Daniele's musicis a breath of fresh honesty and often what seems almost too close a look at the reality of our human frailty. Be prepared in listening to this weaving of poetry with unrestrained frankness to take a journey with her into brokenness and vulnerability and possibly end up with a strong desire to die to self and take up your cross.
Music available @ reverbnation.com/daniele
Lyrics (are here to stay)


Writings & Poetry {Blog}
A blog is like a journal, I keep my years in journals :: Daniele

I talk about change as if I embraced it.
Excitement about doing new things, the plans & the well laid hopes of what's next and what's beginning. But even as all these false advertisements pour through my system and out of my mouth I know the truth. Change is never comfortable or without a level of pain(in adjustment, in growing pains). Even the smoothest of transitions leave some sort of residue whether that's worked out now or hereafter depends on our skills, our ability to cope, our methods of survival.

Some of us are half healthy and sometimes those healthy parts are the visible ones. Some of us keep the unhealthy half that never learned how to adjust to anything, hidden behind the side that has spent her whole life trying to excel to keep everyone from noticing. This only works well for awhile, eventually you break down, thankfully this usually corresponds with some semi-devastating outside event that is like a last straw for all the things you've been saving up waiting to process and adjust to, then they all come in a rush resulting in an overwhelmed often overly depressing mess. You wallow in it briefly pull yourself up and go on. You're going to make it, get over it, time heals, you're strong, you're bigger than this, it doesn't matter, focus on the positive, it's for the best.... You end up interrupted before you've finished grieving, you're intercepted mid-process so the change and the regret & the proper place for the responsibility & pain is never fully digested, you'll keep it with you, but it's really not that bad because... Because after all change is a good thing. Keep telling yourself that
:: Daniele Clark 2011


Tonight I'm a distant star amid a crashed honorarium and twilights golden lies, don't judge me. Don't count me out and don't, don't ask me again, if I've spoken to him.

pretend we were young and it wasn't your fault, it wasn't mine it was all in the time and diluted moonlight, sometimes. I'm not sorry and you're not stubborn and someday I will "just stop regretting & be happy for the time I had with you" but I won't

don't be ashamed, but don't be awake either one of us is stolen, the other is still and no one between us could drive us further than we chauffeured our self
Daniele Clark :: December 2010


For Christmas we want to give you our experiences, that's all I have of worth, the places and the people that have made my life so rich...My favorite memory this year, well, I have quite a few good time’s this Summer, I'd call this more just a significant moment, was in Sturgis this Summer. We had been on the road for well over a month. This particular day we drove in from Rapid City, setup where the biker ministry was camped and started playing music in a tiny front yard just off of main street where lines of motorcycles and cars are parked as people walked past us on their way to spend their week running up and down the strip partying in the midst of what can best be described as debauchery, rebellion taken to the extreme, total lawlessness. I watched young girls, walking behind their Dad’s or maybe their step Dad’s with their Blonde, half naked Mothers, trying to look 17 again while escorting their 15 year old daughters into their lifestyle, my heart sunk and I felt sick. Watching selfishness, addiction & codependency steal a child’s future, because their parents are so caught up in their lifestyle, whether it be subculture or social status or standing, a facade that we sometimes use church to maintain... This is heartbreaking. And strangely it also renews my strength. It gives me a will and a passion to go on.

We stood in that tiny yard with a handful of people, a few ex-prostitutes & bikers & my family, I watched the people walking past on the sidewalk, some mocking, but some slowing down long enough to catch a few words or lines. We played a concert and the head of the biking ministry spoke and as we finished, Preacher Steve, (the head of His Laboring Few) told us to go on and keep playing while the biker teams went out to do one on one ministry all night. Next thing I knew all my family was gone and I was just standing there facing a tiny dirty yard and a street full of people rushing past on their way to party, and the thought crossed my mind, this isn’t very professional, and some of the lies that have eaten away at my confidence & purpose for the last year were coming to my mind, like they do every day, I was asking myself if I was crazy. I was wondering if certain people would scoff at me and tell me they were right and I was wrong and nothing I do is worth it. Nothing I am is worth anything, because instead of being professional or sitting in Nashville making something of myself, I’m standing in a dirty front yard in Sturgis, SD without a stage with Microphones plugged into a Karaoke machine, it smells funny and I don’t know if there’s a single person listening to me & as I stand there something in me breaks and I feel like I'm crying inside. As I stand there, I didn't care if it was unprofessional or stupid, I didn't need to prove anything to anyone. All I wanted to do was stand there and play, because all that mattered to me in the world right then was whatever I had to do to reach one of those people walking down that street. I would have played songs all night long if it meant that one of those girls got 10 seconds of truth when they walked past. I wanted to do anything to change their future... stand there for years if I had to, even if I was tired even if I hadn't eaten, even though I ran out of songs and I was repeating them because the few people in the yard wanted to hear the first one again. I wanted to do anything to help one person and if what it took to help one person was making a fool of myself, I would gladly make a fool out of myself over and over. Is this sacrifice? I don’t know. If your life not being “your life”, if being humiliated, if doing things that are uncomfortable, if standing on a street corner singing till you're exhausted or sick because you're (unprofessionally) asked to sing again after you’ve finished your concert is what it means, I will do that. That's not so much. I will do whatever it takes. Whatever the cost, I want to pay it. I wish I could pay for those girls innocence. I want to show another way if I can. Even if it makes me a fool to my friends. So be it. Something in me demands it. Something begs that I try as hard as I can to get a single piece of truth into the people that cross my path. Even if I have to stand there all night with hundreds of people passing if one hears it at the right time, that’s all I want. We have to start somewhere, even if it’s just with one. we have to continue, no matter what the cost. Answering when God calls isn't for Him. It’s for us. I didn't need to stand on that street corner for Him, He can reach people without me, but He wants to reach me. I want to stand on that street corner. It’s so good to have a God that gives me purpose, not because He needs bodies, but because that purpose fills me with life. His purpose is life.
:: Daniele Clark :: Christmas 2010


I will be the lamp post to anchor your hours,
you be the dirt for my bankrupt garden
In the empty mass of the could be tomorrows,
I would make more sobering vows
:::::::::: :::::::: ::::::::::
And if there's things I miss I won't admit it,
if they start with him they have no ending,
Don't ask how he stole my answers,
I'm on a hard earned quest for indifference
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Daniele Clark :: December 2010

All those sacred things you left me
Boy I just went out and burned them
in my backyard with a torch
two torches made of background and medium
It didn't heal my pain, it didn't cleanse my palette
We wrote too much, that's why we knew too much
I never meant to hurt you, you never meant to help me
And neither one of us knew the costs of being selfless
Daniele Clark :: Winter 2010

December's First
Hello December First, it took this long to say that he is gone
A full two years to finally say it may be over
After all you were young, after all this time I'm old
And you can never be a man for me, a man without a Father

This last week of November was a a bitter dose of memory I'm sure I didn't need
At least I know myself again enough to read the truth, the lies you fed me,
the months you starved
the years of emotion and places you never loved me, places you never went to

Wearing October on my sleeve with a heart still broken, bruised with tearing screams
That pull me over even in my sleep I wish I could wake myself to dream again
Healing takes too long where you break me in untouched places

Goodbye September's sweet glow you'll never be what you could've been
A birth, a life, a binding tie that lasts till death do part...
From me to you, love may not be better lost
I lost my love, lost my friend... I hope you lost what I'll call innocence
Daniele Clark :: December 2010

This day is not a safe place for me
In trial and questioning
In inner thoughts & sanctums
Doubt (ing)
Hope (ing)
Grieving


This day is not a safe place. 
Neither am I safe in it. 
From anything 
I run from, 
I run to, 
I run with.


This night inside my heart 
Partakes my minds endlessness
In every need 
I have,
I haven't, 
I won't meet


Don't ask me how or where
this mean street meets me
Just between
My love, 
My hate, 
And their sameness


You are their sameness
I am my own half enemy
In heaven and earth
In distance
In silence
Inquiry
Daniele Clark :: October 2010

the dark night of the soul & other types of sacrifice
I read once about the dark night of the soul
In some cases I think the dark night is bound with the soul
And only in hope's continual breaking
will you ever reach thru the dark to the surface
Some ties are meant to bind and some ties...
that we think will steady really pull us under & over
I shuddered to break those ties, but too often they weaken me
I don't claim to be anything more or less than you
And I see each human as an equal until character proves them...
Nothing in me wants to harm you but I have to live by rules I set
though I am only now learning what it means to fully enforce them... in my self
Daniele Clark :: October 2010

untitled, unhealing, unforgiveness
I may have a mild concussion or maybe I don't,
either way my head hurts.
I smacked it against a wall, hard.
I think my head feels maybe one one hundredth of the steady throbbing
of my heart with the same barely visible bruising on the outer layer,
but an unhealing wound beneath
Earlier today while I was working
I had something to write about,
now I'm a bit of a mess with no easy clean up,
no way to know if this is pain or if it's just unforgiveness
of a person...
of a string of circumstance...
or of self

That's not anything that I want to say, it's just a jumble beneath the skin of my forehead,
it's just one beat out of thousands from my heart.
It's enough for tonight
Daniele Clark : September 2010
An undetected peeling back of days
Today is predictably surer than tomorrow but only the past is sure
And even that...
Well, history repeats itself...
As we spend most our time searching the re-run's for how we got here,
How we will repeat ourselves & the sin's of our Father's,
And by our Father's I mean the sin's of Adam, but mostly Eve.
Evening come's and mourning and the first day, always when we wake,
no matter how deep a darkness from...
The day is almost always mostly new... except for what we bring to it in our hearts, in our pains & expectations
Wash off what you can, the dirty maybe, but keep the old
It makes you who you are, it probably makes you who you where meant to be,
It mostly makes you who you chose to be woven in and out of God's intricate lacing of days together making life
Daniele Clark :: September 2010

Feels like a year, like nothing
In three days it would be our anniversary
I count it with pulse, in heartbeats
As I reach for a handle to shut the door again
I touch a spot in my mind that is yours.
There are millions of them, no, more.
No two alike but every one the same...
Every one poignant, sharp... all beautiful
One year of love for one year of heartbreak, an even exchange
I closed the door and found myself wishing for strange things
Half hoping that you never learned to walk away
Half hoping you would stand up and hurt me again
So I had reason to feel this much pain
And maybe this time I would scream, cry or fight back.
No, love doesn't end it's torture, time doesn't put you out of your misery
Daniele Clark :: August 2010


Suicide Ride for Hope South Dakota
We went from Sturgis to Bear Butte SD on a Suicide Ride for Hope To raise awareness about the suicide epidemic caused by poverty and oppression among the Native American's specifically on the Pine Ridge/Rosebud Reservation
Here are a few statistics, though seeing things first hand, has a much bigger impact. There is so much need, not just here, but all over the country, people are hurting and hopeless. We, especially if we call ourselves Christians... do not have time to waste in apathy.

The suicide rate is 5 times higher on the Pine ridge/Rosebud Reservation than the National Average...
The Number One Killer is alcoholism...
70% of highschool students drop out...
Pine Ridge is one of the poorest communities in America where the average income is $4K a year and 97% live below the poverty line
The average life expectancy on these reservations for men is a low 48 and 52 for women... I know this is true, I met a woman yesterday who was 42 and looked about 70, this is common

I know not everyone is called to work on reservations or even to travel, but there is so much need everywhere, look for where God can use you where you're at today.
Daniele Clark :: August 2010


What You Don't Know, Can Hurt You
What you don't know can't hurt you
So you don't know anything anymore
See just where your fortune takes you
Take self assurance at least that far

Don't be afraid anymore
Nothing can fight you but your own silent heart
Don't beat it, it's still a beating
It's a loving every minute
I know it's still there
Mine still knows it's rhythm
But what you don't know won't hurt you
Daniele Clark :: End of Spring 2010


Unblind {downstairs in my head}
Your noise is dark
No voices picturesque
Like pigeons roosting
Where anointing breathed
A slow trains de-rail
Majesty in starkness
And light prevails
Spotlights deception
And rigid pre-ops
Pretend you're teal green
Pencils write thru me
You're stiff hearted
Lovers will find out
Last nights dream boat
In the mornings nightmares
Shirk & groan & cross you
Smoothe betrayals chewing
Smugly on flesh beside you
No hindsight to what lies before
No microscope feels what's behind you
Almighty incandescent light
Your face covered and tight
In the peeling daylight God
A healing love asks not begging
Screaming no Patient answers
Unblind your sweet heart
The left brain doesn't know
What the right hand is doing
Daniele Clark :: 2010


If Love Is A Choice
I guess this is my chance To make something great To rise and to fall To silently fight dreams To find friends enemies To weigh rights and wrongs To know who I can't trust And to question my placement In time & in heartache

I will wake and will live (As it runs through my system) As love begs for hate As pain bleeds through joy As treaties they ripen As age mellows & shapes As backbones straighten All prides melt and fade in You write and you post them

I guess love is a choice The best or the fastest The strong or the easy The woman or a yes man The vice or a best friend The bed or the children The fear of commitment In sickness or health Through death or thru self

And over and over again I guess this is my chance I wake and I live I guess love is a choice But I already made it I can't make it backwards You can't push me forward Don't speak in backhand If love is a choice, you haven't made it
Daniele Clark :: 2010



The sky is my canopy
I had to get outside for awhile So I wouldn't suffocate I headed up the driveway and I stopped, I stopped and I shook and I stood I was probably dizzy Things where a little constricting I probably would have cried but I was preoccupied with hyperventilating I was preoccupied with the life that fears are making I thought I would lose my mind But I didn't because after an hour of breathing hard I came back If I had lost my mind I'd have slept outside for my health If I had lost my mind I'd have stayed inside
......
The sky is my ceiling the branches are my canopy the leaves are the thoughts that keep me wanting and aching Beauty keeps me motivated, it's a supplement... when I remember to take it, it strengthens my limbs When I forget to look beyond what's roaring around me I fade and weaken, I chasten myself... God is a Father that isn't afraid, He won't respond in accidental ways I don't have to remind myself he's human and I don't have to forgive the insecurities that make him just like me Love is understanding and understanding is trust, trust leads to understanding... all of which live in forgiveness If I don't forgive myself I don't believe anything, I dont' trust, I don't love... I don't understand and I'm harsh, but not on purpose, to those who love me most When I start to forgive those who hurt me deepest with the least intent to harm me, I start to believe in God When I believe in love I understand God is near, I understand He is not a man and He does respect persons after all, because love and respect are entwined,just beside trust and obedience. Perfect love casts out fear... If you're still so afraid it's because you don't understand your God. You don't understand Him if you're still distrusting Him, you don't know how to love, because you've made love finite and constrained, you wouldn't write that on paper but it's on your heart.
When you let God love you, you love yourself, you love others, loving others is saying, I may not understand why you are who you are or why you do what you do but I forgive you, To you sometimes that may even mean saying, I forgive you for being who you are... (but then there's also remembering to look closely at the heart beyond the actions... that can be hard... I spend hours putting myself in other peoples shoes and places to remember to love and to let them know I hope in them)
saying I forgive you means I love you, it means I believe in you, it means I trust you It means in fullness that I know you will hurt me sometimes but i also know your heart is for me and for God And I'm willing to love you which means I hope and believe the best... when someone is believed in and hoped in it makes them a new creature God is love. He makes all things new

When people understand themselves more and understand how God sees them, they may let themselves stop trying to find all the answers on their own, They may stop trying to prove other people are wrong, instead of hoping that they act on the right that's in their hearts I may try to spend more time showing that I care so that I then have a platform to speak the truth in love from
Daniele Clark 2008

To Love (Suicide To Dignity)
Hats off again to love You gave it your best tries and after all is quiet and the tumult dies You'll slip out the back door to stand at the corner crying
Oh tear stained eyes you'll stay You'll sleep with hope Though your heart on waking dies and breaks and dies Though your backhand weakens as sharpness heightens
You'll sleep awake, You'll sleep alive In your other pocket, where he kept his Bible You'll ask your Mother if pain is dying and she'll get more tired So you'll know she's right.
If he comes knocking, He won't come knocking... He'll be running, he'll be driving, anger soothes and justifies it
When there's crying, When he's crumbled, Like he has been and nothing's comfort You'll lie there reaching But you won't touch him He'll be grieving and you'll be watching It will break you, you will love him
Pain won't see it, you'll get shot at Love revives you You will know him Till he dies And how his heartbeats How his hands rest
No ones sees it, No one has to Love will kill you and will wake you It will keep you It will bless him It will hold him Till you die Love will live, you will die
Daniele Clark 2009


Truth Finds You
Oh, by the way, time goes on just beneath us in the hallway after noon
Nothing escapes us things filter through on the back steps in the black soil like gardening
Birds have freedom we don't exercise we know our lines find the limits and walk through
If your motives question you find their source their timbre and birthplace
When you falter within, I see it I swallow and digest far away in here nothings lost
As you search for home and birthrights take inventory invest in mirrors look for God
In fear you won't trust anywhere Time will prove this You will prove nothing things happen
God may use braille if you need it you may use God or use me as shelter truth finds you Daniele Clark 2009

Songs {lyrics}

{Sometime soon I will rustle up a few more songs for you to read. Until then, here's a few from my last EP and from this next album...}

Memorize
Memorize the lines between you and the sky The places that you've run dry Because you don't get good sleep of a night Where do you think that your God hides? Behind rusted intellect Behind clouded men and lies?
And isn't it just hard to start anew? When you try your trust again and you're lied to You're beaten to the end of yourself Not by someone else but by brokenness You didn't want to race anyway Now you can't stop running
Memorize the lines between you and the sky The places that you've run dry Because you don't get good sleep of a night Where do you think that your God hides? Behind rusted intellect Behind clouded men and lies?
Count your measures learn them well And when your will fails you again sing them to yourself You don't need someone else To prove who you are It's not that kind of race anyway When you can't stop running
Daniele Clark


Don't Wash My Feet
Still I turn and I turn, one more sleepless night, one more page Can I waive and re-write my rights and wrongs everyday, everyday
Your'e a little bit old for me, but I'm a little bit lost You're a little bit more clean and a little like God You're a little bit good for me but I'm a little more hurt I'm a little dirty, don't wash my feet I'm a little dirty, don't wash my feet
Hard and sure to stand unsoftened mixed in wavering, in line drawing I'd like to help in my helplessness, I'd like to save but I can't save myself
Your'e a little bit old for me, but I'm a little bit lost You're a little bit more clean and a little like God You're a little bit good for me but I'm a little more hurt I'm a little dirty, don't wash my feet I'm a little dirty, don't wash my feet I'm a little dirty please wash my feet I'm a little dirty don't wash my feet Daniele Clark (Honestly Daniele - The EP)

Still
Still to feel a little empty, feel a little lacking, feel a little lost. Still to feel a little quiet a little lack of motion a little peace was gone
You to have and hold, to hold my hope inside your soul You to push the pull further on toward you, you are all I know
Need a constant in a churning, quite stoked and ready burning, a little peace with God. Need a strong and quiet waking a trust is in the making. A little hold is all
You like the sun to rise again as I always fall. You are all I want you're all I need you as I grow old.
Grasp beyond the fears strong holding, a groping for a molding and taking up the cross. Grasp the solid love you leave me, though you never leave me, the constant is your love.
You to have and hold, to hold my hope inside your soul You to push the pull further on toward you, you are all I know
Daniele Clark (Honestly Daniele - The EP)


Less Than Constant

Please write me off as something less than constant
As somehow undeserving, as someone who has lost you now
Please pass me by as someone with a past
Who fails the ones she loves the most and may never get past you

I, I thought I'd grown in loving
I hope I last in staying and have found peace in lasting
You, you're such a calming steady
True and that's enough. But have I learned to trust?

Please love me less just in case I hurt you
As I'm known to stumble where others fall in love
Please give me grace, though I think I don't deserve it
All these ways you think I'm perfect, well that's your only fault

Daniele Clark (Honestly Daniele - The EP)

Here
Here in the open, the empty, the fire, Come burn, Come burn Find me in yearning, longing, desire, Love turns, Love turns Oh your love it burns

On the floor thoughts at war Drowned in hopes that promised more And the crash can burn me out I see it all still there’s more The way you turn the love you pour Let your truth wash thru my doubt Oh your love it burns

Here in the open the empty the fire, come burn, come burn Find me in yearning, longing, desire, love turns, Love turns Your one love that burns

What I needed wanted I never knew As lights grow dim I now see you As you turn my inside out Wanted love I fell into The mist is ripped & I fell through But your grace is there held out

Here in the open the empty the fire come burn...

Daniele Clark 2001 His Arts Unlimited

Lie
Lie I’m not full awake I can’t wonder where I am Mourn as a darkness breaks I had chosen not to undertand Cry as the questions fall Like fire drops to burn my hands Light pour your beauty here My shame is known to all of man

Lie empty, lie open Heart broken, come hold me Lie empty, Lie broken Soul naked, come heal me

Tie is this all that’s here As I step away into something more Miss the lost and find it’s you Fear this giving up has left me torn

Lie empty, pride broken Mind open, come near me Lie empty, lie chosen I’ve fallen, come hold me

Sky opens pouring light Like the sun I rise just to fall Fade but first come anew You’re still the only one to know my all

Lie empty, lie groping I’ve seen you, come know me Lie empty, lie hoping I need you to come show me

Daniele Clark 2001 His Arts Unlimited

Leave Me

When it comes you'll see it as it goes you'll believe it When I get there you're not here, when I get here I'm not there

See I turn and I've burned as I give and give again Everytime I cast you off I hit the ground and I'm weak though I play strong as this life keeps moving on everytime I make it through you've come around
Leave me unlock me before I break Leave me let me go before I go too far Leave me Leave me take your memory back to the dark

Will I never stop leaving you? Will I wake up with you gone? When the tears won't roll down it blows the top off closure. When will this turn be over?

So you knew and I should, so I learned while still young Now you're old and wise and mine With each ending you gotta cross some lines. Will this pain stop if I close my eyes?

See I've burned and I turn as I give and give again Everytime I cast it off I hit the ground and I'm weak though I've played strong as love keeps moving on Everytime I've made it through you come around

Daniele Clark 2002 His Arts Unlimited