Sunset Reflections (and The Secrets of Burgundy Doom)

The weight of this morbid

                                 Obese-Fat-Failing

Silence

falls heavy between us, again

Falling,

like the screaming cinderblock doom

of your own bitter creation

Your own screwed up reality, sugar

Your own dark, whispered, spell

Trapped here in this furnace of futility

Trapped here in ragged mescaline rages

In the blood red dawning of inspired gloom

Waiting for something new to rise

Overwhelmed with the desire to wipe away

this banal fealty

Sickened by stagnation

Suffocating on sullen acquiescence

and

repressed remonstrance

Weary of holding together separate entanglements

Burnt on smoky nowheres

piled 20 years high

II. 

Moving away

(at warp speed)

from the consequences of sleazy endeavors

from my own lost- Mad- abandon

from my own sad, failing, want

Lost in a thousand soft eyes

And split skirt thighs

Baptized in Tanqueray and Tequila

Seeking absolution in absentia

                     in anonymous sex

in swinging neon nights when Music

is the only thing holding my battered soul

together

Loneliness never abated

                     never sated

                  never yielding

            never understood

No admiration

        adulation

inspiration nor hot belief

has ever pierced this wounded veil

No face sought nor conquered

resting long in this restless heart of stone

I see you rolling up-oblivion

Emanating in waves from the hot streets

I see you in palisades and soft parades

And the face of newborn love

I see you in the visual cliché

of hot blondes racing along in red Camaros

in the hard luck demeanor

of whiskey voiced waitresses

flirting for tips in florescent nightmares

in the slow, swaying, dance of time

III.

I see you in the lazy yawn of

flea bitten hounds guarding the gate

of domestic hope from the cool shade

of grand eternity

I see you in the eyes of soccer moms

Singing along with the radio

as Poison pulls them back to their

day-glo heyday-1987

I see you here, Now, in full effect

Waiting…

I see you in the silent sleepwalk of sacred suburbia

Lost in the celestial solace of Sangria

Cocktails and barbeques

Ice cream-Bourbon and Soul

Children stomping in muddy puddles

Cigarette ghosts behind every loose association

25 ft. from the door

Tied to the pride of the new side

The latest grope

The latest need

The greatest fuck

The longest bleed

Willful to have it all

sewed up and displayed

and far faster than seeking

Identity.

Winter!

  Hey, kids! I thought that title might grab some attention. 

  I'm not going to write about how hot it is. You all know how bloody hot it is. Instead, I'm going to try a little exercise to try and get our minds off of it for a while and, maybe, cool us down a degree or two. 

  At least I hope so.

  

   A thick freeze clung to the outside of the tiny bedroom window, making it hard to see outside. Benny got up for school a little early and stood before it trying to see out into the yard. He was seriously hoping  for a snow day to extend his Christmas vacation. He and his friends had been having such a good time these past two weeks he didn't want it to end. 

  Plus, he had a report due today that had totally slipped his mind until about five minutes after he went to bed last night.

  He took the frost covered window as a good sign, but still couldn't be 100 percent sure, so he put on his flannel bathrobe and slippers and went downstairs to get a better look from the front door.

  He dropped down the steps two at a time and hopped the last three in a rush to get there. He pulled open the big, heavy, oak door and prepared himself for what he'd see.

  Everything outside was buried in, at least, six inches of fresh snow.

  "Yes," Benny hissed, snapping his fingers and doing a quick little happy dance as he looked through the storm door.

  The snow had drifted against his porch until it was all but level with the top step. The road in front of his house was completely covered and had yet to be blemished by tire tracks. In the dim morning light he could see a neighbor across the street working hard to uncover his car, steam rising up from the tailpipe in the frosty air.

  Benny could hear his Mom upstairs, now, moving around and getting ready for work. He shut the front door and went into the living room to turn on the T.V. As good as it looked outside, a snow day wasn't official until you heard your school's name being read on the morning news.

  He sat down on the floor and stared at the crawl on the bottom of the screen. The news lady was blathering on about plaque psoriasis or something crazy on their health watch segment. When he heard it, he thought of the big bronze plaque his dad had gotten from work. Benny guessed it would suck if all of your skin turned bronze and tried to slide off of your bones. But, he didn't have time to think about it. There were way more important things going on.

   "C'mon, be closed, be closed, no two hour delays, I can't do a report in two hours."

   Then, finally, after twenty commercials and a story on Chinese cowboys, his school, finally, scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

   Closed.

   "Woo Hoo," Benny hollered as he hopped up and scrambled up the steps. It was on, now. A snow day!

   Benny ran to his room and started changing into his snow gear, immediately. He started piling on clothes, hoping to get to the sled hill and meet Davy and Ray for a few rides before all of the other kids showed up.

   He was almost completely dressed when his mom knocked on his door.

   "Why aren't you getting ready for school, Ben?" 

   "It's a snow day! I just saw it on the news. Is it OK if I go to the park?" Benny asked, as he searched the room for his boots.

   "Looks like your all ready to go. When were planning on asking? On your way out the door?"

   Benny shot his mom a sheepish grin, "Maybe."

   His mom rolled her eyes. "I want you back here before I have to leave for work. I'll have to see if Ray's mom can keep an eye on you."

   Benny really didn't hear the whole sentence, he gave his mom a quick hug and bolted for the door.

   It wasn't long before he was standing at the top of the hill looking out at his neighborhood and all of the fresh snow covering it. The wind was blowing in his face and he quickly pulled his ski mask down to protect from its bite. He could feel the wind cutting through the layers of clothes. 

   It was getting colder.

   If this keeps up, Benny thought, the snow on the hill is going to turn to ice. It would really be a fast ride, then.

  It would be, like, bobsled fast.

  Benny pulled his sled around in front of him. He was ready to see just how fast it would be without anyone in his way.

   As the wind blew wisps of snow into the air around him, Benny ran and jumped belly first onto his sled trying to gain as much momentum as he could.

  He raced down the hill as the wind blew snow into his mask and his eyes. As he wiped out at the bottom of the hill, he lay back in the snow enjoying the rush of the ride and the cold.

  He screamed and raised his fist into the air as the icy rush took his breath.

  It was going to be a great day.

  Even if he did have to take time out to write a stupid report.

   

Inspiration, Music, and Madness-part 3-Into the Now

  OK, kids, part three. I swear this will be the last one. Next week, we'll move on to something more interesting, radishes or table cloths or something.....
   So, for people who don't know me....My later teen years were spent being buck wild!! I had turned out to be a fairly decent guitar player by the time I was 16 and started playing in a few bands with kids I went to school with. Nothing earth shattering but all good experience.
   Unfortunately, I spent more time getting fucked up and chasing girls. I concentrated more on living the rock-n-roll lifestyle than focusing on what it took to be a success. Now, that said, I was completely serious about music. After high school I wanted to move to California and attend The Guitar Institute in L.A.
I had sent for and received their literature and had begun the process of enrolling.
   Until my girlfriend at the time got pregnant.
   Then all of that shit went straight out the window.
   I ended up marrying her when I was 17, halfway through our senior year of high school. Our oldest son was born less than a week after we graduated.
   It was tough for a long time. I still played in a band with my best friend but I was more than a little bitter about squandering my opportunity to get the hell out of Bethel, Ohio. My drug use and drinking skyrocketed and as you can guess my marriage fell apart as did my band.
   Afterwards, I spent a lot of years lost. I got a decent job and kept my head down trying to provide for my kids and wife #2. I still wrote songs and poetry from time to time but didn't take it seriously. I had a bad attitude about it all and figured I missed my shot. Most of what I wrote then was dark and depressing, reflecting my own insides. There were stops and starts along the way with bands and poetry getting published here and there, but nothing significant. This was mostly due to my own negativity and lack of patience more than any thing else.
   Then, two things happened within days of each other that changed my whole perspective on life.
    In August of 2006 my best friend killed himself in a holding cell in a county jail. Then, four days later, the day of his funeral, I found out the company I had worked for, for 15 years, was closing.
    I had a complete mental breakdown.
    Of course, I didn't have the luxury of being able to lay down, freak out and somehow try to put it all in perspective. No, kids, this was a breakdown on the run. My family needed me.
    After the initial shock of both events subsided and more than a few hours long stares out of my bedroom window on long sleepless nights. I knew I had to change. I had to quit feeling sorry for myself, take control and make things happen the way I wanted them to.
   Life is too short to leave to chance and wishful thinking. I had to create my own reality.
   It was then, I started writing seriously. More importantly, I started studying my craft seriously. Not having the money or time to go back to school, I got my hands on a syllabus for a local college's creative writing course and set out on my own.
     I started writing poetry again, too, but this time, it was focused on beauty and Imagism and just being grateful for everything I'd survived and everyone I loved.
    As I was all doing this, I started writing my first novel, too. It's about my younger days and the break-up of my first marriage but mostly it's about all of the good and bad times with my best friend and the greatest band that almost was. 
   When it gets published, it will be dedicated to him.
 

Inspiration, Music and Madness-Part 2-The Teen Years

   OK, Kids here is part two of my aside that I'm writing for a friend who very kindly asked how I got to be so screwed up.
    So we left off in junior high where I was learning to play guitar and trying to write lyrics that didn't suck. What really got me going was copying lyrics down and studying them without the music to see how they stood on there own. The next thing that helped was doing the whole "Weird Al" thing, doing parodies, usually  nasty, dirty, quadruple X parodies (Hey, I was fourteen, after all) (of course, now I'm forty and still do it from time to time)
    The thing that put me over the edge as far as my literary search was a biography of Jim Morrison-"No One Here Gets Out Alive" a good friend of mine told me I 'had' to read it. To this day, I'm glad I did.
     What I found inside this book changed the course of my life. I discovered the music of The Doors which totally blew me away. 60's music to me at that point was my Mom's music, The Beach Boys, Motown, The Mamas and The Papas, Neil fricken Diamond...I could give a shit less. But, the first time I heard "End of the Night" by the Doors, I freaked, this was the soundtrack to the darkness that dwell inside. This was the sound that pervaded my dreams. I was totally hooked.
    But much more than discovering The Doors, I learned about Jim Morrison, the way he lived life, his philosophy, his poetry and his madness. I got turned on to the realities of the 60's counterculture. The Beat writers, Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Rimbaud, William Blake, all of Jim's literary influences.
   Then, I grabbed my library card and went completely ape shit!
    It took me years to go through all of the material indicated in that one book.
    It was time well spent.
    But, during this time I also, slowly, painfully got better at playing the guitar. I took lessons, learned from friends, bought books, magazines, tapes, played two to three hours at night while babysitting my little sister while waiting for my mom to get home from work. (Yep, a latchkey kid, ahh, the 80's).
   So little by little both of these endeavors progressed in my angry little brain.
   The only down side to this time was the beginning of my drug use. Taking the long view, now, I wouldn't change much. (I probably wouldn't do as much acid as I did in high school but that's about it) but as William Blake said "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
   Again I was influenced by Morrison. Looking inside my skull for the answers to the mysteries of the universe. And (much to Nancy Reagan's chagrin) I did learn a few things, about myself, my limits, my own philosophy, what I wanted out of life and what I was willing to do to get it.
   But, it all wasn't as completely organized as I make it sound. There was a lot of craziness and mistakes along the way.
   And that, kids, is exactly the kind of stuff you write about!!!

   Well, it looks this might need to go on to a part three!!
   Next time around, we'll get into the nooks and crannies of how I write.
   Drop me a note and let me know what you think!!

Inspiration, Music and Madness-A Child's Tale

   This week's blog post comes from the suggestion of a friend. They asked me to write something about me, my motivations and inspiration and that aha moment that made me want to be an artist.
   It turned out to be a more complicated task than I thought.
    As I look back I can't remember a time when I wasn't drawing or singing or telling my parents outlandish stories. Now, of course, all children do this, but for me, some of my most powerful memories from childhood revolve around having a deep connection to music.
   As a kid I used to sneak into my uncle's room at my grandparent's house to play with the old electric organ that he had in his room. I wrote my first song on that organ, "The Darkest Night" at probably 9 or 10. It's funny how I remember the song name after all of this time but can't remember anything else about it. Having absolutely no clue what I was doing I doubt it was any good. But, it was a start.
   About this same time I started getting serious about reading and, to a lesser extent, writing. I remember writing and illustrating my first book a few years earlier for a class assignment in the 3rd grade. "Vampires from Space". I don't think it was exactly what Mrs. Stein, my reading teacher, was expecting, but I still got an A.
   From about the age of 10, I started reading seriously, I had an above average reading level and my mother started buying me the classics. I remember for Christmas that year (1982) I got "Treasure Island", "Black Beauty" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". I devoured these books. The Mark Twain book was, by far, my favorite and my mother didn't hold me back from checking out  "Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" from the library.
   Over the next few years I devoured all the books I could get my hands on. I read everything, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mary Shelley (although, Frankenstein bored the hell out of me, I managed to finish it.) Madeline L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time is still one of my all time favorites).
   By the time I was in the sixth grade I discovered S.E. Hinton and Stephan King and many more authors than I can't remember right now, but through that whole period, I was never without a book.
   Now, about this time-6th grade-7th grade-I began a serious turn back toward music. Thanks to the kids on my school bus, I got turned on to Heavy Metal!!
   My parents listened to country music (and some old tired 50's doo-wop) so this was a totally new sound to me. I was quickly, totally, into Ozzy and Motley Crue, Ratt, Judas Priest, Grim Reaper, Metallica.
   I had to get involved in this! I had to get a guitar!
   So in the 7th grade I traded a microscope I got for Christmas for an acoustic guitar. I started writing my own songs (before I could actually play the damned guitar).
   The link between literature and music for me came in Miss Adams 7th grade English class. Part of her curriculum included a semester of poetry. We were assigned poems that he had to memorize and recite in front of the class. The one that sticks out in my mind was "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennyson. This poem was epic. It had BALLS. It brought to mind Metallica or Iron Maiden lyrics.With this, I was off on a new path of discovery.
   It was then that I started taking music and literature seriously. The two were fused in my mind. I started studying poetry and practicing it as ardently as I did learning to play guitar.
   My path was set. This was what I needed to do!
 


   Well, folks, it looks like I'll have to carry this over into a part two!!
   Feel free to chime in with comments or questions and I'll continue the story soon.

Tales of a Tardy Poet

    Hey, all.
    I am finally back to waste a bit of your time and cost you a few pennies in electricity. It's been an interesting couple of weeks and I've been having the best time so, nope, nothing to complain about this time around! Just a few observations by way of update.
   I've been on a  poetry kick, here the past couple of weeks. I joined a poetry site I discovered via twitter-21stcenturypoets.com and have developed some very cool poems from picture prompt contests! It is good for me because it allows me to stretch a bit and write about subjects I normally would not entertain. I wrote a poem about Cinderella from a picture prompt that turned out nicely! (Yes, kids, quit rubbing your eyes in manic disbelief-I did just say Cinderella!)
    Work on the book has been slow, I'm struggling a bit with the scope and how much more I want/need to tell. (My length is way above first novel length-If I carry out the tale as first conceived, it would, damn near, be twice so.) So, I'm just trudging along telling it my way and saving the editing for a later date!
    My band played out Saturday at the Hi-Port in Higginsport, OH, for their anniversary party/annual hog roast! It was a beautiful night, the crowd was awesome and the band played really, really well! We put a lot of work into preparing for the show and it really paid off. I was very happy!
    It's interesting, the people you meet at gigs like these, the Hi-Port has a rough reputation (totally undeserved) and is frequented by bikers and other travelers as it sits right beside Highway 52. The regulars there are awesome and I've played there so much these past couple of years, I am slowly becoming part of them.
    This night the crowd was large and there were a lot of people there I'd never met. The most interesting conversation of the night goes to a little gray-haired cat. He was right in front when we were playing and told us we were the best band he'd ever seen live, (he was drunk, kids). So after being regaled with stories of bands he'd seen and places he's been (jail and otherwise) he tells me he's a member of the Aryan brotherhood and lifts up his shirt to reveal the most complete piece of Nazi propaganda in tattoo form that I'd ever seen.
    I didn't know whether to punch him straight in the head for being completely ignorant or ask him who had done his work. (It was all beautifully done- fantastic renderings of complete trash!!!..Oh, the zen of it all)
    Not wanting to end up in jail (and still having another set to play) I side stepped the discussion of white power and asked about the work. Thankfully, it was time to go back on and my band mate Greg extracted me from the ludicrous situation. Also, thankfully, the guy disappeared about 3/4 of the way through the next set.
    But, like I was telling Greg on our way back in, it is never the hot chicks, it's always the crazies! C'est La Vie, I guess.
    At, least Mon Vie!
    More later!






The Glass Slipper


What night in joyous hearts await
as heaven comes to rest
Birthed of storied angels
Aphrodite's spell possessed

This girl
This waif of light and song
dare stir my heart to rise
her countenance obsequious
her smile of fairest skies

A single dance is all we share
lost in her lonely grace
I ponder long apostasy
to wake in her embrace

Too quickly, I am left bereft
as the bells of Midnight toll
A single tiny slipper found
to lead me to my goal

Love, Life and Letters

   Here I am again, kids, two weeks behind on the blogging!! I guess it's a good thing that nothing has pissed me off enough to have to blog but I, at least. should have stopped by and said hello!
   I have had a few minor irritations this week but not really enough to base a blog on. Work on the book has been slow but steady. I've made acquaintance with a wonderful Australian author now living in Switzerland, Derek Haines. He has a spy book out called "Louis" which I have just started. It is very good, and shouldn't take long to finish. It's an easy read and really pulls you through. Check him out on Amazon!
   I've squeaked out a few short poems over the past few weeks. I wrote an interesting one today from a poetry prompt from a site called 21st century poets. It turned out really well and is available for view on my facebook page. It's written from the view of someone who has experienced the afterlife. Now, of course, me being me, it doesn't exactly fit into premeditated forms or extant theories.
   I took an opportunity this week to read huge sections of letter of one of my literary favorites, William S. Burroughs. If you've never read Naked Lunch or The Nova Express your missing out! The surrealistic plots and characters are a study in brilliance.
   Now there, kids, is a dying art-- letter writing. My fellow Gen X'rs are probably the last ones that actually wrote letters, if nothing more than the crazy love notes passed in the halls at school! It's mostly text messages or e-mail, now. But, alas, it's just not the same. You had to invest soul, sense, and emotion in letters. You had to SAY IT, Putting yourself out there in precious cognitive order. Now, it's all fragmented in a hundred texts a day in an abbreviated language our grandparents wouldn't recognize. I'm not saying it's bad, but in Burroughs' letters (written in the hip jargon of that time) you can see the warmth and the intervals between letter and response, chunks of time spent wondering if all was well with friends scattered from San Fran to North Africa. Now, the response is instantaneous, and so the language is cheaper, the emotional investment, less.
    Now, I am a huge fan of all of the beat writers, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Burroughs, Snyder, McClure. I identify with their "outsider" legacy. I identify with their literary and societal rebellion. I identify with the idea that to change society you have to first free your mind. That life is better spent chasing your dreams, loving your friends and just having a good fucking time, man, turning up the radio to DANCE! Write-Sing-Chant-Scream. Live life to it's fullest!!!
   Now, I know what you're thinking, kids.
   "Well, that's all well and good there, Mr. Poet Buddy, but some of us have to work!"
   True, but you don't have to BE your job. You can't let commerce control your life! Or else your going to find yourself rolling around on your death bed with some serious fucking regrets and you know you can't take it with you!
    It's like that Don Henley song says, "You don't see any hearses with luggage racks."