misconnecting/connecting

before I start, as a "Hey" to Charley, there are two under-the-radar peculiar laughs to be mined in a coupla old songs by stephen stills. I like to think they might be about the stumble-in-the-dark nature of the quest for love. wise guy stephen stills?
"Wordlessly watching,he waits by the window
and wonders about the empty space inside
heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams
he worries..did he hear a goodbye
or even "hello?"
from 'Helplessly Hoping'

and from the powerful bridge from 'Bluebird' from the Buffalo Springfield days
"Do you think she knows you?
Do you think at all?"
*
Ok, starting now
let me spill some about "connecting to the stars"
Besides shaking hands w/Spaulding Gray (RIP) and
Richard Thompson (TWICE)
I felt something between me and Ricki Lee Jones (we locked eyes w/love)
and Bob Seger in a bar (we locked eyes w/friendship)
Since the ceiling was spinning as Jackson Browne was singing a ethereal take on "Too Many Angels" I needed to work my way down the aisle to escape,towards the stage, from where Jackson needled me "Don't Go"
I raised one arm up, palm up, and shrugged. then, a wave.
We all shared a laugh.
Todd Rundgren had an elaborate circular stage one tour,where besides seating willing drummers from the crowd to join in to "play all day" on that damn song, besides that, he had cams mounted & a variety of stuffed toys,rocket ships,and whatever suspended over the crowd,with outreaching and spinning mechanical arms. (or maybe i dreamed this)
People were way too distracted (like babies under a mobile) reaching for
the thing instead of listening...
I grabbed a big dinosaur..and held it..not sharing, and trying to focus on what Todd was trying to do..and he all of a sudden was shouting "Hey, let go of my dinosaur!"
My only rejoinder could be (I yelled over the divine din)
"It's the content, stupid" something he just might have said.
We shared a laugh.

I was so much older then..

written when I was a kid but I was always proud of it/thot I'd share



P O I S E

I'm immersed in the miracle
of my sense
Poised on the pinnacle
of a fence

Razor-sharp and fast
I gotta outlast
a lotta likelihood.
& rays of cutting ice;
a slanting precipice
was wanting the place
I stood.

cheers

I own my own muse
uncannily, I can amuse me

it's fairly common knowledge,I think, that some Irish may
consider a spot of poteen and a pint at the end of a well-spent day...
God's pay for a day's good work. Earned.
when I get home, I spill a half swallow of irish whiskey in my glass, turn to look out the back window,raise my glass some, and to the sunrise's orange and yellows,to the trees & water
I'll whisper "yes, here's to ya,then".

Coupla nights back, I noticed there was just half a swallow in the bottle I might savor in the morning after work, and get the empty bottle out to the recyclable bin before the early truck. Before I headed off to work
the night before though, it was apparent that my sweet & neat mate, thinking logically that the bottle was another empty to go out the night before, took it out.
the next morning, after getting out all the rest of the trash out to the front that needed to go,walking the 30 yards back up my broken driveway to the house, I stopped. I smiled, then started laughing as I walked back to the road, all the time thinking of the imaginary guy across the street, opening his blinds for the sunrise, slippers & robe,looking out and seeing the real life guy across the street walking out to the road, lifting the top up, and reaching down into the bin, pulling out a bottle, unscrewing the top and tipping it back for that last swallow.

MALESTORM

the weather is wrong
it's pouring but there're stars,
a full moon loud behind cloudings.
it's hydroplane hell on these slick tricky curves,
think-quick black splotches spray up,
and yank on my wheel.
my fingers grab tighten, lit up by lightning.
I'm in a dream, in a tail spin

half-asleep myself I lean down
to caress her goodnight.
to find her in the very darkness
I finger jabbed her eye &
I cringed when she cried.

"does it matter I meant well
when I hurt you?" and left her.
went outside to ride in the rain
and inside I died some again.

dylan sang "I'm gonna give myself a good talking to"

Lifetimes ago, a person I allowed myself to fall in love with told me that I was likely "the most unhappy person" she had ever known.
I felt no such thing.
But I was game,I guess, for spiritual experimentation when i finally took her up on her suggestions that I enter therapy.
In a short time, I learned to appreciate the self-indulgent free sharing & release, and even came to develop a bit of a need for the process. like church for some

I recently saw the movie "The Bucket List" ( a film where only the damn likable likes of Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson might 'make entertaining'
the dread filled subject of cancer and onrushing death.) At the center of attention was a list scribbled on a legal pad page of things important to accomplish before kicking the bucket. Our dying but damn likable gentlemen pursue ideal dreams, & scratch 'em off.

Lifetimes ago, as an exercise to force priorities onto the surface & into the light, my Doctor of Listening & Provocative Questions prescribed homework;
If I had one week to live, and knew it..what must I accomplish,
what might & must I do to complete this life?

I wrote a dozen pages and typed them up.
It was good for me, as this was.

nary a "bitch"

influidnced by bloody carafes of Pi-"no way!" she just might be full of disagreeable.
a broombruising was brewing for me, when I flippantly flipped my dark card to center table; a recent restaurant rant.

"Sex and the City,The Movie is a monster hit? Monster ,all right. So,
they sell "trendy & modern woman", when she's a materialistic,
More & More monster. The sell "freely opinionated" when they're just judgemental & elitist. They look like they have a high-fashion handle on their whirlwind worlds when they're manipulative and self serving. Naughty..
w/their tres' chic sexual chicanery when actually they're bold cavewomen,dumb & daring the dark away from the fire, like some of us sometimes.
I didn't like them in high school, them damn kinda dames, and I don't like them twisting thirteen year olds' "who shall I be?"s
allowed into the theater."

I imagined that my gist was feminist. but it might have missed the three women at the table I apparently had unsettled who just might had settled on which movie to catch later.

faraway (mellie & the 13th confession)

another happy deathday daddy/ r/i/p 5/29



"..it's a hard way to find out
that trouble is real
in a faraway city
with a faraway feel" -Gram Parsons



3 songs move me in the same way.

i) When Aimee Mann takes me (personally) through the fist-shaking

It's not gonna stop until you "Wise Up" (from the Magnolia soundtrack)

I take baby steps back. And just as she leaves she drives that fist

to my gut w/ the bleak faithless punchline

"So just..give up".

ii) Stipes' REM saves me some

w/ a precious prayer that calls to all fallen

to the lonely lost battered depths (spikes & mallets quieted w/
"Everybody Hurts")


iii)Kate Bush & Peter Gabriel save us some
with the tender, and Mercy filled "Don't Give Up"

These all move me the same way.

35 years ago I wrote in a notebook

"What kind of scope when one ain't One?
How can one cope when it ain't no fun?
How much hope for a suicide's son?"


"There's a train leaving nightly
called 'when all is said and done'.. " -Warren Zevon