These Days

Soundtrack “These Days” by Gregg Allman.

He said he’s now a Christian
Another poor excuse for me to scale
He sent me a letter with biblical quotes
Two thousand year old words laden with emotional quicksand
Everything neatly arranged into his boxes of good and evil
I wonder where I’d fit in—–these days

I miss that old friend, this new one no longer laughs at life’s foibles
His company makes our past feel irrelevant, like noticing dings on my car door
I’m reminded that time can be ruthless
Isn’t that just like me, turning the past over and over in my hands
Another shelf-life expired, I’m learning to throwout what’s soured
And this relationship has devolved, leaving a bad taste in my mouth

It took me a long time to get to this place
Sometimes it feels as though no “there” follows this “here”
Old friend, more shadow than substance
Everyone peddling their rendition of love
As if such things came with instructions and warranties

I went back to my fathers house
With him no longer living
That house is just dust and empty rooms
Like leaving a voice message on a dead mans answering machine
Pick up, please pick up, only the mumblings of a disembodied voice

I had to lose my soul, my mind, my self,
I had to lose my everything
To find a voice
The price of loving someone
Is equal to the pain that comes with losing them

Tao

Sound track “Beloved” Jesse Cook

After a million miles
It’s still running through you
A blinding light deafening a sky of jealous stars
We knew a round love in this world of flat earth-ers

Backyard tire swing, like a pendulum of gone by days
Pool chlorine mixed with honey suckles, the smell of summer
July laid out before us like a thousand unused Saturdays

Your cities are lonely
A careless milky-way evicted from time and space
Other people’s suns drenched in nothingness
Other worlds out of reach
Physics, another flawed human endeavor
Didn’t you know that the numbers never added up

Where’s the revolutionaries
Where’s our freedom fighters
An entire population of fools staring at smartphones
A generation of selfies, ego sponges

Angry, ignorant tweets, dissonant wind chimes
Where’s this generation’s John Lennon and George Carlin
Who’ll shame these fuckers
Hypocrisy is the breaking news
Truth has become negotiable
Climate change compromising happy endings

I’m the soundtrack of pissed off
Is everyone else drunk or high on recreational weed
Democracy a chess piece for the rich
Check mate, ponds against kings

Living in virtual bubbles
No longer “We hold these truths to be self-evident”
No more “We the people”
Wall street thieves and politicians
Who can tell the difference
Divisiveness is the cost of doing business with the greedy

Your birth was not an accident
Don’t let this one precious life play out like a sitcom laugh track
Be angry, fight complacency, believe in your power
To be about it, is the way

Undone Reverie

Famous Blue Rain Coat, Lenard Cohen.

Bring back
wandering and wonders

A child’s rain
A cloud’s smile

An avalanche
Of frozen dreams

That night at the lake
scent of campfire in your cloths

That slipping fear
Of days gone forever

And it’s always the same
In my bed of memories

I close my eyes and see
A spiral of life descending

Blue cars
Sing past my window

Pretend people
In fishbowl lives

Blood scrawled
love letters

February winds
Leave a hole in July

Standing so close
I smell your pain

Eyes so brutal
I’ll never blink

Is this really me
Is this really you

With rags of rage
I’ll undress you

One lie at a time
One life at a time

You’ll see me
In your worn midnight

Dry lightening strikes
Set wildfires in burning beds

I don’t know where I’m going
I’ve forgot where I’ve been

Seven turns
on a twisted highway

Listen closely
Hear the sound of your own song

And you said, so cavalier 
Offer up gods will
See things for what they are

Here’s to higher love
Are there scraps left for the likes of me

You’re the everything I wanted
Last thing that I needed

Did you know what you were doing
Because what you were doing
Caused me to choke on what’s never to be
Eternally incomplete, somehow find me there

And for a brief moment
You gave my madness worth
Like making love in your empty bed

Soft sigh, damp breath
Undone reverie, wet flesh

I have no one to hide from
Your ghost looks over my shoulder

This house of fractured mirrors
Broken pieces of me, pieces of you

Oh my god, so much older we’ve become
Sad in spirit, in this season of crucified saviors
Early December, look at what we’ve become
Hometown memories on faded polaroid holidays
And only the virgin snow knows secrets of buried yesterdays
When do old friends become strangers and ex-overs sad poems

This world will never tell us who to be
We’ll have to figure this out for ourselves
And then do our best to let go