Slice of Life

Follow The Crowds Bro, Lose Oneself

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On a bike ride the other day I came across these Snow Flowers. I bent down to smell their fragrance only to be met with a cloud of spores. I suddenly became light headed and had to sit down.

For a moment I lost my sense of being and my awareness of space and time. I drifted into a vision where I was introduced to this old Indian Chief named John Hollow Horn from the Oglala Lakota tribe. He held me in his gaze and said, “Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you too will die.” In disbelief I rubbed my eyes. “Man am I high or what…..?”

I sat still for a moment and then asked, “Dude, that’s some heavy shit. Can ya break it down for me?” He said, “Cover your ears and listen with your heart. Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”

As I reached out to touch him, I was suddenly jolted back into “reality” by the voice of a tourist asking me “Hey bro, how do you get to the Marriotts from here?” I was tempted to say you can’t there from here, but instead responded, “Sure, just squeeze into the traffic jam on Highway 50 east and head towards the noise, commotion and the stench of Rome burning.”

“Follow the crowds Bro —— lose oneself.”

The tattoo sleeved kid clad in his Under Armor tank top and Hurley ball cap, takes a swig off his IPA. He shakes his head in frustration “I’ll find it on my own” then in an act of deference he bows his head to his cellphone and request directions. The old Indian’s image began to dissolve as he gave me a wink and a grin. I could swear he was humming “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell.

I believe I’d been given a vision and a mission. So, I pass this experience on to you as a Prophesy—–. What we do to nature, is ultimately what we do to ourselves (universal reciprocity is karma via mother nature).

Be courages, be forthright——be uncompromising stewards of the land—Be a soul warrior for mother earth.

I can hear the trolls already “Man, I want whatever drugs he’s been doing.”

Disclaimer: This vision was not precipitated by the use of peyote, Mushrooms or the ole peace pipe—-it blossomed from the soul of a Snow Flower. Even rocks have a soul–if you sit very still for a long period of time and listen, they’ll divulge their secrets.

Another Lost Summer—Back Home Alone—Forgotten Places

Soundtrack “Desire” by Ryan Adams.

 

Another Lost Summer
By Victor Uriz

All those houses we lived in
The stories they hold
How we never fit in
And never really could

The cities we passed thru
Back then you said you knew me
Once again, I call another disconnected number
It felt so empty—–to be me—-without you

The radio on in the kitchen
Doing dishes with your clothes on the floor
From the bedroom I mumble
This life is killing me

Do you ever get lonely
You once turned the key
You swore you’d always know me
It’s another lost summer

You found better things to do
I just park by the beach now
On a crowded day, I swear
I caught a glimpse of you

 

 

 

Back Home Alone
By Victor Uriz

So young, then———-weren’t we all

No one will understand our love
So just forget it,
cause baby
You’re my best kept secret

A trail of blood, leading back to your door
To what might have been

Letting go, letting on
Maybe we should’ve tried a little harder
Fantasy and reality, who can tell one from the other
Me into you——like faded watercolors

Looking back at me, looking at you
What one remembers, isn’t always what’s true

There was no place to go, that we hadn’t already been
So we went our separate ways back home alone

Like gypsies needing no home

So young, then———-weren’t we all

I was young and bound for glory

Buried beneath fears and fossils

There’s heroes in scars
There’s music in the stars

Wake up

Cause dreaming will only take us so far

 

 

 

Forgotten Places
By Victor Uriz

You don’t care if I’m okay
You put on your makeup,
Just to make me wait

I take you out, but you don’t care
We order drinks and blank stares

I want to take you home and do you
But you’ll play me along like you always do

It ain’t fair and it ain’t right
As you turn over and turn out my light

My eyes scream F-U-C-K
Did you ever love me. who’s to say

Texts with smiley faces
You touched me in now forgotten places

It isn’t what you say
It’s more what you don’t do

The wells been poisoned—-
Flawed intentions, desires worn thin

It ain’t fair and it ain’t right
As you turn over and turn out my light

 

 

 

 

I’m Neurotic, NO—–I’m A Writer

 

Soundtrack by Keith Jarrett “The Koln Concert”.

At dusk when the city is quiet and the sun fades, and as the city lights gradually begin to come on, I get this empty feeling inside. Being empty is better than being consumed by the nothingness that comes with unfulfilled desire.. I’m better than all the bullshit that comes along with trying to be something or someone I’m not. I’ve grown tired of playing parts that no longer suit me. Those that fail to change or evolve become fossils, emotional and intellectual mummies—-soul sucking zombies. Their conversations are archeological digs into a dead past. That may sound petulant, but it’s the truth.

There’s always been this distant between me and what’s passed off as reality. Where does your reality end and my illusion begin? Is it faith, not gravity that holds this universe together? Is it hope that becomes the step child of mercy? The music is already there, you just need to let go and find it——listen…

I don’t really know anyone anymore. My wife, my children, my friends, everyone seems so unreachable. Is it me or is it them? Do others ever feel this stoic ache? Maybe it’s the cliche that we all grow apart? Is there an expiration date that comes with relationships from the factory?

I remember her giving me a hug, but it felt different. She was no longer giving herself to me, it felt like she was pulling away from me—–it wasn’t a good to see you embrace, it was a cradled farewell.

She let go and we stood there looking at one another as if we were strangers——-it felt awkward. There was a timeless silence weighting the moment down. I believe in love at first sight…….Conversely, I believe that growing apart happens imperceptibly slow——it happens so gradual that it’s almost undetectable.

I’m beside myself as I watch my-self experience life. I sometimes get lost in the bathroom mirror.——-At times I forget which side of the mirror is me and which is an empty reflection. Am I real? What’s this whole thing about? Where’s it all leading? How did it get started? I feel myself falling through time and space on a little blue ball——Are we alone? Am I alone? I take these thoughts apart and reassemble them.

Did I mention that I over think everything? I’m neurotic, NO, I’m a writer——one and the same!

Throwing Stones

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Soundtrack by Sheryl Crow “Always On Your Side”.

I want to write “I miss you” on a stone and throw it to the bottom of the sea, never to be seen again, or remembered. May my demons be your delight. At midnight, in bed, I remember it all to well, and I die a little bit inside. It’s always the small things——-those restive eyes, the scent of campfire smoke in your hair, rainy day drives in the country, as the radio played one perfect song after another——- me writing you lousy lovestruck poems, cool sheets, warm skin, that one naive moment in time when we believed the outside world could do us no harm….Cause we had the temerity to carve out our own world.

Together we discovered hidden record stores, secret rundown coffee houses, dusty used bookstores—-places that belonged to a different time and place, places best suited for leper romantic’s.

For a while, we escaped a world that spurned the likes of us. By providence we found one another, someone to belong to——-something to believe in——-we wandered into that indescribable web of love——-my chest filled with hallelujah-

We turned ratty taverns into Parisian Salons, there, we’d engage one another in extraordinary conversations about life, death and purpose, sharing stories from our childhoods, expressing beauty and pain, prayers, promises, finding our breath in the words of the other.

Buzzed and giggling we fell up those stairs leading to that old hotel room. I swear we both could have died right then and there. Nightbirds sang outside the open window, the old neon sign hummed, laughter and music filtered from the streets below, our shadows on the wall becoming one, intertwined in the dark humid air————- Down there, in the streets, it was just another ordinary evening, with ordinary people doing ordinary things. With you, life was anything but ordinary. How were we to know that everything would unfold as if it were a Shakespearean play——our tragic comedy.

I toss my stone into the sea.

 

Then Whom?

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Soundtrack, “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who.

You’d think after unfurling through a million rejections I would have lost my self confidence. You’d think after all those polite, dismissive comments I’d throw up my hands and fade into the background. I thought those closest to me might toss me a bone, cause friends should understand what needs to be said—-even if it’s a lie—-but mister——-I refuse to beg.

I suppose others have their own moments of undoing——a silent desire for whispered condolences that go unspoken, until it’s far to late in the game, until it’s written for them in a Hallmark Card—–sincerity stained by obligation and too often regret—–that overwhelming feeling of regret that comes when awakening to the finality of it all.

The universe loves a fighter, at least that’s what I tell myself. I find few like me, swimming against the tide, a comfortable misfit, a beautiful pariah, a practiced oddball. I’m at home with the weary, with the ugly, the wandering ones wearing a lost look in their eyes. Cause, to be truly alive is to be totally lost, living in the gray areas, at odds with convention. Seekers must always go it alone. The cost of adventure is the possibility of coming out the other end changed, some for the better, others for the worse.

Pay attention to those in your circle, give them thunderous words of respect, cause if not from a friend———then whom?

To Unread Poems

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Soundtrack “Famous Blue Raincoat” by Leonard Cohen.

I wanted this life to be different. I wanted it to be fair and love to be true. I’d feel others and have them feel me too. I foolishly hoped that such a thing although rare, might yet be real.

I walk around with my skin filleted down to the bone. I feel everything, I hate it, but there is a mysterious energy in this predatory pain. I inhale and then slowly let it out.

I understand everything, I believe nothing, it’s another poem, like a letter addressed to myself—–but there’s no one home—–there’s no forwarding address. What becomes of undelivered mail? It must fill disheveled cavernous rooms and dusty warehouses. All those words never completing their circle. Love-letters, letters of apology, lost confessions, fractured promises, forgotten excuses and declarations of sincerity. An avalanche of letters never to be read, by no one—-such a thought lingers like the dampness in an old musty room. I inhale, then slowly let it out. This moment tastes like a thousand sentimental yesterdays. I wonder what keeps us all alive, upright and walking through our individual versions of reality. She gave me a lock of her hair. I wonder if she ever received that poem I sent to her.

On a dark rainy night, I slowly roll past that old house we once shared——-now inhabited by strangers. The dim porch light, a beacon to orphaned memories. All those things I can’t escape, but can’t take with me….

 

Tales from the Zen Cowboy

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This eclectic batch of original tunes were inspired by a mash up of styles including John Prine, Jackson Browne, Roger Miller and Bonnie Raitt.  These songs walk that tight rope between the sacred and the profane

I write songs, stories and tales about good love, bad love, no love at all, regrets, redemption, humor, hometowns, drinking, old memories, god, the devil, what was, what might have been and what is. Such is the perils of being human in an often less than human world. I hope you find a thread of yourself within this collage of words and music.

My job as a writer is complete if I can make you feel less alone and more comfortable in your own skin. We’re all weird, some of us just hide it better than others. My style of music will take you to places where being different is a badge of honor.

 

The CD or music download is available at Amazon.com, iTunes and cdbaby.com.