A song about a preacher with mixed emotions and conflicting priorities. Hypocrisy is a bitter pill to swallow. Written in a humors fashion but contains a good life lesson.
Rant and Rave
Father-Son-Mother —(A Letter To Me)
I have few regrets, but I sometimes feel a sadness when I think how you and I were never able to connect or understand one-another. Perhaps Freud was right, that we become who we are at a very early age and we find ourselves locked into a fixed script. And sometimes this makes it difficult to express the things that go unsaid. So, I want to say this, having you as my son has been and always will be the finest of gifts. My favorite memories is the time spent doing little everyday things with you and your sister. It’s funny, how it’s all the small things that comprise a full life. I try my best to remember this in each draining moment.
I see pieces of me in you and I wonder if you see parts of you in me. These days, I just carry little pieces of you from a distant past. There are memories of that little baby I once held. Then there’s the little boy whose hand I’d hold on walks in the woods. I carry the memory of teaching you how to tie your shoes and how to ride a bicycle. Summer drives in grandpa’s truck down country roads lined with peach tree’s and blossoming almond orchards. Sharing holiday dinners at Nana’s old wooden dinner table. Goofy face photographs. Days at the beach and neon lite nights at the boardwalk, the smell of fried corndogs and sticky cotton candy. Waking up to a snow day with no school and skiing on fresh powder. Hikes in the Sierras and the scent of campfire smoke, musty tents, penny ante poker, Monopoly and watching the family dog sleep next to you. And, then there was a teen boy in a hurry to go out and challenge the boundaries of his world. When I turn down all the outside noise, I find myself asking, where has all the time gone?
As hard as one may try, you can never bring your children home again. They have their own dreams and troubles that they must navigate. So, I fight the current of time and want to try to make right the things that I may have missed or failed to do. The middle years of a man’s life can often times be wasted worrying about careers, bills and trying to make something of himself through hollow achievements. Such deceptive mirages we foolishly chase.
It’s a strange thing, me and my dad never really saw eye to eye. We were just different in ways neither could explain. But, I knew he loved me and would do anything for me. He made sacrifices for me and my sisters that I never understood until I was much older. In spite of it all, and buried beneath it all, we had a love that only a family can share. I feel this love towards you and wanted you to know that. And that’s the simple truth.
I remember when my mom passed away, and how at some weird level I was relieved. This thought left me feeling guilty. I vacillated between anger and a morose acquiescence as she became weak and frail. She never complained even though she was in a huge amount of pain and relying on morphine to stave off the misery. I should have been braver and held her hand. I should have told her how much I loved her and that she was the best mother I could ever of had. I should have told her that if she needed to go, I understood and that she would always be missed. I should have told her not to worry about me and that her family would be fine. But I hid behind my fear, believing she must already know these things, pretending I’d still have time to say the things that needed to be said——-how fucking stupid was that.
I apologize if this letter comes off awkward and overly forthright. I suppose I wrote it as much for you, as for myself———You see, this letter is an exercise in trying to find ways to be more courageous with my love.
“All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.” Ecclesiastes 3:20
What kind of holy book explains life and death in such a flippant manner? I don’t understand.
Trapeze Flyer (anyone’s somebody)
When I was born, before I was anyone’s somebody, did you already know my name
did you know if it would fit
Back when I crawled and cried, did you think I would grow up like this
silver tongued and foul witted
Look what the prying moon has done to us
Putting a hole in our secrets
You were my lion tamer with snapping whip
coaxing me through your fiery hoops
You said you wanted to move to the mountains and not die in this city crowded with lonelyness
With watery eyes, you tried to reverse another goodbye
offering an apology to my reticent western skies
Reading me like a rueful love letter
A time and place we can never get back to
And this one life, is all you get
where do angels go to die, I once asked of you
We counted ebony ravens on a telephone wire
I threw a rock and they scattered, it pissed you off——again.
Another neoned carnival leaves town
filling the now silent night with the buzz of cicadas and chirps of crickets
stray dogs bark at the mute stars
Recalling how you let me put my hands on you
Nervous hands between relenting thighs
Save your posponed prayers for the trapeze flyers
Without a net, without a fear
I think she knew my name
before she held and rocked me here
Fear and Dread
Sharing thoughts, sharing feelings, sharing ideas is such a fine thing. These connections are what friendships are built on, and if you can’t find friendship in another, then you’ll never find love there either. People can let you down in a million different ways, but indifference, or disinterest in what makes you feel alive is the most painful. Connection and trust is the tearing down of walls with a sledge hammer made of vulnerability
We are all so alone in this thing called life. We need someone to hear us, to feel us, to hold us. We need something deeper than skin and bone, we need someone so close that we share a common breath. We carry around so much fear and dread. But please don’t let past faux pas keep you from reaching out. I got my own funny ways, things that might scare another away. But, I’ll put it out there all the same. There’s an art to everything, even the broken find refuge just outside the corners of loneliness. Thanks for seeing through my bravado. Maybe you’re pretending too?
Make no mistake, life isn’t hard, nor is it easy——-it just is. It’s what you mold it into or what you allow it to mold you into. Spin your heart and see if it lands on love.
It’s my devils, demons and the holy ghost that fuel my powers.
I’m an old rusting train in a world now made for jet planes and freeways. Trains have a soul of their own as they rock and rumble along. I might be old fashioned and slow, but don’t doubt my veracity, cause I’ve got my sword, my shield, and my rebel wear.
Before Forever Passes
A new original song. Check it out!
A Song For Haley
A song written for my daughter.
She walks in the woods alone
She puts her thoughts down in a poem
Prayer flags and dolls upon her shelf
She’s original, holding true to herself
This world will never break her
She sings along with James Taylor
She dances, alone in her room
She tells her secrets, to the midnight moon
Fathers and daughters
A bond like no other
Believe me brother
I’ll always love her
Puts her make up on in the dark
Blind secrets, hidden in an innocent heart
Her smile makes my world brighter
Her openness sets the darkness on fire
She’s strong and she’s true
She seeks no approval, from me or you
A mystery in the blood we share
In her eyes, like a mirror I stare
Fathers and daughters
A bond like no other
Believe me brother
I’ll always love her
My Best Mistakes
I climb into my faithful old Tacoma pickup and head west. You can tell a lot about a man by the truck he drives. The cab smells of rag weed, muddy boots and fresh orange peels. I drive past the fields, the farms and the redundant strip malls. I eye pretty small town girls with odd names like Galenda or Karla. Their perfume scented skin I won’t stick around to touch. These places and girls belonged to other boys with their Friday night hot spots and their Sunday morning houses of worship,——— a community of suburban anchored hearts. I’ve tried to fit into such places, but never could.
I drive til I come to the ocean. I check into a cheap motel that wears the odors of mold and a thousand forgotten summer vacations. I wonder how many have made love on this tolerant mattress, or how many have cried themselves to sleep within the walls of this soul suffocating room. The walls are knotty pine with a bathroom sink that drip, drip, drips. Outside my gray skied window the pavement smells of early morning rain, the sun rises with a memory of how small her hands looked when she touched me. Once again I find myself at the edge of this sad stained continent. There’s a damp coldness blowing off the water that chills me to the bone. January is my favorite month to revisit this rundown seaside town. The boardwalk is empty and quiet except for the rusty Farris Wheel squeaking and moaning under the strain of a gusting wind. I pull my knit cap tightly over my numb ears.
All my once hip friends are now vengeful Republicans, need I say more? Out of nowhere I find myself singing “Into the Mystic”——I take a shot of Jameson with a beer back. “And when that fog horn blows you know I’ll be coming home——-I wanna hear it, I don’t have to fear it”.
The bed-stand clock glows with its red digital numbers, the sound from the dripping faucet warns me of time passing by. How do I carry on? Where do I go from here? Am I too old to start over again? Have I squandered too many chances. I’ve moved to new cites, I’ve found new jobs and I’ve broken promises to the few who might of cared for me. I’ve never been one to reinvent myself or attempt to tame my faults or bad habits——I’m all that’s left of my best mistakes.
I sit on a carved up and pigeon stained bench at the end of the pier. A wrinkled asian man is standing as still as a statue as he waits for a fish to bite his line——I suppose we’re all waiting at the other end of one kind of fishing line or another. A young kid with chin stubble and unkempt hair takes a seat next to me. He asks if I have a light. He helps me cup a flickering flame from my Bic lighter. He squints as he stares intensely out at the foggy horizon. I know that look, I know this kid. He speaks “You got a wife?” “Yeah, I’ve had a couple of them.” He continues his interrogation “You got a job?” “Yeah, I’ve had a few those too.” “Did you get everything you wanted?” “Like most, I suppose I got what I deserved and a few things I didn’t expect. Sometimes it isn’t what you get, but more importantly, it’s being happy with what you’ve been given——-gratitude is the scale on which to weigh a balanced life.”
An older me talking to a younger me, what a gift. “Take good care of yourself dude.” I grab his cigarette, then take a hit off it before stomping it out. “Look after your health kid, you’ll wish you did when you get older——-and yes, we all do get older, that is, if you’re lucky.” He pushes his shaggy hair back “Do you ever think about your parents?” “Everyday I do. You won’t understand the sacrifices your parents made for you until you become one yourself. You’ll look at your children and be amazed at how parts of you became their flesh and blood. The best of times will be the time spent with your kids. Remember to give your weary parents the love and respect they deserve. The kids grow up too fast and our parents grow old and frail too soon. Once they’ve passed on, they’re gone for good. Time moves in one direction, forward. Regret is the child of missed opportunities.”
“Many acquaintances will come and go, but few will be elevated to the position of trusted friend. Choose your friends carefully, because they’re the only ones who’ll enjoy your ridiculous humor, tolerate your irritating idiosyncrasies and stand up for you when this world leaves you feeling insignificant, irrelevant and unworthy of love. They’ll embark on crazy adventures with you and provide you with the sweetest of memories. Your friends and family are your tribe and their unconditional love is the only thing that will sustain you through the good times as well as the bad.”
“I know that at your age you won’t believe me, but this life is tragically short. Don’t squander the time you’ve been given being bored or angry. Monies a fleeting vapor, a job that doesn’t suite you is a snare, pleasure without sacrifice is quickly forgotten. Look for true love and nothing less. You’ll know it’s true love because she’ll bring out the best in you. She’ll make you feel things you never felt and it will cause you to do things like hold her hand when she’s frightened. She’ll bear your children and cook you your favorite meals. For her, you’ll fix the things that break, mow the lawn on hot July afternoons and snowplow the driveway on cold January mornings. All these seemingly insignificant small things will comprise a full life. Keep your priorities straight and you’ll enjoy each day as it unfolds.”
The kid offers up a grin. “When I grow up, I wanna be like you.” “Take your time kid, being an adult isn’t all it’s cracked up to being.” I climb in my truck and head back home as I give a glance in my rear view mirror.
Tao
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
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
Rants, Raves and Random Thoughts 