The Black Forest

Random blaghness...

Flotsam...

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​Flotsam

Come lay a while
A simple-hearted love
Come into to love
Making to one

The mystification of sex and spiritual love
You know you want
Come. How you used to say it like we were on fire
The future may never come

It comes back to this
The past may never leave
Inside to now to one
Making tonight

"Cause everything we say and do shutters
To the beat of our own heart
Come. How you used to say it like we were on fire
The future may never come

In your eyes we've been waiting all your life
​We've been waiting

A Tongue Made Of Rose Machines...

The future may never come. The past may never leave. Gemini thoughts in a pond. Again I am riding a tongue made of rose machines on a Saturnine night. Writing is like picking scabs off my elbow. After every song I lose my memory of how to write. I must begin again. I must build a new house to live in so I can burn it down to start again. I reminds me of a very small period when I had a job in a field archeology company that did environmental impact studies on land to be developed or in the middle of nowhere in deep government territory.

My job was to dig perfectly square holes, one foot by one foot and one foot deep, using a pick ax, shovel, trowel, ruler, a toothbrush and a GPS coordinate marker. Documenting each layer of dirt through a sifter and bagging and tagging any significant finds. If something is found, rarely this is the case, then I must expand my square to one meter by one meter and one meter deep....or stopping when the earth is sterile, having no organic residue. When I am finished, I fill in the holes and start over the next day.

There is something quite Zen spending your time with meticulus work, only to erase it. Like those Tibetan sand paintings. This is what I feel about my writing process. It always begins with a new page. I fucking hate this new page. I fucking hate this new page because it demands me. Me. It fucking demands me, even if I don't want to, or can't give me. Me is the price.

So here I am...licked and lashed by Rose Machine tongues trying to finish this damned song even when I procrastinate to write this.​ This is no solice. There is no escape. 

Oh...by the way...one slight happy note. I remixed "Hey Now" from my "This Was Tomorrow" album and re-released it with new artwork. I am sure I will do the same with "Los Feliz" next. I did this because it itched me. I scratched it and I feel better.​

​I believe Frank Lee Drennen took this photograph...or I...probably him though. Thank you Frank.

​I believe Frank Lee Drennen took this photograph...or I...probably him though. Thank you Frank.

A Battered Suitcase...

I am a battered suitcase with a fairy tale book, clean underwear, a jar of peanut butter, and a flashlight inside...

These are the items I placed in a Samsonite suitcase in 1972 back in Canton, Ohio to runaway. My Ma was angry at me for throwing all my clothes and bed sheets out the window of our two story house. Being 5 years old, I just liked seeing the sheets fall out the window. Pretty. Anyway, Ma blew her top and I told her she didn't love me and I was going to go where someone did...my Grandma.

I promptly packed my suitcase...hmmm...my fairy tale book first, my most valued possession. Echos of "always have clean underwear!" bounced around in my furrowed noggin..."okay....clean underwear." I took my flashlight I kept underneath my bed for late night reading under the sheets..."it might get dark." I snook into the avocado green kitchen cabinet and took the jar of JIF peanut butter "cause choosy mothers choose JIF."

Out I went. To the forest. The forest because of the song "Through the woods to Grandmother's house we go..." I had no clue how to get to Grandma's house. Unbeknownst to me, my Ma was following me the whole way taking pictures of me running away. Finally when I was about to step in to the forest my Ma came out from behind a tree saying "Honey! I love you! I am sorry I yelled at you! Come home!"

I was relieved.

Upon retrospect...my items I took were telling. Still now...40 years later I think I would pack my runaway suitcase the same way. I am still threatening to runaway into the forest...perhaps I am there now...I don't know.

The Runaway Suitcase...

The Runaway Suitcase...