A Light Breeze

I called to talk to you
The phone Gods won’t let me through
They say your bill is way past due
So, I’m blue

So, I’m sitting down
To write you a letter
But, it won’t be long enough
To replace the sound of your voice

The kids are in the kitchen
Cleaning up the breakfast remains
I’ve got Jesus music on the box
And a lonely feeling in my bones

Jesus gives way to Neil Young

“One of these days, I’m going to sit down
and write a long letter
to all the good friends I have known
And I’m going to try
To thank them all for the good times together
Though, so apart we have grtown
…
One of these days
And it won’t be long”

The music goes on and I am in it
Watching scenes from where I’ve been
Sights and scents drift up from months gone
Years gone in a whirlwind of incense and cannabis
Perfume and coffee
The color of blown smoke from cigarettes at night
The constant crackle of deep fryers and punk on the box
The freeform poets that don’t know themselves as such
Speaking into the thick air and pressing themselves
Like lovers
Into the echoes of their own voices
in my mind’s ear

I sit, again, for a moment, on your back step
Looking into the woods, and wondering
What next?
Now I know what is next, and I wonder
What next?

God shuffles my feet

I have no doubt
About where I should be
But, that lack of doubt breeds
Such agony sometimes
Knowing that wishing is futile

I am well fed
My skin is turning brown
I have toys and children surrounding me
There is light and life in my home
Problems abound, but they’re picked up
Like dust-bunnies and dealt and delegated
And solved quickly or not solved yet,
never ignored

“All the years that have come to pass
And all the years that shall be
I see here, right before me
I see here, before me”
-Crash Test Dummies

I get that feeling sometimes
Of being able to hold it all
In one hand
To peer down into everything
All at once
But there is always a veil
Of mystery between what I see
And what I know

“Times when the day is like a play by Sartre
when, it seems, a book-burning is in perfect order
~
Someday I’ll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I’ll wear pajamas in the daytime
Afternoons, will be measured out
Measured with coffee spoons
And T. S. Elliot”
-(also) Crash Test Dummies

How long can this last?
This feeling of being stretched out
Along miles and over a vast chasm
That separates questions and answers
Being on both sides at once
And not being wholly in either place

Bloody Hell! :)

I think I love this life, simply for its apparent dichotomies
So many things seem so two-sided, and yet
Choose again and choose again and on and on
And the shapes of my body change and my mind coalesces about them
I find comfort in discomfort sometimes,
as a means to just be at peace
And I want nothing more than to continue to choose

How can you possibly have read this far?
If I hadn’t written this, I’d have a headache by now
And would be drinking tea and sitting up in bed
Wondering where the hell all that came from
Wondering if I should try to sleep
Or to stay awake to avoid what dreams may come.

OK, well, you are still with me, I guess
Hearing my mind rambling about
Wandering through those woods behind your house
Watching myself, sitting on your back step
Smoking, probably stoned, and smiling

I liked sleeping with you much more
In “my” room than in “yours”
I’m not sure why, but it may have been the view
Out the window
To wake up and see the trees
And you, the yellow walls, your face so close
It seems like so long ago, but also, not so

My guitar is calling
It’s always been the place
Where I go when there’s nowhere else
But crazy

My children are talking
Singing in the kitchen
Playing games, a bit too rough
My life isn’t perfect, but, for now
It’s enough.

I guess I just want you to feel a little of
What I’m feeling now
The feeling of a light breeze, love
From 2,000 miles away

To The Anonymous Flamer

The following comment to my "From the Graveside Of My Marriage" post came in this morning. I want to make reasonably sure that anyone who reads my blog - either regularly or sporadically sees this becaue I'm willing to accept the possibility that I'm wrong here.

Anonymous said...
I keep reading, "Wow" and you are so strong and bla bla bla.

I'm sorry....Did you leave your 5 kids with a hooker who abused crystal meth?

First off, why 5 kids? If you don't have the ability to take care of 5 kids, you shouldn't be having that many. It isn't fair to the kids.

Second, to toss them to the wind to some coked-up hooker is really disappointing.

My mom took custody of us after my abusive father left us three kids. She had a rough time because he was her income, and he split from her. He went off and had three more kids and ended up abandoning them to some drunken deadbeat. I am so happy my mother took charge and saved us from an existence with such a miserable human being. Sometimes you have to make choices that don't fit your life, but they have to be made because of the choices you made previously. You can't just abandon those mistakes.

Even when life has you on your knees, you have to make the decisions that are right. You leaving your kids to a woman you know was evil was not very smart. You having that many kids with such a woman wasn't intelligent either.

I feel sorry for the children you abandoned. Who knows what happened to them. What man came into her life and possibly abused those kids. You were neglectful. I'm sorry, I just don't agree with the comments made here. It seems to me you made choices that were easiest for you without concern for your children.

I responded with the following comment.

Anaonymous, apparently you did not read, or could not understand the post - you were certainly willing to comment, I like receiving comments about myself and what I write - but, your comment makes no sense. I have an idea that's why you posted it anonymously.

Since I do not believe in censoring anyone's opinion, I'll leave it here - if you would like to expound or modify it, please feel free to do so.

I do however, delete spam.

anyway...

Are you aware that "Nina", who posted the comment before yours, is my oldest daughter?

ADDED NOTE:
C, who has also commented on this piece, is one of my best friends, my brother, and went through a lot of hell with me. Most of the other people who have commmented on this piece have read more than just this piece, and have been friends, acquaintances, and family - to just pop in here and blatantly disregard their opinions or comments, without even bothering to read one entire post, is, to me, a slap in the face against people I hold dear.
END OF ADDED NOTE

This post, for me, is a triumph of years of work - your reaction to your difficult life seems to have culminated in a bitter attitude toward men in general, and me in particular. Maybe some counselling would help you get past your anger.

I'm caring for my 6 children, every day, pretty much by myself - if you want to help me to be a better parent, thank you. If you want to vent your rage at someone who abandoned you, this isn't a good place to do it.

I think it's important, very important that, if you want to rip me a new asshole (and I very vell may deserve it), at least have the decency to read my entire post first - or I'll be calling you on it - because I do not tolerate ignorance in my life, and because that's who I am.

Happy National Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day!

Ahoy matey! Here be my post-modern pirate anthem - I be callin' it Sorrrry Charrrrlie. It's keel-haulin' music if I ever did write any.

If you were on yer boat, at night, guardin' yer treasure, an' you heard this a-comin' out o the fahg, I be a-knowin' yer timbers would assuredly be a-shiverin' !

I "wrote" this and recorded it in about 15 minutes after a phone call inspired me.

I used:

A Yamaha CVP-92 as a drum machine
A 1958 Gibson Les Paul through a Fender Cybertwin amp
A Rode NT-3
hypercardioid microphone run through a Boss GT-5 digital effects processor
An Akai DPS-12i digital recorder to mix
and
A PC to master.

It's loud (jangly), and is not, typically, the kind of music that I play - but, hey, we do what we do - and I had fun doing it.

Several people have asked me to post the lyrics, so I have extrapolated them from the noise, and here they are:

Sorry Charlie
by b

Sorry charlie
You pushed it one too many times
If you keep coming ‘round here
I’ll have to hurt you

I’ve seen too many things
To fear the day you go
Cusred myths and dark designs

Well, get goin’!

Five minutes, sad...
It's just twilight waiting
For you to crawl back

I’ve got another thing
I’ve got no pity not to say to you
This shit's so compromised
& I’d have to be
Deaf and whack to believe you
Dead-end flat to lead another life
to come drown in your lies

Don’t breath in
& Don’t Come back here again
Ever...

I’ve got a broken chain
And I’ve got a thousand things to say
But, it’s late
And I’m gone.

So, RIAA be damned, pirate me music all ye wants to!

Rock Stars Suck

"It's not that you set you standards too high and fail; it's that you set them too low, and succeed."
-I Have No Idea

I've been told all my life that I can have anything and everything I want. It has been true - for everything. I have always gotten what I've wanted, truly wanted, without exception, even if I was lying to mysel about it - the lies somehow fell away, and I have ultimately managed to succeed in spite of my spurious nature- in spite of some me that I created to try to fool myself.

I have been told by many that I look famous, play well enough to be famous, write, think, arrange, solve, feel famous! I have managed to outwit them all because, I just don't want to be famous.

I spent the last 2 hours watching "Almost Famous", the story of truth and lies, and the faces of people that lie behind the masks of an industry that hs removed any and all honesty from ruthlessness. I also consumed a fair amount of beer.

So, prepare to be babbled at!

Music is the true blood that runs through my veins - I hear it in my head all day, all night, while I'm smoking, walking, eating, making love, puking, sleeping - I hear music. I have a guitar that has travelled with me everywhere for 2 decades, and I play it everyday - without exception. I think in lyrics, and walk to rythms - I taste the music of this universe- is there anyone ou there who know the taste of Rancid's "Out Come the Wolves" album? I do, it tastes like pizza and vodka - Pink Floyd tastes like fine blue Indica bud - and if Steely Dan, Sade, or Aimee Mann music doesn't taste like sex on a stormy night, I don't know what does.

Once, on a beautiful spring day when I was low, I sat outside the Fleetwood Diner drinking coffee and wiritng. A guy came by and asked if he could sit and change his guitar string - I said "Fine." He changed the string and proceeded to play Mark Knopfler's "Romeo and Juliet" which cracked me open like a swollen summer sky. He then moved on, and I sat and wept quietly until I thought I would crumble to dust and blow away. My life started really getting better after that. I'll never know his name.

My point is that I know more about music that I have words to express- I can't give you wrap sheets on the stars, I cannot give you track listings or trivial dates of any album that Leadbelly wrote - but I can burst into tears whenever I hear Wilco sing "Poor Places" or Joe Cocker wail "Darlin' Be Home Soon!" I can love Kate Bush, though a lot of the denizens of this planet consider her a performance-art catfight, and I can hold Cat Stevens tight to my soul, no matter what the politics behind the starmaker machinery demand I concur to be a heinous breach of trust with what is considered by an industry to be acceptable.

I am a man who cannot stand to walk into a home or any place where music is not welcome. You Process Quality Management Initiative junkies who have banned your employees from listening to song will find a special hell ready and waiting for your asbestos souls. I will not abide the absence of poetry in a woman's walk, or in the games of children. I will flee the human being who denies the power within themselves to make a joyful noise.

I seek the adapted;
the agreeable and amicably balanced;
the naturally compatible;
the inately concordant;
the unthinkingly congenial.
You congruous, consonant,
coordinated and cordial;
correspondent to dulcet
and euphonious sensousness!
I need the fair and fraternal harmonic humanity;
in accord, in chorus, in concert, in thoughtless step;
in tune!
Mellifluousity mixed to a musical, peaceful rhythm;
silvery, similar, simpatico;
sonorous, suitable and so sweet-sounding;
symmetrical, sympathetic, symphonies;
of tuneful, unison.

And I knew that I will never get that from an A list or the holder of a backstage pass.

Music is my passion
it is who I am, not what i do
never to be bought or sold
it is love on a stormy night
no matter the time or weather

Fuck Famous - I love being a lonely 2 AM street musician who plays for cigarette and coffee money (if that) - it's all free, anyway - all I need do is truly want it.

Good Night Uni(one)verse(song)

This is how I feel today

I'm trapped in about 40 pounds (used to be 35, damnit) of too much me with six half-insane children and an X wife who (now that she's legally restricted (FOREVER) from having custody of said children) has suddenly grown a conscience and an unfailing internal indicator of what's BEST for them, and how I do it WRONG most of the time.

Sleep To Dream
by Fiona Apple

I tell you how I feel, but you don’t care.
I say tell me the truth, but you don’t dare.
You say love is a hell you cannot bare.
And I say gimme mine back and then go there -
for all I care.

I have never been insulted in all my life.
I could swallow the seas to wash down all this pride.
First you run like a fool just to be at my side.
And now you run like a fool, but you just run to hide,
and I can’t abide.

Don’t make it a big deal, don’t be so sensitive.
We’re not playing a game anymore, you don’t have to be so defensive.
Don’t you plead me your case, don’t bother to explain.
Don’t even show me your face, ’cuz it’s a crying shame.
Just go back to the rock from under which you came.
Take the sorrow you gave and all the stakes you claim -
And don’t forget the blame.

I got my feet on the ground and I don’t go to sleep to dream.
You got your head in the clouds and you’re not at all what you seem.
This mind, this body, and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways.
So don’t forget what I told you, don’t come around, I got my own hell to raise.

Chainsmoking For Peace

I'm trapped in about 40 pounds (used to be 35, damnit) of too much me with six half-insane children and an X wife who (now that she's legally restricted (FOREVER) from having custody of said children) has suddenly grown a conscience and an unfailing internal indicator of what's BEST for them, and how I do it WRONG most of the time.

I'm going back to my chainsmoking now.

Part I: The Dream of the Charyngas

Namaste (Na-Ma-Stay)– from the Sanskrit language means something like “I celebrate the place of being within us where we are one.”

---

It is late afternoon, and I am walking through Buchanan, Michigan, the hometown of my childhood. I have walked up Front St. hill and am waiting at a bus stop across from and looking at the Swem Funeral Home which sits in ochre judgement over the late 19th-century houses and the New Lutheran church lining the old residential section of the town’s main drag, between Moccasin Avenue and Detroit Street.

As the bus pulls to a stop in from of me, I see that it’s actually a modified twelve-passenger van, decorated not in maroon and white (the town colors), but in maize and blue- the colors of Ann Arbor, the hometown of my adulthood- I also see that a University of Michigan logo water-marks the vehicle’s windshield. The old-style suicide door opens and I climb aboard. I have no idea where this bus will take me, nor do I care who is driving. I sit down and look around.

The seats are grey, and seem new. There are several passengers and I recognize one in particular. She is slim and young, dark-haired, possessed of a brilliant smile, about fifteen, a lovely girl- she radiates sweetness. I tell her that I think I know her but can’t remember her name. She tells me her name is Natasha, and it strikes a faint memory someplace. I feel comfortable and relax into my seat, enjoying the scenery and the energy of Natasha and the other riders- the vibe is palpable and warm, like the pre-fall weather.

I drowse, taken down somewhere near sleep within this dream by the vision of colors moving past my window, and the inertial twist and mild lurch of a small bus about it’s business.

After a time I feel some confusion, I am not sure where I am, nor how long I have been riding this bus. I look around and notice that new riders have boarded the bus, some who had been there when I boarded have left. A young woman, with long kinky blonde hair, wearing off-white slacks and a green pullover is standing across the aisle just behind me. She is preparing to sit down and, noticing me, smiles. I ask her if she’s from around here and she says, yes, and tells me her name is Brit. She is a friend of my best friends’ daughter, I have met her before, and I watch her as she arranges her things and gets comfortable- the bus moves along it’s route, and I listen to and watch nothing in particular.

I begin to look out of the window again, trying to determine where the bus has taken me, and realize we are headed north and east out of town, through the Kayuga and Chippewa neighborhoods. Shortly I realize have looped around through the hilly country outside town, and are now on Redbud Trail, heading south along the St. Joseph river back into the Buchanan township proper. Without any seemly reason, the bus slows to a stop- and, although the engine is at idle, begins to bump and drift in a strange way. I can see the scenery to my left; trees and river and built-up brush, shifting diagonally toward the rear and roof of the bus. The daylight deepens into the gloaming of new evening in trees, and I feel the end of the day creeping eastward from the bluff-obscured horizon to my right.. The sound of the engine picks up, and the inertia of applied force presses me gently toward the back of my seat. I look out the back window to gain some understanding of where I’ve just been.

I see a steep hill girdled by a tram-like structure. Atop the tram I see the form of a middle-aged woman operating a bicycle-like mechanism that sends a bus-sized palate back up to the summit of the hill. I also notice a neat, but oddly narrow dirt road circumscribing the landward side of the hill, winding around and up into the dense brush. I realize then that the bumping and drifting of the bus was a function of riding the tram down the face of the hill. Shortly after the descent of the hill, the bus pulls into an almost circular canyon, which appears to have been dynamited into the 80-foot high river bluff on the right side of the river road.

I get off the bus, walk across a small parking lot, and enter a large and very old block building. The dark paneling and the soft light from wall-mounted incandescent sconces, the tile floor, and the square tables give me an impression of a café and a library. I am not sure why I came here, I know there is a class forming, and know that I have not signed up for it, and have a strong feeling that I am supposed to be here. I find a chair at a well-lit table and sit down.

A couple of people come in and sit at the table I have chosen. Both are male and in their twenties, dark-haired and pleasant. I have some conversation with them that I cannot remember. Shortly a woman comes into the room carrying what appears to be a stack of menus. She places several on the table at which I sit, and moves on to do the same at other tables scattered about the room. I now see the other tables are occupied by mostly young men and women. I take one of the menus and begin to examine it.

I am taken with the green patterns decorating the laminated and folded eleven by seventeen inch sheets. The patterns are all in greens; swirls of forest enfold summer grass and emerald- the borders are of hunter and some color approaching teal. There are no straight lines anywhere that I can determine. The patterns and colors draw my eye to their centers, and cause my attention to wander out and around, never quite reaching the edges, and back again, in a round-about way to the center.

Opening the beautiful folded sheet, I am delighted to see more patterns. These are more angular, blocky and mazelike- they remind me of Islamic art I have seen, and I know what they are. I reach out and take another from the scattered pile on the table. One of the guys sitting with me wonders aloud what they are. I tell him they are “charyngas”, which I know, thought I’ve never heard the word, to be an old Aryan name for a meditation-training device. I tell him that some of the patterns are used to defocus the attention from the mundane world, while others help to structure and focus consciousness. I explain that, to use them properly, one should randomly scan the patterns while not focusing or identifying any individual part of the whole. They are large enough to take up the entire field of vision when unfolded.

We take turns randomly perusing the charyngas and passing them around, spending about 10 seconds on each one. Then, the woman who had handed out the folded patterns, comes to the center of the room and begins to speak.

I turn my attention to her and only need to look up slightly to meet her eyes. She is beautiful; she is somewhere around five feet three inches tall and her long dark hair and pale skin seem to be lit from within. Her body is voluptuous and strong. Her nose is long and her dark eyes seem to define depth itself. She is wearing a black crew-neck top with cuffs pushed up to her elbows and a black skirt with patterns in ash and dull silver that remind me of the designs on the outer side of the charyngas. From a silver necklace hangs a small crystal sphere, which rests on the black cloth of her top, just between her breasts.

She tells us that this is a meditation class and that she is happy to see so many here. She tells us that we are welcome to continue examining and passing around the Charyngas while she talks about why we are here. She speaks of the history and practices of different forms of meditation. She outlines benefits to meditating, both individual and global- she is quiet, articulate, and impassioned concerning her material. The people sitting all around the dim warm room are relaxed and interested, even connected in purpose and focus. After a period of time that seemed to be about three quarters of an hour she asked us to find and sit unmoving in a comfortable position on our chairs, relax our bodies, and clear our minds of all internal dialogue. She tells us that we should be calm and quiet within ourselves and breathe evenly and slowly, and just be open to whatever comes.

I close my eyes and go through my accustomed series of relaxation steps, allowing my muscles to relax in groups starting at the top of my body and working my way down and in from the periphery towards the center of my body, and again, back out from the center. Soon, I am relaxed and quiet. I feel the inside of myself grow beyond the walls of the building, and I feel connected and empty. Thoughts pass by and through me, some of them do not seem to be mine, and I seem to watch them move like cloudscapes in a sunset sky.

After a while I realize that she is moving about the room, observing the class. I have no idea what she is looking for, I assume she is moving to provide us with some kind of focus that will keep our internal and external attentions balanced, and to better see and feel the level of relaxation and focus of each student. I feel happy here, now. I have no conscious thoughts. I hear her move and see traces of the charyngas patterns behind my eyelids.

As time passes, I begin to feel a pressure inside myself. All through me it moves like liquid or heat trying to find a path to follow. Up and up it presses until my head, my entire being feels ready to burst with it. I feel her then, standing in front of me. And I see her through my closed eyelids, bent slightly forward, hands folded, looking directly into the center of my forehead, her lips slightly parted and she is touching me inside.

I am momentarily confused. I want to respond, but am not sure how I can respond. I realize that all I need do is let go. I feel the pressure and let the liquid heat flow from me- from everywhere at once. I burst from within myself like light from a star. I have a feeling of triumph, elation, like I am showing her something I’ve never been able to show anyone before, showing myself something that I don’t understand, simultaneously the teacher and the student.

In a conversational tone of voice, though a little breathy and at a slightly higher pitch than I have yet heard from her I hear her say, slowly, clearly… “Namaste… Namaste… Namaste…” I hear this word, and I simultaneously hear her saying, “My God, he is open, he is with me, he is really here, I am with him, we are one.” I feel embarrassed for a moment, wondering what I have done, feeling I have tricked her, feeling I am now to be a spectacle of ridicule, but I do not open my eyes or let go of what I know is happening. I realize that she has not made a sound, that the words were inside me, but I have no doubt of their origin. The self-doubt melts because I know that it serves me no more. I open my eyes and gaze into hers.

Light! Her eyes are filled with infinite light. It does not hurt to look into her, and I know that I am seeing in her exactly what is happening within me. I smile, not at her beauty or at the spectacle of the Light, but at the knowing that comes upon me that she sees in me what I am seeing in her, and we are truly one. I feel wanted, immediately and eternally wanted, in every physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological sense I can point to with my mind- she is mother, sister, lover, and self. And I wake with the afterimage of the light still on my retinas, knowing I have been shown the true meaning beyond words of Namaste.

I awake knowing that I must not forget what I saw. Even though the details are gone. What I have described here is only the surface of the dream, there are interstices of knowledge that couldn’t make it down to the level of consciousness that I am exercising as I write this, but the feeling burns within me still, as does the faintest glimmer of that Light.

---

Part II will be entitled "...And What Came After."