relationships

Father-Son-Mother —(A Letter To Me)

Soundtrack “Colors” by Amos Lee

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.


Beauty Out Of Cruelty

Soundtrack “Stop” by Joe Bonamassa.

 

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It takes space to give a person or a thing a fresh perspective.  Time tastes like expensive bourbon—–at first a cozy burn in my belly, then a flushed buzz across my reddened face, followed by a grimace and a wince.  Yesterday and tomorrow remain the same and open to interpretation. Everyone changes, some for the better, others for the worse.  I’ve always contended that to be understood is to be loved.  But, you can’t understand someone until you let go of your relationship with their relationship. There is often much truth in what appears to be a bizarre contraction.

People are complicated, relationships are messy, normality is a mirage—-we’re all blind to our disfunctions. One man’s crazy is another man’s fetish. I wonder what parts of me are living in you? And, what parts of you will always be withheld from me?  Cause if I’m gonna love you, I gotta touch, taste and feel all of you. I’ve walked around in you, I awoke inside you; what a beautiful world. There’s much hidden in the fog of what we desire verses what we get and who we wanna be verses what we’ve become. I wonder how you’d privately describe me to your girlfriends. Woman talk about men as if they were capital.  They estimate their earning power and their value on the free market.  “He buys me whatever I want. You ought to see his portfolio.” Men talk about women as if they were property, as if they were a new sports car.  “Look at what I own, look how shiney and pretty she is. She does whatever I ask her to do, and I mean anything.” I swear I’ve felt you walk through me, what a strange world in which to lose yourself. The record skips at the same old place every time, our steps go in circles, yet as hard as I try, I still step on your toes—–

Out of thin air we found one another, our chemistry volatile. Desire is like a rubber band.  If never stretched it will become brittle and one day break when most needed.  Or, if stretched beyond what it’s capable of handling, it will abruptly snap.  What we expected isn’t what we hoped for.  What we get is karma and karma reminds us of what we deserve—–So, you better stop.

I have this ex-lover I carry around with me like a faded legend. I have these movie reels of us taking up space in my head. In one we’re in a stark white room and we’re both wanting to be touched by the other, but instead we keep poking our fingers into one another’s soft spots.  And then there’s the reel of us driving down a flat endless desert road and were fighting over the steering wheel.  The brakes fail us as we careened out of control.  The horizon becomes a cliff we fly over into oblivion. I’ve been told that oblivion is where new stars are born from the explosions within dying stars. Now, isn’t that the way of nature, creating beauty out of cruelty, birthing new beginnings from our finalities.  

Laughter is the orgasm of the soul….God smiles knowing the punchline lies within us all……… 

 

 

A Tall Cool Glass Of Water

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Soundtrack “Sailing The Wind” by Loggins and Messina.

She is with me, even though she doesn’t know it. The oppressive southern humidity causes my shirt to cling to my sweaty back. The drapes billow in the late afternoon breeze as a honeysuckle scented zephyr washes over me like a tall cool glass of water. In the distance a Southern Pacific moans its farewell. I feel myself melting into the over stuffed leather chair in the dimly lit living room. It doesn’t feel like a living room, it’s a gateway into my growing hollowness. How many chances in one lifetime does one get to know love, to feel love——to be loved—–to give love? Love doesn’t seek meaning or purpose, it seeks only itself. If you aren’t quiet and still, you will miss it. If you doubt it—- when you are touched by it——-then it will orphan you.

She’s in me, even though she’s no longer aware of it. She’s in each breath I take. She’s invasive, giving me life as her memories softly kill me. Such a cruel contradiction. Love is a living thing, it can nourish you—–or it may desert you. It’s a monster, a ragged angel with broken wings. It’ll shake you, scare you—–surprise you, make you believe in miracles and allow you to indulge such sweet misery. And as quickly as she comes on to you, she’ll mysteriously abandon you.

She’s leaving me, I know it now. The living room is shrinking. I feel her silhouette in the days dying sun. I smell her skin, taste her mouth. My voice sounds like that of a stranger. I hear myself whisper——- “Stay, god please stay.” She is going on without me. She no longer gives a fuck. I’m overthinking everything, I’m over feeling everything. I no longer have a place to go. I forget what it’s like to be me without her. A honeysuckle scented zephyr washes over me like a tall cool glass of water.

 

 

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.

 

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.