkness coming, slashing through the light With a momentary nature and an unforgivable fight How can you say you love me, when to love me is to drown I’ve never see you near the water, beyond the crowds, the noise, the town Solid things are liars, they trick me with their weight They speak of all their permanence, They blink and breathe too late So I’m going to be a drop of melted matter A tear that never fell If you want me ,Bring your emptiness, and join me in the well I have been fresh air, I have been bad weather I have been the thing that makes you hide and seek I’ve been lifting your cries all the way to the moon I’ve been the thing that makes you weak So snap out of your stupor, till you learn to say please I am the reason why you came I’m the reason you have knees The clouds were thick last evening Today the skies are blue I’ve been the thing that crawls inside and gives all this to you So are you ready for the union, are you ready for the heat Are you ready for the end of the game that makes your heart compete I’m asking ‘cause you’d want me to To believe you had a choice I’ve been living I the breath of you I’m the thing that makes your voice So give it up, your sleep is done Give it up, it’s the ringing f the bell Give it up, you’ll never know what hi you And I’m never going to tell I’m always going to be a drop of melted matter A tear that never fell, so if you want me, bring your emptiness and join me in the well