The Leaver's Dance

"Because all my wings have grown and the winds died down, we all fall down."

That's what I thought I heard. It's like a poetic dyslexia when you find out that was never said at all. But it never leaves you. I still hear it.

I feel older.

I used to carry children's books around in my mind. Now I carry news and the decline of wetern civilization. I used to transcend the music but now it's turned on me. And I feel lost. Films are too real and I feel put upon and carry out more troubles than when I went in. And then I feel unfortunately found. Books telling me about what the hell is going on, and what the hell is going on?

My wings grew.

So did Finn. 17 years have been long and hard. Nineteen feels the strain and when the guitar is down, the dyslexia kicks in. Hearing things differently. Writing them down. Maybe I should too.

Or maybe I didn't hear that right.

The Veils

Theologians

"Theologians" - Wilco (A Ghost Is Born - 2004)

Banging on the piano like those religiously converted bar tunes of old - Theologians.

They nothing about my soul. They know nothing about themselves. Theology died with the Bible. It's all in there - it doesn't need to be interpreted. It needs to be read. My soul. My reading. Their soul. Their reading. Every man will give an account unto himself. Judgement Day isn't a television entertainemnt show that we all sit glued too. It's not a tabloid.

I never really cared for that AM station with deep baritone men and shrill women. This song sits between but belongs on the same station.

Wilco

Honestly

“Honestly” - Zwan (Mary Star of the Sea - 2003)

There’s no place that I’d rather be without you.

She looks at me with those eyes and lies again. I believe and I feel loved.
Some call it infection. I correct them and say perfection. It’s the same thing. That thing that gets inside. That thing that has wound and wounded my heart simultaneously. There’s something great about the worse that life can bring. That’s her.
I think of her as mine though I know it’s not permissible.

There’s no place that I’d rather be without you.

When she’s gone I loathe myself. But she never goes and I hate myself anyways. She makes me feel so full of empty. The love she talks about that fleets. The grace she promises that cheats. The cancer from her womb that eats. It’s too dark to discard this life with her.

There’s no place that I’d rather be without you.

I wonder if her heart is as long as mine. If I will gladly take the pain she brings. The horror of her grotesque embrace is so blindingly beautiful, it’s hard not to oblige her. Not to lean into her empty.

There’s no place that I’d rather be without you.

http://www.zwanmusic.org/

Never Knew

“Never Knew” - The Rocket Summer (Hello Good Friend - 2005)

I just ran into a few someones today. You were among them.

Things I thought I had all figured out turned out not to be true. The light had turned from yellow to blue.

I thought you’d be older.
I thought you’d be fatter.
I thought you’d still have that hole in your heart.

Then I realized these are not my thoughts at all, but my wishes. For you. After all this time. Another gift.
The truth is I never knew you.

As much as I longed to be the only one in your life. To wear your tattoo. To make you proud. You just smiled at the time and said “that’s okay”, “please” and “thank you” and “go away”.
I was there until I was gone and then I was there some more.

Hello good friend was not enough. The time, the grace just didn’t matter. And now I know the wind beneath your wings is just a silly song. A fiction. A load of shit. All I see is void.

And you…

You’re younger.
You’re more beautiful.
And that hole in your heart was just a myth.
Created by me.

I just never knew.

http://www.therocketsummer.com/fs.html

Who Knows Where the Time Goes

“Who Knows Where the Time Goes” - Nina Simone ( Black Gold - 1970)

I am more aware of it now than I have ever been before.

More aware than that moment left without a babysitter for the first time.
More aware than that moment in the bottom of her parent’s closet with my first girlfriend.
More aware than that moment at my first party - “of age” with a drink in my hand.
More aware than that moment when one became two.
More aware than that moment when two became three.
More aware than that moment when three became one again.

Time. The great dictator.
Now, at 37, I wonder where it went.
I find myself reflecting on the past. Always the past. Memories where things weren’t really as great as my mind has made them out to be. As my future slides away in reminiscing. Black and white photos turning yellow.

When she walks into the room, I see myself as I used to be. Without boundaries. Without the constraints of time. Without the worry of my mind. Without the graying of my spine. Standing my ground. No thoughts of leaving. Ready to shake down a room full of brawlers just so I can be smack dab in the middle of that moment with no distractions. No fear. For it’s fear that binds me now.

Is it really because of fear? An unwillingness to move with the time that controls my life? Yet, a flowered skirt - a tan shoulder - the twirl of pomegranate hair takes that all away in an instant.
I want to tell her about the power. The power she holds over me. Not really over me, but within me. But I don’t. I just let her work her magic. I think ignorance is a necessary ingredient for the success of her magic. No use messing with a good thing. As long as it’s still working.

She dresses for work and I watch the same group of birds fly away. The ones with the spots. Just like they do every morning. I wonder where they go when they leave. And why they leave. Only to return the next day. They keep my mind occupied as I wait for her arrival. A homecoming. I pray it will be soon. I pray she will be whole. I pray things will be like they used to be. I pray her and me will soon be three before it is too late.

http://www.ninasimone.com/

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” - The Arcade Fire (Funeral - 2004)

It’s a hundred degrees outside, but it feels like winter. The kind of winter that keeps coming. The kind of winter that makes you want to hole up in the house with a freezer full of bear and a thousand movies you’ve never seen. I have to squint through the rays - boring their way through the Plexiglas, but I imagine it’s just the reflection of the sun from off the snow.

I have moments where it feels like I’ve forgotten something very important. Like I’ve forgotten to turn off the gas or water the flowerbeds. Then I realize these are mere symptoms of the true problem. The problem that caused all this winter in the first place. The problem that put out the gas and buried the flowerbeds.

I still get cards from my mother. She wants to know how I am. She wants to know if I will meet her in the middle of the town for lunch. She sends money, but all that does is make my skin thicker. Can’t she see we’re all buried here? The entire neighborhood - buried? THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY USED TO BE! CAN’T YOU SEE THAT MOTHER!

The things I do remember seem negligible now. My bedroom. My parent’s bedroom. The bedrooms of my friends. Sheets and blankets and chairs and tables. We built forts. We dug tunnels. Swallowing quarters and making dollars. Knocking heads and splitting our heads wide open. The names. The names we used to know. In my brain. Basted in five colors. These things will not go away. But they are unimportant. What did I forget? God, what was there to forget?

Even in all this heat, the snow never goes away. And all the plans I have for myself. All the ways I can imagine to enjoy the winter in my mind. They start to become too much. The list of things in my day planner. The million things that I have to do. I am overcome with. I don’t want to do any of them. Anymore. Ever. Life becomes tedious and empty. And I am still under this hunk of white with no way to get to you. If things could be like they used to be…
Would it help? If I could dig a tunnel like I used to? From my window to yours?

Instead I let my hair grow long and spread the ashes on the flowerbeds. Waiting for things to melt.

http://arcadefire.net/

Sweet Virginia

“Sweet Virginia” - Rolling Stones (Exile on Main Street - 1972)

I left her once. When I thought she had nothing left to offer me. That’s what I thought. Wiped the shit right off my shoes. Never thinking I’d have regrets. Never thinking how she’d be without me. How I’d be without her. Never considered she’d even want me back. Not a visit. Not another second. Much less an entire season with this desert still in my toenail.

Little did I know. I was back. Sweet Virginia. The waves behind my eyeballs gushed out like a tsunami. Flooding colors of hope for the future. Dropping reds. Greens. Blues. It hurt. But it was painful freedom. Not like the first time. More like the last. But again. I can’t explain it.

All I know is, I can’t stay. I mean, I don’t really want to. As much as she begs of me. As vintage as that wine from California that we first shared in her water. As much as she has it in her. This is no place of permanence. I am so tempted because the fruit is bitter and sweet. The way I like it. And we all know - to quote a friend - without the bitter, the sweet is just not as sweet. So to have it all there together, well…Let’s just say this is not easy.

I know I’ll be back though. Wading through the waste that is my life here. Wanting so much of her where I am. Realizing that life comes with regrets. And learning to incorporate them into my days a little at a time. Realizing that one moment in the not so distant future will render her extinct. And learning that until that moment comes, she is still there waiting for me.

Come on honey child - I beg of you - don’t let it be today.

http://www.timeisonourside.com/lpExile.html

Happiness is a Warm Gun

“Happiness is a Warm Gun” - The Beatles (The White Album - 1968)

It was the year of my birth and one of the must influential albums in like…forever was released. Historically speaking and into the future. Everyone from Son of Sam to Charles Manson to Mark David Chapman took their cue from this sprawling two disc (or two lp - let‘s be honest) set that at the time was avant-garde and popular and prophetic all at the same time. Maybe it still is. Why did so much bad come from so much good? Just 4 guys from Liverpool taking what they saw in society and reflecting it back to us. Well, isn’t that what we all do? Take the great things we have - these gifts from God - and pervert them. Make them into things that we are ashamed of. Black marks on a white album.

So why is a song like “Happiness is a Warm Gun” my favorite Beatle’s song of all time? Why not “Love Me Do” or “Hey Jude” or something like that? Out of a catalog that has songs in the thousands, why this one? Maybe because it’s ripe with irony. Maybe because it has about 5 completely different songs in one brief 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Maybe because it is so damn confusing - (not out of the ordinary for these guys at this time) - that it lends itself to many interpretations or no interpretations, and I just love that. Maybe because I think Lennon’s voice sounds like butter on this track.

What does this song mean to me? Hell, I don’t know. It’s just cool. It is an amazingly cool song. That’s why I am listening to it over and over right now on my I-Tunes.

*Just a note - the Beatle’s catalog, along with Led Zeppelin’s is one of the few holdouts in Apple’s attempt to take over the world. I don’t know who owns the Beatle’s stuff anymore - (I know it was Michael Jackson at one time) - but they’re not giving it up. My copy of The White Album was imported to I-Tunes by me, from my limited edition and numbered copy of the cd, released on the 30th anniversary of the album in 1998. I wanted it there so I would never have to be without it. You should all get your own copy. If you can find it on vinyl, buy it. You’re a lucky person.

So back to the reason I like the song. It’s just not like anything else in the world. I take from it, in all the weirdness, that it’s some kind of admonition for peace. I mean that’s what John was all about, right? And then, on December 8th, 1980, at about 10:50 in the morning, just after John and Yoko had completed that famous photo shoot with Annie Liebovitz, and not even a month after they had released Double Fantasy, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon with a warm gun.

This is either a sick irony, or self fulfilling prophesy, if you believe Mark David Chapman was influenced at all by The White Album (which I believe him to be). He claimed it was the novel Catcher in the Rye. (Another big impetus for people doing horrible things. That and the Bible. And they are both such amazingly good books in their own right.) Once again, a perversion of all good things. What would J.D. Salinger have to say about the actions of Mr. Chapman? Or God? Or John Lennon himself? I guess we’ll never know. At least not right now.

So what do I have to say in conclusion about this greatest of Beatle tunes? (I know this is scattered, so I apologize) I don’t know. I like the song. Like I said, it is so very cool. And powerful. And it’s a shame John had to die when he did. And how he did. I’m glad he left us the treasures he left us though. I am not one to get into star worship, and to be honest, I wasn’t really aware of the loss of John at the time, being the ripe young age of 12 and being forbidden to listen to rock and roll. (Because you all know that rock and roll is the devil’s music) But I do know this…Even though God has a master plan and even though it was John’s time. I really wish he hadn’t taken him that morning in 1980. I would like to see John around today. I am sure he would have a lot more to say. To speak to us. Especially us here in the states. About guns, maybe?

http://www.iamthebeatles.com/article1163.html