Poem

Yes...and no

I'm thinking back to that time
and wondering,
"Did I behave properly?"
I'm crunching some numbers and doing the math
and curious if I was wearing a winter coat
when you signed the lease on my behalf.

I rode shotgun through the hills with you
flying along like the Burrito Bros.
Was it six weeks?
Was it six months?
This actually scares me a bit.

We burned incense to remind ourselves
that this life is temporary.
So much was happening in our heads.
I was gathering all these new smells
and still keep them in old wooden boxes
just like the ones in that ancient spice shop I stumbled upon
in Cairo years ago.
I remember the one box, way up top,
labeled "monkey brains".
How appropriate.

She told me I was an old soul
and she was dead serious.
Things didn't add up but I guess
that's what happens when an old soul is young and green.
.....

Our friend was lost in an obvious way
stoned and wandering the streets of San Fransisco.
He was taken by the right people for the job
abducted by aliens like you and me.
So he gave it all up.
"Whatever I need, they will provide me with",
was how it went,
"and by the way, if you sell some crap for us,
you will find heaven",
or perhaps just a cold, wet road
upon which speed freak truckers
and quarreling couples
hatch big plans of total insignificance.

So we got him back
on his own terms.
We said nothing.
We were just cool cats in our own neighborhood.
.....

Then the caravan seemed to appear out of thin air.
So I told him,
"I quit man"
and I don't even recall packing my bags.
Did I at least tell you, "this chapter's cooked"?
Just like that I gave up free wheat grass shots
in exchange for laying on my back
staring up at high desert clouds
through the open roof rag top of a micro bus.
I felt the Grapevine for the first time and
the specter of Jim Morrison rose up before me
and I had to think to myself,
"You really had the balls to believe that you owned this town?"
Whiskey is good for you if you have a cold
or you if you need a leg amputated.

When all was said and done,
I bid my fare wells in the deep dark night
after being frightened my human behavior,
and left once again without thinking.
Did I leave a hole?
Or had the hole already filled itself in?

So again, I ask you,
"Did I behave properly?"
I imagine what your answer is:

"Yes...and no."

Downstream animation

Poem

STEAM TRAINS

We are born steam trains

And with each passing year

And each passing experience

A freight car appears out of nowhere

Trailing behind us

Connected by an iron hitch

And within each freight car

Remains the first time you made love;

The last time you saw death;

The first time your mother held you;

The last time your father kissed you

When we are young

The load is light

So to look ahead is the only option

For there is no reason to look back

But with age

We become curious about the weight

the brilliance

the spectacle

In the wide expanse under a blown out moon

When the tracks bend north

With a slight turn of head

We are able to see the growing cargo

Snake through the hills

An accordion full of sound

Silent in the night

Story

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR $35

This is not what I had envisioned. In fact, I don’t think this is even legal. I went to great effort to make sure that the end was exactly the way I pictured it but as I scan the surrounds, I find this not to be true. Look, I can barely see through the 10 or so inches of lacquer on the outside of this modern day pine box even with the aid of x-ray vision that I now know the dead process. I see you all out there, my loved ones, in uncomfortable monkey suits, sitting on 19th century style wooden pews. I could simply move through this casket like a ghost you know, which is what I am, for the dead move in mysterious ways but I’m not sure if some of you out there would be able to see me. The kids are likely candidates for they can usual “see” things that adults are blind to but would more than likely be shushed by a mother or father and reprimanded for telling fibs. Anyway, this whole scene is wrong and after spending a good few hours of my precious time, when I was still alive, crafting this event in my will, I must admit that I’m sorely disappointed in you.

For starters, the fact that I’m in this brass-handled piece of over-priced crap means that my wishes (which I lodged over the internet for $35) have been ignored like some slight-of-hand Indian treaty from the 1800’s. The deal was that my body was suppose to be flown to the Tibetan Plateau, placed high upon a mountain cliff and left for vultures to pick at until I was reduced to bones. Then I was to be crushed and pulverised, baked into bread and placed back on the mountain to be eaten by whatever animal happened to be hungry and, therefore, returned to the folds of the earth’s natural cycle. I believe this is called a “sky burial” and I find it beautiful, poetic and moving. And appropriate. Plus one of you would have gotten a free trip to the Tibetan Plateau if you would have taken the time to actually read the document. This does not seem to have occurred and it looks as though I will take up way too much earth and be left in a toxic box that no earthworm could ever dream of penetrating. This image does not bring a smile to my blue lips.

I specifically stated on line 6, I believe, that if you thought it was important to have some kind of memorial service of some sort for me, it must be held within a natural setting. The church we are currently gathered in does not fall under that category by any stretch of your or my imagination. The lighting is too bright and, frankly, awful and there is next to no flow of air. It’s just plain stuffy even for a dead guy. You are all doing way too much itching of your necks and faces and shifting in your pews too frequently to make me believe, even for in instant, that you are enjoying yourselves. “Funerals are not meant to be enjoyed!” you may be saying to yourselves but I’m telling you that you’re way off on that one. Take it from me, wait until you’re in my position and you’ll realize what I’m talking about. ‘Es macht nichts’ or for you non-German speakers, ‘it matters not’.

And the music! Mein grosse Got! What is going on here people? John Denver? The theme from “The Titanic”? At least you didn’t book Celin Dion to sing it. I gave you a budget and a dollar is still a dollar these days thank God. I’m sure she’s a good person but, honestly, she has no business singing in public. What was suppose to happen (refer to line 12 of the afore-to-mentioned document) was we were all to be out in the woods somewhere with a small string quartet playing Grieg’s “Holberg Suite” and then, of course, Satie’s Gymnopedie was to be played on an old pump organ or something to lend a breath of meditation on an honourable life at which time you were all to mull over how I excelled or possibly fell short of your expectations in this life. There were to be birds flying around and the kids, if bored, could have wandered down to a babbling brook and thrown a few rocks around.

And me? I would have been nothing up there. Perhaps just a small, hand-hewn wooden bowl could have been situated up in the front with some water in it and a few floating flowers. This god-awful $38,000 piece of trash art and behemoth of a casket does not seem to meet the standards of which I requested - no make that demanded - even remotely. So what happened people? When one crafts a will through the internet, for each section they only permit 160 words so you end up not mincing any. In fact, I even dropped some punctuation to be as clear as possible and avoid any undue confusion. And this is how you translated my magnus opum? It was a set of directives and a very simple guideline with which to follow and you simply messed it up.

If it’s not evident by my musings, I’ll admit that I’m slightly depressed up here laying before you as a sacrificial lamb. (I’m being dramatic, of course, just to prove my point for there is, in reality, no depression among the dead. The black dog is merely a chain around the neck of you mortals and if you do suffer, worry not, for on this side the sun shines every day). I can see that you are all extremely bored and that the magic of my life is being lost in the predictability of this tedious setting. There’s a part of me that wishes to slap you collectively but also a part of me that could care less and just hug you individually. (Apathy is also a most common and wonderful trait among the dead).

So what is a guy in my position to do? The dead have no voice yet we rule you all in ways you’ll never comprehend. So maybe I’ll let this one slide. Just this once.

Poem

ZEN AND THE ART OF BLACKBERRY HUNTING

Nature
as a whole
breathes.

So I step inside
and like a diamond theif
my Pink Panther shines.

It breathes in now
and I go with it
and within it's pause
the opposable thumb rules
as the eighth wonder.

Soft,
hard,
and a million calculations later,
of archetypal memory,
it breathes out.

So I gently pull
and with it, move out
to complete the relocation
of the jewels to our breakfast.

Poem

ElVIS DIED HERE

They used to make bug screens out of steel
and man,
would they smell like summer

Through them
I could hear the distant hum of I-94
truck's delivering
families escaping

But not mine
We are all on this side of the screen
our turning bodies
squeaking bed springs
the odor of old wood
required of most proper cottages
filling me stupid

Falling into sleep I recall the day
shooting bullets into crumpled Pabst beer cans
stacked high in a pyramid
with evaporated lake water on my skin
swimming like a gill less fish
standing on the top of the sand bank
arms waving

water saying hello to land
land saying hello to water


This is where I learned that Elvis had left the room

But not where I learned
that cancer does not distinguish between

good/bad
sweet/sour
beautiful/ugly

But the sound of a screen door's spring
and the ascending notes of "Hi! Hi! Hi!"
...ultimately...
win.

They used to make bug screens out of steel
and man,
would they smell like summer

-for Joyce

poem

THIS IS WHEN I SHUT MY EYES

At around three in the morning
there was a halo over everything
and your head was no exception
As the train slowed and released me onto the platform
I laid down my guitar and through the flakes
caught the horse and rider
You smiled at me with hidden hands and white teeth
and there was one of everything
1 street lamp
1 Toyota
1 of you
and
1 of me
but billions upon billions of snowflakes suspended
offered up as alms to a gentle December moon

this is when I close my eyes

I see you playing etudes on an old upright piano
with snow covered pedals
in a field of spent corn stalks
sitting on a bench stuffed with sheet music
Then the fox appears
that half-hunter with it's patchy coat
It stops to smell the small of your back
then cuts a crooked figure directionless
deaf to your music
in search of anything that moves

this is when I open my eyes

You had not moved an inch
a statue made of prairie wind
still waiting, waiting, waiting
to show me the place where I would sleep soundly
near the fire and your dreaming dog
the one full of secrets

lyrics

MY FIRST ARMADILLO

I was on my way to Texas with the bald-headed Irishman
we tried to re-configure the stars
In my bicentennial pickup with bricks painted on the side
we slipped through Oklahoma under the radar
That is where I found my own Jesus
or at least someone who looked like him
with a wheel on his cross he was pushin our sins
Down the pipeline of I-35 past the flames of ol Waco
oh David! your death was mishandled like many times before

So believe me now cause that was such a long time ago

We woke buried in our fortunes and arose with the good citizens
who were off to work or crawling back home
All the architects and the film makers
and aspiring Senatorial hopes
all seemed to waltz right off the pages of my book
But we found ourselves on the fringes
where the muffler up and bit the dust
it was there that I saw my first Armadillo

So believe me now cause that was such a long time ago

We saw sort of famous people as they watched the buffalo roam
and in the palm of my hand for you I wrote down this poem
But all the words they bled together like some ancient Asian script
It was gone in an instant as I lost my grip
So we packed it up and hit the road
headed to the ol North Pole
all hail the mystery of this rock n' roll

Me and Me Mum

she sings like an angel

poem

THE TRANSMISSION OF SIR RONALD BELFORD SCOTT

It was a time I never knew existed until now

a crowd at the Myer Bowl held transfixed

raw sound raw power missing teeth

and a denim bulge

I can get closer than most though

Because I can see a little girl running like a rabbit

trying to turn back time and

make the cells normal please

I can see how rough it is

compared to the soft sandstone bluffs of an Iowa river

the leash has been broken here

and this sun has declared itself different

from the one that blinds the Queen's dogs

Can I hold you and tell you that everything will be all right?

Your racing heart beats your mind

but your mind beats your body and leaves it on a lucky beach

somewhere under the broken Southern Cross

where tin cans of beer are drunk by blonde boys

scared of failure

I was too young then to travel on my own

let alone fly in like a bird of all things

but now I am able to move freely about the cabin

to hold your hand to kiss your forehead and to feel the heat

escape his crown

I tell him it is o.k. to go and that

I am the freak who will keep his little girl safe

from the lawlessness of a distant outpost

deep thoughts

BUT WHO REALLY KNOWS ANYTHING

It seems as though there are two types of humans
those who think that this life is enough and
those who think that it’s not.
If you are of the first persuasion, consider yourself safe
and even, on some days, lucky.
But if you are of the second persuasion,
you have two options.
Either live in fear of the inevitable end or
trick yourself into believing that there is something greater and perhaps better
than this life.
If you do achieve success in this endeavour,
when you finally draw your last breath,
you may be reassured that there is, in fact,
something more than this existence,
something more than this attachment,
and something more than this happiness and suffering.
But who really knows anything…..

lyrics

CREOSOTE

I love the smell of the creosote
She reaches up and grabs my throat
Brings me back to my Chicago years
Drinking whiskey and drinking beer

We would eat the cruellest of food
Greasy spoon greasy attitude
And the smoke would rise up and curl
In the hog butcher to the world

And you went overseas while I stayed on
And when you returned you discovered
That I was gone

We use to meet at the Charleston
Talk about all things and nothing
What about that time at the Rainbow Room
With Mike Watt and Kira too

You used to live in such a run down joint
We’d scare the rats but what was the point
We’d go to openings where I wouldn’t know a soul
In old factories still burnin coal

And I went overseas while you stayed on
And when I returned I discovered
That you were gone

Now it seems like a world away
The Sears Tower and Lake Michigan waves
But somewhere in the heart of that town
You’ll find us in the lost and found

-for hammer

lyrics

WHITE SURFACES

I see your shoes you’re back again
They’re in a row by the door
Why don’t you move them closer
So you can’t walk so far away no more
I’ve missed the sound of your footsteps
They seem to speak a million words
But you’ve been hidin or choosin
White surfaces so you can’t be heard

I can see a woman
I can feel her age
Somewhere between an infant
And a relic with silver hair
She’s always known about distance
But that don’t mean she’s strayed
Her footsteps are kept inside her head
But the echo is too big for her some days
You know that echo is too big

I’m going down to the woodpile
And I won’t go beyond
Got to keep that fire burning for there are many ways
In which to respond
There’s a wall of darkness
With many holes that leak
Nothingness onto my legs
And gets me where I am so weak
You know it gets me

lyrics

CIRCUMNAVIGATIN THE SUN

As the crow flies under my spell
He takes these shortcuts he’s quick as hell
As I stumble amongst these big stones
Like a mortar and pestle it could crush my bones
Can I catch him he’s lost in my sights
And the sky is turning all Edgar Allan and I’m losing the good light

But he keeps me running keeps me running
like I’m circumnavigatin the sun
Keeps me running keeps me running to you the only one
Is it all just a dream? Which I’d never trade
Is it all just a dream? I hope she never fades

I could rest now right here
Oh these old tired eyes are sweating tears
I could drift in into a deep sleep
Here it comes that gentle creep
Well I can see that shape again
I think to myself why should I let that little bastard win

But he keeps me running keeps me running
like I’m circumnavigatin the sun
Keeps me running keeps me running to you the only one
Is it all just a dream? Which I’d never trade
Is it all just a dream? I hope she never fades