Singing to Myself: Songs and Poems

Copyright © 2017 by D.S. Ross.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-8107-7

              eBook           978-1-5245-8106-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 02/06/2017

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Contents

Author’s Foreword

1. Songs

Another Day

Paths of Gold

The Price Paid

Questions on the Occasion of a New Love

The Lights of Broadway

Autumn’s Lament

Tuesday’s Child

What Today is Given

Living Alone

A Heart Infatuate

Down by the River

The Carousel Inn

Elder Love

Story

Dog Town

Shadows of Blue

Mind, Body, Spirit

Secrets

Anniversary Song

While the Jackals Feed

Dreaming Son

The Bells and the Blues

Girl in Disguise

Father and Son

Shaggy Day Blues

Upon Reflection

The Needle Rain

2 Poems

Canvas

The Day She Would Not Speak to Me

Upon Waking

In a Single Room

A Sympathetic Spirit

Hearts Less Durable

Hearts

Whispered

Softly, Love

Sons of Lesser Gods

Sign

All the Leaves but One

Singing to Myself

Meditation on a Central Theme

Love

Between Sea and Shore

Prayer

What She Is to Me

Let Us

Heard through a Wall

Last Night

My Nightmares are a Different Kind

The Company of Stars

A Shining on the Hill

Sixteen

Author’s Foreword

This little volume of songs and poems has been a long time coming. It has been born and re-born many times over the years. I suppose I am no different in that respect than many authors who have tried—amid the hubbub of making a living and living in the world—to bring their works to print, only to see the project shelved. And upon that shelf it remains, dusty but not forgotten, until—miraculously—the far and nebulous someday suddenly arrives and it is time to go to press.

The title of this work needs some explaining. For many years, these songs—and others that did not make the cut—were my constant companions. I would sing them to myself in lonesome moments, taking solace in familiar tunes and memories. Inevitably the music failed, and I turned my hand to poetry—or, to put it another way, to songs without music.

It was Tennyson who told us to keep a thing and its use would come. These things have been kept these long enough. It is now time to share them. I hope you enjoy them.

1.

Songs

Another Day

Another day, another sorrow,

Passing on the morrow;

The dreams that I must borrow,

Not my own.

In the firelight, twisted faces,

And half-forgotten places,

Mingle with the traces

Of my soul.

And though I beg to understand,

I realize that I am just a man

With a beginning,

And an end.

Another love, another leaving,

Giving, not receiving;

Midnight colors weaving

Through my mind.

And the way that I am going—

Guessing, never knowing—

Wonder what it’s showing

Me today.

And as I try to start again,

I realize that love can never end;

We can only

Pass it by.

Another song becomes emotion,

A melancholy notion,

And time becomes an ocean,

Drowning me.

Like her loving smile, undying,

My