Month: February 2015

You Said You Loved Me (but I think you lied)

Soundtrack “You Said You Loved Me (but I think you lied)” by Victor Uriz

Lyric’s

In this valley where the sun burns hot

upon a levee we both once walked

you said you love me once I thought

I can’t forget the things you forgot

Now you’re nowhere around

made your future in some distant town

you said you loved me in some old letter I found

I tore it up and threw it on the ground

I remember how our bodies shook

your dress on the floor the way you looked

Smell of your perfume as your love I took

these things you did I guess I mistook

I remember how you said goodbye

your voice it quivered a tear in your eye

you kissed my lips and then you sighed

you said you loved me but I think you lied

Winter here’s the snow it flies

skies are gray, the sun has died

and from you ghost I try to hide

I kiss another lips but I still see your eye

God I hate this way I feel

god I miss the way you made me feel

they say all wounds time will heal

I hate you so much but I love you still

I remember how our bodies touched

how warm you were how soft it was

you whispered that you wanted me so much

and in these words I did trust

I remember how you said goodbye

your voice it quivered a tear in your eye

you kissed my lips and then you sighed

you said you loved me, but I think you lied

The Low Lands

When I think of my hometown, I think of that fertile Sacramento Valley, where in late August the smell of rotting peaches hangs heavy in the humid evening air. For a moment, I’m once again consumed by that helpless feeling that would rise up in me when the three rivers that snake through the low lands swelled and threaten to breach the levee’s.

They nicknamed my town the walled city, due to all the eroding levee’s that encircle the houses, churches and bars. When I close my eyes, I can smell the earthy scent of damp sediment carried by the Sacramento, Yuba and the Feather Rivers. The raindrops became puddles, the puddles became little streams and the streams a raging river.  The murky water slowly rose as it threatened to crest the river banks.

Every thirty years or so, the rivers would join forces and break the levee leaving the houses ransacked and the tired old town in shambles. The tenacious currents washed away the bridges, the trees and the accumulation of belongings that make up a man’s life.  And after the waters receded, the people stood expressionless on the ground where their homes had once anchored them to a sense of permanence.

Thinking back now, I’m not sure if the levee’s were there to keep the water out, or us in.  To this day, when I listen to the sound of rain falling outside my window, I never underestimate the power of a single raindrop.

It was here, that I first had my heart broke, but that’s another story……

Life is the Iliad, love but a Haiku===even the slowest of readers must sooner or later turn the page…..

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.

–Theodore Roethke, The Stony Garden 7 MORE WORDS

Crossed Roads

This piece is dedicated to Robert Johnson who is credited with creating the blues.  Enough said, the  piece will detail the story behind how he acquired this gift, or as some might say—curse.  Give it a listen and tell me your thoughts on the project.  Thanks

FAKER (lessons in love)

Soundtrack, “Do What You Want, Be What You Are” by Hall & Oats

Lesson #1

Life goes on, with or without me. Fads come and go, hit songs become golden oldies, all my insecurities and self-conscious tendencies slip away leaving behind silent movie memories, like puddles evaporating in time—— seasons never end, they just change, a circle of revolving eternities….again I’ll wait for you to come round again—I’m no longer in a hurry, infinity is patient.

Lesson #2

I use to give a shit what people thought, but I’ve come to realize that everyone is so self-absorbed that no one gives a damn about anyone other than themselves—-just a cavalcade of egocentric, narcotic sons of a bitches———And they move through life as though everyone else is a hollow prop, a means to an end, a thing to be manipulated for their own good. Why is it so hard for us to see this life beyond our own selfish experiences and desires?

It’s not that far of a walk till dawn, until Mr Sun bumps his head up against that dogged horizon. Ya see, light can’t wait for time to give birth to another day. I awake to find that I’m still here, alive and ready to breathe. I”m not afraid, nor sorry, cause that’s just waisted time, let the sky creep towards blueness and let the dew sparkle like diamonds to decorate the glory of forever forgetting, rebirth brings amnesia——Who were you before this? I think I must have known you from some other place and time, maybe a lover, a brother, mother, my child, aren’t we all somehow connected? Fools are the bitter ones, dismissing miracles, failing to see the expression of god within stars and dust——the lucky ones grow closer to the day, to themselves, to others,——to what is…….

The bathroom mirror mocks me. I dip my chin and turn my head one way and then the other. “Here I am——this is who I am, what I’ve become through choice and consequence. As of late I’ve become keenly aware of my two selves. My private self and my public self. I’ve lived a divided existence, a chameleon, a shape shifter, camouflaging myself into an unchanging innocuous background. I’m struck by the notion of congruency.

Somewhere along the way I’d lost myself. I’d allowed myself to fracture into a million faux personalities. I did this to please others, to protect myself, to fit in, to avoid indiscretions, to appear normal, to simulate appropriateness——I’d been a faker, a fraud—-These days I’d rather be notorious than anonymous. Authenticity comes with a license to be free, to be crazily sane, to be who ever you choose to be!

Lesson #3

As I’ve grown older I’ve begun to allow my layered selves to coalesce into a unified me. Such a task requires practice, but at the end of the day it has liberated me. One of the blessings of aging is that it has stripped me of my vanities. I am who I am, no more pretending——the sky is the sky, my dog is my dog, life is life, what is “is” and so on and so forth….The simplest of ideas are the most difficult to grasp!

I’ve been thinking about friendships and it has occurred to me that my closest friends are the ones who allow me to be myself without pretension or expectation. They know me, they get me, and in spite of my faults, failures and foibles, they forgive me. Needless to say, these days I have fewer friends, but the ones I have help me become a better me.

To be understood is to be loved.  And to be lovable requires honestly and vulnerability.